Tim Profitt is afraid.  He does not want anyone to see his face. Tough!  I’ll show it along with another face that’s equally vile.  If having his face plastered all over the Internet causes him to fear, that’s fine with me.  Like most Republican bullies, he’s just a coward.  Please do NOT respond against him with violence.  Why?  That’s not our way.  It’s what makes us better that he is and the Republican hate mongering he represents.  Would you believe that this bastard actually wants an apology from Lauren Valle?

Tim Profitt, the former Bourbon County campaign coordinator for Kentucky GOP Senate nominee Rand Paul’s campaign, gave the AP a non-apology apology yesterday for stomping on the head of a MoveOn.org activist outside a Senate debate Monday night, saying, “I apologize if it appeared overly forceful.” But apparently his pseudo-remorse was short-lived, as Profitt told local CBS affiliat [sic] WKYT today, “I don’t think it’s that big of a deal.” (The Lexington Police think otherwise, issuing Profitt with a criminal summons).

And astonishingly, asked if he planned to apologize directly the activist Lauren Valle whose head he stomped on, Profitt said, “I would like for her to apologize to me to be honest with you.” Watch it:

 

Profitt has remarkably attempted to blame Valle for the incident in which he and another large man wrestled the 23-year-old woman to the ground, telling WKYT, “she was a professional at what she does and I think when all the facts come out, people will see that she was the one who initiated the whole thing.” Profitt has said he restrained Valle because he feared the petite woman represented “a danger” to Paul, and said he stepped on her because “I couldn’t bend over because I have issues with my back.” Meanwhile, Profitt now says he “fears for his safety.”

On a conference call organized by the campaign for Demoratic nominee Jack Conway today, a 60-year-old Conway supporter named Michael Grossman said he was also assaulted by a Paul supporter at the same event. Grossman — who attended the event “simply as a supporter” of Conway — was carrying a sign with Conway’s name on it. Shortly after Valle was attacked, Grossman said he “felt a heavy hand on my shoulder” and turned around to see a “thug” who “happened to be massive.” Grossman said the man tried to “thrust me to the ground” in order to get to Valle and take part in that melee. When Grossman turned around, he said the man “verbally berated” him, called him a “communist” and a “socialist,” and said “you ought to be back in California or New York with all the rest of the scum.”…

Inserted from <Think Progress>

The second incident makes it more than clear that the assault on Valle was not an accidental incident.  The Paul campaign must have planned to deal brutally with dissent.  That should not surprise us.  It’s the Republican way.

President Obama invited five prominent lefty bloggers to the White House for a chat.  Overall it was a productive conversation, but I’ve chosen to focus on one small part of it.  Most of the gridlock we have experienced over the last 20 months stems from Republican misuse of the filibuster.  Assuming that Democrats hold the Senate, they have a one day opportunity to change the rule with a simple majority vote.  Here is the discussion on that subject.

Q On that same issue, because a lot of progressives — and you said you’re not the king — well, a lot of progressives feel that senators, especially in the minority they think — we call them the House of Lords. And are you in favor of any form of filibuster reform? Because there are several bills being talked about. And there is a unique time that — by the way, we’re also very happy that Vice President Biden went down to do a fundraiser for Alan Grayson. He’s the type of Democrat that speaks out and fights. And that’s what the progressive community really likes.

But he also might have the opportunity in January to be — to help out. And can we get — or are you for any of the bills that are out there to support — to change this rule that is paralyzing the administration?

THE PRESIDENT: Well, I’ve got to be careful about not looking like I’m big-footing Congress. We’ve got separate branches of government. The House and the Senate have their own rules. And they are very protective of those prerogatives. I will say that as just an observer of our political process that if we do not fix how the filibuster is used in the Senate, then it is going to be very difficult for us over the long term to compete in a very fast moving global environment.

What keeps me up at night is China, Germany, India, Brazil — they’re moving. They make decisions, we’re going to pursue clean energy, and the next thing you know they’ve cornered half the clean energy market; we’re going to develop high-speed rail in the span of five years — suddenly they’ve got high-speed rail lines going; we’re going to promote exports, here’s what we’re going to do — boom, they get going. And if we can’t sort of execute on key issues that will determine our competitiveness over the long term, we’re going to fall behind — we are going to fall behind.

And the filibuster is not part of the Constitution. The filibuster, if you look at the history of it, may have arisen purely by accident because somebody didn’t properly apply Robert’s Rules of Procedure and forgot to get a provision in there about what was required to close debate. And folks figured out very early, this could be a powerful tool. It was used as a limited tool throughout its history. Sadly, the primary way it was used was to prevent African Americans from achieving civil rights.

But setting aside that sordid aspect of its history, it was used in a very limited fashion. The big debates, the big changes that we had historically around everything from establishing public schools to the moon launch to Social Security, they weren’t subject to the filibuster. And I’m sympathetic to why the minority wants to keep it. And in fairness, Democrats, when we were in the minority, used it on occasion to blunt actions that we didn’t think were appropriate by the Bush administration.

