Rand Paul’s Senate campaign received a kick in the pants last night, when a group of male supporters stomped on a female activist from MoveOn.org. Paul’s campaign has denounced the violence, sure; but his past remarks, and the Tea Party zeitgeist as a whole, helped spark it.
Last night, ahead of Paul’s debate with Democratic rival Jack Conway, MoveOn activist Lauren Valle attempted to give Paul an “employee of the year” award from MoveOn group RepubliCorp, “a fake business MoveOn created to symbolize what it says is the merger of the GOP and business interests controlling political speech.”
Paul’s supporters were not amused, shoved her to the ground and then one of them stepped on Valle’s neck and head. Though the activist was able to speak with the press, she did later go to the hospital and has filed a police report.
The Rand Paul campaign sent out a statement (sort of) condemning the incident, of course, and insisted, “Violence of any kind has no place in our civil discourse and we urge supporters on all sides to be civil to one another as tensions rise heading toward this very important election.” Funny, that’s not what Paul said.
[Some of Paul's greatest gun-related hits]
Rand Paul has a history of calling for arms. Or, at least, alluding to it. In his post-primary speech, Paul claimed he and his supporters would “take our government back.” At another rally, Paul joked that though he didn’t have a gun, he was sure his base had his back: “I’m not armed today, but I feel pretty safe. I feel like i’ve got a private security detail out there.”
Paul’s most extreme comments were at a local Second Amendment rally, where, flanked by machine gun-toting guards and dressed in militia garb, the Republican declared, “Some citizens are holding out hope that the upcoming elections will better things. We’ll wait and see. Lots of us believe that maybe that’s an unreliable considering that the Fabian progressive socialists have been chipping at our foundations for well over 100 years. Regardless, the founders made sure we had Plan B: the Second Amendment.” Paul, however, later claimed not to have seen the guns or called for violence.
While the candidate may not have said “beat down the left,” his rhetoric definitely fueled militant anger. And he’s not alone: scores of Tea Party candidates, including Sharron Angle and, most recently, Texas Congressional candidate Stephen Broden, have hinted at violent revolution against “treasonous” enemies. “The option is on the table. I don’t think that we should remove anything from the table as it relates to our liberties and our freedoms,” Broden told a local radio station when asked about violent overthrow of the government. He then added that it’s not a “first option.”
Americans feel that they’re out of options, however, and the violent atmosphere of this election presents a chicken or the egg scenario: did the candidates start the figurative revolt, or are they simply tapping into an energy that was there before, dormant and ready to erupt? In the end, though, that question remains irrelevant, because the violent “chicken” has hatched, and candidates like Rand Paul were the incubator.
At the aforementioned militia rally, Paul warned supporters, “After a long and costly Civil War that is imminent and sure to be forced upon us, we are taking note of those who are responsible for the treason, and eventually they will be held accountable.” Then, taking aim at a trusty conservative enemy, the media, Paul said, “I advise the press to start getting it right from this moment on and stop aiding and abetting UnAmerican activity.” In the case of the stomping supporters, the press has nothing to do with it: responsibility for this attack falls squarely on Paul’s head.
October 26, 2010 at 4:02 pm, Jonny King said:
What a stupid fucking moron this Belonsky is.
The fucking PRESIDENT is out calling the GOP the “enemy”.
Go after him, you partisan hack.
October 26, 2010 at 4:03 pm, Jonny King said:
Also, let's wait for the facts to come in on this.
I wouldn't put it past Moveon.org to have staged this entire thing.
They've done worse.
October 26, 2010 at 4:49 pm, dannno said:
This isn't a very good analysis of what transpired, though it was likely inspired by the horrible coverage by the mainstream media so it is difficult to blame the author.
What happened was this girl, with a George Constanza-esque figure, either short or tied back hair and a wig on (I'm insinuating that it would have been difficult for someone who noticed the wig to tell whether she was male or female, let-alone a “girl”), so this stocky person with a wig is literally charging through the crowd at full bore, shoving people and knocking into people.. as she approaches Rand, many in the crowd think that this person might be trying to attack him.
Now the person who rightfully detained the woman has been positively identified as a Rand Paul supporter. The individual who stomped on her shoulder (not her head, watch the video closely), has not been identified and apparently she is not pressing charges. This woman has been involved in political stunts with other individuals, one where she chained herself to a bank. Who is to say that the shoulder stomper wasn't part of the stunt, trying to get this type of attention from every newsroom and blogger across the universe?
Of course this is just a hypothesis, but it is just as good as the one presented in the article above. Let's get all the facts in first before jumping to conclusions.
October 26, 2010 at 6:39 pm, Dana Lane Taylor said:
You are blind as a bat. The guy stepped right on her head. She was treated for a concussion at the emergency room. And show the proof she was running through the crowd pushing people away. And oh, a newsflash for you. WOMEN SOMETIMES WEAR WIGS.
