Second Term - A Novel of America in the Last Days (The End of America Series Book 1) (7 page)

THIRTEEN

Campaign
Website Blog Entry by John Madison –

It was the worst day
of my life. No….not just
the worst day
. Election day was
the absolute
worst day
of my life. I know. I know. ‘You can’t win them all’ and all that
rot, but this election loss was catastrophic in nature, as it led to a whole
series of legal and personal assaults about which I will shortly write. It
wasn’t a catastrophe because I was defeated as a candidate on the ballot. I
wasn’t running for office. No such luck. It was a full blown disaster for me because
I managed the campaign in Texas against the candidate who won. Who was that
winning candidate? Only just the incumbent President of the United States, who
knew well who I was and who was reportedly not at all amused by my efforts in
the hard-fought campaign to deny him a second term.

I’m getting a little
ahead of myself. I’ve never kept what used to be called a journal, but after
what happened last month, and my big mug being flashed on television screens
all over the country, I decided I’d better keep a chronicle of what happened by
blogging on my campaign website. I’m writing down what happened because my
study of history as a student at Texas A & M tells me that the winners
write the history books, and therefore, the truth is usually lost. I don’t want
that to happen this time.

Oh, yeah, my name is
John Madison, and I am the founder and State Co-Chairman of the Lone Star
Patriots First tea party, one of several tea party and patriot organizations
that had sprung up in our State over the four years between the President’s
first and, it makes my heart, and my fingers, hurt to type these words, his
second
election to the White House. Even though it poses a danger to me to do so,
I’ve decided to record the true inside story of what happened to me, our supporters
and volunteers, and most importantly to our country, beginning after that
fateful election day, yesterday.

I’m recording, now,
of course, mainly what happened
after
the election, for an
obvious reason, I’m writing this after the election. Plus, any American with a
pulse knows what happened in the campaign. How the media slanted campaign
coverage; how the incumbent’s political party and big city henchmen effectively
eviscerated the President’s Republican opponent and his running mate; how the
labor unions (you know, the ones to which the administration handed over
ownership of car companies) and the public sector unions (the ones who had
earlier declared war in Wisconsin against the taxpayers) managed to insure that
the blue states stayed blue, and the red states didn’t total enough electoral
votes; and the rigged voting with the President getting 99% and 100% in some
precincts. Even the Russians usually gave a few votes to the opponents of the
regime. And, well, you know what happened.. The White House political machine
had worked for four years to guarantee that we couldn’t possibly win and the
incumbent couldn’t conceivably lose. We don’t need to recall that disaster of a
campaign. It hurts too much to remember, anyway.

Oh, yeah, how did the
term ‘tea party’ come to apply to political efforts to throw out the Congress
and to try to prevent a second term for the President? Everyone knows that the
original term began with the dumping of tea in Boston Harbor in 1773, as an
organized protest against British taxes on imported tea. OK, maybe not
everybody knows this background. If you ‘studied’ U.S. history in a public
school, they may have left out that little factoid. More recently, in 2007, the
term ‘tea party’ was updated to apply to several angry voters in a large
mid-western city who organized to protest grossly excessive property taxes, and
who dumped tea bags in a city canal. Americans for Tax Reform in DC noticed the
protest, gave the group an award, and the rest, as they say, is history. In
2009, Rick Santelli, a CNBC business reporter engaged in an on air rant from
the floor of the Chicago Mercantile Exchange, calling for a “tea party” by
traders throwing worthless derivatives into the Chicago River. His rant went
viral as more Americans woke up to the mortgage mess being perpetuated by the
federal government.

In Texas, admittedly
a long way from Boston Harbor, we liked the phrase, and along with several
groups, we adopted it into our formal name. We might as well have painted
red-ringed targets on our backs, though, as we have since learned that all of
our data files were downloaded by federal agents. What really stings is that
when we initiated legal action because of the unauthorized downloading of our
membership and donor files, the official response was to claim that it was all
legal under the Patriot Act. I don’t need to say anything about how offensive
that argument was.

FOURTEEN

White
House Oval Office

“Look, Darlin’, I
don’t have any real choice. I’m gonna to have to pick Hilde to replace Larry,
now that he’s passed.”

“Don’t give that fake
homey drawl. I know you. I know you better than
anybody
knows you. I can
tell you’ve
already
made up your mind, so why
even ask me
and
Vivian?”

The trio in the Oval
Office each had a strong déjà vu feeling as they convened, again, to discuss
selecting former First Lady Hilde Ramona Calhoun to be the nation’s future Vice
President. Four months ago, prior to the Democratic National Convention the
three of them had met to consider replacing Lawrence McAlister on the ticket.
The decision then had been to make the switch in the number two spot, though
the First Lady had been strongly against it. Vivian had appeared to give in,
the President called Hilde and the Vice President to a private meeting to make
the switch, but it didn’t happen. Vice President McAlister persuaded the
President that dumping him from the national ticket could cost him his own
re-election. Hilde attended the meeting expecting to be named. After being left
at the altar, Hilde and her husband, former President Wilbur Jackson Calhoun,
were not amused.

