Weekend Update 5/27/2012: Elected bullies behaving badly

So, on the eve of a special election a congressional candidate body slammed a reporter for the temerity of asking him a question about the health care bill currently in congress. He assaulted the reporter in front of witnesses. There is audio of the assault. And yet, he won the election: Body slam a journalist, win an election: Readers see ominous signs in Gianforte’s victory By the way, I refuse to say “alleged assault” because in a subsequent speech the candidate has admitted that he did it. But we shouldn’t be surprised, I mean, after all: Montana Congressional Candidate Greg Gianforte Has Close Ties with Extremist White Supremacist Pastor because of course he does!

There are so many things I could say about this, but I think this tweet sums it up:

Let’s move on to someone who may finally be facing justice. Back in 2012 a high school student in Rhode Island sued to have a religious banner removed from her public school. Shortly after a court ordered the school to remove the mural, state legislator Peter Palumbo said in a radio interview that the student was an “evil little thing.” So a government official, an adult, was bashing a teen-age girl because she had the audacity to stand up for the Constitution. Classic bullying behavior. Well, Palumbo apparently does know a thing or two about evil: RI State Rep. Who Called Teen Atheist “Evil Little Thing” Indicted for Embezzlement.

He lost re-election recently. Not for bullying a teen-age girl, of course, no that didn’t cost him any votes. He was revealed to be involved in a financial scandal. This week, he was indicted on charges of embezzling tens of thousands of dollars from his campaign funds. This has nothing to do with the contract scandal that cost him his office. This is another illegal not-so-little thing he was doing.

I wish the Rhode Island citizens would have tossed this guy out on his ear back then, but they seemed to have been too busy making death threats and bullying the teen-ager who stood up for the Constitution. At least, now, karma has caught up with one of her bullies.