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himalayaz · 3 years

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Title: I hope the fact that I voted makes this an easier read 😬

By: Miliaku Nwabueze

Part One: Examine the Self

I was appalled at the cognitive dissonance in movement thinkers this summer. I witnessed “radical” organizers, activists, and thought leaders encourage members of the rebellion to channel their rage and frustration with state sanctioned violence into voting. Simply and unilaterally, “Vote!”, was the universally agreed upon call to action. Folks rarely identified whom to vote for or on what which ironically symbolizes the meaningless nature of their compulsing. The investment into state infrastructure puzzled me.

Organizations and individuals that do land acknowledgements before meetings know whose territory they’re on, but insist on realizing freedom through participating in state systems of governance that further solidify the state’s occupation. I’m not feeling that folks can legitimately have a decolonial or anti-coloniality orientation while they are actively advocating for voting and other methods of change-making that involve the state over autonomous, localized, and collective organization of meeting human needs: the commons.

The work of feminist scholars such as Donna Haraway, Patricia Hill Collins, Nancy Hartsock and others teach us that we know our world from what identity-as-spaces we occupy. Marginalized people have insight to build consciousness about their worlds and their oppressor’s because their positionality within them is defined in relationship to the violences of structural hegemony (i.e. woman to man, colonized to colonizer/settler, undocumented to citizen, black to white, etc.). Mahmoud Keshavarz builds on this theory by asserting “One’s class gender and/or ethnicity shape [their] being, interactions and inhabitations in the world...”

Aspiring revolutionaries “often present themselves as being critical, political and radical yet, in practice, and by what they produce, remain innocent, neutral or, merely well-intentioned.” People trying to design existences different from our status quo consistently give way to reform. I feel this is because we have not collectively nor individually interrogated our cognitive dissonance. We have not killed the cops, the state, the capitalist, the oppressor, the aspiring winner in our own heads. We have treated the means of allowing for the emergence of generative deviations from our trajectory of global, ecological collapse as somehow separate from the ends. Kehavarz continues: “...designers cannot simply engage in such complicated issues without a complex political understanding of their own position in terms of gender, class and ethnicity as well as how the contemporary orders of capital and the bodies serving those orders are organised by dispersed material articulations such as passports, camps, and borders, all configured by design.” Our failures to develop self awarness are the precursors to reform.

Part Two: “We Want to Do More Than Survive”: Self Examination

As Imani Scott-Blackwell penned so eloquently in a Facebook status about the 2020 Presidential election:

“While y’all mourn the results, I’ll continue grieving the fact that rather than using our resources, time, and talents to fortify local mutual aid networks that can sustain and protect us regardless of who the elected official are, we instead put that into elections, pamphlets, yard signs, social media tech company coffers, Halloween candy and snacks for the sake of “voter outreach”.

……

I’m really just confused like what are we actually doing.....what is it we actually want? Because impact > intent and we seem collectively committed to the wrong solutions and though I do see people that are critical of electoral politics few seem ready to talk about what we really need to do here.....divest from electoral politics all together.”

The amount of people encouraging other people to vote this year was historic. In my personal experiences, strangers with my private information texted and called me, knocked on my door, and hand wrote me letters urging me to engage in the spectacle of emergency voting. In meetings with grassroots and change-oriented organizations, people are doing land acknowledgments, and discussing indigenous sovereignty. These same meetings that begin with land acknowledgement often ended in encouraging attendees to vote.

But, aren’t the state and its power inherently colonial? So how does a strategy that envisions freedom and/or sovereignty for black, incarcerated, indigenous, and/or undocumented people include actions that codify state hegemony?

