Montana's Republican Party Convention in Missoula this weekend featured the height of violent, racist wingnuttery all received with laughs from the five hundred attendees. If you have a strong stomach, join me below the fold for details.
Montana's Republican Party, never the sanest of people, went over the edge this weekend with crazy violent wingnuttery. The keynote speaker was good old Newt Gingrich, who was presented with the shoot, shovel and shut up award. The Missoulian reports:
Former GOP presidential candidate and U.S. House Speaker Newt Gingrich, the convention’s featured speaker on Saturday, got a raffle ticket for what might in any other part of the country seem an unusual combo – a 12-gauge shotgun, a shovel and a roll of duct tape.
But the 500 convention-goers burst into laughter to the obvious S-S-S – “Shoot, Shovel and Shut Up” – reference to the contentious issue of wolves. The Ravalli County Republican Central Committee, which sponsored the raffle, clearly had signed on to one widely suggested “management” plan by opponents of federal protection for wolves.
Wolves are legally hunted in Montana with several hundred being shot this past season, but that is not enough for wolf hating wingnuts who promote illegal poaching, which is a felony. But promoting poaching is funny to these "sportsmen".
But that's not all the good fun had at the convention. The Missoulian continues:
There was less laughter – although plenty of picture-taking – of an outhouse labeled “Obama Presidential Library” parked outside Missoula’s Hilton Garden Inn, where the convention took place.
Nothing on the outhouse indicated who was responsible for it, although it made an appearance in the Memorial Day parade in Corvallis in Ravalli County.
The outhouse was painted to look as though it had been riddled by bullets.
Inside, a fake birth certificate for Barack Hussein Obama made reference to the disproven controversy over the president’s origins. It was stamped “Bull––.” A graffito advised “For a Good Time call 800-Michelle (crossed out), Hillary (crossed out) and Pelosi (circled in red.)
Did anyone at the state republican convention condemn this bit of violent racist misogyny? Of course not! It's all in good fun for right wing nuts!
8:53 AM PT: Update: Apparently the "Obama Outhouse" is a popular theme in right wing nut culture, as I have found with a couple of Internet searches, so the use of it as a display outside the Montana GOP convention is not new. All the more reason to publicize this incident far and wide and ask prominent repubs, such as Dennis Rehberg and Newt Gingrich (who attended the convention) and even Mitt Romney to condemn and disown it.
8:59 AM PT: Update 2: According to several sources, the Romney campaign paid for Newt Gingrich to attend the Montana GOP convention and host a repub fundraiser. The questions to be asked of them are:
1- Do you support poaching of legal game animals in Montana, as endorsed by the MT GOP with there shoot, shovel and shut up award?
2 - Will you condemn the portrayal of the Obama Presidential Library as a outhouse peppered with bullet holes as displayed at the MT GOP convention?
3 -Will you condemn the war on women portraying democratic women as whores as displayed at the Montana GOP convention?
4:48 PM PT: Update3: Here's the story and a photo of the Obama Outhouse on Talking Points Memo:
http://2012.talkingpointsmemo.com/...