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

by John Price

  When the agents arrived at Dan Mitchells’ farm they served their warrant, then went immediately to work. They did not expect to find any firearms in the sprawling house, but they searched it anyway. They then turned to the several out buildings. Armed with sensitive metal detectors, agents eventually uncovered a serious cache of firearms under a metal plate in the back of a straw covered horse stall in a long abandoned farm building, on the backside of the 180 acre Mitchell farm property. Over one hundred weapons of various types. Caught.

  Dan Mitchell could afford a good criminal defense lawyer. His good criminal defense lawyer advised Dan Mitchell to shut his mouth, and keep it shut, with no comments, no fighting words, no nothing. He told Dan to just do the perp walk. No smiles. No frowns. Hold up your head, as much as you can, with your hands cuffed behind you. Dan argued that he was too well known for being a fighter to not fight, or at least verbally fire back, when they hauled him into the federal building on Walnut Street in Des Moines. Dan’s good criminal defense lawyer responded that if he mouthed off, each word could cost him years of incarceration or thousands of dollars in fines. Dan Mitchell got the message, and was uncharacteristically subdued when he was perp walked along Walnut Street in front of his ‘friends’ in the media. Several of the agents who had been less than amused by Dan’s harsh words in years past gathered later at Java Joe’s Coffeehouse to commemorate his arrest. One said, toasting the event with his coffee cup, “Here’s to Dan. You shoulda obeyed the law, Dan. Now, you’ll get to spend a lot more time with your former customers.”

  Results of Perp Walks

  Within a week after the highly publicized perp walks, and several others that followed around the country, the various Redemption Centers reported tens of thousands of firearms brought in by obviously concerned owners. The ATF’s initial success with the redemption of firearms cheered the occupant of the White House. The re-writing of the Constitution was a natural outcome of years of discussions between the President, before he achieved public office and a close friend who bombed a police station as a 60’s radical. Both had served on left-leaning not-for-profit boards of directors. The President’s first meeting in his initial run for office was in his friend’s living room. His friend was now a trusted advisor who was frequently called on by the President for his creative public policy ideas. His friend had often speculated how the U.S. government might one day be taken over by people who thought like they thought. He advised the President that his study of history confirmed that once a person in authority gets away with operating outside of the traditional restraints of the rule of law, the next similar act becomes even easier, as the fear factor increases. The success of McAlister fueled their determination to further radically alter America in the days ahead.

  FIFTY FIVE

  Wilbur Calhoun’s Hospital Suite

  Former President Wilbur Calhoun asked the Commandant of the United States Marine Corps to meet with him in his hospital suite. He readily agreed to do so. The former President asked his friend and the former Adjutant General of his state, who served when Wilbur was Governor, to show up in casual dress, not in his four star general olive tan uniform Marine Corps uniform. There was no way to avoid being seen entering the hospital, but in any given day many people entered the hospital. Wilbur concluded that a fiftyish man with a close cropped hair cut wearing a sweatshirt and jeans would attract little or no attention, even if his Secret Service guards were snitching to the White House, which he assumed they were.

  The general was seated in a chair close to the bedside of the former President, who had requested his nurse to turn up the volume on the radio in his suite. The room had been cleared and his Secret Service agent posted in the hall. Wilbur motioned for his visitor to lean over closer, so he could speak to him quietly.

  “Look, General, let’s just get to it. I’m more than well aware that ya job as Commandant of the Corps is primarily an administrative position.”

  “That’s right, Wilbur, uh, sorry, Mister President. And you can drop the General handle, I’m still just Wes to you. By the way, I’m so glad you’re out of your coma. That’s right, I have no direct operational command authority.”

  “Wes. How long have we known each other? Thirty….thirty five years, since my first term as Governor? I didn’t ask ya here to talk about the niceties of law, the legalities of the Corps. I understand what the statutes provide and what the organizational charts show. I wanted to talk to ya about saving the country. Hilde and I have both decided that ya are very possibly the only person in the entire nation who is positioned to save America.”

  “Un hunh….Look, Wilbur, I might have been born at night, but not last night. I assume you asked me to visit you to discuss all those rumors about Hilde’s effort to kick out our much beloved Commander in Chief. Am I right?”

  “Very perceptive, Wes. But let me just say that not everything the media reported about what happened in January was accurate. Mainly a lot of rumors….and….such.”

  “OK, but you didn’t ask me here to talk about my health. What happened in January at the Cabinet meeting? The only Cabinet meeting, as I understand it, that’s been held so far this year? Between us, of course, did Hilde, excuse me, did the Vice President try and push the President into stepping down? The word at the Pentagon, which came from my sources at SecDef, was that she tried to line up enough Cabinet members to sign a document ousting the President because he was unable to discharge his powers and duties. Do I have that right? Am I close?”

  “Well, pretty much, but the SecDef, that scurrilous weasel, is the one who tipped off the President and blew everything out of the water.”

  “You’ve confirmed that?”

