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

by John Price

  The Members of the House, particularly the undecided, had been lobbied, and lobbied hard, but of course, that’s the price they paid in personal stress to be in public service, as they could be expected to argue in their own defense. Some might respond that the money, perks, staff, vehicles, fame and health and retirement benefits provided to Congressmen and Congresswomen more than justified the pressure and stress associated with having tens of thousands of people tell them what to do and how to vote.

  Voting was why the Members assembled together tonight on Capitol Hill, in the historic shadow of the Members who had come before them, who also cast votes through which America was changed. With some votes the nation changed for the better, with other votes, the results were not so good. The true believers on both sides of the speech and gun bill who were assembled in the Chamber knew that it was their votes that would ensure that America would be free of guns, though America would lose rights guaranteed by its Constitution. They knew those rights could vanish with a simple bill, should it become a law, and be upheld by the U.S. Supreme Court. Such were the stakes facing the Members, as the Senate had the day before voted in favor of 113-S.-1 in sufficient numbers. The President had let it be known that he had several honorary pass-out signature pens lined up on his desk, prepared for signing the McAlister Hate Speech and Hate Weapons Elimination Act. What was needed was 218 Americans, Members of the U.S. House of Representatives, willing and able to vote yes on the pending bill to change Americans’ rights to speak freely and to keep and bear arms. An historic vote indeed.

  Speaker Pelham earlier in the afternoon informed her House majority leadership team that she intended to use the “Hastert Hat Trick”, if necessary, to get the votes needed to pass the McAlister Bill. She was referring to controversial legislative actions taken by Speaker Dennis Hastert in 2003 to pass the Bush Medicare Prescription Drug Act. On the first vote in the House in June, 2003 the bill failed by 218 to 214. After some arm-twisting, three Republicans changed their vote, passing the bill by 216-215. After several months of debate and eventual passage by the Senate, a revised version of the bill came back to the House for consideration. Voting on the bill started at 3 AM on November 22nd, but the initial vote tally showed the bill losing by 219-215.

  Contrary to the traditional House voting limit of fifteen minutes, the vote was held open for several hours while Speaker Hastert and Majority Leader Delay sought two more affirmative votes. During the vote delay one Congressman alleged that he was offered campaign funding for his son, who wanted to run to replace the Congressman in the next election. At 5:50 AM the Speaker found two more votes and the bill passed. Democrats called foul, but the precedent had been established, allowing the Speaker of the US House to hold open a vote on pending legislation, as long as necessary, and to do whatever was necessary, to get the votes necessary, to pass the bill and thus make a new law. Now, if the vote promised to be close, the Chair could instruct the House Clerk to suspend the clock countdown at one minute yet to go, to ensure that the Speaker had sufficient votes to either pass or defeat a bill, as the case may be.

  Within a half hour, the Speaker had gaveled the Members into their seats and into enough order and decorum for the Clerk to read the title and synopsis of the bill upon which the Members would soon vote.

  “The question is upon the passage of 113-S.-1, A Bill for an Act to Eliminate Hate Speech and Hate Weapons. Be it enacted by the Congress of the…. “

  “Thank you Madam Clerk, the Bill is upon the table, the Committee of the Whole having considered and acted upon all amendments submitted by Members, the question is on consideration of the Bill. All those in favor, say aye, all opposed say Nay. In the opinion of the Chair, the ayes have it, and the bill…”

  “Madam Speaker,” the Minority Leader made the obligatory motion for a recorded vote by individual Members, “I request a recorded vote.”

  “The Gentleman’s request is granted. The Clerk will open the voting system for voting by Members.”

  The time was 6:05 PM. As Members began to vote, they didn’t do so in a vacuum. Not only were the eyes and ears of the world focused on their vote through electronic media, the multiple thousands of Bill protestors and supporters outside the U.S. Capitol insured that the Members of the House heard their respective messages.

  The House of Representatives vote tally device posted votes as they were entered by Members, each using the encoded card given to them upon being sworn in as Members. Television screens carried the ongoing totals, as votes were added. Those who were strongly in favor and those who were adamantly opposed to the Bill cast their votes quickly, each side showing their voting numbers strength, as an early indicator.

  With just five minutes to go on the countdown, almost all Members had voted, showing a count of 205 in favor and 207 opposed, leaving 23 not yet voting. At one minute and fifteen seconds yet to go, the count had risen to 212 in favor and 215 opposed, with 8 not yet voting. At almost one minute, 3 of the 8 had voted, but all had voted no, bringing the tally to 212 in favor and 218 opposed, a margin of 6 against, but with only 5 not yet voting. Alarm bells sounded behind the Speaker’s Rostrum, as the Speaker alerted the Clerk to stop the countdown, until further order by the Chair. The backers of the McAlister Bill had a problem, a big problem. They didn’t have the votes needed for passage.

  The task was easy enough to understand – the Speaker needed all five Members not yet voting to vote yes, and one Member of the 218 voting no would have to switch their vote, a maneuver that was allowed under the House Rules as long as voting had not yet been closed by the Chair. The Speaker was not about to close the voting until she had 218 votes cast in favor of the Bill. How to accomplish that task was now her immediate task.

