Last week, the House descended into chaos after the GOP tried to strip language from an interior appropriations bill that would make sure that the Confederate flag isn’t displayed in National Parks. Rep. Ken Calvert, the California Republican who chairs the Interior subcommittee, added an amendment to the bill to remove the language at the behest of the House GOP leadership, which, according to Calvert, was acting “at the request of some southern Members of the Republican Caucus.”

However, Rep. Pete Olson, R-Texas, told conservative radio host Sam Malone last week that Democrats should “shut up” about the issue since 150 years ago many of the Confederate leaders came from the Democratic Party, which apparently hasn’t changed at all since then!

“The Democrats have no standing whatsoever to talk about that flag because that was the flag of their party during the Civil War, that was their battle flag, not our battle flag, our battle flag was the stars and stripes with President Lincoln,” Olson said. “They have no credibility. Just shut up. Apologize now.”

So there it is, a move to defend the Confederate flag spearheaded by Republican members “from Mississippi, Georgia, Texas, Alabama and Virginia” and then championed by the GOP leadership is really, Olson implies, the fault of the Democrats.