Chapter Nineteen - Have I Got a Deal for You!

                         "A people that values its privileges above its principles soon loses both."

                                                                                                                    Dwight D. Eisenhower (1890-1969),
                                                                                                                    Inaugural Address, January 20, 1953

Have I Got a Deal for You!

A Change of Procedure from the Highest Level

Humstead was well aware that county and state organizations of the Republican Party traditionally acted autonomously in most things. That had perhaps been an interesting privilege at one time when the world and America was a simpler and less competitive place. But things had changed now and this would just have to change with it. The Republican Party needed some reorganization.

A perusal of the numbers for the Get out the Vote and fundraising had persuaded Humstead that a new approach was needed that would enable the Republican Party to keep abreast of the times and keep the number of Republican votes rising. Local organizations had annoying ways of projecting their own concerns on the issues and also, sometimes, failed to feel the total and all out enthusiasm for electing the candidate that they should of course feel if they were good Republicans. One little chink in the smooth running of those cogs could mean that a whole block, a whole precinct, a whole part of a county, or even an entire county might not get the full on focus required. Briefly Humstead shuddered at the thought of a whole state or part of a state being left at the mercy of a volunteer.

Voters were notional and could just take it in their heads to do something stupid, like not vote even if they were Republicans and knew that it was their DUTY to vote for the HEAD of their PARTY and a SITTING PRESIDENT even if they had a few questions about a few minor points like the war in Iraq. Thinking on this point he picked up a pen and made a note on the heavily embossed pad of paper bearing the Presidential seal that he kept on his desk.

The marketing department had done a great job coming up with titles and themes for the PARTY FOR THE PRESIDENT Campaign. Local Partiers could download some of the decorations and games to be played at the event – though it was probably enough to just have sufficient liquor to make sure the punch bowl did not run low.

Humstead shuddered a little. He had heard through his in depth snoops on the internet that there was even an organizing committee of Republicans considering voting for the Democrat, if the person nominated was not totally unacceptable to them. Thankfully it looked like a good bet the candidate would be Jack Bradstreet, the junior senator from Massachusetts, so that would not be a problem. Jack had all of the charisma of a pile of cod two days dead and unrefrigerated.

One thing about Branch, he had charisma. That had been the first thing that struck Humstead about him the first time they met over twenty years ago. He had the hard, tight good looks and the attitude that people noticed. Briefly, Humstead felt that familiar wash of sadness that his own physique was what it was. Dumpy. That was what that ugly woman from the Forum of Republican Women had said when she thought he couldn’t hear. But he had. He had fixed HER wagon. A tight little smile played over the chubby face.

Humstead had checked out the issue of loyalty voting, as he had decided to call it, but found that no law actually required a person to vote for the candidate of their party. Amazing that no one had thought this point through thoroughly enough before. Craig Humstead had turned this over to someone else for consideration. Leave no stone unturned, he always said.

Looking over the plan lay out on the huge computer screen sitting on the Louis XIIII desk where he oversaw operations for the larger campaign Humstead felt a stab of absolute and unadulterated pride. This was a real innovation. No one before himself had thought about actually changing the organization of the local party structures to help the Republican Party control things directly from the highest level. There had been some minor yapping from the dead wood in places like California. But the Republican Party was so ineffective there that they should have sent him thank you notes. Now they wouldn’t even have to pretend they could think.

Humstead shifted in his seat as he flashed through the projections for Presidential Parties to be scheduled directly from the office here into the homes and offices of activists all over the country. Just thinking about it made him tingle all over.

It was his job to see that the President was reelected and he was not going to fail no matter what it took.

The body count for Americans dying in Iraq continued to rise. The body count for Iraqis also was going up but no one bothered to count those bodies. A twelve year old boy, unarmed and watching the fighting from the roof of his home in Baghdad was shot to death. His father asked that the American who killed his son apologize. His request was ignored.

Confidential Briefing Prep.

Humstead was getting tired of this kind of thing. The President was receiving objections to the marketing plan Humstead had so carefully assembled. Humstead experienced a stab of irritation at the President. Sometimes the guy forgot just how close this thing could be. The multilevel marketing plan was simply brilliant; it was also necessary if the administration was to hold onto the presidency for the second term. Republicans would get used to it. They would enjoy it. Having parties they could understand. So why did he have to listen to all of the whining and objections?

