As predicted in The Transformation: GTE 45 the first firewall to fall will be the media. We saw this played out the other day at Trump’s news conference when he called out CNN as “fake news.” Pointing at the CNN reporter he accused, “Your organization is terrible… ” I am not going to give you a question. You are fake news.” Minutes later White House press secretary to be Sean Spicer, threatened to eject Acosta if he spoke out again. Lurking in the background, as always,  is Trump’s private security force ready to enforce our new strongman’s control over the press and public. The Trump team also packed the press conference with staffers instructed to cheer on their boss.

Reinforcing this new reality, Republican Congressman Jason Chafetz, Chair of the House Oversight Committee, also promised to make good on his pre-election threat to continue the witch hunt against Hillary Clinton.  In a seemingly greenlight tweet today, Trump declared, “What are Hillary Clinton’s people complaining about with respect to the FBI. Based on the information they had, she should never have been allowed to run – guilty as hell,”

But the new regime’s threats to our liberty don’t end there. Chafetz also menaced Walter Schaub, the federal ethics officer who has hinted he will investigate Trump. As a warning to Schaub Chafetz admonished, “Your agency’s mission is to provide clear ethics guidance, not engage in public relations. ” And this, my friends, is only the start of what is sure to become a regular diet of intimidation.

Here’s how this scenario of intimidation is played out in a fictional America set in the near future in The Transformation: GTE 45:

“The nation was shocked by this post-election pronouncement. President Harris immediately made the late night talk show rounds to deny it all. Numerous members of her administration along with the now out of power political party did the same. Cross did not back down. She held a formal press conference in the Rose Garden denouncing Cross as a demagogue. His rhetoric only escalated. She even addressed the nation in a prime time speech condemning Cross and pleading with the American people not to succumb to fear mongering, reminding them that this nation’s political success was anchored on a peaceful and gracious transfer of power. Cross responded by demanding her immediate arrest.

Consequently, no one was really surprised when his RW&B minutemen stormed the Whitehouse taking the soon-to-be ex- President, Vice-President, Chief of Staff and all of her Cabinet into custody. Some of the media noted that neither the Secret Service nor any U.S.A. military forces came to her defense; even her personal security detail fled. FAP sympathizers had been infiltrating the U.S. armed forces for many years, while key military officers were firmly aligned with the FAP. Even the head of the Joint Chiefs of Staff was in the FAP’s pocket.

The Capitol was secured within hours and President Harris and her vice-president were confined to their residential quarters under close guard. Cross took to the airways demanding Articles of Impeachment be brought against the sitting president. Some asked, why bother, since she was leaving office in less than three months anyhow. No, the FAP demanded she must be formally impeached, her administration and all its policies repudiated. The FAP wanted, needed, to justify what was to come. Sure enough, one week later the House of Representative impeached President Harris along with her vice-president for treason and sedition. The Senate, hastily called back to Washington, quickly passed sentence: immediate expulsion from office. But it didn’t end there. The reviled former office holder, along with her entire Cabinet, close advisors, and the vice-president, were straightaway taken into formal, military custody and held in a secret location. The FAP commander explained it was for the protection of the detainees as well as the nation.

As per the Constitution, the reins of power were turned over to the President pro tempore of the Senate who just happened to be newly elected Vice-President Randall Carey, one of the founding members of the FAP. He quickly reaffirmed the arrest of the President and Vice-President along with the others declaring, “We will let a civilian court deal with them later.”

Their fate was never disclosed.

Meantime growing numbers of RW&B security forces were deployed in all major urban centers. When asked at his first news conference why he wasn’t deploying USA military forces or the National Guard, he drawled smugly in his Texas two-step accent: “Why, everyone knows that private military contractors are more efficient.”

Wall Street was cordoned off returning it to its antecedents as an area enclosed to protect it from the “hostiles.” Chicago’s Mercantile Exchange was similarly locked down, while that city’s simmering pot, its South Side, was doused with cold water when the National Guard, now led by a RW&B commander, swarmed through its decaying buildings and projects confiscating guns, semi-automatics, and pistols.

Simultaneously, another military contractor, Fortified Star, threw up an electrified fence along that neighborhood’s perimeter providing its residents with only one entry and exit checkpoint. When asked about this at a hastily put together news conference, the President elect’s spokeswoman, a well-known right wing pundit May Halter, tossed her mane of bleached blond hair, stabbed her bony finger at the assembled media, brusquely informing them:

“You all need to understand what’s happening here- it’s sedition; treason from top to bottom. The woman, who’s been occupying the White House for the past four years, and I mean occupying in the basest understanding of that term, was never legitimate. We have it all here,” she declared while waving the now familiar sheath of papers in the air.

