Earlier this week, we posted about a vulgar and sexist anti-Hillary Clinton sign that's up beside Highway 212 in Yellow Medicine County that's getting some attention. See Mike Mullen's excellent article, Gross rural Minnesota sign makes 'pantsuit,' 'blue dress' jokes about Hillary Clinton, in the City Pages.
While that sign at least hangs on some historical fact about Bill Clinton's philandering, the administrator of the Clearwater County Republican Party's Facebook page has posted something that's completely unhinged: the Photoshopped image of Democratic presidential candidate shaking hands with Osama bin Laden.
Cropped out of the version that the Clearwater County Republicans share--posted by Alexander Davis to the Facebook group Friends Who Like Donald J. Trump on June 21--is the provenance of the image: an advanced Photoshop contest entry at Freaking Nation, Hillary Clinton for President? Here are the rules, which suggest the contest began in 2008, as her title as Senator is used, rather than that of Secretary Clinton:
Contest Directions: Senator Hillary Clinton officially declared her bid for presidency 2008. Making her announcement Hillary said "I'm in". This is the phrase she rarely heard from Bill in their bedroom. In this contest you are asked to photoshop anything connected to Senator Hillary Clinton running for president of United States. Examples may be photoshopping magazine covers, campaign photos, or future presidency achievements.
The image has been widely debunked at such fact-checking sites as Snopes (Fake and Shake) and Truth or Fiction (Photo Shows Hillary Clinton Shaking Hands with Osama bin Laden-Fiction!). The latter post includes the original photo of Hillary Clinton shaking hands with Indian musician Shubhashish Mukherjee at an event in 2004:
The musician first lived in the United States as a student in 1988 and now lives in the Washington DC area, according to the bio on his website.
Additional hilarity? The fact that while Alexander Davis's photo has enjoyed 35,389 shares as we post this, despite the far fewer comments by a handful of members of the Friends Who Like Donald J. Trump group who spar with Davis about how the photo is a fake. He tries to defend posting it by saying it's "a statement" but not without insulting Angie Ortiz, the woman who challenged him:
Alexander Davis You're an idiot this is a statement okay I suggest you don't look at none of my stuff that I put up so go away go vote for Hillary you Moslem ugly face woman.
After seeing this photo shared by the Clearwater County GOP, the flurry of laughable items on the Minnesota 7th Congressional District Republican Party page (see our posts here, here and here, and the belated DFL state party "discovery" of the MN7 GOP social media awfulness), and the kill Muslim "frag em" Facebook post by the now-former Big Stone County Republican party chair that Bluestem first exposed, we're left wondering what's in the Kool-Aid at those fundraisers.
Don't blame the water.
Bonus bogus hilarity! Tim Miller bamboozled by Babylon Bee!
But the Clearwater County Republicans aren't only ones having trouble discerning truth from satire. As the screenshot above illustrates, our own state representative, Tim Miller, R-Prinsburg, was outraged by a post from Adam Ford's Christian News satire site, the Babylon Bee.
Miller publicly shared the July 28 DNC Crowd Erupts As Kermit Gosnell Gives Surprise Speech From Prison Babylon Bee post, along with his own thought about Gosnell's appearance: "I have few words. Very disturbing. Incredibly sad. Nothing righteous."
Several of Representative Miller's Facebook friends helped him out with that one, and the post is no longer visible to the general public. As we are not Facebook friends with the freshman Republican, we cannot say through personal experience whether he has deleted or edited his post.
Screengrabs: Clearwater County Republicans post of photoshopped image (top); the original photo of Clinton and Indian musician Shubhashish Mukherjee (middle); Tim Miller publicly bamboozled by the Babylon Bee (bottom).
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