As part of the prep work for the briefing Humstead was going over the updates on his seven layers of contingency plans. The Recall Campaign in California had been far more successful than they had imagined possible. The originator, a Californian activist, had used the Internet approach to petitioning. Obviously, this innovation was going to change petition and initiative drives. This time it had worked in their favor. Humstead made a note to look into the means for limiting its application for voter originated initiatives that would need to be defeated. The fringe crazies could be creative and would have to be countered. Having a movie star as a governor and a Republican was a piece of luck that would stand the campaign in good stead. Humstead planned to use it to the hilt. Give them some glamour and there were fewer problems all around.

The means Dicks had used to deal with the sexual accusations in California showed just how much he had grown through this last bad patch. He really should be rewarded. Humstead made a note to discuss this with the VP. Better to pass it through there first. Dicks’ book was due out this summer. Maybe they could do something for him in the White House.

Pausing, Humstead looked out the window. It was a mildly pleasant day. It might well be necessary for the VP to step down. If so, that should be managed in a way that created sympathy. Humstead glanced down at the list of potential replacements. Terrance Trotter, the former governor of Wisconsin now serving as Secretary of Health and Human Resources, was high up on the list. But there were some negatives there that would have to be dealt with. Humstead made a note. The woman who had filed papers against Trotter for sexual harassment was a Republican woman, but she could certainly be handled. They had experience with Republican women.

It was annoying but nothing to worry about in the long term.

There were other issues that were, however.

The issue of the draft had been introduced into the discussion, not from the administration but from a source with deniability. They did not want to unduly alarm young potential voters. Better they would stay home this November given their tendency to vote left.

The Democratic candidate, Bradstreet, was running a Me Too campaign on the policy on the war in Iraq so Humstead did not anticipate this becoming a real issue. He smiled. The idea of closing bases in Europe had played well at the last briefing. Those troops would then be available and the cost savings would be good for public relations as well as help the Administration direct needed resources into the war in Iraq and those campaigns still in the planning stages. Campaigns were fought out on perception, personality, and a positioning of issues that motivated specific groups.

Humstead, glancing down the list of issues deemed to have legs with their target groups, was satisfied that their ammunition would trump that of the opposition. After all, with a majority in Congress they could actually deliver.

American Revival – New York

It had been a wonderful evening. Gladys and Sam had felt for the first time as if there was some real hope for rebuilding the original vision of the United Nations, the vision they had both watched destroyed through manipulation over the past two generations.

The get togethers at the American Revival Headquarters had slowly been growing over the last weeks as more old friends and associates began talking about the work American Revival was doing. Gladys and Sam had extended their stay past what was originally planned and rather spontaneously they began getting together in the evenings to discuss the problems experienced with accomplishing their goals through the United Nations and elsewhere.

The United Nations was intended as the tool that would help humanity achieve a better world for everyone. Changing and redefining how it was used should not be a problem. Sam and Bernard had immediately seen ways this could be accomplished and Gladys, from her deep knowledge of the organization, helped them define and enlarge those means.

Much of this had been news to Dave, Dolly, Christopher and Larry. They had a very different view of the United Nations. But they talked about it in depth using the flow charts and development histories Larry had put together showing how all human organizations had developed over time. These included ancient church states, the original form of human government. They noticed the immediate tendency to hierarchy and wealth transfer, always upwards. This had nothing to do with who produced the wealth, it was clear. But finally they could see the picture. They agreed that every organization, including governments, were human tools for organizing human activities and providing such services as justice and security.

The fact was that doing the right thing, for individuals, businesses, organizations, or governments should pay off. Doing the wrong thing should exact liabilities. It was up to people to make that true.

Until now they had always viewed each other as The Enemy. Now they met and began talking. When there were disagreements they talked through them, separating the means of accomplishing those goals from the goal itself.

How to make right things pay off. It was an interesting challenge.

It had been Dolly who asked how the United Nations actually could work. Smiling, Gladys told her.

“It really started by opening the United Nations phone book. Any individual in the world could start with a delegation member or a section of their own government or NGO and/or any office in the tall Secretariat Building by simply looking in the back of the UN phone book for the list of offices - and finding the name of the very person in charge of the subject in mind. The phone books were available through the United Nations book store.

