theatlantic:

Congressman Falls For Months-Old Onion Story About Planned Parenthood “Abortionplex”

Meet Rep. John Fleming, the unfortunate Republican congressman from Louisiana who made that wonderful and all-too-common mistake of thinking that an Onion article was real and telling his Facebook followers to read it. Fleming’s Facebook status, from Friday, was posted by Literally Unbelievable, a Tumblr that collects images of Facebookers who think Onion satires are the real deal and post them on their walls.

What’s doubly sad about this posting (obviously deleted now) is that The Onion article shared, “Planned Parenthood Opens $8 Billion Abortionplex,” is from May 2011 and is something of a viral classic, even inspiring some users of Yelp to “review” the facility described. So not only did Rep. Fleming (who calls abortion a “pernicious evil”) or at least one of his staffers believe Kansas now has an abortion clinic with “coffee shops, bars, dozens of restaurants and retail outlets, a three-story nightclub, and a 10-screen multiplex theater,” but it’s not even recent fake news. Read more.