The first type of cognitive dissonance that “hit me in the head” was W.E.B DuBois’ Double consciousness in high school; in an English class with the only black teacher. It applied so directly to my experiences as a working class black girl packaged and scholar-shipped into a wealthy, predominantly white private school with a college acceptance rate of 100%. I took so much pride in this despite constantly having to be “twice as good to get half as much”. I spent so much time explaining I tested into Detroit Country Day, that I wasn’t there because I was good at sports. I spent so much time laughing on the outside while crying on the inside at insensitive jokes and comments. I spent so much time embarrassed by being dropped off in my father’s rumbling work van. Upon understanding W.E.B DuBois’ theory I realized all that time was wasted. I made an instantaneous shift in my consciousness. Learning about my positionality disrupted how I speculated my future.

In becoming aware of my own cognitive dissonance I was able to immediately re-imagine myself off of the trajectory of becoming a black femme agent of white supremacy. I leaned into my queerness, I continued to wear my hair as it grew out of my head, I defended myself and others against racism, and became increasingly disinterested with seeking the approval of my white classmates. One might have seen a Condeleeza Rice as my future, but I became an unemployed, overworked, weed-smoking, mushroom tripping (okay, only like twice), hippie dippie black abolitionist, gay ass radical. I changed my belief system and praxis to incorporate what I was learning about myself in relationship to the structures that dominate our lives, and the trajectory of my life was disrupted.

Part Three: The Theory

Again, can we who believe in freedom from US hegemony have a decolonial orientation while encouraging engagement in state infrastructures? Is channeling mass frustration with state violence into voting a decolonial framework? I ask, declaratively. Decolonization is a speculative disruption and a deviation from the trajectory laid out before us, requiring the abolition of the state. I believe this is an issue with speculative design - it’s failure to disrupt our thinking and how we might imagine life after now.

Professor Jamer Hunt at The New School once summarized a point by Arjun Appadurai from his piece “Disjuncture and Difference in the Global Economy”: “We lean on sameness, really, to understand if we’re doing things right.” We do this in the most mundane of ways. If you got the same answer as me then I must have gotten it right! Right?... In her iconic work, “The Master’s Tools will Never Dismantle The Master’s House,” Audre Lorde teaches us difference is a practice of discovery. However, we respond to differences -not the status quo as difference within marginal contexts- as if it's a disruption. As a deviation in need of discipline. We then, sometimes, rely on our conceptions of hierarchy to determine “rightness”: young over old, literally any racial-ethnic identity over black, teacher over student, man over woman, etc.

Sameness can build a nation. Appadurai asserts a nation is a set of communities based on shared cultural values. In the US that culture is whiteness. That is the “nation” in the “nation-state” on Turtle Island. The dash is the “articulatory” piece. “Nation” and “state” were intentionally intertwined and can be separated and destroyed.

The job of the “state” in “nation-state” is to spread itself. Colonization (direct and indirect) is what makes/made this possible; coloniality is what makes it enduring. After all, a state is simply a condition or what “is”, and white supremacy is what articulates and unifies this being. Therefore, one can only conclude that on turtle island, the “United” “States” is the product of spreading white supremacy in all shapes and fashions, enduringly. This has shaped identity, positionalities, and mobilities and thus speculative design(ers). Statist thinking is thwarting possibility and distorting it into limited likelihoods. This is a trap door to reform. This is where decolonization, returning land to the not only indigenous people, but indengous life--the commons--is transformed into a metaphor to live in infinite land acknowledgements and celebratory, meaningless court decisions. The endurance of the state’s illusory nature forces us to endure, feeling as though nothing will change nor end. Right? Nope, that’s not the answer I got.

In Design Politics: An Inquiry Into Passports, Camps and Borders the most fire book on design right now, Mahmoud Keshavarz asserts the non enduring nature of statehood: “The State is designed”. He says, “Refugee, settlers, displacement,” and I would add colonization and racism etc. is realized via statehood. Statehood will not be the liberating variable in these narratives as these positions are diametrically opposed to the ever demonstrating settler, colonial, capitalist, and violent interests of the nation-state.

Advocating for divestment from state infrastructures is unfamiliar, different, and possibly unsettling. Unsettling is our future state if there’s anything real behind your land acknowledgements. To summarize Yang and Tuck in Decolonization is Not a Metaphor: “What is unsettling about decolonization” is the literal unsettling. To “Unsettle” is to disrupt. As designers think about futures we must be aware of our standpoint, reorient, and think about what decolonization, anti-racism, undocumentedness, anti-capitalism, etc. wants - designing from this standpoint is where speculative disruption is born.

