Crystal Bawls
Illustrated by Tom Hachtman
The Bureau of Prevision is tasked by the State Department's Office of Budget and Planning with taking the long view on multiple aspects of American life. Herein they offer forecasts for likely events impacting U.S. citizens during the coming months of the new calendar year.
Director Sybil Merwin assures us, "The fine foretellers at Previz really feels like they have 20/20 vision this annum and can foresee clearly now the rain is gone. Our present guarantee is 76% accuracy for the following scenarios which will, full disclosure, be revised down to 74% by December 31. Our crystal balls have really been humming and the number of cups of tea we've had to consume to get to those revelatory leaves at the bottom has resulted in some pretty rough bladder issues. I must admit, we didn't see that coming."
Here are the Top 10 predictions from the 2020 Seer's Catalogue.
1. Law Enforcement: Whistler Smother
It will be rumored that the mother of the Ukraine Whistleblower (not a species of bird) has disappeared from her undisclosed location and been spirited away to a 'like totally' undisclosed one. Authorities will not confirm the rumor nor if it had originated when her offspring anonymously alerted them while using an alias and a voice changer app. It will be strongly hinted that she is being held for ransom by nameless somebodies. The price of her release, allegedly, will be the vow of an unspecified relative to revoke his or her report concerning a certain 'perfect' phone call that might have resulted in impeachment.
The purported perpetrators will be caught and positively identified as the President of the United States and his personal lawyer by multiple reputable witnesses, without a doubt and for sure. They will go entirely free even after admitting the crime on Fox News and brazenly tweeting a draft of the script of the blackmail terms they forced the old lady to read over the phone. The victim's body parts will never be found even after Eric Trump confesses and draws investigators a map in crayon of where he buried them. He will receive a suspended sentence from a Federal Court Judge his father appointed and be prohibited from participating in big game hunting for up to 24 months.
2. Entertainment: Stormy Denials
After years of getting their behinds whipped and being perversely titillated by the spanking anecdotes in Stormy Daniels' tell-all Full Disclosure, butthurt liberals will get hooked on fetish porn featuring strong Democrat women slapping weak Republican men's rears. Sex stars will perform in titles like In the Rosy Garden, The Bottomless Pits, and Fanny PAC, portraying regressive bad guys who lose their seats to woke whackers. In what will be an exceptionally popular download, Impeach Clobberer, 'Nancy Pelosi' pummels 'Trump's' rump.
In Tochis By Surprise, geared to the international market, 'Rashida Tlaib' will promote the BDSM Movement on 'Bibi Netanyahu's' west flank. There will be dicier underaged variants, like Flash in the Pants with a glowering 'Greta Thunberg' laying into a bent-over pair of 'Koch Brothers' with a green paddle and simply melting their ass bergs.
3. Civil Rights: Minstrel Mouse
New streaming service Disney+ will need to completely rewrite the content warnings it slaps on some of its classic animated movies like Dumbo and Lady and the Tramp. The squeamish entertainment behemoth has acted as though quaint G-rated films like the clawless The Aritocats was the scatological dirty joke-fest The Aritocrats starring Gilbert Gottfried (where it sounded like the annoying parrot Iago of Aladdin had spent too much time with a foul-mouthed Iago from Macbeth.)
Aimed at customers who are entirely unaware of history before 2016, the equivocal notice about "outdated cultural depictions" will spontaneously combust when attached to a newly-discovered 'Mickey Mouse' cartoon short Walt Disney Studios created in 1947. The squeaky-voiced rodent, referred to as Macky, appears in what some critics interpret as full blackface in Steamboat Willie Horton. The shiftless, jivey critter shocks Amercian icons like Lady Liberty, Uncle Sam and the Bald Eagle by putting Minnie in the hospital, in a de facto campaign ad for white supremacist Strom Thurmond's 1948 presidential bid.
4. Civil Court: Blue Man Gloop
After his 23rd arrest for indecent exposure, Dr. Manhattan, the often naked god-like member of The Watchmen with the god-like member, will be ordered by Judge Judy to perform 60 days of community service fully clothed. It's the same sentence she gave Papa Smurf and the Avatar guy. He hasn't a clue after being oufitted at Gainsborough's Blue and Tall Men's Shop, but eventually will decide to volunteer for dog-walking duties at his local PBS station.
