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GOP Releases ‘Commitment to America’ Promo Using Russian and Ukrainian Stock Footage

“We celebrate the rich heritage of the American story and the vibrancy of the American Dream,” a voiceover says, as footage of a Russian drilling rig is shown.

Nothing promotes one’s “Commitment to America” quite like a promotional video that’s full of stock footage from Russia and Ukraine. At least, that must’ve been the thinking of some Republican congressmen who released a video Friday that features a Russian oil rig and Ukrainian field workers as a narrator says, “we celebrate the rich heritage of the American story.” Another one of the clips found to be from Russia was that of a boy running in a field with a toy airplane as the words, “liberty, and the pursuit of happiness” appeared at the bottom of the screen. The gaffe was first reported by HuffPost, which compared scenes from the video with publicly purchasable photos on Shutterstock's website. Among the congressmen to share the video was Kevin McCarthy (R-CA), who posted it to YouTube. “Interesting how you guys aren’t remotely interested on the issues facing the American people in the video,” responded a McCarthy spokesman, Mark Bednar, when pressed by HuffPost on the video.