prepare to execute an immediate attack on North Korean national command, nuclear weapons storage locations, launch sites, and related support facilities. A FLASH message from the Commanding General of the United Nations Command/United States Korean Command was then received by the Secretary of the Defense. Edward brought the message to President Powers at the Nashville White House. Powers told Edward he would think about it, and the military should stand down for now.
The North Koreans announced a new test into the North Atlantic four days later. Unlike the unarmed missile of the last test, this one contained a twenty kiloton nuclear bomb. The test on April 8th would demonstrate to all North Korean’s capability and entry into the nuclear nationhood. Unfortunately, the missile fell short in a remote area of Alaska, and then was found by a special military recovery team, who to their surprise found an undetonated nuclear device. They immediately alerted their chain of command, and Edward again met with the President at the White House. Powers and Edward went over the detailed strike plan, and Powers substituted nuclear weapons for conventional ones and entered the authorized codes in the nuclear football. The attack was ordered to strike at 9 pm eastern modern time on Monday, April 12th, about halftime of the NCAA Men’s Basketball Championship Game. Meanwhile, the United States flew in United Nations and European nuclear inspectors to the Alaskan crash site to let them independently confirm that North Korea had fired an armed nuclear missile at the United States. Their reports on the incident were released to the public at 9 pm on April 10th.
About 8 pm, the White House Press Secretary informed all networks that the President would be speaking at 9:15 pm to the nation on an emergency national security situation. At 8:45 pm, North Korea lost access to the internet and then suffered a country-wide power failure. 51 low-level nuclear cruise and other weapons fired at 9 pm eastern on key North Korean sites. Ten minutes later, South Korean military crossed the DMZ on a humanitarian mission. President Powers spoke for about seven minutes, announcing the nuclear strikes on North Korea in retaliation of its abortive attack on the United States, and that South Korean forces would execute rescue, recovery, shelter, medical care, food, and other support to the now leaderless North Korean peoples.
Two weeks later, South Korea announced the reunification of the two Koreas into the new United Republic of Korea. Shortly afterward, Powers told a reporter that “he should get the Nobel Peace Prize immediately for solving a world problem that has haunted the world since the 1950’s and that MacArthur, Eisenhower, Reagan, Ryan, and Trump had not even fixed.”
The Progressive Senate continued to slow down any progress on confirmations and legislative initiatives of the Powers Administration during April. The Department of Transportation was awaiting Congressional approval to provide funding on many of their infrastructure plan projects. The House completed hearings on the proposed 28th Amendment and NAFTA termination.
The Army Corps of Engineers announced that they had completed 25% of the Powers Border Wall. The Department of Homeland Security announced the opening of ten new detention centers. The Mexican economy was in a crisis due to the loss of cash payments home by many illegal immigrants. Small riots began to start in many Mexican cities due to the lack of jobs and food. ICE continued to detail illegal immigrants, even those without any criminal activity, and put them into over-crowded detention facilities. Legal immigration had come to a standstill, while Europeans had to cancel vacation plans to the United States when they could not get visas. Tourism industry officials lobbied members of Congress about this to no avail.
The Department of Energy announced on April 19th that a subsidiary of the TAP Infrastructure Corporation had won the unannounced bidding to build the Keystone XL Plus pipeline. This pipeline was completed in late 2036, and the TAP Infrastructure Corporation sold it to an American energy company for $12.5 billion.
Around April 26th, the Department of Commerce notified the Vice President that they would need more time to meet their month-end deadline to develop proposed tariffs for Mexican and Chinese imports and legislative proposals to prevent American companies from illegally turning over intellectual property in order to enter the Chinese market. Given the situation in the Progressive Senate, Mitchell approved a one month delay. The Department of Homeland Security did say that the visa tracking system would go live on April 28th. At this point, certain countries were granted tourist and student visas.
