Protestor Convicted for Laughing?
By Thom Hartmann A...
Just one guffaw - that's all it took for Desiree Fairooz to go from a children's librarian and activist to someone facing serious jail time.
I'm not kidding here.
Back in January, Fairooz was arrested and removed from a Senate hearing after laughing at someone who said Jeff Sessions would treat all Americans equally.
As if to prove her point, she was then charged by the Justice Department with disorderly conduct.
Last Wednesday, she was convicted, and now faces up to a year in jail.
Would this change your willingness to protest?
Comments
#2
R.I.P. U.S.A.
#3
My wife read last night that one of the Carolinas just passed a bill saying that people who are demonstrating can be plowed down by an automobile. Fascists are bad enough but when we have evangelical it is getting really bad.
#4
We already know that the Neo-cons are fascist criminals/traitors on their way to true Nazihood, so anything unconstitutional and unAmerican coming from them is never a big surprise.
#5
Why isn't it considered free speech?
#6
Country was never really free and now the curtain has been drawn even more to show the "real democracy".
#7
Well I think this incident has been greatly oversimplified. Now, under the new regime, a first degree guffaw in the presence of the Great Orange Shit Gibbon or one of his appointees (that is, one exceeding 85dB as measured at a distance of three feet), is in fact a gross misdemeanor, punishable to the extent of a fine of up to $10,000 and one year in jail. On the other hand, had the accused restricted her action to a simple chuckle or snicker, we'd be talking about a simple misdemeanor which theoretically could be dismissed assuming it was a first offense. It is very important that We the People acquaint ourselves with the proper rules of public conduct. We should look to the discipline embodied by the People of North Korea for guidance in these matters.
#8
What's next.. burping? Breaking wind? I'd also like to know why there isn't a lawyer out there salivating over countersuing.
#9
Money is considered free speech.
Laughter, not so much.
#10
Great post, Outback!!!!! Ever think of taking up writing as a career? Great Orange Shit Gibbon. LOL Please keep it up.
#11
I think this is pretty consistent with the direction the US has taken since the 1980s. Few such cases catch the media's attention. On protest, the question comes down to whether you could afford to risk losing your job, maybe getting blacklisted, knowing there's nothing to fall back on today.
#12
Because it offended those in power.
#13
Sessions played a major role in getting Trump to fire Comey. Southern Man knows he's going down with the Trump burning cross ship...just a matter of time.
My answer to Thom's question is , hell no!
The Bundys with Teabagger pals took over a federal building armed with assault weapons. So if laughing is one year in jail, how many years did these jackasses get? Oh I forgot, they're right-wing white guys like Sessions...different rules apply.
#14
Sounds like Medieval justice. On your knees, woman! His Majesty's subject, Desiree Fairooz, is fortunate that King Donald, "the Great Orange Shit Gibbon," (Hah! Thanks, Outback!) shows mercy and won't have you beheaded for showing such disrespect to the Crown's court. Even though that might have drawn more crowds to the Royal Washington Mall than did his coronation.
The Sheriff of Washington, Beauregard the Bigot, would be wise to travel the countryside with a contingent of the Royal Constabulary, lest the peasants shout insults and throw turds whilst he speaketh -- or more fitting, drag him off his high horse and pull his guts out through his arse ...ah, Medievally metaphorically speaking.
#15
Outrageous!
#16
"Would this change your willingness to protest?" A better question is, when is this country going to come together, rise up, and throw these criminals out? deepspace is right. This country is more and more like medieval England than the FDR America we all grew up in. Sessions thinks he's the Sheriff of Nottingham. What a tool. The one thing that all of these Neo Cons and Neo Liberals have in common is that they are all flaming narcissists, from the Bush's to the Clintons to Sessions to all of them. Rampant, effusive narcissists.
#17
Somewhat off topic, but the media should start reminding White House Staff that Nixon went home to Southern California and his staff (many of them) went to jail. Do Trump's staff really want to go to jail for a tyrant and pathological lier?
#18
A fund raiser needs to be started for her legal fees and publicity.
#19
Hartmann, if during a company meeting one of your employees acted in a disruptive fashion what would you do. A timeout with a snack and nap or a boot outta the door, um?
#20
Quit acting like a communist thug. Take the rag off you face and help make America Great
#21
Is a Hearing Room a proper place to protest?
#22
This has nothing with that idiot from code pink. It has everything to do with the leftie/socialists searin g hatred of President Trump. Continue on please. Every day your hypcrosy anbd stupidity is exposed to the working class American public. Remember the 1000 times Thom Hartmann was lecturing his listeners on how terrible it was that republicans met and hatched a plan to stop obama? Now that the shoe is on the other foot I guess it is OK.
Delightful side note: President Trumps tweet with the video of all the Democrat party leaders rejecting Comey.
http://canadafreepress.com/article/trump-tweets-video-of-democrats-deman...
#23
Diane, Do you drive on the socialist roads (if you still drive)? Your assisted living home pays property taxes that support your socialist schools, library, fire and police department. If you fly, you are flying into and out of a socialist airport. That is controlled by socialist flight controllers. Most likely your local NFL stadium is socialistic. It goes on and on righty/socialist.
#24
THis country has been slowly getting to this point for over 40 years. Rember the uppermiddle class could have fought this kind of behavior and decided to endorse it because thdey knew it wouldn't be them that were the victims of it. Isn't about time the whole country stop kissing the Confederates ass. Sessions is still mad that a black person can drink out of the same waterfountain he does. That is why he says that the Federal Govt should keep its nose out of the states business.
