Steve Bannon found guilty of contempt of Congress

[Ninurta]

Steve Bannon found guilty in Jan. 6 contempt of Congress trial (nbcnews.com)

I know this will piss most of you all off, but I'm very glad they found him guilty. I can imagine how republicans would have screamed loud and hard if a democrat just ignored a subpoena. Of course, the son of a bitch won't get any prison time because he has woke ass friends (Trump) to keep him out of prison. I believe there is a lot of wokeism among the right wing, just as there is in the left wing. Bannon thinks he's above the rules, just like Trump. I can't stand the hypocrisy.

No, he won't get any prison time because it is not an imprisonable offence. It's a misdemeanor, not a felony. 30 days in the local pokey is the suggested punishment for Misdemeanor Ignoring the Overlords. I expect that when the dust settles, he will get 30 days in jail, two counts running concurrently rather than consecutively, and that is a small price to pay for standing up for one's rights. Other folks have paid a lot higher price to secure those rights.

Yes, I said "rights". I explained that in this post, the relevant portion of which is this:

Here is an example of a right, one that is not specifically mentioned in the Constitution or BoR, but one which exists all the same. You have the right to remain silent. That is implicated by your right to privacy and your right to free association - no one, government or not, can ever force you to talk with them if you are not of a mind to speak to or associate with them. Be that as it may, government will definitely try to force you to speak against your will. They believe they have some sort of "right" to force you to speak in all but certain very limited circumstances. Courts will hold you in contempt and jail you indefinitely if you refuse to speak to them until you come around to their way of thinking and talk to them. You still have an absolute right to refuse to speak, no matter the circumstances, and that is entirely dependent on your will to enforce it. They will punish the hell out of you as a coercive measure, but they cannot, EVER, force you to talk to them if you have a steadfast desire not to talk, and one you are willing to enforce by simply not speaking.

Now, government will say "No, no, no, that ain't how it works. You only have a right to remain silent if communication will incriminate yourself, or if it is a privileged communication" - but that is utter, complete, and unmitigated bullshit. Government does not get to issue my rights, therefore neither do they get to "define" them. That would be the same thing as allowing government to issue the rights in the first place if they get to shape them with clever wording. In the matter of "privileged" communications, do I really need to say more? "Privilege" instead of "RIGHTS" is built right into the phrase for cryin' out loud! Fact is, NO ONE ELSE, not government, not anyone, gets to tell me when I have to open MY mouth and push air past MY vocal chords, nor do they get to tell me when I CAN'T speak. They do not get to tell me when or whom I MUST speak with any more than they get to tell me when or with whom I CAN'T speak to. Those rights are mine and mine alone.

As a matter of fact, Steve Bannon is undergoing trial for exercising that very right this very instant, and I think government is about to deliver a verdict momentarily. Regardless of that verdict, it can in no way affect his right to remain silent, no matter what the verdict is. That right cannot be taken away from him if he is willing to enforce it regardless of the coercive measures taken by government to attempt to deny that right. Government did not give him that right, and it is not governmental property to take from him.

ETA; Steve Bannon just found guilty of refusing to talk to the government. Now we will see just how far he is willing to go to enforce his own rights, whether governmental coercion works on him or not. Peter Navarro's test of his own rights is up next.

Now Bannon, in this case, took the wrong tactic to defend his rights by asserting "executive privilege". A "privilege" is issued to you by the government, and therefore may be revoked by them at will. Instead, his defense would have been on firmer ground if he simply said "I have a right not to speak with anyone I don't want to, and I have a right not to associate with anyone I don't want to. I choose not to speak or associate with a congressional witch-burning." and then declared himself to be a political prisoner in a government gulag when they jail him. When they do, they are demonstrating that there is NO difference between them and Stalin when he marched folks to gulags in the Soviet Union. It is a purely political punishment for a purely political action in a purely political "hearing" designed solely to punish political opponents. Textbook definition of a political prisoner, which is something the US used to stand against many years ago when I was a young man.

They would have of course whomped him anyhow, because the Overlords always suffer a fit of pique when anyone tells them to go pound sand, they are not to sort of people he wants to associate with. Still, I would have had more respect for his stance had he demonstrated an understanding of "rights" rather than fall back on the weaker concept of "privilege". When you start playing by THEIR rules, which an assertion of "privilege" most certainly is, you lose the initiative and hand it over to them on a silver platter. There are no percentages in giving your opponent the initiative and letting them set the rules for YOUR rights.

.