Chapter 19: The Invasion of Idaho

Chapter 19

The Invasion of Idaho

            Carson Taylor looked on over his unit in amazement. When he enlisted in the Nevada National Guard never could have ever imagined the sight he was seeing now. He had always thought in the back of his mind that it was possible for him to be deployed into the US Army and possibly go overseas to a war zone. Taylor always imagined that war zone to be some desert in the Middle East, some jungle in Asia, or even being deployed to Europe to combat Russia. Never did he think that that war zone would actually be located inside the borders of the US. But that was exactly what he was looking at. His eyes were fixated on his unit being prepared to be deployed into a mountainous war zone in their own backyard. He was no longer affiliated with the US Army or the US for that matter. He was now a part of the Californian Army. He now served in the 1^st Nevada Mountain Division; and as a Lieutenant, he led a 50 man platoon within the division.

            Taylor was now in Ontario, Oregon. The 1^st Nevada was recently deployed here to join up with the 3^rd Oregon Infantry Division. Their goal was a cross border attack on Idaho. The 1^st Nevada was being given the task of capturing and holding the capital of Boise. Their attack on Boise would be simultaneously mirrored by an attack on the northern Idaho city of Moscow by the 2^nd Washington Mountain Division. The attack was designed to gain territory in the growing civil war with the states remaining in the US, and also to gain a defensive position. Idaho is a fairly mountainous state and would slow down a US attack from the east and potentially saving the pacific coast states.

            “Alright men. You all should be ready now. For many of you this is your first time seeing combat action, and for some of you it is not. But none of you could’ve thought that your first time, or your second or third time, would be a fight right here in Idaho. This isn’t a foreign born enemy. The army you will be facing was, not even a year ago, formerly your own brothers.” Taylor paced back and forth in the front of his platoon. Having studied generals the likes of Patton and Eisenhower for years, he always wanted to give an inspirational speech.

            “Your battlefield is not the deserts of Iraq or Afghanistan. Your battlefield is the mountains of Idaho. Those past soldiers fought for a country they felt was worth defending. The fact that you are all still here, and wearing the Bear Flag on your arms instead of the Stars and Stripes, tells me that you feel that you want to believe the same. You all are here because you feel that this is a fight worth fighting. You feel that your former country has fallen into the wrong hands. You feel that that country has lost the sentiment of the founding fathers of the revolution. They have lost their way, but you have not. You still fight for the founding ideals. You fight to protect the ideas behind the original Constitution of the US. Those ideas are now what have inspired the Constitution of the Republic of California. Those are the ideas and ideals that you fight for. You do not fight for the US Army. You fight with the “ROCs”.  That nickname is fitting. We are a rock. We will not be moved. We will stand firm against all threats. We will not be stopped. We will keep rolling until we reach our desired destinations. We have not lost our way, they have. Let’s show them the way back home!” The platoon erupted into cheers. Carson felt very pleased with himself. It may not be a speech that will be taught in high school history classes, or even military history classes for that matter, but he still felt please. He has plenty of time to come up with historical level speeches when he is wearing the stars of a general. That speech was just fine for the likes of Lieutenant from Nevada. For now.

            “We will be loading up in just a few. And then a few minutes later we will be hearing back from the Air Force. The Oregon Air Force is commencing two bombing raids out of the Klamath Falls Air Force Base. The first is an attack on the Mountain Home Air Force Base in Idaho. Shut down any air resistance and ensure our own air superiority. Their second mission is an initial bombing of strategic locations within the city of Boise. Once we have confirmation of air superiority, we will begin our own movement. We will travel along the interstate on our way to Boise. We are to secure the capitol building and police stations. We are to such down the infrastructure of the city and ensure a government shutdown. Idaho was been passive in letting the federal government do what they wanted. We will teach them to not be passive any longer. If they don’t want to be involved with the US, we will force them to be involved with the ROC.” Just as he was done with the debriefing a phone rang.

            “Lt. Taylor, that was the OAF. They have confirmation of air superiority. Mountain Home is out of commission.”

            Lt. Taylor yelled out one last time. “That’s the call we’ve been waiting for men. Let’s load up and roll out. We are less than an hour away from a fire fight. It begins now.” Taylor stood on the step on his Humvee. “Now begins the Invasion of Idaho.”

