matt gaetz self quarantine

On MTP just now they were saying that Matt Gaetz is now in self quarantine because he was exposed to the coronavirus person at CPAC. Immediately before he went into self quarantine, he was flying on Air Force One & had been in a car with comrade donnnie!!

Rep. Matt Gaetz is the latest member of Congress to go into self-quarantine after coming in contact with an individual at CPAC who has since tested positive for the coronavirus.

Why it matters: Gaetz was seen traveling with President Trump on Air Force One about an hour before his office announced that he would go into self-quarantine. Gaetz's office reports that he is not feeling symptoms, but has received testing and is expecting results soon.

Estimate raises questions about Sanders' proposals to pay for ambitious plans

they're talking about this article on Morning Joe. Now that he's clearly losing, Bernie finally released some numbers on how to pay for his proposals. One shocking statement on Morning Joe said his programs would raise middle class taxes by 60%! (Republicans would love that one!)

The article begins:

WASHINGTON — As the Democratic presidential candidate promising a political revolution, Sen. Bernie Sanders has proposed new federal programs to overhaul the nation's health care system, tackle climate change and wipe away student debt.

But a budget estimate by a nonpartisan think tank provided to NBC News suggests that despite new proposals on how he would pay for them, his plans would still result in a $20 trillion budget shortfall over 10 years.

NBC News asked the Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget to respond to an itemized list the campaign released last week explaining how the Sanders, I-Vt., intends to fund a range of his proposals, including "Medicare for All," the Green New Deal, free college and housing for all.

The $20 trillion estimate is similar to a study the CRFB did of Sanders' 2016 campaign, which estimated that his proposals then would result in a $19 trillion shortfall.

Sanders has proposed several ways to fund his ambitious plans, including a wealth tax to eliminate homelessness and fund universal child care, as well as an "income inequality tax" on large corporations and chief executives to eliminate $81 billion in past-due medical debt. And while he has acknowledged some middle-class tax increases will be required to fund his health care plan, a range of budget experts say they would likely need to be far higher than what he's proposed if he delivers on all of his promises.

why exactly does Putin love Bernie?

I think we need to ask ourselves why we should vote for a candidate that Putin loves so much? After reading this, if you still think voting for Bernie is the right choice, you're making this way to easy for Russia!!

“If Sanders wins the Democratic nomination, then Trump wins the White House,” predicts Igor Yurgens, president of the Institute of Contemporary Development, and a former advisor to erstwhile Russian president Dmitry Medvedev. “America won’t vote for such a leftie candidate. If you’re sitting in the [FSB headquarters at] Lubyanka and watching this race, you see that helping Sanders helps Trump. At least, that’s what I would do.”

Yurgens, who once told me that the Kremlin sees Trump as “our wrecking ball,” believes that the Putin regime is hoping for a second Trump term, as does Pavlovsky. “Our favorite is Trump,” Yurgens says of how both the Russian elite and mainstream society view the American president. “He shares our ideology and has shown as much sympathy to Russia as was humanly possible. The mainstream and the media support him and will do anything that helps Trump win, including supporting Sanders.”

Over the weekend, trying to make sense of what Russians might be thinking about Bernie Sanders, I also called Andranik Migranyan, who used to run a Russian government-funded think tank attached to the Russian mission to the U.N. Perhaps more notably, he’s also a close friend and former classmate of Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov. “I don’t think anyone really respects or values Sanders here,” Migranyan told me.

“It’s like a knife in the throat,” he went on. “The things Sanders says even Russian communists would be too scared to say. He is a real communist. I always said to Americans, ‘Your brilliant future is our horrible past.’ We collapsed into nothing because of Communism, and now this is the dream that Sanders is offering—and a big part of your country is following him into the abyss.” If Sanders secures the nomination, warns Polymeropoulos, the retired CIA officer, who worked to counter Russian interference after 2016, this is exactly the kind of attack you can expect to see from Russian bots. “Bernie’s socialist credentials is exactly the hot-button, divisive issue that Russia will seek to use to cause chaos,” says Polymeropoulos.

“I suspect that, for our people [at the top], Sanders looks like the mad professor from ‘Back to the Future,’” says Russian political scientist Ekaterina Schulmann, who teaches future government workers at the Russian Presidential Academy of National Economy and Public Administration, in Moscow. “Which is why he’s very convenient for starting a pan-American brawl. Let them all fight each other while we lay another gas pipeline somewhere!”

And this, according to everyone I asked, is the central goal.

“The ideal scenario is to maintain the schism and uncertainty in the States till the end,” says Pavolvovsky. “Our candidate is chaos.”

“Russian active measures thrive on chaos, and this is what a second Trump term delivers,” says Polymeropoulos. “America is at war with itself politically for another four years. Advantage: Russia. Second, while it’s true that the Trump administration has at times been very tough on Russia with respect to sanctions, strategically, under the Trump administration, Russians have regained a foothold in the Middle East, NATO is weakened by a more disengaged America, and Trump’s disdain for Ukraine is a huge boon for Russia.”

just reported in NY Times

Source: NY Times

Intelligence officials warned House lawmakers last week that Russia was interfering in the 2020 campaign to try to get President Trump re-elected, five people familiar with the matter said, a disclosure to Congress that angered Mr. Trump, who complained that Democrats would use it against him.

Read more: https://www.nytimes.com/2020/02/20/us/politics/russian-interference-trump-democrats.html?action=click&module=Top%20Stories&pgtype=Homepage

the terror infamy (2nd season)

I've been watching this show on Hulu & it's really good!!

By the end of the 1st episode the attack on Pearl Harbor happens. Then they begin imprisoning Japanese Americans into detention camps. (George Takei plays one of the older Japanese men.) The story also involves beliefs in Japanese spirits or ghosts & how these evil spirits made people do things. It's a very interesting story though!

Portman letter on Ukraine corruption

maybe this is why Johnson looked so crazy on MTP sunday! He knows the letter is out there somewhere & he's just trying to show Mr Great & unmatched brain that's he's with him now even though he wasn't before!

from an article on dailykos.com

this is funny, Kamala's coming for Donnie!

is this the face of sanity & reason?

I hope I'm doing this right, I've never posted a tweet before

https://twitter.com/dougmillsnyt/status/1179436301201924099

smiley suggestion

I have an idea about a smiley & I don't know who I would ask about it. Anyway, here's my idea, we have a smiley with a US flag but there is not one with a Russian flag. It probably would not be hard to make & it might be helpful sometime. You could even make an orange face with white under the eyes like Trump! Especially since we now have a leader who seems to demonstrate more allegiance to Russia than to this country!!