Congressional Leadership Fund, the highest-spending super PAC seeking to sway House races in the upcoming midterms, has been flooding TV airwaves around the country with ads attacking Democrats running in close races. But we found that some of those ads are misleading.
Q: Did an FDA-approved form of “synthetic marijuana” lead to recent deaths in Illinois?
A: No. The drugs that have killed four people in the last two months are unregulated and illegal.
Chicago mayoral candidate Chuy Garcia claims in a new ad that Mayor Rahm Emanuel “took” money from closed public schools and “gave” it to “elite private schools.” Those “private schools,” in fact, are publicly funded charter schools — open to all students tuition-free.
No shortage of tall tales in the midterm elections, from both parties.
Democrats, Republicans spend nearly $50 million on TV ads that repeat old, scary Medicare claims.
FlackCheck.org, our sister website for political literacy, looks at two recent political campaign ads that mislead viewers using common patterns of deception.
A Republican TV ad in Illinois features indignant veterans scolding a Democratic House member about cuts to “veterans benefits” that never happened.
Republican Bruce Rauner falsely claims in a TV ad that Illinois leads the Midwest in “job losses” under Democratic Gov. Pat Quinn. In fact, Illinois has experienced job growth — albeit small — since Quinn took office.
A slate of new ads from the 60 Plus Association evoke a well-worn conservative punching bag — “Obamacare” — to attack seven senators for supporting a lesser-known plan to overhaul the housing finance market.
Republican Bruce Rauner claims in a new Spanish-language TV ad that Illinois has lost 90,000 jobs in five years under Democratic Gov. Pat Quinn. Illinois has lost 3,400 jobs in five years — not 90,000 — by the standard definition of “jobs.”