Important update: Late Monday night, we got a call informing us that Lauren Valle, a MoveOn supporter, was attacked by campaign volunteers for Rand Paul, the Republican Senate candidate in Kentucky. The video is pretty awful: Three men threw Lauren to the ground, held her down, and stomped on her head and neck. She ended up in the hospital with a concussion. She's still recovering, but she's already speaking out about what happened—and pressing charges against her attackers, at least one of whom is so unrepentant he just demanded an apology from Lauren.

This is upsetting and outrageous and fundamentally anti-democratic. What's worse, it's part of a growing pattern of right-wing violence and intimidation, fueled by violent rhetoric from Glenn Beck, Sarah Palin, Sharron Angle, and others.

Here's the thing, folks: we can't let this intimidate us or derail us (which is the intent, after all). Instead, let's work even harder over the next week to defeat the candidates that are stirring up hate. Lauren's not stopping, and we won't either.

If you want to make a contribution in Lauren's name to support Jack Conway (the MoveOn-endorsed Democrat she was trying to help when she was attacked), click here:

http://www.moveon.org/r?r=93155&id=24722-17663758-iSPkbcx&t=6