NEWS: SuicideGirls Say: You Can’t Stomp On Us!

CULTURE: SuicideGirls Say: You Can’t Stomp On Us!

On Monday night, a 23-year old female protester named Lauren Valle was assaulted by a group of male Rand Paul supporters before a debate in Kentucky between the Republican candidate and his Democratic counterpart, Jack Conway. The incident was captured on a video which has since gone viral.





In the clip, Valle, who was armed with nothing but a blonde wig and a MoveOn.org “RepublicanCorp” sign which mocked the GOP’s allegiance to big business, was seen being pulled to the ground by a group of men. As she was curled up in the fetal position to protect herself, one of the men, who was subsequently identified as Paul campaign volunteer Tim Proffitt, repeatedly stomped on Valle’s head, leaving her with a concussion.

Regardless of your political views, under no circumstances is such violence ever acceptable – especially when perpetrated by multiple males against one woman. MoveOn.org has therefore reached out to SuicideGirls to help get the message across that this is not OK.



[SuicideGirls Radio Host Sam Doumit]

“This goes beyond someone attacking a MoveOn member at this point. It’s about attacking a 5 foot defenseless woman, PERIOD,” says MoveOn’s Creative Director Laura Dawn. “Engaging in a political protest – a first amendment RIGHT in this country – is not an invite for a beat down – and isn’t it telling that they attacked the 5 foot woman and not the man who was with her protesting as well?”

To bring attention to the incident, Dawn is asking YOU to download this You Can’t Stomp on Us! sign, take a photo of yourself with it, then upload the image to MoveOn’s “You Can’t Stomp On Me” gallery (and, please, also post in the comments section below). So far, over 2,000 women have taken a picture of themselves holding the sign, add yours and help stop the violence.



[SG Member: Jensenn]

**UPDATE**



Casca Suicide says: "You Can't Stomp On Me"

**UPDATE #2**



SG member, friend and Newswire contributor Wil Wheaton says:
"You Can't Stomp On Me"

**UPDATE #3**



Psyche Suicide says: "You Can't Stomp On Me"

The response on the right to this has been hilarious (in that "emptying your gun into somebody while shrieking 'FUNNY! FUNNY! FUNNY! at the top of your lungs" way). They have blamed Valle for the whole thing--after all, she "lunged" at Rand carrying a piece of paper, and we all know how dangerous paper can be--and dismissed the entire incident because, as a professional protester, she knew what she was getting into.

Yeah, protip: if your actions make you so ashamed that you can't bring yourself to show your face, maybe you were wrong.

It's funny until you realize that Rand Paul is still going to win comfortably. Then it's just fucking depressing.

Wow, that's fucking ridiculous. I support Rand Paul but the volunteer that got violent is a 'tard. No politician has ever given me a hard-on, and I never thought any of them were infallible, but it's actually not fair to equate your fans with a man's character.

I don't know that anyone is debating the rights of anyone here - it's clearly battery and the constitution is being brought up to reinforce that she has free speech? Is the government abridging this right? I'm confused why we are talking amendments and whatnot.

Before you get too worked up, Lauren Valle is no stranger to controversy and anything but an innocent victim. She was in fact a PAID employee of moveon.org at the Rand debate specifically there for the purpose of creating an incident!!

Ms. Valle is already facing felony charges after being arrested in May along with six others in Louisiana for her antics in a Greenpeace activism stunt. The group of activists had already been repeatedly warned by law enforcement to stay away from the area, after being spotted in the area the week leading up to the incident. The incident was serious enough that it drew the attention of the New Orleans Joint Terrorism Taskforce, which also reviewed the case.

Such shenanigans are something we often like to refer to as “media bait.” In a similar stunt, Valle and four other protesters were arrested and detained in China in August of 2008 after illegally hoisting a banner just outside the National Stadium (the “Bird’s Nest”) in Beijing’s Olympic Park. Progressives praised the action as part of a carefully coordinated effort amongst multiple activists organizing from multiple locations.

In April of 2008, Valle was also arrested after chaining herself to Citibank’s headquarters building in New York as part of a protest related the RainForest Action Network’s “dirtymoney.org” campaign. Dressed in costume as a “Billionaire for Dirty Energy”, Valle demanded with others that Citibank shift away from its large-scale investments in coal-fired power plants.

Valle told WDRB at Monday’s incident, “We’re here to present Rand Paul with the ‘Employee of the Month’ award. However, his supporters were not very nice to me and my message, which is the same as everyone else — just wanted to get out here with a sign,” Valle of East Falmouth, Massachusetts, told WDRB. “I got my head stepped on, so I have a bit of a headache.”

Given her past record of showing up at protests and getting arrested, one could easily speculate that Ms. Valle had no intention of leaving Monday’s event without the occurrence of a public spectacle of some sort.

