(Tom Steyer) Bay Area billionaire's climate-change ads leave fact-checkers cold

[alp227]

Bay Area billionaire Tom Steyer's blitz against candidates who are soft on climate change is underway in seven states, but some prominent fact-checking groups say he's emitting enough hot air to melt a few glaciers.

Negative reviews from watchdogs like PolitiFact, FactCheck.org and the Washington Post are dogging one of the nation's biggest political donors, a former hedge fund manager who ditched his ties to fossil fuels and presented himself as a transparent antidote to the conservative Koch brothers' semi-clandestine funding network.

Playing fast and loose with the facts is "unwise simply because you're handing a bat to your opponents to use squarely over your noggin," said Larry Sabato, director of the University of Virginia Center for Politics. "It sounds to me as if they need their own fact-checkers on staff."

Steyer, 57, of San Francisco, was unavailable for an interview this week. But Bobby Whithorne, spokesman for Steyer's NextGen Climate Action super PAC, said: "We stand by our ads."

full: http://www.mercurynews.com/nation-world/ci_26382278/billionaires-climate-change-ads-leave-fact-checkers-cold

[RobertEarl]

1. All those complaining ?

They take bribes from the industries that cause global warming.

They are bought and paid for. Ignore their whimpers.

[Warren Stupidity]

2. Wow, that article is full of fail.

[The Magistrate]

3. It Certainly Is, Sir

I read it last night, and the worst any of the claims highlighted would have rated is 'mostly true', which is well above average for political advertising....