Take water, for instance. That Secretariat Office has been run by Melody Brandis forever. You look up Melody’s number; it is actually 212-000-8550. She is listed under the UN Department of Economic and Social Affairs but she knows her counterpart in every UN office that has any concern with WATER. Melody headed the UN Year of Water - 2003 which has now led to the Decade of Water which is a sort of PR effort by the UN which was forbidden from having any PR functions. There is an equivalent of a Melody for every topic known to man and she was always delighted to help out, pointing the inquirer in the right direction.

Being a Non-governmental Organization with the UN allows anyone to observe, recommend, use the free communication and meeting room/translation facilities, learn about experts in their field and educate locally and globally. The big NGOs like the Red Cross and World Wildlife Fund and International Peace Committee and the World Forum of Fisherpeoples now could actually speak during sessions of the UN. Every one would hear you.

Individuals have gotten treaties passed and effected tremendous changes. You could convene a conference that drew people with common interests together from all over the world. And all of this happened without cost. The United Nations makes the facilities and the network for communicating accessible and available.

When a proposal is accepted by vote of the General Assembly it became an agenda item and the Secretary General was obligated to support it.

Gladys told them, enthusiasm lighting her eyes, that she had done this twice herself.

Continuing, she talked about other disused resources.

Across the way there is the World Council of Churches, which does not do much now, but it could. It, too, needed to be used intelligently. That is what the United Nations is; a resource, a tool sitting and waiting to be taken up and applied to solve the problems of the world.

Dave and the crew at American Revival had not known much about the United Nations. This had surprised Gladys and Sam at first, but it explained a lot. Dave, Christopher and Larry had all received their political education from the Libertarian or Republican quadrant. They had bought into the Line they were told without any checking whatsoever. Now that they reconsidered this, using the thrice checked facts rule, they were chagrined. Larry too notes. He would check the facts recounted by Gladys but none of them much doubted, given the other lies told by the NeoCons, where the truth would lead them.

Astonished, Gladys and Sam had flatly denied such a conspiracy ever existed. Gladys found the assumption funny. Sam was slightly offended.

This was the mythology of the Right/Libertarian political viewpoint that was so accepted that it was no longer even arguable. But if this was so, asked Sam, why did the U.S. government call on the United Nations when ever certain kinds of problems appeared? This had been true no matter what party was in power. Was it appropriate for America to dictate to the rest of the world on issues within their borders or on issues that affected their ability to fish and for their people to live in a clean environment? Why were two sets of standards alright?

Interestingly enough, it was Larry who responded to this. Larry had taken over the data analysis and had been correlating the political spin, party specific mythologies, with the actions of each political party and with the corporations who donated. He had deduced some time ago that a two tiered system of ethics had replaced the earlier system, one that viewed all people as equal.

Both major political parties really had adopted a monarchist world view. “Americans are worth more than people of other nationalities.” Put baldly, that was a despicable and ugly assertion. It had made everyone present cringe. Larry had not yet bothered to determine when the transition had begun. Larry asked brightly if Dave wanted him to factor for the perceived value of other nationalities as represented by decimals or percentages. Also, the dominance of this mythological perception varied throughout the American population as a whole. Did he want to look at that demographically? If it mattered he would expedite that research. Dave told him not to bother. It had happened. Who was responsible was not the biggest problem. What they were going to do about it was what really mattered.

That people all mattered equally, Dave said, was the only appropriate viewpoint.

As it turned out, the insertion of a class system in valuing human life had been an essential for the installation of a totalitarian state in several of the instances in recent history. Certainly this had been true in Nazi Germany. Larry had the numbers and had correlated the shift of public perception with the repetition of argumentation and propaganda in the days leading up to the openings of the death camps.

During this dialogue Dave felt himself moving through a strange transformation. On some level he had still believed that what they were doing was a matter of reform. He had started this in the firm belief he was going to rescue the ‘good’ party, meaning the Republican Party from the hands of its abductors. That view had gradually faded. It was now clear that many of these people had moved too far from the founding principles of freedom and equality to move back. It was unclear if freedom had ever really been on their agenda at all. Gladys and Sam had also been shocked. Their party had also failed to be a tool that ensured that doing the right thing paid off.

That this had been an intentional manipulation was clear from the source of the propaganda. This also lead to the irreducible conclusion that America had ceased having a two party system quite some time before. Both parties had become the tools of one larger interest group. The policies, the funders, those who profited, and the mythologies diverged in some areas but over all they were the same.

When Larry, going through the numbers, made this clear Dave realized he had begun to believe this some time before. He simply had not yet verbalized it, even to himself.

