TV interviews and rallies, more than I could count. Another week was gone in the blink of an eye – nine weeks to the election.
Iran was progressing, tens of thousands of identity cards were being issued a day. Electrical power had been restored to most of the country. Big generators were brought in to get the supply where it should have been decades ago. They were run off natural gas of which there was an endless supply. There were still more coming to get at least some reserve in the power grid.
There was an endless supply of general labor – without daily military drills and with a promise of a paycheck for working – they were ready. Many were skilled labor; they were put to work getting the country back together.
Four super tankers of oil had been sold: China bought one, France another, the United Kingdom got the 3rd and the 4th was sold to Brazil. Contracts were signed for monthly deliveries to those countries. There was money to pay for the things needed to gradually bring Iran back to the twenty first century.
I had a meeting on Thursday with OPEC group about oil sales, none of us wanted to see the price levels and sales targets destroyed. The last thing needed was an oil war. The Secretary of State and the director of the energy department with the joint chiefs were along for meetings with field commanders. We also brought the usual media detail.
Air Force One landed at King Salam International for the OPEC meeting. After a private meeting with the King I met with the Air Force commanders for a couple hours. Then I took a Greyhound flight to the USS Thomas to meet with Fleet Admiral Montgomery for an assessment of fleet performance.
Hanna was talking with a sailor and Jed was filming on the flight deck as I stepped off the Greyhound flight. They had become so accustomed to the air operations they didn’t notice me until the PA announced ”All hands Commander in Chief is now aboard.” Then they started filming me going through the VIP greetings.
”If you are ready to go home, get your go bags packed,” I said.
Then there was a meeting with all the Navy commanders of the war for a first hand update. I addressed the crew while I was there for a job well done.
Then a helicopter ride to the USS Fordson where I had a discussion with Admiral Bramble and Captain McCoy about any ship issues that required an immediate return to base, ”Well, you should be glad to hear that your shakedown cruise will last at least another two months. There are other objectives in the cards,” I said.
While I was on the USS Fordson I asked to be guided to Chief Petty Officer Hastings’ work area to see him.
Melinda Schaffer had been on a video call to ZNN below deck. I recognized her voice as we were passing the cabin she was using. I stuck my head in.
”Hey girlfriend, if you are ready to leave here pack your bags – the train is pulling out of the station in thirty minutes,” I said and then walked on.
I heard her tell the other end of her conversation, ”The President is on board with our tickets home, got to go. ”
CPO Hastings was at his workstation staring at a flat screen. ”Staring at it won’t make it work any faster,” I said startling him and causing him to jump. Melinda was behind me and filming.
”I think the ship has lived up to your letter; you were pouring it on pretty heavy and I am told the Fordson has performed exceptionally well for the first extended shakedown cruise,” I said.
We talked a few minutes and I posed for a few pictures with him and some shipmates.
Then I made another helicopter flight to the USS Boxer and met with the command structure for the ground troops, both Army General Irons and Marine General Downs.
With the Joint Chiefs we discussed future plans for Iran and benchmarks that had to be achieved to move to the next troop draw down. It was a ten point plan.
One of the early points was releasing as many of the prisoners as possible and getting some or most of the National Guard troops back home as soon as possible.
Helicopters carried my expanded groups back to the King Salam International Airport. The first thing was to catch up on the important emails and updates, then I was going to bed. I had four hours sleep in the last three days and I immediately had to hit the road campaigning again. A hot shower and the king size bed was going to feel good on the flight back.
I rested a day at home with my mates; we needed time together and I needed them. I needed time with the boys. I rested but not as much as I would have liked to.
The media had finally accepted that the explosion in New York was caused by human or computer error. Twelve hundred people had died in the building collapse and the surrounding buildings, including the twelve members of Soweto’s family and all management of Soweto Investments.
Worse yet was all corporate records were destroyed including electronic servers and backups that were in the basement, also the upstairs safes had been destroyed and contents burned. Someone was going to have one hell of a time trying to reconstruct the accounts to figure out the amounts the millions of investors were due.
Things were no different for Bloomfield Investments. It had taken four days to put the fires out. The building was on the verge of collapse; it was so unsafe the NYFD had refused all attempts to locate the victims’ bodies.
All the streets around the buildings were closed creating a traffic nightmare. Huge cranes were brought in to clear the debris from the Soweto building as fast as possible to look for victims.
Tomorrow was Friday again – eight weeks to the election – and the south-west swing was to start this afternoon. I spent all morning in the Oval Office catching up on reports and the things to keep the country going that a President needed to do.
Face Time and Twit were not pleased with my run for the presidency. I did not have – nor did the girls – a personal account in either and strictly forbid our security employees from having an account.
Both used tracking features that could not be turned off and used algorithms that could be used to out our security teams and protocols. Having an account with them or accessing them on company electronics was cause for immediate termination.
They allowed my presidential campaign account to be hacked several times in a week while locking it down twice and were in no hurry to reinstate it. It was flagged for content that we did not put on while hacked.
My campaign ads on the system were often delayed and the content changed there by changing the intent and target groups for the ads. Their managers were saying the ads didn’t meet their standards in the form submitted.
