THE COMPLEAT KEITH ELLISON:

According to Ellison, Soliah/Olson was a social justice warrior fighting the good fight. The case had nothing to do with the attempted murder of police officers; that was but a pretext. The Los Angeles district attorney was pursuing the case in bad faith: “This is not about justice. This is not about accountability, this is not about public safety. THIS is about SYMBOLISM. This is about MAKING A POINT. This is about saying to you and to me that we are going to get you if you ever try to stand against what we’re about. WE’RE GOING TO GET YOU. And we’re going to lock you up and we don’t care how long it takes, we’re going to get you. There might be people who get book deals, or there might be private revenge, there might be all these things, but no prosecution like this would really float unless it had a very important, symbolic meaning that tied it together for the people involved in it. And it is the idea that the people who fought for social justice and to elevate humanity in the 60’s and 70’s were WRONG! They were wrong and we’re going to prove it because we’re going TO LOCK HER UP. That’s what it’s about.”

In 2006 Greg Lang dug up the text of Ellison’s speech as edited by Ellison himself and posted it on a site Lang dedicated to the Soliah case. Fearing that the site might disappear, as it has, I posted the speech in its entirety here on Power Line. The whole thing is indeed worth reading. To say the least, it reveals Ellison to be hostile to impartial enforcement of the law and indifferent to the lives of police officers. It is a shocking speech that betrays his unfitness for any public office, let alone attorney general. Then Star Tribune metro columnist Katherine Kersten devoted a column to Ellison’s National Lawyers Guild speech at the time Lang dug it up. When she sought out Ellison he declined to comment on his current view of Soliah/Olson or Chesimard/Shakur and he has not been asked about it since.

From the time of his third year at the University of Minnesota Law School (1989–1990) through the 2000 National Lawyers Guild speech Ellison was a hustler peddling the toxic Nation of Islam line. By 2002, when he ran a second time for office as a state legislator, he had jettisoned the Nation of Islam baggage. The vicious radicalism remained.

Vicious radicalism, you say?

READ ONE MAN’S FANTASTIC ACCOUNT OF WHEN HE REALIZED HE WAS BEING LIED TO ABOUT AMERICAN CONSERVATIVES.

DON’T GET COCKY: Rick Scott Predicts GOP Will Win at Least 52 Senate Seats in Midterms.

THREAT OF NATIONWIDE RAILROAD STRIKE GROWS AFTER 2ND UNION REJECTS PROPOSED DEAL.

LET ME JUST GET OUT AHEAD OF THE STORY AND SAY THAT ELON MUSK DID NOT COMMIT SUICIDE: It’s Elon Musk’s Twitter now and his reply to Hillary Clinton … well … pop that popcorn.

“Grab the popcorn, baby! It’s on! Maybe a questionable decision this early in his tenure as Chief Twit, but we’re here for the show, and we couldn’t write a better opening episode. This tweet would have gotten flagged for disinformation or taken down by Twitter in the before times. Now it’s out there in all its glory for people to read, debate, criticize, and all the other things that should happen in a free society where ideas are discussed with words INSTEAD of resorting to violence. It’s a new day!”

LOCKDOWNS: THE GREAT GASLIGHTING.

More than two years since the lockdowns of 2020, the political mainstream, particularly on the left, is just beginning to realize that the response to Covid was an unprecedented catastrophe.

But that realization hasn’t taken the form of a mea culpa. Far from it. On the contrary, in order to see that reality is starting to dawn on the mainstream left, one must read between the lines of how their narrative on the response to Covid has evolved over the past two years.

The narrative now goes something like this: Lockdowns never really happened, because governments never actually locked people in their homes; but if there were lockdowns, then they saved millions of lives and would have saved even more if only they’d been stricter; but if there were any collateral damage, then that damage was an inevitable consequence of the fear from the virus independent of the lockdowns; and even when things were shut down, the rules weren’t very strict; but even when the rules were strict, we didn’t really support them.

Put simply, the prevailing narrative of the mainstream left is that any upside from the response to Covid is attributable to the state-ordered closures and mandates that they supported, while any downside was an inevitable consequence of the virus independent of any state-ordered closures and mandates which never happened and which anyway they never supported. Got it? Good.

Live look at the left erasing the memory of 2020 from the population’s brains:

ROGER KIMBALL: Free Bird.