Part Four: Speculative Disruption

Speculative Disruption begins where reform ends. Speculation, unimaginatively, has become a practice of prediction. A space we’ve let our data-driven culture of determining likelihoods colonize (Lol, jk.) imagination in service of accuracy. We let our obsession with predicting outcomes, performing certainty, and being “right” be conflated with and distort possibility.

There’s a saying circulating around radical communities: “abandon the capitalist, king, and the economy to govern an empty house”. Designers can materialize the future right now. “...Zoom out and start with new realities (ways of organizing everyday life through alternative beliefs, values, priorities, and ideology) then develop scenarios and possibly personas to bring it to life (173)”

This is deeper than designing what we “want”. Folks love to metaphorize colonization in the following phrases: “decolonizing our desires” or “decolonize our minds” though I think they mean our thoughts have been co-opted by the enduring nature of the nation-state and reinforcing of sameness and correctness. What we want is influenced by what we want to destroy as evidenced by the cognitive dissonance rampant through change making institutions. “VOTE!” But “Police are bad”, “So we have to vote for the people who vow to hire them!” [I’m not making this up]. Or immigrants or black people who defend their piece of the settler pie while feeling “it’s a shame what happened to the ‘natives’”.

My friend Sasha once said we need to organize to make things possible and impossible. This is the speculative and disruptive process of designing the unfamiliar -- the being that does not replace what we have and is not an evolution of the existing. The word unfamiliar comes from the Latin and Old English words for servant and family, respectively. Humans need to prepare for freer worlds that don’t currently serve our present ways of thinking and that are non-proximal to us. The designs for free worlds will come from the wants of the subaltern who have consciously refused to endure. We need to design the abolitionist mechanisms that will make a commons possible while making the empire impossible.

Speculative disruption speculates the unsettling, the deviation from where we are headed and the orientation towards the directions in which we hope to journey. I ask declaratively: How can we learn to be okay with what is not familiar to us and how can we allow that which does not serve the current and dominant trajectory to inform what we create? How can we engage in a radically feminist practice of embracing uncertainty by acting without fear of consequences we are also uncertain of?

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celinewrites · 8 years

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Where Are They Now? 'Home Alone' Cast

By Celine Littlejohn

Twenty five years ago, the first Home Alone film was released and we were introduced to the McCallisters. In both the original and its just as beautiful sequel, 1992′s Home Alone 2: Lost in New York, young Kevin McCallister is accidentally left home alone during the holidays--with some unwelcome visitors. His creative and mischievous ways to thwart the baddies and make it on his own have made Home Alone a Christmas classic for decades.

Kevin McCallister

This clever kid completely stole all of our hearts with his wacky antics battling the baddies and making it on his own when he's accidentally left *gasp* home alone!

Macaulay Culkin

Since Home Alone, Macaulay acted in such films as 1994's Richie Rich. The 35-year-old still acts, making appearances on Robot Chicken, Saved!, and Will and Grace. He also plays in a Velvet Underground tribute band known as the Pizza Underground. Currently, he's dating All My Children actress Jordan Lane Price after being in an 8-year relationship with Mila Kunis. He recently revisited Home Alone in a very interesting way.

Harry

One half of the Wet/Sticky Bandits was Harry, who wants to do as much damage to Kevin as he's done to him and his partner, Marv. Uh-oh!

Joe Pesci

The Goodfellas alum (a role which won him an Oscar!) appeared in similar roles - Casino, My Cousin Vinny, and A Bronx's Tale. He had a cameo in 2006's The Good Shepherd which was directed by and starred Robert DeNiro.

Marv

Bumbling burglar Marv is Harry's partner-in-crime!

