GOP gives Bad Santa a run for his money.

Congressman Paul Ryan was finding it increasingly difficult to balance his responsibilities as an Ayn Randian Speaker of the House with his memberships in both the Russia and Zombie Caucuses.  He had just finished meeting with the Russia Caucus--which was up in arms about (a) Iowa Congressman Steve King's attacks on anybody with a foreign accent ("what matters is white skin!"), (b) Trump's failure to Tweet in support of Paul Manafort's right to use KGB buddies to defend himself from the Justice Department ("how many people is Trump gonna throw under the bus?!"), and (c) the forced relocation of the Russia Suite from the opulent Trump International Hotel to the decidedly dull Capital Hilton ("I can't do hooker jelly shots with cheap vodka!").  He was now walking into a shit storm at the Zombie Caucus meeting.

"Paul, you can't cut Social Security and Medicare!  Nobody's easier to feed on than frail elderly!  We need them to stay alive!"

"Or Medicaid!  When I'm really hungry, nothing is easier than lying in wait in a handicapped restroom stall!"

"And how could you support reciprocal concealed carry?  If people blow each other's brains out with handguns, that is robbing our food supply!"

"And why are you letting Secretary of Interior Zinke take Grand Staircase-Escalante land out of the National Monument and handing it over to the petroleum industry?  Patagonia is right:  this is stealing our land!"  (Everybody turned in surprise to look at the woman who said this.)  "Well, it was where my husband proposed to me!"

"Didn't you eat him?"

"That's not the point!"

"Look," said Speaker Ryan, feeling peckish at all this talk of feeding, "everybody has to make compromises to please our campaign donors."

"You suck!"

Ryan frowned but continued.  "The fact is, we all have to consider whether our way of life is sustainable.  Whose brains are we eating today?  Whose brains are we eating tomorrow?  Whose brains are we eating in the years to come?  I have encouraged people to take personal responsibility for learning to feed without creating new zombies in the process, but some Americans insist on feeding, feeding, feeding without any long-term planning."

"Eat the rich!"

"Eat the Koch Brothers!"

"Eat Sheldon Adelson!"

"See, that make no sense," replied Speaker Ryan (who Nancy Pelosi once called a lovely man who is wrong about everything).  "First of all, there are only a few of them!  One percent of the American population!  Secondly, if they don't fund my reelection campaign, I'll have to return to a small town in Wisconsin where I'll run out of brains to eat in about two weeks.  Now, all they ask is a massive tax cut, and we need to give it to them."

"It's gonna explode the deficit!"

"Yes, but I've got a top-secret long-term plan for that.  First, we cut entitlements because I've been promising Ayn Rand that for a very long time."

"She's dead!"

"Oh, she talks to me every night in my dreams!" insisted Speaker Ryan.  "The second stage is that the Chinese will refuse to keep loaning us money, and they'll call in the debt.  They'll send over politicians and bankers to collect it, and we'll just eat them.  Then they'll send more, and we'll eat them.  See?  They have over a billion people in China, so I figure they can keep sending over bill collectors for decades, even hundreds of years, and we can eat all their brains."

"I don't like Chinese food."

Meanwhile, over in McLean, CIA Director Mike Pompeo was reading another report from a Chinese spy on negotiations with North Korea when he was interrupted by yet another phone call from Secretary of State Rex Tillerson, which he put on speaker phone.

"The Dems want a briefing on how bad the Middle East is gonna blow up!  Why couldn't you talk the goddamn moron out of moving the embassy to Jerusalem?!"

"It's a Hanukkah gift to Jared and Ivanka," replied Pompeo.  "He had to go big, because Ivanka's really pissed off about Trump's campaigning for Roy Moore.  I mean, who the Hell campaigns for a pro-slavery statutory rapist just before attending the opening of a Mississippi civil rights museum?"

