The US Department of Justice is literally prosecuting a woman for laughing at Jeff Sessions

[babylonsister]

https://www.vox.com/policy-and-politics/2017/5/2/15518574/desiree-fairooz-justice-department

The US Department of Justice is literally prosecuting a woman for laughing at Jeff Sessions
As attorney general, Jeff Sessions now heads the Justice Department.
Updated by German [e-mail]@vox.com May 2, 2017, 2:30pm EDT



It is hard to believe this is happening, but it’s real: The US Department of Justice is literally prosecuting a woman for laughing at now–Attorney General Jeff Sessions during his Senate confirmation hearing earlier this year.

According to Ryan Reilly at HuffPost, Code Pink activist Desiree Fairooz was arrested in January after she laughed at a claim from Sen. Richard Shelby (R-AL) that Sessions’s history of “treating all Americans equally under the law is clear and well-documented.”

Sessions, in fact, has a long history of opposing the equal treatment of all Americans under the law. He has repeatedly criticized the historic Voting Rights Act. He voted against hate crime legislation that protected LGBTQ people, arguing, “Today, I'm not sure women or people with different sexual orientations face that kind of discrimination. I just don't see it.” And his nomination for a position as a federal judge was rejected in the 1980s after he was accused of making racist remarks, including a supposed joke that he thought the Ku Klux Klan “was okay until I found out they smoked pot.”

Given this history, Fairooz laughed at Shelby’s claim.

Link to tweet

But federal prosecutors have pushed forward with the case against Fairooz. As Reilly reported, prosecutors argue that “the laugh amounted to willful ‘disorderly and disruptive conduct’ intended to ‘impede, disrupt, and disturb the orderly conduct’ of congressional proceedings.” In court, they have tried to emphasize that the laugh was extraordinarily disruptive, with a US Capitol Police officer claiming that Fairooz laughed “very loudly” and people in the hearings turned around when they heard it.

Fairooz’s defense, meanwhile, has argued that her laughter was a reflex and not meant to disrupt the hearings. Fairooz was also in the back of the room, and her laughter had no noticeable impact, based on video of the hearings, on Shelby’s introductory speech for Sessions.

The trial will continue at the Superior Court in DC this week. If convicted, Fairooz faces a fine up to $500 and up to six months’ imprisonment for the laugh-related charge. She is also charged with another misdemeanor for “allegedly parading, demonstrating or picketing within a Capitol, evidently for her actions after she was being escorted from the room,” Reilly reported.

more...

https://www.vox.com/policy-and-politics/2017/5/2/15518574/desiree-fairooz-justice-department

[onethatcares]

1. i thught

we were supposed to be the snowflakes? These guys take the cake when it comes to hurt feelings.

Anybody got the number for the "Wahhhhhhhhmbulance"?

[riversedge]

2. OMG!! and Joe Wilson goes free for yelling LIAR!!

[SCVDem]

38. Isn't that a legal precident?

If you can do it to the President, a nominee has zero standing.

So much for equal justice under the law.

[malaise]

3. They are fascists n/t

[DK504]

31. And so it begins.

Break out the brownshirts and armbands.

[riversedge]

4. Doesn't the DOJ have better things to do. ?? Jeff-where is your sense of humor?

[JudyM]

34. Our tax dollars at work, under this administration.

[Freethinker65]

5. PR nightmare for the justice dept.

Drop the charges

[elleng]

7. Right. Many of them probably don't want to prosecute.

I was on a Federal jury in DC years ago, and tho jurors wanted to find the guy guilty (fraud re: 9/11-related scheme,) the prosecutor was inexperienced, so we couldn't convict.

[elleng]

6. I doubt this charge will get far with a jury in DC.

[WhiteTara]

8. Can you imagine the reactions of her cell mates

when she tells she is imprisoned for laughing.

[SeattleVet]

13. ...and they all moved away from me on the bench there,

and the hairy eyeball and all kinds of mean nasty things, till I said, "And creating a nuisance."
And they all came back, shook my hand, and we had a great time on the bench.

