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Rove Officially Refuses to Testify ... Will the House Follow Through on Threats to Arrest?

Posted by Isaac Fitzgerald, MSNBC at 2:14 PM on July 8, 2008.


Rove cites executive privilege and snubs entire legislative branch of government.

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Karl Rove's attorney sent the House Judiciary Committee a letter stating that Rove will not be attending a hearing that he has been subpoenaed for on July 10th, citing executive privilege.

What will the House Judiciary Committee do: let it slide or arrest him for contempt (as some members have threatened)? How do you think Rove's refusal to show up should be taken?

Digg!

Tagged as: karl rove, house judiciary committee, bush leauge justice


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Rove isn't the executive
Posted by: sliver on Jul 8, 2008 5:17 PM   
Current rating: 5    [1 = poor; 5 = excellent]
How can he claim executive privilege? I thought only the executive could claim executive privilege.

Maybe he has a pass from Cardinal Richelieu stating "The bearer of this letter can do whatever the hell he wants."

You would think that in a country based on laws, those passes wouldn't work any more.

[« Reply to this comment] [Post a new comment »] [Rate this comment: 1 - 2 - 3 - 4 - 5]

» RE: ove isn't the executive Posted by: desidid
» RE: Rove is the executive Posted by: GREYHORSE
» RE: ove is the executive Posted by: Quannah
» RE: ove is the executive Posted by: Lauren
» RE: ove isn't the executive Posted by: Quannah
Let's See If The Dems Have The Balls
Posted by: desidid on Jul 8, 2008 5:19 PM   
Current rating: 5    [1 = poor; 5 = excellent]
to take the fight to him and the Supreme Court!!!!!!!!!

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Rove thinks he has his back covered . . .
Posted by: dustdevil on Jul 8, 2008 7:14 PM   
Current rating: 5    [1 = poor; 5 = excellent]
but if the electronic voting machines aren't able to elect enough Repubs in Nov., he could be in big trouble.

If he goes down, I expect him to plea bargain and take a lot of major assholes down with him.
Bush won't be there to pardon him.

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Tobi Dragert, Founder, National Impeachment Network
Posted by: Teedee on Jul 9, 2008 3:42 AM   
Current rating: 5    [1 = poor; 5 = excellent]
It comes as no surprise that Karl Rove won't testify. Congress's oversight duties have been blocked ever since Speaker Pelosi said "impeachment is off the table." No one in the Bush administration has anything to fear.

What a shame that our unique form of government is now in jeopardy for strictly political, and worse, wrongheaded, motives.

Unless Congress follows through on its path to impeachment, America's greatness may be doomed.

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How do you think Rove's....
Posted by: chuckjs on Jul 9, 2008 3:53 AM   
Current rating: 5    [1 = poor; 5 = excellent]
refusal to show up should be taken? It should be taken just like any other private citizens refusal and treated as the criminal act it is. Even while advising the great blunderer he was still not an elected official covered by executive priveledge.

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Arrest them all
Posted by: marchpet on Jul 9, 2008 4:09 AM   
Current rating: 5    [1 = poor; 5 = excellent]
"Executive priviledge?" Taking the fifth more like.

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Carley Rovien The Corpirate Properganda Minister is: Untouchable!
Posted by: williameon on Jul 9, 2008 4:20 AM   
Current rating: 4    [1 = poor; 5 = excellent]
Gannon might be able to hit him in the pants
But, Waxon/Waxoff doesn't have a chance.
Too little, too late.
Accountability flew out the window when Bush/Chainey were anointed!
They are in control now.
Zio-cons 10 TRILLION
America 0
What will tomorrow bring?
Gaza American Style
With Sweet (Cyanide) Dreams in your head and
A gas chamber built around your bed.

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"How do you think Rove's refusal to show up should be taken? "
Posted by: ~Fiona~ on Jul 9, 2008 4:30 AM   
Current rating: 5    [1 = poor; 5 = excellent]
Wanted Posters stating;

"Carl Rove"
(insert pic beneath name)
"AKA Turdblossom"
"Shoot on sight"

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» RE: wanted posters Posted by: Lauren
Karl von Rove will remain untouchable
Posted by: Midway54 on Jul 9, 2008 4:33 AM   
Current rating: 5    [1 = poor; 5 = excellent]
The Fascist Plutocrats owners and controllers of the military-industrial-compliant media complex as well as the Congress will not permit any punishment of Karl von Rove. Punishments are reserved for dissenters and active challengers to the Fatherland...oops, the Homeland.