"Oh, don't give me that bull-caca!  It's for his lunatic evangelical base that think the Jews need to be in Jerusalem before Christ will return--and God only knows why evangelicals can't recognize that Steve Bannon is the anti-Christ.  Didn't you tell Trump it would light a powder keg all over the Middle East to move the embassy to Jerusalem?"

"Of course I did, Rex!" retorted Pompeo.  "He thinks it will subside over time."

"Our embassy personnel are already at risk in Beirut, of all places!  Israel's killing Palestinians.  And now I've got Democrats demanding to discuss the safety of American citizens abroad after Trump Tweeted those inflammatory anti-Muslim messages!"

"Look, Rex, tell those Dems the threat was always there, and Trump's just bringing it up to the surface where we can deal with it."

"Deal with it?  Deal with it?  I don't know what kind of CIA fantasy you're hatching to deal with it, but over in the real world of diplomacy, every goddamn Middle Eastern ambassador is pissing all over me right now!  What are we gonna do if our ambassadors and troops get expelled from Iraq, Kuwait, Qatr, Saudi Arabia?  Iran will win!"

"I've got bigger things to worry about right now!" exclaimed Pompeo, scratching under his Cursed Rolex.  "Is North Korea gonna nuke us?  Can Trump and Judge Pirro order me to use CIA agents to purge the FBI?  Is this skin rash serious?"

"What the Hell are you talking about?!"

"It's a little red and flaky."

"Not that, you moron!  You can't use CIA agents to purge the FBI!"

"Are you sure?  I feel like nobody here is being straight with me about what I can order CIA agents to do.  And every time I try to learn more about an investigation, I'm told 'way undercover, boss' or 'off the ranch, boss', and they give me nothing."

"Yes, I'm sure!  Leave the FBI alone.  Mike, just give me some statistics I can tell these Dems about risk level for Americans abroad."

"Tell them to stay home," replied Pompeo, hanging up the phone.

He took the Rolex off to apply ointment, but the watch immediately started whispering to him, so he lifted it to his ear to listen.  "I knew it!" he exclaimed, pumping his fist in the air.  "I'll send the CIA in to clean up the goddamn FBI!"  He was now scratching his wrist furiously.

In the control room where Pompeo's office was being monitored on hidden camera, an agent shook his head and phoned his boss to discuss a new contingency plan.

Across the river, in Cleveland Park, Felix and Liv Cigemeier had just put their son Lucas down for his nap, and Liv had started packing for her International Development Machine trip to the U.S. Virgin Islands with IDM President Augustus Bush.

"Is this one of those sexual harassment things?" asked Felix Cigemeier.  "How can your boss be taking you to the United States Virgin Islands on International Development Machine business?"

"Robert can't go because he's got the flu, and Momzilla--"

"Yeah, I understand all that, but, you do international development work."

"I don't know!  We got a huge grant to rebuild housing and put in some health clinics."

"How?  How could you get a government grant like that?"

"Sometimes you're such a lawyer!" smiled Liv, pulling short-sleeved blouses out of the closet.  "I only wish it were Puerto Rico--the government is still neglecting them."

"Exactly!" exclaimed Felix.  "Doesn't this smell like some kind of Republican slush fund for Augustus Bush?  And his Bush clan in the U.S. Virgin Islands?  Which probably paid a bribe to--"

"I thought you said it was a sexual harassment thing!"

"One or the other!" replied Felix.  "You're gonna be calling me tomorrow hollering '#MeToo' or complaining that IDM seems to be helping rich people instead of poor people down there!"

"Well, Augustus is too smart to harass the wife of a lawyer, but I promise you, I will be on the lookout for the latter."  She approached Felix for a hug.  "And, incidentally, are you now an expert on Republican slush funds?  If so, how?"

"Um--"

"Never mind."

In the next room, Angela de la Paz had already entered the Dreamtime of her birth son, Lucas.  "Felix is alright," she told him.  "He hasn't lost his soul...yet."

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COMING UP:       
Esperantu Edward versus Putin's thugs!