GOP slams Pearl Jam over burning White House poster

HELENA ( Montana):

Republicans condemned a poster (pic) by Pearl Jam that shows the White House in flames and a bald eagle pecking at a skeleton they say is meant to depict President Donald Trump.

The National Republican Senate Committee compared it to the now-infamous photo of comedian Kathy Griffin holding a fake decapitated Trump head.

The rock group’s Twitter account says the official poster from Monday’s concert in Missoula, Montana, is a collaboration between bassist Jeff Ament and Bobby Brown, an artist also known as Bobby Draws Skulls.

The Rock2Vote concert aimed to encourage young people to vote in the November midterm elections and support Democratic US Sen Jon Tester of Montana, who is from Ament’s hometown of Big Sandy.

Ament was unapologetic in an e-mailed statement on Wednesday.

“The role of the artiste is to make people think and feel, and the current administration has us thinking and feeling,” Ament said in the statement. “I was the sole conceptualist of this poster, and I welcome all interpretations and discourse.”

He ended the statement, “Love, from the First Amendment, Jeff Ament.”

The poster shows Tester in a tractor flying over a burning Washington, DC, framed by the letters “P” and “J,” with smoke forming the word “Vote” in the background.

Several objects and people are in the foreground, including a skeleton with a full head of hair lying face down, an eagle pecking at the bones of its foot.

Tester’s Republican opponent, Montana State Auditor Matt Rosendale, also is depicted with a crab claw for a hand and carrying a “Maryland” flag, a reference to Rosendale’s native state.

The message from Ament accompanying the poster included the description: “DC burning. Tester Evel Knievel on tractor ... over the cesspool below. Russian money, golf courses, hookers? Maryland Matt. Stars and Stripes as flames.”

Rosendale called the poster “disgusting” and called on Tester to “denounce this act of violence and blatant display of extremism”.

The National Republican Senate Committee, which is supporting Rosendale’s campaign, also blamed Tester for not speaking out against the poster it called “gory”. — AP