Washington Post columnist Dana Milbank tells the true story of a woman who is being prosecuted because she laughed out loud at Jeff Sessions.
Be careful not to laugh at Jeff Sessions, or you too may be prosecuted. I myself compared him to Gollum in “Lord of the Rings” on this blog, but I didn’t intend it as a joke. I was serious. I hope that is not a thought crime.
He writes:
Did you hear the one about Jeff Sessions?
I’d like to tell you, but I can’t. You see, it’s illegal to laugh at the attorney general, the man who on Tuesday morning announced that the 800,000 “dreamers” — immigrants brought here illegally as children — could soon be deported. If you were to find my Sessions jest funny, I would be an accessory to mirth.
This is no joke, because liberal activist Desiree Fairooz is now being put on trial a second time by the Justice Department — Jeff Sessions’s Justice Department — because she laughed at Sessions during his confirmation hearing. Specifically, she laughed at a line about Sessions “treating all Americans equally under the law” (which is, objectively, kind of funny).
Police asked her to leave the hearing because of her laugh. She protested and was charged. In May, a jury of her peers found her guilty of disorderly conduct and another offense (“first-degree chuckling with intent to titter” was Stephen Colbert’s sentence at the time). The judge threw out the verdict, objecting to prosecutors’ closing argument claiming that laughter alone was enough to convict her.
But at a hearing Friday, the Justice Department said it would continue to prosecute her. A new trial is scheduled for November. Maybe Sessions, repeatedly and publicly criticized by Trump, thinks Justice’s anti-laughing crackdown will protect whatever dignity he has left.
This could be funny, but it is not. Since when it is a criminal offense to laugh at ridiculous public figures?
Diane Ravitch's blog 
“Maybe Sessions, repeatedly and publicly criticized by Trump, thinks Justice’s anti-laughing crackdown will protect whatever dignity he has left.”
Sorry, Dana, Sessions has no dignity left whatsoever. In fact, that racist, small-minded son of the Confederacy never had any dignity to begin with.
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I will send a message to both my senators, one who will surely ignore it, one who might not, requesting that they send an letter to the DoJ inspector general’s office requesting an accounting of what the costs to taxpayers for DoJ to pursue this frivolous lawsuit (frivolous to everyone but Ms. Fairooz, of course) are. I suggest everyone do the same. It’s easy to do. Go to senate.gov and look up the email contact for your senators.
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Lawyer up. If you’re lucky, felonious derision can be pled down to scoffing if the offender agrees to take a year-long course on the greatness of the confederacy.
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Oh, the heck with “felonious derision.” I prefer the French taunt.
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Ahh, the classics!
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I wonder what would happen if someone “farted in his general direction”? Perhaps a group of people ?
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I’d rather do even more than fart in his general direction. It would involve some solid product issuing forth from the same orifice.
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Diane “Since when . . . ”
Since obtuseness and moral degeneracy became the high-marks of the powerful.
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Sessions is a TWERP. Wonder if he had to ask permission to laugh in the household where he grew up?
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Hard NOT TO LAUGH at Sessions. He’s a petty moron who’s entitled.
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Of all people to be be arrested, who would have guessed a 61 year old librarian. Ms. Fairooz, I salute you.
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Quick let’s all make jokes about Sessions! He can’t arrest all of us!
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Keep up the Trump jokes the target is more receptive . Sessions doesn’t have a feeling in his body.
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Or even at unfunny things. Humor is on the eye of… And thank god we are created with a funny bone.
Sent from my iPhone
>
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I was just stopped and frisked for my previous post. Warned not to do it again. Humor is the only assault weapon the NRA wants to ban.
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Lucky you weren’t tasered. Or shot.
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This is a terrible state our country is in. Jeff Sessions and Donald Trump should be the ones prosecuted for crimes on the people.
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Maybe instead of a sit-in we could have a laugh-in. Let’s buy a bunch of those cards that laugh when you open them and send them to Sir Jeff.
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Another good idea, but I think they need to be opened in a public meeting when he is speaking.
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This is crazy. Yet another example of how Trump and Sessions are traitors to American ideals.
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Prosecuting this citizen for laughing out loud at a government official is a frightening abuse of power. The government has unlimited resources and can bankrupt anyone by pursuing them in the courts.,
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Agreed.
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