Amy Curtis: “If you don’t know Wisconsin, let me explain that Madison is so left-wing it flies in circles.” Indeed. Kamala Harris got 75% of the vote in Dane County, which is a higher percentage than Harris got in Fulton County, Georgia. The fact that a drug-addicted career criminal fresh out of prison was wandering the streets of Madison is not surprising. What is surprising is that, when the aforesaid criminal was accused of stealing bicycles and attempting to burglarize vehicles in broad daylight, the Madison police actually tried to arrest him:
The man who was killed by police in Madison, Wisconsin, a shocking caught-on-camera shooting — sparking protests — was a violent ex-con with a lengthy record, including for assaulting cops, The Post can reveal. Corey Durrell Ruiz, 38, was identified by local officials and his family in social media posts. State Rep. Shelia Stubbs, a Democrat, said Ruiz “should still be alive.” Brandi Grayson, the head of the Madison-based black community advocacy group Urban Triage, decried the shooting as, “Another black man is dead on a Madison street.” Protesters have flooded the streets of Madison, Wisconsin, where the shooting happened and local black activists have seized on the killing.
Ruiz had recently been released from prison, and had knifed a cop moments before he was fatally shot, according to authorities.
Prison records show that Ruiz was Hispanic, and not black — though court records listed him as African-American.
Online court records show at least 25 criminal cases dating back to 2007. In 2023, he was convicted of battery to a law enforcement officer and resisting a law enforcement officer. He most recently was convicted in 2025 of retail theft and resisting police.
The Wisconsin State Journal quoted friends as saying that he was homeless and had longtime problems with drug addiction. He was released from prison in May of this year and was listed as having absconded from supervised release.
Lots to chew over in that brief excerpt, but the main thing is that Ruiz had only been out of prison for a few weeks and was in violation of his parole (which is what “absconded from supervised release” means)
Corey Ruiz (left); his final arrest (right).
Also highly relevant is that “friends” of Ruiz said “he was homeless and had longtime problems with drug addiction.” If you fell on hard times, would you become homeless? Almost certainly not, because you have friends and family who would take you in until you got back on your feet. However, if you’re a drug addict with a violent criminal history, even your own family won’t let you stay under their roof. Anyone who’s dealt with drug addicts understands this — a junkie will steal everything that’s not nailed down if he can sell it to feed his habit, which is why the junkie is not welcome even at his family members’ homes. But then the junkie gets shot by a cop, Ben Crump shows up to “demand justice,” and suddenly those very same relatives — lured by the scent of a generous wrongful death settlement from the city — turn out to praise the deceased felon they turned away when he got out of prison:
Race baiter attorney Ben Crump held a press conference with the Ruiz family in Madison, who spoke publicly for the first time since the incident. The family tearfully remembered Corey Ruiz trying to portray him as a “loving father ” and “good son. while criticizing the Madison… pic.twitter.com/NV9w52dDpu
— American Nightmare ?? (@thewakeninq) July 25, 2026
The family of the man shot and killed by Madison, Wisconsin, police during a confrontation spoke out Friday about their grief during an emotional news conference and called for justice. Corey Ruiz’s mother, daughter, partner and siblings joined attorney Ben Crump, expressing their sadness and frustration about his death.
Elsa Ruiz briefly spoke before breaking down in tears. “He loved his daughter. He loved his family. He did not deserve to be taken out like that,” she said, referring to death of her son, which was captured on video by bystanders.
Madison Police Chief John Patterson said officers were responding to a call Wednesday afternoon about a person allegedly checking parked vehicles when they confronted Ruiz and, police said, he fled on a bicycle. . . .
After Ruiz fell from his bicycle, Patterson said, a struggle ensued between Ruiz and four responding officers and Ruiz allegedly pulled out a knife, injuring one officer. That officer fired the shots that killed Ruiz, he said. . . .
Crump contended there was no reason for the police to chase Ruiz in the first place.
“This was a suspicion of a property crime, there was no property crime,” he said. . . .
Veronica Ruiz, Corey Ruiz’s older sister, said the public should not judge her brother by his past.
“His criminal record tells a tale of trauma, of pain, of struggle. It does not define who my brother was,” she said. . . . Marjorie Aliomar, the mother of Corey Ruiz’s 13-year-old daughter Kah’Liyah, told reporters that she saw the video of the shooting before she was told that it was Ruiz. She noted that it took place close to their home and her daughter’s school.
“I hate that she has to walk past this every day, and … I hate that he will never see her graduate,” Aliomar said.
Yeah, but Corey wasn’t living with you, was he, ma’am? He wasn’t living with you, or his mother, or his sister. He had been on the streets ever since he got out of prison, because he was a junkie and a criminal, and you couldn’t do anything about that, could you? Now that there’s a chance at collecting some slice of a settlement payout from the city, however, you’re standing up there in front of the TV cameras telling us how much you loved him, and nobody in the media is even asking the obvious question: “If you loved him so much, why was he homeless?”
A man armed with a knife was shot by police in Madison, WI yesterday.
Today, the police chief had his press conference interrupted by a psychopath ranting about zionism and imperialism.
What a constant humiliation it must be, working as the police chief in a city like Madison, where the protest mobs turn out demanding “justice” when a criminal gets shot after stabbing a cop. How can you enforce the law in a community where the citizens believe it’s acceptable to stab police officers? I’m sure every officer on the force in Madison would gladly resign if they could get a job anywhere the people are sane enough to realize that nobody deserves a second chance to stab a cop.
