2019: The year in preview

As we say goodbye to 2018 — also adios, farewell, and go crawl back under whatever horrible rock you came from to 2018 — we can rest assured that 2019 can’t possibly be as irritating, mainly because there are no midterm elections. And in Georgia there is no gubernatorial election, which means the next time Brian Kemp points a gun at a teenager, he could get arrested for it.

It has become an annual tradition for, literally, dozens of people across the nation to curl up with my annual Year in Preview. Anybody can report on what happened in the year 2018, but only someone like me with no sense of responsibility whatsoever can look ahead and provide a sneak peek into actual events guaranteed to happen in 2019 with the obvious caveat of unless they don’t.

So, without further ado thanks to the high tariffs on all the ado from China, let’s get right to it with a look at …

JANUARY

Democrat Nancy Pelosi is again elected Speaker of the House, much to the dismay of those who feel she will be a drag on the young energy in the party. During her speech promising to be “a breath of fresh air,” eight moths, a cloud of dust and an ancient curse spew from her mouth.

During its look back at the Top 10 news stories covered by CNN in 2018, the network has to stop the program short when it realizes it covered only 7 stories all year.

Inspired by the Boy Scouts’ groundbreaking decision to admit girls into its ranks, the EPA admits scientists into its ranks.

First Lady Melania Trump is asked by Fox News’ hard-hitting journalist Laura Ingraham about her biggest struggle since entering the White House. “I would say the opportunists who are using my name or my family name to advance themselves,” says the model-turned-trophy-wife who married Donald Trump for his money.

FEBRUARY

 In an effort to keep football fans from turning off the TV at halftime of the Super Bowl in Atlanta, headliners Maroon 5 promise a diverse lineup of guest acts will join them on stage, including Green Day, The Black Keys, Blue Oyster Cult, Pink Floyd, Macy Gray, Jack White, Deep Purple, Bobby Brown and Simply Red.

After learning that the number of Americans who overdose on marijuana each year is roughly the same as the number of Americans gored by unicorns annually, President Trump’s advisers at Fox News encourage the administration to allow  unicorn hunting on federal lands as a safety measure.

There’s a shocker at the Academy Awards as Winnie the Pooh wins his first Best Actor Oscar for his role as a wisecracking mercenary with superhuman powers in “Deadpooh.”

Meanwhile at the Grammys, “Baby Shark” wins Song of the Year. Kanye West loses his left arm when he tries to snatch the award from Pinkfong.

MARCH

Still upset about people making fun of his statement that he would have run into the building to stop last year’s school shooting in Parkland, Florida, President Trump leaps from his limo when gunfire erupts at a nearby KFC. He is later photographed carrying Colonel Sanders out of harm’s way.

Populist congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez is busted by Fox News as a faker when she is captured on film telling a McDonald’s worker to super-size her meal for an extra two dollars. The news is labeled “Special Report: Lavish Latina!”

Congratulations to Eric Trump for killing the first unicorn of the year under the new hunting regulations.

The British Parliament’s debate over Brexit continues for weeks as lawmakers cannot decide whether to leave through the left or right exit doors.

APRIL

The #MeToo Movement claims another victim as the Goo Goo in Possum Holler, Georgia, is forced to close after a self-driving Honda Civic claims to have had her undercarriage fondled during a full-service car wash.

Education Secretary Betsy DeVos heads up the Flint River in one of her yachts to deliver guns to elementary school teachers.

After eight months, Aretha Franklin’s funeral service begins to wind down in Detroit.

After clashing again with President Trump over his border wall requests and angry tweets, Speaker Pelosi attempts to stand up to the president and restore dignity to Washington with her “I Know You Are But What Am I?” speech.

MAY

Colonel Sanders sues President Trump for inappropriate contact during the March shooting rescue. “In all fairness,” Mr. Trump explains, “I thought you were Reba McEntire.”

Authorities discover millions of absentee ballots in Bladen County, North Carolina, and are forced to admit that, indeed, Dewey Defeated Truman. The Chicago Daily Tribune has to correct its correction from 1948.

Possum Holler Goo Goo owner Ronald Crump announces that he will challenge Donald Trump for the Republican presidential nomination in 2020.

On Lake Blackshear, Betsy DeVos’ yacht rams and sinks a pontoon boat full of college students overdue on their high-interest student loans.

JUNE

Audio is released from Ronald Crump’s between-interview chats at WMNZ-AM in which he brags, “When you’re a car wash owner, you can do anything. Grab ’em by the undercarriage, the exhaust pipe, whatever.”

Fox News’ Brett Baier reveals new information that scientists have been lying about the distance of the sun from the Earth, noting that emails hacked by a “probably American guy” named Anatoly Kuznetsov reveal that scientists have known all along that the sun was just 92,999,997 miles from the Earth instead of 93 million.

