Keller @ Large: Putting Super PAC Political Ads To The Truth Test

BOSTON (CBS) -- We're less than one week away from election day, with the political ad season is in full swing. And unsurprisingly, some of the partisan pitches are playing fast and loose with the facts.

Check out this one from Priorities USA, the largest Democratic Party super PAC, reprising an evergreen Democratic charge - that Republicans want to cut or even eliminate the social safety net, regardless of the consequences for seniors and others who rely on it.

"The Republicans just admitted it - they're gonna make you pay for their massive tax giveaway to big corporations and the wealthy," the ad proclaims. Cut to fragments of TV news reports: "Republican leader Mitch McConnell said he wants to make some cuts to Social Security and Medicare." Cut to a fragment of McConnell himself in a TV interview: "Medicare, Social Security and Medicaid."

But that's a gross distortion of what McConnell said.

While he did disingenuously blame those social programs for the soaring deficit without mentioning the role of GOP tax cuts and spending, he actually called for a bipartisan effort to contain the long-term impact of entitlement costs.

If you think that's misleading, watch this one from the pro-Trump PAC Future45, a festival of whoppers falsely characterizing Democratic Party positions on immigration and health care, and claiming a Democratic takeover of the House would lead to immediate tax increases, as if any effort to repeal the Trump-era tax cuts could survive a certain presidential veto.

"The screaming, the violence, the fear and death threats, the far left moving to socialism... Is that really what you want? Voting for any Democrat gets you all of that."

Now that's a scare tactic. No wonder Politifact gave this ad a "pants on fire" rating.

Where dishonest ads like these leave off, social media takes over, injecting flat-out lies into the national debate for hundreds of millions of voters to see.