Feb 012020
 

It’s another muggy day, here in the CatBox.  Tomorrow is a WWWendy day, so I’m not too sure how much I’ll have for you then.  Then Monday, I’ll be gone for my cardiac stress test from 9:30 in the morning until around 5 PM with no food and no nap.  I’ll be exhausted, so I may not cover Iowa very well.  Have a great weekend!

Jig Zone Puzzle:

Today’s took me 4:05 (average 5:50).  To do it, click here.  How did you do?

Cartoon:

Short Takes:

From Alternet: 3. The Soviet Union and China achieved state capitalism, not socialism

As leader of the Soviet Union, Lenin once said that socialism was a goal, not yet an achieved reality. The Soviet had, instead, achieved “state capitalism.” A socialist party had state power, and the state had become the industrial capitalist displacing the former private capitalists. The Soviet revolution had changed who the employer was; it had not ended the employer/employee relationship. Thus, it was—to a certain extent—capitalist.

Lenin’s successor, Stalin, declared that the Soviet Union had achieved socialism. In effect, he offered Soviet state capitalism as if it were the model for socialism worldwide. Socialism’s enemies have used this identification ever since to equate socialism with political dictatorship. Of course, this required obscuring or denying that (1) dictatorships have often existed in capitalist societies and (2) socialisms have often existed without dictatorships.

After initially copying the Soviet model, China changed its development strategy to embrace instead a state-supervised mix of state and private capitalism focused on exports. China’s powerful government would organize a basic deal with global capitalists, providing cheap labor, government support, and a growing domestic market. In exchange, foreign capitalists would partner with Chinese state or private capitalists, share technology, and integrate Chinese output into global wholesale and retail trade systems. China’s brand of socialism—a hybrid state capitalism that included both communist and social-democratic streams—proved it could grow faster over more years than any capitalist economy had ever done.

The only Socialism we need to fear in the US is the National Socialism of the Republican Reich. This is the third of ten things you should know about Socialism. Please click through for the other nine. RESIST!!

From YouTube (CNN Channel): Watch ER doctor confront Mike Pence

While evading the question, Republican traitor Pence failed to mention that he fought Medicaid expansion in Indiana tooth and nail. It passed in spite of him. What a liar!  RESIST!!

From YouTube (a blast from the past): Neil Diamond – Sweet Caroline High Quality

Ah… the memories!  RESIST!!

Vote Blue!!

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Jan 242020
 

Since Vladimir Putin [R-RU] and the Republican Reich helped Donald Trump* steal the White House, he hasn’t changed much.  He has a penchant for saying whatever he thinks his audience want to here.  On the campaign trail in 2016, his handlers knew that he could not endorse Paul Lyin’ Ryan’s standard Republican plan to gut Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid.  If he had, he could never have gotten close enough to steal the election.  However, at Davos, talking to fat cats, he forgot that he’s campaigning again, and said what he really thinks.

When President Trump suggested to an interviewer at the World Economic Forum in Switzerland that he would, “at some point,” look at cutting entitlement programs, his Democratic critics seized on the comments as evidence that Mr. Trump would gut Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid in a second term.

Even as the impeachment trial is underway, Trump is still talking about cutting your Social Security,” Senator Chuck Schumer of New York, the Democratic leader, said at the beginning of a news conference that was ostensibly about the Senate impeachment trial.

The Democratic super PAC Priorities USA posted on Twitter about Mr. Trump’s remarks, and others contrasted his statement with his 2016 campaign pledge not to touch entitlement programs…  [emphasis added]

Inserted from <NY Times>

Is President Donald Trump Open To Making Medicare Cuts?

This was an obvious gaffe. While running off at the mouth, Fuhrer Trump* confirmed his support for Republican dogma. He and the rest of the Republican Reich want to give seniors the RepubliCare Death Benefit. If seniors can’t pay for care, or for rent or for food, Republicans will allow to die for free! However, they will charge for corpse disposal.

RESIST!!

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