[WhiteTara]

20. lol

[tblue37]

24. Is that from "Alice's Restaurant" ? nt

[SeattleVet]

30. Yes

right after one of the other guys on the Group W bench asked him, "Kid, what were you arrested for?" and he replied "Littering."

First thing I thought of when she was arrested for laughing.

[Buns_of_Fire]

9. Jefferson P.G.T. Beauregard Robert E. Keebler Elf Sessions III

is not to be laughed at, you hear?

However, farting in his general direction is still a misdemeanor, so long as it's not done so loudly as to wake him up.

[lpbk2713]

10. "If I can't have your respect then I'll have your fear."

Small and desperate minds use intimidation as a tool.

[treestar]

25. Well put

I hope it fails.

Laughter is generally a reflex.

[brer cat]

28. And that nails it. nt

[iluvtennis]

11. Laughing at someone is part of our 1st Amendment rights...GAAAAH

[ehrnst]

12. I hear tell the laughter of a nasty woman can render a Godly man impotent!!

Clap her in irons, and assemble the tribunal!

[2naSalit]

18. I call that a public service! ...nt

[dchill]

14. If money is speech, then so is laughing.

More so, actually.

[cstanleytech]

15. I hope she wins and then sues him for malicious prosecution. nt

[bronxiteforever]

16. Ain't no way a jury convicts.

[BumRushDaShow]

17. Yet they are refusing to prosecute the cops who killed Alton Sterling

in Baton Rouge - https://www.democraticunderground.com/10141765395

They have their priorities ya know!

[dalton99a]

26. +1

[orangecrush]

19. Impeach Trump

And throw his freak show out on their ass with him.

[C_U_L8R]

21. Let the ridicule begin

Limpdicked Republican asshats reeeeeally cannot stand to laughed at... bwahahaha.
Y'all know what to do.

[ProudLib72]

22. McConnell did it to Warren

So Sessions is following suit. And I have to wonder if the same thing would have happened to a white man if he laughed.

[fescuerescue]

23. I don't know what it's like today, but I remember the Senate Gallery is incredibly strict

I haven't been in the Senate Gallery since around ~1994/6 . I remember they were debating a telecomm bill and Barbara Boxer was introducing an amendment to require better scrambling of pay-per-view porn . (this was the analog TV days)

Anyway, even way back then, the Senate gallery was super strict on silence, both verbal and non-verbal such as making noises with a chair etc would get you kicked out. I saw several people escorted out for whispering to each other. It was pretty intimidating.

This was back in the days when you could just wander around the Capital Building at will without an escort or tour group.

Given the climate today, I'm surprised that she wasn't tazzed or worse, especially when she was yelling.

My guess is that actual charge is probably disorderly conduct, or maybe something heightened like "disrupting congress" if such a law exists.

[Achilleaze]

27. The KGOPee Laugh Police are on the hunt for Laughers

[IronLionZion]

29. loud female laughter is among the worst offenses

If it pleases the crown, we shall skip the trial. prepare the gallows! call the executioner!

[Dyedinthewoolliberal]

32. Another reason to support

the ACLU!

[thesquanderer]

33. Protocol. She was supposed to yell out "You lie!" (n/t)

[FiveGoodMen]

35. That's quite a double-standard, isn't it?

It's ALWAYS OKIYAR.

[cannabis_flower]

36. Updated today

Update, May 3 at 4:15 pm: According to Reilly at HuffPost, a jury convicted Fairooz on both charges against her.

But jurors told Reilly that they didn’t focus on the moment Fairooz laughed, but rather what happened after she laughed. When a US Capitol Police officer tried to remove her from the hearings for laughing, she allegedly began to loudly protest and appeared to hold up a sign that she had brought up to the hearings.

“She did not get convicted for laughing. It was her actions as she was being asked to leave,” the jury foreperson said. “We did not agree that she should have been removed for laughing.”

Some jurors complained that the law is so broad that it forced them to convict. One said, “There’s almost no way that you can find them not guilty.”

[heaven05]

37. what happens with a

dictator as an alleged potus and a virulently hateful white racist is appointed to safeguard the rights of all americans as AG of the dictators ameriKKKa. FTS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!