The Second Civil War- The Complete History

by Adam Yoshida

  U.S. Capitol

  Representative Jack Hawkins was one of the one hundred and sixteen members of the House of Representatives and Senate who was young and fit enough and who had the requisite experience to join the so-called “Congressional Provisional Battalion” that was now being organizes by the ex-Special Forces soldiers who Jacob Henry had brought down to the Capitol.

  Looking upon the videos from the House Chamber, Hawkins earnestly wished that he had a gun. Seeing the United States Capitol outraged by a filthy mob of worthless wretches had filled him with an unquenchable rage, unlike any that he had felt in years. When he had joined the Army after September 11th, Hawkins had wanted more than anything else to serve his country – and to be seen doing so, should he later decide to run for public office. However, while over there, he had discovered a truth about himself that he had previously only suspected: not only was he good at killing people, he actually enjoyed it. This was a rare quality among combat leaders and it made him both incredibly proficient and intermittently a liability to his senior officers.

  Now, watching the protestors, it was difficult for Hawkins to think of anything more than killing them. Everyone who Hawkins had previously killed had been killed at a distance: a bullet fired across hundreds of yards. Looking at the people who had violated the Capitol, Hawkins could not hold back his desire to inflict a much-more personal form of death upon them. He wished to grab one by the neck and to hold on, merciless and unbending, as life passed out of the eyes of the criminal in his hands. He wanted them to know who had done it and why. This, he believed, would be truly the work of the Lord.

  “We need to execute this without shooting anyone,” said the trainer, “no guns. We’re not issuing them and I’m telling you now: don’t bring them into the chamber with you. Gas first – then batons. Just like we planned it. Got it?”

  Hundreds of pro-Administration protestors had been “occupying” the majority of the Capitol Building for hours now. The DC Police refused to come. The military and Federal law enforcement remained under the command of the President. The Capitol Police – at least those members willing to participate in the retaking of the complex – were too small a force to conduct such an operation. That meant that the Congress itself had to move – and move fast – if it was to take back control of the situation.

  “Alright,” said the retired Marine Gunnery Sergeant who was leading the operation, “let’s go.”

  The protestors had had the foresight to blockade the lower-level door into the House Chamber, but someone had obtained several strongly-built benches to use as battering rams. As the first assault teams began to move towards the primary door, a group of one hundred men and women – a mix of members of the Capitol Police and civilian volunteers with military or law enforcement experience – moved through the upper corridor towards the viewing gallery. As the posse moved forward they began to make a liberal use of tear gas and pepper spray, tossing the tear gas canisters forward and deploying the spray against anyone who attempted to approach them too closely.

  Congressman Hawkins hung further back, standing alongside a second team of one hundred and fifty men and women who were equipped with zip ties and other materials necessary for detaining the incapacitated protestors and then physically removing them from the House of Representatives. From his position on the lower floor he could hear the sounds of a struggle emanating from upstairs, but received no individual update as to the progress of the assault.

  Once the upstairs wave of the assault reached the doors to the viewing gallery, the more hard-core protestors had begun to prepare themselves to mount a defense. Having anticipated the possibility that some police force would make a heavy use of chemical agents in order to eject with a minimum level of force, many of these protestors had equipped themselves with improvised gas masks. To counter this, the Congressional Provisional Battalion had been equipped with police-issued batons and tasers. The protestors didn’t have any tasers: but they did have bats and other blunt objects that could be transformed by a mere change of intent into improvised weapons.

  Jonathan Layton was one of the protestors armed with such a weapon: a baseball bat in his own case. Later some would raise this fact as evidence of his own ill intent: why did the twenty-one-year-old man from Montpellier have a bat if he did not intend to commit acts of violence? No one has ever been able to establish the clear provenance of the bat that he was holding that morning, through multiple theories exist. That he had a bat and swung it at the provisionals has been more than established and verified by both photographic and video evidence.

  Mary Elizabeth Gibbon was a twenty-four-year-old student from Lexington, KY who had previously served in the U.S. Army and was working in the office of Representative Evelyn Greenwich as a Deputy Press Secretary. Based upon her previous service, she was one of the first people to volunteer for service in the Provisional Battalion. Based upon her proficiency as demonstrated during the very abbreviated training and organization period, she was assigned to the team responsible for taking back the upper floor in order to saturate the House Chamber with gas in order to permit an orderly retaking of the lower floor. Though smart and tough, she was also slight: it was anticipated that the people in the lower-level of the House would be required to physically drag multiple individuals out.

  As the members of the Provisional Battalion moved towards the doors to the House Gallery, wading through a cloud of CS gas, Layton charged in the direction of the masked Gibbon, preparing to swing his bat at her. Gibbon held her ground and fired upon Layton with the X26 Taser that she had been issued from the Capitol Police’s stocks.

