by John Price
TWENTY FIVE
Washington, DC – Russell Senate Office Building
The members of the Senate Judiciary Committee were slow to re-convene, most using the recess as an opportunity to grant interviews to favored reporters, giving their spin to the high-profile Committee hearings. Returning to the Senate Caucus Room, Senator Blevins rolled his wheelchair the length of the massive oak table, and positioned himself in the center seat, the location with the Chairman’s gavel, and the Chairman’s power, unequalled by any other Member.
“Mister Madison, suh, are ya ready to continue ya testimony?”
John Madison was technically ready, he thought, but it was obvious from the brief brush up with Senator Blevins already this morning, that he was in for what he would call in Texas, a tussle. How could anyone, he thought, really be ready for a tussle with a varmint committed to his destruction? Nevertheless, he was committed to as much civility as he could muster. “Yes, Mr. Chairman, I’m ready to continue. Thank you so much for the timely recess.”
The Chairman started to give a flippant response, then decided the better course was to move on. “I would remind the witness, suh, that the oath ya took this morning still applies to anything, that’s anything, that ya may choose to offer to the Committee in ya further testimony today. Do ya understand that, suh?”
“Yes, sir, Mr. Chairman.”
“Mr. Madison, late in October last year ya delivered a much-reported speech to the gun lovers, uh, ‘scuse me, let me re-phrase that, to the Austin chapter of the National Rifle Association. Isn’t that right, suh?”
“Yes, Mr. Chairman, and it was much-reported, as you said. I’ve seen short excerpts from that speech on several occasions broadcast by the nation’s media. What the news clips don’t show is what I said about…”
“Ya’all answered my question, Mr. Madison.…just wanted to be sure that ya were the same person whose speech, many folks believe, may have led to the shootings, in Dallas. The President’s shooting, mine and the murderous shooting of Vice President Larry McAlister, for whom we have named this hate weapon and hate speech elimination law to honor his memory. Now, what I want to ask next…”
“Mr. Chairman, please, you have to give me the opportunity to respond to your…”
“Mr. Madison, I don’t have to do anything. I asked if ya gave that hate weapon incitement speech and ya have now admitted that ya did. My next question, though, is about.…”
John Madison was close to losing it. He had been well prepared for the likelihood of this specific attack, the accusation of his complicity in the shootings, but that didn’t make it easy to take. He remembered his lawyer’s advice, he took two deep breaths, and again interrupted the Chairman of the Senate’s most prestigious and powerful committee. “With all due respect, and I do respect your position as Chairman of this Committee, I want to state, on the record, that I had absolutely no prior knowledge of the tragic shootings in Dallas, including yours, Senator, which I sincerely regret. No knowledge. None. Nothing.”
“Now, suh, that was a mighty fine statement. Well-rehearsed and well stated. It suhtainly was. I expected no less. No less, indeed. I am not accusing ya, suh, of any direct involvement with my shooting, nor the President’s nor Vice President McAlister’s. If there were even one shred of evidence connecting ya with the shootins, what’s been called the Gun Conspiracy Against the Gubment, ya wouldn’t be settin’ here, suh, ya’d already be in a federal prison, yes suh, ya would. No, Mr. Madison, what I want to know more about, and what the members of this Committee want to know more about and frankly, what Americans want to know more about, is how ya hate speech may have motivated the triple shooting of high government officials, just days later. We not only want to know what ya knew and when did ya know it, we want to know what the shooters knew and when did they know it, and how much was based on your provocative little hate speech.”
“Senator, since I have no clue who the shooters were, and apparently the FBI doesn’t either at this point, how can I be expected to know how my speech affected them, or may have affected anybody else, for that matter.”
“Now, Mr. Madison, that’s right convenient, yes it is. Ya make ya little hate speech in Austin, poisoning the public discourse, throwin’ unfounded accusations at our Commander in Chief, then when ya followers take to heart what ya said, and try to assassinate the man ya said the hateful words about, then ya just duck and hide, and say ya just can’t be responsible for ya own hateful words. That won’t wash, Mr. Madison, ya gonna have to face the music for what ya said in that….”
“Mr. Chairman, if I may. Please….please….Sir, you have called my words in Austin hate speech and hateful words, but anyone who has read the words, or watched the speech, realizes that I was only saying in the middle of a heated campaign that the President would likely try to take away our right to keep and bear arms if he won a second term. To use your phrase, that’s political discourse. My words are by no stretch the use of hate speech. I know from the media reports that the Department of Justice is supposedly looking into whether or not I can be charged with violating the federal Hate Crimes Act, and that…”
“And, suh, that doesn’t concern ya?”
