DJ Kellyanne Conway can always get a gig. Cable news outlets continually book someone who has made it her post-election mission to undermine the concept of objective reality. Conway joined Chris Matthews last night to explain why we so desperately needed the Definitely Not a Muslim Ban. Along the way, she cited a lesser-known American tragedy: the Bowling Green Massacre.

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While it does sound like something from the Revolutionary War, there is, in fact, no such thing as the Bowling Green Massacre. There has never been a terrorist attack in Bowling Green, Kentucky, carried out by refugees or anyone else.

As The Washington Post pointed out, what Conway perhaps meant to refer to was the case of two Iraqi citizens living in Bowling Green who went to federal prison for attempting to provide material support to al Qaeda in Iraq in 2011. In that case, an undercover FBI operative induced Mohanad Shareef Hammadi and Waad Ramadan Alwan to join a plan to send money and weapons to terror groups back home. Hammadi was sentenced to life in prison, while Alwan received 31 to 40 years.

So there was an incident involving refugees—it just wasn't a massacre. In a huge twist of fate (and to her credit), Conway did not assume the default position of doubling down. She actually conceded the idea there are things we can observe about our shared world—facts—that together constitute what we call "reality."

Now, a couple of Iraqi refugees in Kentucky getting involved with international terror networks is indeed a problem. The Obama administration thought so, and responded. As seems to happen more and more lately, Trump, Conway, and their other Obama-hating allies have cited that Obama White House response as justification for this White House's policies—in this case, the Definitely Not a Muslim Ban. From the Post:

Conway reiterated claims from Trump that his refugee policy is similar to "what President Obama did in 2011 when he banned visas for refugees from Iraq for six months." Conway said it was "brand new information" to people that Obama enacted a "six-month ban on the Iraqi refugee program." Breitbart also reported earlier this week that "Obama suspended Iraq refugee program for six months over terrorism fears in 2011."

This isn't true either. There was never a ban or stoppage on Iraqi refugees—the Obama administration instead imposed more extensive background checks, which slowed down the visa process significantly. The administration's background check system experienced a serious failure—it failed to pick up, for instance, that Alwan's fingerprints had been found on an unexploded IED in Iraq—so it made major adjustments to the system.

Speaking of background checks, the House of Representatives voted yesterday to roll back a rule designed to keep guns out of the hands of Americans with mental illness. The policy, instituted by the Obama administration, "required the Social Security Administration to disclose to the national gun background check system information about people with mental illness," according to CNN. This applied to individuals "who are considered incapable of managing their own disability benefits due to mental illness," but not incapable, it seems, of managing a deadly weapon.

Under the Congressional Review Act, Congress can roll back executive rules put in place late in the previous president's term with a simple majority. This bill, backed heavily by the NRA—and, it should be said, the ACLU—will likely pass the Senate, and President Trump will almost certainly sign it into law.

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Jack Holmes
Senior Staff Writer

Jack Holmes is a senior staff writer at Esquire, where he covers politics and sports. He also hosts Unapocalypse, a show about solutions to the climate crisis.