Daniel Stern

The former narrator of The Wonder Years has since appeared in Manhattan and Getting On. He's an artist, too, creating bronze sculptures and in 2009, he received the "Call To Service Award" from President Obama for being a founder of the Malibu Arts Commission and working with the troops.

Peter McCallister

Kevin's dad had a cool demeanor but that doesn't mean he wasn't just as worried about Kev as his wife was.

John Heard

Since Home Alone, Kevin's dad has appeared in everything from The Sopranos and Law & Order to NCIS: Los Angeles.

Kate McCallister

Kevin's mom just wants to make sure her son is safe and sound, especially after leaving him home alone - twice!

Catherine O'Hara

She received an Emmy nom for the 2010 TV movie, Temple Grandin, has a starring role on the series, Schitt's Creek, and has appeared in shows such as 30 Rock and Modern Family.

Uncle Frank

Ah, yes. Who could ever forget free-loading, cheapskate cantankerous Uncle Frank?

Gerry Bamman

For years, he played defense attorney Stan Gilum on Law and Order and has since made roles on The Good Wife and The Following.

Old Man Marley

Is Old Man Marley really as creepy as he seems?

Roberts Blossom

Roberts was in the original Great Gatsby and such classics as Close Encounters of the Third Kind and Escape from Alcatraz. He made an appearance in the 1999 TV film Ballon Farm before passing away in 2011 at 87.

Buzz McCallister

Ah, yes. Buzz. Kevin's annoying big brother who called him a "trout sniffer," has a pet tarantula, and gives Kevin a hard time for everything. Ugh. Brothers…

Devin Ratray

Devin Ratray is still an actor, appearing in such movies and TV shows as RIPD, Supernatural, Louie, Elementary and The Good Wife. He also has a band called "Little Bill and the Beckleys". And he tried to woo former Secretary of State Condeleeza Rice in the film Courting Condi.

Fuller

Fun Fact: Kevin's adorable little bed-wetting cousin was really Macaulay's little brother in real life.

Kieran Culkin

Kieran has popped up in everything from Fargo to Scott Pilgrim vs. The World since his Home Alone days.

Pigeon Lady

There's something about that Pigeon Lady that doesn't seem so scary after all, tbh.

Brenda Fricker

This Irish actress can really act. She won a Supporting Actress Oscar in 1989 for her role in My Left Foot and and last appeared as Mrs. Smith in the 2013 TV series, Forgive Me before retiring from acting as of 2014.

E.F. Duncan

E.F. Duncan has got to be the nicest man. Ever. Maybe even (dare we say it) nicer than Santa?

Eddie Bracken

Active in the industry since the 1930s, Home Alone 2 would be one of Bracken's final roles. He voiced Sebastian in The Brave Little Toaster to the Rescue in 1997 and ultimately passed away in 2002.

Concierge

The pompous and sly concierge at The Plaza Hotel is sure Kevin is up to no good.

Tim Curry

Dr. Frank-N-Furter from the '70s cult classic The Rocky Horror Picture Show has made notable appearances in It and Clue. Many millennials will recognize Curry as the voice of Nigel Thornberry in Nickelodeon's The Wild Thornberries. He also made theater appearances in Spamalot and A Christmas Carol. Unfortunately, Curry has been dealing with health issues resulting from a stroke he had a few years ago. In June, he received an Actors Fund of America Artistic Achievement Award.

Cedric (Bellman)

Bellman Cedric sure loves a good tip.

Rob Schneider

Comedian Rob Schneider is an SNL alum who has been in everything from Grown Ups to the Deuce Bigalow films. His latest movie is the western comedy, The Ridiculous 6, which premiered on Netflix earlier in December. Did we also mention his daughter is Ex's & Oh's singer, Elle King?

Desk Clerk

The desk clerk at The Plaza Hotel isn't Kevin's number one fan, to say the least.

Dana Ivey

From The Help to Boardwalk Empire, Tony-nominated Ivey is still active in the world of acting, getting inducted into the Theater Hall of Fame in 2008.

