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

by John Price

  With her confirmation by the U.S. Senate, though, everything changed. Hilde was now the Vice-President. She would be sworn in again for the full term on January 20th, just a few days away. She no longer served at the pleasure of the President, as she had served when she was just a Cabinet officer. No matter what the President thought, or wanted, or ordered, she could never be denied her job as Vice President. Or so she believed.

  With each passing day Hilde became more concerned. It wasn’t just that she disagreed with her boss and his use of the military in what were essentially civil issues. She had become increasingly convinced that he was shoving the people of America into launching a full blown revolution. She heard increasing numbers of stories from around the country of violence, shootings and assaults on government buildings and employees. Most went unreported in the mainstream media. Her well-developed political instincts, developed over many years at the top levels of American government, had convinced her that if she didn’t remove the President from office, that armed mobs very likely might do so. America could have its own American Spring, soon.

  II.

  America Debates the

  Lawrence McAlister

  Hate Speech

  and

  Hate Weapons

  Elimination Bill

  TWENTY

  John Madison Website Blog

  If I could hit the rewind button on my life, I would go back to October and the speech I made to the National Rifle Association chapter in Austin. The NRA campaign rally , of course was well before the shootings in Dallas. I suggested in my little talk that the President was planning to ‘take away our guns’, if he were to be re-elected to a second term, and, of course, I urged that he be soundly defeated, so that we could ‘keep our guns’. How could I have known? Needless to say, after the shootings, the news clip of my Austin speech, or at least about 12 seconds of it, was a regular part of just about every frantic news special on the so-called ‘Guns Against Government Conspiracy’, and there were many such journalistic endeavors over the weeks after the Dallas shootings. As I said, I might as well have painted a big red target on my chest, as I became the Texas conservative that the liberals, the media, and particularly the Administration, loved to hate in the gun and speech bill debate that ensued and accelerated after the shootings. Needless to say, I’ve lost a lot of sleep.

  That intensive national debate didn’t take long after the election to start in earnest. From immediately after the President’s re-election until 113-S.-1 was officially introduced seven weeks later on January 1st, there was no secret that the returning Administration would use every power available to it to regulate speech and ban guns in America. The only unknown was what the new law would do to those Americans who didn’t want to give up their weapons of protection. The hate speech provisions in the Bill received some critical public comment, but did not seem to attract the same interest as the antigun provision. Most of the media generally ignored the hate speech prohibition, which surprised me, since it posed a threat to freedom of the press. But the rumor was that the White House had quietly promised mainstream media CEOs that the law would not be used on the media, just on supposed right wing radicals, like me.

  Our various tea party, patriot and gun rights organizations in Texas wasted no time after the election in organizing ourselves to fight the adoption of the bill that had been promised by the Administration to be its number one legislative priority in the new Congress. We had known since the President’s hospital news conference that it would be filed, and worse yet, we had sound reason to fear that, unless we could arouse Americans to the looming danger of such a bill, that it would likely be enacted into law, given the nation’s anti-gun climate and the voting strength the President now enjoyed, again, in both Houses of Congress. We didn’t know at first what the Administration’s bill would include. The White House Press Secretary assured reporters days after their election victory that the bill would “include carrots and sticks”.

  We soon learned that the ‘carrots’ part of the bill was a variation of the old ‘cash for clunkers’ program that caused many Americans to turn in their older automobiles in exchange for cash payments from the federal government. Some federal genius must have decided that if it worked for old cars, how about old guns? This gave Americans very little credit for discerning the difference between wheels to travel and a weapon to protect one’s life and family. We hoped that very few gun-owning Americans would give up their defense against death and mayhem for only five hundred dollars, or in the case of a rifle or shotgun, only seven hundred dollars. But, if the bill that ended up passing included financial incentives, given the depressed state of the economy and widespread unemployment, we knew that only time would tell how many Americans out of work, and in need of cash, would end up turning in their guns, motivated by the payment.

  What was not leaked until the text of the bill was released was what the President’s Press Secretary meant by ‘sticks’ to be included in the anti-gun bill to insure compliance? A felony charge and conviction, with a ten year prison term, certainly qualified as a ‘stick’, if not a whole bag of sticks. The New York Times exulted that:

  Finally, America will get over its sick love affair with deadly weapons. Most thinking Americans, particularly in crime-impacted cities, and the blue states on the two coasts, will step up, voluntarily do the right thing and turn in their guns. Undoubtedly, though the turning over of guns will be motivated in some parts of the country only by the proposed time in prison, a stiff enough sentence that no American should willingly want to endure it, just to pack heat.

  Once the nation had learned what the bill actually included, the battle lines that had been forming and loosely coalescing hardened into battle formation. The friends, supporters, associates and sycophants of the Administration were, of course, united in supporting 113 S.-1. No one was surprised by their intensity and fervor, at all levels, in organizing their members, and their family members, to push the Congress to pass the bill. Likewise, the conservative, tea party, patriot associations, and many Christian organizations, organized to exert their members and families’ maximum pressure on their members of Congress. No surprise there, either. The frantic recruiting efforts by both sides, though, centered on organizations and leaders of private associations that had not historically been aligned on either side of the gun debate, or had no prior history of interest in freedom of the press or speech issues.