  “Ya figure it out. Every Cabinet member, except SecDef, was ousted….every one. Plus, then Hilde lost her White House office. Since then, she’s been kicked out of the Eisenhower building next to the White House, and, Wes, believe it or not, her Secret Service detail is now down to one agent at any given time, just as I predicted would happen, by the way. SecDef and the President have this country in their grip. We both know that posse comitatus is no longer worth anything. The U.S. military is running this country, under the direct orders of the Commander in Chief. Wes, ya know the real body count, not the doctored, cleaned-up tally. We can’t continue shooting Americans who oppose the President and his policies.”

  “Mr. President, we both know what happened out in St. Louis, and in city after city, Americans killing Americans. Everybody knows where this is heading, if it’s not contained, and soon. That’s obvious even to the mainstream media, though they’ve been covering up for the White House now for way too long. They know the truth, but to protect themselves from the harsh spotlight of history, they continue to lie and obfuscate. Which brings me back to asking….why, exactly, why did you ask me here?”

  “Wes, SecDef has the President’s back. He quite obviously sent the armed troops who were parked and ready at the Treasury Building to rush over to the West Wing if the Cabinet even came close to signing a document to remove the President. The President threatened Hilde and the Cabinet with the use of the troops if they tried anything. I don’t think that’s what Senator Bayh and Representative Celler had in mind when they wrote the Twenty-Fifth Amendment. They wanted a smooth transition process. Hilde has a source at Justice who tells us that the AG is looking at how the President can remove Hilde from office under Section Two of the same Amendment, which talks about a vacancy in the Office of the Vice President. Wes, we can’t have any more of this internecine warfare, but more importantly, we can’t have any more bloodshed in the streets. The man has to go.”

  “Mr. President, you know how highly I regard you, and also the Vice President, but, there are obvious limits to what I can do. I don’t command any troops, even though I’m the Commandant. Though, obviously, I could ….”

  “Well, Wes, what ya can….”

  “Wait, let me finish. You haven’t asked yet, but should you ask….umh….should you ask me to use Marines
to forcefully change the occupant of the White House, you would be violating untold numbers of federal statutes. In addition to which you would be inviting me to a hanging party. Last I looked, it’s treason to overthrow the government. I wouldn’t last three months before they’d put the hood over my head and fire away.”

  “Wes, my friend, that assumes that ya’d fail. History is written by the winners. If ya succeed, and Hilde becomes ya Commander in Chief, she’ll pardon any technical violations of the law that ya, and your troops, may commit. That’s a given. She’d put it in writing, in advance, of course.”

  “What? Technical violations? Aren’t you troubled just a little bit, especially as a lawyer, with violating the trust of the people who elected this man as our President? Why not urge Congress to impeach him? You know, the old fashioned way, you should know something about that process, right?”

  “No reason to bring up bad memories, Wes. Ya know as well as I do that impeachment has to start in the House, and Speaker Pelham and the President are, to be charitable, close. Very close. Impeachment isn’t going to happen. With his mummy-dummy Cabinet installed, all now doubly-sworn loyalists, the Twenty-Fifth Amendment is off the table. The only way to stop this man from ripping our country apart is to forcefully remove him from office. I don’t know of any other way to say it, or to do it. General, America’s very survival is at stake.”

  “Sir….it’s time for me to leave….I need to think. Sorry.”

  FIFTY SIX

  Asheville, NC

  The Asheville Regional Airport is small as American airports go. Local leaders have for years asked for a longer and wider landing strip. Only 40,000 passengers a month flow through its gates. Thus, when the massive Air Force One Presidential aircraft landed at Asheville the plane dwarfed the modest terminal. A Presidential visit was literally a huge event for this mountainous artsy community. In planning for the major address that the President would deliver, White House planners selected a rural location as a quiet, peaceable backdrop for a speech that they knew would be anything but.

  A bunting-draped platform had been erected on the airfield side of the terminal. A large red, white and blue banner welcomed the President to North Carolina. Thousands of sympathetic North and South Carolinians had been bussed in to swell the enthusiastic ranks greeting their nation’s CEO, each given a small American flag to wave. The visit had been promoted by the White House Press Office as a major address, a policy-setting speech that would be long remembered. The Press Office, at least in this instance, didn’t exaggerate.

  The Governor of North Carolina was given an allotted ten minutes. He welcomed the President for honoring their State, thanked the hard-working event committee for their untiring efforts, thanked the assembled area high school bands for providing the best of John Phillip Sousa’s patriotic marches, thanked the employees of the State for providing great government for their State, thanked the many hundreds of volunteers who made the event possible, thanked everyone else he could possibly thank. He then said that the President needed no introduction, and after nearly twenty-five minutes of political-speak, exceeding his allotment, he gave him the shortest of introductions.

  “And now it is my distinct pleasure to give to you the Pres…i…dent…of…the…U…nited…States…of…Amer…ica.”

  After Hail to Chief was played through three times, accompanied by the cheers of the flag-waving crowd, the President, held up his arms for quiet, then looking at the nearest Tele-Prompter, plunged into his address. Notably, though he initially flashed his well-known smile, by the time he began to read his speech, his facial demeanor was clearly somber.

