It is not okay to tackle a woman to the ground and step on her head just because you don't like her politics. The tea party sees tyranny everywhere and practices it on others. This is how real, actual, not-imaginary fascism comes to America.

Our ugly election season has seen militia-linked security goons handcuff reporters, biker gangs intimidate campaign workers, poll observers "hovering" over brown-skinned voters, minority "voter caging" efforts, citizens arrested for challenging incumbents, RedStaters finding excuse to use racist slurs against the president, and now a scene we might call American Tea Party History X.

But there's a cure for the viral insanity: people like Lauren Valle, the MoveOn.org activist brutalized by Rand Paul's county coordinator. Her courage is in the best traditions of progressive activism, which is not just an answer to the tea party but the antidote. More after the jump and a very important video...

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Booman Tribune: It's the Stupid, Stupid

PERRspectives: Conservative's Cafeteria-Style Constitution

The Reid Report: When you're running against a guy who took the Fifth 75 times in a deposition for his second Medicare fraud case, expect things to get ugly.

Vox Verax: Another weekend, another grass-roots demonstration starring Real Americans who are mad as hell and want to take back their country from you-know-who.

BagNews: Katrina and racial violence: Like the picture wasn't there the whole time?

Petrelis Files: Fox chooses to ignore Mehlman's coming out party

Attytood: Why Rand Paul shunned "Meet the Press"

Cause For Concern: Oil leak bizarro world you must visit

The Reaction: Ending DADT will "undermine religious liberty!"

Faithful Progressive: Israeli soldiers shoot an American in the face with tear gas cannister at a demonstration. She loses an eye.

Danger Room: Israel turns to Youtube, Twitter after flotilla fiasco

Ramblings: The Raging Grannies have a song for BP

The sickness known as "teabaggers" are preparing another shameful display of their utter contempt for the American people.

Via Digby:

This is lovely:

So here’s the plan. On Tuesday, December 15 at 8:45 AM thousands of us will meet in Washington, DC at the fountain in Upper Senate Park. From there we will march to the Senate offices, go inside, and demonstrate our opposition to the government takeover of health care. We call this plan “Government Waiting Rooms”. The intention is to go inside the Senate offices and hallways, and play out the role of patients waiting for treatment in government controlled medical facilities. As the day goes on some of us will pretend to die from our untreated illnesses and collapse on the floor. Many of us plan to stay there until they force us to leave. A backup location for this demonstration will be announced if they block us from entering the offices.

We need as many of you as possible to be there to make our point loudly and clearly. Please make plans to attend. We know it’s a sacrifice to do this right before Christmas. But throughout history American Patriots have made far greater sacrifices than this to protect our liberty. Now the burden (and the honor) falls on us.

Of course, they don't actually have to stage some demonstration of the horrors of health care rationing. We have examples of exactly that happening in real life right this minute. Here's one in Kansas City

--

Maybe these teabaggers think that those people don't count and that somehow they'll personally all be spared from these circumstances if they lose their jobs or get sick. I hope for their sake it's true. But the truth is that among those who are staging this little stunt, it's extremely likely that a percentage of them are going to be participating in this rationing in real life at some point. And there is no way of predicting which ones it will happen to. Talk about cutting off your nose to spite your face...

When karma hits, these psychos will surely face the same fate as all those Americans who went to the Kansas City Free Clinic. Someday they will witness the health of people they care about collapse, and without decent insurance, and they won't be laughing about it. But they are so hypnotized by the wingnut propaganda that when their own loved ones face the same fate at a later date, they then will blame the federal government for doing nothing. These are dangerous idiots.

The Largest Minority gives their take on the Peace March in Los Angeles.

At the rally I went to in San Francisco, police guessed the crowd to be 3,000; it looked about 5,000 to us. New York City officials didn't give numbers to their turn out.

Mayor Rocky Anderson gave a great speech at the Pentagon.

Did any of you participate in a rally? Please share your experiences here.

UPDATE: Far From Iraq, A Demonstration Of a War Zone (h/t Matt)

UPDATE #2: National Park Service Says Pro-War Demonstration Attendance Exaggerated

WaPo

PITTSBURGH -- Protesters greeted Florida Gov. Jeb Bush on his way to a campaign event for a Pennsylvania senator, and he briefly took refuge in a subway station supply closet to avoid the anti-Republican demonstrators.--The president's brother encountered protesters on their way to join a demonstration outside the exclusive Duquesne Club, where Sen. Rick Santorum, a Republican, was holding a fundraiser Friday. Officers used stun guns to subdue two protesters, saying they disobeyed orders to disperse, said Bob Grove, a Port Authority spokesman...read on

Evan Thomas : Why we are In Iraq
via Atrios:
Apparently Evan Thomas of Newsweek thinks he knows. On Hardball:

Download | play -WMP Download | play -QT

Thomas: I don't think the WMD... I've never thought the WMD was the reason we went to war. They went to war for other reasons. It was an excuse to go to war, it was a convenient excuse - they sorta believed it - but it really wasn't the reason they did it.

[drunk hitchens and tweety babbling]

Thomas: After 9/11 they felt they had to teach "The Arabs" a lesson. It was a demonstration of American force. We wanted to show the world - particularly the Arabs - how tough we were. I think that's why we went to war.

Tweety: It had to be a big bang in response to 9/11.

Thomas: "Afghanistan was not a big enough bang."

Evan Thomas should have heard of PNAC by now and there was the first Gulf War to consider. It's amazing how ill-informed these so-called leading pundits are.

Max Blumenthal
"I have just returned from the largest, most energized demonstration I have ever witnessed in my life. Over 500,000 people filled the streets of downtown Los Angeles to march against HR 4437, a bill authored by Republican Rep. James Sensenbrenner (heir to the Kotex fortune) which would turn 11 million undocumented immigrants into felons, punish anyone guilty of providing them assistance, and construct an iron wall between the US and Mexico....read on"

Digby has more

Greenwald:

"...One of the most devoted and loyal Bush followers, John at Powerline, has courageously stepped up to the plate, and attempted to provide an explanation as to how it can be said that disclosure of the illegality of the eavesdropping program "harmed national security." It's the first such attempt (at least which I've seen) to answer this question. For reasons that I point out here on my blog, John's explanation is not just astoundingly incoherent, but conclusively demonstrates that John -- as I believe is the case for many Bush followers -- does not have any idea what FISA says or what this scandal is actually about...read on

(Update): Glenn updates his post with more nonsense from the Bush Cult:

"In Comments, Jukeboxgrad makes a very compelling, perhaps irrefutable, demonstration that Powerline's failure ever to acknowledge FISA's 72-hour warrantless window is deliberate and dishonest...read on"

Nico over at Think Progress wrote this post before I could: Protest Turnout: A Picture’s Worth a Thousand Lie

"To judge the size of a demonstration down 15th Street, it’s probably best to use a photo that actually includes 15th Street, like the shot below. (You’ll notice the throngs of marchers filling up the street for several blocks.)