During the early days of the Powers Administration, the economy continued to grow at about a 1.5% monthly rate, consistent with the last six months of the Trump Administration. There was not much change in the stock market, as the two war activities were so brief as to not cause any significant drops. Unemployment continued to be around 4.5%. Like many prior administrations, Powers’ got a slow start in its inability to first identify and obtain confirmations for many of its below Cabinet-level presidential appointments, a continuation of the disorganization shown by the Powers Campaign, lack of clear legislative priorities, lack of expertise beyond Vice President Mitchell in working with Congress, and opposition by Progressive and Conservative Senators to Powers’ proposals.
The President was becoming impatient of the lack of progress by Congress to approve his declaration of war on the Salafi Jihadist Military Caliphate (SJMC). He talked to Edward late on April 27th about maybe initiating an attack on his own accord, since he had received little backlash for eliminating North Korea. Edward reminded Powers that the Korean targets had almost no adjacent civilian populations, except those close to the government headquarters in the Korean capital, and was much unlike the situation with SJMC being imbedded within civilian population centers. After the Chicago Bears traded away their star quarterback and the suspected terrorist attack in Ohio on April 29th, Powers overreacted to this news by ordering Edward to initiate a secret attack on SJMC on May 1.
Ali Mohamad Al-Zahabi was an angry 18 year old when he awoke on Saturday morning, April 29th. Ali had lost by a yard a close race in his Mile Run event on Friday afternoon to his high school’s bitter rivals, and then his girlfriend of six months decided to break-up with him that evening. He returned home, and about two dozen white nationalists had bombarded his social media profile for being a loser to a superior Aryan athlete. This online bullying had started during the Powers Campaign, emboldened by the candidate’s calls against Muslims and Syrian immigrants and refugees. Ali was popular in his high school, top of the class academically, and a good athlete in soccer, wrestling, and track. He was mildly disappointed in not being admitted to Harvard and Yale, but he had accepted admission to the Air Force Academy, one of the things his former girlfriend cited for their break-up.
Ali was the son of legal immigrants from Syria, two doctors who spent five years in the early 2010s to come to the United States and were admitted in 2015 and moved to Dayton, Ohio. Ali was born there in 2017. His parents became naturalized citizens in 2022. His mom worked at the hospital at Wright-Patterson Air Force Base, while his father had joined one of the leading practices in the Dayton area. Both were active in the local Conservative Party and medical circles. Ali had looked at several extremism websites over the last year, only to gather information for his classroom papers and to argue with other Muslim youth in his mosque with facts. Ali’s mom was going to the weekend farmer’s market, and asked her oldest to come along to help carry the fruits and vegetables she intended to purchase.
Investigators were never able to find any evidence of terrorist intent on Ali’s computer, in fact, there were social media postings and transmails that were strongly anti-terrorist and anti-SJMC. They do know that a local farmer had left his 28-foot air conditioned truck open with the motor running to allow the back to stay cool. Someone at the market had slurred him as a young raghead, but his mother told him to brush that off. Ali passed by the truck several times, and then on impulse got into the cab, put the truck in gear, and hit the gas. The truck ran down dozens of people, tents, displays, children on one sid
e of the marketplace. Ali then turned the truck around, and drove it over people and tents on the other side. On the second pass, an off-duty Sheriff fired a shot into the driver’s side, hitting Ali in the forehead and killing him instantly, and the truck rolled to a stop. Thirty-seven people were killed in the attack, and over 150 injured.
Initial network news reports called this a terrorist attack by the son of Syrian immigrants. A small group of white nationalists from southeastern Ohio drove immediately to Dayton, and found the Al-Zahabi home and set it on fire, hurting five police investigators inside. Police immediately cleared remaining protestors from the neighborhood. A late Saturday press conference by the mayor, police chief, and the FBI failed to confirm any Islamic terrorist connections to the attack, but noted that Ali had been subjected to a tremendous amount of online bullying over the last year. School officials admitted that Ali had quietly reported several students from his school for bullying, but they were not able to confirm anything and no actions had been taken.
On Friday, Powers called the