Marginalizing the United Nations had been accomplished over many administrations and through the concerted actions of people from both parties. Even that was only one point in a larger pattern. The power of the people to control their own lives, make their own decisions, live responsibly in the personal autonomy first envisioned by the Founders, had been converted to a system where the people, land, and all resources were viewed by the State as a possession of the State not yet converted or used. That the government saw foreigners as a resource with even fewer remaining rights was no comfort to anyone.

Now the question remained. What were they going to do about it?

Lindsey returns to New York

After spending eight months in a basement in Georgia New York looked entirely different. The noise in the City was a sharp contrast to the near silence of the Brenderhoffer’s house in Georgia. The Dogwood trees had launched their flurries of butterfly-like flowers when Lindsey waved goodbye to the family. She knew she would miss Dwayne and the kids and Humpershots. In the eight months she had been there Lindsey had come to love all of the Brenderhoffers and that kind of connection never really ends; they had become family and family, real family, is always there for each other. If the attorney had not told them that depositions were due to start Lindsey would have stayed in Georgia.

Returning, Lindsey believed, would allow her the justice she deserved. Instead, the summer back in New York delivered one shock after another. Her attorney, Hiram Cod, Esq., ignored her questions. Her calls to his office went unanswered. The depositions she had come back to have were never set. He had said April but August rolled around and she had not heard from him in four months.

She started to feel that terrible sense of panic that had hounded her when she had first gone to the authorities to report the abuse. Now, looking back on it she realized that Dicks had played the system like a violin and he had had lots of help. He had persuaded the District Attorney’s office to treat her like a felon. He had gotten her former stepfather and a former boy friend to write perjurous declarations. Vlad and her stepfather had each received ‘considerations’ of great value to them. The former boy friend was now writing for the online adjunct of the Canal Street Journal. The former stepfather had gotten to rub shoulders with people who otherwise would never have given him the time of day. For some people, that would not be enough to motivate them to do something so ugly, but for Cliff Ironworker any opportunity to rub body parts with people of influence was more than enough motivation.

Cliff had tried to get into bed with Lindsey while he was divorcing Linden. Lindsey had ordered him out of the room. Later Linden used a private detective to look into his personal behavior and had learned he was a sexual pervert who had probably married her because of her nubile daughters.

Lindsey had been forced to sit through six hours of interrogations by the ADA assigned to her case. Her attorney had not been present. She had not been asked a single question about the abuse. Instead she was forced to answer questions about her sex life and having been sexually abused by her uncle as a child. Evidently being a victim cancelled your rights in American law, at least when you were fighting the wrong people.

Life could be so ugly. Neither of them deserved what was happening.

Lindsey was not seeing most of her old friends. It had become clear that Tom Dicks was more politically useful both to the movement and to the NeoCons. If even her godfather had turned his back on her for reasons of political expedience then it was hopeless to expect anyone else would help. It had been the experience with Dave that had forced Lindsey to look elsewhere for friendship and support. His hurtful words, his disbelief, had felt like a knife twisted in her heart. Dave had been her friend, someone she could talk to who would just listen, who had no agenda, someone who she could trust. She missed that.

She had seen him turning the corner towards his apartment near the Starbucks where they had met for coffee so often but she had hung back and let him walk ahead of her.

The months had held other kinds of hurts and shocks coming at her like the blows of a pile driver.

Lindsey sat staring at her phone. She had called her attorney fifteen times in the last two weeks and he still had not returned a single call. The attorney had demanded she be back in New York for depositions that were to have started a week ago. Lindsey had already sent him a full chronology of events, documentation of the frauds with letters from the bank, documentation of phone calls she had made, visits to the banks, and other proofs. He also had copies of taped conversations and articles about the events. Along with that Lindsey had sent a list for discovery that needed to be submitted to the court for subpoenas. It had not been submitted.

Now, this morning, Lindsey had gotten a call from Ray Rayford Stiller telling her to pick up Our Country, a leftist journal that went out nationally. It is there had been an article by Felix Eunuchman, a slightly slimy journalist who it was generally known was negligent about doing his due diligence. Lindsey had had some contact with him the year before when he had written an article mentioning her without using her name.

Reading the article, seeing her name, made Lindsey want to curl up and die. For the three years of the relationship she had held on to the hope that they would marry and replace the baby she had aborted. She had told her self that over and over again. She had had the abortion to protect the man she loved and also the movement that she passionately believed was protecting the cause of liberty.

