I Have Contempt for Contempt of Congress

[davidswanson]

Congress has sent contempt citations and seen them ignored. Congress has taken the matter to court and seen it stalled for many months or years. Congressional committees have passed contempt citations that have never been sent, because what's the point? The House Judiciary Committee has now passed yet another, this one against Rove. And why will Congress not impeach his boss? You'll have to ask Nancy. And why will Congress never ever put Rove in jail on Capitol Hill through inherent contempt and hold him until he testifies? Well, here's what Congresswoman Zoe Lofgren tells one of her constituents:

Dear Mr. Sandberg:


Thank you for contacting me about Karl Rove's failure to appear before the Judiciary Committee. I appreciate that you took the time to share your thoughts with me.


The Judiciary Committee is taking Karl Rove's failure to testify very seriously, and we are currently considering all options - including contempt proceedings - to compel him to answer important questions regarding the firing of several U.S.attorneys. Some have suggested that Congress implement "inherent contempt" as if that is a viable option. The jail cell in the basement of the Capitol doesn't exist and the Sergeant at Arms is an over 60 year old executive. Congress is not a police force, and we will likely need to continue to utilize the courts and system of justice to pursue these matters.


Again, thanks for being in touch. Please do not hesitate to let me know if I may ever be of assistance to you or your family.


Sincerely,
Zoe Lofgren
Member of Congress

So PLEASE for godsake stop asking me to sign petitions to put Rove in jail and start demanding the immediate impeachment of Bush and Cheney.

[jtrockville]

1. "The courts and system of justice"???

Subpoenas are ignored. The Justice Department refuses to prosecute.

Is this the system she's referring to?

[warren pease]

2. Well gee... Those sound like very good excuses...

So there's no jail cell in the capitol basement? Well, that rules out inherent contempt.

Anybody who's ever been to the capitol knows that there's not a single square foot of unused space where they could stick the fat-assed malignant swine for a couple of days.

There's not even enough utility closets to store Pelosi shovels and rolling garbage cans -- the stuff she carries when she's on BushWorld patrol, cleaning up all his bullshit.

And the Sargent at Arms is an executive who's more than 60 years old? Too bad this guy has no friends or assistants, lost the US Marshals phone number, can't figure out how to put handcuffs on a perp and generally has no stomach for this type of work.

I didn't know this stuff before. Now I finally understand why they're not actually interested collaring these punks. It's just a simple logistics problem. No spinelessness or blackmail or complicity involved; just lousy luck.

But there other options. Maybe they could outsource the job to any of the hundreds of private military organizations running around these days. Backwater seems pretty busy now that it's expanding into the surveillance/domestic spying/snitch business. DynCorp is a good choice if they're not too busy running their international sex slave operations.

These guys at the Homeland Security Corporation at least picked the right name. Maybe they could handle Rove's arrest and detention.

If you're curious, here's a list of private military corps. now marketing their various "security services" to despots and war mongers worldwide -- services like murdering Iraqi civilians at random and then laughing their asses off about it.


wp

[BeHereNow]

3. And we pay their salaries with our tax dollars because...

?????????????????????

I so want to leave this farce of a country.

I think this situation, perhaps more than any other,
exemplifies how far gone we are.
America is "FIN"
BHN

[OPERATIONMINDCRIME]

4. Zealots.