TOM CLARK: Mountain Men / Superior, Arizona

Samuel Paterson Conger, the Grand Old Man of the Mountains (Wisconsin Historical Society)

Names like Conger, Bridger, Rollins, Meeker, Berthoud
Echo through these canyons
Like summer thunder, proud and bold.
John Quincy Adams Rollins
Built the first wagon road through
The Great Divide. What didn’t Sam Conger do?
A mile from here, you can call his name
And hear your voice return
Twelve times from the deepest shaft
Of the Conger mine. And you know Jim Bridger.

Men of ruthless ego all. But what of the mountain ladies?
Didn’t they too have pride? And what about
The narrowing ache in the bed beside
You when she wakes to a rough face
That spells out one hundred years of unpleasant history?

Hurricane Hill, Nederland, 1978

Will Old Sam Conger Make His Biggest Strike at 89? Milwaukee Journal, April 23, 1922 (Wisconsin Historical Society)

Gianforte sitting in a Jeep. Sheriff's deputies were talking to him earlier. Now a medic is at the window talking with him. #bdcnews #mtal: image via Whitney Bermes @wabermes, 24 May 2017

Fox News reporter: "Gianforte grabbed Jacobs by the neck with both hands and slammed him into the ground behind him": image via missoulian @missoulian, 24 May 2017

Here is audio of the confrontation between @GregforMontana and @GuardianUS reporter#mtpol #mtal #montana: image via Billings Gazette @billingsgazette, 24 May 2017

This editorial by the @billingsgazette rescinding their endorsement is something else.: image via Yashar @yashar, 24 May 2017

Gazette opinion: We're pulling our endorsement of Gianforte #mtpol #mtal #montana: image via Billings Gazette @billingsgazette, 24 May 2017

GOP candidate in Montana race charged with misdemeanor assault after allegedly body-slamming reporter: David Weigel, Washington Post, 24 May 2017

MISSOULA, Mont. — Greg Gianforte, the Republican candidate in Montana’s special congressional election, was charged with misdemeanor assault Wednesday after allegedly assaulting a reporter for the Guardian who had been trying to ask him a question. Gianforte, who is seen as the slight favorite in a race that ends Thursday, left what was supposed to be a final campaign rally at his Bozeman headquarters without making remarks.

The Gallatin County sheriff’s office announced the charges in a press release posted to the county website. At a press conference earlier in the day, Sheriff Brian Gootkin said that witnesses were being interviewed, and that four other people had been present for the incident.

In an audio reporting published by the Guardian, the reporter, Ben Jacobs, can be heard asking Gianforte to respond to the fresh Congressional Budget Office score of the American Health Care Act, a bill Gianforte has said he was glad to see the House of Representatives approve. According to Alexis Levinson, a reporter for BuzzFeed, Jacobs had followed the candidate into a room where a camera was set up for an interview, before the event began.

“We’ll talk to you about that later,” Gianforte says in the audio.

“Yeah, but there’s not going to be time,” says Jacobs. “I’m just curious about it right now.”

After Gianforte tells Jacobs to direct the question to his spokesman, Shane Scanlon, there is the sound of an altercation, and Gianforte begins to scream.

“I’m sick and tired of you guys!” Gianforte says. “The last guy that came in here did the same thing. Get the hell out of here! Get the hell out of here! The last guy did the same thing. Are you with the Guardian?”

“Yes, and you just broke my glasses,” Jacobs says.

“The last guy did the same damn thing,” Gianforte says.

“You just body-slammed me and broke my glasses,” Jacobs says.

“Get the hell out of here,” Gianforte says.

After that, Jacobs can be heard on the tape promising to contact the police, which he did. After the incident, Scanlon released a campaign statement putting the onus on Jacobs, saying that he “aggressively shoved a recorder in Greg’s face and began asking badgering questions,” prompting the candidate to act.

“Greg then attempted to grab the phone that was pushed in his face,” Scanlon said.

“Jacobs grabbed Greg’s wrist, and spun away from Greg, pushing them both to the ground. It’s unfortunate that this aggressive behavior from a liberal journalist created this scene.”

On the tape, Gianforte does not ask Jacobs to lower the recorder.

In an article published Wednesday night, Fox News reporter Alicia Acuna wrote that Gianforte punched Jacobs after pulling him down.