#25
hopefully this will be overturned on appeal. modea benjamin and code pink should be able to get a fellow member competent legal counsel. if there is any crime it shelby's laughable statements in his sessions testimony which approached perjury. in the meantime laughter is as big a crime as being able to know bull crap when you hear it. people who can think for themselves are a security threat in post constitutional Amerikkka.
#26
Dianereynolds -- Do you not see the difference between Comey's actions? Announcing HRC investigation with nothing to it as being bad, and investigating Russian ties without any public disclosure as being good. Do you not think a rational person would object to one and cheer the other?
Interestingly, the liberal stations are showing tRump and sessions in Oct/Nov saying what a brave and correct thing Comey did in revealing the investigation of HRC. This is the very thing they are now saying they fired him for.
#27
Colbert is now being investigated by the FCC for using the phrase "cock holster". When everyone knows that a cock is a bird. Yet, Trump can use the "F" word as much as he wants in his speeches.
#28
Sessions, the top law enforcement official in our nation, intentionally lied to Congress -- before the Senate, the same body of which he was a long-serving member. That is a felony, a despicable act he consciously committed twice: once in verbal testimony and again in writing.
Why has he not been fired, and why is there no investigation? Instead, the "Justice" Department saw fit to quickly prosecute and convict a librarian for a spontaneous burst of laughter in the same chamber.
To laugh or to lie, that is the question.
#29
chuckle8, As I stated before and posted a list of ten reasons President Trump should have fired Comey on day one. The fact he was fired now just gives the leftie/socialists another reason for a day of bitching and Trump time to appoint more judges which is the main reason I voted for him in the first place.
Understand, with all the democrat party's vacillating on video over Comey's tenure just proves they are peeing down their own leg once again. How foolish they look to the general public.
Ah! Another Christmas morning. Vacationing Thom will have to invent another crisis for tomorrows gift to conservatives.
#30
This is TOTALLY unconstitutional. Sue the asshole!
#31
Dianereynolds -- It sounds like he should have used one of your 10 reasons not the one he gave.
With an FBI director that has to take many actions and a group with many actors which you call the democrat party (whatever that is) describing their varied responses as vacillating vice reasoned response to varied actions without group think (you know one of the key characteristics of the repug party) sounds more like an observer who is too lazy to think.
#32
The only reason Trump fired Comey is because he was leading the most aggressive investigation into the collusion of Trump's campaign with Putin's Russia to interfere with our election. Full stop. All the other convoluted reasons given by him and his administration were direct lies to the American people. Only a fool and a troll (one in the same) would believe otherwise.
#33
It is a federal offense to disrupt a Senate hearing so without seeing video on the offense it's hard to comment. If she just laughed and that was it obviously the punishment doesn't fit the crime. However, if her "laughing" was a little more than that the pubnishment still doesn't fit the crime but maybe some punishment was valid.
However, by personal experience the door does swing both ways.
In July 2015 I was asked to testify at the Senate Judiciary Committee Hearing on sanctuary cities. This was three weeks after the death of Kate Steinle. My son was killed by an illegal alien in SF in 2010. (No, Kate Steinle wasn't the first person killed by an illegal alien) One of the witnesses said don't blame all for the offense of a few. The reality is that since the last amnesty over 50,000 people have been killed by illegal aliens. Not one senator asked the witness to define "a few".
When the hearing was adjourned I ask the witness (a reverand) how many was "a few". He angrilly looked at me and with a terse voice said, "a few". I raised my voice (I didn't touch him) and said "a few? how about tens of thousands". The next thing I knew two capital hill police asked me to leave and when I got into the hallway they handcuffed me and took me to the paddy wagon to arrest me.
I can only assume that at some point someone realized it's not a crime to raise your voice when no hearing is in session and after a while I was released.
Last year, in an immigration hearing 10 people -four of whom were here illegally - stood up and started to disrupt the proceedings. They were all asked to leave and that was it.
Great to know that if you are here illegally you have more rights than a law abiding citizen.
#34
My best friend, like a brother, was KIA in Vietnam. Should I hate all Vietnamese, or, for that matter, every American asshole who supported that atrocious war crime, still benignly excused as a "police action?" Following the same logic: the fact that America continues to spread death and destruction across the planet makes YOU an "illegal alien," since you are a citizen of a ruthless evil empire that invades the lands of others.
See how delusions take hold when the mind conflates disparate realities. Projecting your anguish onto millions of otherwise good and productive people does not alter those realities. The person who killed your son did so because he was a depraved individual, not because he also happened to be an undocumented immigrant. Society should and must weed out those who commit such heinous crimes, not the entire group with which they are arbitrarily associated.
To stem the southern-border flood of illegal immigration ultimately, which is a separate issue, end greedy corporate trade deals that dump subsidized goods into other economies, throwing millions out of work, and start prosecuting and jailing illegal employers -- most of whom are staunch Republicans -- who hire and take advantage of these downtrodden and desperate victims of "free" trade agreements, paid low wages under harsh conditions primarily to bust union movements that struggle for better pay and safe work environments for all workers, whether they are unionized or not.
I'm not buying the bigotry you are selling, no matter how "tight" your reasoning may seem and how deep your feelings may run.
Sorry for your loss.
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Fascism. More today as a reporter is arrested for yelling questions to Secratary if Health. Not to mention Comey firing.