An elderly man calling himself a progressive socialist accosted a group of about two dozen conservative students who were protesting outside a building where former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton was speaking. He then said he had Ebola and tried to lick the students.
The strange episode happened on Thursday at Oakland University, a public school in the endless suburbs of Detroit, Mich., reports Campus Reform.
Clinton was on campus stumping on behalf of a couple of Democrats: Former U.S. Rep. Mark Schauer, who is running for governor, and U.S. Rep. Gary Peters, who is running for a Senate seat.
Campus police and the Secret Service forced the conservative protesters to an area across a street and well away from the crowd waiting to get into the event.
The would-be licker who claimed to have Ebola is Larry Mitchell of the St. Clair Shores Democratic Club, according to Campus Reform.
The students represented the College Republicans, Students for Life and Young Americans for Liberty.
The action in the rather long (and basically awful) video below starts at around the 2:30 mark when Mitchell, 63, can be heard saying, “I just came from Texas. I have Ebola and now I’m going to give it to you.”
Protesters say Mitchell then licked his hand and attempted to wipe spittle on them. “Without a public health system, we are going to have the spread of Ebola,” Mitchell also said. “Libertarians don’t want a public health system, so you’re a fascist.”
Campus Reform later interviewed Mitchell. He said he doesn’t think he has contracted Ebola. He did double down on his criticism of libertarians, though.
“Libertarians are a bunch of Republicans who just want to smoke pot and get laid,” he said. “They don’t even count for much as far as I’m concerned with because they’re not Americans. They don’t believe in America. They believe in themselves.”
Mitchell also called the protesters “bullies” and noted that he “isn’t a big fan of Hillary.” He described her as a “corporatist.”
He said he had come to the Oakland University event to support Schauer and Peters.
After his stunt, he said, he went back and stood in line to get into the Clinton rally.
One of the students involved in the fracas, David Rowe, said Mitchell grabbed his neck and actually licked his hand. Rowe has since filed charges with campus police.
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