“Here’s confirmation of what’s been going on. That woman who calls herself “president,’ is a foreign born agent placed into the heart of our democracy by our enemies to destroy us from within. Our great fiscal crisis is nothing more than economic terrorism, plain and simple, launched by Harris and our enemies. Harris was never going to step down if elected to a second term. The plan was to change the Constitutional prohibition on holding office more than two terms so she could run again, and again and… well you get the picture. But, that’s not all. Oh no, not by a long shot!

The legitimate election of Pablo Cross, thank the Lord, ruined that plan. So, what were she and her cohorts to do? A new plot was hatched that would have stopped our President elect from assuming office. But Jesus be praised [her eyes rolled up to the heavens] certain patriotic Americans stepped forward to alert President elect Cross who, with the full assistance of our military and the RW&B forces, were able to quash this plot guaranteeing the peaceful, orderly, and lawful transformation of power.”

She paused. Looked out over the audience of the stunned assembled media and continued.

“You think it’s all over, right? But it’s not. There’s lots of mopping up to do. We have to sweep the streets clean. Root the vermin from their nests. Exterminate, exterminate, exterminate! And one of the biggest nests is right here on the Southside of Chicago- Harris’ home base. We know there are still significant cells here as well as elsewhere across the nation. Even as we speak those centers are being secured just as they are here in Chicago.”

She stopped to run her talons through her hair then chirped at the assemblage:

“Questions?”

The stunned reporters looked around. Here’s what they saw: an at-the ready division of RW&B minutemen had stepped into the conference room. They took up their positions: chins high, shoulders erect, legs planted firmly in the military “V” configuration, fingers lightly pressed against their AR-15 triggers ready for use if called on. They looked every inch like commandos in those old TCM movies.

The media seemed frozen in their seats. No one spoke for quite a while. After what seemed like hours, one tentative hand went up. Communications Director Halter snapped her head in the hand’s direction- more like a raptor about to eat its prey than someone looking to field a question. [Well, that’s what we had come to!]

The reporter was, Inez Rosenfeld, a well-known cable news network personality- yeah let’s call her what she was, a mere dolled up woman playing a reporter. She read the news, made vapid pre-canned comments, smirked and simpered on cue for the cameras and ratings. Let’s face it; few genuine reporters were left by this time. It was all about celebrity.

Yet, for once in her insipid life, Rosenfeld actually shrugged off her chipper news-read persona, stood shoulders straight, prepared to ask a real question. A probing question, the type of question her Columbia University School of Journalism education had trained her to ask.

“Let me ask you. I see a military presence here in this room.” She motioned to the armed minutemen with a jerk of her head. As she did so those men visibly tensed, but the commander standing well behind Halter to her left quickly raised and lowered his hand and the soldiers’ trigger fingers relaxed.

“Why,” she continued, “in a free country are they required? Are they here to intimidate the press, the public? And why is the acting president, soon to be the Vice-President Randall Carey, using a private contractor? And last, why has the National Guard been placed under its direction?”

“Well,” began the simmering Halter, “I am surprised that someone from your network would ask such a question. What would you have us do? Permit an insurrection; a coup d’état against the legitimately elected president? Or are you in league with those advocating the overthrow of the government by fomenting revolution through such scurrilous accusations? Is that what you want Inez?”

“What I am suggesting,” the suddenly plucky reporter responded, “is that the rule of law be respected in this country. What I am asking is why are military contractors being deployed and why is the National Guard under their command? What I am asking is why have all the nation’s major urban centers – specifically the so-called ghettos- been literally walled off as if they were prisons?

“And why are what looks like – and forgive me for drawing this always controversial comparison- but for lack of a better term – storm troopers, stationed in this room armed to the teeth and clearly ready to mow us all down with a nod from that RW&B commander standing over there in the corner?”

As she finished she stood very still, clutching her cellphone [as they were called back in the day] and some papers in her hand. Halter glanced back at the Commander who crooked his finger and a shot rang out. Inez, in a final protective gesture, raised her hand that still gripped her cell phone as she fell to the floor, a bullet cleanly wedged in her left temple. As this happened the assembled media luminaries dashed for cover, diving [when they could fit] under chairs, some making for the doors, which were blocked by soldiers who intoned as if ushers at a Broadway show, “Sorry ma’am, Sorry sir, no one’s to leave. Please return to your seat.”

The Commander, looking as if he were arriving at a state dinner his dark blue uniform bearing the identifying red and white shoulder stripes of his employer encased his body like a glove, grabbed the mike out of Halter’s now shaking hand and unceremoniously pushed her into a chair on the stage. Leaning over her while pushing back the streams of blond hair falling willfully over her face he hissed at her, “What a mess you are! Pull yourself together. We are about to move in for the kill.”