The NSA experts did some hacking on their own and tracked the hacks to be from Face Time’s own computer systems it; was their employees changing the site. My campaign was going to pay millions for ten weeks of ads on the site.
We had the same problem with Twit. I finally told the campaign to stop all ads and get our money back, that we would spend it on other media where we had more control on the final product.
Face Time was working with the Chinese to develop a Chinese approved Face Time system to better track Chinese citizens and interface with the American system. The experts strongly rejected allowing this cooperation because of the national security implications.
Marcus Sucker – founder of Face Time – strongly rejected NSA and FBI objections to the cooperation and joint venture on the grounds that they had systems to thwart any Chinese attempt to spy and track Americans.
Marcus Sucker was worth four hundred billion dollars. Zane Terpshaw – owner and developer of Twit – who also was working on a similar joint venture with the Chinese was worth a measly two hundred and eighty billion dollars. Both were at the extreme left of the worst liberals. Combined, they had donated nine hundred million dollars to liberal candidates in the primary election cycle.
Wednesday morning a chartered Lufthansa Airbus 380 carrying six hundred and fifty Face Time and Twit executives, engineers and designers as well as Sucker and Terpshaw and their corporate staff did a layover in Japan.
After the layover it continued to Shanghai. The Lufthansa chartered flight blew up at forty five thousand feet over the six thousand foot deep East China Sea. There were no survivors. I advised the treasurer to seize the assets of both individuals.
I left for the northwest swing of the campaign; Washington, Oregon, Northern California, Wyoming, Nevada, Colorado, and Utah. Three of those I had sent troops into to restore law and order.
I was expecting the trip to be a protester’s free for all, although polling showed I was points above the liberal candidate and that was a surprise. It was a four day trip.
On Air Force One I worked on the latest information from Iranian identifications; they were sixty percent done. Iranian TV was back on the air. The daily paper was back to publishing both editions.
There were daily instructions about coming events. Today they published the date for ratification of a new constitution and election of delegates. In order to vote each person must possess and display the new identification card. Penalty for possession of a counterfeit card or altering a card was the death penalty.
The push was on to convince everyone to get the mandatory new ID card.
Thirty thousand of the prisoners had been investigated and deemed as low risk. They had been issued ID cards and transported to their home town. That left sixty thousand to go so far; only fifteen hundred were deemed high risk.
Congress was trying to pass bills by the dozen. All of them wanted to get back home to campaign. They were being faxed to me as soon as they came to the White House.
There were big crowds at the campaign stops, even in Washington, Oregon and northern California. It was something that could lead to false hope as past elections had proved. It was easy to get them pumped up for a rally – it was another thing to get votes you could count on Election Day.
The Federal Election Commission had ended mail in voting for elections. It had proven to be disruptive to the process and open to fraud. The country and the world should know the winner by the next morning, not ten days later. Early voting was still allowed for five days prior to Election Day.
Absentee ballots were still available for those unable to vote normally. An official request to get one was required. The ballot must have a copy of the voter ID and a driver’s license – all items must match for it to be valid. All absentee ballots must be postmarked three days prior to Election Day or they would not be counted.
The military qualified and so did foreign workers for absentee ballots – this included JBG employees assigned abroad.
I was back home with my mates Sunday night. Monday morning there was another round of ads produced for my campaign and endorsements for the fifteen senate seats I wanted to win. The Super Pac was providing funding along with the party for them.
It was to counter the money from the liberal billionaires that was now greatly reduced. There were just three liberal billionaires pushing money to liberally progressive communists.
One of those billionaires was Tom Bennett; he was my worst opposition to correcting the problems in California. Stopping the riots and the construction of low income housing was affecting his billion dollar real-estate empire. The riots, looting and burning were being used to upgrade his downtown properties with the insurance money.
Clearing the homeless was interfering with plans to devalue entire neighborhoods and sub divisions and buy the properties at fire sale prices. The neighborhoods would be cleared and replaced with upscale homes, condos or commercial buildings.
He was funneling millions into a liberal Super Pac to be used directly against me. Jeanna’s Pac was countering the liberal Pac two dollars to one making it expensive. It was just seven weeks to the election.
Edit by Alfmeister
Proof read by Bob W.
Wow…as always a fantastic read….
I pray you never stop & stay i great health to you & family….
Happy new years 🎉
Thank You, Have a safe New Year.
Jack
Another excellent chapter. I noticed two stumbles significant enough to hope for corrections.
“Another other” seems like a case of wordsmithing aborted midstream. The only case where it would be accurate is if the discussed flight were the third in a flight plan, but even then it would bw awkward. “Then I made another other helicopter flight to the USS Boxer…”
“Absent tee ballots” has split the intended word in half and begs the question what constitutes a ‘tee ballot?’ (Temporary, perhaps, but is that even possible? – Good morning Mr. Phelps, your vote will disappear in sixty seconds.)” Seriously, I’m sure you intended just “absentee” at that point. “Absent tee ballots were still available for those unable to vote normally.”
Otherwise, spot on and thanks for the great entertainment. I’m a bit concerned about the timely plane crash right after the timely building explosion. Detractors in the press will likely quote some version of a particular old adage, though my favorite flavor in this context would be “Once may be accident and twice coincidence, while any more is likely deliberate action.” 😉
Fixed, I think.