#home alone #home alone 2 #home alone 2 lost in new york

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ramrodd · 5 years

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What would be nice is if Mueller stopped spending millions of taxpayer money chasing shadows, Kaity. Jack Sullivan Quora

COMMENTARY:

Putin has Duck Ass Don by the balls, which would be a good thing if the Nixon Haters and warmed over neo-cons in the Obama State Department hadn’t fucked up the Sovereign Democracy agenda he and Putin inherited from Nixon Breznev by way of Gorbachev and Yeltsin. But, before he was Potus, Donald Duck Ass has been engaged in the Sovereign Democracy agenda since he started trying to do business with the Soviets in 1986.

I have been engaged in what has become the Sovereign Democracy agenda since 1975 in a US-Soviet venture capital project organized to bring a Soviet commuter airframe design into production in Youngstown Ohio to fill a mission requirement for Nixon’s design for airline deregulation. I was in the project to get filthy rich and become the next Armand Hammer, but it also satisfied my purposes for going to Vietnam as defined by de oppresso liber.

By 1975, after being bled white, economically, by their material support of the godless commie cocksuckers in Hanoi’s invasion of the Republic of Vietnam, the Soviet governing elite realized that Marxism really doesn’t work and they needed to modify their ideology by reversing Marx’s moral position that Free Enterprise is evil and property is theft. That’s what Sovereign Democracy was all about: how do you unwind violent revolution as the essential economic engine of a culture? Nobody knew how to do it. Today, thanks to Vietnam’s evolution from Soviet-Maoist Marxism to a unique Ho Chi Minh Social Marxism, people like Chairman Kim Jung-In know it can be done with out the expedient of “regime change by liberal intervention” such as our complete cluster fuck in Iraq, but by purposeful transformation.

So, in 1986, Duck Ass Don’s Casino Empire went belly-up as a direct result of Bob Dole’s 1986 Tax Reforms, which prevented the Atlantic City Renaissance from getting any traction and he, Duck Ass Don, ran out of banks he could scam on this side of the pond and he went to Moscow looking for deals and, apparently, to Germany for the cash flows he needed to sustain the illusion he’s a certifiable billionaire and not a paper airplane based on a variation on the basic Ponzi design but limited to high-stakes players who can afford to ante with Donald Duck Ass.

And that’s why Putin has him by the balls and it’s a good thing, because, in order to do business in Moscow in 1986, everybody had to do business with the Kremlin. Even Armand Hammer, who was in a position with the Leninist elite that Stalin found convenient, to do side deals, still basically did his deals through the Soviet Elite.

I never came close to that status, although my boss/partner had access Trump has never had. It’s just the way it worked.

Until Yeltsin’s de-socialization agenda after he faced down the tanks sent by what has become the Russian Kleptocracy to crush democracy allowed international business men such as Paul Manafort and Bill Browder, who were perfectly happy doing business with the Russian Kleptocracy.

Now, Russia has always been an enigma to itself since before Rasputin, but things over there now are especially murky. If you factor out “blat” from all relationships. it becomes clearer in a very broad, sociological sense. The essential existential anchor for me has always been who controls the nukes and Putin is the contitutional authority I was doing business with in 1975 and Spanky was trying to deal with in 1986 and was tryng to do business with as late as July 2016, when Michael Cohen went to Moscow to see if he could shake something loose in terms of a Trump property and the Kremlim, the same people I continue to provide personal inside the Beltway analysis of current events. I’m a known quantity to the Kremlin and tell them exactly the same thing I post everywhere I post anything.

I’ve never been to Moscow, but I was raised in the Army when COIN was the sexy career path and the sort of intelligence analysis George Smiley does in Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy is just another day in paradise. I mean, the reason why I was in the IPO in 1975 was because I sensed an opportunity from all the data I had accumulated after getting back from Vietnam and trying to put together Plan B for the rest of my life. I look at Russia entirely differently from Condeleeza Rice and that whole Stanford-Hoover Institution crowd that currently dotes on Victor Davis Hanson and helped implement Bill Kristol’s and Bob Kagan’s Project for a New American Century that ran us over a cliff and into Iraq. We occupy entirely different space-time continuums. They are a big part of why Obama fucked up the Sovereign Democracy he and Putin inherited from Nixon Breznev Detente. They are part of the Powell Manifesto commited to destroying Nixon’s Peaceful Structures and I have bet the ranch on it.