Chapter 18: I Am a Smart Man and You Are Not

Chapter 18

I Am a Smart Man and You Are Not

            “What do you mean Adams wasn’t arrested?...What do you mean the planes were shot down?...Do you know how to run a god damn military unit? How did you rise the ranks of the Air Force?...You are damn right this won’t happen again. Because if it does there will be hell to pay. And trust me, that payment will include never seeing you in an Air Force uniform for as long as you shall live which may not be long after your next failure. I hope you do fully understand me.” President Smith slammed the phone as he hung up. Holding his face in his hands, Smith contemplated to himself. Looking up his eyes caught the eyes from his Presidential portrait.

            “You. You were the man with the dream. The dream that you could one day run this country. You were the man that rose the ranks of the Republican Party. Became a major player in southern politics. You were the man that put Mississippi back onto the political landscape. You were the one who became governor of the state. You were the one to give the south their voice back. When the Democrats and Republicans became too stale, you helped to create the Peace Party. You helped form the grassroots campaign to help combat the Republicans and return them to Conservatism. And then when they didn’t us to play in their reindeer game, you led the Peace revolution and formed the movement into a true political party. You led the way for conservatives to leave the moderate Republicans and join the Peace party and let their true beliefs be heard. You gave Conservatism a newer and stronger voice.”

            The President stood up and walked over to the portrait. “You were a smart man. You always talked loud enough to be heard, but not too loudly to become the object of ridicule from opponents. You were the face of the party, only you were smart enough not to be the skin that everyone sees. No, instead you were muscle underneath. You were the unseen strength of the party. You let people like Mitchell Davis and Matt Adams run their mouths and create newspaper headlines, while you took a step back were the man whom everyone in the party conferred with before taking any sort of stance on any issue. You set policy. You set the platform. When the Peace Party won control of the House, they elected you to be the new Speaker even though you hadn’t been the previous party leader. You led your own way into power. You commanded respect. Your views set the tone for the whole party. Without you there was no People’s Party for Perpetual Peace. God what a farce of a name. You knew that people could be fooled and led to follow your new party. You knew fancy lingo and nice sounding words would make the party more appealing to people. People are so gullible. If they only knew half of the things that we allowed them to know or even if they knew that half the things that we actually did tell them were lies. You were a smart man.” A smirk grew over his face as he traveled through the recesses of his memories. Admiring himself. President Smith was his own top admirer. He was his own role model, his own mentor, and his own superhero.

            Just as quickly as that smirk had appeared it had vanished as the President quickly got hot under the collar. “If you were such a smart man, then why the hell couldn’t you see the California secession coming? You thought that you had everything planned out. You had cemented the Peace Party into a position of power, a position that could not be overcome. You thought that the Democrats would just roll over to you. You thought that they were weak. By far and away you thought you had dealt a death blow when their party split. You never thought their party could survive being split in two; being split across the country in two different geographic regions. You never would’ve thought that would become anything more than a thorn in your side. The Peace Party controlled the nation which meant that you controlled the nation. You forced their political leaders back into hiding within their own states. You forced the Progressives and the Radical Dems to send nothing but their freshmen and weakest politicians to Washington. It was nothing more than a formality to you. Nothing more than the byproduct from a now obsolete system. Never would you have thought that those politicians you thought had gone into hiding would ever try to defy you. Never did you think that they would or could fight back.”

“If you were so smart why didn’t you see this coming? Why couldn’t you see California pushing itself further and further away? You thought that you had everything figured out. You thought you could just waltz in and stage a state level coup d’état of the California government. You thought you could topple California and then once you did that the rest would fall. All you had to do was cut the head off the dragon and the rest wouldn’t function. Why couldn’t you see that California had a little more weight behind it? Why couldn’t you see that they would fight back? Why couldn’t you see that they would find an ally in Canada’s ruling Liberal Party?”

“Now I have to clean up your mess. You didn’t see this happening, so now I have to clean it up. I have to solve the problem. I have to lead the Peace Party to arms. I have to reunite this country. I have to crush the California resistance. I have to deal with a California-led Progressive secession movement, because in your world there was no chance of secession. In your world, California would just lie down and take what was coming to them. In my world, they instead took up arms and declared themselves a new Republic. I have to be the one to not diplomatically recognize the Republic of California. I have to fight the UN hearing from their diplomats. Your world contained no California diplomats; mine does.”

