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PaperclipPerfector  6mo ago (text post)   27707 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of October 23, 2023

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Follow up post time.

There was a discussion awhile back about whether Jamaal Bowman pulled a fire alarm to help delay a bill relating to the government shutdown.

New footage is out. https://www.zerohedge.com/political/rep-bowman-issued-criminal-summons-pulling-fire-alarm

It seems:

  1. Bowman doesn’t try to open the door.

  2. Bowman takes down signs.

  3. Bowman pulls the alarm and walks away without changing how he walks (ie no indication he then tried to use the door).

To me, this seems like very strong evidence he pulled the alarm to cause a disruption.

Bowman doesn’t try to open the door.

From the video that seems to be the first thing he does. Now given that the sign he takes down (one of them simply taken down, one in his hand as he walks away) says "Push Until Alarm Sounds (3 Seconds), Door Will Unlock In 30 Seconds" and that he did not try the door again after manually pulling the alarm there might be some conclusions to be drawn.

I don’t see that — he seems to grab the placard.

You can see the right door flex a bit right after he gets there.

Perhaps but at the same time he pulls the fire alarm and makes zero effort to go towards the door nor is there any hesitation.

Maybe he tried to open the door to trigger the alarm?

That placard is this sign. I know the film is grainy but it's a dimensional match, color match and the text layout is a match. It's the sign.

Edit: it's also placed on top of the bar in the same way.

Stronger evidence than his guilty plea?

I can’t fathom why he thought pulling the alarm was a good idea. It didn’t work in undergrad, and it didn’t work here…right?

Stronger evidence than his guilty plea?

AFAICT, his plea was solely to pulling an alarm without a fire, probably this law. His position remains that he pulled the alarm to get to a vote faster, insisting that he did not intend to cause a disruption of government functioning. Which is... really hard to match up with the video. Maybe he was running back into the building to find someone to report the alarm-pull, after he'd non-chalantly taken down signs and carefully pulled the fire alarm?

It didn’t work in undergrad, and it didn’t work here…right?

Dunno. The Dem side of the House had been asking for additional time to review the then-pending budget/continuing resolution proposal, and the fire alarm did get a number of House offices locked down. Doesn't prove that it changed the timeline for the next vote, but then again the law "corruptly interfering with" isn't limited to just votes themselves, or even just to Congress itself.

Honestly, the shame's probably a more effective ramification than a criminal trial that'd go nowhere, to the extent any politician can still feel shame; I didn't expect him to even get this slap on the wrist. But there's a lot of people who are going to point to this (and to the increasingly-common disruption of Republican state congresses, or federal judicial hearings) when they do something stupid, and sooner or later the escalation's going to get bad.

when they do something stupid, and sooner or later the escalation's going to get bad.

There's a long history of shenanigans to delay or stop procedures. Early in his career Abraham Lincoln dove out a window and ran with some of the other representatives on his side so that the chamber wouldn't have quorom and the vote wouldn't count.

My favourite is from 2006 or 2007 in an Asia - Pacific country. The opposition wanted to stop a motion from being read in the house, so one of the members ran up and ate it. Which at the time, the rules didn't account for.

I don't mind these events, they give amusing anecdotes and aren't a huge deal.

The issue here is the hypocracy around the "obstructing an official proceding" law. It's supposed to be about destroying documents congress has requested.

Well he plead to a pretty lame charge. He could have been hit with J6 level felonies. He should be held to a higher level than just one off citizens.

Should I think is the better word. A bunch of people entering a building that is often open to the public, when it happens not to be, but also facing no resistance from security, seem like the sort of people who need a small fine. Whereas congressmen interrupting sessions of congress via fire alarm deserve some orange jumpsuits.

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