Q: Were stimulus payments made to dead people and prison inmates?
A: Yes, 89,000 of them, according to an official audit. About half of the $22 million was returned. The audit blamed both Congress and the Social Security Administration.
Year: 2010
Would Miller ‘Destroy’ Alaska’s Economy?
In Alaska, a new group founded and financed by for-profit native corporations falsely charges in an ad that Republican Senate nominee Joe Miller’s proposals "would destroy a third of Alaska’s economy" by erasing "our fair share of federal dollars." A conservative, Miller advocates less federal spending — but he hasn’t said he would eliminate it, and that’s what would have to happen to "destroy a third of Alaska’s economy."
The ad also raises the possibility —
American Future Fund
Republican-leaning group formed by Iowa political figures.
Kirk, Giannoulias Misstate Facts in Debate
The Illinois Senate candidates strayed from the facts on Sunday’s "Meet the Press," which featured a debate between Republican Mark Kirk, a House member, and Democrat Alexi Giannoulias, the state treasurer.
Bridge Claims Go Nowhere
Kirk exaggerated his role in combating the "bridge to nowhere," a name given interchangeably to two Alaska bridge projects that have become symbols for government pork:
Kirk: "The Kirk Amendment passed in the House … attacked the bridge to nowhere,
Stop the @#%! ‘Profanity’
Do "bleep" and "@#%!" count as low-down, shocking "profanity"? Michele Bachmann says they do.
The GOP House member from Minnesota is claiming in a fundraising appeal to conservative donors that her Democratic election opponent, Tarryl Clark, released a "shocking, profanity-laced attack against me" and has thus reached "a new low."
Here’s the video in question. (It’s a satirical Web video, not a real TV ad.) Readers can judge for themselves how "shocking" it is.
The ad’s narrator says,
FactCheck Mailbag, Week of Oct. 5-Oct. 11
This week, readers sent us comments about the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, left-leaning semantics, stimulus efficiency and FactCheck business cards.
In the FactCheck Mailbag, we feature some of the e-mail we receive. Readers can send comments to editor@factcheck.org. Letters may be edited for length.
60 Plus Association
Republican-leaning group that calls itself “the conservative alternative” to AARP.
Toss-ups: Missouri Mudslinging
Ethics has become a theme in the Missouri Senate race, and we find that both candidates are distorting the facts in TV ads that make accusations of serious ethical lapses: Republican Rep. Roy Blunt claims without evidence that Democrat Robin Carnahan’s …
Sunday Replay
Pity the poor politicians and spinmeisters who had to don suits in the middle of a long weekend and populate the talk shows. They were up to their usual tricks, though: One Republican operative wrongly implied a crime by the White House; several guests talked about the debt or deficit in ways that were deceptive; and a House incumbent made the jobs picture under President Obama sound better than it is in reality.
Obama ‘Enemies List’
Foreign Money? Really?
Democrats, from President Barack Obama on down, are trying to turn an evidence-free allegation into a major campaign theme, claiming that foreign corporations are “stealing our democracy” with secret, illegal contributions funneled …