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WHAT THE F-CK IS WRONG WITH THE DEMS?
Posted by: kc10ken on Jul 9, 2008 4:48 AM   
Current rating: 4    [1 = poor; 5 = excellent]
Our only hope in 2006 was the Democratic majority in the Congress.

THAT'S why we elected them...to impeach this f-cking IMBECILE and put him and ole "5 deferrment" Dick Cheney in jail AND to end dumbya's quagmire in Iraq.

ATTENTION ALL DEMS! ...You have done NOTHING in almost 2 years. To add insult to injury, Pelosi goes around saying that impeachment is off the table.

WHAT THE HELL IS WRONG WITH YOU DEMS?

It's no wonder I'm an Independent and the ranks of Independents grows every day.....because WE THE PEOPLE ARE FED UP! A Dem who refuses to impeach, refuses to end the war immediately and refuses to get tough with these GOP criminals like Rove is no better than a republican good ole boy who looks the other way.

WE WILL REMEMBER YOU DEMS IN NOVEMBER!

SHAME ON THE DEMOCRATIC CONGRESS FOR NOT DOING WHAT WE ELECTED THEM IN 06 TO DO!

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The House will NOT do anything--but huff and puff
Posted by: solitarysherlockian on Jul 9, 2008 6:14 AM   
Current rating: 5    [1 = poor; 5 = excellent]
Under the leadership of Nancy--sad to say, the House is a group of non-leaders--who baa behind Bush like the sheep they are. What was the point of electing them Progressives? Why did we bother? Maybe Jefferson is right--time for a new revolution.

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Perhaps a little vacation
Posted by: JohnJlws on Jul 9, 2008 6:35 AM   
Current rating: 5    [1 = poor; 5 = excellent]
Perhaps a little vacation to Gitmo would soften up Pillsbury Dough Boy.

Of course, perhaps a little vacation for the Congress to Gitmo would Git them to pull their heads out of their collective asses. Of course, if they're in Gitmo, they'll have to have a golf course, and air conditioning, and cable, and a chef, and habeus corpus, and health insurance, and...Oh, shit, one thing always leads to another with these guys. It's probably better Rove isn't held accountable--the cost outweighs the benefit.

(Would be funny to see that SOB in an orange jumpsuit and slippers though with a big "tarrarist" dong rammed up his...)

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Rove is a citizen
Posted by: BKLN on Jul 9, 2008 6:58 AM   
Current rating: 5    [1 = poor; 5 = excellent]
And as such he should be treated like any other citizen who refuses a subpeona.

It's really quite simple. No hair-pulling or second-guessing necessary.

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Deb
Posted by: debmcd on Jul 9, 2008 9:06 AM   
Current rating: 5    [1 = poor; 5 = excellent]
They ought to arrest his ass and throw him in a cell. Talk about obstruction of justice. Even the highest lawyer in the land, the Attorney General is in contempt and should be in that cell along with Bush, Cheney, and Rove. Hell, throw the lot of them into a cell and throw away the key. Forget bread and water. These guys don't deserve any moral treatment at all for what they've done in our name. They are all, to a man, criminals and the sooner the damn Congress starts doing their actual Constitutional duty the better. Bush has even been told by the court that he committed a felony by secretly wiretapping Americans and Congress hasn't done a damn thing. When do our Constitutional protections kick in? I say every imcumbant that doesn't sign on to impeachment should be shown the door the next time they are up for re-election.

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» RE: Deb Posted by: madmax427
WHY?
Posted by: kimbari on Jul 9, 2008 9:11 AM   
Current rating: 5    [1 = poor; 5 = excellent]
Rove should have been arrested *years* ago.

What does he have on these people? Why are they so afraid of him?

Something is VERY wrong, here.

[end of totally inane comment...]

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A GREAT DAY IN AMERICA
Posted by: bc430 on Jul 9, 2008 9:12 AM   
Current rating: 5    [1 = poor; 5 = excellent]
is the day that banner headlines announce "KARL ROVE REFUSES TO TESTIFY"

Matter of fact this cool criminal is so convinced of how special he is that he ain't even going to waste his precious time or run the risk of showing the slightest iota of anything that might be remotely construed as respect to this Negro led congressional committee. His lawyer highlights the regime's contempt of race, class and the United States Congress by informing these lesser beings, via letter, that Mr. Rove will not be sworn in, write a letter or even show up. In other words, "GO F**K YOURSELF America, you no longer exist."

According to the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution when it gets this bad it is not up to a bought and paid for, cowardly, piss ant, almost Dem. Congressional majority that doesn't know why it's really in Washington; it is now the PEOPLE'S move.

