She really didn't.
Earlier, we talked about Elizabeth Warren's new ad in Massachusetts, which stresses the importance of investing in American infrastructure. What I didn't realize is how much the right hates this particular spot.
In the ad, the Democratic Senate hopeful notes, "Why aren't we rebuilding America? Our competitors are putting people to work, building the future. China invests 9 percent of its GDP in infrastructure. America, we're at just 2.4 percent. We can do better."
I thought this was self-evidently sensible. Alas, I didn't realize Fox would soon run a headline that read, "Elizabeth Warren Praises Communist China." Indeed, Matt Gertz noted today that Fox News' on-air personalities, Glenn Beck, and a series of right-wing blogs have all run with this, using the line as "proof" that Warren "is sympathetic to communism."
I know some of you have doubts, but this isn't a parody or an attempt to make conservatives appear ridiculous. They've actually said these things, apparently with sincerity.
For the record, Gertz flagged a recent speech Newt Gingrich delivered in which he said, "You cannot compete with China in the long run if you have an inferior infrastructure. You've got to move to a twenty first century model. That means you've got to be -- you've got to be technologically smart and you have to make investments."
Obviously, by the standards of conservative media, Gingrich is a communist, too.
I mean, really. Is this what's become of our public discourse? American candidates for public office who want to compete with China, ensuring that the United States stays on top, are necessarily suspected as communist sympathizers?
"We can do better"? We sure can.
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Oh Steve, you just had to know that FAUX was going to RUN with it when she mentioned "China" - it's what they do propaganda.....
Fear is the terrible death of a closed mind. Sheeple throw off your fear!
I think the expression you're looking for is: people who would cut off their nose to spite their face.
If that doesn't do it, an exercise in etymology: anything to do with "community" = communism. Any project that a society undertakes together = "socialism". Don't get me started on anything collective! It's gotten so bad that public transportation, since it involves more than an individual person in his own privately owned car, is a social project, therefore (you guessed it) socialist.
Ergo: infrastructure investment benefits society as a whole? Socialism!
You guys have missed the point. The only reason China can do what it does, is because it is a Communist system at heart.
The central committee can allocate money wherever it wants, it can move people where it wants, it has no permitting process, and it doesn't have to work around existing infrastructure.
To emulate China would require repealing the Constitution, which Warren either doesn't understand or care about. I'll leave it for each commenter to decide which of those descriptions apply.
No Shooter, as usual, YOU missed the point. The point is that China spends 9% of its GDP on its infrastructure, the United States spends 2.4% of its GDP on its infrastructure. THAT IS THE POINT!!! We need to spend more or our infrastructure or we will be like India whose economic growth has been hurt by its infrastructure problems.
Warren said NOTHING about emulating China's government - are you or the person you are parroting perhaps hearing "voices" telling you things that the rest of us can't hear???
I didn't know President Eisenhower was on the Communist Central Committee! And yet, without abolishing the constitution of the USA, he managed to build an interstate highway system without which commerce in the US would be hobbled. (Just one among a great many examples.) - That Dwight Eisenhower is now a "commie" shows how far to the right people on the right have gone.
Hsun-Tsu,
Good one!
Maybe Shooter should ask himself if all those big corporations he's so fond of that are investing in China are "commies" too!!!
OK, let's spend 9% on infrastructure. Where's it coming from? People lose site of the fact we have an unsustainable deficit and debt. Tax the rich? There's not enough money to be raised. The only answer is reduce spending and recognize we are in a structural reorganization in this country. The so-called middle class is gone, thanks, mainly, to excesses of public unions.
OK Tom,
Your post is just nonsense - not worth a reply, but I'll give you a chance!
Put your money where your mouth is. WHAT government would YOU cut?
Hsun-Tsu,
What? You think Eisenhower snapped his fingers and Interstates magically appeared? Check Wiki and you'll find out that the process started 35 years earlier in 1921. And it's far from finished, given the rate of progress on the DC beltway it never will be. Secondly, where do you and Ms Warren plan on getting the extra trillion a year to boost spending? Lastly, FDR had nearly dictatorial powers and a population who thought a job digging ditches just fine.
What's the latest fad in infrastructure? Something useful? No, it's high speed rail, that no one wants to ride, and isn't very high speed. Aside from that, what most don't or won't recognize is that most big projects are possible because there is clear field, or what was present had been destroyed. The US isn't China.
By nonsense, I assume you think we can just keep spending? Where to cut? Begin with defense. Then, discretionary spending.. Then, restructure entitlements. Then, get rid of all tax loop holes.
Oh, really, Tom, you can do better than that, can't you? WHAT EXACTLY in Defense would you cut? WHAT EXACTLY in discretionary spending would you cut? HOW EXACTLY would you restructure entitlements? WHAT loopholes EXACTLY would you cut?