How could they do this to her? How could they accuse her of being a liberal spy? Their friends knew better and were silent.

Ray offered to write a rebuttal. Lindsey, nearly in tears, told him she would be very grateful if he would. When she finally put down the phone after telling her mother she was shaking. This followed on the heels of another attack on her good name and the credibility of her mother. Linden had been active in the Forum for Republican Women for many years. Earlier in the spring the President of the Forum for California had invited Dicks to speak at their quarterly conference. Shocked, Linden had protested to be ordered to be silent by their state president. Did this mean, Linden had asked, that the Republican Party and the Forum endorsed abuse?

It was obvious that Dicks was doing everything possible to discredit both of them. It was exactly the same behavior, transferred to his personal life that he had used against Jeb Franks during the Quince Administration. He told completely unsubstantiated lies and asked they be accepted because he used ‘confidential sources.’ In their case he also, Lindsey had discovered, ‘confided’ in people over the hideousness of the trauma he had undergone. Over the past months Lindsey had discovered, with disgust, how he painted himself. Of course the stories he told were complete fabrications but no one, not one person, ever checked or even called them to ask. People generally fell into two categories in this regard. Either Dicks was useful to them politically and they wanted to stay on his good side or they were intimidated and afraid to say anything.

Lindsey well knew that she and her mother were far less useful than Dicks to those eager to advance themselves in politics. She simply had not thought then that so many people could be so corrupt or so afraid. But of course they were. That was a fact she had now accepted and learned to live with. What she would not do was give up.

The Democrats had surprised her. That Mervin had passed up the chance to get back at Dicks by helping had been astonishing. Briefly, Lindsey wondered why then dismissed the thought. Thinking about all that she and her mother were risking to defend themselves made her sick. The internal bleeding that Dicks’ abuse had caused had slowly stopped. She hardly ever vomited blood any more. But the three years she had endured, the lies the manipulation, and the abuse, that had changed her. At one time the ideas of liberty had been something in the past, something she accepted as already won. Now she knew that this was a battle still to be fought. And no matter what that battle was going to happen.

Looking across the room Lindsey saw the picture of George Washington. Very few people seemed to know that the winter in Valley Forge had actually been a training session for the desperately ill prepared army that Washington had led from one disastrous lost battle to another. Washington had had to confront the fact he was a general in name only in the months leading up to the winter encampment at Valley Forge.

Washington’s military experience had been too limited. He had realized that only after the war was in process. But no colonial officer was better qualified, either. If Washington had asked to be relieved it would have been devastating to the Revolution so instead he had taken the money provided by Congress and found a Prussian, Friedrich Wilhelm Ludolf Gerhard Augustin Stuebe, a major skilled in the arts of warfare who styled himself a Baron, to train him and his army. It had worked and the campaign that began in June of 1778 made the winning of the war a reality.

Lindsey wondered how it had felt for Washington to decide at such a time that you needed to go back to school to do the job you were already trying to do. It took a real courage to do that, a courage that went beyond the physical and into the spirit. Real courage always involves confronting your own fears and limitations.

Looking at the picture Lindsey imagined how he had felt. He must have confronted his pride, his honor, and his sense of self in those days and hours when he realized he was failing.

Well, what Washington had done changed the course of the Revolution. This small cousin would do no less. It is a false pride that refuses to see the truth. What had happened to her was not just about domestic violence, though that was important. It had become an issue of power and how power in the hands of the unethical could be manipulated and abused. No one was going to help. Therefore they, she and her mother, needed to learn how to help themselves. She needed to know more and there was no time like the present to begin.

Charlotte, North Carolina

It had seemed so close. They had come so close to getting the Mitchell children returned to John and Helen. Coop hated to think about it. When he looked into their faces he felt like he was burning with shame. Even though they had told him it was not his fault, and it wasn’t, at least all of it, Coop still knew that it had been the unwarranted trust he had given all too freely that had allowed this to happen. It embarrassed him that his trust had been invested not only in strangers but in people who should have known he should question more closely.

The woman had seemed so credible. Initially, she had gotten in touch with Dirk Smithers. Coop had met Dirk while he was helping Dirk out with Dirk’s own case. Dirk was bright and eager to get involved in the organization Coop was building. Soon, Coop had appointed him his second in command and let him do fundraising in the name of the nonprofit they had founded. Dirk became the out front guy, talking to the public and the media. Coop was glad to let him do it; he preferred training people to do the work in court. That was the way they had organized it and it seemed to be working well until Frederica La Fond arrived.

