Second Term - A Novel of America in the Last Days (The End of America Series Book 1) (12 page)

TWENTY
SIX

United
States Senate

Hart
Senate Office Building - Gymnasium

“Hilde, you’re not
exactly known for being an exercise maven. Why did you drag me here on a cold,
windy Sunday afternoon? I could be sitting next to my nice, warm fireplace.
You’re probably the only person in DC who could get me to come out on a day
like this….except, of course, the President himself.”

“Sam, it’s himself
that I want to discuss with you. But, first I need to cover the ground rules
and get your rock hard, unbreakable promise against discussing any of this with
any one. Not Heather. Not your staff. Not your Momma. Not anyone. My head, and
yours, actually, could be on the line….so…..I’m more than serious. If you have
any doubt that you can keep your lip zipped, just through the upcoming Cabinet
meeting on Tuesday, then tell me now. If you can’t assure me that what we
discuss will stay strictly with us, I want to know it. If you’re at all
hesitant, we’ll play some handball and then we’ll just go back to our nice warm
homes.”

The Secretary of Defense
took the oath of silence. He later came to regret doing so.

TWENTY
SEVEN

John
Madison Website Blog

Whew! I think I would
rather have a really bad cold or a bout of the flu than to have to go through
that again. Testifying before the Senate Judiciary Committee yesterday was like
taking a beating, but without all the grins. I was in the hot seat most of the
day. When I say the day, of course, that’s not like a normal person’s day. In
Congress, they take lots of recesses, so they can talk to each other, and the
media and who knows what else. We probably got in three hours, plus or minus,
of actual testimony time.

Senator Blevins was
tough on me, asking about my gun ownership and hitting me hard, as we knew he
would, on my Austin speech. He really didn’t want to know what I had to say (I
understand that’s usually the case with witnesses they call before the
Judiciary Committee), he just used me, and my much interrupted testimony, to
make points for his anti-free speech and anti-gun bill. To tell the truth (if
you can’t tell the truth to yourself, who can you tell it to?), I think he did
score some points. I never should have said that the language used by the
founding fathers in the Second Amendment could have been a bit clearer, that
was a mistake, and the media, as we know all know, ran with it. The language is
more than clear that we have the right to keep and bear arms. It’s only those
who want to take away that right who see vagueness in the first phrase
regarding the militia in the 2
^nd
Amendment. 

My other mistake was
when that Senator from Rhode Island, I’ve forgotten his name, asked how I could
oppose a bill that allowed a specific exemption for hunters. What a joke - the
so-called exemption requires an ATF employee or a government game warden to
accompany every hunter. Say what? Only a government paid genius could come up
with such an insult to every hunter in America. And the purpose of the hunting
license exemption has to be for food purposes, only - come on. When the Senator
asked me how I could oppose the exemption language, I should not have called it
the most idiotic idea I’d heard in years, but it is. They’re going to use this
as a not very clever fig leaf to cover up what they are doing – taking away our
right to defend our families against people who won’t obey the law, who won’t
turn in their guns.

The Senators guffawed
and laughed me to scorn when I said that the old bumper sticker had it right
when it said: WHEN GUNS ARE OUTLAWED ONLY OUTLAWS WILL HAVE GUNS. They
apparently don’t believe it. Senator Blevins exploded with rage, sputtering
about how no criminal would ever take a chance of a felony conviction for
owning a gun. How out of touch with reality can these guys possibly get?
Criminals who commit crimes are already facing felony charges if they’re
caught, so what’s a little more prison time for owning a prohibited gun? These
lawmakers ought to look in depth at what happened in Australia after they
outlawed guns. The crime rate didn’t decline. In some areas, criminal activity
actually increased. If this bill passes, I hate to think what will happen. Most
guns used by private citizens are used to protect themselves from wrongdoers
who want their property or their bodies, for their own pleasure. If it becomes
a felony to own a gun in America, crime rates will soar.