In 4:30 a.m. poop tweet, President Trump responds to sun distance report with the hashtag “#FakeScience” and reminds people to rake their forests this summer.

JULY

Evangelical leaders rally to support Ronald Crump’s bid for president, saying he might be even more Christian than President Trump.

Cars crash, grocery lists disappear, weather becomes a mystery, and lamps refuse to turn on when Amazon’s Alexa elopes with iPhone’s Siri for a same-sex wedding. They resurface days later, except in Georgia where new Gov. Brian Kemp bans them for violating his new “religious freedom” law.

In his 4 a.m. poop tweet, President Trump revokes the security clearance of everyone named Robert, Rob, Bob, Bobby or Robbie.

AUGUST

At the funeral for a prominent statesman, political pundits again note the cute friendship between former President George W. Bush and former First Lady Michelle Obama as they trade pieces of candy — mouth to mouth as she sits in his lap.

Rob Zombie announces he is no longer receiving official security briefings.

In a new television ad promoting awareness of Georgia’s new “religious freedom” law, Gov. Brian Kemp points a shotgun at a gay teenager and threatens to round up homosexuals in the back of his pickup truck in the name of the Lord.

After a NASA-led summit in which it is announced that water has been found on Mars, paving the way for people to use it as a backup plan for when climate change destroys life on Earth, EPA Administrator Andrew Wheeler orders his agency to begin polluting Martian water with coal ash.

SEPTEMBER

While returning from a luxurious vacation in Cancun, Tiffany Trump is seized by border patrol agents who separate her from her family by placing her in a cage. “Thank you,” she is reported as saying. “Please throw away the key.”

A peace treaty between Bashar al-Assad and the three other people still alive in Syria ends the Syrian Civil War. This positive step gives hope to the eight people who’ve yet to starve to death in Yemen and to the United States, which says it might be able to scale back operations in Afghanistan by the year 2077.

Donald Trump Jr. is indicted for colluding with Russians during the 2016 presidential campaign. President Trump tweets: “I barely know this Jr. kid. Was a very low-level child. Dumb as a bag of rocks and lazy as hell. #Weak”

OCTOBER

On her way to visit children like Tiffany Trump who are being kept from their parents near the U.S. border with Mexico, First Lady Melania Trump boards a plane while wearing a jacket with the words “Oh my God, I can’t take it anymore! Get me out of here! Donald gives me the heebie-jeebies, along with what he got from Stormy. Rescue me, please!”

Amazon’s Jeff Bezos sees his net worth grow to $54 kajillion when every brick-and-mortar store in America closes. Bezos promises to share his massive wealth by increasing Amazon employees’ salaries 25 cents a month and installing water fountains in some distribution centers.

The Mueller Investigation takes a surprising turn when Alec Baldwin and the cast of “Saturday Night Live” are discovered to have funneled millions to the Trump campaign in 2016. “Totally worth it,” Baldwin claims after punching a reporter seeking comment.

NOVEMBER

A spokeswoman for Melania Trump says the jacket the First Lady wore on the plane “was just something she picked up at Target, and she doesn’t know why the media is making a big deal out of it.”

Cornered by reporters waiving copies of The Mueller Report and confronted with questions about the 27 charges against him, President Trump yells “Beetlejuice! Beetlejuice! Beetlejuice!” prompting a laugh from the crowd until Ted Nugent appears just in time to mow down reporters as Harry Belafonte’s “Jump in the Line” plays in the background.

Former Attorney General Jeff Sessions announces that he will seek a return to the U.S. Senate, promising to ban medical marijuana, rock’n’roll music and clothing catalogs featuring “women in their drawers.”

Meanwhile, on the Democratic side, porn star Stormy Daniels announces she will run against Donald Trump in an effort “to restore decency to the White House.”

DECEMBER

The Georgia Bulldogs get the upper hand on the Alabama Crimson Tide in the SEC Football Championship, taking a 77-0 lead after three quarters.

Alabama shocks Georgia to win the SEC Football Championship as backup long-snapper Jimmy Dooplenty dives into the end zone for his sixth touchdown of the fourth quarter to give the Tide a 78-77 victory. The turning point of the game proves to be a failed Georgia fake punt on 4th-and-57 from their own 3-yard line.

Christmas ends — permanently — when Santa’s sleigh plunges into the Arctic Ocean after unprecedented ice melting covers his landing strip at the North Pole.

Everyone converges at North Pole First Baptist Church for the funeral of Santa Claus — except for the Easter Bunny, Tooth Fairy and Donald Trump, who were not invited. Also, former President George W. Bush and former First Lady Michelle Obama stay outside the church, enjoying a wine and cheese picnic while cuddling naked on a blanket under the unusually warm Arctic sun.