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PaperclipPerfector  1yr ago (text post)   27055 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of September 25, 2023

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Today's scheduled drama revolves around the last-minute efforts to pass a continuing resolution funding the government for 45-days, with Congress coming in on a weekend. There's a lot of complex politics going on, between a right-wing faction that seems as interested in drama as day to day governance, Democratic interests in more expansionist efforts, the matters of Ukraine, and some politicians not being present due to COVID or death. With a bill getting through the House on widely-bipartisan efforts (with 90 Republicans and only 1 Democratic Representative voting no), some Republicans are pondering whether this will be seen as an admission of weakness. The current one's a fairly far cry from the much more significant cuts that previously faced both Democratic . That's fairly standard politics, though.

Instead, we have something hilarious:

"'Congressman Bowman did not realize he would trigger a building alarm as he was rushing to make an urgent vote, the congressman regrets any confusion,' just to clarify some things on that."

(Bowman later voted for the bill.)

There's obvious comparisons to Other High-Profile Incidents though they're pretty inapt; as funny as Bowman photoshopped into the Lectern Thief's or Qanon Shaman's faces is, the lack of trespassing does matter. Between this, Santos pretending he's a whole lot more interesting than he was, The Squad playing with edgy racism, and Boebert giving an inexpert handjob during the showing of Beetlejuice, all we need now is a pregnancy and a Congressman buying shitty alcohol with a fake id to complete the whole high school bad decisions spread. To really complete the farce and the metaphor, Bowman's background includes some time spent as work at a school that would suspend or expel people for this. Bowman's claim to have confused an alarm system and a door release is not especially likely, but it's enough of a fig leaf that I'll be surprised if the House GOP's resolution to expel him goes anywhere, let alone the potential charges for falsely pulling a fire alarm in DC. Bowman's district is 84% Democratic, so it'd not mean anything even if he were to voluntarily resign, and it's not like he's Menendez.

Maybe he'll end up with a token fine? I'd be surprised.

Which doesn't matter, but eventually you run into the "that's how escalation works" bit.

Boebert giving an inexpert handjob during the showing of Beetlejuice

Are you trying to spin touching the crotch of a man's pants as a handjob? Or do you have a source that shows something else?

I'd... more consider touching the crotch of a man's pants as a handjob, even if not going very far toward conclusion, but if you'd prefer I can go with 'giving inexpert grope'? 'Getting caught on the way to first base'?

"Thrown out stealing second?" Isn't first base kissin'?

This isn't made explicit in much of the coverage but Bowman pulled the fire alarm in the nearby Cannon House Office Building and not the Capitol Building. The NYT article says that the Office Building was evacuated as a result but doesn't say whether there was any disturbance in the Capitol Building as a result.

Bowman's claim to have confused an alarm system and a door release is not especially likely,

Happened to me when I was going for a job interview in an unfamiliar place and I was just waved through with "push the button to open the door". Two buttons side-by-side and I wasn't sure which, and pushed the wrong one 😕 (If you're interested, it didn't affect my chances, because "oh everybody gets that wrong").

But if he is pushing that door release every day, then yes, this does sound like an excuse.

Ah, to be clear, it's marked fire alarm.

EDIT: there's some confusion possible because this door isn't always solely an emergency exit. But it's still pretty stupid.

Okay, yeah, that's not like my buttons. I was imagining that if you're used to hitting one, and they're side-by-side and pretty similar, it'd be easy to hit the wrong one, but it does look like "accidentally on purpose" now.

How does “obstructs, influences, or impedes any official proceeding, or attempts to do so” not apply? I see no reference to trespassing.

Though it does say they can be fined, imprisoned for up to 20 years, or both. You’re probably right that they’ll fine him $20 and call it a day. Such an equitable justice system we have.

You've conveniently left out the 1 word that could exonerate Bowman. The relevant text is this:

Whoever corruptly [..] obstructs, influences, or impedes any official proceeding, or attempts to do so [..]

So the law does not apply to Bowman if he can make a convincing case it was an innocent mistake (which is of course exactly what he is now claiming). It makes sense that the law is qualified this way, otherwise a janitor accidentally triggering the fire alarm could go to jail for 20 years.