But, I’m preaching to
my own choir, here. What we have to do, and do it very quickly, is convince
enough Americans to convince enough Congress Critters to vote against this
bill. Everybody in the media keeps saying that’s it on a ‘fast track’ in the
Congress for passage. They’re so sure of a quick vote and passage in the House
that they only intend to hold two days of public hearings. Speaker Pelham has
publicly told the President, in her words, that “America will be a hate weapon
and hate speech free nation” well before Labor Day. At least on this bill she
didn’t announce to Congress that Congress would have to vote for it
first
,
before they could see what’s in the new law. The Lawrence McAlister Hate Speech
and Hate Weapon Elimination bill is a stunning piece of clarity. We all know
what it says, and we all know what it will do.

TWENTY
EIGHT

Pentagon

Offices
of the Secretary of Defense

Vice President Hilde Ramona
Calhoun had decided that she could completely trust Sarah and Sam, both of whom
fully pledged not only to hold her confidence, but also to join with her
exercise of the Twenty-Fifth Amendment at the upcoming Cabinet meeting,
including affixing their signatures to the document to remove the President
from his power and duties. So far, so good, she thought. But, she finally
concluded that she needed one more Cabinet member alerted and on board before
the meeting in order to provide the fire power and verbal backing to sway the
other members needed to sign off on a forced regime change at the top.

She worried that her
choice for the third Cabinet member could pose a distinct danger for a leak,
primarily due to his job as Secretary of Defense. But, she needed a third
member of the Cabinet, and she had known the Pentagon chief for over twenty
years. She also knew that he was clearly unhappy about the way his troops were
being used to fire on and arrest their fellow Americans. One of the Secretary’s
closest friends had divulged recently to Hilde that he had given serious
consideration to resigning in protest. How better to protest, she decided, than
to remove from office the man responsible for moving his department’s troops to
violence, contrary to the posse comitatus statute, the 1878 law prohibited the
use of the military to enforce the law.

Hilde thought she
knew how to conceal her identity without being spotted. For her meeting in the
Pentagon she wore a red hair wig, large sunglasses and baggy clothes. She knew
that she could not be seen visiting the Pentagon, as the military was not even
close to her job description, as restricted by a President who sought to limit
what his Vice President could actually do in her new job. He had narrowed her
role because he had some lingering doubts about Hilde, but mainly because his
two co-presidents, Vivian and The Wife, didn’t trust her.

Hilde arranged to be
dropped off at the River Entrance to the Pentagon, with only one casually
dressed Secret Service agent, with no betraying ear device. Hilde’s ID was
purposely generic and matched her look and attire, without revealing her actual
identity. Her personal secretary had called the office of the Secretary of
Defense on this Monday morning to arrange a late day meeting “for the Vice
President’s Chief of Staff, for an important purpose”. The less time given to
the Secretary before the Cabinet meeting the better. To say that the Secretary
of Defense was surprised at the look and attire of his afternoon executive
level visitor, who turned out to be the Vice President herself, would be a vast
understatement.

As it turned out,
Hilde’s almost comical disguise worked to her benefit. The Secretary was moved
to readily agree to her strict condition of silence as he immediately
recognized that the Vice President would never have gone to this extent just to
meet with him privately, unless it involved a matter of the utmost importance
for the nation. When he then learned why Hilde was in his office he thought,
momentarily, that he might involuntarily empty his stomach.

TWENTY
NINE

Washington,
DC – Russell Senate Office Building

The Senate Committee
on the Judiciary was about to conclude almost two full days of grilling John
Madison. Exercising his prerogatives as Chairman, Senator Blevins concluded the
questioning of witness Madison.

“Mr. Madison, suh, do
these words sound familiar to ya? Ya complained yesterday that I had not used
ya actual words, so let’s listen to a recording of ya actual words.” The
Chairman nodded to his aide, who motioned to a sound engineer, who pushed the
appropriate button to play an audio recording, which boomed across the marble
hearing room, purposely played louder than it needed to be.