“Gianforte grabbed Jacobs by the neck with both hands and slammed him into the ground behind him,” Acuna wrote. “At no point did any of us who witnessed this assault see Jacobs show any form of physical aggression toward Gianforte.”

Gianforte’s Democratic opponent Rob Quist heard about the incident while holding one of his final pre-election events at a campaign office in Missoula. After it wrapped, and before the audio was published, he told reporters that he would not comment on what happened.

“That’s a matter for law enforcement,” he said. “I’m just focused on the issues that are facing the people of Montana.”

At his final rally at a Missoula micro-brewery, Quist did not mention the incident, and brushed past reporters who continued to ask about it.

Other Democrats were less cautious. As word spread of what Gianforte allegedly did, some supporters who had been knocking on doors for Quist began playing voters the audio. The Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee, which has invested more than $500,000 in the race, released a statement after the tape’s release, calling for Gianforte to quit the race.

“Greg Gianforte must immediately withdraw his candidacy after his alleged violent assault of an innocent journalist,” said DCCC spokesman Tyler Law. “Further, Speaker [Paul] Ryan and the National Republican Campaign Committee should not waste another minute before publicly denouncing their candidate and apologizing for the millions of dollars they spent on his behalf.”

The NRCC, when asked for comment, referred reporters to Gianforte’s statement.

The Guardian’s U.S. editor, Lee Glendinning, said in a statement that the newspaper is “deeply appalled” by how the reporter was treated in the course of doing his job. “We are committed to holding power to account and we stand by Ben and our team of reporters for the questions they ask and the reporting that is produced,” she said.

Gianforte would face a maximum $500 fine or six months in jail if he is convicted. The sheriff’s statement added that Jacobs’s injuries did not meet the legal definition of felony assault.

In other races, candidates have been badly damaged for appearing to blow up at reporters or people recording them on tape. In 2006, the Democratic nominee for governor of Minnesota lost a close race after accusing a reporter who asked tough questions of being “a Republican whore.” In 2010, North Carolina Democratic congressman Bob Etheridge lost what had been a safe seat after manhandling a Republican tracker who asked if he supported “the Obama agenda.”

In Montana, where more than 200,000 of the 700,000 eligible voters have already cast early absentee ballots, it was unclear how Gianforte’s blow-up would affect the race.

Jacobs, who had been covering the race for weeks, spent Wednesday evening telling and re-telling the story from a hospital, for media outlets and for the police.

Some Democrats quietly fretted that the alleged assault would not change the race — or would help Gianforte with his base. Last month, a voter at a Gianforte town hall pointed out a reporter in the room; then, according to the Missoulian, the voter called the media “the enemy” and mimed the act of wringing a neck.

“It seems like there are more of us than there is of him,” commented Gianforte.

#Montana Sheriff Gootkin. He donated $250 to #Gianforte's campaign. Is this is why he won't arrest him for assault?: image via Noah Mann-Engel @byronNME, 24 May 2017

UPDATE: Gianforte cited for misdemeanor assault after being accused of body slamming reporter: image via KPAX Missoula News @kpaxnews, 24 May 2017

Professor: “If you’re on the fence about voting, this might drive interest to go vote.”#MTAL #mtnews: image via missoulian @missoulian, 24 May 2017

Superior, Arizona / Gangway

Harbour [Palma, Mallorca]: photo by astrid westvang, 1 April 2017

Near Wanaka, Central Otago, NZ | by bobsan88

Near Wanaka, Central Otago, NZ: photo by bobsan88, 14 March 2017

Buildings [Manacor, Mallorca]: photo by astrid westvang, 31 March 2017

Santa Fe, New Mexico: photo by Jorge Guadalupe Lizárraga, April 2017

Marokko 25. Marokko / Morocco, by bus, April 2017: photo by Manfred Geyer, 23 April 2017

Untitled | by find myself a city (1001 Afternoons in Chicago)

SW and NW corner of 100th Street and Avenue L at Indianapolis Blvd. (built in 1892 and 1958) [South Chicago]: photo by curtis locke, 28 April 2017

West Colfax Avenue. Denver, Colorado.: photo by Dean Terasaki, 22 July 2012
West Colfax Avenue. Denver, Colorado.: photo by Dean Terasaki, 22 July 2012

