The U.S. Chamber of Commerce attacks Rep. Tim Bishop (D-NY) for voting for the Affordable Care Act and cap-and-trade legislation, misrepresenting the bills’ impact on small businesses and families. In fact, millions of small businesses are eligible for tax credits under the health care law, while clean energy legislation would have boosted the economy at minimal cost to households.
Read more after the jump.An ad from Restore Our Future dredges up an out-of-context quote from President Obama to suggest he believes 8 percent unemployment is “doing fine.” In reality, Obama was explaining that the private sector is steadily creating new jobs, while declining public-sector employment – a trend favored by conservatives – has slowed the recovery. The private sector has now added 4.6 million jobs over the last 30 consecutive months of growth. The ad also blames the president for America’s “crushing debt,” which exploded as a consequence of Bush administration policies and the recession, but fails to acknowledge that Republicans have rejected Obama’s debt-reduction proposals.
Read more after the jump.An ad from a Susan B. Anthony List super PAC calls President Obama an “abortion radical” because of his votes on several “Born Alive” bills in the Illinois Senate, his opposition to a law to criminalize adults helping minors circumvent parental notification laws as a U.S. senator, and his support for the Affordable Care Act. The ad’s most egregious falsehood is the suggestion that the health care law expanded “tax-subsidized abortions” and pays for sex-selective abortions, even though there is no federal funding for abortions in the law. Bills addressing sex-selective abortions, much like the Illinois iterations of the “Born Alive” measures, are attempts by anti-abortion activists to increase restrictions on legal abortions, while parental notification laws endanger minors in abusive or troubled homes.
Read more after the jump.Club for Growth Action claims that former U.S. Surgeon General Richard Carmona, who is running for the Senate in Arizona, “has no problem with raising taxes.” But the conservative group’s claim relies on an out-of-context quote, in which Carmona explained that he would support repealing the Bush tax cuts for the wealthiest Americans as long as “you protect the middle and lower class.” According to nonpartisan analysts, ending tax breaks for top earners would reduce the deficit without harming the economy.
Read more after the jump.An American Crossroads ad misrepresents Senator Bill Nelson’s (D-FL) voting record to suggest that he’s hurt Florida farmers. Crossroads mischaracterizes two votes as “massive tax hike[s] on Florida farmers,” both of which were votes against repealing the nation’s estate tax, which, in fact, affects less than 50 farms across the country.
Read more after the jump.Club for Growth Action accuses Rep. Joe Donnelly (D-IN) of supporting “higher taxes, government health care, and trillions in new debt,” but the conservative group provides no evidence for its allegations. That may be because the charges against Donnelly don’t match his record. Donnelly recently voted to extend tax cuts for all Americans, while the Affordable Care Act expands private-sector health coverage and reduces deficits. Furthermore, Donnelly has supported conservative proposals for a balanced budget amendment to the Constitution.
Read more after the jump.An ad from Crossroads GPS claims that Senate candidate Tim Kaine’s (D-VA) support for cap-and-trade policies in general translates into support for a “scheme” that would increase energy costs for small businesses and result in 50,000 job losses. But Kaine didn’t endorse a specific policy, and GPS itself can’t settle on one proposal, cherry-picking the worst estimates of two different bills. One of those bills would have boosted the economy with little additional cost to consumers, and the other allowed small businesses’ utility costs to be offset with money from the sale of emissions allowances.
Read more after the jump.Crossroads GPS simultaneously misquotes Heidi Heitkamp and takes her comments so far out of context that they end up 180 degrees opposite her actual position. The ad falsely implies Heitkamp wishes the individual mandate (characterized here as “Obamacare’s tax on middle-class families”) were enforced with a larger penalty. In fact, Heitkamp opposes the mandate, and was relaying information from insurance experts who’d told her the size of the mandate penalty would render it ineffective.
Read more after the jump.American Crossroads attacks President Obama’s economic record by grossly misrepresenting a “preliminary analysis” of a theoretical stimulus bill, which the president’s economic advisers conducted before his inauguration – and before the unexpected rise in unemployment soon thereafter. The analysis included disclaimers about the possibility of an unusually severe recession, which unfortunately came to fruition. Nonetheless, it’s clear that the devastating conditions Obama inherited would have become even worse without the Recovery Act, which created jobs and cut taxes for millions of working Americans. Since the recession officially ended, the private sector has steadily added jobs, including 4.7 million new jobs in the last 31 consecutive months of growth.
Read more after the jump.American Crossroads has released a web video criticizing President Obama’s response to last month’s attack on the U.S. Consulate in Libya. In particular, the group complains that “Obama snubbed key allies and skipped meetings with world leaders” at the United Nations – a point they drive home visually with footage of an empty chair behind a nameplate reading “United States.”
However, that seat was only unoccupied because U.S. officials boycotted Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad’s address to the summit, which was delivered on the Jewish holy day of Yom Kippur. Making matters worse, the empty chair appears just moments after a line about “rogue nations calling for a new world order,” accompanied by footage of Ahmadinejad giving the very speech the U.S. refused to attend.
Read more after the jump.
