Me, too, I vote "Aye," too.

comtempt yes but was there any discusion to have him arrested or does he continue to go about making big bucs?

Great news! BUT will they actually follow through?

this is a good start but i wanna see him in handcuffs ...................

I wonder if the House could put a bounty on Rove and hire bounty hunters?

It works for bail bondsmen.

Conyers:

'this outta cover us for another month, then we can coast to the election.'

Hey, does anyone know if these contempt charges can be taken up by the next AG? Do they expire or have statute of limitations?

There are 23 Dems and 17 Repubs on the Committee. I'd like to see the roll call. This now goes to Pelosi. Didn't she say "contempt is of the table"?

One small step for man....

As others have already commented, it occurs to me that we've seen this song and dance routine before and it didn't really lead anywhere.

After all, Harriet Miers was held in contempt and nothing really happened to her. She's a heck of a lot less formidable of an opponant than Karl Rove is.

I predict a lot of huffing and puffing and absolutely zero genuine action.

Full of sound and fury, signifying nothing.

So when does Karl get arrested?
If he's not arrested, i don't have to eat a hat.

And then they will ask Mukasi to do something about it even though he has already refused to do anything about Harriet and what-his-face and by the time they get his refusal this time it'll be Septemeber.

If this had been inherent contempt I'd actually care. And after the new congress is sworn in they'll have to start over.

I've seen a couple of people make assertions that Democrats aren't starting legal proceedings against folks like Bolten, Rove, Miers, etc. because they don't want Bush to be able to issue pardons.

As for me personally, I wish I had that faith. I think they just lack the political will to actually get these people thrown in jail.

The decision by the HJC to hold Karl Rove in contempt is a recommendation to the full House, who can now vote to adopt the recommendation with a contempt resolution by a simple majority vote. Should they pass a contempt resolution, the Sergeant-at-Arms for the chamber would be ordered to arrest Karl Rove and bring him to the floor of the House to answer to the charges and to be issued punishment. The case would then be referred to the U.S. Attorney for the District of Columbia, who would in turn refer it to a grand jury. If convicted, Rove could face between one month and one year in jail.

Let's see if Nancy will do anything except promote her new book!

conatct the Speaker and demand a full house vote on Contempt!

blah-blah-blah.... Girly-crats pretending to be leaders. Nothing will come of this; Rove's getting a good laugh out of it all.

October is right around the corner. Somebody should be able to find a good use for ol' pumpkin-head.

Just thinking out loud here. Big deal, they find fat boy in contempt, now what do the Dem's do? After they caved on FISA all their dirty little secrets can be exposed through the illegal wire tapping that the other side can easily use against them.
There is no doubt in this pea brain that blackmail has been used to prevent the top from blowing off government and this case won't be any different. The powers to be are probably hoping that all of this will be swept under the rug during the August recess never to be heard of again.

... but only after issuing a statement along the lines of "this committee feels it's best to not look to the past, but move forward with the important work the American people ask of us..."
Posted by LAFilmEditor

True. Tragically, Obama goes along with this thinking, too.

I remind you (yes, again) of the impeachment charges against Richard Nixon.

Obstruction of Justice.

Contempt of Congress.

Abuse of power.

Oh, yeah. It's in the past. And present. And future.

So what! TPM-why bother publishing this information. It's not as if our Dems will do anything. They are spineless.

As others have pointed out, it's the stuff of dreams, but the image of a handcuffed Rove, perp-walked through the Senate would leave me sprawled on the floor squirming in a paroxysm of mirth.

"The Sergeant at Arms is authorized to arrest and detain any person violating Senate rules, including the President of the United States."

http://www.senate.gov/reference/office/sergeant_at_arms.htm

I called Conyers and got past the receptionist to a Judicial Committee phone-answerer who was fairly intelligent and well-informed.

His argument is that Congress cannot simultaneously pursue both Statutory Contempt and Inherent Contempt and they've chosen the former. If they enlisted their own police force to detain Rove, Miers and Bolten, they could only do so until the end of their term, and they would not be able to pursue the case currently in district court.

In other words, they could imprison the three contemptees, who would then sit in jail Judy Miller-style until January, after which the next Congress would have to start over.

I explained to him that this would be better in terms of not being perceived as impotent wimps, but it fell on deaf ears. TPM is not a scientific poll he said. The 9% approval rating is, I countered.

The call didn't end happily, but he did make the point about the two types of contempt. Any thoughts?

Will someone remind me again why the House Sergeant-at-Arms isn't dispatching U.S. Capitol Police Officers to arrest Karl Rove, Harriet Myers, and Josh Bolton? Bolton (as a current administration member) is a tricky one, but Rove and Myers are private citizens now. Disobeying a congressional subpoena is AGAINST THE LAW. And Mukasey has already made clear that he will not enforce that law. This has reached Nixonian levels. With an overt scofflaw serving as Atty General, it is time for Congress to take matters into its own hands.

Oh wait, I forgot. Enforcing the law isn't "politically expedient".

But, law or no law, Attorney General Mukasey has let Congress know that he has no intention of enforcing any contempt citations against Bush Administration people. It's going to take the House instructing its Sergeant At Arms to go out and arrest his ass.

I have this really cool dream where key members of the Bush administration spend the rest of their lives on the run, with no safe haven. In the U.S., they're subject to obstruction of justice and other charges: elsewhere, war crimes tribunals.

In a truly just world it would be the case, but without any commitment to enforcement of our most treasured laws by Democrats in Congress...I'll just have to go back to sleep and enjoy it.

I find this discussion thread interesting, yet a bit feckless and helpless.

If the USA Attorney General - the top dog in the legal system does not follow the rule of law in the your country, why would anyone else? Is it simply the threat of getting caught? Fear? Because once the AG doesn't enforce the law, is there any longer a moral framework for anyone else to follow the law either?

Most all of these comments seem they are looking for the legal way to deal with these vile people. Criminals have the advantage of not working within the law – a game that law-abiding opponents will surely lose when the laws are not enforced. Methinks someone in the USA needs to simply take that overt gun culture seriously and start vigilante justice: popping off the criminals who blatantly and unapologetically work to destroy your country and undermine the central tenets of legal and social structures.