Maybe it was just some harmless "breath play".

He went for his throat. Meaning, he tried to kill the reporter, whose life would end if air can't pass in and out of his larynx. That's what choking is all about.

Thanks for clearing that up, Charles.

@2: That sound you hear is contextual reading comprehension whizzing over your head

"Yeah, that's right, I PUNCH NAZIS!"

"OMG he broke my glasses it's another Kristallnacht!"

The left, ladies and gentlemen.

@5 I don't see what assaulting Nazis has to do with a non-Nazi *reporter* being assaulted.

@ 5: Assault is assault, dude.

The problem with this post is that a large percent of the votes were cast before the incident happened, and the remainder were cast within 24 hours. It might have affected the outcome if the assault happened when people were still deciding.

I really don't understand why a job for public office doesn't require a basic criminal background check.

To that tweeter, LBJ also helped increase the American presence in Vietnam. Yay Democratic warhawks!

@10 (adding to what 12) said: also, the leadership on the right hasn't condemned the assaulter. Pence and Trump congratulated him on a "great win". The point of this post was to say that Dems wouldn't have been complicit.

@10: I'd like to believe the outcome would have been different if this had happened two weeks ago, but I'm not confident. Trump won MT by over 20 points. That said, maybe if this happens two weeks ago, Quist is able to close the 7 points he lost by.

When the body slam happened, I suspect Greg Gianforte already had polling results indicating that it was close to mathematically impossible for him to lose. That's why he was emboldened to do it. I bet he'd wanted to do something like that for many weeks. The security of his sure victory gave him the opening he needed to finally act, once it was no longer likely to change the outcome of the election.

In any case, doesn't he have to run again in 2018? Wonder if he'll bow out at that point?

@11 the histories of many non-white people may dissuade them from running if they had to answer for a records check.... which is not to say we shouldn't care about a person's current criminal behavior.

I spent a couple of summers mapping in Montana, and have made many shorter trips there. I really think that the majority of Montanians would absolutely find assaulting a reporter for doing his job appalling and unacceptable. They are definitely conservative people, but not horrible, amoral people like Trump et al. I've always travelled there in diverse groups with many minorities and women, including people who are out-LGBT and those in mixed-race relationships, yet we've never felt unsafe and/or discriminated against in MT, unlike we had in some other states, (cough, cough UT & ID &, &...). Yes, they did vote for Trump, but I think that could be because they have been told for decades that Dems only care about minorities, and not people like them. Then Trump came along and pretended like he did care. I think the early voting, and the fact that the assault took place the day before are the reasons the GOP guy won. A lot of the voters probably hadn't heard about it when they voted.

Either way, it's not helpful to claim DEATH of white accountability over this one election. The only way we and our planet can survive Herr Gropenführer is by making alliances, not stoking hate and resentment and create enemies!

@4: Is there any context to be lost, when the active verb in the sentence is "choke"? I only know of one other way to deprive a mammal of oxygen, and that method is typically referred to as "smothering." But maybe you and Charles know some other method of which I am unfamiliar.

Or maybe Charles was doing his typical blathering on to hit some minimum word count, or indulge in his typical faux-intellectual style. Who can say, really?

Another incoherent word salad vomited by Charles Mudede.

But keep badmouthing White Americans Chuckles. And you wonder why Republicans have picked up around 1,000 elected offices across the country since 2010.

It's disservice to describe the Civil War by geography. It was more accurately a contest of those who willfully exploit the less privileged vs. those who find that behavior unseemly. It's not over . . . that war. It will persist to the extant human arc.

Here in Detroit we call that move a choke-slam.
In court, it's often referred to as aggravated assault.
We'll see if this asshole is held accountable when he has his day in court.
With so many witnesses and an audio recording of the incident, I'll be surprised if he isn't convicted.
..... although he is a billionaire, and this is America.....

One theory as to why Gianforte got his knickers so thoroughly in a twist over a seemingly innocuous question.

