Washington Horror Blog

SEMI-FICTIONAL CHRONICLE of the EVIL THAT INFECTS WASHINGTON, D.C. To read Prologue and Character Guide, please see www.washingtonhorrorblog.com, updated 6/6//2017.

Monday, May 29, 2017

What in tarnation?!

"This isn't happenin' fast enough, son!"

"Yes, sir, General Sessions!" said Justice Department attorney Atticus Hawk, saluting.  "You're referring to--?"

"Dagnammit, I need you on the same page!" exclaimed the Attorney General, Jefferson Beauregard Sessions.  "This is sinkin' faster than a Florida gator in a Georgia swamp!"

"It sure is, General Sessions!" replied Hawk, rifling aimlessly through the papers piled up on his desk.

"That smart-ass Jew-boy son-in-law with his moronic back-channel to Moscow!  What was he in such a wallopin' hurry for that couldn't wait until Inauguration day?"

"Beats me," said Hawk.

"Money!  These people are the most piss-poor rich folks I've ever met in my life!  They got gold-plated toilets and Moscow bankers on speed-dial?  What in tarnation?!"

"In tarnation, General Sessions!"

"We gotta get these sentencing guidelines out there:  all them drug offenders need to be locked up before the mid-term elections, and the ones already in prison need to be indicted on more offenses so we can keep them locked up forever.  Get them snitchin' on each other.  I want at least ten million more prison sentences, preferably thirty million."

"I've been examining the studies and guidelines we have at DOJ, and--"

"Never mind that!  Crack and marijuana, you go to prison.  Unless you're a marijuana grower--I mean real farmers, not city folk with purple lamps in their living room.  Farmers don't go to jail, and nobody in trailer parks."

"Sometimes meth labs--"

"Nobody in trailer parks!  We all know the bad apples are in the cities," declared Sessions.

"Actually--"

"The cities!  And the prisons.  Lock 'em up, lock 'em up longer, get it done before mid-terms."

"It might leave more children on food stamps," said Hawk.

"Oprah can feed 'em.  Anyway, that's not our bailiwick!  That's the black fellow."

"Ben Carson?  No, he's at--"

"Yep, that's the one.  Let him worry about hungry pickaninnies."

"We could have race riots," said Hawk.

"Bring it on!  That's what the National Guard is for!  That reminds me:  ease up on the sentencing for illegal gun possession except for gang members."

"Is the NRA a gang?"

"You're a real comedian," said the Attorney General without smiling.  "And find the leakers!" he barked on his way out of Hawk's office.

Besides me? he thought.  Hawk had been willing to cross many lines over his years at the Justice Department, but after the scrutiny he had received for dating a woman on the FBI's Most Wanted List, he knew which side of an FBI investigation he wanted to be on.

Meanwhile, Chloe Cleavage was growing increasingly worried as to which side of the FBI investigation she was going to end up on.  The Prince and Prowling staff attorney had turned dozens of tricks at Trump International Hotel by now, and many of the secrets she was learning from Sergei were ending up splashed across the Washington Post.  There were clearly so many leakers in the Administration right now that she was unworried the hotel's Russian entourage would finger her directly, but how could she be certain about any of this?  She still knew nothing about the British agents she was reporting to, except that she doubted they or their government were bankrolling her fees for this espionage.  She was also starting to wonder if Sergei was feeding her Trump stories on purpose.  This whole enterprise had her drinking vodka on a regular basis, wondering why she was in love with a man who might be setting her up for a huge fall--or worse.  She walked out the servants' entrance, as was now her custom, and quickly hailed a taxi next to the hotel Starbucks.  She had spent three whole days in the Russian suite and had not seen one of the young Bulgarian girls ("Lola") at all.  Deported?  Dead?  Chloe stared out the cab window at the gray sky, wondering when she would ever see sunshine again.

Over at Prince and Prowling, the Russian resistance had just enjoyed another Russia Practice reception hosted by junior partner Bridezilla and her (spy) boyfriend, "Esperantu Edward".  Though Bridezilla did have a couple of deals for actual clients to sign, mostly the Russians were mingling among themselves.  She had learned a few Russian words over the past couple of months, but it did not take much Russian for her to understand there was a lot of heated discussion going on concerning Trump, Putin, and Jared Kushner.  Edward, for his part, was whispering alternatively in Esperantu and Russian with people he knew, and Bridezilla was starting to wonder if her fellow enthusiast for all things miniature was going to prove to be another spy, like her last--she caught herself, about to think the word "boyfriend".  Husband!  The annulment was final, and she tried not to think about that crazy whirlwind romance, but her mandate to develop a Prince and Prowling Russia Practice to rival Morgan Lewis and Bockius had somehow morphed into whatever this was:  Edward hosting a dozen or two Russian "entrepreneurs" in this meeting room while she wore silk or taffeta, velvet gloves, and diamonds.  Is this happening all over Washington? she wondered.  Which side are we on?  Are these people plotting for or against Putin?  Are they FBI moles?  Am I making the firm enough money to risk FBI wiretaps?  Edward caught her eye across the room, and she smiled with a hoist of her vodka glass.  I miss John Boehner, she thought.  It was a simpler time.

"It was a simpler time," said Condoleezza Rice, addressing an impatient Heurich Society over the videoconferencing screen set up in the upper floor meeting room of the Brewmaster's Castle.

"This has become untenable!" barked the treasurer.  "The underground market for rare minerals is through the roof!  Half the world is expecting the democratic collapse of the United States, followed by decades of economic turmoil!  Don't even get me started on how much it now costs to purchase an aquifer!"

"This sort of hysteria is unhelpful," retorted Rice, the embattled Chair.

"That's easy for you to say!" grumbled the NSA officer.  "Just because I have a well-stocked underground bunker for my kids and grand-kids doesn't mean I actually want anybody to have to live in it!"

"I just need a little more time," said Captain Tyler Glockmann, their mole at the Defense Intelligence Agency.  "You know I've leaked some excellent material."

"It doesn't matter what gets leaked!" exclaimed the international arms dealer.  "Trump's not resigning, the GOP is not impeaching, and I can't make money on small regional wars if we're heading towards a nuclear meltdown!"

"Kennedy was assassinated for far less," sneered the retired FBI officer.  "The kids today think Tweeting is the answer!"

"For crying out loud!" exclaimed Rice.  "The Russia problem will be taken care of."

"By whom?  The Easter bunny?" cried the State Department Middle East desk officer.  "If Obama had shoved aside the president of Montenegro to get to the front of a NATO photo shoot, it would be showing in a non-stop Fox News loop!  Nothing Trump does matters!  Putin is probably marching into Poland by now!  NATO is going to invoke Article Five against the U.S.!  I'm shocked they didn't shoot Air Force One out of the sky, frankly."

"You need to put a little more faith in our military officers," said the wheelchair-bound Captain Glockmann, who had never before served until taking on the identity of his twin brother at Rice's request.  "We can keep the U.S. safe."

At that moment, the ghost of former CIA agent Henry Samuelson had the equivalent of a spectral heart attack and had to be carried off by one of the Shackled to be revived in the murky ether hovering over the haunted town.

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COMING UP:  
Sense of Entitlement Anonymous (DC Chapter)!

Saturday, May 20, 2017

A Beast is Born!

Out at the Maryland animal sanctuary, famed animal whisperer Sebastian L'Arche had been summoned because geriatric cow Megamoo had gone into pre-mature labor.  Though well past her fertile years, and without any known exposure to a bull, Megamoo had become pregnant shortly after the Presidential Election.  Even those not prone to spiritual beliefs or even mild superstitions were certain this was an extremely unnatural phenomenon, and this had been confirmed by the veterinarian's inexplicable ability to obtain a clear ultrasound of the creature in the womb.  Sebastian, for his part, had no doubt on that point since his earlier visit, and had brought to the sanctuary several different items that might kill the creature--though he was not entirely certain if the sanctuary workers would agree.  Sebastian did not arrive alone:  in addition to his business partner Becky Hartley, the pending birth had prompted the uninvited arrival of Ghost Pippin and her pack of feral feline phantasms, The Gopper Ghost and his pack of canine specters (including the Samoyed Ghost Anatoly), a flock of starlings spying for Ardua of the Potomac, and a raven watching carefully from the barn rafters.

Meanwhile, with Trump absent from the White House, Steve Bannon and his private security staff were running wild:  strippers, whiskey bottles, chicken wings, and moon pies were scattered everywhere from the movie theater to the putting green.  It was very distracting for conspiracy theorist Glenn Michael Beckmann, who had been smuggled in by security guard Randy "Bubba" Blaylock to get an exclusive scoop for his blog.  "Is Bannon the leaker?" asked Beckmann.  "Did he spill the beans on Trump's meeting with the Russians?"

"When you make a deal with the devil, he will enforce it!" hollered Bubba, who wheeled suddenly to start shooting at a Turner watercolor he thought was mocking him and his (cursed, whispering) Rolex.

"Is Bannon really Satan?" asked Beckmann, watching a horrified Omarosa kick a groping Bannon staffer in the shin before managing to barricade herself in her office.

"Did Judas serve the devil's purpose or God's purpose?" countered Bubba, opening his fly to piss into a peace plant pot.

A naked woman then ran past them, laughing heartily, as Steve Bannon drunk-drove a motorized wheelchair crookedly in pursuit, wearing nothing but a MAGA baseball cap and a feather boa.  Beckmann knocked over the wheelchair and raced off to catch the woman himself.

"Alt-Right One down!" yelled Bubba, zipping his fly back up, then shooting the rebel wheelchair, causing Bannon to erupt in peals of hyena laughter as he crawled away from the American carnage.

Over at the State Department, the Assistant Deputy Administrator for American Carnage (the ADAfAC) was stress-eating an entire bag of potato chips while his pint of ice cream softened up.  "I wrote the speech!" he muttered, his mouth full.  "It was full of nuance!  Saudis, Iran--this isn't stuff for MAGA speeches!"  He paused to stab a spoon at the ice cream again, then swore at its recalcitrant hardness.  "I told you not to bring me ice cream unless it's softened!" he screamed out the door at "C. Coe Phant", who had become his personal slave in an effort to avoid losing his job to State Department cuts.  Phant ran in with a different pint he had been sitting on and silently replaced the hard one on the ADAfAC's desk, not even raising his eyes to acknowledge the presence of triple agent Charles Wu.  "What does Tillerson do?  Make an asinine, nonsensical comment about free speech.  FREE SPEECH!  They don't DO it in Saudi Arabia!  Do they do it here?  NOT FOR LONG!  Do they do it in Iran?  YES!  Up is down, down is up, Obama can't bow, Trump can bow, Michelle should have worn a head scarf.  No, she did!  Photo shop it!  Criticize her for wearing it!  Criticize her for not wearing it!  The Deplorables will re-Tweet whatever you say.  It's a propaganda state now!  That's what he says!" concluded the ADAfAC, gesturing out the doorway where C. Coe Phant was presumably still standing at attention.  "Do you want some?"

Wu declined graciously, and the ADAfAC went back to shoveling it into his mouth.  "It's contraband," he said, his mouth full.  "Ben and Jerry's Americone Dream--the Stephen Colbert flavor.  Can't eat it while Tillerson's in the house!  The cat's away, the mice will play, HA HA HA HA!  When he gets back, we have to eat that silly Texas brand."

"Hm," nodded Wu, sympathetically.  Every day, Beijing asked him what the toddler in the White House would do next.  ("Whatever Jared tells him," was not the most helpful information he could pass along, but it was the most truthful.  And Tillerson was just a mouthpiece.)  "I do have some Russian information you might find useful," said Wu, who was now getting a floodgate of leaks from the Russians staying at Trump International Hotel, courtesy of reluctant spy Chloe Cleavage.

"Really?!" laughed the ADAfAC.  "Something the Russians won't leak themselves to the New York Times?  Something Paul Ryan's enemies didn't tape-record and release at an inopportune time?  Something which the 95% of FBI employees still loyal to James Comey won't leak to the Washington Post?  Something McMaster won't leak to CNN as a warning to Pence's incoming Administration that nobody's saying the Special Counsel would disappear just because Trump gets impeached?"

"Something else," nodded Wu.  "Something you will want to know before Trump visits NATO."

"Visits NATO?!" howled the ADAfAC.  "If by 'visit' you mean read a prepared statement while Melania flashes her spray-tan smile and cleavage around to distract the generals, then start ad-libbing nuggets of Presidential wisdom about things like 'where's the dividing line between the North Atlantic and the South Atlantic?  Treaty Organization is such an old-fashioned term!  Let's sign a deal, the most beautiful deal in the history of American deals!  Why shouldn't Russia be a member of NATO?  Wouldn't that help them smooth things out with Ukraine?  Speaking of Ukraine, can somebody explain to me about Georgia?  Is there a Georgia in Russia?  That doesn't seem right.  I love Slavs!  Slavs are very misunderstood.  Usually I prefer blonds, but Melania's hot, right?'"

"Sir," said C. Coe Phant, re-entering the room, "it's time for your afternoon prescription."  He handed the ADAfAC a Ritalin pill and a tablet with a porn video pulled up on it.

"Ah," sighed the ADAfAC.  "Charles, you can tell him your Russian stuff.  I need to be alone for half an hour."

Back at the White House, butler Clio was hunkered down with gardener Bridge in her East Wing office.  They knew it would get bad after the Head Usher was fired, but never in a million years could they have anticipated that the acts of debauchery would snowball into an actual booze-filled orgy involving a dozen staffers and a cast of questionable characters brought in to party with them.  "To think, I once had my children living here with me!" Clio said, shaking her head as she thought about the years after twins Regina and Ferguson had been born during a White House lockdown.

Oh, they still are, thought Bridge, who knew that Ghost Dennis was fulfilling his father-figure role with a vengeance right now, herding the ghost pre-schoolers away from the excesses.  Bridge used to think Reggie and Fergie were the naughtiest things in the White House, but they seemed more angelic every day.

Back at the animal sanctuary, Megamoo gave out one final bellow as she forced the unwelcome resident out of her womb and onto the straw.  Everyone stared at the hideous creature, which appeared to be a mixture of cow, lizard, rat, mushroom, and vulture.  The nervous veterinarian cut the umbilical cord, then looked around to see what the consensus of the group would be.  The Gopper Ghost and Anatoly prepared to maul the evil creature to death, but first Megamoo jumped to her feet and started trampling it herself.  Everybody backed away from the dangerous flying hooves, but the creature started snarling, unfurled its wings, and quickly flew out of the barn.

"Pull over now," said Angela de la Paz to her boyfriend, a half-mile from that barn.  "It's already loose."  She jumped out of the car, spotted it in the sky, held up her hand to it, then watched it crash to the ground.  She got back in, and FBI agent Dulles Samuelson smiled at her silently, then put the car back in gear.  They still had to dissolve it with the gallon of holy water they had siphoned at the Shrine.


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COMING UP:        
Jefferson Beauregard Sessions schemes to incarcerate 
10 million more minorities before November 2018!

Sunday, May 14, 2017

Raucous Caucus!

Congressman Paul Ryan's replacement chief of staff had successfully been turned into a zombie one month back, but the maggots in his brain were not born leaders, and so the Zombie Caucus was floundering indecisively.  For one thing, the zombies could not reach a consensus on how to repeal and replace Obamacare!  While many of them felt taking people off health insurance made them physically weaker and easier targets to be eaten, other zombies felt there were already enough soft (weak, obese, smoking, drinking, high) targets out there and that it was better to focus on economic goals--such as gutting financial and housing regulations in order to drive more people into homelessness.  There was also disagreement on the wisdom of driving through such legislation with only Republican votes at a time when the President was severely weakening the GOP brand, and yet there was still no agreement on centrist Senate efforts to draft a Plan B.

The Zombie Caucus was also divided on national security issues, with some feeling that North Korea rhetoric should be quieted since intercontinental ballistic missiles aimed at D.C. could certainly annihilate the Zombie Caucus, while others zombies felt that it was time to do a first strike even if it did mean that North Korea would retaliate by bombing South Korea and Japan.  "Who cares?" was the chorus resounding among many at this afternoon's meeting, since they could not eat brains that far away, and the Speaker's chief of staff was too feeble-maggot-brained to understand the full ramifications.  And yet other zombies pointed out how many Tomahawk missiles had already been wasted on an impotent strike at a Syrian airfield, and how difficult it would be to keep constituents happy if budget cuts now had to be made to food stamps and veterans' programs.  After all, they did need enough people to stay alive in order to vote in 2018!

But mostly the Zombie Caucus was falling apart over how to deal with Trump's outrageous week of actions and statements concerning the FBI.  The more hawkish members of Congress were squawking about James Clapper's direct assertions that firing Comey was a win for Vladimir Putin.  The lawyer zombies, for their part, could not deny that Trump had admitted on national television he had fired Comey out of a desire to force the end of the Russian-interference FBI investigation of his Presidential campaign; on top of that, Trump had used Twitter to intimidate Comey as a witness!  Even maggot-replaced zombie brains who had once practiced law could see this was the textbook definition of obstruction of justice!

And yet Paul Ryan's zombie chief of staff insisted nothing could be done about it.

"Even Chaffetz is manning up now!" cried one member of Congress.  "Subpoenas are flying!  Treasury has to turn over financial information about Trump.  It's hard to grab a Senate intern for a quick snack when there are reporters crawling all over Capitol Hill day and night trying to get a scoop!"

"Exactly!" exclaimed a Congressional staffer from Florida.  "I had cornered a tourist to eat in a restroom on Thursday, and suddenly a reporter followed Congressman Smith in there, hounding her for comments on the McCabe testimony!"

"It's time to turn the Speaker of the House into a zombie!" cried a Congressman from Oklahoma.  "Things can't continue as they are!"

"I already turned him weeks ago!" sobbed Paul Ryan's chief of staff, shocking the entire Zombie Caucus.  "The Speaker of the House has been seduced by the Russia Caucus!  I can't even persuade him to come to our meeting!"

"There's a Russia Caucus?" asked several zombies at once.

"Oh, wake up and smell the vodka already!" he replied.

"Vodka is odorless," somebody commented, and then the discussion digressed significantly, until somebody called for zombifying the entire Russia Caucus.

"If we can catch them," he replied.  "They're a wily bunch of weasels."

Meanwhile, Congressman Herrmark had finished his Anti-Zombie Caucus morning meeting (only two confirmed kills this week) and was having afternoon tea with the Holier Than Thou Caucus--which had grown considerably since Trump's election.

"I just feel so bad for that poor Mrs. DeVos," said a Congresswoman from Georgia.  "Booed by those colored people at that disgraceful college!"

"Colored people?" said Congressman Herrmark.  "When did we start saying that again?"

"When they started tearing down our War of Northern Aggression hero statues!" cried a Virginia Congressman, who had rallied the previous evening at the torch-lit rally organized by white supremacist Richard Spencer in Charlottesville.  "White Christians need to defend ourselves!"

