Dusting off "Inherent Contempt"

Under the inherent contempt power, the individual is brought before the House or Senate by the Sergeant-at-Arms, tried at the bar of the body, and can be imprisoned. The purpose of the imprisonment or other sanction may be either punitive or coercive. Thus, the witness can be imprisoned for a specified period of time as punishment, or for an indefinite period (but not, at least in the case of the House, beyond the adjournment of a session of the Congress) until he agrees to comply. The inherent contempt power has been recognized by the Supreme Court as inextricably related to Congress’s constitutionally-based power to investigate.

The next question, then, is whether or not anybody in Congress has bothered to think things through to this point, and begin preparing for this possibility. And here, I finally have some good news.

Rep. Brad Miller of North Carolina, in his capacity as chairman of the Science committee's Investigations and Oversight panel, has encountered the same sort of intransigence from the Bush "administration" that is threatened over the investigation into the U.S. Attorney firings. Only in the case of his investigation, involving the Department of Education, the "administration" hasn't even really done him the courtesy of making up an excuse for why they're not providing the requested documents. They're just not doing it.

So as Rep. Miller has become increasingly pessimistic about the chances that the "administration" will relent in his case, he's been consulting the same Congressional Oversight Manual, and was dismayed to learn that the enforcement options are indeed quite limited. Inherent contempt, he's discovered, is perhaps the only way Congress will be able to enforce its subpoena power with this "administration," and he's been talking with CRS experts to explore how a modern inherent contempt procedure might be established. Even better, he's been sharing that information with Rep. Linda Sanchez, chair of the Judiciary committee's Commercial and Administrative Law panel that's handling the subpoenas in the U.S. Attorneys matter.

Source

I thought this was an interesting read and i'd like your imput on this.

Mods, i didnt know where to put this one.



Will they resort to this? The final showdown???

You could do it, but then I guess one of dubya's thugs would come for your kids in the middle of the nite.

The calls for impeachment are heating up.

This is going to take off i think.

what can they everyday person do to help rush the impeachment along,

Even if we impeach him i think were screwed,the iraq war was one of our biggest mistakes if not the biggest..

so say next president pulls our troops out,well there really are terrorists and they really will follow us,thats not all gove brainwash..

So what gives...

Let's face it: if the "administration" simply refuses to budge, the Congress either has to fold its tent and go home, or enforce on its own authority the subpoena power the American people voted for. Given that we've reached this impasse -- and we knew it was coming -- over an investigation into the hyper-partisan and hyper-politicized nature of the U.S. Attorneys, inherent contempt proceedings would appear to be the first and most direct resort of Congress in enforcing its mandate.

It would also appear to be the last stop short of impeachment.

Honestly, I hope our country is spared that spectacle.

We are headed toward a constitutional crisis... This is a game of chicken that has rarely been played in our nation's history.

I hope we survive this.

Yea you have a point.All of the world sees we are clearly a nation divided.this is a great weakness

The problem with congress is that it finds itself between the sword and the wall.

In one side it knows that the reason Democrats won congress was because the people want actions.

But in the other side Pelosi open her big mouth and declared that Congress would not impeach the president.

But when she did that in reality was telling the nation that no matter what the nation and its people wants, it will not happen under their control.

As you can see congress either will have to brake under the pressure of the people or gain the contempt of the people and probably a big lost for them during the next two elections.

Right now our congress is in a very difficult and precarious situation that will actually shape what our system of government will become in the future.

Our president is actually challenging every way it can the power of congress and more so the power of the people in this nation.

So far he has been able to get away with it.

I agree this would be very sad for our country. Most people think we get off on this kind of stuff but its not true.

Pelosi is part of the Bush administration and the NWO, imo. To promise the president not to impeach tells me she also is thumbing her nose to the country as well.
:shk:

Originally posted by dgtempeTo promise the president not to impeach tells me she also is thumbing her nose to the country as well.
:shk:

That is right and also it actually promised the president that the new Democrat congress will bend to his wishes.

But as long as Bush would behave, sadly Bush is like a petulant and arrogant child on a power trip and he is like a train with not brakes.

Bush will challenge congress and the nation if necessary to achieve his agendas and his personal twisted goals.

Are we to see with our own eyes and in our own time the end of democracy? we just will have to wait and see.

Democracy has already ended, imo. This is an autocracy wether we like it or not.
Now, we have to see if someone will fix what's broken, or if it will remain broken forever.


Congress will cease to exist and it is already showing signs of that.

Call my a lil ignorant Canadian but if Bush is successfully impeached who steps in a President. Cheney? Or is he ousted on the same ticket? Truthfully I feel Cheney is the puppetteer pulling all the string.

Originally posted by Rhain
Call my a lil ignorant Canadian but if Bush is successfully impeached who steps in a President. Cheney? Or is he ousted on the same ticket? Truthfully I feel Cheney is the puppetteer pulling all the string.

Cheney by default, but if you have the balls to go after GWB it's probably inevitable that proceedings will be coming down the pipe for the VP as well either at the same time as those for GWB or shortly thereafterward.