“Modern democracies
like to brag, with some historic justification, that they reflect the will of
their governed. The key word, of course, is historic. That’s because in recent
years those in power, those in control, of the levers of power of western
nations have learned how to warp and maneuver the system to get around the
pesky requirement that the governed should give their consent to their own
governing. The trend lines don’t look good for any improvement in obtaining the
consent of the governed in this country. They don’t care what we think, or what
we want our government to do.

“It’s good to be
king. It’s even better to be President of the United States of America. You can
ignore the voters, once you have wooed them into electing you President twice,
gaining their votes with the most transparent campaign promises, and then just
do what you want to do. The most dangerous time, of course, for America, with
any President is in his, or her, second term. With no requirement to ever face
another voter, or campaign opponent, the second term President is a potential
tyrant, available for any scheme hatched by the White House staff, or outside
ideological bed fellows, to radically change the Constitution of the United
States, as it was written. We have to take him out!

“If this President
should be elected to a second term next month, don’t be surprised if he tries
to re-interpret out of the Constitution the guarantee of our right to own a
gun. He may even seek to alter our right to speak, or meet or worship as we see
fit. That’s what’s on the line in November. That’s why we must insure that
every member of our families, all of our employees, in fact every one that we
know, comes out and votes to deny the President a second term, which would be a
very dangerous second term for America, indeed.” 

“Did, the recording
accurately record ya words, Mr. Madison, from ya little speech down there in
Austin? Accurately recorded, suh?”

Like any person who
utters words before crowds of people, or even small numbers of listeners, John
Madison was stuck with his words. What could he say – no, I didn’t say those
words? Or, could he say if he could do it over, he wouldn’t use the word tyrant
or say that we should ‘take him out’? Or if he had known in advance about the
shootings, he wouldn’t have even showed up in Austin? Camera phones had made
private speeches a thing of the past. And now, Senator Blevins, freshly wounded
and still healing, from his own shooting, was using John Madison’s own words to
advance the Senator’s favorite cause – the abolition of gun ownership in
America, while piggy-backing in his bill a significant restriction on the right
of free speech.

“Do ya think it’s
patriotic
,
to use one of ya favored words, to call our elected President a
tyrant,
Mr.
Madison, suh? Ya think that encourages civility and respect for our leader,
suh? Ya think it’s good to suggest
assassination
by sayin’ ‘
we gotta
take him out’
Suh, ya were the right-winga’ who suggested ‘
takin’ out’
the President just days before he was shot, isn’t that the case, suh?”

“Those words were
spoken in another time,
before
the shootings, Senator. I meant taking
him out in the election, not by shooting, of course. But I do think my words
are all protected speech, under the First Amendment, discussing the Second
Amendment. That’s all I would say, sir.”

“I didn’t think ya
would deny ya own words. I have no more questions of this here witness. This
Committee stands adjourned until further order of the Chair.”

Most impartial
observers thought that Madison had held his own against rough, even rude,
questioning by Committee members, some from both political parties. Public
sentiment, measured by most polls, was still decidedly running in favor of the
President and Congress, and their plan to abolish private gun ownership, the
small problem with the Constitution notwithstanding. Attention continued to
focus on the gun abolition portions of the McAlister Bill, with little public
debate of the free speech restriction, most likely due to continuing media
attention to the Dallas shootings.

All members of the
Committee had now asked their questions, some questions asked more artfully
than others, but almost all questions calculated to make the questioning
Senator look good back home to voters, to the media, to their staff members and
to their significant other or spouse, or both, as the case may be. No Senator
raised nor objected to the recent declaration of martial law by the President.
Very few questions were asked in order to actually help shape the legislation
pending before the Committee. The days of the Committee on the Judiciary
seeking to learn the truth from witnesses had long passed. The Republic had
suffered as a result.