Talking points — “any excuse is better than none.”
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The dog ate my service to country.
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I just wanted to see your last part a little bit bigger.
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And well-deservedly so. However that was when we still had a (at least) semi-independent DoJ. These days, when you can’t impeach (thanks, MoscowMitch!) and you can’t prosecute (thanks low-Barr and a hollowed-out DoJ!), what are you gonna do?
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They’re beyond caring about being believed at this point. They’ve just gone limp. But they do benefit from a continued inability among a large swathe of the public to comprehend just how mentally ill this president is and how he’s so incapable of distinguishing between right and wrong that he blandly admits crimes he’s done and declares he’d like to commit others.
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This is a good read.
https://twitter.com/deangloster/status/1180311785703788546?s=21
h/t @mikemaloney
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Except he tweeted just yesterday about how it’s fine to ask China to investigate corruption.
And he very publicly told Stephanopoulos in that Oval Office interview a few months back that he saw nothing wrong with soliciting help from foreign nations.
Nobody sentient believes that nonsense.
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I didn’t mention that but of course we simply assume the DOJ under Trump will never generate any charges against administration officials flowing from their failure to obey the laws vis-a-vis Congressional oversight or anything else.
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This is another article of impeachment of both POTUS and Pompeo -obstruction of an impeachment inquiry. They can do this but cannot run from the consequence. Pompeo is done. He will hang on by his toenails for a bit longer but politically he is toast.
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Yeah, well, the “Russia if you’re listening” line was shrugged off as a joke, too.
If a “joke” directly leads to substantive action by a hostile foreign intelligence service, then maybe it wasn’t really a joke, hmm?
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Believe it or not, there are some things that even a dog won’t eat.
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Donald Trump is … Beau Geste!!!
And who says Trump doesn’t work hard?
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The thing is, all these officials looked at McMaster and Mattis and correctly concluded you can’t be in the administration and keep your skirts clean. It’s like with Stephanie Grisham, she went to 11 rhetorically pretty much the first day. Barr, Pompeo, they’ve just tossed the rule book and they’re going to 11 too, tolerating any sort of abuse and craziness.
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The other thing we should point out is that Pompeo was just until recently the head of the freaking CIA. So he knows for a fact that Russia was behind our election interference and Ukraine was not.
So, not only is he throwing his staff at State under the bus, but also the men and women of the CIA. By taking Trump’s side, he is questioning the very integrity of the organization he once ran. This won’t end well for him, and it shouldn’t.
And I’m not suggesting the CIA is beyond reproach, but on this issue, I believe they’re on the side of the angels.
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Yup, that would gawdawful, which is why, as @kelaine noted, I had him tarred and feathered.
Also because that’ll be much, much more painful to remove from nekkid skin… think of the hair… 
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Stop hoping and start enforcing, Mr. Engel!
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You can learn more than you ever cared to know in Congress’s Contempt Power and the Enforcement of Congressional Subpoenas: Law, History, Practice, and Procedure. (Updated May 12, 2017)
Quick summary:
"Congress has three formal methods by which it can combat non-compliance with a duly issued subpoena. . . . First, the long dormant inherent contempt power permits Congress to rely on its own constitutional authority to detain and imprison a contemnor until the individual complies with congressional demands. Second, the criminal contempt statute permits Congress to certify a contempt citation to the executive branch for the criminal prosecution of the contemnor. Finally, Congress may rely on the judicial branch to enforce a congressional subpoena. Under this procedure, Congress may seek a civil judgment from a federal court declaring that the individual in question is legally obligated to comply with the congressional subpoena. . . .
Congress’s inherent contempt power is not specifically granted by the Constitution, but is considered necessary to investigate and legislate effectively. The validity of the inherent contempt power was upheld in the early Supreme Court decision in Anderson v. Dunnand reiterated in McGrain v. Daugherty. 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 or detained in the Capitol or perhaps elsewhere. 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 by the House, beyond the end of a session of the Congress) until he agrees to comply. . . .
Although many of the inherent contempt precedents have involved incarceration of the contemnor, there may be an argument for the imposition of monetary fines as an alternative."
Full disclosure: The cited report by the Congressional Research Service is 90 pages. I didn’t read the whole thing 
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Like most conservative humor, it ain’t humorous.
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I’ll go way out on a limb and agree with you.
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Bloody hell! Is he serious? Maybe I’m too optimistic, but I’m not certain that this would go over well even in Kentucky.
“A vote for me is a vote for more miscreancy!!!“
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