  Tasers are, of course, generally an excellent non-lethal option for subduing an attacker. However, in the case of Mr. Layton, it was later disclosed that he suffered from a congenital heart defect. The use of the taser against him triggered instant cardiac arrest. Perhaps he would have lived had he received instant medical attention, but the Provisional Battalion had a job to do and so, in what some would later argue was an atrocity and others would view as the reasonable punishment of a just God, Layton was left to die alone on the floor.

  In minutes the men and women of the provisional battalion were pushing their way through the hallway towards the entrance to the gallery. With their tactical batons and shielded by a cloud of gas they were able to batter their way forward. When the protestors moved forward they struck them again and again, battering them to the ground with one deeply satisfying thwack after another. Finally, after what seemed to be an eternity but was in fact fewer than five minutes, they pushed their way through to the gallery and began to hurl canisters of CS gas into the lower portion of the chamber, covering the protestors on the floor of the House with a visible cloud.

  As soon as the members of the provisional battalion took control of the gallery back, the men and women on the lower floor broke down the door of the House and charged on through. The protestors in the floor had had more time to prepare and many of them were wearing protective gear. Hawkins swung his baton furiously as a masked protestor charged towards him, making contact with his chin and sending the man flying backwards. Another protestor ran towards the Congressman. Hawkins, remembering his years playing football, firmly planted his feet against the ground and allowed the man to impact him. Once he did he grabbed hold of him and wrestled him to the ground, using his free hand to pummel him. The enraged Congressman threw blow after blow against the man with his baton, not being able to do as much damage as he would have liked due to their close physical proximity.

  “Motherfucker!” the Congressman screamed as he managed to gain the upper hand in the fight, standing up and continuing to strike the prone man who now retreated into a fetal position.

  U.S. House of Representatives

  As soon as the members of the provisional battalion had gained control of the House Chamber, every possible window as opened and fans were brought in to clear out the tremendous quantity of gas that had been used during the operation. Members of the Ca
pitol Police and the Congressional Provisional Battalion were positioned to prevent a further break-in into the Capitol itself. Zip-tied protestors were left to sit in the Capitol basement as the bodies of the two protestors who had been killed during the retaking of the House Chamber were discreetly moved into a dis-used freezer in the cafeteria of one of the buildings that collectively made up the Library of Congress.

  Citing the deaths, which it had been decided prudent to immediately disclose, the majority of the Democratic members of the House were refusing to attend the emergency session that had been called by the Speaker.

  “It is impossible for decent human beings to sit quietly alongside those who would murder innocent protestors merely seeking to exercise their most fundamental of rights,” said the House Minority Leader in a statement.

  The Speaker’s office announced that the Speaker would respond in an address to the American people in two hours.

  “You know,” the Speaker said quietly to Nelson and the other operatives in the Ford Building, “I don’t know if a speech from the floor of the House is quite right for this occasion.

  “What do you have in mind?” asked Nelson.

  “Well,” said the Speaker, “if the Democrats are going to boycott anyways... We can kind of do what we want.”

  Thus, two hours later, the Speaker found himself in the unusual place of waiting outside of the House chamber as a telegenic Congresswoman from Kentucky, chosen especially for the occasion, gaveled the House into session on one side of the Capitol as, over on the other side, the junior Senator from Maine did the same.

  “Therefore, be it enacted by the House of Representatives and the Senate of the United States of America in Congress assembled,” read the Clerk of the House, “a Joint Resolution inviting the Hon. Terrance Rickover, Speaker of the United States House of Representatives, to address a Joint Meeting of Congress on the events of recent days as soon as it is practicable for him to do so.”

  As soon as the yeas and nays were called for, a mighty roar of approval rose up from the floor of the House as a gratified Rickover looked on in the distance.

  The Oval Office, The White House

  President Bryan sat slumped in his chair, looking at the ground. Slowly and wordlessly he ran his foot over the patch he had worn into the Oval Office carpet underneath his feet by endlessly pushing his chair back and forth.

  “What is this fucking bullshit?” said the President, throwing a pile of papers down upon the desk in disgust.

  “There is some precedent for it, Mr. President,” noted Jamal Anderson. “Other non-Presidential dignitaries have addressed joint meetings before... It’s the procedure used to invite foreign leaders to speak to the Congress. Usually when Americans do it, it’s for memorials and the like...”

  “No,” said the President, “fuck this. This is treason. He’s not the President. I’m the fucking President.”

  “Mr. President,” said Anderson quietly, “I think that the time has come that we consider what a de-escalation might look like. Whatever might be said about how they managed to do if, they’ve got control of the House and Senate at this point and they’re not going to pass your bill...”

  “But the how,” said the President, jumping up from his chair and practically sprinting to the edge of the room, “is the key to our victory. How is everything!”

  “Sir?”

  “Is the process legitimate? Is it legal?” the President stabbed his finger at the television where the members of Congress were waiting for the Speaker to begin his speech, “is this even a legal session of the United States Congress?”

