RedState has a video of what Lauren Valle was doing before the assault, which RedState seems to think justifies a bunch of thugs assaulting her. Of course, it does nothing of the sort. Here it is:
About 17 seconds into the video, you can make out Valle, in a red hoodie and blond wig, approaching Rand’s car and holding up her sign in front of the car window. By 19 seconds into the video, you can see that some guys had surrounded her and gotten her away from the car. Then, in the video, that sequence is enlarged and repeated twice, so that after we’ve watched it the third time Valle has been pulled away from the car by the 32 second mark. Another 20 seconds or so goes by before we see Paul getting out of the car.
If you stop the video at exactly 55 seconds, you can see that Paul is just getting out of his car, and there’s a blond woman in a red top, carrying a cardboard sign, standing in front of the car. She’s several feet away. I believe Valle’s story is that some guys chased her around the front of the car and then assaulted her. I can’t tell if she is being chased around the front of the car, but I believe that is her, and she is definitely in front of the car. I’ll try to get a screen capture to show it better.
[Update: I watched it again, and if you keep your eyes at the top of the screen from about 50 seconds on, you clearly see Valle running in front of the car, and she doesn’t seem to be running toward Rand Paul. And you can make out what appears to be Pezzano, with his “don’t tread on me” button, chasing her.]
This video follows Paul and doesn’t show the assault, but we know from watching other videos that the assault begins about the time Paul had completely emerged from the car, which was just a second or two after what we see at the 55 second mark.
If anything, this video shows us that the assault had nothing to do with protecting Rand Paul. The goons assaulted her because they knew she was there to somehow ridicule their candidate, and they were angry.
In the earlier sequence, the one repeated three times, it appears the men who moved her away from the car used only enough force to do so. Basically, it appears some guy in a suit got between her and the car and shoved her away. I don’t have an issue with that.
However, this video corroborates that Valle was several feet away from Rand Paul when the assault began. So even if she were making another attempt to approach Rand Paul — the video doesn’t show her at this point — she was still some distance away from him, and Profitt and Pezzano could have just gotten between her and Paul and blocked her. Manhandling her to the ground and stepping on her clearly was uncalled for.
Update: I can’t believe I’m spending time on this, but I think it needs to be done, somehow — he’s another video showing Paul getting out of the car, and then the camera swings over to show the assault.
Now, I’ve looked at the “Paul getting out of the car” sequence in the first video above (which begins with someone opening the car door for Paul at about the 48 second mark), and compared it to the “Paul getting out of the car” sequence at the beginning of this second video. They are from different angles, and our view of Paul is blocked for a time in the second video. But the assault on Vale is going on while Paul is completely out of the car and walking away from the car, so that would have been just after we see someone who seems to be Valle standing in front of the car.
Here’s the screen capture:
So it appears that, one way or another, she was jumped and assaulted while she was several feet away from Rand Paul, probably less than five seconds after we see what seems to be her standing in front of the car.
Take a look and tell me what you think.
Update: See also No More Mr. Nice Blog.
You can imagine what might have happened if Mike Pezzano and other advocates of “open carry” had their way. A situation like this could get even nastier than it did.
Manhandling her to the ground and stepping on her clearly was uncalled for.
Yeah it was uncalled for…but the frenzied chanting of “Rand Paul, Rand Paul” probably worked the goons up into such an excited state that they tackled and stomped her instinctively with their protecting the hive mentality. I’m not excusing their criminal behavior, but it should be noted that the rightie mind is not given to thoughtfulness. It primarily functions as an emotionally reactive and primitive organ.
That is indeed Valle in front of the car. She’s still wearing the blond wig. At the .55 mark look closely and you can see that she is being pursued by Pezzano in the ball cap and plaid shirt. She has stated that after confronting Paul she was hustled away and chased around the car. Pezzano is very definitely right behind her.
“Take a look and tell me what you think”
I think the “Rand PAul” chanting sounds like a bunch of brainwashed crazies, I mean the guy’s running for senate for cripes sake! I’m no Christian but don’t the bible say something about worshiping false Idols? This guy seems like the second coming to the dimwitted teabaggers.
What I think = she was blocked and restrained in the first couple of seconds. All that followed–pushing her around, pinning her on the ground, the sexual assault, the stomp—were all to humiliate the victim, and thereby establish and demonstrate dominance.
I agree that Rand Paul was pretty far away and getting farther before they started wrestling her to the ground. There was no call for what they did. They were probably fairly pumped up from having all those people chanting “Sieg Heil” over and over.
What? They were chanting “Rand Paul”? Really? Are you sure?
Sure sounded like “Sieg Heil” to me.
I reviewed the video. If it’s all accurate, then it looks like she rushed the car. At that point, they probably a right to try to hold her. Kicking her when she’s down is still a crime, and can’t be justified by being concerned for Paul’s safety.
