The Mark Pryor campaign is understandably pleased that every major fact-checking service has repudiated opponent Tom Cotton’s bodacious attempt to cover his vote against the farm bill by blaming it on President Obama.

You may recall that Cotton claims Obama “hijacked” the farm bill with food stamp money, forcing him — alone among Arkansas Republicans — to vote against it. We noted at the time that the ad overlook decades of history of linkage of farm supports with food stamps, which buy the product of farmers.

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The latest is Factcheck.org.  It provides abundant details but the bottom line is that the truth isn’t in the Cotton ad.

In a new TV ad, Rep. Tom Cotton tries to rewrite history with the claim that President Obama “hijacked the farm bill, turned it into a food stamp bill.” Food stamp funding has been part of farm bills going back to 1973.

Cotton’s ad seeks to explain the congressman’s vote earlier this year against the farm bill — a vote that bucked the rest of the Arkansas House delegation, all Republicans, and was criticized by the president of the Arkansas Farm Bureau, who said he was “disappointed” in Cotton’s vote.

Cotton has now hit the trifecta of fact-checking. The latest hit follows:

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* Politifact: Which gave the Cotton ad its worst “pants on fire” label.

* The Washington Post: Which gave the ad “four pinocchios,” also as bad as it gets.

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The Pryor campaign will bring in some farmers to a press event today to underscore Cotton’s departure from history and the rest of his party.

Again, there’s a simple issue in this race: Tom Cotton proudly and defiantly wants to upend government as we’ve long known it by emaciating program after program. You may be for this. By all means vote for Tom Cotton if you are. But don’t let him kid you into believing he’s not an extreme ideologue with radical notions. He is, in fact, cut from the same cloth — though maybe even more outrageously radical — than Paul Ryan, who — unbelievably — was invited in to Arkansas to help Asa Hutchinson’s Republican gubernatorial candidacy. If Asa Hutchinson were to bring Arkansas the kind of government Paul Ryan envisions, it won’t be a pretty sight for services hundreds of thousands depend on. Hell, even Paul Ryan voted for the farm bill Cotton opposed.

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MORE BASHING OF COTTON: The American Federation of Government Employees is blasting Cotton today for sponsoring legislation that reduce the civilian workforce at military installations. It is advertising Cotton’s position on billboards near Little Rock Air Force Base, a major civilian employer.

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