  The five Members who had not yet voted were invited to leave the floor of the House and meet with the Speaker, “Congressman Scott, the Speaker would like to see you in her Chamber Office, if you have the time.” The Members not yet voting found that they indeed did have the time.

  The five Members of the House who had not yet cast their votes were assembled in the Speaker’s private office just off the House floor. Congressman Scott later told his colleagues that it was almost like school children being chastised in the Principal’s Office for their behavior on the school grounds.

  The Speaker even used language to that effect. “Alright, now children, what have I possibly done to you to lead you to disappoint me so greatly? This Bill is the most important since healthcare reform, and here we are, with your Speaker six votes shy, and you are five of those six votes. What am I to do? Could I conceivably be more embarrassed than to have five Members from my own Party who won’t vote for this bill?”

  Speaker Pelham had developed through the years a reputation for personalizing every vote, whenever and however possible. She had been told that former Speaker Sam Rayburn had used the technique to great effect in his seventeen successful years leading the House in the 40’s and 50’s. Since amending the Bill was out of the question procedurally at this point in time, the only thing the Speaker could offer to pick up votes now was in the ‘sausage making category’. Otto von Bismarck, Chancellor of German, had once famously said that if one ever wanted to respect the law or eat sausage again, one shouldn’t watch either one being made. It was sausage making time for the Speaker.

  “I don’t have all night, so let’s just do this. Write down what it will take on the back of your Member business card, drop it on the desk, and I’ll call you back in individually. But, don’t get greedy and don’t be stupid, there is actually a limit on my powers, there’s even a limit on the President’s ability to get what you want. He’s on standby at the other end of Pennsylvania Avenue, so we’re prepared to deal. But, before you leave, I still need a switcher, so also put on your card the most likely Member to switch, and I’ll call them in. Now get out of here, you guys have caused enough trouble tonight.”

  Between the Speaker, and her ability to substantially advance a Member’s career and stan
ding in the House, and the President, and his almost unlimited ability to bring federal benefits, grants, contracts, campaign contributions and Presidential visits to a favored Member of Congress, the five visitors to the Speaker’s Office eventually saw the light, and voted yes on the McAlister Bill. U.S. Senator Everett Dirksen, former majority leader of the Senate, had frequently observed that “when they feel the heat, they see the light”. His commentary on lining up votes was from a by-gone era, one in which political pressure to conform was more prevalent, times before an era in which monetary and power enticements, not threats, were the norm. The vote on the screens was now 218 opposed and 217 in favor. The Speaker needed one no vote to switch to yes. Now, finally, she knew she would win.

  The Speaker’s words to her caucus leadership team and the bill’s floor leaders were certainly succinct, “This is the word. Circulate it. The first one to switch, the first one to change from no to yes, the very first one, gets a choice: a.) their spouse or significant other gets appointed to the Board of Directors of America’s third largest multi-national corporation, guaranteed 400 K per year for four years, plus perks, or b.) appointment by the President to the empty Ambassadorship to Italy, upon resignation from the House, all done within sixty days, with a guarantee of confirmation by the Senate. After the Court of St. James, our Ambassador to Great Britain, Rome is the best Embassy post in the world. After that, whoever switches, I don’t care. They get nothing special. Let’s get this done.”

  Within minutes, three things had changed in America:

  a.) A Congressman from New Jersey switched his no vote to yes, immediately after which the Speaker declared the vote closed at 6:18 AM, with 218 in favor and 217 opposed;

  b.) America’s Congress had adopted a new law allowing the federal government to decide what constituted free speech, prohibiting private ownership of firearms and making it a felony to own a firearm, in spite of the Constitutional Amendments granting speech and gun ownership rights; and

  c.) The President signed and faxed to the Speaker’s office the necessary appointment documents naming a new Ambassador to Rome, a man whose sole prior experience in foreign affairs, and particularly international relations with the nation of Italy, was as a frequent diner at Newark’s several Italian restaurants.

  What went un-noticed was the adoption by the House earlier in the day of a “simple bill for highway beautification”, previously passed by the Senate. With the world’s attention on the McAlister Bill, few in the media, the Congress or the nation, paid any attention to an amendment that had been inserted in the highway bill, and enacted into law. The amendment effectively prohibited any financial institution with offices in the United States from transferring any funds by wire outside of the fifty States to a foreign bank, without prior clearance and approval of the Department of Homeland Security. The DHS had quietly requested the new law, as the White House determined that nervous Americans were transferring too many dollars outside of the country. The provision mirrored a currency control law adopted by Germany in 1933.

  The second part of the quietly adopted amendment authorized the President, in his sole discretion, upon determining that a “hoarding emergency existed, to suspend “the right of private ownership of gold, silver, platinum or any other precious metal or tangible asset.” The language of the new law authorized the Department of the Treasury to redeem all such precious metals from private owners at a price to be determined in the Order implementing the law as ordered by the President. The introductory whereas clause of the second portion of the bill included a reference to the historical basis of the new law, based on the suspension of the right of Americans to own gold in the administration of Franklin D. Roosevelt, who redeemed gold at $35 per ounce. The last section of the amendment provided that if any litigation arose challenging the act, or the valuation set by the President for redemption of precious metals, the case would be removed and taken directly to the Supreme Court of the United States for an expeditious decision. The Administration was quite comfortable with review of new laws that it favored by the U.S. Supreme Court, upon which it had a favorable working majority.

