RW disinformation re Hortman (Minnesota) assassination

[RandomNumbers]

Commentary from Minnesota Reformer
A Democratic legislator was assassinated; right-wing influencers coughed out disinformation

https://minnesotareformer.com/2025/06/14/a-democratic-legislator-was-assassinated-right-wing-influencers-coughed-out-disinformation/

Author: J. Patrick Coolican
June 14, 2025 5:06 pm

(published under Creative Commons license, but I'll only excerpt here)

Just hours after Minnesotans learned that Democratic House leader Melissa Hortman had been assassinated, right-wing influencer Collin Rugg, who has 1.8 million followers on X, posted a “report” that hinted that she’d been killed because of a recent vote on ending undocumented adults’ ability to enroll in MinnesotaCare, a subsidized health insurance for the working poor.

Mike Cernovich, another right-wing influencer who has 1.4 million followers on X, took Rugg’s post and amped it up, but in the “just asking questions” style of many conspiracy theories:

“Did Tim Walz have her executed to send a message?”

They were deeply ignorant about the MinnesotaCare issue.

Walz and Hortman — who was instrumental in passing legislation allowing undocumented people to sign up for MinnesotaCare as speaker of the House in 2023 — negotiated a compromise with Republicans in the Minnesota Legislature to end eligibility for adults, but keep it for children. They did so to win necessary Republican support in the 67-67 House to pass a state budget. Without it, state government would have shut down on July 1.

The “theory” of Hortman’s killing was further undercut by the vote of Democratic Sen. John Hoffman — who was also targeted by the suspect — against rolling back MinnesotaCare for undocumented Minnesotans.

Rugg and Cernovich’s posts were shared widely and just the start of the disinformation.

...

More at link, including about the nonsense of Boelter being a "Walz appointee".

Okay I have to include these quotes (bold added):

No matter, Cernovich wanted his new friends in federal law enforcement to act:

“The FBI must take Tim Walz into custody immediately.”

Finally, fresh off his humiliating defeat at the hands of President Donald Trump, world’s richest man Elon Musk quote-tweeted someone again falsely alleging Hortman was killed by “the left” and added:

“The far left is murderously violent.”