Then as if realizing the irony of what he just said, grinned, “No pun intended, just stand behind me.”

“But, but, don’t you see what’s happened,” she gasped, her eyes darting here and there as if she could not fully absorb what had occurred.

“But, what?” he asked nonchalantly.

Coming back to life she looked up at him. “Not this, “she sobbed, “not this…” as she gestured to the dead reporter.

He grabbed her, pulled her to her feet spinning her around to face the audience whispering in the stunned woman’s ear in what almost sounded like a caress, “What were you expecting? Did you think we were playing? Did you think this was another one of your ridiculous talk shows? Lady, this is and has always been the plan. It was all put in motion well over eighty years ago. Of course, no one had expected it to take so long. Each succeeding generation used their own tactics, but the bottom line was always the same: dismantle the New Deal, the Liberal Society ushered in by Roosevelt and his ilk. You are either with us or against us. Your choice.”

“I’m. I am…with you…I just hadn’t expected… I wasn’t told…that’s all,” she mumbled while smoothing down her hair and clothes. That action caused her entire demeanor to brighten so that she was able to look up at him with that TV personality smile plastered on her face declaring in her most professional tone: “Commander, you’re on in five.”

He beamed down at her. “Now, that’s better. We each have our part to play. Follow my lead. Just remember, rats must be exterminated.”

She obediently did as instructed trailing after the Commander as he took center stage. She handed him the microphone. He put it to his lips like a child about to lick his favorite ice cream pop, but nothing sweet emanated from his mouth. He bellowed:

“Shut the FUCK up you sniveling little shits…take your seats!”

Immediately, the dazed reporters who unexpectedly found themselves the subjects as opposed to the objects of a huge media event [ahhh…how the worm had changed position] returned, zombie-like, to their seats. All except, of course, the dead reporter who remained where she was when shot, lying face up, slumped across three seats, cell phone frozen in her dead grip.

“Now, that’s better,” the Commander crooned at them. “Things aren’t always as they appear. I know what you’re all thinking. You believe you just saw one of my men blow away your colleague. You think we did it to intimidate you, to muzzle the press. Well nothing could be further from the truth.”

He stepped forward toward the row of chairs where the dead reporter sprawled, motioning to one of his soldiers.

“Lieutenant Jimenez. Take the phone out of Rosenfeld’s hand- mind you- remove it carefully.”

Jimenez, with a show of great caution, gingerly removed the phone from the now lifeless hand and handed it to the Commander.

“NOW, ladies and gentlemen, watch and learn that appearances can indeed be deceptive.”

He turned to the lieutenant commanding, “Jimenz pick up the chair Rosenfeld was sitting on. Turn it over to show these good people here what’s there.”
Again, Jimenez did as he was told revealing what appeared to be a plastic explosive taped under the chair. The assembled group gasped.

“You see, your so-called colleague was doing a bit of moonlighting. That chair was rigged to explode. She was an operative for domestic terrorists, a suicide bomber.” [Murmurs from the audience of: “Oh, no!” “How’s that possible?” “She seemed so nice, so normal.”]

“This is what we are facing; like it or not. It’s a coordinated effort by domestic and foreign terrorists to destabilize the country to stop President-elect Cross from taking office. Did you all believe that once President Harris was arrested all was right again in the world? Think again. She was simply a plant. The forces behind her have burrowed deep into the American political, social, economic and yes, even military fabric. That’s why I’m here. That’s why the RW&B has stepped up; to preserve the American way of life; to preserve American democracy. To ensure there is, as there has been for over two centuries, a peaceful transformation of power. So yes, we shot her. We shot a terrorist who was about to send your comfortable butts into the next world.”

He removed his marauder style military cap putting it to his chest bowing low, “So please forgive me if we had to put a bullet through her head to protect you and the Constitution.”

As he rose from his formal bow the audience began to clap, first tentatively and then it came as a roiling roar as the group leapt to its feet chanting, “Pab-lo Cross, Pa-blo Cross, Pa-blo Cross …”

The Commander, knowing when to make his exit, turned to Halter, kissed her hand and signaled to his “boys” to take their leave.

After that, all went off without a hitch. Any media dissenters were quieted. Some got with the program while those that refused quietly disappeared. No one asked questions. No one dared.

On January 20, 2021 President Pablo Cross, along with Vice-President Randall Carey, were inaugurated. As it turned out, they would be the last president and vice-president of the United States of America. Two years later President Cross called for and got a constitutional amendment and three months later the USA was no more.” Excerpt from: The Transformation: GTE 45 Click on the Amazon link: http://amzn.to/1RWEzdO