"Corruptly" also requires something more than an intentional or knowing act. Eg, the Fifth Circuit's pattern jury instructions say that the general rule is that "An act is “corruptly” done if it is done intentionally with an unlawful purpose." Re obstruction of judicial administration, it means "the defendant acted knowingly and dishonestly, with the specific intent to subvert or undermine the due administration of justice."

innocent mistake

I've got a bridge in Brooklyn to sell you.

The claim “I didn’t realize a fire alarm would set off an alarm” is pretty weak.

Of course, I have a strong prior that Bowman is an ass so I’m predisposed to disbelieve him. But…who has ever seen a red box clearly labeled fire alarm and thought “I should pull this to open a door” before even trying to open a door? No, the excuse is so lame that I believe at a “beyond a reasonable doubt” Bowman did it to interfere with Congress. At minimum, he should be expelled because even if his defense is correct then he is too stupid to be a congressmen.

The claim “I didn’t realize a fire alarm would set off an alarm” is pretty weak.

That's not what he said. He said: “I was trying to get to a door. I thought the alarm would open the door, and I pulled the fire alarm to open the door by accident.”

That's also questionable (if you pulled the alarm because you thought that would open the door then you didn't do it by accident) but the point is: he doesn't deny intentionally triggering the fire alarm, but he claims his intent was to open the door, not to prevent the vote. And that seems at least possible. On twitter I saw this image of the location with a sign that reads:

EMERGENCY EXIT ONLY
PUSH UNTIL ALARM SOUNDS (3 seconds)
DOOR WILL UNLOCK IN 30 SECONDS

(But note that in the still of Bowman pulling the alarm that sign seems to be missing! Which maybe explains why he pulled the fire alarm lever on the wall instead of pushing the exit bars as the instructions by the door suggest.)

This does make it sound like you can open the door by setting of the fire alarm (which also makes logical sense), though it's pretty clear you're only supposed to do that in case of an emergency. Maybe Bowman thought that the alarm would be local and he could just shut it off after opening the door, or maybe he knew the building would be evacuated but thought nobody would know he was the one that triggered the alarm. Either way, it doesn't show that he pulled the alarm in order to delay the vote happening at the Capitol.

The evidence against an intentional action is this:

  1. The building that was evacuated was the Canon Hill building across the street, not the Capitol building where the vote occurred. If he wanted to prevent a vote wouldn't it make more sense to pull the alarm in the Capitol building itself?
  2. The bill was passed with near-unanimous Democrat support, including from Bowman. Not to mention that Democrats have absolutely no interest in a government shutdown with a Democratic president in charge. Why would a Democratic congressman want to obstruct the voting on a bill he is in favor of?

This only makes sense in the context the lawmaker tried to open the door and it was locked. Is there any evidence to support that?

Note reports circulated yesterday that the Dems wanted to slow it down a bit to be able to read the CR. So there was motive.

No one should expect criminal charges short of Bowman writing a confession in someone else's blood. It's more just funny to watch how many pundits are willing to admit they can't read, for a defense no one cares about, over a matter that's got never going to cost their side a thing.

The complexity of proving motive in honest cases is difficult (though there's been no shortage of cases where that bar gets set pretty low!), but

And there's a much more straight-forward local charge for pulling a fire alarm outside of an emergency, which he also won't be facing.

The building that was evacuated was the Canon Hill building across the street, not the Capitol building where the vote occurred. If he wanted to prevent a vote wouldn't it make more sense to pull the alarm in the Capitol building itself?

I don't think incompetence is particularly effective as a defense, but separately a number of Representatives were working from that building (including Bowman).

Why would a Democratic congressman want to obstruct the voting on a bill he is in favor of?

At the time Bowman pulled the alarm at 12:05PM, (which we know some House Reps 'panicked' over), House Democratic leadership was asking for more time to review the bill. Which doesn't mean that the alarm would have worked for that purpose, or even that Bowman (correctly or incorrectly) suspected it would, but it's not so clear that there's no possible motive.

On twitter I saw this image

You can also see the fire alarm in that image. It's bright red and says "FIRE".

The building that was evacuated was the Canon Hill building across the street, not the Capitol building where the vote occurred. If he wanted to prevent a vote wouldn't it make more sense to pull the alarm in the Capitol building itself?

This is no doubt evidence that could be brought up, however it would also make logical sense to me that the whole Hill would be evacuated/go into lockdown in the event of an unplanned fire alarm in one of the complex's buildings.