Say hello to Da’shontay “Day Day” King and, while you’re at it, go ahead and say good-bye, because Day Day got shot to death by a cop in Racine, Wisconsin, in May 2022. The reason I’m writing this up now is kind of a long story, and let me preface this by repeating what I’ve often said before: Crime is a people problem. If you want to prevent crime, you must first understand that the vast majority of violent crime is committed by a relatively small percentage of the population, i.e., habitual criminals. These are repeat offenders, who generally begin their criminal careers while still juveniles, and are more or less constantly involved in criminal activity their entire adult lives. The public is never safe as long as these habitual criminals are on the street, and so the goal of law enforcement should be to identify these hard-core types and, when they are apprehended for one of their many crimes, make sure they go to prison for the maximum sentence. I’ve called this “The Al Capone Rule” — it was difficult to get criminal convictions against the Chicago gang boss, so the feds indicted him for income tax evasion and put him away. It didn’t matter what charge Capone was finally convicted for — he’d obviously gotten away with all kinds of crimes, including murder. What really mattered was getting Capone off the streets. If modern-day law enforcement would use the same approach with habitual criminals, we’d have a lot less crime. And so . . . felon in possession of a firearm:
Chilling dashcam footage shows a Florida man chasing and shooting at sanitation workers.
Quinson De’Shawn Croson has been arrested after opening fire on a garbage truck, chasing it through Zephyrhills and shooting at it following an argument at a Wawa. The incident left two… pic.twitter.com/OPvvX215Ty
— I Meme Therefore I Am ?? (@ImMeme0) July 4, 2025
Quinson De’Shawn Croson, 46, got into an argument with an acquaintance inside a Wawa convenience store in Pasco County, Florida, about 30 miles northwest of Tampa:
Croson reportedly followed the other man and his coworker to their Waste Connections garbage truck, where the argument “quickly escalated.”
Other witnesses told Zephyrhills P.D. that Croson grabbed a handgun from his vehicle and began firing multiple rounds at the garbage truck while chasing it down the street.
Authorities say Croson eventually crashed his vehicle into the garbage truck near Dairy Road, causing the passenger side door to open and eject the passenger. . . .
Croson was later located in Hillsborough County and arrested. He is charged with two counts of attempted homicide and one count of possession of a firearm by a convicted felon.
Dianna Deeley called that story to my attention, and I immediately focused on that charge of possession of a firearm by a convicted felon. We hear so much rhetoric about “gun violence,” but there seems to be little public understanding of how much of this violence is committed by habitual criminals with prior felony convictions who, if prosecutors and judges were doing their jobs right, would have already been locked up. Dianna sent me that story with a Crazy People Are Dangerous suggestion — Florida man chasing a garbage truck — but instead it made me wonder, “Why was this guy out on the streets to begin with?”
Also, how does an argument turn into attempted murder? My guess is that, in kindergarten, Quinson De’Shawn Croson did not “play well with others.” That is to say, this convicted felon has a personality problem, which explains why he was a convicted felon in the first place. No rehabilitation program can fix a problem like that. And now, speaking of Crazy People Are Dangerous . . .
That 11-minute video shows a scene recorded on police body cameras in August 2023. Police officers were called to some kind of halfway house, where one of the female residents had assaulted a staff member. When the staff member got in her car to leave, the woman jumped on top of the staffer’s car. As becomes apparent from comments made by some of the officers, the suspect named Kayla was known to them from previous incidents. At one point, Kayla climbs down from the roof of the car, and gets into the backseat of the car to again assault the staffer. As police are trying to drag Kayla out of the car, she kicks a female officer in the face, giving the officer a bloody nose. Did I mention that, as soon as the cops arrived on the scene, Kayla began insulting them as “crackers”?
The most shocking part of the video, however, comes at the end, when we learn that after being charged with a litany of crimes — including bail jumping for prior offenses — Kayla managed to get a plea deal in which she pleaded no contest to a felony charge of battery on a law enforcement officer and was sentenced to three years of probation.
She kicked a cop in the face! She was only in jail for three days!
Despite diligent research efforts, I was not able to figure out Kayla’s surname or find any news articles about her case. However, someone left a comment on the video that indicated it happened in Racine, Wisconsin, where the District Attorney is Tricia Hanson. You know when I go down a research rabbit hole like this, I’m not stopping until I’m down at the bottom, neck-deep in rabbit poop, which is how this inquiry led me to the case of Da’shontay “Day Day” King:
A Racine police officer has been cleared in a deadly shooting.
Racine County District Attorney Patricia Hanson announced Tuesday that she will not file charges against Officer Zachary Brenner, who fatally shot Da’Shontay King on May 20 during a police pursuit.
The state Department of Justice led the investigation into the shooting and turned its findings over to the district attorney. Hanson released the body camera footage and her 27-page decision before family had a chance to view it Tuesday.
Brenner said he tried pulling King over for a traffic violation when King stopped the car and took off running.
Video footage shows Brenner chasing King, telling him multiple times not to reach for a weapon or he would shoot him. Still images of the video, included in Hanson’s report show what she says is a gun falling out of King’s pocket, WISN-TV reported.
Hanson said it shows him turning to pick up the gun and then holding the gun. Moments later, Brenner said he feared for his life and shot King several times.
“My review of the facts and circumstances of this case led me to the conclusion that Officer Brenner is immune from criminal liability in this case as the death of Mr. King was a direct result of Mr. King’s conduct that posed a reasonable and imminent threat to Officer Brenner, under the circumstances as they existed at the time,” Hanson wrote.
That article has some important omissions, which I’ll explain momentarily, but you can watch the video here:
If you’ve watched that video, you know that the most relevant fact omitted from the news article was that Day Day King wasn’t pulled over for any “traffic violation.” He was a suspect in prior shootings:
On May 17, 2022, Officer Zachary Brenner was working as a Community Oriented Policing (COP) Officer for the Racine Police Department. An Investigator from the Racine County Gang Crime Task Force advised Officer Brenner of an active search warrant that had been signed by a Judge, and provided Officer Brenner with a copy of the search warrant. A judge found that there was probable cause to believe that Dashontay L. King, dob 8/84, and/or EAS [a criminal associate of King’s], dob 5/80, would be in possession of firearms, despite both being prohibited from possessing a firearm due to prior felony convictions. Probable cause was also found by the judge that a rental vehicle being used by Mr. King and EAS might contain firearms, a gray 2021 Volkswagen Atlas with a Wisconsin registration of AKT8763.