Which is why your opinion is crap, Jack Sullivan, nothing personal, of course.

The Russian Kleptocracy conspired with the elements in the GOP Deep State most closely associated with Roger Stone, Paul Manafort, Steve Bannon, Newt Gingrich and Bill Browder to sabotage the Clinton campaign and corrupt the election. Putin had nothing to do with it. As I say, things are very murky in Russia, but he’s not part of the Russian Kleptocracy but in the same existential struggle Yeltsin engaged when he faced down the tanks that were sent to crush democracy.

Duck Ass Don’s problem, in terms of Mueller, is that he has a foot in both camps, one in the Kremlin, one in the Russian Kleptocracy. Donald Duck Ass never did a deal with the Kremlin for the same reason he won’t do a deal with either Korea in terms of a DPRK-ROK reproachment or a PRC trade deal because: nobody takes him seriously. He publically declared in front of the PRC trade representative that he doesn’t like the Memorandum of Understanding contracting process of the zero-sum business philosophy of the Kremlim, prefering to go straight to the contract. The Soviets considered his “Art of the Deal” the perfect illustration of the 19th Century Oligarch capitalism Marx proposed to reform and Putin recognizes the inherent con of the 58th Floor element in a Trump deal. The Soviets didn’t care how much you made, but you got paid for performance after the fact and not as a front-loaded feature of the project.

In order to do the Miss Universe Pagaent in Moscow, Duck Ass Don did business with the Russian Kleptocracy, which is where Paul Manafort comes in, while Michael Cohen represents Spanky’s Kremlin contact.

Cohen didn’t do shit for the Miss Universe Pagaent in Moscow.

Putin can prove to Mueller’s satisfaction that all things Trump were fully engaged in the Sovereign Democracy agenda and establish the distance from Manafort Eric and Junior need to avoid RICO penalties for all things Trump.

The problem for all things Trump is that it is up to its eyeballs with all things connected with Roger Stone on this side of the pond and the friends of the Russian Kleptocracy in the GOP Deep State, the vast right wing conspiracy that the America MSM has refused to believe exists in spite of Hillary’s 1993 discription. It goes back to why Nancy fired Donald T. Regan, who was running the Powell Manifesto from the Oval Office as national policy.

Now, of course, Duck Ass Don is running the Powell Manifesto from his Twitter account.

And that’s another reason why your opinion is crap, Jack Sullivan. The Powell Manifesto is what happens when you create an action plan to implement John Galt’s Manifesto from Atlas Shrugged, That’s the nature of Steve Bannon’s agenda to dismantle the administrative state and the goal of Grover Norquist’s “Starving the Beast” to the point where you can drown the federal government in a bath tub.

Donald Duck Ass still has some options, but, unless he exercises them by Memorial Day, history will demonstrate that he lost his re-election when he returned from Hanoi without a deal because he refuses to keep a promise to Chairman Kim Jung-Un to do business the same way Armand Hammer did business with Lenin and Stalin.

And, of course, he will go to jail for the business he was doing with the people in the GOP Deep State associated with Roger Stone and Paul Manafort.

The business he is doing with Steve Bannon is treason. Even Eric Prince is getting out of that business.

And that’s another reason why your opinion is crap, Jack Sullivan. The million$ Mueller is spending will earn America billion$ in RICO seizures.

#transformingamericafirst

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furynewsnetwork · 7 years

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LISTEN TO TLR’S LATEST PODCAST:

By Thomas Phippen

The woman arrested at Attorney General Jeff Sessions’ confirmation hearing claims her only offense was chuckling during the proceedings, but she wasn’t arrested only for her laughter.