Now, she reports that they blocked her in, and she stepped off the curb because they were trying to do that. That might be true, and if that’s the case, they instigated the event – but if she moved to the car, they then probably had a right to try to move her away and immobilize her.
What Mr. Profitt did was assault, pure and simple. He should be charged and tried by a jury. What Ms. Valle did was stupid, and dangerous as well. Watching the video, the leaps off the curb, lunging at the car, trying to shove her sign through the window, WHILE THE DAMN CAR IS STILL MOVING! What if the driver had been startled and had lost control of the car and run over some of the people on the street or the sidewalk?
Instead of the discussion being about Lauren Valle getting stepped on by a crazy Paul supporter, we would be talking about crazy Lauren Valle causing the injury or death of innocent bystanders. Perhaps Ms. Valle should retire from her career as a Professional Protester and avoid further possible injury, trips to jail, or legal fees.
In over their head.
The Nazi Tea Party Pig Tim Proffitt Has put a fine point to the fact, woman don’t fare well around Kentucky Senate candidate Rand Paul’s Senate race. Proffitt, who was handpicked by Rand Paul himself, has added new fuel to the fire lit by Jack Conway during his debate with Paul.
Tim Proffitt’s Admitted beating of Lauren Valle brings into question Proffitt’s close association with Paul, it brings into even more serious question, Paul’s womanizing during his college days, which included tying his victims up and forcing the young woman to perform strange rituals.
Paul’s failure to apologize to the woman that he tied up along with Proffitt’s demand that the woman he did the Nazi boot stomp on apologize for his action, forces any clear thinking person to wonder, even a Nazi Tea Party supporter; why does the Paul campaign hate woman so much?
On a personal note, I’m a Southerner, and I have never laid a hand on a woman that she didn’t want me too, a true Southern man would teach Rand Paul and Tim Proffitt a lesson in good manners, and would never reward these two cowards the Kentucky Senate seat, Just a personal thought on how woman folk are treated.
Sadly, I don’t need, never mind want, to watch.
Consider this story as only a precursor to the coming rages. Consider what will happen when the truth comes clear about the whole sorry scheme of the same old cabal to continue the assault on the rest of us. They’ve figured out how to use the unhappiness of the 20% or so that can’t deal with progress, and leverage their pain into a ‘movement’ — more a mob, but why quibble over words? — that will destroy as much of reason as can be easily touched. When the unhappy truth is known and the mob discovers their delusions have been used against them, they’ll be completely driven mad.
I am frightened by my own visions of the descent into anarchy. There does not appear to be any way to derail the train to hell.
Here’s where we’re at as a nation:
A 2nd Opthamologist runs as a 3rd rate Senate candidate and wins his primary because in certain sections of it, this country has lost a large part of its mind. And then, prior to a debate, when a liberal protester gets stomped, the rightie blogosphere tries to defend the actions of the stomper, as if the protester were some Squeeky Fromme wannabe intent on attemping an assassination using a cardboard sign and a wig, and a liberal blogger has to do a ‘Zapruder-film’ frame-by-frame analysis to put their interminable BS to rest. For at least the next 2 minutes, before they find some other BS to shriek, rend their garments and gnash their teeth about.
And no, MSM, there is no comparable event at a Democratic event, though I’m sure you’ll try to find one, even if you have to go back a 1/4 of a century or more. There might have been some kid who got high and fell down at a “Clean Gene” rally and got stepped on, but I doubt there’s any video of it. Oh, yeah, how could I forget? Every conservatives favorite horror story – CHICAGO ’68. The horror… The horror… The horror…
I wish I was religious because I’d like to get away from all of this madness and join a monastary or something.
It’s almost like the Rodney King beating. What is even more disturbing than what Proffit did (ok, maybe not more) were the people standing around and looking at what was going on. Didn’t one of them think, “Hey, small woman getting pinned down by large man and then stomped on, maybe I should step in.” Not one of them had the balls to do what was right.
[A]a true Southern man would teach Rand Paul and Tim Proffitt a lesson in good manners, and would never reward these two cowards the Kentucky Senate seat.
I think that sums this up nicely.
And I have to say, blaming the victim for being a “professional protester” is, to put it bluntly, BS. People in political crowds always behave unpredictably, so let’s avoid outlandish speculations about the extreme dangers of sign-waving near motor vehicles. What actually happened is pretty clear: Paul’s followers believe they’re entitled to avoid any dissent or disapproval, and they reacted to it with violence.
We’ve also seen how TPers treat “professional journalists” (with handcuffs) and “professional people in wheelchairs who support health-care reform” (with taunts and thrown money). This is what bullies do, consistently.