Officer Brenner stated that he reviewed the search warrant and that he recognized the names from other recent shooting investigations where the names had been mentioned as being involved, but that he had never had contact with the two people mentioned in the warrant. Officer Brenner was given photos of Mr. King and EAS, and that he kept the photos of the subjects and a copy of the search warrant with him at all times on the visor of his vehicle. Officer Brenner stated that he also looked up the vehicle type, a Volkswagen Atlas, on Google to make sure he knew what type of vehicle he was looking for.
That’s from the 27-page official report from the DA and, as you see, the local Gang Crime Task Force was very familiar with Day Day King, who was sufficiently notorious in Racine that Officer Brenner recognized the name “from other recent shooting investigations.” Furthermore, I’ve read the affidavits in the case, and can tell you that (a) the car was rented two weeks earlier by a female associate of Day Day, and (b) police noted that there was a bullet hole in the car. We may presume that at some point in the previous two weeks, Day Day (or his accomplice “EAS”) had been in a shootout with rival gangsters while driving the rented Volkswagen.
That’s a screenshot from the police chief’s briefing which includes more relevant facts that didn’t make it into that news article. Day Day King got his first felony conviction while still a teenager and had since twice been convicted of being a felon in possession of a firearm, raising the question: “How many second chances does a criminal deserve?”
If Republicans ever recapture control of the legislature and governor’s office in Wisconsin, they need to take a long, hard look at this problem. Every time I hear liberals bemoaning “gun violence,” this issue of felons in possession of firearms comes to mind. Surely the first conviction on such a charge ought to merit at least five years in the state penitentiary, and a second conviction ought to be worth at least 10 years behind bars.
You just can’t keep turning loose repeat offenders like that, and the fact that Day Day King was still on the streets of Racine is an indictment of the criminal justice system in Wisconsin, which is clearly failing in its duty to protect public safety. The Al Capone Rule should apply.
Oh, but there are more relevant facts that didn’t make it into that news article. The pistol that Day Day King was carrying was sent to the Wisconsin State Crime Lab:
Recovered in the field on Carroll St. was an olive green and black Springfield XD 9/40, .9mm handgun. The magazine had 15 rounds in the magazine and one in the chamber. Analysis at the Wisconsin State Crime Lab revealed that the Springfield handgun had also been used at a shooting that resulted in property damage in the area of Edgewood and St. Patrick Street on April 21, 2022.
How many crimes had Day Day King gotten away with before he finally got shot to death by Officer Brennan? You might as well ask, how many stars are in the sky? There is simply no way of knowing, but permit me now to call your attention to an interesting coda to Day Day’s death:
A manhunt is on for the gunmen who opened fire at a Racine funeral.
The gunfire broke out as family and friends laid Da’Shontay King to rest Thursday afternoon [June 2, 2022] at Graceland Cemetery.
Two women were injured, and King’s family is grieving and outraged.
King’s family told WISN 12 News they had just begun a prayer at his burial when bullets started flying at Graceland Cemetery.
Their final goodbyes were violently interrupted by gunfire.
His casket was grazed by a bullet. . . .
King’s family doesn’t understand why a man being laid to rest would be targeted.
“You have all of these innocent people who were there who could have been seriously hurt or worse. Enough is enough, something has to give. This is not acceptable and, obviously, we want someone to be caught for this because this is absolutely absurd,” [King’s sister Natasha] Mullen said.
Yes, ma’am, I think we do understand why your brother’s funeral was targeted. Didn’t I mention that the Gang Crime Task Force was familiar with Day Day King? Arrests were made for the funeral shooting:
Left to right: Lamarion Blair, Cornelius Evans, Cameron Elam
All three suspects were 19 years old, including Elam, “who was found to be in possession of a stolen Glock pistol with an automatic switch at the time of his arrest,” and there was this very relevant information:
Following Blair’s arrest, the Racine Police Department said the shooting at Graceland Cemetery was the result of gang rivalries; Blair is a known member of the Racine-based NFL (North Side For Life) gang, “a younger, more violent offshoot of the Vice Lords street gang,” according to the RPD, while King was a member of the 12th Street Gangster Disciples.
Oh, the Vice Lords and the Gangster Disciples! Wikipedia tells us that the Vice Lords are “the second-largest and one of the oldest street and prison gangs in Chicago,” while the Gangster Disciples are “an African American street and prison gang” that “began in Englewood (in Chicago, Illinois’s South Side).” Racine is about 75 miles north of Chicago, and we may surmise that many gang-bangers in Racine are the offspring of folks who relocated from Chicago, bringing with them their gang affiliations.
This shows why it’s wrong to think of crime as a problem confined to inner-city ghettos. What starts in the ghetto is unlikely to stay in the ghetto, and I guarantee you there are residents of Racine who are old enough to remember when they didn’t have a problem with Vice Lords and Gangster Disciples shooting up their streets every night.
Once this culture of violent thuggery takes root in a community, it is very difficult for law enforcement to eradicate it. Anti-gang efforts in Racine have been making headlines for many years:
Forty-one men were charged Thursday [October 22, 2009] in federal court with being part of violent, drug-dealing gangs in Racine — the third wave of indictments against criminal outfits in the city, officials said.
The arrests in Racine were part of a larger law enforcement effort this year in federal court in the Milwaukee area, where more than 200 people have been charged with drug crimes. In October alone, 70 defendants from three drug organizations have been charged.
The latest indictment, unsealed Thursday, targeted two gangs: the North Side Gangsters and the North Side Vice Lords.
Nineteen defendants were in custody before Thursday, and 200 officers raided 20 Racine homes, arresting 15 people during the bust, officials said.
