Ala. Lawmaker (R) Punches Senate Colleague (D)

[Kadie]

Ala. Lawmaker Punches Senate Colleague
By BOB JOHNSON, Associated Press Writer

Thursday, June 7, 2007


(06-07) 15:43 PDT Montgomery, Ala. (AP) --

Simmering tensions in the Alabama Senate boiled over Thursday when a Republican lawmaker punched a Democratic colleague in the head before they were pulled apart.

Republican Sen. Charles Bishop claimed that Democratic Sen. Lowell Barron called him a "son of a (expletive)."

"I responded to his comment with my right hand," Bishop said. Alabama Public Television tape captured the punch.

Barron refused to comment and went into a closed-door meeting with other Democrats. Sen. Vivian Figures went into the meeting carrying first aid supplies, but she said he was not hurt.

Bishop said he regretted throwing the punch because "that's not the way grown men solve their problems," but added that he would not immediately apologize to Barron.

more...
http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/n/a/2007/06/07/national/a154351D04.DTL

[ORDagnabbit]

1. dontcha just love republicans? jeez......

[lyonn]

2. Sounds like Senator Barron calls them like he sees them!? nt

[Mojambo]

3. Nothing like old white men fighting.

Who needs dog fighting? Mike Vick should be ALL over this.

[bluerum]

4. What. An. A$$hQle. eom

[bluestateguy]

5. Whatever happened to dueling?

Isn't that how "gentlemen" used to resolve disputes?

[Silverbug]

6. here's a video

http://www.breitbart.tv/senpunch.html

[Kadie]

12. Thanks Silverbug, and Welcome to DU!

:hi:

[originalpckelly]

15. Thanks for the link, let's hope this kind of stuff isn't copycatted.

[NoGOPZone]

7. Think maybe he's a descendant of Preston Brooks?

[Divernan]

8. Bishop has a long history of violence, including on the Senate floor.

www.politicalparlor.net/wp/2007/05/07/senate-fight-almost-becomes-literal/

If you click on the various links to links, you'll go back to stories of violence in the 80's.
Wikipedia needs to do an official bio on this guy.

IN MAY OF 2007
May 7, 2007
Senate Fight Almost Becomes Literal
Filed under: AL Senate — Danny @ 9:15 am
How tense are relationships in the Senate?

Sources tell the Parlor that Charles Bishop (R - Arley) and Zeb Little (D - Cullman) exchanged “strong words” on the Senate floor Wednesday, after which Bishop invited Little outside. Little reportedly replied, “Why not here?” and at that point they were separated by security.

AND AGAIN IN APRIL OF 2007
Doc’s Political Parlor
& Home of Lawn Mower Repair
April 19, 2007
Sen. Bishop, Seizing Opportunity, Pt. 2
Filed under: AL Senate, Campaign & Election — Danny @ 12:06 pm
Sometimes a good story is its own end.
What I know about Jasper’s GOP Senator Charles Bishop (admittedly second-hand) is that he would not deny that he is an opportunist who is unconcerned what others think of him. A party-switcher who publicly calls his Senate colleagues “pinheads” and animatedly addresses a crowd protesting the legislators’ pay increase by asking inexplicably, “How many of you believe those Mexicans need to go back to Mexico?” Bishop, a lobbyist tells me, was the last state Senator to take a swing at another Senator on the Senate floor, and according to an elected official, Bishop once challenged a colleague to leave the Senate floor to settle their differences in the men’s room. This is a man who sets his own course.

There is a story that elected officials like to tell about Bishop’s most recent campaign. (I have heard it at least twice). Late in the SD-5 race, according to the story, Bishop’s Democratic opponent Larry Cagle went to the Daily Mountain Eagle to run an ad showing Bishop’s past ties (”cancelled checks” one version of the story went) to left-wingers. (By way of example, the left-wing ADC almost gave Bishop the endorsement he sought for the 2002 governor’s race. Their failure to do so caused Rep. Alvin Holmes, D - Birmingham, to announce his resignation from the ADC board.) The point of the ad apparently was that Bishop’s roots were not as conservative as he now professed to be.

Nope, can’t run the ad, Cagle was told. It’s hearsay, unacceptable, and so forth. We won’t run it. Despite Cagle’s protests, he could not get the ad okayed. Short on time, late in the campaign, Cagle appealed to the publisher. Ok, said the publisher, I’ll have someone else look at it. The second one to check it out said to change one word and the ad would be fine.

Turns out that after the election the first guy who would not approve the ad, the newspaper’s advertising director, shows up in Bishop’s campaign finance reports as a paid consultant to the Bishop campaign. One version of the story I heard had Cagle wondering why Bishop’s newspaper ads responded so quickly to Cagle’s, sometimes in the same issue. A story as interesting as this makes the rounds. Would Bishop mind this story being passed along? “Are you kidding?” a lobbyist said. “He would be proud of it. Proud that he thought of it.”

[YDogg]

9. He oughta be freakin' arrested.

[burythehatchet]

10. That's great news

when you are a morally and ethically bankrupted party, this is all you have left. We should expect this and personally, I welcome it. Liberals will have to physically kick the red pimply asses of the wing-nuts when all is said and done.

[annabanana]

11. Doesn't Alabama have any assault statutes on the books?

I mean, really.

[LoZoccolo]

13. He's a terrorist, assaulting an elected official.

He should go to Guantanamo Bay to get waterboarded.

[originalpckelly]

14. This is terrible and terrifying. It might signal a new era of violence in politics.

Let's hope that people don't copycat this and do it all over America like abortion clinic bombers and school shooters.