Monday, August 27, 2018

Washington Post fact checker: Attack ad against McCaskill is "smear campaign"

Washington Post fact checker Glenn Kessler gives the National Republican Senatorial Committee's attack ad against Claire McCaskill and her husband three pinocchios and says it is time the committee "retired this smear campaign."

Don't expect that to happen.

The ad says that McCaskill and her husband, Joseph Shepard, founder of Sugar Creek Capital, a company that receives state and federal subsidies for low income.



The NRSC ad makes it appear that the couple is pocketing millions of dollars in taxpayer money.
“Since she joined the Senate, McCaskill’s husband received $131 million in federal subsidies — subsidies that let the McCaskills pocket up to $22 million. …Claire McCaskill: She gets rich, you pay.”

The Post article notes that the attack ad is taken from a Kansas City Star article, but differed from the Star by failing to note, as the Star did, that the federal payments did not go directly to Shepard, but covered the costs of the housing, then the remaining money was distributed to Shepard and other investors.

The NRSC ad also conveniently ignored a couple of other findings from the Star's article:

    There’s no evidence that McCaskill played any part in directing federal funds to businesses affiliated with her husband.” 

    “McCaskill’s husband is a limited partner in the vast majority of the housing projects that receive federal funds, meaning that he isn’t responsible for day-to-day operations and has no say in the distribution of profits, which is limited by law.

The Post article concludes by noting "Republicans should retire this smear campaign and move on toward a debate on the issues."


1 comment:

Anonymous said...

When are people going to realize that when the republicans and their candidates say or do anything it is pure lies. President is somewhere around 4,000 lies, he lied when running saying he would "not lie to the people" and all the twitter type accounts against democrats were done by Koch Bros. or their right wing PAC groups. The latest is that the flag at the capitol is not flying at half mast for McCain and of course it is because Trump was so jealous of him. It will later be found not to be Trumps fault, but it is just one more insulting gesture by him towards "real Americans". Too bad the slow to figure things out republicans have not gotten a hint at what is happening to our country. Eisenhower would be ashamed of you and his party.