The Committee For “Truth” (Lies?) In Politics Is At It Again

The Committee For Truth In Politics (a misnomer if I’ve ever heard one) is a North Carolina-based nonprofit organization with major ties to Citizens United. For those who aren’t aware, Citizens United is the right-wing group that brought the lawsuit which resulted in the January 21st Supreme Court decision to remove restrictions on corporate and union funding of political campaigns. Yeah, those guys. In fact, CFTIP filed a “friend-of-the-court” brief on behalf of Citizens United in that unprecedented decision.

Now the CFTIP is at it again, this time sponsoring an ad currently airing on Montana TV stations (and other select areas around the country) that makes extremely misleading claims regarding H.R. 4173, a House-approved bill that would tighten regulations on Wall Street, banks and the overall financial system in response to the recent economic meltdown. Among other ridiculous claims, the ad states that passage of the bill would be tantamount to “lining the pockets” of “fat-cat lobbyists at our expense”. Funnily enough, the only “fat-cat lobbyist” here appears to be the CFTIP itself, for trying to bring down a bill that would rein in the unsustainable financial practices that got us into this mess in the first place.

The ad is risible not only for its disingenuous nature, but for the fact that it’s clearly peddling the sort of fear-based political machinations that have become an unfortunate staple of the right-wing scare machine. It even throws out the admittedly frightening number of $4 trillion, which I guess is the amount the bill is threatening to “line the pockets” of the “special interests” with. What it fails to mention is that the $4 trillion number included in the House bill would be a new cap on the amount of money the Federal Reserve is allowed to loan to prop up financial entities, whereas before there was no cap. So then why is CFTIP trying to make it sound like a bad thing? Considering their ties to Citizens United, the answer to that question should be pretty obvious.

After watching the 30-second version of the ad (there’s also a minute-long version) here: http://vodpod.com/watch/2980937-luntz-scripted-ad-also-airing-in-montana, you can read the original article about the ad on the Helena Independent Record’s website here: http://helenair.com/news/article_cf976186-16cd-11df-97a7-001cc4c002e0.html.