  U.S. House of Representatives

  “Members of the Senate and the House of Representatives,” said the presiding officer, “the Speaker of the House.”

  Rickover stood up at the rostrum as the three hundred and fourteen members of the Congress who had chosen to attend the Joint Meeting stood as one and began to applaud wildly. Many did not even have proper seats on account of the damage done to the House of Representatives during the course of the protestors’ occupation and the bitter fighting to take back control of the place. The makeshift chairs and the debris left scattered across the floor did more than almost any other single factor to convey to television and web viewers the extraordinary nature of the occasion.

  “Mr. President Pro Tempore, members of the Senate and the House of Representatives, fellow Americans,” began the Speaker, “I come before you tonight to speak to you at the greatest moment of peril that our republic has faced in more than a century and a half. Already blood had been shed and lives have been lost as a result of the political and economic strife that has engulfed our nation and, unless an immediate change in course is agreed upon, this will be only the beginning.

  “Yesterday, the United States Congress was subjected to an invasion by protestors who aimed to shut down free debate and to coerce the members of this body into passing laws against their best judgement. This invasion and occupation were only made possible because of the willing collusion of some elements of the Federal Government with the mob that was encamped outside of the Capitol. Indeed, collusion is the best case scenario – it is wholly possible that the mob itself was a creation of those same elements of our own government.

  “I wish I could describe this grotesque abuse as an isolated incident or a tragic mistake by a few misguided individuals. But I cannot. It is an escalation, to be certain, but one that fits into a pattern of hostile actions taken by certain elements of our government as led by the current President of the United States. During his short time in office, this President has – in keeping with a pattern set by his predecessors – repeatedly exceeded his authority and violated both the spirit and the letter of the Constitution. He has attempted to abuse the laws duly passed by the Congress in an attempt to legislate by decree. He has unlawfully seized private property and appropriated it for his own purposes. He has used the judicial organs of the government to attempt to silence and intimidate critics. This President has consistently misused the powers granted to him by the American people in a way that is fundamentally destructive to their interests.

  “When the Congress declined to borrow as much money as it wished, this Administration found a pseudo-loophole and invented for themselves a right to coin as much money as they needed. When even that didn’t prove enough, they used a law meant to allow the government to confiscate funds belonging to governments engaged in hostilities with the United States to simply steal money from American businesses. When people spoke out against these abuses they tried to throw them in jail on trumped-up charges. And when they Congress finally and definitively said no to all of this, then they sent a mob to shut us down.

  “This must stop and it will stop. This President believes himself to be immune from the law, free to take whatever actions he wishes because he still has the approval of the mob and so long as thirty-four Democrats in the Senate refuse to vote for his removal from office he is invincible. And perhaps, today, that much is true. But what of tomorrow? And what of those who would follow the orders of this President?

  “We, as Americans, have an obligation to refuse to follow unconstitutional orders – whether they come from a police chief or a President. “I was just following orders” is not a defense for those who would violate fundamental rights.

  “The President alone does not have the power to violate the rights of citizens or to shred the Constitution. To do these things he must have collaborators. Perhaps it is true that we will never convince enough Democratic members of the Senate to vote to convict this President and remove him from office, but he will be rendered equally powerless if those who serve this country – and have vowed to uphold the Constitution – refuse to execute his illegal orders.

  “It is not merely that those called upon to do so should refuse to execute the illegal orders of this President, it is incumbent upon them that they must do so. The Constitution is not optional.

  “Accordingly, the Congress shall immediately pas
s a resolution noting that the so-called “superior orders” defense is no defense against either criminal or civil sanctions and, surely, merits the loss of employment under the Federal Government. It is true that, today, this resolution will be of little effect and will certainly be symbolically vetoed by this President – but we shall place it upon the public record and we will act upon it in days to come and when there is – as soon enough there shall be – a change of Administrations.

  “My fellow Americans, the time has come for all good citizens to rally to the aid of their country. The acts of this government have become intolerable. I am not asking you to riot. I am not asking you to loot or kill. I am asking all of you, as Americans, to rise up and to speak with a single voice saying that we are citizens of a republic, not subjects of a monarch. That we are free citizens with the liberties of a free people and that we will not submit to tyranny or dictatorship.

  “The Congress of the United States is here with you. The Congress of the United States stands with freedom-loving people everywhere. We will do so today. We will do so tomorrow. God willing we shall do this forever and ever.

  “But a free Congress can only be an effective servant of a free people. And that is why I am asking that you stand with us and help us here tonight.

  “I want you to stand up and tell this President – and all who support him – and say that we will not tolerate the usurpation of our rights as Americans. That we stand together and will not allow one further violation or one further transgression.”

  The Oval Office, The White House

  “This is a fucking insurrection!” screamed the President at the top of his lungs.

  “Mr. President...” said Secretary of Defense Gerald Ransom, attempting to get the President to stop and meet his eyes as the man moved back and forth in a random pattern across the Oval Office.