Coop had found himself somehow obligated to pay for her ticket for her first trip into Charlotte from their organization’s account. He had not liked that. Initially, Frederica had told them she would be flying in on the corporate jet but then it had become inconveniently unavailable. Frederica had her own organization that sold short flyers giving advice on how to handle pro se law suits and how to deal with the DSS when they began their machinations. Later, Coop discovered that all of these well written pieces had been lifted whole from the excellent book by the woman who had helped Frederica out when she had gotten into trouble with the DSS herself. No credit was given to the author who had done the work.

Frederica had come into Charlotte, creating tremendous excitement and making enormous claims. But she immediately begun criticizing the work Coop had done to reunite the Mitchell kids with their parents. This had been bad enough but it got worse.

Frederica had shared her own tragic story. According to Frederica she had been in hiding from an abusive husband for years. He was in jail serving time for raping a 14 year old girl. The outpouring of compassion and awe that she had been able to survive in the face of this kind of pain brought her into town on a wave of enthusiasm. The first trip had been filled with excitement. Coop had immediately been concerned because her stories did not seem to make sense to him, but he deferred to the others he had been working with. If they wanted her he would try to see the good in it.

But when she came back the holes in her story had turned into chasms deep enough to hold a regiment. Instead of a jet her second arrival was in the driver’s seat of a U-haul with her ten children occupying the back illegally and without being allowed bathroom breaks. Coop learned from the people at the commune where she had been living for the last year and a half that there had been serious problems - and she had left the commune with a big slice of their property in the back of her U-haul. Even at that they did not want her back. They were just glad to get rid of her. Frederica’s children, ages a year and a half to ten, often urinated on the floor according to the people at the commune. This observation was confirmed by those she stayed with in North Carolina. The kids were filthy, unhappy and badly raised.

Coop was appalled. While he had not reported them to the authorities himself, when asked had been truthful as to what he and others had observed. It had been the problems with Frederica that had caused the DSS to withstand their attempts to reunite the Mitchells with their children. Frederica’s attack on his credibility had been bad enough but what followed was worse.

The event and the aftermath had taught him not to trust without checking. That aftermath had abruptly altered the make up of his then growing nonprofit foundation. He had lost the case and he had lost someone he thought of as a friend.

Coop had found out that Dirk was sleeping with the daughter of a family they had been helping. Coop had gotten the call from one of the other litigants he had trained on his cell phone while he was doing a brake job for the old man who lived two lots down in his mobile home park. The old man could not afford to pay for having it done. Coop wanted to make sure he had a car that would get him where he needed to go and home safe. Decent people help each other, that was how he had been raised and what he believed.

Sighing, Coop looked over the records he had finally extracted from Dirk. The man had been falsifying tax donation records to benefit the girl’s family. Cleaning up the mess would be no small matter. But it must be handled, and honestly.

Coop ejected Dirk from his position. The man’s charm had only been exceeded by his greed and bad judgment. The aftermath had been nasty but that must be shouldered. Coop never had a problem shouldering his load. That is what a man did and he would never be anything less than a man.

A Military Family

Nora had just picked the kids up from school when the doorbell rang. As with all military wives whose husbands are serving overseas she felt a stab of fear; the doorbell could announce a chaplain with a long face and bad news. This was bad news, but bad news of another kind.

The woman from the DSS asked a lot of nosy questions about how she was educating their children. She demanded to see their medical records, looked around the house and told her there was a lot that needed to be changed. Looking around her neat but too small house after the woman left Nora wondered what she could have done differently. And she was afraid. Another family had lost their children the week before after a similar visit. They seemed to be targeting the families of military probably because the obedience demanded by the military made them easy marks.

But Nora was not going to wait. The family who had lost their children had joined an organization that was led by a woman who was getting results. Nora found their number and called. Karen answered the phone. Her calm voice made Nora feel less frightened. This could be handled. Nora straightened up, calming herself. If her husband could risk his life to keep them free she could make sure their kids were here when he returned from doing his duty.

Segment with Tough Talk

The commentators and pundits begin talking about the present need for a draft. No one objects.

Oil prices are rising. Trains carrying troops for Homeland security begin traveling through the night to various locations.