It's a great day in America because surely now the Perpetual States and Federal Right Wing Republican Rule experiment has blown up in the world's face.

Government has swollen, the wealth has been redistributed and the Democratic Party didn't do it. The poor are still economically powerless and the Republicans and too many Democrats in Government don't give a damn.

According to John McCain's campaign ad the U.S. economy is in "shambles" and I posit the global economy is threatened because of Republican mismanagement, racism, classism, disregard for human life and a freakish proclivity for theft, death and distruction.

Have we all been dumbed down to the level of victims who delight in working against our own interests?

–Only 2 in 5 voters can name the three branches of the federal government.

–Only 1 in 7 can find Iraq on a map.

–Only 1 in 5 know that there are 100 federal senators

And the most chilling…

–Nearly half (49%) of Americans think the President has the authority to suspend the Constitution.

FOR SALE
Old YUGO $60.000 John McCain
New LEXUS $60.000 Barack Obama

In the words of intellectual giant John McCain, "Don't HOPE for CHANGE VOTE for CHANGE.

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» RE: A GREAT DAY IN AMERICA Posted by: cruzecon
The UK Learned a lesson from the USA...
Posted by: BigRon on Jul 9, 2008 9:59 AM   
Current rating: 5    [1 = poor; 5 = excellent]
But Americans seem to have forgotten what they taught.

Once upon a time, here in the UK, there was a party called "Labour" - it stood for social justice... but somehow managed to forget that tipping the scales of justice ENTIRELY one way would lead to corruption... and send the economy into a nosedive. They got kicked out by Maggie Thatcher, and spent the next decade or more unelectable. So they reinvented themselves, got a new name ("NEW Labour") got a pretty-boy new leader (Blair) and swept back into power, throwing away the idealism which had been at the core of the party along the way.

What's that got to do with Rove? Well. the people who "rebranded" the party got their ideas from the Clinton electoral machine; from which they learned that it doesn't MATTER if you throw out any trace of idealism when you rebrand the party: the sheep WILL keep on voting for you, and they WON'T notice that all that remains of their old party is the name. There is now a yawning chasm between Labour's traditional voters and the say-anything-to-get-elected party apparatchiks. Pretty much like the chasm between the Democrat grass roots and the party leadership in fact.

What really puzzles me is that Democrat voters seem not to have noticed that the same thing has happened in the USA. Why aren't the Democrat Party officials BEHAVING like they're supposed to? Because the "rules" got changed back in the 1990's. It's NOT the same party as it was. Until the grass roots wake up and smell the coffee, their "leadership" will continue to ignore their wishes.

In the UK, at the last General Election, Blair was SO unpopular that his picture was kept out of any party election materials. He broke electoral records for getting elected with the lowest number of votes in history (Yes, we're SO old fashioned that we actually count ALL the votes here in the UK.) Maybe "New" Labour will learn something from their (generally accepted to be inevitable) electoral slaughter at the next General Election... like "the Voters really AREN'T as stupid as you relied on them being." Too bad that the Democrats are at the other end of the cycle.

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Balls
Posted by: Grandma Crabby on Jul 9, 2008 10:39 AM   
Current rating: 4    [1 = poor; 5 = excellent]
I agree with those who say this is a test to see if the dems have any balls at all.

They have the power to arrest Rove if he doesn't show. Will they?

It would make my day, no it'd make my YEAR/LIFE to see Karl Rove doing the perp walk.

I have a feeling I will be disappointed however.

To call that man a "political genius" and shower him with praise and high paying media jobs is disgusting.

He's a machavellian, power hungry, ruthless SOB who has done more to destroy our political system than any outside force could ever hope to accomplish.

String him up by his toes and throw turds and wilted blossoms at him.

Luv,
Granny

VideoProductionTips = Learn Internet Video

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» RE: Balls Posted by: Lauren
History will bear me out...
Posted by: Zeugitai on Jul 9, 2008 11:50 AM   
Current rating: 5    [1 = poor; 5 = excellent]
For pisant plebeians tired of being crushed under the bootheels of the privileged and those in power who live outside and above the laws of the land, nothing ever has or ever will work as well as the guillotine.

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ba
Posted by: mnstra on Jul 9, 2008 1:05 PM   
Current rating: Not yet rated    [1 = poor; 5 = excellent]
Good article, but they wont arrest him.When was the last time you saw this congress stand up for anything that would piss off G .Bush?

