US representative's tirade misrepresented as 'criticism of anti-Semitism bill'

Published on July 15, 2024 at 07:31
3 min read
By Tommy WANG, AFP Hong Kong

A video of a US Republican lawmaker launching into a tirade about a pension reform bill in 2012 has been viewed thousands of times in posts falsely linking it to an anti-Semitism bill passed by the House of Representatives in 2024. Critics of the anti-Semitism bill describe it as government overreach that will chill free speech, while supporters say it will help combat hate as pro-Palestinian protests roiled US college campuses.

"US lawmakers call out the shame of those who voted in favour of the Anti-Semitic Awareness Bill after it was passed," read the simplified Chinese caption of a video on the Chinese video-sharing platform Bilibili on May 28, 2024.

In the clip, viewed more than 12,000 times, a US lawmaker launches into a fierce tirade in what appears to be a government committee meeting.

As he throws pieces of paper in the air, he says: "Total power in one person’s hands -- not the American way. These damn bills are come out here (sic), all the same time come out here the last second. I've got to figure out how to vote for my people."

Pointing angrily, he continues: "How ashamed of you are you! You should be ashamed of yourselves! I'm sick of it!"

Simplified Chinese subtitles added to the video falsely claim the man was referring to the Anti-Semitism Awareness Act which US lawmakers voted on in May 2024.

Screenshot of the false video, captured on July 15, 2024

The video was circulated online after the US House of Representatives sought to codify a definition of anti-Semitism into federal civil rights law in the bill.

The bipartisan bill would require the Department of Education to adopt the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance (IHRA) definition of anti-Semitism when tackling discrimination, AFP reported.

The measure will need to be taken up by the Senate before it can become law.

Protests against the Gaza war, with its high Palestinian civilian death toll, have posed a challenge to university administrators trying to balance free speech rights with complaints that the rallies have veered into anti-Semitism.

The video was also shared alongside a similar false claim on Weibo, Facebook, X and YouTube.

But the video is over a decade old.

Pension bill debate

A reverse image search on Google found a video that included the same footage uploaded by a YouTube channel for the US think tank Illinois Policy on June 1, 2012 (archived links here and here).

It was titled "Illinois State Rep. Mike Bost Furious Over Pension Debate".

Below is a screenshot comparison between the video shared in the false post (left) and the YouTube video (right):

Screenshot comparison between the falsely shared video (left) and the YouTube video (right)

Subsequent keyword searches found a CBS News report published on May 30, 2012 stating that Bost, a downstate lawmaker, screamed, yelled and threw papers to express his frustration about the Democrat-led plan to overhaul the state pension system (archived link).

CBS and CNN's YouTube channels also archived the same video clips in 2012 (archived links here and here).

According to ABC News, Bost argued that House lawmakers were not given enough time to assess the Democrat-led pension reform proposal, Senate Bill 1673, after it was approved by a state pension committee (archived links here and here).

Illinois has long faced a serious pension crisis, dubbed the worst of all US states by the Texas-based non-profit The Policy Circle (archived link).

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