Enough of the cheap rhetoric and parrot talk! Show you have a brain and can think instead of parrot!!!
Shooter,
Your ignorance is showing again. High speed rail is something no one wants to ride? Are you kidding? As a person who has to fly every other week, I would GLADLY take high speed rail if it were available!!!
I know you don't have a job and don't fly anywhere, but flying these days is definitely NO FUN!! I would LOVE an alternative!!!!
The Interstate Highway System was the BRAINCHILD of Eisenhower. It came from the time he had to escort some military equipment cross country and ran into so many delays and problems that it was something he pushed his whole career!!
As far as the Beltway, what? Did you just take a vacation in DC or something? You really don't seem to have a clue about the roads in the DC area, do you?
Actually, FDR laid out much of the blue prints for an Interstate system but WWII interrupted those plans.
Fox is complaining about WARREN praising China? Funny, I haven't heard them say a THING about all the Big Businesses who climbing over themselves to invest in China, or all that China merchandise all the big companies bring back to the US to sell?
Seems like if Citizens United is correct and money is free speech, the Republicans have been doing a lot of praising China themselves!!!!
The time has come for Fox News to be branded for what it truly is; the live 24/7 TV and media arm of the Mitt Romney campaign and the Republican cause across America. They are no longer content to hide their toxic bias behind the false immunity of "opinion" shows and a sprinkling of lies throughout their "regular" afternoon news coverage. Now its war to them, a war to take down our president and anyone who dares to oppose Tea Party radicalism through the most ridiculous propaganda campaign since Goebbels and Hitler. - Principled Progressive
Then, likewise, the time has come for MSNBC to be named to official organ for Obama
I think Fox picked this up from Limbaugh. I heard Rushbo tell his audience that Warren praised China, while mocking her of course. He then played her ad and helped his audience understand how dangerous she is.
People actually watch that stuff??
Too many of them watch that propaganda factory, unfortunately... though I think they are more sheeple than people...
proof that no matter how clever Maddowblog readers are in the periodic "Write Fox News Headlines" contests, they are still no match for the real thing.
Romney and Fox Noise are still trying to fight the "cold war". Move on people!
They're still fighting the Civil War, so what the hell?
"If by the liberty of the press were understood merely the liberty of discussing the propriety of public measures and political opinions, let us have as much of it as you please: But if it means the liberty of affronting, calumniating and defaming one another, I, for my part, own myself willing to part with my share of it, whenever our legislators shall please so to alter the law and shall chearfully consent to exchange my liberty of abusing others for the privilege of not being abused myself."-Ben Franklin
So basically the GOP has not moved forward since the McCarthy days back in the 50's. I guess it makes sense, since they always pine about the good old days. You know the greatest decade (according to the GOP): the days when a man could beat his wife (or kids) every night and not get in trouble, when everyone smoked everywhere with reckless abandon, when divorce was practically illegal in most states, when women were expected to be seen not heard, when segregation was the norm, when someone could accuse you of being a communist and you lost all rights and privileges (regardless of whether the accusations were true), when cars didn't have seat belts, when the top tax rate was 90% - oh wait, that doesn't jive with the revisionist history that they are pusing.
"I mean, really. Is this what's become of our public discourse?"
Well, yes, it certainly is what has become of "public discourse" in the US. I hope your question was rhetorical. You certainly should have noticed that this is what became of public discourse in the US quite some time ago. That's what comes of allowing flagrantly dishonest, hyper-nationalistic elements of American politics to run rampant. This injury to the American body politic is an entirely self-inflicted injury.
The Right doesn't have to worry about appearing ridiculous. They are ridiculous. Ridiculous morons. It's embarrassing to have to fight people this bloody stupid.
Fox News woulkd be better named as the Neue Volkischer Beobachter.
The Personal Virtue crowd will be aghast! If they get the reference, which is not a sure thing. :-)
If Elizabeth Warren does not get elected by the people of Massachusetts, then shame on them for being a bunch of idiots. They could look for 20 years and not find a better representative of the people and for the people.
I live in MA. There are a bunch of "idiots" in this state including former Mayor of Boston Ray Flynn (D). I agree with you that she is the best.
jimcat, i certainly hope Flynn doesn't still harbor any political ambitions, and if he does and the Democratic party doesn't cut him off at the knees it'll prove they'll never have what it takes to have any party discipline. that was unforgiveable.
Someone should ask why the large corporations in this country are fighting to 1) invest in "Communist China", 2) bring talent from "Communist China" to work in America and 3) send jobs to "Communist China"? Did any one on Fox ask those questions?
