Predictions for 2010 - Satire

2010: The Year That Was
Robert A. Hall
(Permission to post or forward granted)

We know 2010 is going to be an exciting year. Why wait until next December to find out what happened, when my crystal ball is available to you now? Here’s 2010, the year that was.

January: With the House and Senate wrangling over the price of votes in conference committee, President Obama sets a new deadline of July 4th for passing “Healthcare Reform,” and pledges to sign any bill with those words at the top. The month is so cold that people in the north are burning copies of An Inconvenient Truth to keep warm.

February: Sen. Mary Landau (D-Cash) becomes enraged and changes her registration to Independent when she discovers that three other senators sold their votes on healthcare reform for more than the $300 million she got. Sen. Ben Nelson calls her a “cheap hooker” for getting so little. Al Gore announces that he’s holding a Global Warming conference in Aruba, but that it has nothing to do with the frigid temperatures in the US.

March: The country is outraged to discover that Sen. Roland Burris (D-Blagojevich) has pledged to withdraw his opposition to the healthcare bill without a public option in return for an earmark obligating the federal government to provide “perpetual care” for Burris’s mausoleum. Chicago yawns.

April: The terrorists from Gitmo arrive in Illinois, where the prison at Thomson has three distinct advantages: It’s cooler, it wasn’t opened by George Bush and it’s not called “Gitmo,” so the media and America-bashers are fine with it. Other than that, there’s no difference. Governor Quinn announces a plan to enhance revenue by selling tickets to win a chance to waterboard terrorists. The new lotto takes in $200 million the first week.

May: Al Gore announces that Global Warming has become so bad, he’s developed an emergency plan to lower his personal carbon footprint to only 20 times that of the average American by the year 2018 "or there abouts." His return to the conference in Aruba is delayed when his personal jet is grounded by a freak spring snowstorm.

June: Several terrorists at what is now called Gitmo Illinois escape and take Mayor Daley hostage. They demand $5 million and a Hooter’s franchise as ransom, so they can better understand western decadence. Cook County Board President Todd Stroger announces a ten cent increase in the sales tax “to free our beloved Mayor,” but the tax increase bill fails to get any votes. The Taliban in Afghanistan surrender, hoping to get sent to Illinois.

July: Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid out-maneuvers Republicans by renaming a bill to create a sewer district in Nevada “Healthcare Reform” at the enactment stage and sending it to President Obama’s desk before they notice. The President signs it in a huge ceremony attended by Michaele and Tareq Salahi. He raises his grade on Oprah from B+ to A+. Since Healthcare Reform isn’t scheduled to take effect until after the next presidential election in 2012, no one in the media notices the new law has nothing to do with healthcare. Obama goes up 10 points in the polls.

August: The IRS, mistakenly thinking the real healthcare bill had passed, begins collecting the taxes to pay for it. Obama goes down fifteen points in the polls. He blames George Bush.

September: Al Gore is embarrassed to learn he has won the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction for An Inconvenient Truth. He leads an expedition to the Arctic to “say goodbye to the Polar Bears,” but is caught in a freak summer blizzard. Though unarmed, Gore survives on the meat of abundant Polar Bears by talking them death. PETA declares him “Public Enemy Number One.

October: A scandal erupts when Fox News reveals that ACORN created the falsified climate data in the Climategate scandal. The Democrat Congress responds by awarding ACORN a $100 billion contract to restudy the climate data. ACORN promises to get right on it, as they have almost finished counting the votes for the 2010 election. They sublet the contract to underage girls from Guatemala.

November: The media and Democrats are stunned when Republicans sweep to power in the midterm elections, taking control of both the House and the Senate with substantial majorities. The Democrats in Congress cut off funding to ACORN. President Obama says he hopes the Republicans will work with him with the same bipartisanship and transparency that has characterized his presidency. He then meets behind closed doors with Harry Reid and Nancy Pelosi to discuss what legislation they can ram through before the Republicans take office in January.

December: In an amazing political comeback, President Obama’s approval rating soars to record heights when he announces that he has balanced the budget and eliminated the deficit. It plunges again when Fox News reveals that Obama did this by selling Texas, New Mexico, Arizona and California to four Mexican drug cartels, or, as he calls them, “Undocumented Pharmacists.” The country is held together when, before the sale can go through, China forecloses on the USA, which will now be called Tibet West. All members of the administration and congress are sent to Gitmo, which China re-opens.

Robert A. Hall of Des Plaines is a Marine Vietnam veteran who served five terms in the Massachusetts state senate.