Governor Riley STRICKEN with Aristocracy Syndrome

Danny over at Doc's Political Parlor is reporting that Governor Riley wants the assault on the Senate floor forgotten. Apparently Gov. Riley has succumbed to the condition known as 'aristocracy syndrome'. Little is known about this condition, in which elected officials become convinced that they are entitled to live by a different set of rules than the ones they impose on the rest of us. There is no cure.



I am no fan of either Bishop or Barron so I have no dog in this fight. But violence against another person is not something that should be forgotten. It should be denounced....very forcefully it should be denounced and Senator Bishop should face very severe consequences for his actions.

Barron Calls on Bishop to Resign

AL.com NewsFlash



MONTGOMERY -- Sen. Lowell Barron, D-Fyffe, today called for the resignation of a Republican senator who attacked him on the last night of the regular session of the Alabama Legislature.

Barron said he will wait until after the Senate Ethics Commission makes a determination in the case of Sen. Charles Bishop, R-Jasper, before he decides whether to file criminal or civil charges against Bishop.

Bishop struck Barron in the head during a brief scuffle on the Senate floor. Barron did not retaliate.

The Ethics Committee hasn't yet met.

Barron would not say whether the committee should expel Bishop, but he added, "If I were Sen. Bishop, I would consider resigning to prevent further embarrassment to our state and show the nation and the world that Alabama doesn't tolerate this type behavior."

"It is not my desire to file charges against Mr. Bishop, only because of the continued damage it will do to the reputation of the great state of Alabama," said Barron.
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I personally think not filing criminal charges against Senator Bishop sends a far worse message to the rest of the world about the state of things in Alabama. Not filing charges says, "It's ok to settle your differences with a punch" when clearly it is not ok. It says that our elected officials are not subject to the same laws as the citizens they represent. If you or I punched a Senator we'd likely be shot on sight and most definitely prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law.

It let's economic investors and industrial development folks know that this is the mentality they will have to deal with if they locate in the state of Alabama and that is not a good image to portray to the folks who can provide jobs to people who desperately need them. It sends the message to kids and their parents that it is ok to resort to violence to deal with issues that are not a threat to ones personal safety.

Governor Riley yesterday refused to condemn the actions of Senator Bishop saying only that it was time to move on. Great leadership there Bobby! This was after his initial response of “You know I think Sen. Bishop said it best. He said he’s sorry that it happened, wish it hadn’t happened there, but on the other hand, I doubt if the senator that called him that will ever do it again,” Gov. Riley said.
“I think everyone reaches a point to where you can just take so much and there’s certain things most Alabamians don’t want said to them or in front of them,” Gov. Riley said.

So, according to Governor Riley's logic on that it would be perfectly alright for one of his son-in-laws to smack around one of his daughters because she called him a son-of-a-bitch? Somehow, I doubt that would be the case if Minda or Chryslyn showed up at the Capitol with a black eye and a busted lip.

Truthfully, the only people in the state who have a right to take a swing at the do-nothing bastards are the citizens who are suffering under their 'leadership'. I'll quit bitching if they will line every damn one of them up and let me have a swing.

And while I am at it let me just say HELL NO to the Senate resolution for health insurance. "Why should we have to pay for them to go and get patched up after their Jerry Springer-ish brawls?" as a friend from MySpace put it to me the other day.

Alternative School For Senator Charles Bishop

By PHILLIP RAWLS
Associated Press Writer



MONTGOMERY, Ala. (AP) -- The Alabama Senate blow seen around the world has resulted in a complaint to the Senate Ethics Committee over the conduct of Sen. Charles Bishop, who threw the punch, but Bishop figures there won't be enough votes to expel him.

The Ethics Committee, which hopes to get organized this week, could take any kind of disciplinary action ranging from a warning to recommending Bishop's expulsion.

Bishop, R-Jasper, said Monday some members of the Senate's Democratic majority would like to expel him or force him to quit over hitting one of its leaders, Sen. Lowell Barron, D-Fyffe.

"That group would like to see me gone, no doubt about that," Bishop, 69, said in an interview.

But he said he plans to file his own ethics complaint accusing Barron of calling him a "son of a bitch" before the blow. He said he had "absolute evidence" to back up the claim.

Barron did not immediately return telephone messages left on his cell phone and at his business and legislative offices Monday. An aide said the 65-year-old senator was traveling and unavailable for comment.

Bishop hit Barron with a fist to the head during a heated exchange at Barron's desk on Thursday, the final day of the 2007 session. The blow, captured by Alabama Public Television, quickly became one of the most popular videos in the world, showing up on news media Web sites, on international television and on YouTube.

After the blow Thursday, Barron and four other senators filed the complaint with the Senate Ethics Committee. On Monday, an Ethics Committee member, Sen. Scott Beason, R-Gardendale, said he forwarded the complaint to Bishop, who has 15 days to respond.

The committee, which has not yet met, hopes to get together this week to elect a presiding officer and decide how to proceed, said another member, Sen. Kim Benefield, D-Woodland. Benefield said any comment beyond that would be inappropriate until the committee reviews the complaint.

Beason said he hopes all the members will address the complaint with an open mind and won't let it linger.

"It's best to go ahead and get things like this out of the way," he said.

Under the Senate's rules and the Alabama Constitution, the committee can do anything from nothing to issuing a warning to recommending the Senate take more drastic action, including voting to expel Bishop, committee member Zeb Little, D-Cullman, said Monday.

Doing nothing or issuing a warning would require the vote of three of the five members. Recommending the Senate do anything stronger, including expulsion, would take four votes.

Bishop said he doesn't expect an expulsion recommendation because the Senate's Democratic majority only has three members on the Ethics Committee and the minority, of which he's part, has two members.

If he is expelled, Bishop said, "it will be enjoyable to go into their districts and raise money and tell the people what kind of senator they've got."
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Here is what I think. When Alabama school children get into a fight at school...no matter what the reason, the police are called, the kids are carted off to juvenile hall...in handcuffs, dragged through court, suspended, face expulsion, and more often than not they are forced into 'alternative school' which is a fancy way of saying 'prison school'. Quite frankly, if our elected officials are going to act like children settling a score at recess then they should be treated accordingly. After all, 'what kind of message are we sending to the children' to allow the folks who passed the laws that send kids to jail for striking another person to be exempt from those same laws?