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.