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Haul his dirty sickofsleaze
Posted by: ladybug1@carrollsweb.com on Jul 9, 2008 1:50 PM   
Current rating: Not yet rated    [1 = poor; 5 = excellent]
a-- off kicking and screaming

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ATH
Posted by: ATH on Jul 9, 2008 1:53 PM   
Current rating: 5    [1 = poor; 5 = excellent]
Here's what I think is going on, people. It's all about oil. In the U.S. we use oil to produce over 30,000 different products--from shirts to plastic; more importantly, it completely fuels our food production industry. It controls all forms of transportation, including the valuable transfers of foods and medicines we need.
Unfortunately, oil production actually peaked, as one scientist (whose name I can't recall)predicted, in the United States (which for years has been the most oil producing nation in the world, which has bestowed upon us our lifestyle and military might)in the United States in the 1970s. As it turned out, this scientist, despite everyone's criticism of his theory beforehand, turned out to be right, and oil production peaked in the United States, and in many other parts of the world, in the mid-1970s.
Undoubtably, there were scientists, who probably worked for the government, in programs like NASA (because the government has always actively recruited the best and brightest college graduates)and other programs, who knew or suspected of the effects carbon emissions were starting to play in beginning to heat up the Earth, but any such "theories" were supressed, and heavily discouraged from investigation, period--as was fuel efficiency technology. Here, the big oil companies have always played a powerful role in making sure automobile makers didn't make cars too fuel efficient, and, since the general public had no idea that we reached peak oil production, they were not looking to fix something they didn't know needing fixing.
Now, it's speculation as to whether scientists suspected global climate change back in the 1970s, but the oil company CEOs certainly knew, and I believe they both supressed this information and, when people did know and ask about it, made it out to be something that we needn't worry about.
Because they knew that, as the population grew, and oil supplies slowly started a downward trend in production, they would all stand to make a lot of money. It's basic supply and demand.
Members of Congress and Presidents inevitably learned of this, and the fact that
they failed to take it seriously shows the amount of general corruption, as well as supression of the topic.
Basically, we were given a warning 30 years ago that voiced to us a message that few people probably understood the enormity of, but that most people with a brain could grasp was very significant: that we were eventually going to run out of oil. Population and demand would increase, and oil would slowly run out. The same scientist who predicted the 1970 peak in production also predicted that by around this time oil would hit close to a hundred dollars a barrel.
I love how when politicians talk about oil, they always remind us of the booming economies of China and India and such...you wonder, are they being deliberately cruel by reminding us that their economies are booming because the president and Congress have allowed corporations to ship (oh, I meant "outsource"--ole' George Carlin was right, rest his soul: the more heinous the act, the more euphemistic the wording!)our jobs over to India and China and other countries.Is it outright cruelty, or are they just so removed from our world and reality as it exists for most Americans?
Anyway, that was off-topic, but I had to say it. just to see if anyone else wonders about that.
Basically, what I'm saying is: we're doomed.
All this talk about "greening," it's all too little, too late. There's no way to remake our entire infrastructure and avert the worst of global warming. With global warming, maybe if we had started ten years ago with a serious program, maybe we could have saved ourselves from the worst of it...but we didn't.
Some time ago, the elites of the world, the powers that be, decided to get obscenely rich at the price of the rest of civilization.

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» RE: ATH Posted by: Lauren
Lynnda
Posted by: lynnda37 on Jul 9, 2008 4:25 PM   
Current rating: Not yet rated    [1 = poor; 5 = excellent]
Make Hillary Clinton Speaker of the House she will do something!!!!

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» RE: Lynnda Posted by: Quannah
Karl Rove Is Just A Regular Citizen
Posted by: Hankbrilliant on Jul 10, 2008 8:13 AM   
Current rating: 5    [1 = poor; 5 = excellent]
When Rove left the Bush administration he lost his standing as a member of the Executive Banch. But the Congressional Democrats have to get a backbone, and arrest his ass...which of course, they won't do. Politics sometimes sucks.

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Rove cites executive privilege
Posted by: dougo on Jul 10, 2008 8:42 AM   
Current rating: 5    [1 = poor; 5 = excellent]
Drag his ass in and let him rot in jail until he decides to comply. I want justice! You don't ask for justice from the likes of these clowns,you demand it.The capitol police must follow the orders to arrest him.Now go get him.Can you say perp walk?

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Congress DO Anything? Ha, hahhhahha.
Posted by: solitarysherlockian on Jul 10, 2008 1:00 PM   
Current rating: Not yet rated    [1 = poor; 5 = excellent]
The idea that Congress would do anything, to stand up for its Constitutional rights and duties, is so laughable as to be satiric. Talk about a No Show job.

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