GOP leader spends day after mass shootings smearing Democrats with ugly lies about murder

As the nation mourned the tragic mass shootings over the weekend in El Paso and Dayton, Louisiana’s Steve Scalise, the House Republican whip, quickly turned on Monday to spreading lies about Democratic House members.

On Sunday, Scalise addressed the tragic shootings by lamenting a “culture of death in America today,” and blaming the partisan nature of Washington, going so far as to say that “talking points and name-calling in support of narrow political agendas only further divides our country.”

Yet by Monday morning, Scalise had abandoned concern about mass shootings and was focused instead on promoting misleading talking points and name-calling to support his own narrow political agenda, as if his work in addressing the horrific shootings was done.

Scalise spent the next several hours calling on Democrats to hold a vote on the absurdly named “Born-Alive Abortion Survivors Protection Act,” an unnecessary bill promoting a myth that infants are “born alive” and then murdered by doctors after botched abortions. There is no evidence of doctors engaging in any such practice, but Scalise and his fellow Republicans have spent months claiming that this occurs, and with such great frequency that Congress must act to stop it.

“Far too many babies born alive during attempted abortions are denied crucial medical care and left to die,” Scalise tweeted. “Liberals in Washington aren’t just ignoring this horrific practice, they’re actively preventing a vote on protections for abortion survivors.”

Notably, Scalise did not call on Congress to take any actions to stop the epidemic of mass shootings that are a problem in this country. He did, however, highlight the inflammatory and baseless attacks on Democrats by his Republican colleagues.

“Pro-life representatives have called for a vote on the #BornAliveAct 81 times,” Rep. Glenn Grothman (R-WI) tweeted. “House Democratic leadership has blocked the vote each time. When will they decide to stand up and #EndInfanticide?”

Scalise retweeted Grothman, implying that Democrats in Congress are in favor of murdering babies.

And on and on it went, with Scalise, the second most powerful Republican in the House, retweeting baseless accusations that Democrats are in favor of murder, all to promote his radical anti-abortion agenda.

And Scalise is as radical as it gets. Earlier this year, he bragged about his time in the Louisiana legislature, when he voted for an anti-abortion bill requiring rape victims to have babies.

Scalise is also very proud of his A+ rating from the NRA. He even voted against a bill to provide universal background checks for all gun purchases, a commonsense measure supported by more than 95% of Americans.

While Scalise’s response to the weekend’s shootings was to condemn name-calling, he refused to condemn Trump’s racist attacks against members of Congress last month, calling on his caucus to vote against a resolution to hold Trump accountable for his ugly rhetoric.

On Monday, Scalise, like the rest of his party, ignored calls from around the country for congressional leaders to do something to address gun violence. Instead, he focused his attention on a problem that doesn’t exist, attacking his Democratic colleagues with the kind of ugly and hyper-partisan smears he had claimed only the day before to oppose.

Published with permission of The American Independent Foundation.