The Logic Of Limbaugh

Limbaugh Logic.   Rush on Monday alleged Elizabeth Warren is

running for the Senate in Massachusetts, and she's telling people she wants to vote for her they have to be more like the ChiComs. They gotta be more like communist China.

Part of that statement is true- Elizabeth Warren is running for the Senate in Massachusetts. Limbaugh's claim that she is "telling people she wants to vote for her they have to be more like the ChiComs... more like communist China" is based on the ad (which audio he played; video below) in which the Democrat asserts

We've got bridges and roads in need of repair, and thousands of people in need of work. Why aren't we rebuilding America? Our competitors are putting people to work building a future. China invests 9% of its GDP in infrastructure. America? We're just 2.4%. We can do better. We can build a foundation for a strong, new economy and get people in Massachusetts to work right now. I'm Elizabeth Warren and I approved this message. Let's go to work.

Attempting to rebut Warren's argument that we need to spend more more money in the United States of America on infrastructure, Rush maintains "They are building roads and bridges like crazy in North Dakota. They're building housing like crazy in North Dakota. They're going absolutely nuts in North Dakota because there is an oil boom in North Dakota. But, no, no. Can't mention that. No."

North Dakota or, as Rachel Maddow would put it in her charmingly condescending fashion, "the great state of North Dakota," is probably a fine state.   It also had a population in 2011 of 683,732, or .21% of the nation's population of 311,591,917.     So if North Dakota in fact is building roads, bridges, and housing "like crazy," it hardly represents a national commitment on the scale of construction of the interstate highway system in the 1950s.

Of course, Ms. Warren was not saying Americans "gotta be more like communist China," especially given that she noted "our competitors are putting people to work building a future."  By Limbaugh's impeccable logic, though, he himself maintained that North Dakota is just like mainland China.

But perhaps Rush finds it difficult to think of mainland China as a competitor.     In another segment on the same day, he took a call from Craig Zucker, whom he identified as "CEO of Buckyballs."    As the Legal Examiner explains it, the U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission

has filed an administrative complaint against Maxfield & Oberton Holdings LLC, importer and distributor of Buckyballs and Buckycubes high-powered magnet sets, claiming the products create a substantial risk of injury to the public. More than two dozen children and teenagers have suffered internal injuries that required surgical intervention after swallowing more than one of the tiny magnets, which snapped together inside their gastrointestinal track.

Zucker, founder and CEO of New York-based Maxfield and Oberton Holdings, noted that his product(s) is marketed solely to adults and is "getting slowly disassembled by the Consumer Product Safety Commission piece by piece."   He stated that he and his partner started the company "with $2,000 in an apartment in New York, built it..."   Rush commented

It's the United States government trying to drive them out of business.  Not find a way to work with them on the safety side, but put them out of business.  It's uncalled for.  There's no excuse.  There's no rational reason for it, and Mr. Zucker could not explain why he was being targeted.  So I mean you've got an attempted ban of a product and the shutting down of a business.

To Limbaugh, it's the big bad U.S. government "targeting" a small, home-grown business.    Except Buckyballs are not manufactured in New York City.   Or in North Dakota.   Or in any of the 50 states, the District of Columbia, Puerto Rico, or even the Mariana Islands.   They're manufactured in China by those dreaded "ChiComs," which Rush might have discovered had he asked Zucker.  

The CPSC may or may not have a strong case against Maxfield and Oberton Holdings.   But here is Rush Limbaugh, creating a martyr out of the firm, even comparing its owner's plight to that of Jesus Christ by contending the feds are "crucifying" Zucker (which, to his credit, the latter denied).    All the while, its products are being manufactured in mainland China.   Elizabeth Warren, however, pushing the federal government to be more competitive with "our competitors" such as China, is a communist sympathizer.     You'd almost think Limbaugh is a narrow-minded, manipulative partisan dedicated to enhancing control of the nation by the his fellow plutocrats.







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