Vivian was the most
political of the three persons in the room. She had said after the election
returns confirmed that her boss would serve a second term that, “It’s getting
even time….every jerk who opposed us had better get ready, because it’s payback
time”. Vivian was no fan of the Calhouns, but she was a pragmatist who
understood, better than the President and his wife, how Washington really
worked. She would not oppose the selection of Hilde Calhoun, again.

“Honey, you know I
agreed not to decide anything major unless we all three agreed. Why do you
think I called this meeting? Why are we all three here talkin’ about this?
Hunh?”

Vivian decided it was
time to intervene in the first couple’s argument by addressing her comments to
the First Lady, “Stop. OK.? I only gave in back in August to picking Hilde
because I thought she would add votes. Larry convinced your husband otherwise.
So be it. Larry’s gone. God bless his cerebrally limited soul. Now, we gotta’
do the smart political thing and name Hilde. It’s really quite simple. We can’t
dump Hilde twice in one year or we will have so much…..”

“Vivian….
You
stop.
OK?”
The President, realizing he wasn’t in this cat fight, folded his hands
across his
chest, and leaned back in his chair. “I have
only
one
reason that I don’t want Hilde Calhoun down the hall as Veep. You know what it
is….I raised it with you at the hospital, if you will recall.”

Vivian was
temporarily puzzled by the First Lady’s response. Then she remembered. “Oh, you
mean when you asked if Hilde, or more likely, Wilbur, had anything to do with
the shootings in Dallas….Is that what you mean?”

The President quickly
went from slightly bemused to intensely interested, “What? What? I haven’t heard
anything about….”

“Your wife asked me
at the hospital if I thought that the Calhouns could have been involved in some
way with the shootings in Texas. I scoffed at the idea, but she’s still
paranoid about all those stories when they officed here that the Calhouns had
arranged to off several of their political enemies. Internet junk stuff.
Baloney. And that’s what I told her.”

The First Lady looked
down at her hands, which were nervously wringing the ends of the decorative
scarf she was wearing. “You can both say I’m paranoid….maybe I am….but if the
Calhouns get into power again, they’d only be a heartbeat from moving down the
hall into this office. I’m just sayin’.”

The President also
knew his wife well, and he knew when she had decided to give in on an argument,
even one in which she was fiercely engaged. He knew it was time to count the
votes and move on. “No one has ever proved anything even close to what you’re
raising, dear. Hey, it’s my hide that we’re talkin’ about here. If I had any
fears at all that Hilde and Wilbur would be a….problem….you
know….physically….for me, I would never pick her. She’ll be fine. I worked well
with her in the Cabinet. She’s smart politically. She’ll be a big help on the
Hill with those retrograde Congressmen that I can’t stand. She actually can
talk to them. Hilde’s my pick. Vivian?”

“As you said, you
don’t have a true choice. It’s Hilde. Under the 25
^th
Amendment you
need to get her name up to the Senate so they can confirm her. Soon. We’ve got
a vacancy that needs to be filled, now.”

The President didn’t
need to ask how his wife voted. That was obvious, but the First Lady had a
closing comment that she couldn’t restrain herself from making, “If I’m right,
dear, you won’t be here for me to say ‘I told you so’.”

FIFTEEN

Second
Campaign Blog Entry

Well, I’ve been less
than diligent in updating my page. I’m obviously not going to be a daily
blogger. I just don’t have the time. Why you ask? I’ve had such a hectic
schedule this year that my time at our local exercise center was severely
curtailed. As a result, I know I could stand to lose a couple lb’s from my six
foot four bod. During the campaign I ate way too much fast food during my many
trips across Texas trying to persuade voters to come out and vote to throw the
President out of office. Plus, I have a real job that requires my time as an
executive in the insurance industry.

I haven’t been
delayed in blogging daily because of time spent with our kids, who are all
grown and raising their own families, so I have no excuse of time consumed by
soccer games or ballet practices. My dear wife, Debbie, made sure that I had
plenty of time to work on campaign needs, and still spend time with her, as the
love of my life. Debbie, many of you know, is blond, petite and has a bubbly personality.
As my wife and the mother of our two children, Jack and Katie, she’s the best
thing that ever happened to me. Jack is now a pastor over in Dallas and Katie
is working overseas in commercial interior design. No, my delay since my last
blog hasn’t been for family reasons. I’ve been swamped because of the media
attention my Austin speech attacking the President is still getting. I’m
getting a lot of calls about the anti-gun and anti-free speech bill that we
hear is being drafted by the White House.