5. Art: Madge Max
Aging pop star Madonna will suffer a psychotic break preciptated by the unbearable strain of making up excuses for missing concert dates. She will 'discover' a silk-screened portrait of her created by Andy Warhol in 1967 and send out invitations to a special unveiling at the fabled OK Harris Gallery in New York City's Soho. Unfortunately, she was born in 1958 and would have been nine at the time of the clearly adult portrait and the OK Harris Gallery closed in 2014. And no one still goes to Soho except shoppers from the burbs.
It will become apparent that she had her talentless brother (not the younger feuding one who wrote Life with My Sister Madonna, the older homeless one) 'touch up' a poster of Warhol's famous Marilyn Monroe silk screen, mostly by adding a cockroach-like mole. She'll insist the exhibition at the non-existent space will include other Warhol masterpieces she'd found after Guy Ritchie had hidden them in a tree stump in Hyde Park. Based on promotional materials she'll release, it will appear they include actual cartons of S.O.S. pads and a 'reproduction' of Warhol's Coke bottle prints by Madonna's brother (the younger feuding one, as a peace offering) that mistakenly substitutes Pepsi bottles. The night before the 'show' at 383 Broadway –– which would have seen feckless crowds gathering at a Free People clothing store –– Madonna will tweet that she regretfully cannot attend the once-in-a-lifetime event due to 'indescribable pain.' And the fact she has to hunt down a Frida Kahlo portrait that Sean Penn buried under a cactus in Guadalajara.
6. Culture: Squad Strain
Avant-garde feminist guerilla artist Woman Ray is commissioned to create a portrait of Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, the U.S. Representative for New York's 14th congressional district. The resulting Mama (her version of Dada) work is a madcap mash-up of a Frida Kahlo self-portrait crossed with da Vinci's Mona Lisa with a crude inscription beneath it. Ocasio-Cortez pretends she loves it. Madonna claims it's of her.
7. Foreign Affairs: The Mullah Report
Mere moments before the Iran Nuclear Deal is set to finally and irretrievably collapse at midnight the latest envoy from the United States will materialize to salvage a deal. Summoned from the Deep Deep State by his devoted acolyte Donald in Washington, The Great Satan will intervene with recalcitrant Imams and broker a new pact. It will include an additional 72 virgins in Paradise hand-picked from Vladimir Putin's Russian Association of Girl (or Boy) Scouts
per signee and visitation rights with General Soleimani in Hell. They'll seal the deal with a shot of Johnny Walker Red and the lifting of sanctions on Ayatollah Khameini's multi-billion-dollar rainy day fund (perfect for an arid climate.)
8. International Relations: Saud Off Runt
Jared Kushner will add an addendum to the 2019 Prison Reform Bill he helped champion. It will stipulate that any U.S. journalists who may in the (near) future be charged with sedition by his father-in-law and Lord and Master's Justice Department will not be required to spend a single day in a U.S. federal penitentiary. They will instead be remanded to a low-security Reeducation Center in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, sponsored by Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman.
Warden Ahmad 'Scoop' Rahman insists it will be 'like a journalism conference for these lucky detainees. We just need to impress upon them that the core values of truth-telling always include judicious cuts that may prove painful to the author. They will be reminded of essential axioms of the trade, like: if it bleeds, it leads. And we sincerely hope they don't make us bury the lead.'
9. Business: Stall and Deliver
The United States Postal Service will drastically revise their core business plan in a budget-saving move mandated by Congress. Beginning on June 1 they will exclusively deliver snails.
10. Ethics: Brat Worst
Melania Trump will establish Be Best Charities, a non-profit fundation dedicated to discouraging bullying at all grade levels. To identify the Biggest Bullies in American Media, the BBC will sponsor the first annual Holy Terror Competition in Rascal Flats, TX. There will be a major upset in the Blonde Ballbusters category when reliable meanies Dennis the Menace, Calvin (sans Hobbes) and Bart Simpson are crowned 1st, 2nd and 3rd Runners-up. Charges of voter fraud arise when the fourth-highest popular vote-getter bags the Golden Brass Knuckles. Winner Donny T insists he would never personally intimidate the judges, but in a blistering tweet he labels his critics 'scum who may never see the sun rise again.' And adds 'But Melania may have had a hand in manipulating a few judges in her time. Some people say.'
01/02/20