Desiree Fairooz, a Code Pink activist with a history of headline-worthy protests, was found guilty of two charges Wednesday, disorderly and disruptive conduct, and parading or demonstrating on Capitol grounds, reports The New York Times.

She was asked to leave the confirmation hearing for her outbreak of laughter but was not arrested until she “created a scene” by shouting that Sessions was evil as security guards escorted her from the chamber, according to charges by the U.S. Attorney’s office in D.C.

Fairooz says she was “gobsmacked” by the verdict, according to an article she wrote for Vox, published Monday. Her lawyers “had predicted a sympathetic jury” in the District of Columbia Superior Court in Washington D.C., a city where 90 percent of voters supported Hillary Clinton in the 2016 presidential election.

Fairooz’s disruption occurred fairly early in the hearing. Alabama Republican Sen. Richard Shelby said his former colleague in the Senate representing Alabama had an “extensive record of treating all Americans equally under the law.”

“At this, I laughed,” Fairooz said. “I just thought it was ridiculous given Session’s voting record against several civil rights measures.”

In a C-SPAN video of the incident, Fairooz’s chortle can easily be heard during Shelby’s opening remarks. A few moments later, she laughs and says something indecipherable before the chairman pauses the proceedings while Fairooz is removed from the chamber.

“This man is evil, pure evil. Do not vote for Jeff Sessions,” Fairooz said as several security guards escorted her from her seat. “I was going to be quiet, now you’re going to have me arrested? For what? For what?”

WATCH:

Fairooz claims she did not intend to disrupt the confirmation hearing but “just wanted to be a part of the visible statement against Jeff Sessions’s confirmation.” She and several Code Pink activists were photographed wearing pink Lady Liberty hats, brandishing plastic torches, and holding signs that read “END RACISM STOP SESSIONS,” and “REFUGEES WELCOME STOP SESSIONS.”

According to D.C. legal code, it is unlawful “To parade, demonstrate, or picket within any of the Capitol Buildings.” A spokeswoman for Code Pink told The Daily Caller News Foundation that Fairooz “was aware that she had to put away her sign as soon as the hearing started. She did that.”

D.C. code also states that it’s unlawful to “utter loud, threatening, or abusive language, or to engage in any disorderly or disruptive conduct, at any place upon the United States Capitol Grounds or within any of the Capitol Buildings with intent to impede, disrupt, or disturb the orderly conduct of any session of the Congress.”

The Code Pink spokeswoman said that “Fairooz’s laugh did not disrupt the session at all.”

Multiple outlets described the charges against Fairooz as prosecution for laughter. “The US Department of Justice is literally prosecuting a woman for laughing at Jeff Sessions,” Vox’s headline reads.

Fairooz stood trial with two other people who were arrested for disrupting the Sessions confirmation. Tighe Barry and Fairooz’s partner Lenny Bianchi, who dressed in Ku Klux Klan costumes for the hearing and held signs that read “KKK” and “Go Jeffie Boy!,” were also convicted of the charges. All three will be sentenced in June. Fairooz could face up to a year in prison, up to $2,000 in fines or both.

Fairooz and the others arrested attended the hearing with the clear intent to “impede and disrupt” the proceeding, and Fairooz had “created a scene,” prosecuting attorneys told the jury, The NYT reported.

According to the prosecutors, Fairooz, “let out a loud burst of laughter, followed by a second louder burst of laughter,” the U.S. attorney’s office said in the filing. The police then tried to “quietly escort” Ms. Fairooz from the room, but she “grew loud and more disruptive,” eventually halting the confirmation hearing.

This was not Fairooz’s first time being arrested for demonstrating on Capitol Hill. When former Secretary of State Condeleeza Rice appeared before a House panel in 2007, Fairooz approached her with hands covered in fake blood and shouted “war criminal” in Rice’s face.

The government dropped charges of assault against Fairooz, possibly to avoid forcing Rice to testify as the victim. The court found Fairooz guilty on one charge of disorderly conduct. She was sentenced to five days in prison and three months probation. That conviction was not brought up at Fairooz’s trial.

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