Some unfinished business going into the long holiday weekend.

Catalina Lauf vs. AOC on Socialism

Yesterday saw a day when Congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (AOC, D-NY) had a few hours to tweet to her 5 1/4 million Twitter followers, which can be entertainment. While McHenry County’s Catalina Lauf is not “anti-anything” and “pro-America”, her week-old campaign for the IL-14 district Republican nomination has been billed across the country as the rise of the “anti-AOC”.

Catalina’s unique display of defending American values was no better on display answering an AOC tweet, where the congresswoman from NY-14 is praising socialism. First, Catalina’s tweet:

Unfortunately, Catalina’s tweet cut-off the full context of AOC’s tweet from earlier in the day yesterday. McHenry County Blog believes in full context, so here is the full context of AOC’s tweet which Twitter did not display with Catalina’s tweet:

And given AOC’s tweet cut-off the title of the opinion piece from the New York Daily News, here is the full title from yesterday’s Daily News:

While it is easy to dismiss an opinion piece title like the one above as simply the result of living in the five boroughs of New York, there is empirical data supporting the growing popularity of socialism. Per this excerpt below:

That last paragraph, and recalling the devastation of socialism at the end of the Cold War in the old Soviet Union and the countries once known as the “eastern bloc”, are testimonies why pure socialism is a failure as the complete form of government for many nations.

But we are not blind that what makes the United States of America what it is today is a blend of socialism and a blend of pure capitalism, or more accurately, limited government control, not no government control. Think of the “monopolies” local utilities have on a community, despite deregulation over the past 2 decades. Short of moving, you cannot easily choose who will provide electricity and water/sewer services. Just as the Soviet Union and the communist bloc didn’t practice pure communism, the United States has not ever been a pure capitalist country.

Concerning components of socialism, think of Social Security, the armed forces, the interstate system, Medicare, farm subsidies, public transportation, the police and state universities (for starters). Consumers have a choice in the latter, between private institutions and public universities, and the right to cross state lines, even paying out-of-state tuition, to attend a public university in a different state.

But with choice comes responsibility of making the choice, and living with the consequences, and the costs, of your choice. Catalina, in her radio interview with Philadelphia-based Chris Stigall earlier this week, greatly impressed her interviewer with her choice to pursue her college education using the lower-cost path of earning her Associate’s degree at MCC, and transferring to Miami of Ohio to earn her Bachelor’s degree. And, Catalina was able to graduate earlier with her Bachelor’s degree at age 20, instead of the normal age of 22, which helped reduce costs.

So the reality is, the push from the far left to expand Medicare from what it is, to the single-payer Medicare-for-All is an expansion of an existing, accepted form of socialism, into a complete government takeover of health care and ending private health insurance. As McHenry County Blog and several comments accurately point out, even Congresswoman Lauren Underwood does not agree with Medicare-for-All, but wants to keep the blend of private-sector Obamecare for health care.

And now look at what the president of the AFL-CIO, Richard Trumka, recently said concerning Medicare-for-All:

“There’s no question that ultimately we need to establish a single-payer system, but there has to be a role for those hard, hard-fought-for, high-quality plans that we’ve negotiated.

“You can’t ask the American worker, who sacrificed wages and everything, to simply say: ‘Okay, I’ll accept this plan here,’” Trumka added, noting that some union plans likely provide more benefits than Medicare (the entire article with Trumka’s quotes can be viewed here).

Even a progressive proposal cannot be “pure socialism”, and organized labor is telling the AOCs to make exceptions for us, which is more like capitalism than socialism. Or with a degree of irony, Trumka is advocating Catalina’s position on health care, not AOC’s.

But AOC wasn’t through yesterday just on health care, this tweet came out a little later in the day:

When one reads something like that from AOC, one is reminded that there is no way to underestimate anyone’s intelligence when their policy positions are so completely wrong, no matter how many times it’s explained in pure English, policies like the Green New Deal and Medicare-for-All are wrong.

And this is why Catalina’s campaign has launched successfully, because it is clear we need many “anti-AOCs” in Washington, and thus far, Catalina has shown in late August she is the best one at doing that, but over the next six months, six other Republican candidates in IL-14 will be making their cases for their nomination in March, too.

Finally, Catalina sent this tweet yesterday thanking her supporters, volunteers, and donors.

• Reuters 8/29 article including AFL-CIO quotes: https://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-election-healthcare/democrats-medicare-for-all-plans-must-consider-union-negotiated-health-plans-afl-cio-chief-idUSKCN1VJ268
• The Chris Stigall Show podcast 8/27 (Catalina segment starts at 26:30): https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/no-country-for-old-men/id1459417907?i=1000447931235
• New York Daily News 8/29 Socialism opinion piece: https://www.nydailynews.com/opinion/ny-oped-lets-talk-about-socialism-20190829-qiy545mdjzdgdcsn6voi2aoo4i-story.html

Jim Oberweis Files Financial Disclosure Statement

McHenry County Blog has confirmed with the Oberweis campaign the filing of Jim Oberweis’ Financial Disclosure Statement (FD) with the House Clerk’s office.

While the FD is not yet accessible for public viewing at the House Clerk’s website, the FD was sent via email on Wednesday (8/28) afternoon.

With the holiday weekend, it appears Oberweis’ FD will not be able to be viewed at the web site of the House Clerk until the middle of next week. McHenry County Blog has seen the FD and confirms the FD was sent on Wednesday.

James Marter Supports USMCA

A volunteer for James Marter notified McHenry County Blog of Marter’s support for the USMCA treaty, per the following comments from a Facebook meme Marter’s campaign Facebook page posted late last week.

Given Marter’s comments, the most McHenry County residents can do with USMCA is to contact Congressman Sean Casten and Congresswoman Lauren Underwood and let both of them hear county residents’ positions on the passage of USMCA, in particular for the farmers in McHenry County.

The entire Facebook meme from James Marter on Illinois farmers can be viewed at this link: https://www.facebook.com/1474962346143104/posts/2089360801369919?sfns=mo