The House of Representatives has descended into chaos after House Speaker Keven McCarthy was ousted today, so the mainstream news media is using this purely political event (which was entirely predictable, given the slim support McCarthy had in his own party from the beginning of his Speakership and the fact that he’s a weak and not-all-that-sharp leader) to let them bury a far more significant story on the ethics side of the news: a Democratic Congressman breaking the law to disrupt a floor vote by setting off a fire alarm and subsequently lying about it so obviously that even Bart Simpson would be embarrassed by his efforts.

Ethics Alarms has posted on this sickening story—and it’s an ongoing sickening story until Bowman is punished three times already, and this is the fourth. Attention, as Mrs. Loman tells us, should be paid. This is why Americans are disgusted with Congress. This is why so many no longer trust our institutions or the politicians elected to maintain them. This is why so many have so little respect for the communities that elect disgraceful public servants like Bowman. This is why it is becoming frightening clear that “laws are for the little people.” This why there is no reason to believe or trust the mainstream media, and every reason not to.

This is why totalitarianism is a greater thereat now than at any time in our history.

The fourth installment of Ethics Alarms “Bowman and the Fire Alarm,” we begin with Marjorie Taylor Greene’s devastating video above, showing exactly how insulting and absurd Bowman’s lies about how he came to pull the fire alarm in the Cannon Office Building are. I have no admiration for Greene, and if the Republicans and Democrats could come to an agreement in which both Representatives were kicked out of the House, I would view it as beneficial to all. In this case, however, she performed a public service doing what she does best, being snide and snarky. Bowman deserves every bit of it, and so do his defenders.

Other developments of note:

1. Here’s the New Republic staff, showing what hacks they are:

I am serious when I say that I have no respect at all for anyone who does not retch in disgust over that presentation. It is intellectually dishonest partisanship at its dead awful worst. The important news is that Democrats aren’t “pouncing.” Not one single Democrat or well-known progressive has had the integrity or decency to say in public, “I can’t condone this. Stooping to using a false alarm as political tactic during an important vote is beneath contempt. Our party should not engage in conduct like this, we should not encourage or tolerate it, and we must emphatically join with Republicans to say, “Enough.” This is no way to govern a great republic.” Sure, Republicans are going to use the episode for political gain if they can, but making sure the public understands what happened and why it is important is crucial regardless of its collateral benefits.

2. I would be remiss if I didn’t note the typically idiotic response of Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY), Bowman’s fellow “Squad” member. CNN’s Jake Tapper rehashed Bowman’s lie that he pulled the fire alarm thinking that it would open the door that was festooned with signs explaining how to open it, concluding with “He said it was an accident. He thought pulling the alarm would open a door,” Tapper said. “I’ll be honest, it doesn’t really make sense to me.” AOC blathered, “I think there’s something to be said that the government’s about to shut down, there’s a vote clock that’s going down, the exits that are normally open in that building were suddenly closed.” “So he pulled the fire alarm?” Tapper said, in a tone that screamed “Oh, come on.” AOC, however, is both shameless and dumb. With no plausible defense available, she defaulted to pure whataboutism, complaining that Republicans hadn’t done anything about their (arguably) most unfit House member, George Santos, as if Santos’ lying about everything in his past to get himself elected mitigated Bowmam’s conduct in any way. In contrast, she argued, “…they’re filing a motion to expel a member who in a moment of panic was trying to escape a vestibule. Give me a break! ” “Help! I’m trapped in a vestibule!” Let’s see if Saturday Night Live’s writers have the guts to mine the obvious comic potential of Bowman’s fiasco and the defenses of it. My bet? They don’t, and won’t.

“He apologized,” Ocasio-Cortez continued, referencing Bowman.”And [Republicans] are protecting someone who has not only committed wire fraud, not only defrauded veterans, not only lied to congressional investigators, but is openly gloating about it, is absolutely humiliating to the Republican caucus.” OK! I’ll trade Santos for Bowman. That’s still no defense.

3. Roger Kimball wrote trenchantly at a conservative website that I will no longer be citing, using or linking to after it resorted to an unethical bait-and switch trick to get me to subscribe,

“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. Don’t be surprised if Attorney General Merrick Garland decides to substitute it for the Department of Justice’s (DOJ) current motto “QUI PRO DOMINA JUSTITIA SEQUITUR”: “Who prosecutes for Lady Justice.”

Actually, Mr. Garland keeps telling us that “no one is above the law” and “everyone, Democrat as well as Republican,” is treated the same.

That’s what he says.

However, he does the opposite, as anyone who compares the way that (for example) the Bidens are treated and the way Donald Trump and his supporters are treated. It’s a two-tier, banana-republic system over which Mr. Garland presides, with some animals obviously, flagrantly being more equal than others.

The latest, mildly comical example of this dispensation was vouchsafed to us by Rep. Jamaal Bowman, “D” with a capital “D” from New York. The gambit that Orwell described has come in handy for Mr. Bowman. When Mr. Bowman was a school principal, he warned students that if they disrupted the school’s business by frivolously calling 911, pulling a fire alarm when there was no fire, and so on, they would face suspension or expulsion.

Now that he’s an elected representative of the U.S. Congress, however, he sees how useful such disruptions can be.

Bingo. (Write somewhere else, Roger…)

4. Finally, we must marvel again at the truly breath-taking commentary at that collection of bigoted, ignorant, biased and opinionated pseudo-celebrities on ABC’s “The View,” particularly the African Americans on the panel, who appear to have no fear that anything they say, no matter how dishonest or cretinous, will drive viewers to their sock drawers. The discussion began on yesterday’s show as Alyssa Farah Griffin asserted Bowman “allegedly pulled a fire alarm.” No, he was caught on video pulling a fire alarm. Then Sunny Hostin and Whoopi Goldberg defended Bowman. Hostin said, “I know Jamaal, and so again, I’m a little biased, but the doors that are normally open so that he could get to the chambers to read, were somehow miraculously closed. How did that happen?” she said, both misstating reality (as Greene pointed out in her video: those door are locked on weekends) and darkly suggestion some kind of GOP dirty trick to “trap” the poor man in “a vestibule.” “So yes, sometimes you’re freaking out, and you’re in an elevator, and you’re pressing all the buttons,” she added. Oh.

Next Whoopie defending Bowman’s actions with spectacular babble, saying, “People who pull this kind of stunt who say — and you only have three minutes to read it. I kind of think, ‘Oh, all right. Well, maybe.’ Because I know I would have pressed everything if you told me I had to get in there. I would have pressed whatever I had to press to get the door open because I know you would expect me not to be there to vote so you don’t know.” Right. WHAT??? Then this exchange occurred, indicating that Whoopi has never seen a fire alarm:

GOLDBERG: I don’t know because I don’t it – I haven’t seen the fire alarm button. So, I don’t know.

HAINES: It probably said “fire.”

FARAH GRIFFIN: It has a fire exit-only sign. It wasn’t an accident.

GOLDBERG: No, because you have to break glass to get to the button. So, I don’t know —

FARAH GRIFFIN: Um, I don’t know. It seems pretty fire-alarm-y to me.

GOLDBERG: I don’t know. I don’t know. It seems like a button. I can’t see the button.

HAINES: I think he could. He was a little closer.