October 26, 2010 at 6:41 pm, Dana Lane Taylor said:
Rand Paul didn't condemn the violence. Rand said it was simply a 'crowd control' problem.
October 26, 2010 at 6:54 pm, dannno said:
You are such a liar, Rand condemned violence on BOTH sides twice now.
Nobody is saying the shoulder stomp was even ok, other Rand supporters told the guy to stop as it was occurring.. but the fact is we don't even know if that guy is a real Rand Paul supporter. Both of them were wearing “I'm a Rand Fan” stickers, just like the progressive who went to Fancy Farm a few months ago was covered in as he moved through the event, chanting racial slurs. Seems to be more popular attire among agitators than actual Rand Paul supporters.
The shoulder stomper's identity has not been revealed. Interesting. Charges filed? I've heard that they have not been.
“She has told MoveOn officials that she suffered a concussion and sprained shoulder and arm, a MoveOn spokesperson confirms.”
Reports said she didn't go to the hospital after it happened, how does she know she has a concussion or sprained arm??
October 29, 2010 at 6:36 pm, Not a Rand Supporter said:
You seem to not be posting anymore, now that it was discovered that the head stomped was “deeply” involved in Rand's campaign…..Probably rightly so, as the ass you've made of yourself here…
Face it, this is who Teabaggers are and its not pretty
October 29, 2010 at 6:48 pm, dannno said:
You're so full of bologna. Nobody EVER said the shoulder stomp, which you continue to lie and call a head stomp, was OK. In fact the other “teabaggers” around the guy, if you actually listened to the AUDIO of the incident were telling him to stop!! How can you say that is “who the teabaggers are” if the others were telling him to stop?? You don't make any sense.
The fact is this girl was trying to create a scene and was a complete idiot and stormed a political candidate. She's almost as dumb as somebody on the internet who said that Rand hadn't condemned the violence when his campaign had condemned the violence on both sides twice already. Were you aware that a Conway supporter purposely stepped on a Paul supporter's foot who had a CAST and their stitches busted the same night? They ended up in the hospital, in much worse condition than your freak show they put all over the news.
So you can continue to support Conway, who supports mountain top removal for coal (which Valle has protested in the past) as well as the Iraq war!! I'll continue to support the anti-war, pro-liberty candidate.
Since you don't support Rand maybe you can explain why we should stay in Iraq and Afghanistan for the next decade and obliterate our economy with overseas overspending. I'll be waiting with baited breath.
October 31, 2010 at 7:00 am, Gaiusgracchus said:
It is a head stomp, dude. You are blind.
And these criminal perps are being CHARGED WITH CRIMINAL ASSAULT AND BATTERY — so much for the VICTIM DESERVING IT.
October 26, 2010 at 6:48 pm, dannno said:
I have better than 20/20 vision, how is yours? He did NOT step on her head OR neck, he pushed down on her shoulder. Stop watching the media and go to youtube, look up the raw footage and watch closely. You can tell she is charging through the crowd by the reactions, physical and verbal from the crowd before it actually occurred. First hand witnesses also reported that she was charging full bore through the crowd, shoving people aside and such. Even one of my friends who is very progressive admitted that her head wasn't stomped on after seeing evidence that this event was staged by actors:
Here's a link where instructions are provided on how to “research your Republican target's schedule” and “stage your Republicorp stunt and attract media attention.”
http://www.moveon.org/team/campaigns/republicorp/
You can see for yourself where the plan for “birddogging” Rand is listed, at this link to a spreadsheet that shows their upcoming targets (you'll have to scroll down to near the bottom):
https://spreadsheets.google.com/pub?key=0AkDKnkKFc187dGdadkxSdFVVd2wxc0Y2emtHOG15T1E&hl=en&single=true&gid=0&output=html
The targeting of Rand was recorded into the moveon.org spreadsheet system by someone named Jacob Stoebel.
A quick search finds that there IS a person in Louisville by that name….
Interestingly, the Jacob Stoebel in Louisville happens to be the Associate Director of Education … at, of all things, the Actor's Theater of Louisville.
October 31, 2010 at 7:04 am, Gaiusgracchus said:
Yes, he stomped on her head and EVERYONE knows it. Lying about it won't change the truth.
Thankfully these perps have been served with criminal charges and will hopefully to to jail.
December 05, 2010 at 4:25 pm, Guest said:
Hello,
I normally don't take part in online political discussion, but as the person mentioned at the end of Dannno's above post I feel I must speak up for myself:
As a volunteer for Moveon.org I spent some of my free time this past election season tracking upcoming public appearances of Rand Paul for other Moveon members to make peaceful appearances at these events. When I signed up for this election tracking I was assured by Moveon that 1) all demonstration events would be non-violent and civil and 2) that my participation would be anonymous.