The President’s own narcissistic attitudes forced him to fight with himself when there was no one around that he could belittle. No one around to abuse but himself. “If you were so smart you would’ve seen this coming. I have to clean it up. You get to sit there and watch me pick up the pieces. I will defeat the California uprising. I will defeat the Progressive movement. This will be a Peaceful Nation led by a People’s Party for Perpetual Peace. I will do it. I will do it because I am a smart man. I am a smart man and you are not.”

Prelude: Learn the History and Watch the Events Unfold

Prelude: Learn the History and Watch the Events Unfold

            After years of trying to take over the Republican party and trying to win elections only to lose when it counted, right wing politicians and activists left the Republican party and formed a new political party that they could control. They named it the Party for Perpetual Peace.

            The Peace party began to win elections, and win them a lot. They eventually tossed aside their former comrades the Republicans and became the second major political party. After losing a presidential election year where the Democratic Party won the president and majorities in both the House and Senate, the Peace party needed a fresh start. They added to their name and became known as the People’s Party for Perpetual Peace. They began touting themselves as a party for the people of the country, and a party that wanted to keep the country in a state of peace and stability. With their new message the party won the next mid-term elections, taking control of the House and Senate. Once installed as the new majority party, they began the process of undermining the sitting Democratic president.

Eventually they found a way to try to impeach the president. The Peace party held the President and Vice President on charges of treason. The charges steamed from leaked information about a supposed gun trade operation lead by the executive branch. The operation included the selling of guns to Mexican crime syndicates in order to try to track them and capture any criminals. During one of the syndicates drug runs into the US, two border patrol officers and a DEA agent were killed. The guns used to kill the government agents were linked back to those that were sold during the gun trade. The Peace Party used this information to claim treason against the Executive branch saying they sold weapons that were used to kill US government employees. The Peace Party led House easily won the vote to impeach. And after a long a hard fought trial, the Senate voted in favor of conviction and removal from office of the President and the VP.

After removing the top two executives, the line of Succession led to the Speaker of the House, Peace Party leader Richard Smith. Smith was a hard line Peace party member. He was favored by other people in the party, but had lost during his attempts at winning the presidency during elections as US voters saw him as too radical in his positions. But now this politician that voters deemed too radical was now President of the US thanks to Washington politicians. After taking the oath of office, President Smith began his purge of the former president’s cabinet. He removed any cabinet secretary with ties to the Democratic Party and replaced them with his closest confidants in the Peace party.

News reports came to light that maybe the executive run gun operation did not go as had been reported by the Peace Party. Reports showed that the man who “blew the whistle” on the gun operation had links back to the Peace Party. It showed that he was not acting on orders from the Federal government, but was in fact working on his own using government weapons to make a profit on the black market. When the guns that he sold had come back linked to the ones that he sold, his former employer (now a Representative from Texas) paid him more money in order to lie and say he was working on orders from the Federal government. The Peace Party was obviously not too happy with these news reports and used their newly created propaganda machine to suppress the news reports that they found unfavorable.

Following their removal from the executive branch, the Democratic Party split into two parties: The Radical Democratic Party and the Progressive Action Party. The Radical Dems found their power base in the northeast, the traditional power region for the Democratic Party. The Progressives held the power in the Western states, such as California, Oregon, and Washington. The Republican Party continued to exist, but severely limited in their power. The Republican Party has been reduced to nothing more than a puppet power for the more powerful Peace Party. Republicans held power and majorities in Big Sky states such as Montana and the Dakotas. The Peace party drew the majority of their support from the Southern States with Texas as a major player within the party.

As soon as they had taken control of the executive branch, the Peace Party continued to consolidate their power within the Federal Government. They began by trying to pass a law that would change the number of years constitutes a term in the House of Representatives. The Peace Party led House passed the bill that would change a House term from 2 years to 4 years with elections to be held during presidential election years. The Senate was still led by a Democratic Majority Caucus created by the two remnant of the old Democratic Party, and as could be easily expected the Democratic Caucus voted against and defeated the Peace Party led House bill.

