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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Iran starts feeling heat

• Whoa, whoa... I'm starting to get a funny feeling in my pants... I haven't felt this way since 2003... what could it be? Oh God! OOOOHHH GOD, YES!!! WE MIGHT HAVE ANOTHER WAR!!!! YESYESYES!!!! OOOOOOOHHHHH GOD!!!!! AAAAAAAAAAHHHHH!!!!

  *pant, pant*

  So, Iran, was that as good for you as it was for me?

Christmas is all about the traditions.

The Thin White Duke duetting with the Short White Bing. Prehistoric Matt Taibbi calling out prehistoric Lloyd Blankfein. Cylons. Yuletide hostage-taking.

On a scientific note, the NORAD Santa Tracker.

And, of course, the annual re-telling of the story of

Santa Claus and his old lady.

Merry Christmas, C&L-ers

(Looks like we're having some technical difficulties.)

Every family has their traditions and activities that really bring the holiday cheer. In my family, my kids love to decorate a gingerbread house and all kinds of cookies and sweets and watch all those Rankin/Bass Christmas specials (I like the one with the Heat Miser the best myself). Our big meal is always on Christmas Eve and usually a traditional Scandinavian meal to honor my husband's Danish heritage: roast goose, red cabbage and a lemon mousse-like dessert called citronfromage. The kids can pick one gift to open on Christmas Eve and then the rest come on Christmas day.

This year, my sister, her husband and their 1 year old daughter are here with us. They have a mixed-faith marriage and they're still trying to figure out what traditions they want to continue in their family.

So that's the theme of this open thread...tell us your holiday traditions.

I guess Broder approves because they don't use dirty f*&king hippie words, but Greenwald nails it:

Nonetheless, Campos' central point is entirely accurate. It is long past time to cease treating people like Glenn Reynolds (and his fellow Bush evangelist, Hugh Hewitt) as though they are within the bounds of mainstream decency. What they advocate on a daily basis is as extreme and contrary to our country's political values and traditions as can be. The fact that Reynolds refrains from using vulgar words when espousing these obscene views does not in any way mitigate what he is.