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Sunday Replay

Sunday morning’s talkathons featured a few misstatements in a debate between Kentucky’s Senate contenders, and some confusion about debts and deficits.   
 Kentucky Senate Candidates Debate
"Fox News Sunday" hosted a debate between Kentucky Senate candidate Rand Paul, a Republican, and his Democratic opponent, Jack Conway. 
Paul’s statements about the economic and citizenship status of the country’s uninsured population were false:

Paul: Well, there are two aspects to health care problems. One’s the expense and one’s access.

Dust-Up in Coal Country

West Virginia Gov. Joe Manchin is under fire from his Republican opponent, John Raese, for supposedly undermining the coal industry. Raese’s ad is misleading, though. Even the coal producers disagree with it.
The two are competing to fill the last two years of the late Democratic Sen. Robert Byrd’s term.

Raese says that Manchin "passed a law that eliminates 25 percent of coal usage in our power plants." But that’s not true. The Alternative and Renewable Energy Portfolio Act,

No Truth to ‘No Bid’

In Florida’s gubernatorial race, Republican candidate Rick Scott claims his Democratic opponent, Alex Sink — the state’s chief financial officer — “funneled” $770,000 in "no-bid contracts" to her former employer, Bank of America. That’s not true. Sink was not the principle decision-maker, and there was plenty of open competition for the business in question.
The ad also claims she had a conflict of interest, though there’s no evidence of that.

The ad, which first aired Sept.

Alabama Mystery Solved

The mystery of who was behind a largely bogus attack ad in Alabama’s Republican gubernatorial runoff election has been solved. The answer: the Alabama Education Association, an organization headed by the co-chairman of the state Democratic Party. 
But don’t look for the answer in the state Elections Division. You have to go the IRS to track down the shadowy group’s financing.

According to IRS reports, the Conservative Coalition for Alabama formed on June 22 as a 527 political committee.

Scott’s Prisoner Release Plan?

The Florida Police Benevolent Association takes a half-baked proposal to an illogical conclusion in a new TV ad that invites Floridians to think that Republican gubernatorial candidate Rick Scott wants to shutter state prisons and free hardened criminals.
The ad — “Rick Scott is Florida’s Worst Nightmare” — was released Sept. 27. It is based on Scott’s proposal to cut costs at Florida’s state prisons. On his campaign website, Scott says he can cut $1 billion from the prison budget by reducing labor,

Sunday Replay

On this week’s Sunday talk shows, we found false claims on the debt, discretionary spending, foreign-funded attack ads and polling data.
Wrong on Debt
On ABC’s "This Week," Senate Republican Leader Mitch McConnell made a false claim about the federal debt — a claim that we debunked in January, when Virginia Gov. Bob McDonnell, a Republican, made a similar statement. The debt situation has worsened since then, but not enough to make this GOP talking point true.

False Claim on Plant Closing in Indiana

In Indiana’s Senate race, Democratic Rep. Brad Ellsworth falsely alleged that his Republican opponent Dan Coats was involved in the closing of an automotive plant that left more than 800 people out of work. Ellsworth himself told the Associated Press, "We don’t know Mr. Coats’ direct involvement in the closing of this plant."
Ellsworth charged that Coats played a role in the decision to close the plant in a Sept. 20 speech delivered outside the old GDX Automotive factory gates in Wabash,

A ‘Scandal’ in New Mexico?

In New Mexico’s governor’s race, Republican Susana Martinez accuses Democratic Lt. Gov. Diane Denish of giving a $500 million "special tax deal" to a developer who contributed to her campaign and hired her husband as a lobbyist. But Martinez, a district attorney, uses circumstantial evidence to make her case in an ad that falsely accuses Denish of "hiding a scandal."
The evidence cited by the Martinez campaign fails to prove that Denish misused her office to help the developer get a tax break or that the tax break was connected to her husband’s lobbying job or her campaign contributions.

Sunday Replay

The talk shows’ factual failures included misinformation from Karl Rove (about write-in ballots in Alaska), from a former president (about college graduation rates and health in the U.S.) and from a current one (of Iran, about several topics).
Rove’s Spelling Lesson
Republican strategist Karl Rove overstated a legal barrier confronting GOP Sen. Lisa Murkowski of Alaska in her bid to win reelection as a write-in candidate. Appearing on "Fox News Sunday," he said:

Rove: [Murkowski] can’t win.

Bachmann Decries Rumors, Then Spreads Them

At Friday’s conservative Values Voter Summit, Minnesota Rep. Michele Bachmann spoke out against "falsehoods and rumors" about the tea party movement. We applaud any call to combat misinformation — but Bachmann would do well to guard against falsehoods and rumors herself. In the same speech, she complained about "Speaker Pelosi, who has been busy sticking the taxpayer for a $100,000 bar tab for alcohol on the military jets that she is flying." That’s a totally off-base assertion that we addressed back in March.