We can't make this stuff up.
John Fleming, a GOP congressman from Louisiana, fell for a months-old joke on Monday when he cited an article from The Onion as a real news source.
Fleming shared a link on Facebook to an article from the satirical newspaper headlined "Planned Parenthood Opens $8 Billion Abortionplex."
"More on Planned Parenthood, abortion by the wholesale," he wrote.
The GOP congressman isn't the first to fall victim to an Onion joke. When the abortion piece was first published last year, hordes of angry Facebook users took the article at face value. In 2002, a Chinese newspaper infamously republished an Onion story about Congress demanding a new Capitol building with a retractable dome.
Fleming has since removed the post from his Facebook page, but the Daily What posted a screenshot, courtesy of Literally Unbelievable.
The Louisiana Republican is a vocal opponent of abortion and Planned Parenthood. As the Hill points out, Fleming voted to prohibit federal funding of Planned Parenthood and has called legal abortion "a perversion of law."
According to Politico, Onion editor Joe Randazzo said he was "delighted to hear that Rep. Fleming is a regular reader of America’s Finest News Source and doesn’t bother himself with The New York Times, Washington Post, the mediums of television and radio, or any other lesser journalism outlets."