Besides drug dealing, the 41 defendants are suspected in more than 200 acts of violence, including shootings and homicides, all to protect drug-dealing turf in Racine, officials said. . . .
The investigation — known as Operation Cracked Cane — began a year ago, teaming up FBI and other federal agents with state and local law enforcement, officials said.
Their first move came in June 2008 when 16 members of Racine’s Midtown 12th Street Gangster Disciples were indicted. Then in February, 14 Racine-based drug dealers were charged.
Early morning raids here Wednesday [January 26, 2011] resulted in the arrests of 18 alleged members of the Gangster Disciples gang, who are now facing either federal or state charges related to drug trafficking and firearm offenses.
The U.S. Attorney’s Office said that 10 indictments were unsealed between December of 2010 and this month, charging 10 of the men. Another eight were arrested on state charges and will be prosecuted by the Racine County District Attorney’s Office.
Most of the defendants, if convicted, face between 10 years and life imprisonment, a fine of up to $4,000,000 and five years to life on supervised release, according to the U.S. Attorney’s Office.
The raids and arrests were reportedly part of a lengthy and ongoing investigation by local, state and federal authorities, with the purpose of eradicating the sale of crack cocaine and other controlled substances by violent gang members in Racine.
Racine is not a big city. The population is less than 80,000, of which about 18,000 are black. If the feds were rounding up Gangster Disciples by the dozens, year after year, and if the Gangster Disciples in Racine are constantly at war with the local Vice Lords, what percentage of the total population of young black males in Racine are involved in gang activity?
Someone with better math skills than me would have to make that calculation, but if the local residents of Racine were to assume that every young black male they encounter is a gang-banger, you couldn’t say this was ignorant prejudice, but just erring on the side of caution.
When thug life becomes normalized, this leads some people to believe they have a right to thug life. It is therefore not surprising that the family of Day Day King — the convicted felon Gangster Disciple who had been thugging since adolescence — recently filed a federal lawsuit:
A Racine family is pursuing justice in federal court following the death of Da’Shontay King, who was shot and killed by a police officer three years ago.
“There was no reason for him to be shot multiple times while he was running away from a police officer,” said King’s sister Natasha Mullen. . . .
“Da’Shontay doesn’t do anything to turn toward the officer, point a firearm at the officer, or anything like that,” said civil rights attorney William Sulton.
Their lawsuit filed by Sulton argues Officer Brenner used “excessive and unreasonable force.”
This lawsuit will almost certainly be thrown out of court — one hopes the federal judge will use some subtle sarcasm in explaining his decision — and we return, once again, to the “Al Capone Rule.” Identify the habitual criminals, and get them off the street. It doesn’t matter how. You can put them in prison, or you can put them in the graveyard.
You live the thug life, you die the thug death.
Officer Zachary Brenner deserves a marksmanship medal.
MADISON, Wisconsin
As mentioned previously (“God and Man at UW-Madison”), a distinct #resistance attitude prevails among faculty here, and yesterday’s law school commencement ceremony included several expressions of unmistakably progressive sentiments, uttered with an apparent certainty that everyone in attendance shared these feelings. Amid such provocations, I maintained my composure, and probably no one noticed that I wasn’t applauding enthusiastically for speakers who expected to be cheered for mouthing clichéd “social justice” platitudes.
The occasion of my son Jefferson obtaining a law degree was something I wasn’t going to let be spoiled by politics, no matter how hard the faculty tried. At a Thursday reception for the graduates, my wife and I had a wonderful conversation with the law school dean, a friendly and cheerful fellow, and the thought occurred to me during Friday’s ceremony — two-and-a-half hours, giving me plenty of silent thinking time — that perhaps I could write the dean a letter, reminding him that (a) Donald Trump was elected with a margin of 2 million votes last year, carrying Wisconsin with a 30,000-vote margin, (b) probably at least 40% of the parents in attendance at UW graduation events are Republican voters, and therefore (c) perhaps it would be wise to avoid turning commencement ceremonies into progressive tent-revival sermons. Even if there is a near-zero representation of Republicans on the university faculty — clear evidence of a discriminatory hiring policy — it might be a mistake for state university administrators to “let your freak flags fly” at graduation, less the Republican-controlled legislature take notice. But I digress . . .
Making his Mama proudThe Journalistic Father and His Legalistic Son
Never mind the politics. Law school is a crucible, and Wisconsin is consistently ranked among the nation’s best (#28 in the latest U.S. News rankings), so Jefferson’s achievement is remarkable. We are very proud of him, and hopeful for his future. Way to go, kid.
MADISON, Wisconsin
Today is the big day for son Jefferson and, because of what’s called “diploma privilege,” his graduation from the University of Wisconsin Law School means he automatically qualifies for the state bar, without having to pass a bar exam. However, he plans to practice in another state, so he’ll still be going through the bar-exam ordeal there. Yet, qualifying for the Wisconsin bar means that he gets to call himself an attorney right away, which counts for something as these things are reckoned.
Inside the ornate Wisconsin State CapitolLooking up State Street toward the Capitol
After careful consideration (see “A Happy Week for the Family”), we decided against the toll-free route through Chicago, and instead paid a toll to avoid the new Pope’s hometown. The revised route was also shorter, and we were checked into our hotel by 1:30 Central time. Jefferson was busy taking his last exam, so we met up with his girlfriend and walked from our hotel over to the Capitol, a splendid and impressive bit of Beaux-Arts architecture. After gawking at the elaborate wonder of it all, we then walked down State Street toward the UW campus. If you’ve never been to Madison, let me tell you that State Street is one of America’s great party zones. There are dozens of bars, plus restaurants and boutiques of various kinds. It was a pleasant walk on a sunny spring day, and then we got down to the campus and waited until Jefferson could join us, whereupon we went to eat at a Mediterranean restaurant.
University of Wisconsin-Madison professors have joined their colleagues at Big Ten schools to formally say they’re frustrated by the Trump administration’s cuts to research funding and efforts to dictate policy on campus.