“Of course, Senator, it concerns me. I’m not a lawyer, but I’m told that there was a judge a few years ago who said that a grand jury would indict a ham sandwich if the District Attorney requested it. Of course, I’m concerned, I just don’t think there’s any basis for such a charge.”
“Very funny, Mr. Madison. Very funny, indeed. A ham sandwich, hunh? Well, we will see what we will see. I am told that there are more federal agents working on the Dallas shootings than have been assigned to any other investigation since 9/11. This, suh, I can assure ya. This government will find and prosecute those who fired the actual shots, but we will also put away for a very long time the lunatics who set the stage for the assault on the government. We cannot, we will not allow the overthrow of the government by violent means, even when it’s all masqueraded as protected campaign speech. Not gonna’ happen, Mr. Madison, suh.”
John Madison felt sick at his stomach. Virtually everything his attorney had warned him about was unfolding before him, and being broadcast to a nation demanding answers. How long had this been going on this morning, he wondered? He glanced at his watch, another thing his attorney told him not to do.
“Mr. Madison, suh, are we keeping ya from an important appointment? Are ya missin’ a meetin’ with a gun manufacturing lobbyist? Do ya need to make a call to ya gun groups?”
Feeling humiliated that the pressure and stress of the Committee hearing had made him forget even the most basic prep, like not looking at his watch, John Madison could only say, “No, Senator, you have my full attention.”
“Why, I thank ya for that, I really do. Moving on Mr. Madison, the Committee staff has prepared some basic questions for ya to submit to ya little tax payer, tea party, patriot groups that ya are affiliated with down there in Texas. We’ll give ya plenty of time to respond, say twelve, no…., let’s say ten calendar days. But, before I pass the questionin’ to the distinguished Rankin’ Member, the gentleman from Minnesota, I have one other area of questionin’, suh.”
“Yes, Senator.”
“I take it that ya are well acquainted with the Second Amendment – it’s kinda like ya holy grail and ya holy Bible all rolled into one?”
“No, Senator, I wouldn’t put it that way. I’d just say that the Constitution grants us as citizens of the United States the right keep and bear arms, as it says in the Second Amendment.”
“Well, let’s look at your precious Second Amendment, suh. Not exactly, wouldn’t you agree, a model of precise, careful use of the English language. It starts out by referring to the militia. The militia. Quote. A well-regulated militia being necessary to the security of a free state. Unquote. Do ya belong to a militia, Mr. Madison? Of course, ya don’t. Nobody does any more, over two centuries after the words were written with a quill pen, except for some lun
atics running around in the woods shooting at pumpkins and hiding ammunition in logs. There might, I say, might, have been a valid reason to own weapons of violence when the country was still gettin’ rid of the Brits, but today? Give me a break. The militia? Because they needed an armed militia over 200 years ago doesn’t mean every man, woman and child should have the right in the 21st Century to own instruments of mayhem and murder. Now, that just makes no sense to me, none at all. If ya want to arm the National Guard in each State, I have no problem with that, they are today’s militia, I believe, but my neighbor shouldn’t own an armory. Ya would agree that the many legal scholars that have been calling for a legal re-interpretation of this clumsy language have a point, wouldn’t ya, suh?”
“Senator, far be it from me to criticize the founding fathers for their language. Sure, the language used might have been a little more precise, but it’s clear enough. Read the balance of the Second Amendment - ‘the right of the people to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed’. The people, the citizens, of this nation, have a basic right to defend ourselves, by force of arms, if necessary. You don’t have the right, Senator, to warp the clear intent of the Constitution by just saying you are re-interpreting the Bill of Rights. When they wrote those words, I’m sure they never thought that some future Congress would someday say that the black letters on parchment had no meaning.”
Senator Blevins just sat back in his Chairman’s chair and smiled. He knew that he didn’t need to reply to Madison’s words, as the witness had just given him tomorrow’s headlines, and those words would help push the Bill towards passage. John Madison had fallen into the classic Congressional practice of trapping witnesses into agreeing with a statement worded against the witness’s own interests. The nation’s leading liberal media lost no time in headlining Madison’s testimony to advance their undisguised anti-gun agenda:
New York Times
MADISON AGREES 2ND AMENDMENT IS FLAWED
Boston World
PRO-GUN LEADER TESTIFIES NO BASIS
FOR GUN RIGHTS IN 2ND AMENDMENT
CNN
CONGRESS POISED TO PASS HATE WEAPON ACT
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 2nd 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 y
ears. 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.