I don't know how my name was obtained by Dannno but the fact of the matter is that 1) I had nothing to do with the violent incident on either side 2) I wasn't at the event in question in the first place and 3) I had nothing to do with organizing Lauren Valle or other Moveon members who were involved in the provocation. The debate was a high profile one, and its highly likely that the Moveon folks involved found out about this event on their own, with or without my research assistance. Furthermore, the post by Dannno identifies my employer, a 501(c)(3) non profit organization which, by law, never takes sides in a political race. I was not acting in any capacity in my duties with my employer, an it is simply unfair to imply otherwise. My employer (who I am intentionally not mentioning) had absolutely nothing to do with this story and neither did I.
October 27, 2010 at 12:00 am, Llucier said:
“The Paul for Senate campaign is extremely disappointed in, and condemns the actions of a supporter last night outside the KET debate. Whatever the perceived provocation, any level of aggression or violence is deplorable, and will not be tolerated by our campaign. The Paul campaign has disassociated itself from the volunteer who took part in this incident, and once again urges all activists — on both sides — to remember that their political passions should never manifest themselves in physical altercations of any kind.”
October 26, 2010 at 5:27 pm, Tax_senior2002 said:
Staged. OBVIOUSLY staged. Look at the SMILE on that witch's face during the ENTIRE VIDEO.
October 26, 2010 at 5:48 pm, Gene Equality Kelly said:
The Rand Paul campaign sent out a statement condemning the incident, of course, and insisted, “Violence of any kind has no place in our civil discourse and we urge supporters on all sides to be civil to one another as tensions rise heading toward this very important election.” Funny, that’s not what Paul said.
More importantly where is the video that Conway's supporters have knocked down a Paul Supporter and kicked them in the head and neck…. WIMPS
October 26, 2010 at 6:42 pm, Baas said:
Weak.
October 26, 2010 at 10:51 pm, malcolm816 said:
Guys, this post is the top hit for the Google search, “tea party attack”. Please take another pass at this story.
“Rand Paul’s Senate campaign received a kick in the pants last night” is not a lead that captures the massive cultural significance of this despicable event.
October 26, 2010 at 11:30 pm, Chris Bruehl said:
While I lean conservative, I think just about everyone is overreacting to this story. Remember when that lady claimed she was attacked by essentially what she said was a big scary black Obama supporter, and it happened to be fake? Not saying this necessarily is, but either way, even if these stories are both true, it's a huge leap of faith to associate a rabid partisan with the candidate they support. Fact of the matter is, there are really loud, obnoxious, and even violent supporters on both sides of the debate, and the media focus on what they do obscures the debate and lowers the level of discourse to “Hey, see what that Obama/Rand Paul/Ralph Nader/Donald Duck supporter did? This proves that all supporters are assholes, and completely invalidates their political stance.”
It's very easy to see one of these stories in the news and try to paint the actions as a few as representative of all supporters or a candidate, but the rabid fans that show up to political rallies don't represent the silent majority, and more importantly, in the end all we're doing is moving away from enlightened debate and more towards the finger pointing, generalizing, and name calling that happens far too often on cable news.
October 27, 2010 at 9:06 am, Playstation Phone Finally Delivers Death Blow To Attention Span | Death and Taxes said:
[...] these days. Who wants to kill time logging to a news app and checking out once again how some Tea Party mob stomped a girl’s head? Or logging into a stock portfolio app to scare the shit out of yourself with volatility so intense [...]
October 27, 2010 at 4:55 pm, Candice Hughes said:
HOW DISGUSTING….now the teabaggers are supporting violence aganist women…a aide for Meg Witman called her a whore in a PRIVATE conversation and the media covered it non stop for days……but let a democrat get stomped on by men and they try to blame her for it……WHERE IS THE MEDA ON THS???????????
October 27, 2010 at 5:22 pm, DFMF said:
And once again we are served up a heaping tablespoon of progressive disbelief and outrage over a staged MoveOn publicity stunt. How dare those nasty Tea Party folks treat the cordial and peaceful liberal protesters in such a fashion!?!? Where are their manners?!?
Oddly enough, I did a search here on D&T magazine for any coverage of three other recent acts of protester violence, and yet I could find none. Why? Because in those cases, the out-of-control violent protesters were progressive militants. Andrew's blatant hypocrisy is now center stage for all the web to see.