But I think most people just want to ride out this nightmare of an administration. It will all be over by 2009 even if nobody does anything heroic (hopefully, I hope Bush doesn't go all banana republic on us and overstay his term).

Originally posted by dgtempe
Pelosi is part of the Bush administration and the NWO, imo. To promise the president not to impeach tells me she also is thumbing her nose to the country as well.
:shk:

You're probably not going to like my take on this, but here goes...

I take a less conspiratorial view on the matter.

If there were ever a better example of the Democrats inability to lead, I'm not aware of it. They have acted as the abused spouse of our national political discourse for far too long. Their incompetency is as astonishing as the misconduct of this President and his administration.

How obvious does it need to be before real accountability is demanded by the Democrats?

The Republican Party has forsaken its conservative roots in favor of a single ideology whose motto is "the ends justify the means".

The Democrats merely prove correct the accusations that they are nothing more than appeasers.

Personally, I'm sick of the whole lot of them.



[edit on 9-7-2007 by loam]

Originally posted by loam

Personally, I'm sick of the whole lot of them.

[edit on 9-7-2007 by loam]

Exactly Right, loam! Every damn one of the whole mess needs to hit the road. And we need to start over, using the original Constitution and the original Bill of Rights.

But it is sad to say, as much as I want this to happen, I doubt it will. Apathy is the big dog in America. Most people are too lazy to do more than complain. And these threads are no different.

I read post after post of "outrage" at one thing or another, but there's no follow up. The threads die from lack of interest by the very people who claim to really care. And if the people here are too "tired" to be involved, then imagine how hard it is to wake up John Q. Public, and get his fat ass off the couch.

America seems to want to be led by the nose. Even ATSers.

Tell me friend what have you done.

Many do not attempt to do anything because they feel their efforts will not matter.Our goverment seems untouchable,i mean look what they have put us through already and they are still there,ruling with a iron hand..

So what would me myself going to protest infront of the whitehouse accomplish?Nothing,i would simply waste day after day after day..Even if a crowd shows up,what would happen?Nothing we would get the boot as soon as we started getting to be a problem..

[removed quote of entire previous post]
Mod Edit: Quoting – Please Review This Link.

[edit on 10-7-2007 by sanctum]

LOAM,

I totally agree with you!!! There's no accountability from the Dems- Its a real dissapointment.
But they're the ones who can do something about JR.

Frankly, i have lost all hope. If we manage to get thru the Bush years, i'll be very surprised.

But that twit saying she wont impeach really bothers me.

There's something wrong with this picture.

Well many think that we can not do anything as the people of this nation going the right channels to make our politicians work for us.

But it works, patience and perseverance works, slowly but works.

When the immigration bill came around I talk to friends and we all agree to E-mail the heck of our state representative.

While my hopes were low and almost none existent we were surprised by the amount of people that call and E-mail congress to stop the bill.

For the first time I saw our politicians work for us and we won.

That is what we need to do, make our politicians feel the presence of the people with all kind of means, E-mail, letters anything.

We need to tell them how we feel and pressure them.

Originally posted by NGC2736
But it is sad to say, as much as I want this to happen, I doubt it will. Apathy is the big dog in America. Most people are too lazy to do more than complain. And these threads are no different.

I read post after post of "outrage" at one thing or another, but there's no follow up. The threads die from lack of interest by the very people who claim to really care. And if the people here are too "tired" to be involved, then imagine how hard it is to wake up John Q. Public, and get his fat ass off the couch.

America seems to want to be led by the nose. Even ATSers.

I think one of the issues is the lack of attention spans in North America. What good is a free and independant media if attention spans last only 24 hours? What good is political discord and dissent when people are too involved in getting their morning coffee? One of the biggest hurdles North America will face while attempting political reform will be winning over the publics attention for longer than the 1 hour news blip.

Impeachemtn will not fix this problem,the next president will pull out and the terrorists will follow us home,and iraq will become run by terrorists

No matter how much you want to blame everything on Bush,the fact is terrorists are real.

Originally posted by Project_Silo
Impeachemtn will not fix this problem,

What problem? The one the President created by fundamentally changing who we are as a nation and how we govern ourselves?

Do you have any doubt that has occurred?

We are a nation of laws, applicable to EVERYONE. A failure to affirm at least that is the last move in the chess game of our democracy. There are no other moves after that.

We are talking about an Administration that refuses the enforcement of numerous laws....who has so thoroughly gamed the system, it far exceeds the egregiousness of the Watergate Era.

A failure to address that moves our manner of governance into a completely different place.

Do we really want to do that?

Obviously, some do...because they fear the next point you make.

Originally posted by Project_Silo
the next president will pull out and the terrorists will follow us home,and iraq will become run by terrorists

It frustrates me when I see this argument. THEY WILL COME ANYWAY.

Americans need to get real about this subject. We are going to have terrorism on our soil. Welcome to the rest of the World...

Is that really reason enough to change how we govern ourselves?

Originally posted by Project_Silo
No matter how much you want to blame everything on Bush,the fact is terrorists are real.

Yes, they are....and what precisely has he done to minimize our risk?