This week the university’s Faculty Senate, a group of more than 2,200 professors on campus, voted to approve a “Mutual Defense Compact.” The vote followed similar efforts by faculty on other Big Ten campuses.
The resolution urges Chancellor Jennifer Mnookin to help establish a “Mutual Academic Defense Compact.” Under the compact, all participants would “commit meaningful funding to a shared or distributed defense fund.”
The money would provide support to any member under direct political or legal infringement. . . .
On April 22, Mnookin was one of about 300 college and university presidents to sign a letter opposing “the unprecedented government overreach and political interference now endangering American higher education.” . . .
Last month, UW-Madison and several of the other Big Ten universities were included in a letter from the U.S. Department of Education’s Office for Civil Rights warning that there would be potential action concerning alleged violations of Title VI of the Civil Rights Act relating to antisemitic harassment and discrimination.
Talk about “climbing up on the cross”! So eager are these academics to be seen as martyrs of “government overreach and political interference” that they’ve joined a “Mutual Defense Compact” to defend against a threat that would seem to be entirely hypothetical, if not indeed imaginary. Has the Trump administration so far taken even a nickel of federal funding away from UW-Madison? And if UW-Madison is not tolerating “antisemitic harassment and discrimination,” what have they got to worry about? It’s just a symbolic “resistance” gesture.
It is worth noting that Trump carried Wisconsin by a margin of 30,000 votes last November, winning 59 of the state’s 72 counties. Republicans hold majorities in both chambers of the Wisconsin legislature. Why can’t the faculty at UW-Madison read the writing on the political wall? Don’t they care about democracy? Do the faculty imagine that making left-wing “resistance” gestures will encourage the state’s voters to repent their Trump-leaning tendencies? Because I suspect such gestures will have the opposite effect. As left-leaning as Madison itself may be (Kamala Harris got 75% of the vote in Dane County), most of the state is a lot more Republican and, if you look at the trends, Wisconsin may be following such other Midwest states as Iowa, Missouri and Ohio in going from battleground “purple” to solid GOP “red.” For the faculty of the state university to be spewing Trump hatred is likely to accelerate such a trend. I’m only in town for a graduation ceremony, but nonetheless feel obligated to warn UW-Madison against committing political seppuku.
The Republican candidates have prevailed in a pair of special congressional elections in Florida Tuesday, NBC News projects, giving Republicans some more breathing room as they navigate a narrow House majority.
NBC News projects that Florida Chief Financial Officer Jimmy Patronis has won the race in the 1st District to replace former GOP Rep. Matt Gaetz, while Republican state Sen. Randy Fine won the 6th District race to replace former GOP Rep. Michael Waltz, who is now Trump’s national security adviser.
Fine was leading Democrat Josh Weil 54%-46% when the NBC News Decision Desk called the race with 73% of the expected vote in. In three counties where nearly all of the expected vote is in, Fine was faring around 10 points worse than former GOP Rep. Michael Waltz in November, who resigned from the seat to serve as Trump’s national security adviser.
Patronis defeated Democrat Gay Valimont, a former activist with Moms Demand Action for Gun Sense in America who lost to Gaetz in November.
The 6th District race was giving some Republicans heartburn, with Weil vastly outraising Fine and Fine slow to launch TV ads. President Donald Trump carried the district, which includes Daytona Beach, by 30 points in November, but outside Republican groups hit the airwaves in the final days as the race appeared to be competitive. . . .
Valimont significantly outraised Patronis, which he acknowledged created “a lot of anxiety” in his race.
But the fundraising gap was even wider in the slightly-less-Republican 6th District, which drove Republican concerns about Fine’s prospects.
Weil, a public school teacher who had raised more than $10 million as of March 31 according to recent fundraising reports, had leveraged his strong fundraising to launch attacks against Fine on potential GOP-led cuts to entitlement programs, including Social Security and Medicaid, in a district where nearly 30% of the population is over the age of 65.
There was never any realistic prospect that Democrats could win either of these seats, but they hyped up their base and unloaded vast sums of campaign cash given by liberal donors who, as always, have more money than sense. So they’ve gotten their hearts broken again, and now we wait for results from Wisconsin, which should be very close.
UPDATE 9:15 p.m. ET: Polls just closed in Wisconsin and we should start getting results soon there. Meanwhile, I checked the Florida results and, in the 6th District, with 99% of the vote counted, Randy Fine won by 14 points, 56.7% to Josh Weil’s 42.7%. In the 1st District, with 98% of the vote counted, Jimmy Patronis won by a margin of nearly 15 points, 57% to 42.2.% for Gay Vallimont. So, after all that media hype — the backlash against Trump! — it was a walkover in both districts.
Meanwhile, Smitty asks the obvious question:
But will WI finish counting votes in time for the mid-terms?
— I Came; I Saw; I Got Over Macho Grande (@smitty_one_each) April 2, 2025
UPDATE 9:30 p.m. ET: With 15% of the vote counted in Wisconsin, liberal Susan Crawford leads by about 35,000 votes, with 54.8% to Brad Schimel’s 45.2%.
UPDATE 9:50 p.m. ET: The vote-counting is actually going pretty rapidly in Wisconsin, and it’s not looking good for our guy Brad Schimel. With 38% of the vote counted, Crawford leads by a margin of about 140,000 votes, with 57.8% to Schimel’s 42.2%.
Notice the slogan on Natalie Rupnow’s T-shirt: “KMFDM,” a reference to Kein Mehrheit Für Die Mitleid (“no pity for the majority”), a German rock band whose fans included Columbine High School gunman Eric Harris. Lyrics to KMFDM songs were posted on Harris’s website, and fandom of KMFDM was part of Natalie Rupnow’s obsession with mass murderers — kind of a red flag, if anyone was paying attention.
