New Rules-II

I have on a number of occasions noted that the New Rules coined by Democrats at the federal level [e.g., levying more than 90 indictments against a past president, along with two impeachments (one for a single phone call), along with a hapless special prosecutor investigation, predicated on what we now know was a hoax, along with civil charges brought by highly partisan state DAs and adjudicated by partisan judges) would come around to bite the Dems going forward. 

Those same rules have been applied to J6 rioters, who broke the law by trespassing in the Congressional office building, and more seriously, through their actions, impeded congressional votes and other deliberative activities. The average sentence for those convicted on J6 charges was 16 months in prison. Many were held for months without bail.

After all, solemnly intone many Democrats, "no one is above the law" — be that person an ex-president or a guy dressed like a viking with a buffalo horns hat. 

Those are the New Rules, and we all must abide by them. Right?

That brings us to the serio-comic actions of one Rep. Jamaal Bowman, Ed.D (D-NY) who pulled a fire alarm in a congressional office building because, his office claims, he mistook the clearly labeled alarm for a door opening device (yup, it's all on CCTV cameras, you know, the ones that were inoperable when cocaine was found in the Biden West Wing). The resultant fire alarm caused an evacuation, right at the time the the House was voting, clearly impeding congressional votes and other deliberative activities.

I for one think Bowman's actions were childish, and if the old rules applied, I'd be happy to let them go as an act of stupidity (best case) or partisan petulance (worst case). But the old rules no longer apply. The Dems insist that the new rules are active. So ...

Oh, I forgot ... and the Dems also insist that "no one is above the law," so ...

You'd think that the Dems themselves or at least AG Merrick Garland would bring down the hammer on Bowman, just as Garland did for the J6 rioters, or federal/state prosecutors did for an ex-president.

We'll see whether the "hammer" is rock hard or more like a feather duster. In fact, noting Bowman's political affiliation, my guess is that the New Rules may not apply in his case. Roger Kimball has it right when he writes:

What’s the most famous line in George Orwell’s novel “Animal Farm”?

One good candidate comes when the animals wake up one day to discover that the uplifting, egalitarian motto that had been painted on the side of the barn for all to see—“All Animals Are Equal”—had acquired a codicil.

“All Animals are Equal,” it now read, “But Some Are More Equal Than Others.”

It’s a proclamation for our time.

Indeed, it is. 

UPDATE (10-03-2023):

In the era of the New Rules, gaslighting has become so common that you hardly notice it. When a Democrat gets caught in a situation in which the New Rules should apply, the Dems circle the wagons and enlist their trained hamsters in the propaganda media to tell us, "Of course, of course, this [outlandish excuse] is really quite believable, and anyone who questions it is politically motivated and a bad person."

John Daniel Davidson comments:

Bowman’s claim is that he thought pulling the fire alarm would open the door. That sounds like an outlandish lie, doesn’t it? The sort of patently false thing no one in his right mind would ever believe or even try to explain. Just a bone-crushingly idiotic fiction that requires us to believe Bowman is mentally ill or psychotic. Every single person in Washington knows it’s not true.

And yet, every single Democrat and the entire corporate news media immediately responded as if it were a reasonable and acceptable explanation for Bowman’s actions, like of course he didn’t know what would happen when he pulled the alarm. He thought it would open the door, OK? How many of us have encountered a locked door and immediately pulled the nearest fire alarm? Right? The fire alarm going off took him by total surprise!

Here’s Chris Hayes of MSNBC, for example, saying this whole thing is “silly and embarrassing,” and “not that big a deal.” But then he cites a Capitol Police statement, that Bowman tried to open the door before pulling the alarm, and claims it “lines up with” Bowman’s explanation.

The purpose of this little legerdemain by Hayes is to lend Bowman’s account credibility, to suggest that he is telling the truth — that he was just trying to get out of the building, didn’t do anything wrong, etc. In other words, Hayes wants you to suspend your judgment and common sense, and instead believe what is clearly, provably a lie.

That’s the real problem here — the blatant lying with the expectation that you just have to accept it and pretend it’s OK. Over the last few years of the Biden administration, this sort of thing has become commonplace. Democrats, sometimes President Biden himself, will do or say something outrageous and unbelievable, and the press will either ignore it and pretend it didn’t happen or offer an explanation so disconnected from reality that only a total lack of accountability or any respect for their audience can explain it. 

Because there are no consequences for lying, because people who lie repeatedly and blatantly are often celebrated by the propaganda media (think: the Dems' designated liar, Adam Schiff), there is an incentive to keep lying. And that's exactly what's happening.