Gravity Loader. Wickenberg, Arizona.: photo by Dean Terasaki, 12 August 2014

Building and tower [Inca, Mallorca]: photo by astrid westvang, 7 April 2017

Middlemarch, Central Otago | by bobsan88

Middlemarch, Central Otago: photo by bobsan88, 10 March 2017

Nelson, Tasman Region, NZ: photo by bobsan88, 18 February 2017

Westport, West Coast, NZ: photo by bobsan88, 1 March 2017

Gathering [Palma, Mallorca]: photo by astrid westvang, 27 March 2017

Santa Fe, New Mexico: photo by Jorge Guadalupe Lizárraga, April 2017

Superior, Arizona: photo by Dean Terasaki, 18 May 2017

Sunset on Apache Leap Mountain | by GC_Dean

Sunset on Apache Leap Mountain. Superior, Arizona: photo by Dean Terasaki, 18 May 2017

Algodones, New Mexico: photo by Jorge Guadalupe Lizárraga, May 2017

Albuquerque, New Mexico: photo by Jorge Guadalupe Lizárraga, May 2017

Gangway [Larvik]: photo by astrid westvang, 12 April 2017

Clyde, Central Otago: photo by bobsan88, 10 March 2017

[Untitled]: photo by Gustavo Gomes, 15 March 2017

[Untitled]: photo by Gustavo Gomes, 6 March 2017

[Untitled]: photo by Gustavo Gomes, 13 March 2017

6 comments:

TC25 May 2017 at 07:37
It's, uh, the American way.
TC25 May 2017 at 07:53
Nederland
Unknown25 May 2017 at 11:30
Things have turned real western. I have to think G&40 got himself high-centered due to GOP polling that moved him from shoe-in to also-ran. We can only hope our poet and flawed candidate, Rob Quist, pulls his Wranglers out of the cook fire and finds himself in Washington D.C. The thuggery of any “ruthless ego” is no joke, however. I read a piece this morning about a passage in Vonnegut’s Slaughterhouse-Five were “…the American humorist Kin Hubbard…” opines about why the American poor hate themselves. Interesting, too. Anyway, I didn’t recall the passage and didn’t know Kin Hubbard any more than I knew Daniel Johnston or Roy Anderson (thanks for that introduction), but the “Open Culture” piece provides this Hubbard quote: “It’s all right t’ aspire to office, but when a feller begins t’ perspire fer one it’s time t’ watch out.” That about sums G&40’s ambitions. Also intrigued by the images today, esp. the stout and the dilapidated vascular machinery in an among the stark, lonely streets and would-be road houses. And Nederland! Reminds me of good old Dan Fogelberg, who’d probably have won a U.S House seat in a Colorado heartbeat.
Mose2325 May 2017 at 23:26
I've just watched footage of the Orange One shoving the prime minister of Montenegro aside (had he caught sight of the buffet?). This is how things are now, I suppose.
TC26 May 2017 at 05:06
Poor Rob Quist. Just another loser now, in the MAGA book. I am pretty certain the Ice Age community of Nederland, where we once dwelt and shivered and got into black-ice-induced car wrecks, and where as I have heard there are now more interesting things going on (if you count a thriving legal weed trade), would not be as receptive to the wealthy and temperamental Mr Gianforte's brand of millionaire-fascist thuggery as, it seems, is Gallatin County... or for that matter, off these dire results, the entirety of the state of Montana, or the United States of America.

After all GG has the blessing of our pushy pushy neanderthal-revival POTUS, who shoves em all aside. Gives new meaning to the currently much overused hack term "reach out". Donnie Drumpf is a man who will reach out... to shove 'em aside. (I believe it used to be called "boardinghouse reach", when one is overextending oneself in this way. The world being the boardinghouse I suppose.)

All this now begins to feel a bit too Henry Jamesian for comfort. If Henry James were a mongoloid eedjut that is.

Which saint is this? (American Gothic Surrealism does the world) / "Everything is set for Noah's Ark to be shipwrecked"
TC26 May 2017 at 05:20
Trump hails 'great win in Montana' for candidate who body-slammed Guardian reporter

Thursday, 25 May 2017

Mountain Men / Superior, Arizona

6 comments: