The Cult of Trump

It had been a very busy weekend for the Seekers' Trump Cult deprogramming efforts, with a large number of concerned friends and relatives' taking advantage of the Steve Mnuchin wedding to kidnap out-of-town Trumpists who had come to Washington for the wedding festivities.  Still, after a dozen attempts, they had only succeeded in deprogramming one investment banker and one event planner (who had been dreaming of getting appointed to her own HUD office).  The weary Seekers were eating supper and drinking beer in the kitchen of their rented Georgetown office space when mercenary Solomon Kane entered, hauling in a long-sought-after target.

"I got a tip from one of his Facebook friends and nabbed him in a Food Lion parking lot," said Kane, who had brought the White House Press Secretary into the building in a large rolling suitcase.  "He should start waking up soon."

"Who is it?" asked the Jesuit professor eyeing Kane's unzipping the suitcase. 

"Sean Spicer," he replied, pulling him out to carry to a Lazy-Boy recliner in the next room.  (This was now the chair-of-choice for Trumpist deprogramming.)

The Lutheran minister let out a low whistle.  "What'll he do to us if we fail?"

"It's not like he'll report what we do," said the Jewish rabbi.  "He's incapable of speaking the truth!"

"He's just misguided, like all the rest," said the Buddhist monk.

"Misguided my ass!" said the Lutheran minister.  "Twenty-one state electoral systems are now confirmed for Russian hacking during the election, and the propaganda state is back to 'crooked Hillary' distraction tactics yet again!"

"Maybe she and the rabbi are right," said the Pentecostal preacher.  "Not everybody is a lost lamb.  We have to consider the possibility that Mr. Spicer is one of the master agents in our long national nightmare."

"On the one hand, Trump seems a little displeased with Spicer's performance," said the Muslim imam, "and he does seem to avoid saying the worst possible lies by telling us he 'hasn't spoken to the President' about such-and-such.  On the other hand--"

"Where is Reince Prebus in all this?" interjected the Jesuit.  "He is somehow in all the photo-ops, but his day-to-day activities remain shrouded in mystery.  He is the one that brought in Spicer.  Does he give Spicer the marching orders?"

"Ugh," shuddered the Lutheran minister.  "I can't even hear terms like 'marching orders' anymore.  Everything sounds more and more like Nazi Germany.  More white supremacist attacks this week that Trump completely ignored!"

"And the Muslim girl's memorial burned in Dupont Circle," sighed the imam.

"Bob Mueller expanded his team, visited Capitol Hill to explain his investigation, and he's now getting branded a Democrat operative--despite being a registered Republican!" said the Buddhist monk.

"But Trump is out there doing fundraisers and campaign rallies for a second term!" cried the Hindu priest.  "It's more like a third world tin pot dictatorship!  He admits lying about Oval Office tapes to intimidate a witness, and the GOP ignores it and unveils another Obamacare repeal bill with billions of dollars in tax cuts for their donors and no health care at all for the most vulnerable in our society!"

"Those unfortunate people dragged out of wheelchairs to get arrested, all because they wanted to speak to Senator McConnell," said the Lutheran minister, shaking her head.  "Nazis!"

"You're tearing this country apart!" screamed the Pentecostal minister at the still comatose Sean Spicer.  "You are denying the Holy Spirit!"

"How much tranquilizer did you give him?" asked the Jewish rabbi.

"None," said Solomon Kane.  "He fainted when he saw the needle.  "I think he just doesn't want to wake up."

"You people need to wake up!" shouted the ghost of Henry Samuelson to open the meeting of the Ghost CIA across the river in McLean.  "The living CIA is not going to remove Trump!"

"Why should they?" asked a recently deceased analyst.  "They get to waterboard again, run black ops in Afghanistan again, get another crack at Iran with an actual coup d'état plot!  They're having the time of their lives!"

"They've sold their souls like everybody is doing," groused an old Soviet hand.  "Turn a blind eye to Russia and get anything else you want!"

"I disagree with Henry," said a former counter-intelligence expert.  "The CIA is doing everything they can to get the collusion info out there.  It's not their fault the GOP is drunk on one-party rule!"

"Democracy is dead!" cried Ghost Henry.  "We need to take matters into our own hands!"

"What can we do?" wailed a former double agent from Romania.  "We only have a few good poltergeists as it is, and they're all deployed to North Korea right now trying to mess up those rocket launches!"

"And the White House ghosts are just making Trumpworld crazier than it already was!"

"We're out of our league, Henry," sighed the old Russia hand.  "The KGB has gotten the last laugh on us after all."

"This is not over 'til the fat lady sings!" declared Ghost Henry.  "And since the politically correct people say nobody can be called 'fat' anymore, nobody's singing!"

Out in the river, Ardua of the Potomac would have snickered at the impotence of the Ghost CIA, as well as the living CIA, but she was unnerved by the sight of Lynnette Wong and Angela de la Paz staring intently down on the demon from Key Bridge and whispering about their next move.

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COMING UP:     
The diary of FBI agent Dulles Samuelson!

Sitting Duck

"This is all too much!"

"We can handle it!"

"We can't handle it!"

"Our very future as a law firm is at stake!"

"Oh, stop being so melodramatic!"

"Melodramatic?  I had a nightmare last night I had to spend Father's Day weekend with the Trump's at Camp David!  Group showers!  Group bunking!  Mandatory scheduling!  Then I had to go out to the swimming pool to watch Melania and Donald do a weird skit while Barron sulked and Marine cadets politely fake-laughed!"

The deliberation of the DOJ Practice Group in Prince and Prowling's largest conference room was interrupted by the entrance of a confused and lost summer associate who opened the door and looked around befuddled.

"Get out of here!" snarled former Senator Evermore Breadman, and the young woman beat a hasty retreat.  "While it's true that our special role as DOJ's outside counsel for dealing with Trump litigation saw an explosion of action this past week, we have enough personnel to deal with it.  Our billings should be making every partner here overjoyed, frankly, and a little hard work never hurt anybody!"

"Evermore," said a recent hire for Constitutional and criminal defense, "my daughter is in law school right now, and she said DOJ's June 9th filing in the CREW litigation was basically arguing that the Emoluments Clause is made of Swiss cheese and cannot be interpreted literally or every Founding Father POTUS would have been guilty of violating it.  And I didn't have a good response to that!  And with another Originalist on the Supreme Court, how will that argument even fly?"

"A good response is to tell the whippersnapper to pass a bar exam and get a real job before she lectures her father on Constitutional law!" retorted Breadman.  "And it will never make it to the Supreme Court!"

"DOJ's Emoluments filing didn't deter the Attorneys General of Maryland and the District of Columbia from suing under the Emoluments Clause on Monday," the man replied, "and then Congressional Democrats filed an Emoluments suit on Wednesday!  We are talking about groundbreaking Constitutional litigation that could end up in front of the Supreme Court!"

"Well if it does, which it won't, you should be excited about that, anyway!" rejoined Breadman.

"We could lose!"

"Lose?!" cried Breadman.  "The correct Constitutional remedy is impeachment, and that's what the courts will say."

"The courts are under attack by Trump," said a senior partner.  "Appeals judges are more motivated than ever to assert their own independence!  You think they didn't see the 'Dear Leader' Cabinet meeting?  The testimony from our Attorney General that he has never paid the slightest attention to Russians during or after the campaign?  Newt 'let's impeach Clinton' Gingrich arguing that a POTUS cannot be prosecuted for obstruction of justice?  Trump's floating the idea of firing Special Counsel Mueller and/or Deputy A.G. Rosenstein?"

"Don't you get it?" asked Breadman.  "The shooting of Scalise changed everything!  Republicans are now the victims!"

"Trump's personal attorney hired his own attorney to represent him on Russian investigation matters!" exclaimed another partner.  "What the hell does that mean?!  Then the D.C. and New York bars received ethics complaints on him.  I barely survived two ethics investigations already!  I can't get hauled in there for a third!"

"We are providing counsel to the Justice Department!" cried Breadman.  "Nobody can file an ethics complaint about that!"

"They can if they have evidence we are deliberately mounting false evidence--"

"How dare you suggest that!" exclaimed Breadman, turning red in the face.  "It's DOJ that's mounting the false evidence!  I mean evidence.  I mean we're only writing legal memos to DOJ!  Nothing about evidence!  We don't consider evidence.  There's no evidence!"  He picked up the glass of Coke he had spiked earlier and took several big gulps.

"There will be if the tax returns come out," another senior partner said quietly.  "Is it really conceivable none of them will be leaked when we have seen leaks from White House, DOJ, CIA, FBI, NSA, Senate GOP, State Department, Pentagon--"

"Not everybody is willing to go to jail to take down Trump," said another.

"There will be no more talk of taking down Trump!" exclaimed Breadman.

"Isn't that what we're defending?"

"No!" insisted Breadman.  "We are providing outside counsel to the Justice Department, end of story!"

"But Breadman," said a junior partner, "you taught me that this law firm can make money no matter who is in office.  Do you really think we will get Democratic clients after assisting Trump's DOJ?"

"Our names aren't on the briefs!" said Breadman.  "I know what I'm doing!"

Across the street, Washington Post "Metro" reporter Perry Winkle was sitting on a Lafayette Square park bench talking quietly to a White House insider.  "I can't get the political desk to publish any of these stories," Winkle said.  "They just don't believe that people in the White House are seeing or hearing ghosts."

"But it's true!" protested the source.  "Melania is furious that Barron has already starting talking to the twin preschoolers, but who else is he going to play with here?"

"Um, it might be true," said Winkle, who knew that if he proposed the story to his own editor, Winkle would be sent back to the sabbatical that had landed him on anti-hallucination medication in the first place.  "But they already think most of the people in the White House are crazy or scared."

"I brought you photos of Impeach Trump stickers showing up on bathroom mirrors, filing cabinets, printers--"

"Do you have any photos of them obviously taken inside the White House?"

"No, but I have a couple photos of a drunk Steve Bannon passed out in the golf room."

"Golf room?"

"Yeah, Trump took the books out of the library and put in a putting green."

"Hm.  I might be able to use those."  Winkle pulled out his cellphone cable to transfer files.

 "Trump went to Camp David this weekend because the Scalise shooting scared the bejesus out of him.  He's a sitting duck on a golf course."

Winkle reflected on that a moment.  "That's the first rational decision he's made in a long time, but it won't have any staying power," he finally said.

Inside the West Wing, Ghost Dennis floated out of the National Security Council after briefing the White House's premier leaker on Eric Trump's latest business trip report to his father.

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COMING UP:     The Cult of Trump

In bed with rattlesnakes!

"What the Hell are we going to do now?!" asked Texas Congressman Zeke "Slick" Hicks, leader of the Russia Caucus.

"What are you looking at me for?" groused Paul Ryan, Speaker of the House.  (He had skipped the Zombie Caucus meeting to attend this one.)

"I'm getting pressure from Exxon and, ahem, ahem, you know who, to get things under control in this town!"

"Everything's fine," said Ryan, who had cornered a reporter in a men's room earlier in the day and eaten his brains.

"Fine?!" exclaimed a Senator from Alaska.  "Reality Winner leaked a new NSA document showing that Russia made a hacking attempt on voting machines last fall!  Then James Comey talked up the FBI's Russia investigation on live television and said Trump fired him over it!"

"Robert Mueller is hiring prosecutors with experience going up against Watergate, Enron, and the mafia!" cried a Representative from Pennsylvania.  "The mafia!"

"A Congressional intern added "Donald Trump to Wikipedia's "obstruction of justice" page!" moaned disgraced Congressman Devin Nunes.  "And it was my intern!"

"But we voted to kill Dodd-Frank this week!" replied Ryan.  "Isn't that great?!"

"The Russians don't care about that!" retorted Slick.  "They want their sanctions removed!"  (Ryan shrugged and scratched at the rotting flesh under his polo shirt.)  "And Exxon wants--"

"Yeah, yeah," said Ryan, "but we're kicking ass!"

"Mr. Speaker," said Slick, "with all due respect, how much do you know about the Russians?"

"That's what I'm here for!" smiled Ryan, whose already reptilian brain had been reduced to mainly brain stem as a zombie.

"Trump will have Secret Service protection the rest of his life, said Slick, "and his boys are raking in the quid pro quo money from Romania, the Philippines, Saudi Arabia--"

"The Saudis spent $270,000 at Trump International Hotel, and now they get to run our Middle East policy!" exclaimed a Representative from North Dakota.  "Quid pro quo!  I've got local boys at our military base in Qatar, and Trump's clapping for the crazy Arabs blockading that country now!"

"Yeah, yeah," said Slick, impatient with the interruption, "but the point is that Trump has protection and he's getting richer every day."

"But we're making good money, too, right?" asked Ryan.  (He had already spent his $3,000 Exxon gift card, seen a new Chrysler delivered to his wife, and purchased a tenth of Janesville through a secret trust financed by VEB.)