Quist faced an uphill battle in a solidly red state. Montana media was railed against him in op-ed pieces and in endorsing Gianforte.

One of the many (including having genital herpes) smears used against Quist had to do with his debts and unpaid property taxes. As the message got out that that his financial problems were the result of an uninsured (due to pre-existing conditions) gallbladder operation and then there is the fact that Quist doesn’t support ACHA or the ACA but favors single-payer Medicare for all. The ACHA is extremely unpopular (even among Republicans) while Medicare for all is viewed favorably by a majority of Republicans, Democrats and independents.

In public Gianforte tried to distance himself from the Republican’s unpopular ACHA and claimed that he would withhold judgment until after the CBO score. However, a leaked recording proved that in private Gianforte threw his full throated support behind the ACHA.

Even against the odds Quist could’ve won if he had been able to get his message out. A big obstacle in doing so was his being orphaned by the DNC until it was too late. Establishment Democrats would hate to have to line up behind Bernie Sanders, (the most popular politician in America).

Quist losing helps to maintain a top down status quo victory over those losing progressives in the Democratic Party.

Mugabe says kill all the whites!

@24: i guess you think that was a zinger?

You know MAYBE Dems need to mix it up some more.

Quit being nice. I mean imagine if Hillary had grabbed Trump by his micro balls as they shook hands--“Your balls are going to be gone if you EVER bring up my husband again you POS!” Then just walk out to the podium.

As a progressive I am TIRED of getting beat (Oh but we’re only losing by fewer votes now!!) The GOP WILL repeal the ACA--the Senate has been getting all their senators in a row while Trump is putting on a performance these past two weeks. Insurance companies are pulling out of states as they just don’t trust what the GOP is going to do! We’re losing health care for 24 million people PLUS they’re going after Medicaid next.
Our elderly DEPEND on Medicaid for nursing home care. How many of you could care at home for a chronically ill mom or grandmother?

I saw what happened in Honolulu, HI before Medicaid became a major player for nursing homes. In many places in Hawai’i you have to BUY your own apartment in a high rise nursing home (Not much land space on the island). If your family decides to use mom’s money for themselves, she’s kicked out. Then they DUMP these frail demented folks with no IDs, no clothes or personal items, clad only in a frayed hospital gown. Dumped at the ER door. No way to ID them-a million people live on this island! Not like we know everyone.

They end up in some filthy, roach-infested “warehouse." This is what’s going to happen if the GOP has their way with Medicare, Medicaid, Social Security, WIC, Food Stamps. And what are Dems doing? Appearing on Rachel Maddow’s show with just more hate speech about Tweety. Come on Dems---give us a reason to get excited.

I have always voted every primary, general, run off and special election--all by absentee ballot. 90 million registered voters didn’t bother to even vote in 2016! “OOH can’t vote for Hillary, that private email server”..so they stayed home or wasted 7 million votes on Jill Stein (one of the dumbest docs to graduate from Harvard Medical) and Gary Johnson who didn’t know what Aleppo was.

I have no stable home right now or else I’d be getting a petition and running for state office. EVERY progressive needs to get off their butts and get involved. No more “I don’t like Hillary!” no more “I don’t think she looks presidential!” Jesus Christ could return and they’d find fault--“Ooh he looks too Jewish!”

Stop expecting candidates to be perfect. Look at the nut case as POTUS! Rex Tillerson TRIED to make peace with Qatar after Trump decided to back Saudi in a boycott of Qatar even saying that HE was the one who first thought to do it! He seems unimpressed by the FACT that we have 10,000 US troops at the largest US base in the Middle East located at the “Al Udeid” Air Base in Qatar, close to the capital Doha! ONE hour after Tillerson told Qatar that we were on their side--Trump went right back to wanting to boycott Qatar.

Come on, let’s get excited and take EVERY US Rep seat for 2018 along with the 1/3 of Senators up for election. We HAVE to stop these assholes!