Incident 1: In St. Louis, a black Tea Party supporter was passing out flags that read “Don't Tread On Me” when he was approached by several goons from the SEIU, the fastest growing union in North America, who started shouting racial slurs and physically assaulted the man. Need I tell you which side of the political spectrum the massive labor union SEIU supports?
http://www.weeklystandard.com/weblogs/TWSFP/2009/08/eye_witness_to_st_louis_scuffl.asp
Incident 2: After attending a Republican fundraiser at Brennan's restaurant in New Orleans, a staffer for Gov. Bobby Jindal and her boyfriend were chased down by liberal protestors and savagely beaten on the sidewalk. She actually had her leg BROKEN by these progressive vermin! One of the thugs actually bragged about the event on his blog (like an idiot) the next day, which helped police and reporters determine his identity. The following link provides a great timeline of the story as it developed:
http://thehayride.com/2010/04/the-brennans-beatdown-piecing-together-a-story/
Incident 3: A 65 year old man had his finger BITTEN OFF by a progressive loon at a health care reform rally in Thousand Oaks, CA. The rally was attended by members of MoveOn (interesting, right?) and Code Pink, the despicable faction of insane progressives who actually applaud the deaths of American servicemen and women. During a heated exchange with a rabid progressive, the man's finger wound up in his attacker's mouth who then proceeded to bite it off down to the 2nd knuckle.
http://www.weeklystandard.com/weblogs/TWSFP/2009/09/obama_critics_finger_bitten_of.asp
And in case you are not aware of vile rhetoric spewed by the disgusting progressive cell Code Pink, here is a picture of them from one of their treasonous rallies:
http://antiliberal.citizenrock.org/wp-content/uploads/2007/11/code_pink_murder.jpg
I'm all for freedom of speech and the right to speak your mind and make your opinions heard, but NO American should tolerate this kind of hatespeech directed at our Armed Forces personnel.
The simple fact of the matter is that there are vermin on BOTH sides of the political spectrum who have no idea how to protest peacefully and make their voices heard without resorting to brute violence. Any attempt to portray one side as always being peaceful and noble can immediately be shot down with the most basic of Google searches. Idiots and cowards exist on BOTH sides of the spectrum, and you know this, so please spare us your faux outrage.
Andrew, do yourself a favor and stick to articles about “hilarious farting” or “the hottest feline comic book characters.” Those topics are clearly more up your alley. Your naked progressive bias only serves to discredit your “reporting” when it comes to politico.
October 28, 2010 at 1:00 am, AOH said:
DFMF- Your cold hard facts, crystal clear logic, and flawless arguments have no place here. You are muddying up Andrew's rant.
AOH
October 28, 2010 at 12:07 am, Aofh said:
Andrew- Just wondering about your take about BHO's latest pronouncement –
‘We're gonna punish our enemies and we're gonna reward our friends who stand with us on issues that are important to us'.
“Punish our enemies” when referring to people who have ideological differences? That's some, what is your term, “extreme comments” wouldn't you say? How Presidential. Other great spewage from BHO include his comment on “finding out who's ass to kick” (pure class), and putting his boot “on the neck” of BP (fancy that, after taking all those campaign contributions from them)..
This is the guy that you and your friends are all lathered up about?
The most inflammatory comments you can come up with from Rand Paul is that he wants to “take our country back”?
AOH
October 29, 2010 at 4:59 pm, tacoboy42 said:
stupid tea baggers, I'm not a regular voter but will defiantly be going out on Nov 2 just to vote out against these extremest, there just as bad as the Taliban.
October 31, 2010 at 7:02 am, Gaiusgracchus said:
You got that right. They are AMERICA's TALIBAN.
October 29, 2010 at 9:08 pm, nwohno said:
This article is fucking stupid.
October 29, 2010 at 9:09 pm, nwohno said:
Don't belive the hype.
October 29, 2010 at 11:27 pm, roedygreen said:
I have seen the video of Lauren Valle at Rand Paul rally getting her head stomped a dozen times. She put up no resistance. She was not a threat to anyone. She was pinned on the ground when Profitt stomped on her head. You can hear one of Rand Paul's supporters chastising Profitt and making him stop. She has grounds for a lawsuit, and certainly grounds for demanding an apology. Paul/Proffit are being idiots for the stance she deserved the beating.
October 30, 2010 at 11:16 pm, Jimmyjones75 said:
Why people are so upset about this woman getting her head stepped on? It's perfectly acceptable to treat humans this way right? The tea party is absolutely within their right to use physical abuse as they see fit. How can stomping on someones head who obviously disagrees with your political cause could be considered criminal? Is it constitutional that this guy was even taken to jail?
December 13, 2010 at 2:57 pm, Ron Paul’s Spirited Defense of WikiLeaks & Free Information | Death and Taxes said:
[...] is a lot to admire in the Texas Representative Ron Paul. He calls himself a Libertarian, but that designation is really just a semantic term for what he [...]
January 26, 2013 at 4:47 am, Constitutional Myth #6: The Second Amendment Allows Citizens to Threaten Government « Gun Control Now USA said:
[...] “Second Amendment remedies”–in essence, assassination. Rand Paul also likes to hint that the remedy for rejection of his libertarian policies may be hot [...]