"What do those statues have to do with being a Christian?" asked the northern-born Herrmark, who felt the bar constantly rising for successfully networking in this increasingly fanatical and paranoid caucus.

"Son," replied the Virginian, "you've got a lot to learn."

"Aren't you more worried about Virginians' losing health care or Meal on Wheels?" asked Congressman Herrmark.  "Jesus liked healing people and feeding them."

"Those are things for charity, not government," replied the Georgia woman, with a huff.  "Now that the President is giving back free speech to churches, things will start returning to the way the Founding Fathers intended."

"They intended only male landowners to run the government," said Congressman Herrmark with a big smile on his face, but she did not find the comment funny.

Meanwhile, the Russia Caucus was, in fact, holding a nicely catered Mother's Day event for its members and their families, who had been bused out to Trump National Golf Club for the affair.  Though there was no guarantee that the currently golfing President (who seemed to be blowing off Melania!) would stop by their rented room, spirits were high after the Tuesday firing of James Comey and the Russian victory dance in the Oval Office itself on Wednesday.  Diamond necklaces and endless mimosas for the mothers present, puppies and cherry/chocolate blintzes for the children, and discreet envelopes of cash and Rosneft certficate shares for the men had everybody in a fine mood.  Ambassador Kislyak was laughing in the corner with Texas Congressman Zeke "Slick" Hicks about how Trump just needed a new, younger, Slavic mistress to keep him away from the 3 a.m. Tweets, and how this would be easier now that they had fired some White House domestic staffers.  "But you know, Ambassador, we're still not out of the woods yet," Slick said in a more serious tone.

"Are you kidding?" smiled Kislyak.  "He is getting away with everything!  And now we have Paul Ryan!"

Out in her hidden nest on the 14th Street Bridge, Barbara Hellmeister celebrated Mother's Day alone with the Donald Trump (Hitler-DNA-infused) clone growing in her embryo, basking in the unseen energy of Ardua of the Potomac.

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COMING UP:        A Beast is Born!

Sunday, May 07, 2017

Law Firm of the Soulless

The ethics counsel from the D.C. Bar settled into the dimly lit Palm booth in the back, and after the drinks and dinner order went in, the Prince and Prowling managing partner wasted no time in baring his soul.

"I really just don't know what we should be doing," he said in a very squeaky voice.  "DOJ already had us over the barrel with SOTA-BUNK."

"What bunk?" asked the ethics counsel.

"Our review center!  And the tax deductions."  The managing partner was pulling some hand-written notes out of his breast pocket.  "This was a way to get out of judicial monitoring!"

"Okay," said the ethics counsel.  "Monitoring for what?"

"That doesn't matter now!" said the managing partner.  "We're up to our eyeballs!"

"In what?" she asked.

The managing partner gratefully accepted the high ball from the returning waitress and took a big gulp.  "If Senator Breadman knew I was here, he'd kill me!"

"Former Senator Evermore Breadman?" she asked.

"He's already billed $20 million to this for his practice group!" he exclaimed.  "And it might double every month at this rate!"

"I don't understand the issue," the ethics counsel said.

"DOJ!  They hired us as outside counsel because they're drowning in Trump-related litigation.  But we're also billing the Trump companies for all the patent work in Beijing, and new property investments in Philippines and Turkey.  Don't you see?  The Prince and Prowling firewall is made of paper!"

"Perhaps," said the ethics counsel, finally writing down some notes.

"It's only a matter of time!  Donald Trump says he's got nothing to do with Russia, and we're writing a real estate contract for Junior in Qatar with underwriting from a Russian bank, and that bank has two officials living in Trump Tower, and Eric Trump is bragging about how they don't need U.S. banks because of all the Russian financing, and how are we supposed to help DOJ defend Donald Trump when he's just lying all the time?"

"Well--"

"You heard what Comey said in that hearing!  It's only a matter of time.  Indictments are coming, but whose?"

"It would help if I could see some details about your legal representations," said the ethics counsel.

