Kellyanne Conway Uses "Alternative Fact" to Defend Muslim Ban, Because There Are No Actual Facts That Could Possibly Justify It

[Content Note: Islamophobia.]

White House Counsel and horrible human being Kellyanne Conway coined the phrase "alternative facts" last month—and, yesterday, during an interview with Chris Matthews, she engaging in a little alternative facting when she invoked a "massacre" by Muslims which does not exist.

I'm speechless. @KellyannePolls invented the "Bowling Green massacre" on live T.V. Strange days indeed. pic.twitter.com/rG61ZlKMO8

— Hᴀʜɴ Aᴍᴇʀɪᴄᴀ (@HahnAmerica) February 3, 2017

CONWAY: I bet there was very little coverage—I bet it's brand new information to people that President Obama had a six-month ban on the Iraqi refugee program, after two Iraqis came here to this country, were radicalized, and then were the masterminds behind the Bowling Green Massacre. I mean, most people don't know that because it didn't get covered.

It didn't "get covered" because it didn't happen. And it is indeed "brand new information to people" that Obama had a refugee ban, because that, too, didn't happen.

Samantha Schmidt explains at the Washington Post:

There has never been a terrorist attack in Bowling Green, Ky., carried out by Iraqi refugees or anyone else.

Conway was likely referring to two Iraqi citizens living in Bowling Green who were arrested in 2011 and eventually sentenced to federal prison for attempting to send weapons and money to al-Qaeda in Iraq for the purpose of killing U.S. soldiers, according to a statement from the Justice Department.

Mohanad Shareef Hammadi, 25, was sentenced to life in federal prison. Waad Ramadan Alwan was sentenced to 31 to 40 years in federal prison, followed by a life term of supervised release. Both men pleaded guilty to federal terrorism charges.

...In the aftermath of the arrests of the two Iraqis living in Kentucky, the Obama administration imposed more extensive background checks on Iraqi refugees, and the new screening procedures created a dramatic slowdown in visa approvals.

Which lasted about six months. But, throughout that six months, visas were still being approved. It just took more time and labor. It was never a ban.

Conway tweeted this morning that she meant to say "Bowling Green Terrorists." Sure. Quite a slip of the tongue, though. One wonders how much of a grasp on the facts of that example she actually has, or how much she genuinely cares about it, beyond its ostensible efficacy in trying to justify the unjustifiable.

No excuse so far for why she straight-up lied about President Obama.