If you ask voters what kinds of messages they want their members of Congress to communicate, chances are very low that they’ll say “legal, but ethically sketchy” ones.

But as a surprise to no one, the National Republican Congressional Committee has created a host of fake news websites targeting Democrats, including two Minnesota legislators, Reps. Collin Peterson and Rick Nolan. Politico describes these sites as: “legal, but ethically sketchy.”

The websites are laid out like other local news sites. It isn’t until you closely examine the page that you’ll notice there isn’t an author, there aren’t any other news stories, and “Paid for by the National Republican Congressional Committee” is strung across the bottom of the page.

Worse, the sites are specifically designed to only show up in the search results of those inside targeted districts.

It speaks volumes that Republicans have sunk to the level of falsifying news stories in order to garner some modicum of support.

This is an outright attempt to deceive people. Members of the GOP haven’t been successful at funneling their pro-corporate, anti-worker propaganda down people’s throats, so now they’re straight up just going to trick everyone into listening.

These fake news articles are sludged with falsifications. The articles themselves are a deception, so why would any of the articles’ content have validity?

A spokesman for the NRCC said that people are only upset about the fake news sites because “they didn’t think of them first.”

Uh, no.

People are upset about the sites because they produce fake news under the guise of real news. It’s pretty simple. Turns out, people don’t like to be lied to – not one bit.

Readers of news should be able to comfortably trust their media sources. Thanks to Republicans, now voters have one more outlet spewing political vitriol to cut out of their daily news consumption.