There are, I think, two major things to bear in mind about Musk’s takeover of Twitter. One is that, although he is not himself a conservative, the fact that he supports a robust view of free speech in which a wide variety of opinions are not only tolerated but encouraged means that he will be regarded as an existential threat by the progressive establishment.

That establishment is right to regard him as a threat. For its guardians require strict conformity in dispensing their twisted gospel of “diversity” if they are to maintain their power and perquisites. Open the door just a little, let just a little sunlight in, and pow! The magic spell that made it seem OK to say that men are women, that “climate change” is a threat to humanity, that COVID is a peril on the same plane as the Black Death, or that BLM and Antifa were justified in burning down our cities—suddenly that spell is broken, and so is the hold over the narrative that these new guardians of conformity had enforced.

The second thing to bear in mind is that the establishment will not sit idly by as Elon Musk challenges their narrative. Everything about Musk is an insult to the coddled, low-testosterone consensus that has been ruining America this last decade through the promulgation of its dependency agenda. It is no accident, as the Marxists say, that even as Musk pushes ahead with his reformation of Twitter, the coercive busybodies of the state have begun making minatory noises about “investigating” Musk. Thus we read that Tesla is under federal investigation over autopilot claims.

Expect more of that. Beatings will continue until morale improves. As Glenn Reynolds put it at Instapundit, “The Bureaucracy Mobilizes Against A Threat.” Were the midterms not just around the corner, I might be worried about this coalescing threat against Elon Musk. But come November 9, the clock will be ticking against that sclerotic, freedom-hating consensus. The bird is freed, and we will be too. Fiat Musk!

Read the whole thing.

WHY REMAKE A 92-YEAR-OLD OSCAR-WINNING MOVIE? All Quiet on the Western Front director explains.

Despite their nearly 100-year gap, both movie versions of Erich Maria Remarque’s enduring 1929 novel are echoes of each other, due largely to their reliance on the book.

Young men are lured into battle by passionate speeches; the brutal reality of battle sinks in quickly as they scrounge for food and watch each other die; Paul, the protagonist played by a haunting Felix Kammerer, kills a Frenchman in hand-to hand combat and immediately regrets it; and in the end, there is only ignominious defeat.

But [Edward] Berger’s version reaches a new level of poignancy and even urgency given the tenor of the times.

It does so first by focusing on the way in which young German boys were turned into cannon fodder by adults spouting nationalist dogma, and secondly by spotlighting how Germany’s capitulation at the end of World War I – and the sense of shame in defeat stoked by politicians – gave rise years later to Nazism and ultimately World War II.

In that, says Berger, is a lesson for us all in 2022.

“I’m sensitive to nationalist movements, so with the rise of Trump and Brexit and the far right in Hungary and Italy, it’s important to remember that 100 years ago, this all led us to a catastrophe,” he says.

Which seems odd considering Trump started no new wars while in office, Brexit seems like a pretty benign decoupling from the legalistic yoke of the EU, and “Matteo Renzi, a former [Italian] prime minister who is liberal, threw cold water on the idea that `[Giorgia] Meloni is a fascist or a demagogue on CNN. ‘She’s my rival, we will continue to fight each other, but there is not a risk of fascism in Italy,’ he said. ‘It is absolutely fake news.’”

ANDREW SULLIVAN: The British Barack Obama? The unlikely rise of Rishi Sunak — and the American left’s staggering silence.

Sunak is, for example, an openly practicing and proud Hindu. He lit Diwali lights around 11 Downing Street and took his oath on the Bhagavad Gita. That’s not someone running from his heritage. And he is also a Brexiteer from conviction, and, unlike Truss, a fiscal conservative who’s a realist about what can and can’t be done in a period of extraordinary economic stress for Brits and massive post-Covid debt.

All of this suggests something too many liberals have forgotten. These countries of alleged “white supremacy” have less racism than almost anywhere else in the world. It is hard to imagine a non-white president of France or Germany or Italy — let alone China or Russia or anywhere in Central Europe. It is hard to think of another empire that was deliberately unwound by its architects, and who then, within two generations, installed the grandson of former colonial subjects to its most powerful office. And Obama, of course, was twice elected with more heartland white support than Hillary Clinton.

Sunak has, moreover, been selected by the Tory party — that bastion of alleged bigotry that has already had three female prime ministers in its history, and now also a non-white man, James Cleverly, as foreign secretary, and a woman of Indian ancestry, Suella Braverman, as home secretary. Three of the top four ministers of state in Sunak’s cabinet are non-white. The new chairman of the Conservative party is Nadhim Zahawi. I’m telling you this because the US MSM — who are usually obsessed with racial representation in every single mundane situation — suddenly aren’t that interested, when some of their woke priors are rattled.

This is true of the broader American left. A faction obsessed with racial “equity” cannot take a moment to observe a historical moment of extraordinary proportions. Some, like Trevor Noah, have even completely invented a racist “backlash” against Sunak that simply hasn’t happened, apart from one call on one radio call-in show. (I was on BBC Radio this morning talking to an interviewer who was simply baffled by the projection.)

Noah has the excuse of being a comedian.

Like his predecessor at The Daily Show, Noah can always fallback on the “clown nose on/clown nose off” defense.

Related: Can We Please Have Some Racism? “The Left hungers for racism–of the approved sort–but it is hard to find. Trevor Noah, the host of the Daily Show, went looking for racism in the ascension of Rishi Sunak as Prime Minister of the United Kingdom. Noah purported to see a ‘backlash’ against Sunak, for which there is zero evidence. To be fair, though, when has a total lack of evidence ever stopped a liberal comedian–isn’t the Daily Show supposed to be comedy?–or newsman?”

QUESTION ASKED: Are we living through ‘Weekend at Biden’s?’ America needs to know, but the complicit media won’t ask.

Are staffers covering up for President Joe Biden the way they did for Senate candidate John Fetterman?

Tuesday night’s debate revealed Fetterman’s debilitated post-stroke condition — and thus also exposed both the campaign staff who’d hidden the truth and the Dem-loving members of the media who for months covered for the progressive politico, even stomping on any reporters who raised doubts.

Like Fetterman, Biden keeps the media at arm’s length — vastly more so than any recent prez. He did only nine formal press conferences in all of 2021, and eight so far this year. He’s done just 20 sit-down interviews (many of them softball) through the first year-and-a-half of his presidency.

And that follows his “hide in the basement” presidential campaign, which also required massive media complicity. When he did appear before cameras he often delivered immortal lines like his “Look, fat” while addressing a voter in Iowa.

Turning 80 next month, Biden’s already the oldest man ever to serve as president. And for all his lifelong habit of gaffes and verbal bumbling, it’s becoming harder and harder to watch the man without thinking he has some serious neurological problems.

Related: Watch: Joe Biden’s Senior Moment of the Week Vol. 17. Exit quote: “Am I don’t have the same pace?”

JOHN FETTERMAN POSTS A PHOTO OF HIS CAMPAIGN SIGN STILL BURNING IN DEEP-RED LAWRENCE COUNTY: “When will the political violence from the Right end? The editor’s just about had it … Speaker Nancy Pelosi barely escaped another assassination attempt incited by Donald Trump, and now this. Pennsylvania Senate candidate John Fetterman posted this photo of one of his campaign signs in deep-red Lawrence County burning. Not after it burned, but while it was burning. It wasn’t even halfway gone. Whoever set the fire made a hasty getaway is all we’re saying. ”

DON’T GET COCKY: Democrats Already Blaming Voters for Midterm Loss. ‘I cannot believe anybody would vote for these people.’

RICK McGINNIS AT STEYN ONLINE: Dracula in Sin City: The Night Stalker and Prime Time Horror.

[Darren] McGavin bounced back and forth between TV, theatre and movies (forgettable films like Bullet for a Badman (1964), The Great Sioux Massacre (1965) and Mission Mars (1968)) before being cast by producer/director Dan Curtis as Carl Kolchak in a TV movie based on an unpublished novel. Curtis had just come off the peculiar notoriety of Dark Shadows, a vampire soap opera that ran for five years on ABC, but thought he was done with both television and the movies after directing two Dark Shadows movies for MGM.

Curtis was approached by Barry Diller, the creator of ABC’s Movie of the Week, who told him he had a script by Richard Matheson he wanted him to make. Matheson was something of a legend among writers working in Hollywood, and his scripts for The Twilight Zone (notably “Nightmare at 20,000 Feet”) and Star Trek (“The Enemy Within”) were much admired. Curtis was a huge fan, but after Dark Shadows he wasn’t interested in directing and told Diller he wanted to produce the picture.

Curtis had McGavin in mind from the moment he read Matheson’s screenplay, and it’s hard to imagine anyone else in the role. There’s his voice – smarmy and cocky, a man who’s used to getting away with far more than he should. But McGavin’s Kolchak did a lot to create the picture of the lowly journalist, bouncing from newsroom to newsroom, a few notches below the reputable hacks at a major daily like the New York Times, or earnest young college boys like Carl Bernstein and Bob Woodward, soon to remake the public image of the reporter.

Kolchak owes more than a bit to misfits with a byline like Hunter S. Thompson, right down to his white sneakers and khakis. McGavin accessorized these with a rumpled seersucker jacket and a straw hat with a wide blue and red band. (You can buy replicas of the Kolchak raffia hat online.) He travels with a manual typewriter in a case and goes everywhere with his Sony TC-40 tape recorder and various cameras – a Pentax Spotmatic and a Nikon in The Night Stalker, a Rollei 16mm subminiature in the movie sequel and the TV show that were spawned by the success of the film. Fun fact: Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas was published in 1971.

Earlier: Mark Judge on What Journalists Can Learn from The Night Stalker. “Carl Kolchak might seem crazy, but as Lucas observes in the audio commentary, ’pause to consider what historians now tell us about what was really going on between the White House and journalists at this particular time.’ It was a paranoid time in the United States, but people were afraid for good reason. Lucas cites Poisoning the Press, Mark Feldstein’s book about Richard Nixon and the media. Nixon planted stories and letters in the press to try and undermine the reporting of Jack Anderson. The President even considered plans to poison Anderson. ‘Ratf**king,’ the precursor to today’s opposition research, was destroying lives.”

COVID-19 ORIGINS: Investigating a “Complex and Grave Situation” Inside a Wuhan Lab.

Vanity Fair and ProPublica downloaded more than 500 documents from the WIV website, including party branch dispatches from 2017 to the present. To assess Reid’s interpretation, we sent key documents to experts on CCP communications. They told us that the WIV dispatches did indeed signal that the institute faced an acute safety emergency in November 2019; that officials at the highest levels of the Chinese government weighed in; and that urgent action was taken in an effort to address ongoing safety issues. The documents do not make clear who was responsible for the crisis, which laboratory it affected specifically or what the exact nature of the biosafety emergency was.

The interim report also raises questions about how quickly vaccines were developed in China by some teams, including one led by a military virologist named Zhou Yusen. The report called it “unusual” that two military COVID-19 vaccine development teams were able to reach early milestones even faster than the major drug companies who were part of the U.S. government’s Operation Warp Speed program.

Vanity Fair and ProPublica spoke to experts who said that the timeline of Zhou’s vaccine development seemed unrealistic, if not impossible. Two of the three experts said it strongly suggested that his team must have had access to the genomic sequence of the virus no later than in November 2019, weeks before China’s official recognition that the virus was circulating.

The authors of the interim report do not claim to have definitively solved the mystery of COVID-19’s origin. “The lack of transparency from government and public health officials in the [People’s Republic of China] with respect to the origins of SARS-CoV-2 prevents reaching a more definitive conclusion,” the report says, adding that its conclusion could change if more independently verifiable information becomes available.

Throughout the pandemic, the WIV has largely remained a black box, owing to the Chinese government’s refusal to cooperate with international probes. By mining the WIV’s own records, Toy Reid and Senate researchers unearthed new clues that support the interim report’s assessment that a lab accident was “most likely” responsible for the pandemic.

More on that “Acute Safety Emergency in November 2019” from Jim Geraghty:

Separately, ProPublica and Vanity Fair question how Yusen Zhou could have applied for a patent for a SARS-CoV-2 vaccine on February 24, 2020. Yusen Zhou is the director of the State Key Laboratory of Pathogen and Biosecurity at the Academy of Military Medical Sciences Institute of Microbiology and Epidemiology, in Beijing. The top experts in vaccine development conclude that it is impossible to start from scratch and have a vaccine ready in three months. A South China Morning News report said that the Chinese government traced the first case of Covid-19 back to November 17, but other reports said that Chinese doctors only came to realize that they were dealing with a new and serious virus in late December; the first public statement about a “cluster of pneumonia cases with an unknown cause” from Chinese health authorities was dated to December 21, 2019. Yet the evidence suggests that the Chinese military and medical authorities would’ve had to have started the research on their vaccine before the first cases emerged:

Vanity Fair and ProPublica consulted two independent experts and one expert adviser to the interim report to get their assessment of when Zhou’s research was likely to have begun. Two of the three said that he had to have started no later than November 2019, in order to complete the mouse research spelled out in his patent and subsequent papers.

Larry Kerr, who advised on the interim report, called the timeline laid out in Zhou’s patent and research papers “scientifically, technically not possible.” He added, “I don’t think any molecular biology lab in the world, no matter how sophisticated, could pull that off.”

Rick Bright, the former HHS official who helped oversee vaccine development for the U.S. government, told Vanity Fair and ProPublica that even a four-month timetable would be “aggressive,” especially when the virus in question is new. “Things aren’t usually that perfect,” he said.

You wanted a smoking gun? I smell smoke, and that gun barrel feels awfully warm.

As David Strom of Hot Air adds: The COVID coverup begins to unravel. “It was remarkable how quickly the Narrative™ settled on the zoonotic origin of the virus, since warning signs that the virus didn’t originate naturally were everywhere. Even scientists who confidently declared in private their belief that the virus was engineered publicly stated the opposite–after having been directed to by Anthony Fauci, the keeper of the keys to the kingdom’s treasury when it comes to research dollars. Fauci in recent months has been backtracking on whether or not the virus could have been engineered, but he sure expended enormous effort maintaining the fiction that an animal origin was certain. There is a simple reason for Fauci’s reluctance to consider a lab leak hypothesis–if it came from the Wuhan Institute for Virology, the US government likely funded the research. Obviously nobody wants that on their record, and Fauci has quite the pension to protect, as well as an unearned reputation as The Science™.”

QUESTION ASKED AND (POSSIBLY) ANSWERED:

Shot:

Chaser:

Hangover: Report: Paul Pelosi ‘sounded somewhat confused’, referred to attacker as ‘friend’ during 911 call.

—The Post Millenial, today.

The D.T.s:

OBAMA: Herschel Walker is a ‘celebrity who wants to be a politician’, you know.

David has a fun post up today about Stacey Abrams and her gigantic ego that refuses to accept defeat. You know who else has a huge ego? Barack Obama. That is why it’s so delicious to hear him accuse others of such things. He told the crowd that Herschel Walker is “a celebrity to who wants to be a politician.” The irony in that statement is that Barack Obama is a politician who wants to be a celebrity. He was elevated to celebrity status during his time in the White House and celebrities were regular guests at the Obama White House. Michelle Obama held regular live performances by musicians and singers to entertain the Obamas and their guests. Sports stars stopped by and we were even subjected to Obama’s annual picks during March Madness.

Walker was a brilliant running back in college and the USFL (and alas, a key player in the Dallas Cowboys’ three Super Bowl wins of the 1990s), but I don’t think his goal was to become the Biggest Celebrity in the World.

ASKING THE IMPORTANT QUESTIONS: Who is Rahul Ligma?

It turns out that the purportedly fired Twitter employees featured in the news yesterday were hoaxers with a good sense of humor. CNBC’s story on them now comes with an editor’s note: “After CNBC published details of an interview with people who claimed to be fired employees of Twitter, several reports emerged suggesting it was a hoax. CNBC could not confirm the identities of the individuals.” The New York Post follows up in “Pranksters posing as laid-off Twitter employees trick media outlets: ‘Rahul Ligma.’”

“Rahul” went all the way in the name of authenticity: he “held a copy of Michelle Obama’s book ‘Becoming’ aloft while speaking to reporters.”

Hoaxer “Rahul Ligma” had a good name. Hoaxer “Daniel Johnson” had a good line, reported by CNBC’s Deirdre Bosa: “Daniel tells us he owns a Tesla and doesn’t know how he’s going to make payments.” I’m choking up as I write. The hoaxers can be seen in Bosa’s tweet below.

UPDATE: It’s real, and it’s spectacular:

Self-described “technology columnist” at the Washington Post just knocking it out the park.

Flashback: Are There Any Adults at the Washington Post?