  “My fellow Americans. We are gathered today to discuss a subject of great urgency to our nation, that is, if America is itself to survive as a free people. I don’t say those words lightly. No nation in history has survived when its people have torn each other apart, internally inside their own nation. That is exactly what we have been doing as a nation now for several years, tearing each other apart….with the hate speech of hateful people….aimed at hurting other Americans….even shooting each other in unjustified protests against legally adopted laws restraining hate weapons and hate speech. I’m here today to announce, yes, even to proclaim as your President, that the days of open and unrestricted hate speech are over. Done. Finished.

  “We all know that recently the Congress of these United States of America, elected by we the people, adopted the Lawrence McAlister Hate Speech and Hate Weapon Elimination Act. I was most proud as your President to sign the McAlister Act into law. As we all also know, the McAlister Act is now the law of the land. We honor our brave former Vice President with this law. Even though there are apparently some, those who are gun-loving radicals, who seem hell bent on violating the McAlister Act, we will soon be a hate weapons free nation. We will enforce this new law. Thank you, Congress. Thank you, ATF. Thank you, peace-loving Americans.

  The cheers, routinely expected at Presidential events after a speaking point, were noticeably less than enthusiastic. The President’s mention of the McAlister Act, while quite popular with most of his public employee and labor union audience, lacked support among many in this mountainous part of the country. Some in the crowd had been hunters or sports shooters, but because of McAlister, were now unarmed. The President’s planners knew, of course, that the location for the speech could be somewhat dicey, but concluded that what the President would announce in his speech would win over even some of the disgruntled previous gun owners, particularly if they were unemployed.

  “Getting rid of hate weapons is the good news. But, anybody who watches television, listens to talk radio or visits the internet knows that the bad news is that the hate speech portion of the McAlister Act is a very long way from being implemented. Hate speech is destroying America. Let me repeat. As President, I am proclaiming that hate speech is destroying America. It is today’s enemy number one. Too many Americans are abusing their so-called First Amendment rights by using hate speech to attack other Americans, and doing it hatefully.

  “A moment ago I mentioned that the McAlister Act was enacted into law by the elected representatives of the people. In addition, the McAlister Act has been confirmed as fully consistent with the Constitution of the United States of America by our nation’s highest Court, the Supreme Court of the United States. Lest anyone incorrectly charge that what I am announcing today violates their First Amendment rights of free speech and free expression, I would remind them that we are a nation of law, and that our Supreme Court has ruled that the McAlister Act does not violate our Constitution, in any way. Hate speech regulation is now legal, and this Administration is committed to implementing hate speech regulation, under the law.

  “How will we fight this scourge? What can we do to stop the hateful use of words to attack our public officials and our minorities? As a student of American history it seemed to me that we should reach back in our nation’s proud past and revive a program that was more than successful in helping to cure our nation’s ills. I am referring to the Civilian Conservation Corps, known as the CCC, created by my predecessor, President Franklin Delano Roosevelt, under his Executive Order Number 6101. When President Roosevelt was faced with tough economic times he initiated the CCC and, over time, from 1933 to 1942, he hired three million Americans to help build our nation. Today, we don’t have quite the same need as in the 30’s to build physical infrastructure, national parks, roads, and such. But we do have the need to re-build the moral foundations of our land, by ridding our nation of hate speech. Even Republicans should be in favor of that goal.

  “Therefore, I am announcing today that I am signing Executive Order Number 13627, re-creating the Civilian Conservation Corps. Its task will be to hire as many American men and women, and young people, as apply and are qualified, to help conserve our land, as its name implies. How will these modern CCC Conservators, as they will be known, work to conserve our nation? They will be trained to help our Administration implement the McAlister Act, by loc
ating hate speech and identifying hate speakers. Once the Conservators have succeeded in doing so, the hate speakers will be charged by the Department of Justice, through our local District Attorneys, with violating the McAlister Act. Just as the CCC rooted out unneeded trees and vegetation that stood in the path of progress in the 30’s, today’s CCC will root out unneeded hate and bigotry that threaten to destroy our nation today. I will shortly send a request to the Congress for legislation that will fund the new CCC. The new CCC will be administered by and under authority of the Department of Homeland Security, and will be trained by its TSA, which now numbers over 50,000 federal employees, working every day to protect traveling Americans.

  Several persons in the crowd were seen high-fiving each other, as they realized that they were hearing the President say they could get a job, soon hopefully, and a federal job at that.

  “I can already hear the partisan critics of this Administration. They can be expected to object to this plan to employ unemployed Americans. They will say that these newly created jobs are not real jobs, that they don’t involve any meaningful work. Nothing could be further from the truth, as each CCC Conservator will be hard at work in two areas. First, Conservators will help implement the McAlister Act by monitoring the many thousands of public meetings that take place in this country, every morning, daytime and night of every day of the week. As friendly faces, they will attend these public meetings, listening respectfully, making notes on what is said and reporting any overheard hate speech to their superiors for any needed legal action. This will be the ‘Oversight’ aspect of their jobs. Obviously, many hours per week will be required of the Conservators to fulfill this critical aspect of their work.