Q On occasion.

THE PRESIDENT: And in fairness, there were a whole bunch of folks here who were already writing blogs at the time who were saying, filibuster, block them, do anything you can to stop them. And so if we’re going to call for reform, it’s got to be with open eyes and an understanding that that also means that if Republicans are in power, it’s easier for them to move their agendas forward. But my general view is, what that does at least is it opens it up to serious public debate. Things don’t get bogged down in the kinds of procedural nonsense that makes it just hard for us to do business. I mean, during the financial crisis, half my Treasury slots weren’t filled — couldn’t get them filled. And this is a time when we were worried that the entire financial system was melting down. So that’s — I believe it’s something that we’ve got to take seriously. All right?… [emphasis added]

Inserted from <Crooks and Liars>

I agree with most of what he has to say.  I’m certain that, if Republicans get control, they will change the rules.  It’s better to change them on our watch to accomplish the things for America that can keep Republicans out of power.

The article contains a complete transcript of the meeting.  I encourage you to click through to it, because it is well worth the read.

Yesterday I posted an Action Alert, as soon as I heard of this.  I see that Rand has already squelched Bold Progressive’s video, which I embedded, but I have more.  In a nutshell, two Rand Paul campaign workers, one of whom remains unidentified and the other a county campaign manager, brutally assaulted Lauren Valle, a RepubliCorp volunteer to silence her.

I hope the cops arrest this guy. What is it about even the mildest opposition that sends right wingers over the edge?

LOUISVILLE, Ky. (WDRB Fox 41) — Outside the Conway-Paul debate, a Rand Paul supporter pulled the woman’s blonde wig off and stomped on her head. She was representing the liberal organization MoveOn.org and claimed to be presenting Paul with an award from RepubliCorp. That’s a group created by MoveOn.org that focuses on what it calls the merger between corporate America and the Republican Party.

"I’m 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 same as everyone else. I got my head stepped on and I have a bit of a headache," said Lauren Valle, MoveOn.org.

The woman denied police were involved, but right afterwards officers pulled her aside to question her about the incident.

… [emphasis added]

Inserted from <Crooks and Liars>

RepibliCorp performs skits for videos satirizing the merging between the Republican Party and giant criminal corporations. Here’s an example of their fine work.

Paul’s Brownshirts knew who she is and what she was doing there.  The claims of Paul’s county campaign manager, the one that stomped on her head, that he was concerned for Paul’s safety is a lie.  They mugged her to silence her.  Hear it in her own words in this Keith Olbermann interview.

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Although Paul has since fired the creep, after several attempts to blame the violence on both sides.  He has not offered an authentic apology to date.

Republicans take power, the Brownshirts will replaced with the GOP SS, Blackwater, aka Xe.

Vote!

Republican Senate Candidate from Alaska, Joe Miller, fought tooth and nail to keep the personnel records as a public employee sealed.  Now we know why.  He was trying to get one of his cronies elected to chair the Alaska Republican Party.

Joe Miller, the Republican Senate candidate from Alaska, was disciplined for using three co-workers’ computers for political purposes and initially lying about it when he worked as a part-time lawyer for the Fairbanks North Star Borough in 2008, personnel records released on Tuesday under a court order showed.

“He maintained the whole time that he did not violate the computer use policy and that actually all of us did for not securing our computers,” Jill Dolan, a lawyer for the borough and one of the colleagues whose computers was used, said in a written statement on March 13, 2008, the day after the incidents.

Ms. Dolan said Mr. Miller had eventually told her he was using the computers to vote with “different URLs” in an online poll about the state’s Republican Party chairman, Randy Ruedrich, whom Mr. Miller wanted removed.

“I told him the door was locked and he was a confidential employee and we shouldn’t have to worry about him using our computers,” Ms. Dolan wrote. “I explained to him that I am not a political person and that I did not appreciate him injecting me into his mess by making it look like I voted in some poll to oust Ruedrich.”

Mr. Miller cleared Internet cache files from each of the computers. He also used his own computer to participate in the poll and then cleared his cache.

After initially lying about the computer use, he eventually admitted to it in a letter to his supervisor, Rene Broker, the lead borough attorney.

“I acknowledge that my access to others’ computers was wrong, participating in the poll was wrong, lying was wrong and there is absolutely no excuse for any of it,” Mr. Miller wrote to Ms. Broker on March 17. “I accept whatever punishment you feel is appropriate.”

He was placed on administrative leave that lasted for about two weeks and then punished with the loss of three days’ pay. He was also placed on probation for six months, ordered to complete employee counseling and to “work hard to rebuild the co-worker relationships that were harmed” because of his actions… [emphasis added]

Inserted from <NY Times>

Daily we hear Republican rants that Democrats are trying to steal the upcoming elections.  Note that this is just one more example of Republicans accusing Democrats of the crimes that they commit themselves.  Republicans have proven over and over again that they can’t be trusted to not steal a child’s candy, let alone to run a government.