The Peace Party did not take this sitting down. They quickly rallied in the states where they held power. The exploited a clause in the Constitutional that allowed for the States to called upon a Constitutional Convention. 35 states joined in the call for the Convention. The other 15 states boycotted the Convention out of protest, citing it as avoiding working with an elected legislative body. With 15 States boycotting, the Convention became little more than a formality. The 35 participating States, which were led either by the Peace Party or by their puppets in the Republican Party, voted in favor of ratification of a Constitutional amendment which would change the elected term for the House of Representatives from 2 years to 4 years. This amendment tied the House elections to the Presidential elections and allowed for the House to more closely work for the president and for a longer period of time. While the some states were boycotting, the rest of states used the Convention to slip in another clause in the amendment. They sought a way to reduce the influence and power of the larger populated left-wing states like California and New York. So they added another election reform. They changed the election of the House from direct district by district elections to a nationwide proportional voting system. Under this system, the whole country voted in the same election and voted only for which party they preferred. Seats in the House would be allocated based on the percentage of votes they received in the election, and the parties would be ones who chose which politicians got to sit in those seats. This greatly cut the power of the Progressives from California and the Radical Dems from New York. Before the “reforms” they received the most and 3^rd most seats in the House and now the Peace Party was able to give politicians from the South the majority of their seats. With the end of the Convention came the passage of the 28^th Amendment.

During the Presidential election cycle, the Peace Party solidified its place as the power party in DC. President Smith was re-elected as president, with electoral voting going along the lines of the 35/15 split from the Constitutional Convention. The election cycle also swept the Peace Party into power with 2/3^rd majorities in both the House and the newly won Senate. On their first official day in session, the new Peace Congress surprised the entire nation by passing a radical law. They easily passed the law through both Chambers of Congress. The law allowed President Smith to remain president and not have to face re-election until he “retires.”

California immediately sued the federal government, calling the new law unconstitutional. The case was immediately sent to the US Supreme Court. After a quick deliberation (quick by SCOTUS standards), the Supreme Court ruled the law to be unconstitutional and an overstepping of power by the Peace Congress by a 5-4 vote. The vote went down the lines of Justices that were put there by Democrat and Republican presidents of past. This expectantly sent the whole Peace Party into a heated rage. The leaders of the Party began to think of way to circumvent the Supreme Court, and did so by passing yet another Constitutional Amendment. They were now able to do so after gaining the 2/3 super majority in both Congress chambers.

The Peace Congress passed the 29^th Amendment to allow the President of the United States to serve until his retirement. The Supreme Court attempted to step in an act in the capacity of a Constitutional Court (using the excuse that there wasn’t one to do so). They attempted to rule that the 29^th Amendment was not line with the intention of the original founding document and diminished the separation of powers as defined by the Founding Fathers. The Peace Congress jumped on this and immediately began saying that SCOTUS had overstep their constitutional powers by naming themselves a constitutional court. They immediately created an impeachment trial for all 9 justices (Democrat and Republican nominees alike) on the grounds of constitutional violations. They quickly were able to go through and win the impeachment of the entire Supreme Court. Now with 9 vacancies, President Smith was able to nominate his own justices for those positions. He filled the positions with Judges from within the Peace Party and with clear political strings tying them to current members of the Congress (one of them was actually an elected member of the Senate who resigned to take the Supreme Court post, and the new Chief Justice was the sitting Attorney General). Their confirmation was merely a formality as the Peace party had the clear supermajorities in Congress.

After what they view as a Kangaroo court proceedings politicians from the left-wing (Radical Dems and Progressives) began to drift away from Federal politics. Many of the top politicians from both parties return to their respective states to focus on running the State and increasing their state’s power. With the top leftist politicians gone from Washington, the Presidency in solid hands, supermajorities in both chambers of Congress, and now the entire Supreme Court in their hands, the Peace Party and President Smith had finally accomplished their goal of solidifying their power and strangle hold over federal politics. President Smith held the power and California was left to sit back and watch events unfold.

New Content coming soon

I am going to begin rolling out new content on a regular basis. I have decided that I will be releasing new chapters weekly. Either on Monday or Tuesdays. This will keep the flow of new additions going, while also creating an accountability factor for myself. It gives me a deadline that will force me to actually get work done. So I hope that people get some what excited by this announcement, or if not oh well. Some day soon you will regret not being excited. Look for the newest chapter coming out at the beginning of the week.