  FORTY FOUR

  Dallas, Texas

  The longevity of an American protestant pastor can frequently be stunted, cut short by internal issues. It doesn’t have to be that way, as many evangelical churches with long-serving pastors can attest. Pastor Jack Madison had originally started at his Dallas church as a youth pastor, but when the senior pastor retired, he was the natural choice for the job. Since becoming senior pastor Jack Madison had developed a close relationship with his members and they with him. He was trusted, respected and considered to be a reliable expositor of God’s Word. Thus it was that Jack Madison strived to insure that the messages he delivered to his congregation were as consistent with scripture as humanly possible. The last thing he would knowingly do would be to misinterpret scripture. He knew that he would someday answer for each word, so he anguished at great length as he studied what the Bible said about the last days.

  The seven members of the weekly senior accountability group had convened in the Pastor’s office, right on schedule at 6:30 AM, with hot coffee and Krispy Kremes in bountiful supply. What was also in plentiful supply were opinions on the prophecy verses they had all been studying during the prior week. After prayer, the Pastor kicked off their discussion.

  “Men, you can’t say I didn’t warn you, now can you?”

  Jim, consistent with his known proclivity for prodding the Pastor, though in good humor, responded, “Pastor, if I had known what you were getting us into, I would have missed the meeting last week. Thanks a bunch.”

  “I know, I know. I had the same reaction, as I told you last week. I couldn’t sleep most of the night trying to figure out what other country those mystery identity clues could apply to, except for the U.S.”

  “Pastor, when I was a young Christian in Idaho we studied prophecy and our teacher told us that those verses applied to the Catholic Church. That seemed at the time to make sense….but as I re-read them, as a group of verses, that doesn’t really work. Most of the verses refer to a nation, and the cities, plural, in the nation, with ports and an army, all clues that can’t apply to a church.”

  “You’re right, Jim, for a long time, since the mid 1800’s, most Christians were taught that the Babylon the Great verses in Revelation 17 and 18 applied to the church in Rome. What I discovered in my research was that a pastor named Alexander Hislop in 1852 published a book called The Two Babylons. What he argued in his first page or two was that the prophecies about Babylon the Great applied to the Catholic Church, based on just one of the several identity clues.”

  “Which one was it? I didn’t see any of the clues that applied to a church, frankly.”

  “Well, he took the reference to seven hills in Revelation 17:9 and ran with it. Rome has seven hills and the Catholic Church is based in Rome, so he made a leap of logic, though not based on anything but location, and he argued that because of that one clue, Babylon the Great had to be the Catholic Church. Plus, the verse he leaned on actually translates as seven great mountains, not hills, maybe even continents. There are seven of those.”

  “That’s faulty scriptural analysis, isn’t it Pastor? How did he explain all the other clues that obviously don’t apply to a church?”

  “He didn’t. He ignored them. The balance of his book was just an attack on the beliefs and practices of the church in Rome. The principle of scriptural analysis that he violated is that no scripture is of private interpretation. All scripture is God breathed, and it all hangs together. When you try to base an argument on just one or two verses, and ignore other verses on the same issue, you get in trouble and do violence to the Word. Not a good idea.”

  “Pastor, admitted that the identity clues don’t work for a denomination or a church, but why don’t they apply to ancient Babylon? The name of Babylon and the two names given in these verses are very similar.”

  “Great question. That’s an
issue that occupied my study and research for several hours. There are several reasons they don’t apply to ancient Babylon. First, of course, is that the Daughter is not the same as the Mother, obviously. If the Lord had meant these verses to apply to ancient Babylon, all He had to do was refer to Babylon, and leave off the Daughter of Babylon reference. Secondly, ancient Babylon has been gone since 331 BC when Babylon fell to Alexander the Great. Why then did the Lord give us the several end times prophecies in Revelation 17 and 18, a book that was written three centuries after Babylon became two piles of rubble? Why did He give us prophecy at about the time of Christ that Babylon the Great will someday fall, if it had already fallen three hundred years before?”

  Scott added his take on the issue, “Well, that makes sense to me. The verses that grabbed me were the references to cities, plural. Babylon was one city. Plus, there were references in the verses you gave us to being on many waters. Revelation 18 refers to the ocean offshore from Babylon the Great. Ancient Babylon was not on the sea, or even near the sea, nor on many waters, just at the junction of two rivers.”

  “True, but be aware that the Revelation 18 verses refer to the fall of a city, singular, when it refers to the merchants of the earth weeping and wailing once Babylon the Great, the source of the business is gone.”

  “Is that a contradiction?”

  “No, I think it clearly refers to a huge trading city that is destroyed, along with the other cities the verses refer to that will fall in Babylon the Great. They don’t contradict each other. If Babylon the Great is America, New York City, the center of world commerce, is an obvious candidate for the city pictured in Revelation 18 that the merchants of the world weep over when it falls.”