As previously noted, what makes Warren's ad comment so profoundly stupid is this:
In China, the natioanl per capita avg income is $5414.00 while in the USA it's $48,000.00
Plus benefits, pensions, labor unions ad item. The cost are exponentailly different.
What's 9% of a GDP that only grew at a rate of 1.5% last quarter?
Has not the great recent protest been that in China there is rampant labor abuses (Apple's production of the iPad)
As explained, much of the recent jargon tossed around by Obama and Chief Warren is inspired by UC Berkley Linguistics Professor George Lakoff. The originator of the "YOU didn't build that" theme.
Warren is a dolt. Mass already got it right two years ago. Scott Brown.
Funnier still is the recent dopey comment from which Warren herself had to step back,............"There are very high placed people on Wall Street who I talk to who tell me, they believe in me because only I can save capitalism."
Yes, the woman is a DOLT! She is not a communist, she's a marxist. Just can't decide which fits her better:
A Mao jacket (like Anita Dunn) or an Indian Head dress. Fake Cherokee Indian.
Either way, she's a BAD choice for Mass. Go Scott Brown!
Boston Herald speaks........
Warren’s China envy
By Boston Herald Editorial Staff
Thursday, August 2, 2012 - Updated 1 day ago
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Memo to Elizabeth Warren: How did China — one of the world’s most repressive regimes — get to be your role model? Explain.
The Democratic Senate candidate is airing a new TV ad in which she says, “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 percent of its GDP in infrastructure. America? We’re at just 2.4 percent. We can do better.”
Well, of course, we could, but see here there’s this little thing called the rule of law, and the Constitution and all that other messy stuff that makes this nation the kind of place most of us would rather live in than China — potholes and all.
It’s easy to build in China. Take, for example, the massive Three Gorges Dam, the world’s largest hydropower project. Of course, it also required the relocation of at least 1.2 million people and the submersion of two cities and hundreds of towns. No problem in a Communist dictatorship.
Nor have the Chinese forgotten their public transit system. The Wall Street Journal reported just this week that the nation’s railway budget was increased by 16 percent and the Railway Ministry expects to spend some $73 billion on infrastructure investment. However, that same ministry has also been accused of sacrificing safety in its drive to get things done quickly. A year ago its new bullet train crashed, killing 40 people and injuring 192.
But then China won’t really need to be worried about annoying lawsuits resulting from the crash, now will it?
Yes, there is no end to the speed with which a nation can spend on infrastructure — or has to spend on infrastructure to make up for decades of neglect and to keep an increasingly restive population employed — when it is not free.
Warren’s ad also coincides with a new report that shows the federal deficit is higher today than at any time since the end of World War II and that for every second of 2011 the federal government spent $41,210 it didn’t have. Warren’s China envy notwithstanding, isn’t that enough?
Dear Rachel,
This has nothing to do with the current thread - exactly, but unless I've missed it, I think there's a very important story that no one is reporting - like the one about the 'mainstream' media becoming a dinosaur - thanks to the Right's almost leech-like attachment to the new, more powerful and far-reaching "Conservative Media".
I think this is the real story behind the change in politics and campaigns and one that goes hand-in-hand with the emergence - and sudden power - of the Tea Party. But I wish you, Rachel, would tell it. Investigate it. And I wish President Obama would start using the Conservative Media himself.
The way I see it, in spite of so many Democrats giving Mitt Romney some credit in the intelligence department - I don't. He isn't, nor does he have to be, which is why, unlike his previous bid, he'll win. His base never really sees his gaffes, lies, twists and turns and tax blunders because they read/watch/listen to only the Conservative Media.
So yes, Romney is ridiculously stupid when it comes to running for office and opening his mouth, but again, he doesn't care because he can say anything, or refuse to say anything, because he, like all Tea Party-backed politicians, have a safe haven in which to get their message (or in Romney's case, 'non-message') to their base and this 'safe haven' has their backs - as long as they do what they're told.
As for the Republicans of yesteryear? They're dying on the strangling vine of the past and a media that doesn't exist any longer.
That's why Romney looks as though he doesn't care and is just going through the motions - he knows he's protected. The only stories that will reach his base are the ones the Conservative media permits and those stories will be imaginative rewrites of the truth. In other words: Lies.
The days of real interviews are gone - as are the days of real reporters because if you can't talk to the other side - if the 'Mainstream' media can't actually access ALL the candidates, they can't give us the real news, can they?
And btw? The term "Mainstream Media" is now as horrific to the Conservative Right as "Liberal" - mainly because they now define any media not part of their network as "Mainstream" - or worse - "The Elite" media.
And that's why Romney will win in November - and why MSNBC - and you, Rachel - are preaching to the choir and no one else....
If a politician speaks and the Conservative Media doesn't give him/her a voice, has the politician spoken?