  Both sides instinctively knew that the final outcome came down not to what Congress did, but instead to what a handful of blue dog Democrats and liberal Republicans in both Houses, a total of less than eighty Members, would do when the determining votes were cast. The vote on the health care reform debate provided the outline for victory for the White House, in that a bill strongly dis-favored by most Americas, nevertheless, became the law of the land, even though by only seven votes in the U.S. House of Representatives. Political pundits in the days after the McAlister Bill was released speculated that the odds slightly favored the passage of the bill, primarily because of the healthcare reform outcome.

  Senator Blevins let it be known soon after the bill was made public that he intended to put the opponents of his bill on the defensive, announcing in his initial news conference how he intended to do it. Seated in his wheelchair in the imposing Senate Caucus Room on the 3rd floor of the Russell Senate Office Building, the only available room that was big enough to hold the media they knew would come out to cover the unveiling of the Bill, the Senator fired the first shot, and an impressively large shot it was. I’ve memorialized here the important part of his formal statement announcing the Bill:

  “Now that I’ve covered in some detail the specific provisions of 113-S.-1, let’s talk a little inside political baseball, so to speak. I’m more than mindful of the intensive efforts by the gun lobby, and their misguided supporters, because my office has been besieged by their dirty tricks, including robo-calls 24/7 to try and keep my Senate office phones from functioning. But, my frie
nds, this is not my first legislative war. I will soon convene hearings of my Committee in this very same august and historic room, which was the site of the investigation into the sinking of the Titanic, the Army-McCarthy Hearings, as well as the Joe Valachi Mafia Hearings, and the Watergate Hearings.

  “We will hear from several law enforcement officials across this country who were forced by the gun-bullies to call out their forces to defend the American electoral process. Let’s not forget that there would have been no need for the President to declare martial law, if there weren’t all these guns out there. My goal as a United States Senator, and Chairman of the Committee on the Judiciary, is to insure that no future President ever has to again declare martial law, because, there won’t be any firearms to defend against. The violence that has rocked our nation in the weeks since the election is even further evidence of why we must get rid of hate weapons and the hate speech uttered by the owners of those hate weapons. We can’t afford either, any more, in America

  “We will, of course, hear from the many supporters of my Bill to make America gun free and safe. But, just as importantly, I will be subpoenaing, not just inviting to testify, the opponents of this sensible Bill. I want to make them come out in the open, out from the shadows so to speak, and tell Americans, under the bright lights of media coverage, how they could possibly oppose a Bill to make Americans safer from gun violence. They’ve been sneaking around, lobbying their Senators and Representatives behind closed doors, I want them out in the open, where we can all hear what they have to say. Let’s look them in the eye and force these gun-lusting, right wing, bullies to say in public what we know they’ve been whispering privately. I’m looking forward to it, I’ll tell you that. The wounds that I suffered in the ‘Guns Against Government Conspiracy’ will be worth it if we can pass this Bill and stop all the shooting.”

  Senator Blevins’ news conference hadn’t been over two minutes before my office phones in Tyler started ringing off the hook. Somebody on Blevin’s staff had leaked that I was among those being subpoenaed to testify in his Committee Hearings, starting in ten days. Great. So, John, I asked myself when I got these calls, who ya’ gonna call? An obvious answer - my friend and attorney, Chuck Webster, who as it turned out, was more nervous than I was about this turn of events.

  TWENTY ONE

  Tyler, Texas

  “John Madison, how long have I known you?”

  “What kind of a question is that, Chuck?” Whenever the two sparred over any topic, they both knew that John would bring up their standing grade school girlfriend joke. “You’re my best friend, and you’ve been my best friend since I stole Patty Pierson away from you in the 5th Grade of Tyler Elementary. You’ve never forgiven me, have you? This is all about Patty, again, isn’t it?”

  “If you hadn’t married Patty, later, I would have never forgiven you, but in light of the circumstances, I about had to forgive you. No, goofy, this is about how you are about to get yourself indicted, for various federal crimes and misdemeanors, if you’re not very careful. You obviously have no clue how seriously the President, and his Senate buddy, Jim Blevins, take the campaign speech you made in Austin before the shootings.”

  Chuck Webster was a few years younger than John Madison, but they had developed a close relationship, as Webster had helped his friend negotiate through the labyrinth of insurance industry rules and regulations. His top of his Tyler high school class standing, paved the way, along with his impressive LSAT results, to his admission to an Ivy League law school. After graduation he turned down lucrative New York and DC offers, returning instead to Texas. He wanted to raise his family in a family environment, and near his parents. Chuck Webster and his wife had decided early in their marriage that they wanted to bear all of the children that God sent them, without any restrictions or impediments. As a result, they had been blessed with ten children, ranging in age from twelve years to eighteen months. Chuck liked to joke that he would be practicing law until he was in a nursing home, just to get all of his kids through college. John and Debbie Madison, whose grandchildren lived some distance from them, loved to spend time with Chuck’s brood, whom they referred to as their Tyler grandkids.