What Ms. Valle did was stupid and dangerous, she could have found herself shot dead for making a threating lunge at Rand. All in all, she got just exactly what she wanted, she created a scene which has drawn the ire of a lot of people who THINK she's some kind of innocent victim, when the truth is she is just another misguided nut case.

What angers me is the audio reaction... "No, no no...." from someone standing by.

That is what I say to my boyfriend's five-year-old when he's doing something mildly annoying/undesirable, not overkill from some idiot who can't keep his feet to himself. She was already on the ground, let it go.

Guess if he had a bad back, that guy should've let security handle it...surely someone who can spend so much cash on a campaign can at least afford that, hmmm?

People, in groups, are always barbaric. That's why I hate American politics. If you think the other side is "evil" then you are nothing more than a child from The Lord of the Flies. Neither democrats NOR republicans represent evil, and the layman who votes for one or the other is certainly not evil. That's the problem with everyone today, they have such unrestrained hatred of the other side. It's why I vote independent. Fuck, this is going to turn into a huge boost for democratic support because they are going to exploit the fuck out of that poor girl for their own gain. It's barbaric.


Besides, most political activists are fucking retarded, even the ones I kinda agree with.

Also, there's no free speech issue here. This is battery and possibly assault depending on how it's defined in the statute. Maybe a few other things as well. That's it, don't blow it out of fucking proportion that does a disservice to justice.

NONE of that information you shared justifies that piece of shit stomping on her.
You know what SHOULD be dangerous enough to get you shot dead?....hitting a woman!

This incident is entirely indicative of who these people are. Tea Party candidates are for overturning Roe v. Wade, they are against allowing abortions even in the case of Rape or Incest.

Please encourage everyone you know to vote next week! Keep these people out of office!

Wow, I'm convinced. If the Chinese government says she's bad, then she must be.

That's right! My god, just think of the harm that piece of paper could have caused! OMG.

Are you fucking serious?

If the incident were some type of debate or conversation I could understand why you took the time to type out all that, but nobody deserves to get hit or stomped on no matter what their viewpoints or intentions are. When a human gets violent like that, it means they've lost control of themselves and that is a crime no matter how justified anyone thinks it is.

@strider57. So I take it your logic here is that because she was a political employee of a left wing political organization, physical attacks on her were completely justified. Clearly she was there to make a political statement. That type of speech is constitutionally protected and hard wired into American social change. There was this thing with a black woman and a bus you might remember.

So, if her goal as an activist was to tap into conservative white rage and fear, and get it to manifest as hate and violence, then she was successful.

As for the police warning her to stay away... do you honestly think it is acceptable for the police to tell any of us to stay away from a public event? This is akin to, "you yankee college boys better not stay around Selma and get our colored folks all riled. Something bad might happen to you."

So, you defend the indefensible. No matter how frustrated you are with the current government, violence against other citizens is not justified. We are supposed to be a nation of ideas.

A "threatening lunge"? Are you serious? Did you actually watch the video?

The rest of your argument is completely fucking ridiculous. Yes, Valle absolutely was there to cause a scene--by presenting Rand with a fake award. That's the scene she was trying to create. To suggest that this was in some way asking to get knocked to the ground and physically abused is horseshit.

And you know what? Fine, let's pretend Valle actually was there with the intention of provoking a physical altercation. It's pretty god damn telling that all she had to do was approach the candidate to trigger that response.

In reply to strider's comment and those who complained about it, many of you need to accept that not all situations are black and white. In this case, I don't think either Valle nor the people that attacked her were in the right.

Obviously, it's horrific to see someone brutally attacked, and those who did so should be punished accordingly, but her track record also shows that she has a serious habit of pissing people off. If you taunt, harass, and annoy enough people, sooner or later you're gonna find one that isn't going to put up with it.

In strider's defense, I highly doubt he thinks the attackers were justified in what they did; he just wants to let you know that she shouldn't be smelling of roses here either.


Also, it's fucking stupid to denounce Rand Paul just because some violent idiot at a rally was wearing a Rand Paul shirt. I doubt Rand Paul thinks their behavior was acceptable. If you disagree with his political positions, great, but don't condemn someone because one of his supporters is an assclown.

Oh Great...even my Suicide Girls have to go political...damn, no escaping it. There goes my future membership. There's disgusting stuff in politics that happen on both sides...like whats new. Every Republican that goes too far, I can show you a Democrat to match. Just hoping that this site would stay away from politics.

Whatever you do, don't click on this link.

...That's a joke, right? I don't ever recall there being a time when SG's boards weren't very strongly left-leaning.

This is ridiculous. What, exactly, did Valle do that in any way balances against being tossed to the ground and stepped on? What, specifically, did she do that was wrong? Protest at a political event? Try to pull a non-violent political prank?