The bill was passed with near-unanimous Democrat support, including from Bowman. Not to mention that Democrats have absolutely no interest in a government shutdown with a Democratic president in charge. Why would a Democratic congressman want to obstruct the voting on a bill he is in favor of?

I read somewhere (I don't remember where), that the motive could have been to buy time to actually read the bill. Which, honestly, is a great motive. I'd be in favor of multiple hours-long fire drills so that they would actually read every stupid 2000-page bill they put up for a vote. However I don't expect Bowman to be pulling the fire alarm next time the Democrats try to quickly ram through a bill.

You can also see the fire alarm in that image. It's bright red and says "FIRE".

The discussion isn't about whether or not he set off the fire alarm (he clearly did) but whether he did it with the intent to prevent/delay the vote on the funding bill happening in the nearby Capitol building. That's not so clear.

Maybe Bowman will eventually admit something along the lines of “I set off the fire alarm because I was in a rush to leave the building” which is pretty bad (and probably against some law or other) but it's an order of magnitude better than “I set off the fire alarm because I wanted to stop congress from voting on a bill”, which makes him guilty of a felony that carries up to 20 years in prison as a penalty.

I read somewhere (I don't remember where), that the motive could have been to buy time to actually read the bill. Which, honestly, is a great motive.

For Bowman this doesn't strike me as a great reason to risk 20 years imprisonment, which honestly makes me think it's more likely the “I was in a hurry to leave the building” excuse is genuine.

  1. Was the door locked? Did he try to open it before he literally pulled a fire alarm?

  2. Why not take the tunnels instead of pulling a fire alarm?

The discussion isn't about whether or not he set off the fire alarm (he clearly did) but whether he did it with the intent

The obviousness of it being a fire alarm speaks to intent, I would think. Unless the defense is "I'm a huge idiot who doesn't know what a fire alarm is". If it was some special gold-plated Capitol Hill fire alarm variant I could believe it was unintentional. But it is a totally standard fire alarm you'd see all over the country.

As to the rest of your post, the real issue here is that only the left receives this much charity from the legal system and the mainstream media.

I'm starting to think you're trolling me, but in the interest of assuming good faith, I'll say for the third and final time: the question isn't whether he had the intent to set off the fire alarm but whether he set off the fire alarm with the intent to stop the vote.

The obviousness of it being a fire alarm speaks to intent

It only speaks to an intent to set off the fire alarm, not an intent to disrupt an official proceeding. The question is: why did he set off the fire alarm? Three options:

  1. He mistook the fire alarm for a door release button.
  2. He thought triggering the fire alarm would allow him to open the door, so he could get to the Capitol building in time for the vote.
  3. He thought triggering the fire alarm would cause an evacuation of the Capitol building which would mean the vote would be postponed.

You can say the obviousness of the fire alarm makes option 1 unlikely (and I mostly agree) but it does not prove option 3 over 2.

As to the rest of your post, the real issue here is that only the left receives this much charity from the legal system and the mainstream media.

Yes, that's a problem, but that doesn't prove the intent of Bowman.

Maybe it makes sense for the Republicans to assume the worst because when it came to the January 6th protesters the Democrats assumed the worst, but here on this forum we are not active participants in the culture war, we're only discussing it. I think the Jan 6 protesters were judged much too harshly, but I'm also willing to entertain the notion that Bowman is just a dumbass who was in a rush (option 2), rather than a man intent on undermining American democracy (option 3).

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poor eyesight? nerves? in extreme hurry? This would make it relatively believable to me.

I’ve been in a hurry before. I don’t think I’ve ever mistook a red fire alarm for a button to unlock a door.

it does apply but for him to be punished it would have to be proven that he intentioned to disrupt it. This is why chat logs and audio recordings are so useful, like in jan 6th, which shows premeditation and intent. the problem with seeking maximum punishment or even jail time is it it can come around later; your opponents can also hold you to this new standard, so it means everyone is made worse off in the long-run just to briefly take a moral high ground. This why he will not be punished severely. He may be compelled to resign. His defense that it was an accident, I am not buying it, and neither is the public. Who makes that sort of mistake.

your opponents can also hold you to this new standard

They already are.

He may be compelled to resign.

I would be surprised by this outcome, but it is a reasonable one. I don't actually think he should be in jail for 20 years. Just like I don't think J6 defendants should be in jail for 20 years.

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