Dem
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GOP
49
Donald Trump may be able to dodge, duck, dip, dive and dodge the consequences of his actions for a seemingly interminable amount of time, but his acolytes are not so lucky. Two of them, in particular, felt the pinch this week.
Steve Bannon, as you might recall, has been sentenced to 4 months in prison for contempt of Congress. Taking a page from the book of the Dear Leader, Bannon appealed, in hopes of delaying his sentence until after the November elections. Initially, U.S. District Judge Carl Nichols stayed the sentence. But now that Bannon has lost before a three-judge panel of the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals, Nichols sees no further reason for delay. And so, yesterday, he ordered Bannon to report by July 1 to begin his sentence.
Bannon is still planning to ask for an en banc hearing of his case, and then to appeal to the U.S. Supreme Court. And he might be granted cert, and one of those bodies or the other might step in and stay his sentence until they have time to rule. But it's not terribly likely, particularly not on such a tight timeline. And if Bannon ends up in the pokey from July through October, it means his pro-Trump talk show will be off the air for nearly the entire balance of the presidential election cycle. It also means that a pardon won't be a Get out of Jail Free card, since even if Trump is returned to the White House, Bannon will have already served his time.
Meanwhile, far-right talk show host and conspiracy theorist Alex Jones is much, much closer to having to pay the piper. Jones thinks he is much smarter than everyone else, and certainly much smarter than Uncle Sam. So, he took steps to hide his assets, with the notion that he would make himself judgment-proof. He is not much smarter than everyone else, as it turns out. In fact, he might not be smarter than ANYONE else. In any event, the authorities managed to cut right through all of Jones' trickery, and yesterday he was compelled to agree to liquidate his personal assets, so as to satisfy some portion of the $1.5 billion judgment he owes to the families of the Sandy Hook victims.
One of the implications of this development is that Jones will no longer own InfoWars. That outlet could be liquidated, or it could be placed up for sale. If it's the latter, it will probably be acquired by some other right-wing entity and folded into their operation. But wouldn't it be great if some well-heeled left-wing donor bought it, and changed the name to something like "LGBTQ Southerners for Michelle Obama"? Now THAT would be some schadenfreude. (Z)