Slick looked intently at the Speaker of the House.  "The Russians are not getting richer at all.  And we do not have Secret Service protection the rest of our lives!  The Russians didn't do all that for Trump because they enjoy getting ostracized at the United Nations and criticized on Capitol Hill!  Our member from Tennessee already quit the caucus because somebody brought vodka jelly shots to his Memorial Day barbecue and she thought it was a death threat from Vladimir Putin!  And I'm not sure it wasn't!"

As a zombie with Ayn Rand wet dreams, Paul Ryan could not be moved by a fear of Russian assassination.  "The Senate is getting close to a reconciliation bill on repealing Obamacare!" he protested.  "And Eric Trump said Democrats are not even people!  They're no longer even pretending that Donald Trump wants to be President of all Americans!  I'm having the time of my life!"

Slick sighed, knowing tonight he would have his recurrent nightmare about waking up with rattlesnakes in his bed and Sergey Kislyak pointing a gun at him so that he couldn't get out.

Meanwhile, across town, Attorney General Jeff Sessions was getting back in his car after his evening "constitutional" at dusk in Meridian Hill Park--where his interlocutor had passed along Russian Ambassador Sergey Kislyak's instructions for what to say behind closed doors with the Senate Intelligence Committee this week...or else.

*****************************************************
COMING UP:     DOJ argues that
Emoluments Clause is made of cheese!

Ivanka joins a self-help group!

 Ivanka Trunk walked cautiously into the DC Chapter meeting of Sense of Entitlement Anonymous, but felt relieved immediately upon seeing two members of the U.S. Supreme Court.  "Justice Gorsuch!  What a pleasure it is to see you again."

 "Again?  What?" cried Gorsuch, looking around the room nervously.  "What official reason would we have ever had to meet before?"

 "It's a pleasure to see you," said Chief Justice John Roberts, ignoring his junior colleague and striding past him to extend a hand to Ivanka.  "Just remember we can't discuss Court matters," he added, more quietly.

 "Except with me!" interjected realtor Calico Johnson, bounding across the room.  (He  had used a mutual real estate connection to invite Ivanka to the meeting he was hosting at his Potomac Manors estate this evening.)  "You can talk with me about anything, anytime, 24/7!" he said, taking her offered hand and kissing it in his best imitation of a Sir Lancelot moment.  "I'm a great listener," he added, with a wink.

 Over in the corner, two members from N.U.T.T.Y. (Nannies United to Take Y-chromosomes) both said "slut!" in unison, but nobody heard them except Federal Reserve Board economist Luciano Talaverdi.

 "That's a bit rough, girls!" he said, tut-tutting and waving his finger at them.  "She seems very loyal to Jared."

 "A little too loyal, if you know what I mean," said one.

 "I heard that Jared is having a torrid affair with their nanny, and Ivanka is having a revenge affair with Stephen Miller," said the other.

 "The only torrid affair Jared is having is with his asset manager," scoffed Talaverdi, whose Roman mother was still denouncing Trump's audience with the Pope.  "The only question being whether that Russian is kosher!"  Talaverdi laughed at his own joke, but the nannies sipped their cocktails quietly, staring at him blankly.  Marriage has killed my sex appeal, he thought.

 "Let's get started!" barked Dick Cheney, who had gained fifteen pounds stress-eating since the Inauguration and relished the opportunity to get away from his wife's strict cooking and grab a plate full of chips and brownies.  He sat in the chair furthest away from where Ivanka was standing because he couldn't even look at her without picturing Donald Trump discussing whether she was a hot piece of ass.

 "Why don't you start, honey?" suggested Calico Johnson, easing Ivanka into a chair with a glass of wine.

 "I just don't understand why so many people hate me!" she said, playing with her own hair (which she had spent thirty minutes preparing) and crossing her legs to display her violet suede stilettos (which were from her own fashion collection).  "I work hard for our country.  I'm successful at business.  I wrote an uplifting book.  I live in a hip neighborhood where the Obama's live.  I'm a dutiful wife and mother.  I'm respectful to my parents as the Talmud commands--."

 "Talmud?!" exclaimed Bridezilla (a Prince and Prowling junior partner now regretting her decision to wear an Ivanka Trump dress she had purchased on deep discount at Nordstrom's).

 "It's the--"

 "It's the Fifth Commandment which tells us to honor our parents," said Bridezilla.

 "Well, yes," replied Ivanka.  "I was simply putting it in the context of the rich Jewish tradition which informs my family values."

 "What does your rich Jewish tradition say about honoring a father who's--" began Judge Sowell Ame, but he was quickly cut off by Dick Cheney.

