Peter Wade
Sun, November 20, 2022
US-POLITICS-CONGRESS-GUN - Credit: POOL/AFP via Getty Images
Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez called out Rep. Lauren Boebert for her weak response to a Saturday night shooting at an LGBTQ+ nightclub in Colorado Springs that left at least five dead and 18 injured. Boebert — who is a gun enthusiast, former owner of gun-themed restaurant Shooters Grill and spreader of lies about LGBTQ “grooming” — took to Twitter to call the shooting “absolutely awful” while merely offering “prayers” to the victims and their families.
Ocasio-Cortez tweeted a response to the Republican congresswoman, writing, “You have played a major role in elevating anti-LGBT+ hate rhetoric and anti-trans lies while spending your time in Congress blocking even the most common sense gun safety laws.”
“You don’t get to ‘thoughts and prayers’ your way out of this,” she added. “Look inward and change.”
Not only is Boebert blindly pro-gun, she has also spread vicious, dangerous lies that LGBTQ+ people in the U.S. are “grooming” children. A report from the Center for Countering Digital Hate and the Human Rights Campaign found that Boebert was the third most influential Twitter account in the U.S. that spread the harmful and false “groomer narrative.” Her GOP colleague, Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene, was ranked number one. Meanwhile, hate crimes against LGBTQ+ people have been rising in areas of the U.S. and internationally. Experts have been warning that increases in anti-LGBTQ hate speech online can be seen as calls to action for extremists and extremist groups.
Boebert campaigned on her love of guns and when she was first elected, she pledged in an ad that she would “carry my Glock to Congress.” Following the school shooting in Uvalde, Texas, as advocates called for stricter gun safety laws, Boebert posted on Twitter, saying, “You can’t legislate away evil.”
“Why even be in Congress if you don’t believe in doing your job?” Ocasio-Cortez responded to Boebert at the time. “Just quit and let someone who actually gives a damn do it instead of acting like a useless piece of furniture when babies are shot with AR-15s that we let teen boys impulse buy before they can legally have a beer.”
Loree Seitz
Sun, November 20, 2022
Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez chastised Rep. Lauren Boebert for “elevating anti LGBT+ hate” and blocking gun safety laws in the wake of the mass shooting at an LGBTQ+ bar in Colorado Springs that killed at least five people and injured 25 others.
“@laurenboebert you have played a major role in elevating anti-LGBT+ hate rhetoric and anti-trans lies while spending your time in Congress blocking even the most common sense gun safety laws,” Ocasio-Cortez wrote Sunday. “You don’t get to ‘thoughts and prayers’ your way out of this. Look inward and change.”
Boebert, who recently won a seat Colorado’s Third Congressional District in a race against Democratic opponent Adam Frisch, expressed her outrage at the tragedy Sunday with a rallying call to end “lawless violence” “quickly.”
“The news out of Colorado Springs is absolutely awful,” Boebert wrote Sunday on Twitter. “This morning the victims & their families are in my prayers. This lawless violence needs to end and end quickly.”
Shortly after the statement, Ocasio-Cortez and many others condemned Boebert’s hypocrisy in calling the shooting “absolutely awful” despite using anti-LGBTQ+ rhetoric in her campaign.
Also Read:
Mass Shooting at Colorado Springs LGBTQ Club Leaves 5 Dead, 18 Injured
“Your record ‘is absolutely awful,'” wrote Mondaire Jones, a congressman for Rockland and Westchester. “You use hateful rhetoric towards the LGBTQ+ community and helped block even modest efforts to end gun violence. You’re also one of the reasons we put metal detectors outside the House floor.”
“Your first ad as a member of congress bragged about bringing guns onto the house floor. I walk through metal detectors to vote because of you,” congressman Jamaal Bowman added. “Your rhetoric and lack of legislative courage and humanity radicalized people to do the evil and unthinkable.”
Ocasio-Cortez also pointed out the correlation between hate and violence within recent shootings and attacks, urging the Republican party to “connect the dots.”
“After Trump elevated anti-immigrant & anti-Latino rhetoric, we had the deadliest anti-Latino shooting in modern history,” she wrote. “After anti-Asian hate w/COVID, Atlanta. Tree of life. Emanuel AME. Buffalo. And now after an anti-LGBT+ campaign, Colorado Springs. Connect the dots, @GOP.”
Lauren Boebert condemned for response
to Colorado Springs shooting
John Bowden
Sun, November 20, 2022
Conservative Colorado congresswoman Lauren Boebert faced blowback for her statement of concern in response to the shooting at a gay nightclub in the state when Twitter users accused her of trafficking in the same hate that has been blamed for the attack.
Ms Boebert tweeted after a shooting overnight at Club Q in Colorado Springs that “the news out of Colorado Springs is absolutely awful. This morning the victims & their families are in my prayers.
She added, “[t]his lawless violence needs to end and end quickly”.
But her remarks fell on deaf ears; Twitter users quickly noted that Ms Boebert was deeply entrenched in the resurgence of right-wing hate against the LGBT community. The freshman congresswoman, who holds a thin lead in a reelection bid headed for a recount, has more than once tweeted approvingly about the right-wing hate account LibsOfTikTok, which shines a spotlight on private citizens and businesses that are seen as members of or allied with the gay community; teachers and drag performers who interact with children are among the owner’s favourite targets. Those targeted by the account are subjected to relentless abuse from thousands of followers; in one recent high-profile case, the Boston Children’s Hospital received bomb threats after it was maligned by the account.
The last post on Facebook from Club Q before the shooting was advertising the upcoming “drag brunch” set for today at the venue, which has since been cancelled. Such events are frequent targets of LGBT hate and the LibsofTikTok account especially.
Just a few months ago, Ms Boebert tweeted that the LibsOfTikTokAccount had “discovered the most effective way to highlight the inconsistencies of Leftist logic” after it received a suspension from the platform.
One of the strongest rebukes of Ms Boebert came from Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, her fellow congresswoman.
“.@laurenboebert you have played a major role in elevating anti-LGBT+ hate rhetoric and anti-trans lies while spending your time in Congress blocking even the most common sense gun safety laws.You don’t get to “thoughts and prayers” your way out of this. Look inward and change,” she tweeted.
“So are you going to stop demonizing the LGBTQ community, or no?” progressive journalist John Iadarola tweeted at the congresswoman on Sunday.
“Don’t act like you’re not thrilled,” added another left-leaning journalist, Holly Anderson.
A third tweeted: “You can draw a straight line from the false & vile rhetoric about LGBTQ people spread by extremists & amplified across social media, to the nearly 300 anti-LGBTQ bills introduced this year, to (attacks)", quoting GLAAD, one of the nation’s largest LGBT anti-hate groups.
Others were more direct.
“Eat shit you f****ng ghoul,” advised Will Menaker, host of the popular “Chapo Trap House” podcast.
“What’s impressive is that you manage to be both insidiously evil AND mediocre,” added Saeed Jones, a writer and poet.
Ms Boebert was favoured to win reelection but may end up losing her seat to a Democrat if a recount in her district erases the small margin of votes she currently leads by.
Her underperformance is a symptom of the poor showing that Trump-aligned candidates had around the country in the midterm elections as the defeats of election deniers and hard-right conservatives around the country erased the GOP’s chances of taking the Senate and nearly cost the party a House majority as well.
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