New ads attack Democrats as anti-Israel based on nothing The Fact Checker has long taken a dim view of attack ads that twist minor procedural votes into flaming indictments of a lawmaker's policy positions. But in the past, the attack-ad maestros at least could make a plausible argument that these "messaging votes" were tethered to real proposals. Not anymore. A rule change by the House took the bite out of many of these attacks. In the past, when a bill reached the House floor, members could propose to send it back to committee with instructions to add such-and-such amendment. These "motions to recommit" would then usually get voted down. Cue the attack ads. Under the new House rules, the "motion to recommit" no longer offers lawmakers an opportunity to specify amendments. Without that, what's an ad-maker to do? The American Action Network (AAN), a conservative advocacy group, tried to get around that with some artful language, but received Four Pinocchios. The group ran attack ads against swing-district House Democrats, seeking to tarnish their image as supporters of Israel. "When Congress had the chance to increase funding for Iron Dome, [Democratic member of Congress] voted against it," the narrator says. "Shamefully she voted no, even as terrorist rockets rained down on Israeli cities." The new House rules did not stop a Republican member from announcing he would offer an amendment in committee providing at least $73 million to the Iron Dome system, a mobile missile-defense system first supplied during the Obama administration. But under the terms of a memorandum of understanding, such aid would not come from Congress until after the two countries reached an agreement on defense funding following a conflict, so the GOP bill is premature anyway. Enjoy this newsletter? Forward it to someone else who'd like it! If this email was forwarded to you, sign up here. Did you hear something fact-checkable? Send it here; we'll check it out. The falsehood that Biden won because 'noncitizens voted' In the vast and disorienting jungle of 2020 election falsehoods, here's one claim we had yet to drill down on. Rep. Mo Brooks, a Republican running for Senate in Alabama, said in an interview with the Washington Examiner that President Donald Trump would have won reelection last year "if only lawful votes cast by eligible American citizens were counted." "Somewhere in the neighborhood of 900,000 to 1.7 million noncitizens voted in the 2020 presidential election overwhelmingly for Joe Biden," Brooks said, citing a lengthy speech he gave on the House floor replete with figures and report citations and "Exhibits" A through G. We went through it methodically and found that Brooks's own faulty math does not prove what he said and that he relies on dubious calculations and a disputed study. Brooks is assuming 11 million to 22 million noncitizens in the United States, 8 percent of whom cast ballots, at a rate of 80 percent for Biden. But, as we found, there are about 10.3 million undocumented immigrants old enough to vote. The percentage who in theory are illegally voting range from one-third of 1 percent to as much as 6.4 percent (though that's dubious). The Biden advantage is likely about 40 percentage points. Brooks earned Four Pinocchios. We're always looking for fact-check suggestions. You can reach us via email, Twitter (@GlennKesslerWP, @rizzoTK, @AdriUsero) or Facebook. Read about our process and rating scale here, and sign up for the newsletter here. Scroll down for this week's Pinocchio roundup. | 
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