PLEASE ENJOY THIS THREE-MINUTE MASTERCLASS IN DEALING WITH THE CORPORATE MEDIA FROM TUDOR DIXON, THE WOMAN WHO WILL REPLACE MITTEN QUEEN WHITMER:

Michigan Republican @TudorDixon running to defeat Gov. Whitmer gives absolute masterclass on OWNING the Corporate Media for 3 straight minutes

WATCH. pic.twitter.com/TM0EBfSaTN

— Benny Johnson (@bennyjohnson) October 26, 2022

BLAKE MASTERS IS BRINGING THE FIRE! “WOOF! This ad is something else!”

Mark Kelly wants to mask your kids pic.twitter.com/JuXsV44Pld

— Blake Masters (@bgmasters) October 27, 2022

It’s not a typical campaign advertising boogie man scare tactic, either. For an uber-pricey Kelly campaign event (tickets ranged from $100 to $5000) held yesterday,

the invitation/ticket reservation information sheet had the following requirements listed:

An advisory by the Mark Kelly for Senate campaign that children over the age of two or people who don’t disclose their vaccine status would be required to wear masks to a spendy fundraiser has sparked interest on social media and outraged physicians, who question both the efficacy of masks and any adults that would force a child to don one.

“We are asking attendees to voluntarily disclose their vaccine status at the door. Those who are vaccinated are asked to bring proof of vaccination and (either a vaccination card or a photo of a vaccination card) when checking in at the event. We are asking that people who don’t disclose their status, over the age of 2, wear a mask indoors and outdoors. Mark Kelly of Senate will only use vaccination information for the purpose of determining safety protocols for in-person Campaign events in compliance with applicable state, and local, or federal relations (sic) related to such events. Vaccination information will never be stored. The health and safety of attendees is Mark Kelly for Senate’s top priority. Even the Campaign’s best efforts can’t eliminate all risk from COVID-19, and so attendees assume the risk by choosing to attend this event.”

They don’t seem to be able to help themselves, do they? Kelly’s big on the vaccination thing and, in August of 2021, said people shouldn’t be b*tching about masks if they weren’t going to get shot up.

Elsewhere in Arizona politics: Kari Lake Has the Perfect Response to Liz Cheney’s Ad Buy Against Her.

“So in addition to throwing away the money this late in the season, it looks like Cheney is also helping get Lake elected. How delicious is that? The last poll, the Fox 29/InsiderAdvantage poll, had her up by 11 points.”

NO ENEMIES TO THE LEFT: Newsweek Proclaims Antifa Doesn’t Exist in Bizarre Ted Cruz ‘Fact Check.’

UNEXPECTEDLY! German inflation unexpectedly accelerated this month.

German inflation unexpectedly accelerated this month, following a trend already seen in France and Italy that will increase pressure on the European Central Bank to raise interest rates even as a recession looms.

Consumer prices in Europe’s largest economy rose 11.6% from a year earlier — far exceeding all estimates in a Bloomberg survey whose median forecast was 10.9%. Comparable rates were last recorded in the early 1950s in West Germany.

Don’t worry — what’s the worst that could happen?

MICHAEL SHELLENBERGER: Pelosi Attack Suspect Was A Psychotic Homeless Addict Estranged From His Pedophile Lover And Their Children.

Leading politicians yesterday blamed the political Right for the brutal attack on House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s husband Paul. “This is despicable,” said President Biden. He noted that the alleged attacker, David DePape, 42, shouted the same line, “Where’s Nancy?” as the supporters of Donald Trump, who stormed the U.S. Capitol on January 6, 2021. “And what makes us think that one party can talk about stolen elections?” said Biden. “COVID being a hoax? It’s all a bunch of lies.”

California political leaders agreed. “This heinous assault is yet another example of the dangerous consequences of the divisive and hateful rhetoric that is putting lives at risk and undermining our very democracy and Democratic institutions,” said California Governor Gavin Newsom. “This attack,” said San Francisco’s state Senator, Scott Weiner, “is terrifying and the direct result of toxic right-wing rhetoric.”

Journalists, en masse, agreed with their assessment. DePape “appears to have made racist and often rambling posts online,” noted AP, in a report this morning that encapsulated the media narrative, “including some that questioned the results of the 2020 election, defended former President Donald Trump and echoed QAnon conspiracy theories.”

