You remember that lie the right spread during the health care reform debate that the mandate to buy health insurance included jail time for Americans who refused to do so?
Well, it’s back again. The good news — at least so far — is that it’s not getting much traction:
A shadowy far-right outfit called American Action Network is attacking Rep. Chris Murphy (D-Conn.) in a new ad for supporting a health care law that means, among other things, “jail time for anyone without coverage.”
That’s the bad news. The good news, as Greg Sargent reports today, is that a Connecticut station will not run the deceptive spot.
FoxCT, the local Fox affiliate, informed the Murphy campaign that it would stop running the American Action Network ad after the Murphy camp sent the station a letter detailing the ad’s falsehoods, the Murphy campaign confirms.
“We have verified that the ad in question is not accurate and will pull their schedule going forward,” a FoxCT executive wrote to the Murphy campaign in an email sent my way. “I hope you have reached out to the other stations and they follow the same course.”
I’m told other another Connecticut station may follow suit.
It’s always heartening when this happens. I’ve long believed ads would be less deceptive if stations refused to air spots that could be proven false.
What’s more, as Greg keeps reminding us, the larger point is that these shadowy organizations aren’t just trying to sway elections with secret money, they’re doing so with ads intended to mislead the public.
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