In the immediate aftermath of Monday’s shooting, there was a lot of ill-informed speculation about Rupnow’s motive, with some people claiming the 15-year-old was transgender, but there is no evidence of that. According to Anna Slatz, Rupnow had been in an online “relationship” with a boy for two years, but we don’t actually know anything about this boyfriend yet. However, the Washington Post has some highly relevant reporting about Rupnow’s family background:
According to The Post’s review of court records, Rupnow’s parents first married in 2011, about two years after she was born.
Mellissa Rupnow had been previously married and divorced, and she had another daughter with a different man to whom she was never married. Court records indicate that this girl — Natalie Rupnow’s half sister — had other permanent legal guardians. The Post was not able to reach the half sister, who is now 20.
Mellissa and Jeff Rupnow divorced for the first time in 2014, agreeing to joint legal custody of their shared daughter, Natalie, but specifying that she would live primarily with her mother.
The couple remarried in 2017 and divorced for a second time in 2020, again agreeing to share custody but, the court records show, dividing Natalie’s time more evenly between them. During this period, Natalie would spend two days with her father, two with her mother, then three more with her father, before reversing the schedule the following week.
Shortly after Rupnow’s parents split up for the second time, the couple remarried once more. But by April 2021 they were petitioning for a third divorce. A judge granted it a month later but noted that “parties [were] admonished concerning remarriage,” according to court records.
After seeking mediation to determine custody of Natalie, they agreed in July 2022 that they would share legal custody but that the girl would now live mostly with her father. By this time, Natalie Rupnow had been enrolled in therapy, which was supposed to help guide decisions about which parent she would spend weekends with, the records show.
The Post used the word “turbulent” to describe this situation, although chaotic might be more accurate. What kind of people would get married and divorced three times? Selfish, immature, thoughtless people — well, that’s inference, but if you know anything at all about child-rearing, you understand how important stability is to the development of the child’s sense of security. Children do best when they grow up in one home, with two parents. Being shuffled around from one parent to the other is damaging, and while Natalie Rupnow is an extreme example, it is not surprising to learn that he childhood was chaotic.
Most importantly, there is no politics here. People trying to turn Natalie Rupnow into a symbol of the Left or the Right, in order to score political points for their side, are misguided. This is not a crime with a clear political motive; this crime is a product of mental illness.
UPDATE 12:40 a.m. ET Wednesday: MSNBC just called Georgia and North Carolina for Trump who, I should mention, currently leads by 2.7 points in Pennsylvania and 3.5 points in Wisconsin.
UPDATE 11:45 p.m. ET: MSNBC just called Trump the winner in North Carolina. Trump is getting very close to a win in Georgia. With 91% counted, he leads by about 135,000 votes (a 2.7% margin, 50.9% to 48.2%) and it’s estimated that less than 500,000 votes remain to be counted. Meanwhile, in Ohio, Republican Bernie Moreno has beaten Democratic Sen. Sherrod Brown, which practically guarantees a GOP Senate majority. In Pennsylvania, Republican challenger Dave McCormick is is leading Democratic Sen. Bob Casey Jr. by more than 100,000 votes, while Trump continues to hold a lead of more than three points over Harris. She just got called the winner in Virginia.
UPDATE 10:55 p.m. ET: Just watched Steve Kornacki do a symphony of hard truth on MSNBC. In state after state, in county after county, tonight is looking a lot more like 2016 — a Trump win — than like 2020, when Biden “won.” MSNBC hasn’t yet called either Georgia or North Carolina for Trump, but Decision Desk HQ has.
UPDATE 10:30 p.m. ET: In Georgia, with 86% of the statewide vote now counted, it’s Trump 51.2% to Harris 48.0% — a margin of 150,000 votes (3.2%). Getting a bit close for my taste. In Wisconsin, meanwhile, Trump leads by about 6,000 votes (49.4% to 49.0%) with 48% of the vote counted.
UPDATE 10:15 p.m. ET: In Pennsylvania, Trump had been trailing in the early returns, but with 50% of the vote now counted, it’s Trump 50.4%, Harris 48.7% — a lead of nearly 60,000 votes for Trump.
UPDATE 10:10 p.m. ET: OK, we’re starting to see some Georgia counties where 99% of the vote is reported. Barrow County, where Trump got 26,804 votes (70.6%) in 2020, he now has 30,674 votes (69.9%) so that he has increased his vote total, but with a slight decrease of percentage. In Walker County, where Trump got 23,173 votes (78.9%) in 2020, he now has 25,452 (79.3%) — increasing both his vote total and percentage. The question is whether small gains like this in more rural counties will be enough to offset Kamala’s big numbers in metro Atlanta. As of now, with 79% of the statewide vote counted, Trump leads by 52% to Harris’s 47%. The Real Clear Politics poll average for Georgia was Trump +1.3. He is overperforming the polls in Georgia, so far.
UPDATE 9:45 p.m. ET: Right now, with 75% of votes counted in Georgia, Trump leads by a 5.2-point margin, about 112,000 votes. That’s a bit too close for comfort. In my next update, I’ll do some county-by-count breakdowns of Georgia. Meanwhile in Virginia, with 61% reporting, Trump leads by about 16,000 votes. He probably won’t win there, but the fact that it’s this close is a very good sign. Ohio has been called for Trump — it was never in doubt, really — and the encouraging thing there is that Trump’s margin is about 11 points, with 64% counted. Trump won by 8 points in Ohio in 2020, so expanding his margin there would bode well for Michigan and Wisconsin. We shall see . . .
UPDATE 8:50 p.m. ET: With 87% counted in Florida, Trump’s margin there is now 13 points, while in Virginia, with 43% counted, it’s a 49%-49% dead heat. These are good omens for Trump.
UPDATE 8:22 p.m. ET: Wait a minute — I heard that wrong! Hallucinations? Flashbacks from that 1979 psilocybin trip? Whatever — MSNBC still has Georgia “too early to call.” Apologies for the false alarm.
