IT'S PERPETUAL WAR IN AMERICA, AND TRUTH IS THE FIRST CASUALTY (updated)

There's been another mass shooting, this time at an elementary school in Uvalde, Texas. Governor Greg Abbott says that fourteen students and one teacher are dead, as well as the shooter, who's been identified as eighteen-year-old Salvador Ramos.

Right now, obviously, most Americans don't know much about this shooter, except that he's done something truly evil. But while we're waiting for more information, a parasite named John Cardillo -- a blue-check right-wing commentator with nearly 300,000 followers including J.D. Vance and several GOP members of Congress, posted this:

If initial reports are accurate and this mass murderer of children was an illegal alien who was being chased by the Border Patrol, Democrats should never again be allowed to hold an elected office in the United States.

— John Cardillo (@johncardillo) May 24, 2022

Are there initial reports that said this? I'm not aware of any. I'm aware that the governor himself said that Ramos is a U.S. citizen who appears to have attended Uvalde High School.

Tell me why I shouldn't believe that Cardillo knew exactly what he was doing -- spreading a rage-inducing falsehood, because inducing rage is the right's prime directive. It's what right-wingers do every waking hour of their lives.

It'll work, too. In the future, people will still remember that this shooter was an undocumented immigrant being chased by the Border Patrol, even though he wasn't.

Maybe there's an honest explanation for this, but I can't imagine what it is.

*****

UPDATE: This wasn't the only piece of disinformation about the shooter -- it wasn't even the most widely disseminated, as an NBC reporter notes:

People have taken the photo of an unassociated trans person with the trans pride flag and are claiming its the Texas shooter Salvador Ramos. Not going to share screenshots to protect that person’s identity, but the posts are incredibly easy to find on Twitter right now.

— Benjamin Goggin (@BenjaminGoggin) May 25, 2022

Yup:

Salvador Ramos is not trans…before you decide to accuse someone of shooting children actually do research.

This is an entirely different person and literally takes 5 whole seconds to prove they aren’t the same people. pic.twitter.com/SyWMYe4l7h

— Jerome! (@JeromeM94Movies) May 25, 2022

Congressmnan Paul Gosar saw the rumors flying and chose all of the above.

Following Tuesday's mass shooting at a Texas elementary school, Arizona GOP congressman Paul Gosar spread a false and transphobic claim that the suspected shooter was a "transsexual leftist illegal alien."

Gosar tweeted the claim even though authorities had already identified the suspect as an 18-year-old male resident of Uvalde, where the shooting occurred.

As of Tuesday evening, the GOP representative has not commented on his tweet, which was deleted about two hours after being published.

This false claim has been proliferating on social media with photos of a transgender person unrelated to the attack. The images appear to have been taken off the Reddit account of a transgender artist.

Among the social media accounts that shared such images is a Facebook page called "North Florida Patriots."

The page has since corrected its post....

Next year, when Republicans control Congress, Gosar will probably be one of the most prominent inquisitors in the multiple highly public witch hunts that the GOP will conduct as a substitute for governing. The press will call him a "firebrand."