 "Look, Ivanka, this is a meeting where people cut the crap.  We all know you're not really Jewish and just converted to please your husband because you have terrible daddy issues and constantly crave the approval of alpha males."

 "That's true!" exclaimed Ivanka, now perceiving who the alpha male of the group was tonight.

 "Now, Dick," said the Chief Justice, "this is her first time here."

 "She needs to open up at her own pace," said Calico Johnson, who had seized the opportunity to stand behind Ivanka and place his soothing hands on her neck.

 "I'm a creative, sensitive soul!" cried Ivanka, relaxing into Johnson's fingertips.  "When you follow your passion, the money just comes naturally!  How can we help it if Russian bankers find our projects attractive investments?!"

 "Personally," said Bridezilla, "I think you need better legal advice.  I could help--"

 "Oh, hogwash!" exclaimed John Boehner, former Speaker of the House.  "She needs better political advice!  Get out of Washington!  Nobody cared about your Russian bankers when you were in New York!"

 "But Daddy fired a U.S. Attorney in NYC for investigating that, didn't he?" interjected Judge Ame.
  
 "Shouldn't we get out of here?" whispered Justice Gorsuch to Chief Justice Roberts, who ignored him and crammed more onion dip into his face.

 "Daddy just wants to make America great again!" exclaimed Ivanka.

 "Of course he does," whispered Calico Johnson into her ear with a split-second flick of his tongue.

 "Can we talk about somebody else's problems now?" whined one of the nannies.  "Mrs. Richardson was supposed to take a business trip to Japan, leaving me alone with Allen for a week, and suddenly she canceled the trip!  And now Allen is working overtime at the State Department because every country in the world is yelling at Rex Tillerson!  How is that fair to me?"

 "It's definitely not fair," said Luciano Talaverdi, but the sarcasm went undetected because of his Italian accent.

 "I'll tell you what's not fair," said John Boehner.  "Young whipper-snapper Republicans telling me that I should have had an Obamacare replacement plan ready since I held a hundred votes to repeal it!  Hey, do your own job!  My job was handing you a reelection when you claimed you voted against Obamacare a hundred times!"

 "You're an absolute legend," said Bridezilla.  "I think my new boyfriend is a secret spy.  I was wondering if that's become very common in Washington now?"

 "They just pretend they're spies so you don't realize they're sneakin' around to cheat on you," sighed one of the nannies.

 "No, he does it right in front of me," said Bridezilla.

 "That doesn't make any sense," said Judge Ame.  "You know what I'm sick of?  All these protesters tying up my docket with their incompetent public defenders!  None of 'em will plead guilty to rioting on Inauguration Day!  They all say they were 'swept up' unfairly by the police!  You know how long it takes to adjudicate when they're asserting Constitutional defenses?  I ain't gonna let an appeals judge mock my Constitutional reasoning!  Gotta think hard on these opinions all the time now.  It's exhausting!"

 "This is an exhausting time for me, as well," said a former member of the FISA court.  "We were never supposed to have this much scrutiny on Capitol Hill!  I keep getting called about past decisions to eavesdrop on Russians!  And all those idiots who voted for the Patriot Act are suddenly worried about unmasking?  Were they all sleeping through that Patriot Act vote?"

 "I'm having nightmares about Comey's upcoming testimony!" exclaimed Ivanka, looking to alpha male Dick Cheney for approval.  "People keep saying...oh, I can't even bear to say it out loud!"

 "That Jared and Daddy are going to prison?" replied Cheney.  "Daddy can pardon Jared, and Pence can pardon Daddy.  The fossil fuel industry has your back!" he added.  (He had actually made love to his wife three times the day Trump kicked the Paris climate change agreement to the curb.)

 Ivanka burst into tears at the thought of Daddy and Jared going to prison, and failed to see how the fossil fuel industry could help the situation.

 "Ivanushka!" exclaimed Calico Johnson, in an attempt at a Russian term of endearment.  He squeezed her neck hard and kissed her on the top of the head.  "You know real estate is the safest investment," he then whispered into her ear, with more tongue this time.  "I can protect you!"

 Out in the darkening river, Ardua of the Potomac slithered away from Potomac Manors.  She glided down to the 14th Street Bridge to listen to the beating heart of the Trump/Hitler baby growing in Barbara Hellmeister's womb.

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COMING UP:  Once upon a time, a Republican 
visited Congress....His name was James Comey.