UPDATE 8:15 p.m. ET: Georgia is the first battleground state called for either candidate, and MSNBC calls it for Trump. The word for this is YUGE! Remember, the margin of victory is important here as an indicator of how other battlegrounds may go, but to be declared the winner in Georgia barely an hour after polls closed? YUGE!
*** PREVIOUSLY (6:45 p.m. ET) ***
Usually, I watch CNN (so you don’t have to), but tonight my home office TV is tuned to MSNBC, because I think it’s gonna be glorious! Trump wins this thing? They’ll be crying 96 tears on MSNBC, baby.
When the Georgia General Assembly enacted new election laws in 2022, the state was targeted by a dishonest propaganda campaign led by the president of the United States. The new Georgia law was “Jim Crow 2.0,” Joe Biden said — a hateful smear for which that notorious liar has never apologized. Excuse my indignation, but I was born in Atlanta and grew up in Douglas County, Georgia, and this disgusting slander outraged my sense of pride in my native state. Yet the beautiful irony is that the new law in Georgia may prevent America from suffering another one of those “too close to call” nightmares such as was inflicted on us four years ago. Georgia has greatly increased its early voting, and the votes that have been cast early will also be counted early, so that within a couple of hours of 7 p.m. Eastern, when polls close in Georgia, we may know the winner of that state. Depending on how Georgia goes, the winner there may be almost certainly projected as the winner of 270 Electoral College votes necessary to claim the White House. . . .
You can read the rest of that. We’re getting ready for the polls to close in Georgia now, and I’ll be back with updates on that and other numbers.
UPDATE 7:05 p.m. ET: MSNBC just projected Kentucky for Trump and Vermont for Harris, but claims that both Indiana and South Carolina are “too early to call.” LOL. However, Virginia — a state Joe Biden won by 10 points — is also “too early to call,” which could be interesting.
UPDATE 7:10 p.m. ET: OK, now MSNBC has called Indiana for Trump, and also projected Republican Jim Banks has won the Senate race in Indiana. Meanwhile, we’re starting to get results in Florida, which is not a battleground state, but which may give us an indication of whether Kamala Harris is underperforming Joe Biden. So far, with 18% reporting, it’s Trump 51.9% to Harris 47.2% — not much different from the Trump-Biden numbers four years ago. We’ll see.
UPDATE 7:25 p.m. ET: OK, I’m watching Steve Kornacki break down Georgia votes, with only 3% statewide reporting so far, but we’ve got a few GOP-leaning counties — including Gordon and Union — that are up around 80% reporting, and these seem to be on pace to hold strong for Trump. Honestly, we need Trump to get up around 52% in Georgia to feel comfortable with the other battlegrounds.
UPDATE 7:35 p.m. ET: Welcome, Instapundit readers! The polls have just closed in North Carolina, and meanwhile, MSNBC has just projected Donald Trump the winner in West Virginia (just in case anybody didn’t already know). And at this moment, with 9% of returns counted in Georgia, Trump leads 60% to 40% over Harris.
UPDATE 7:50 p.m. ET: It’s rather too early to draw any conclusions from the Florida vote — 71% counted, and polls still open in the western panhandle — but it doesn’t look bad for Trump there. To repeat, Florida is not a battleground, but we want to see if Trump does better against Harris than he did against Biden four years ago. In order to be confident that he can flip the battleground states, Trump needs to be exceeding his 2020 vote share everywhere. Right now, it’s Trump 54% to Harris 45% — a substantial improvement on the 51%-48% against Biden four years ago.
UPDATE 8:10 p.m. ET: Several states just got called by MSNBC, including Florida for Trump. Again, this was not a battleground, but Trump’s Margin of victory in Florida may be indicative of his nationwide strength compared to 2020. Right now, with 78% of the votes counted, it’s Trump 55%, Harris 44% — a substantial gain for Trump. Meanwhile, Steve Kornacki is going through Georgia county-by-county, and finding net gains of between 1 and 3 points for Trump. As I’ve said, we need to see Trump at 52% in Georgia to feel comfortable about North Carolina and Pennsylvania. Right now, with 36% reporting, he’s at 56%.
“Racism and white supremacy need to be dismantled everywhere, including Platteville. White people built these systems and still benefit from them today. We must acknowledge our wrongs and biases and realize that no white person is exempt from being a part of, and upholding, racism. Reparations on a large scale are owed and need to happen now. All white people need to call out racism and all of its forms every single time. We need to create action, large-scale and in our daily lives, to dismantle racism and white supremacy.”
Well, all-righty, then. Whenever I encounter someone so vehement in their beliefs, my instinct is to get as far away from them as fast as I can, without attracting their attention. Crazy People Are Dangerous, as I have often said, and when somebody gets so excited about “white supremacy” — whether they’re for or against it, I’ll add — you probably don’t want to be in their vicinity. That rant from Hamer was a red flag. The phrase emotionally unbalanced perhaps best describes such people.
Fast forward to June 2020 when, in the aftermath of George Floyd’s death, a #BlackLivesMatter protest gathered near the Wisconsin state capitol in Madison. Democratic State Sen. Tim Carpenter was recording video of the protest when he was attacked by two masked women:
Democrat state senator who recorded this video in Madison captures moment violent BLM protesters assault him for recording in public.
They feel emboldened to do this because they get cover in mainstream press & usually face no legal consequences. pic.twitter.com/S0UhAJSCj1
The attack left Carpenter with a broken nose and a concussion. The irony is that Carpenter is a progressive gay man who supported the protests, but the BLM radicals and their “mostly peaceful” crowds were out to cause mayhem that night, and Carpenter was just in the wrong place at the wrong time. After photos of the two attackers were made public, they were arrested in July 2020: Hamer, then 26, and Kerida O’Reilly, 33.
