Hillary Clinton Calls Out GOP Congress For Enabling Shootings

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Republican leaders mostly aren’t exactly known for having their priorities in order — a glaring, serious issue that Hillary Clinton pointed out on Twitter this Monday after another spate of devastating gun violence around the United States. Shortly afterwards, Clinton also pointed out how Republican states preparing to potentially dramatically restrict abortion aren’t also pushing to formulate new levels of care for new mothers and their children.

The right-wing agenda, it would seem, is shoring up their ideology — not actually accomplishing what their constituents need. “If Republicans in Congress can issue protections for Supreme Court justices after peaceful protests, they should protect the American people from out-of-control gun violence after three mass shootings in two days,” Clinton said in a Monday tweet. In a follow-up message covering abortion-related issues, she added: “States with impending abortion restrictions should provide: -Universal health care for mothers & babies -Access to contraception -Affordable child care -Paid parental leave. Instead, they offer the least support to mothers and children in the country.”

There are a slew of states with legal provisions in place that would automatically broadly ban abortions with comparatively very rare exceptions if the U.S. Supreme Court goes through with overturning its ruling in Roe v. Wade, which a recently leaked draft majority opinion suggested the court may soon do. There have been protests around the country in support of abortion rights since that draft document emerged, but the court could still go through with it — a rhetorical one-two punch in the Senate of Joe Manchin’s opposition and the chamber’s filibuster rules recently stopped Senate Democrats from passing new specific protections for abortion that have already been approved by the House. The filibuster rules, demanding that at least 60 Senators agree in the 100-member chamber before moving forward with most initiatives, weren’t the main problem since the effort’s supporters couldn’t get to 50 votes because of Manchin.

Meanwhile, Republicans aren’t just meandering around in their ideological fantasyland while real-world issues unfold — they’re exacerbating the serious, deadly problems. A recent mass shooting at a Buffalo supermarket was perpetrated by a white supremacist who touted the extremist conspiracy theory that white Americans are being intentionally “replaced” with non-white residents — and the following is what Rep. Elise Stefanik (R-N.Y.), who occupies the third-ranking party leadership position among House Republicans, posted on Twitter this Monday: “Democrats desperately want wide open borders and mass amnesty for illegals allowing them to vote. Like the vast majority of Americans, Republicans want to secure our borders and protect election integrity.” There is no widespread conspiracy to somehow replace native-born Americans and other citizens in the electorate with people born elsewhere — that’s just bonkers nonsense. But it’s dangerous, and this is what Republicans are either spreading or turning a blind eye to, even after deadly violence.