  “Chuck, I understand the concept. A pro-gun Texas conservative gives a speech suggesting that if the President were to be re-elected he’ll try and outlaw gun ownership. That wasn’t a revolutionary thought, after all. When the President ran four years earlier a lot of people quietly suggested that’s what he would do. Otherwise, why did all the gun dealers sell out of ammunition back then?”

  “Quietly is the key word. No major conservative leader went so public four years ago. Low profile was the approach. But, not this time. Right Wing Pro-Gun, Tea Party Leader John Madison uses his campaign megaphone and fires a salvo, if you’ll excuse the expression, at the President just a few days, a couple, three weeks, before he’s shot, or winged, or whatever actually happened in Dallas. Wonderful timing, John.”

  “So? What ever happened to the First Amendment? I can’t speak my mind, in a civil way, without the sky falling in on me? Plus, I would point out the obvious in all this – the President is trying to take away our guns, just as I said he would. Doesn’t that inconvenient fact give me some cover?”

  “See, John, that’s what I’m talking about. You’re in denial. The First Amendment? You really think these guys give a fig for the Constitution? They’re re-defining the First Amendment in Blevin’s anti-free speech, anti-gun ownership bill he introduced. This is the same President who promised to fundamentally transform America. How do you fundamentally transform a country without altering its founding documents?”

  “OK, I hear you, but the Second Amendment’s right to keep and bear arms is written in our nation’s DNA. I was just trying to warn the voters, using my First Amendment rights, I might add, that his second term posed a distinct danger to gun rights. So, now I should worry about getting indicted for just speaking out, in a campaign?”

  Chuck Webster shifted uncomfortably in his leather lawyers’ chair. It was obvious to him that his friend was headed for deep legal problems, and in spite of all of his lawyerly skills, he would not be able to head off the oncoming onslaught. He concluded that the best approach to help his friend and client was to give him the scary truth of what he was facing.

  “John, buddy, here’s how it’s going to go. You’re going to be served very soon with a U.S. Senate subpoena from Blevin’s Committee on the Judiciary. You might have had more of a shot at true justice, ironically, if Senator Reese had assigned the Bill to the Committee on Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs. The problem with the Judiciary Committee is that it’s packed with the Senate’s most liberal, doctrinaire haters of all conservative causes and people. You’ll only have a handful of days to prepare. You’ll face the grilling of your life from Senator Blevins and his Committee members and Staff. They’ll paint you as the instigator, at the very least, of the shootings. You’ll try and defend yourself, but you are very likely to say things that will expose you to indictment. They’ll indict you, not only for what you say at the Committee Hearing, but every word you uttered in the campaign will be scrutinized for ‘hate speech’. They’ll push the trial to a quick date. They’ll convict you. You’ll be watching the world from a federal facility hundreds of mile from your family. And that’s the best case scenario. Now, do I have your attention, John?

  “That’s not going to happen.”

  “Why? Because you’re going to listen to your lawyer, and best friend, and take the Fifth Amendment, refusing to utter words that can be used against you, to indict you?”

  “Chuck, I know you mean well. I know you’re scary smart in the law. I know that you have my best interests at heart and that you are probably giving me really good advice. But…”

  “But?”

  “But, I’m not going to refuse to answer questions by asserting my Fifth Amendment rights. That’s like waving a red flag. ‘Hey, look at me – I’m guilty of the crimes you’re ask
ing about – which is why I’m taking the Fifth!’ No way, Chuck, I’m not doing it.”

  “You don’t get it. The Fifth Amendment to the Constitution was written to protect you from the ambush that Blevins and his Committee are arranging for you. It’s the only way you can protect yourself from being indicted for your own words. I know it looks bad to take the Fifth, because you look like you’re hiding something, but it looks a lot worse to go to prison, when you might have been able to avoid it.”

  “Chuck, I would agree with you and I would probably take the Fifth if the only danger to me was what I might say in front of Blevins’ witch-hunting Committee. But, as you just said, and we both know, I gave over 30 speeches in the campaign, to gun groups, tea party and patriot meetings, even to a handful of Republican county Lincoln-Reagan Dinners. Most were recorded, and several videotaped. I’m stuck with what I said in those speeches. If they want to accuse me of violating the federal Hate Crimes Act, they’ll figure out a way to do it, no matter what I say before the Committee.”

  “No doubt, John. I’m just trying to minimize the charges. One of their historical tricks in DC is to charge people they are pursuing with lying to Congress, based on a portion of the criminal code that makes it a felony to give a materially false statement or representation to the nation’s lawmakers. Who do you think decides what constitutes a materially false statement? You guessed it, my friend.”