As I said earlier, I
think it’s important to record the facts about what the newly elected federal
Administration did to those of us who opposed them. I don’t know why, really,
they were so upset. We fought a good, honest and clean fight in our efforts to
sway Texas voters against the incumbent President. But, it’s already pretty
obvious from the President’s actions
since
the election that he doesn’t
see it that way. But, we’ve now learned that there is such a thing as a “
sore
winner
”, sorry to say. Really, how does it happen that an officer of a
mid-sized insurance company from Tyler, Texas could pose a threat to the
Republic? When did I become
an enemy of the state
? I am clearly being
targeted because I led the effort in Texas to replace the occupant of the Oval
Office. Funny thing is that before this year’s campaign and election I had
nothing to do with politics. I was a ‘died-in-the-wool conservative’, but I
left it up to others to do something about the decline and possible fall of my
beloved nation. I finally realized that our very survival as a free country was
on the line if we just sat back and allowed the incumbent another four years.

Today’s announcement
that the President has agreed in principle with a bill to eliminate private gun
ownership and to quote curtail unquote hate speech makes me alternately sick at
my stomach, and mad as…well, this is being read online, so, I’ll just write
that I’m torn up inside over what is happening in DC over our right to speak
freely and to own weapons of defense. The newly re-elected Administration has
now reiterated the First Lady’s George Washington University Hospital statement
made right before the election that in his second term the President will get
Congress to “re-interpret” the black letters written centuries ago on parchment
paper. This fulfills his agenda for America, which differs radically from those
aged words.

The White House Press
Office and Senator Blevins’ office jointly released the text of the bill,
labeled as 113-S.-1. It’s to be introduced in the Congress, in the new session
beginning in January, to rid the nation of privately-owned guns and shut down
what was labeled as hate speech. I suspected that the Administration would have
Jim Blevins act as the lead sponsor of the bill. The Senator is one of the most
liberal in the U.S. Senate, even though he’s from conservative South Carolina.
I’ve noticed that happens frequently, like Senator Reese coming from Nevada.
Senator Blevins was in critical condition after his shooting, but last week he
had recovered sufficiently to return to the Capitol and lead the fight, from
his wheelchair, for his historic Constitution-changing bill. Senator Blevins looks
like he was type cast by Hollywood for his role. Heavy-jowled….just plain
heavy….balding, blustering, the Senator lays his South Carolina accent on
pretty heavy when it suits his interests. With his seniority in the Senate, he
was the perfect choice to lead the fight to pass the McAlister Bill, besides
his shooting, needless to say.

It’s important to
understand the assault on the First and Second Amendments that Senator Blevins
and his several co-sponsors, joined by Speaker Pelham, and the President, of
course, are proposing to become the law of the land. It’s not 1200 pages like
the healthcare reform bill. In fact, being just a few pages, there are no
obvious loopholes or areas of lack of clarity. 113-S.-1 states it as clearly as
it can be stated - you can’t own a gun, as all firearms are defined as “Hate
Weapons”. If you get caught owning a gun, after the 180 day redemption period
for gun owners to turn in their firearms (in exchange for a few hundred bucks),
you will be charged with a class C felony and then spend your next 10 years in
a federal prison. How about that for clarity? There is only one exception for
hunting, but it’s very limited. Quite offensive is the part of the bill that
rewards Americans who turn in their friends, family and neighbors who may have
held onto their guns.

In addition, any
person who utters or writes words considered to be hate speech by the federal
censors, excuse me, by a new federal Hate Speech Review Panel that the new law,
if it passes, would create, can be imprisoned, also for 10 years. That’s clear
enough, also. The text of the bill was apparently leaked today by its sponsors.
Only time will tell if enough people of this country will recognize the danger
of taking away our rights under the First and Second Amendments and defeat this
assault on our Constitutional rights.

We’ve already started
organizing in this part of Texas to fight, and hopefully defeat, this dangerous
bill. I have to be honest, and say that it doesn’t look all that good at this
early stage to defeat the bill. Bad laws get passed, and bad laws adopted,
almost always during a crisis. The shootings have poisoned the atmosphere to
speak out in support of owning guns, and opened the door to corking people,
legally, for speaking their mind. We’re doing research on how a shooting crisis
in other countries led to abolishing private ownership and how some nations
have shut off free speech. Apparently in Australia after a crazed gunman shot
several people the laws were changed taking away the right of Aussies to keep
and bear arms. Taking away everyone’s rights to defend ourselves, just because
of one nutcase, just doesn’t make sense to me.

Once the bill leaked
today, I received two calls telling me about pastors in Sweden and Canada being
arrested and charged with hate crimes for preaching from the Bible on same
gender marriage. Incredible. Anyway, we’re going to fight hard to keep our
Constitution. More later.