"They're all over the news!" he replied.  "That poor woman Desiree Fairooz who just got convicted for laughing at the Jeff Sessions confirmation hearing:  how can Sessions have her prosecuted for laughing at his own confirmation hearing?  It's obviously a conflict of interest!"

"And a waste of taxpayer money," she grumbled.

"That taxpayer money is going to us!" cried the managing partner.  "Wilbur Ross made a joke that the Tomahawk missile strikes were Mar-a-Lago after-dinner entertainment for Trump, and DOJ wants us to defend a lawsuit that's just been filed claiming intentional infliction of emotional distress and punitive damages!"

"I thought nobody was killed when that Syrian air force base was bombed?" the ethics counsel asked.

"The lawsuit is from a Syrian-born waiter present when Ross made the joke!" he replied.  "We've brought on five lateral associates with tort defense experience and acquired a boutique criminal defense firm to keep up with all this.  Now we're doing Kushner contracts with Chinese investors while defending an ethics lawsuit against the White House!"

"Have you raised these concerns with senior partners at Prince and Prowling?"

The managing partner burst out laughing.  "'Conventional wisdom is dead!'", I keep hearing.  We've got insurance companies and the A.M.A. asking us to lobby against Trumpcare, while DOJ wants us to prepare for lawsuits from state attorney generals and the AARP.  We've got prosperity-Gospel churches wanting to set up Super PACs after that Trump executive order, and even Breadman is hesitant to do that--I thought that guy would set up a Super PAC for anybody!"

"What's a prosperity-Gospel church?" the ethics counsel asked.

"You don't really need to ask, do you?" replied the managing counsel.  "But are we supposed to start setting up Super PACs for churches while simultaneously preparing DOJ to defend another ACLU lawsuit?  I'm reading damned law review articles trying to find even a hypothetical blueprint for this, while most of the partners are out there buying red convertibles and investment properties--some of them are condos in Trump and Kushner properties!"

"Well, that's a problem," said the ethics counsel.  "Are there any partners at Prince and Prowling who share your concerns?"

"Sure, but they're afraid to say anything!  The only one that said something was pushed out of partnership already, and not by me!  If Hillary were in the White House, and her daughter and son-in-law got jobs there, the GOP would be eating her alive!  People are whispering that this is how things are now, and there's nothing we can do about it, and we might as well make money off it by representing the ruling party."

"The 'ruling party?'" asked the ethics counsel.

"Doesn't seem much point in calling them Republicans anymore."

Meanwhile, back at Prince and Prowling, Bridezilla was hosting a reception for prospective new clients in her Breadman-assigned Russia practice.  The junior partner had made little traction against her D.C. competition, and was trying a new approach tonight--a conference room full of glossy law firm brochures laid in-between trays of vodka, caviar, and irises.  Tchaikovsky music played softly in the background.  Bridezilla, wearing an empress style silk gown with long black gloves, mingled smilingly with her guest--many of whom had been recruited by her boyfriend (once and future spy "Esperantu Edward").

"So this morning the Donald Tweeted that it was Democrats who colluded with Putin, da?" she heard someone saying, followed by laughter.  "Even a dummy cannot believe this, da?"

"He only needs a few to believe lies--just enough to stay in power," said another.

Then somebody else brought up the pending Congressional testimony of fired Acting Attorney General Sally Yates, and soon half the people in the room were heatedly speaking in Russian.

"What are they saying?" whispered Bridezilla to Edward.

"Well," replied Edward, stalling for time with a gentle touch of the Faberge egg pendant she was wearing against her breast, "this looks so lovely on you."  She nodded, acknowledging the gift, but continued to look at him quizzically.  "I believe, my dear, you have unintentionally created a new hub of Russian resistance."

A half-mile away, Ardua of the Potomac seethed in the river while her starlings spied on Barack Obama receiving a Profile in Courage award at the Kennedy Center.

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COMING UP:       
Trumpcare divides the Zombie Caucus!