But DePape’s politics have little rhyme or reason. In past years DePape shared a post about Stephen Colbert’s 2006 roast of President George W. Bush at the White House Correspondents dinner; linked to videos of Disney films altered to make it look like the characters were swearing; and claimed, “Jesus is the anti-Christ” — not exactly a litany of right-wing tropes.

And, as I discovered yesterday, DePape lived with a notorious local nudist in a Berkeley home, complete with a Black Lives Matter sign in the window and an LGBT rainbow flag, emblazoned with a marijuana symbol, hanging from a tree. A closer look reveals the characteristics of a homeless encampment, or what Europeans call “an open drug scene.” In the driveway, there is a broken-down camper van. On the street is a yellow school bus, which neighbors said DePape occasionally stayed in. Both are filled with garbage typical of such structures in homeless encampments. People come and go from the house and the vehicles, neighbors say, in part to partake in the use of a potent psychedelic drug, ibogaine.

DePape’s residence doesn’t exactly scream “This is MAGA country!” judging by the photos:

THE REPUBLICAN RAINBOW COALITION:

Crist attacked Gov. Ron DeSantis for the now widely supported Parental Rights in Education Bill that progressives once tried to mock as the “Don’t Say Gay” bill. The former Republican governor and Democratic congressman (which pretty much says it all) accused DeSantis of launching a culture war in schools. DeSantis doubled down to destroy him.

“When you oppose the Parent’s Rights in Education Bill, which prevents 6-, 7-, 8-year-olds from having sexuality gender ideology injected in their curriculum, you are the one that’s waging the culture war,” DeSantis said. “Because it’s inappropriate to have that in elementary school. It’s inappropriate to tell a 6-year-old that they were born in the wrong body. It’s inappropriate to tell an 8-year-old that they may have been born a girl but maybe they’re really a boy.” With Crist looking blank, DeSantis personalized the point: “My daughters are very athletic. And we signed legislation to protect the right of women’s athletes. That you should not have someone competing on the men’s team for three years and then switch to the women’s team.” Then he delivered the coup de grâce: “Charlie Crist opposed that bill. He said he would have vetoed it. I’m going to protect women’s sports in the state of Florida.”

Voters clearly like what they heard. Almost every RealClearPolitics poll gives DeSantis a double-digit lead over Crist, and for good reason. Under his administration, Florida has gone from a purple state to a solid red one, thanks in part to his exploding approval among Hispanics. A new Telemundo/LX News poll puts DeSantis at 56 percent approval with the group and just 41 percent disapproval (he had lost Hispanics by 10 percentage points when he won in 2018). And despite Democratic wailing, the majority of them, 50 percent, supported his Martha’s Vineyard immigrant drop-off. Hispanic backing could help DeSantis be the first Republican governor to win the formerly blue Miami-Dade County since Jeb Bush 20 years ago. And the Latino-driven reddening may extend beyond Florida to the rest of the country, due to Democratic racism.

It was indeed progressive racism that presumed Latinos — as a Democrat-designated minority group — would go along with leftist lunacy when it went against their very traditions and religion. In the liberal mindset, nonwhite automatically means anti-white and pro-illegal immigration. Thus, leftists thought they could push their LGBTQ-X agenda down a macho, Catholic, family-centric culture’s throat. Could tell them any man or woman can switch from madre to padre. Could brand group members “Latinx,” expecting them to embrace androgyny like most Democrats do.

Related: Florida Board of Medicine Votes to Limit ‘Gender-Affirming’ Care for Minors.

STRIKE A POSE, THERE’S NOTHING TO IT: John Fetterman’s ‘Trump-Voting Republican’ Parents Are Card-Carrying Democrats.

Related: Calling out the Fetterman cult. “For you see, like Jill Biden, Gisele Fetterman uses her husband to gain power. She plays the American political game well. Questioning her husband’s ability to understand simple conversation is ‘ableist.’ Swimming is racist. She says these loony things knowing she does not have to make sense. All she has to do is give her supporters a moral cause. Living in a mansion is her way of fighting racism. But what she is doing is evil because she is profiting from someone else’s pain — a person she once professed to love.”

STACY MCCAIN: Deranged Canadian Nudist Breaks Into Nancy Pelosi’s SF Mansion and Attacks Her Husband With Hammer.