Hamer was allowed to plead no contest to “a disorderly conduct civil law violation, which is not a criminal charge,” the New York Times said in reporting the October 2021 verdict in O’Reilly’s trial, at which a Dane County jury acquitted her. No consequences — that’s what progressives mean by “social justice.” Do whatever the hell you want, and who cares about silly things like laws and rules? But of course, there are consequences to this “no consequences” lifestyle, as two men and a teenage girl from Wisconsin discovered a few years later.
It was 9 p.m. on New Year’s Day — January 1, 2024 — when a police sergeant patrolling in the Madison suburb of Monona noticed an SUV driving erratically. Sgt. Adam Nachreiner “was at the intersection of St. Teresa Terrace and Monona Dr., and as he turned onto Monona Dr. he observed a SUV traveling on Monona Dr. turn abruptly from the far left lane to the right lane at Monona Drive and Nichols Rd. before turning right on Nichols Rd.”:
The officer believed the vehicle may be trying to avoid him. As the officer turned onto Nichols Rd. to attempt to run a data check the SUV turned into a parking lot. The officer followed the SUV into the parking lot. The SUV didn’t park but instead turned around and accelerated past the officer and back onto Nichols Rd. The officer turned his squad around and activated his lights and siren in an attempt to stop the SUV.
This seems obvious enough, yes? As soon as the SUV driver sees the cop car, he switches lanes suddenly and makes a right turn. A police sergeant is generally someone with years of experience, and this move caught his attention, so he decides to go get a look at the license plate. Is the vehicle stolen? Does the driver have outstanding warrants? There’s no way of knowing until you check it out, and that’s what Sgt. Nachreiner was doing. (Not to spoil a surprise ending, but the cop’s hunch was right.)
The SUV took off at high speed, racing through downtown Monona at about 80 mph, and then southward on Agriculture Drive toward Femrite Drive, where the SUV driver turned right — heading west, toward Madison — but there was “a fully marked Madison Police Department squad” parked there, waiting on him, so the SUV made a U-turn and headed west. Femrite Drive is mostly a straightaway here, and now the SUV was pushing 100 mph. A Dane County Sheriff’s deputy was up ahead, setting up “stop sticks,” hoping to puncture the SUV’s tires and thus bring the pursuit to a halt, but this attempt proved unsuccessful. The SUV blasted through a stop sign, ran off the road on the left side, and smashed into a tree, exploding in a fireball:
Now, as I said, Sgt. Nachreiner was correct in his suspicions about the SUV. People don’t flee the cops at 100 mph for no reason, but in the immediate aftermath of this fatal crash, before the investigation was complete and before the police video or any other relevant information could be released, there was a lot of blame-the-cops rhetoric: “‘I want justice’: Mother of Monona Police chase victim says her daughter’s death was senseless,” was the headline at the WISC-TV website.
Aajayah Ray
That’s a mug shot from the Dane County jail, after Aajayah Ray was arrested in January 2023, about a year before the fatal crash. The website from which I got that mug shot doesn’t say what the charges were, but did you happen to notice that Aajayah Ray had a tattoo on her neck? Maybe lots of teenage girls in Wisconsin have neck tattoos nowadays, and maybe that Dane County arrest was for some kind of trivial misdemeanor, but I just wanted readers to consider the possibility that maybe Aajayah Ray was involved in something illegal that was happening in that SUV in downtown Monona. However, I didn’t know anything about these people when I clicked on that YouTube video. Because I watch a lot of police videos, the YouTube algorithm just randomly puts them into my feed, which is how I stumbled onto this story Wednesday night.
What the actual hell is this? For anyone unfamiliar with the term, “sundown town” refers to “all-white municipalities or neighborhoods” that practiced “a form of racial segregation by excluding non-whites via some combination of discriminatory local laws, intimidation or violence. They were most prevalent before the 1950s. The term came into use because of signs that directed ‘colored people’ to leave town by sundown” (via Wikipedia). There is zero evidence that Monona, Wisconsin, was ever a “sundown town,” but in 2024? Are you kidding me? But the assertion that the three people who died in that crash were “murdered” is even more preposterous. The state Division of Criminal Investigation did their job, and in May, the Dane County District Attorney found there were no grounds for any criminal charge against the law enforcement personnel involved. The district attorney’s statement includes this:
None of the occupants appeared to be wearing seat belts at the time of the SUV impacting the tree. A later search of the vehicle produced two firearms; one of which was listed as stolen. There was also marijuana found in the vehicle. Toxicology of the driver of the SUV indicated the presence of Delta-9/THC and its metabolites, Methamphetamine, and Promethazine.
Two guns, one of which was stolen. The driver had THC (i.e., marijuana) and meth in his system, but what about Promethazine? That’s an antihistamine found in certain cough syrups, often used to make the intoxicating beverage known as “lean” or “purple drank.”
So, yeah, Sgt. Nachreiner’s hunch was right on target: Two guys from Madison and a teenage girl from Sun Prairie just rolling around town with guns and drugs in the car, maybe messed up on “purple drank” — why were they even in Monona to begin with? Did any journalist ask Aajayah Ray’s mother that question? But never mind that. Would you care to guess who was responsible for that GoFundMe page that said “Rashad and Aajayah and Aaron were murdered in a sundown town”?
At the time that Rashad was rolling around Monona in a vehicle full of felonies, Samantha Hamer was nine months pregnant with Rashad’s baby, who was born three days after Rashad was DOA because he crashed into a tree at 100 mph running from the cops. “Racism and white supremacy need to be dismantled everywhere,” she said, but instead what got dismantled was that SUV. Perhaps there is some kind of useful life lesson to be learned here. Like, avoid teenage girls with criminal records and neck tattoos? Or maybe, high-speed driving and “purple drank” are a bad combination? But I think there are more serious lessons to be learned, about the importance of taking personal responsibility for one’s actions, rather than embracing a victim mentality that turns your life into an eternal hunt for scapegoats you can blame for your problems.
And, yeah, stay away from crazy people. They’re dangerous.