It’s natural to flirt with Godwin’s Law at this point, but let’s be clear. The Republicans are _not_ “just like the Nazis”. They’re crazy in a _different_ way. They aren’t even like the _Commies_, despite sharing these traits: torture, economic incompetence, militarism, imperialism, anti-Darwinism, central control, utopian ideology, dystopian practice, propaganda and the color Red.
Authoritarianism differs from country to country; it relies on the character flaws distinct to the locale. In Germany, the Nazis were very German in their brutal compulsiveness. In Russia, the Communists were very Russian in their crude inefficiency. And in America, the Republicans are very American in their idiotic hypocrisy.
(Note for instance Profitt’s demand that Valle apologize to _him_. Remember Cheney and the lawyer he shot? These demands from perps for contrition from their victims are ironic gems of moral perversity.)
So let’s reject false equivalence. The Republicans are as different from the Nazis and the Communists as Curly is different from Moe and Larry.
That would almost work on a T-shirt.
So let’s reject false equivalence
OK, but let’s acknowledge eerie similarities also. Check out the video above of Rand Paul making his triumphant arrival through a gauntlet of deliriously adulating worshipers and compare it to Leni Riefenstahl’s classic Nazi propaganda film Triumph of the Will. I don’t know who took the video posted above but it’s very close to being video plagiarism. Biggerbox wasn’t the only one who heard “Sieg Hiel” while viewing that film…I did too. As a matter of fact, I think I saw Rand Paul give a characteristic Adolf Hitler flip up the forearm Nazi salute when he exited the vehicle.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GcFuHGHfYwE
I think she was just holding it up to the car window – but I more-or-less agree. It sounds to me like a gutsy activist got outplayed by security – they got her thinking of how to make her move, and she moved in a way that reasonably should have alerted security folks and make them think she might be a risk.
Yes, and as you see in the RedState video, a guy in a suit quickly moved in, got between Valle and the car, and maneuvered her away from it. And I don’t think anyone has an issue with that.
The wingnuts are trying to claim that Valle had to be jumped and wrestled to the ground because she had approached Paul’s car, but she had already been moved away from Paul’s car more than 20 seconds before the assault began. She was assaulted after the fact, obviously because the Paul mob was enraged she was there.
“Every conservatives favorite horror story – CHICAGO ’68. The horror… The horror… The horror…”
Don’t laugh– the hippies actually ENDED a WAR. Tricky Dick and Kissinger would have kept it going forever, had not their ready supply of cannon fodder delivered to them a big fat “Hell no, I won’t go”. The military industrial complex has been running its revisionist history machine ever since, to insure it never happens again. It probably won’t. People were smarter back then, and less “beat down”.
I am going to go off-topic. Rand Paul still leads in all the recent polls despite the fact the stompin’ story got plenty of air play in KY. Here in FL, it seems likely the Republican will win the governors chair, even though he was the CEO of a company convicted of the biggest Medicare fraud in history – he took the 5th amendment repeatedly when questioned about his involvement. It looks likely that a teabagger, Rubio will defeat the moderate independent, Charlie Crist. Reid seems poised for defeat in NV. Even a convicted pedophile would have an advantage if he was running against a democrat. The dark side is on the rise everywhere.
So what will happen? These nuts like Angle, Paul and Rubio can’t change anything. They lack the power and have no plan beyond the rhetoric. In all probability, the significance of the success of the Tea Party next week is that it guarantees an extremist GOP nominee in 2012. And even more aggressive tactics when they are met with opposition, IMO.
The Tea Party and the GOP believe McCain was far too moderate – willing to compromise. (Like that’s a vice??) In 2012, the GOP will have purged all traces of moderation from the primary process. The question is – how will the selection of a rabid anti-liberal play with democrats? Will the threat of the repeal of health care be enough to unite progressives and mainstream democrats? What will the choice look like to independents? (Obama vs Palin – are you kidding?)
The good news is that the only narrative that the bloodsucking mainstream media likes better than rags-to-riches is the fall-from-grace story. The media loves to build someone up and when they are at the crest, the second team starts to tear them down. Having elected crooks and idiots, the GOP will have provided the press with fresh meat. We’ll see how the press decides to handle the new kids, but hopefully some editors will be horrified enough to shine a spotlight on the truth.
I’m trying to ignore the polls, except that I do check in with Nate Silver occasionally. He says just about anything is possible, but the odds are that Dems will keep the Senate but Republicans will take the House. So nothing will get done for the next two years but squabbling.
“So nothing will get done for the next two years but squabbling.”
There’s a lot on the agenda for the next 2 years. Read Krugman.
http://krugman.blogs.nytimes.com/2010/10/28/lessons-of-1995/
It appears to me that Valle does run towards Paul, but Profitt blocks her path, and Pezzano grabs her from behind and pulls her to the ground.
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