OK, GOP, Your Candidate on Today's Ballot is a Thug

How do you justify it?:

Gianforte violated that pledge when he attacked a reporter for doing his job Wednesday night. As readers of the Missoulian know, Gianforte had repeatedly dodged questions about whether he would support the House plan to repeal and replace the Affordable Care Act because he wanted to wait for the Congressional Budget Office to assess its impact.

Wednesday afternoon, the CBO issued its report, showing that millions of people across the United States — and thousands here in Montana — would lose health care coverage under the GOP plan.

A reporter for the Guardian newspaper, a respected British publication with a broad following in the United States, walked into a room in Bozeman where Fox News was setting up for an interview and asked the candidate what he thought of the budget office report, noting that Gianforte had said he was waiting for those numbers.

An audiotape of the encounter shows the question was followed by a loud crash that a Fox News reporter who was in the room said was caused when Gianforte put both hands around the throat of the reporter, threw him to the ground and then began punching him.