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A Project of The Annenberg Public Policy Center

Who is Linda Panetta?

Q: Is Leon Panetta’s daughter a "radical anti-American" who posed with Venezuela’s Chavez?
A: Actually, President Obama’s nominee to head the CIA doesn’t even have a daughter. The woman pictured in a false viral e-mail message is a Philadelphia-based photographer who says she’s never met Leon Panetta.

‘Clean Coal’ Confrontation

On the campaign trail, President Obama embraced the coal industry’s vision of “clean coal” technology. But even before he took office, a coalition of environmental groups (including Al Gore’s) launched ads ridiculing the idea as a myth: “In reality, there’s no such thing as clean coal.” We’re sure to hear …

Auto Worker Salaries

Q: Do auto workers really make more than $70 per hour?
A: No. That figure is derived from what the auto companies pay in wages, health, retirement and other benefits, and includes the cost of providing benefits to retirees.

The Case of the Sleeping Justice

Another election, another set of bare-fisted battles for state Supreme Court seats. Think the presidential campaign ads were uncivil and misleading? Well…they were. But so were those put on the air by judicial candidates and their backers, who no longer blink at spending in the millions of dollars. Final tallies aren’t in yet, but in the last week before Nov. 4, $5 million was spent on ads in these races, more than in 2006, according to figures compiled by the Brennan Center for Justice.

The Whoppers of 2008 — The Sequel

Summary
The last five weeks have brought so many ads we feel like we’re drinking from a fire hose – and we’ll bet you’re pretty saturated, too.
Since our first “Whoppers of 2008” piece, we’ve seen some of the same themes repeated. McCain’s campaign doesn’t tire of distorting Obama’s tax plan, it seems, and in the process has whipped up at least 15 minutes of fame for sudden star Joe the Plumber. Obama continues trying to pull seniors into his camp by making deceptive claims about what McCain would do to Social Security,

Spread the Tax Hooey!

Summary

Republicans are misrepresenting Obama's tax proposals right down to the bitter end. New radio ads from the McCain campaign and a TV spot from the pro-Republican group Let Freedom Ring are targeting voters nationwide with some of the same tax deceptions we've been hearing all fall, rolled in a bundle and flung through the airwaves. One of the radio ads features Hank Williams Jr., the other Florida Gov. Charlie Crist. But new packaging doesn't make the charges any less false. 

Court Fight in the Heart of Dixie

Summary
Alabama holds the distinction of having had the nation’s most expensive Supreme Court races, with $54 million spent from 1993 through 2006. This year’s battle for an open seat on the bench seems likely to sustain the pattern, with heaps of cash being thrown down for ads and a tone that has turned ugly.
The attacks in the Alabama campaign have been a departure from what we’ve seen in high court races in most states this year,

Robo-attacks

Late last week Huffington Post broke the news that a massive robo-call campaign linking Obama and former Weather Underground activist Bill Ayers was targeting voters in numerous states, including Ohio, Wisconsin, Pennsylvania and Maine. Paid for by the McCain-Palin campaign and the Republican National Committee, the call tells listeners that “Barack Obama has worked closely with domestic terrorist Bill Ayers, whose organization bombed the U.S. Capitol, the Pentagon, a judge’s home, and killed Americans.”
Is the caller really meaning to imply that Obama “worked closely”

Judge’s Attack Ad Draws Complaint

Last spring’s Supreme Court race in Wisconsin featured some ugly ads, so ugly that we wrote about the false or misleading claims in them several times. Now, one of the worst of those spots (in our humble opinion) is the subject of a complaint by the Wisconsin Judicial Commission. The proceedings could alter the tenor of ads used in Wisconsin court races.
The ad was sponsored by the campaign of a lower court judge, Mike Gableman,

‘He Lied’ About Bill Ayers?

Summary
In a TV ad, McCain says Obama “lied” about his association with William Ayers, a former bomb-setting, anti-war radical from the 1960s and ’70s. We find McCain’s claim to be groundless. New details have recently come to light, but nothing Obama said previously has been shown to be false.
In a Web ad and in repeated attacks from the stump, McCain describes the two as associates, and Palin claims they “pal around” together.