© Ryan Maue on XRyan Maue on X
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"Great start for the newly discovered Gulf of America. Explorers note the climate is polar with heavy snow and ice observed along the coastlines."
Weeping could be heard echoing throughout the streets of every American city this morning as citizens of the United States were confronted with the terrifying truth that democracy had been destroyed by having the man who everyone voted for take office.
"This is indeed a dark day," said historian and professor Clifford Martin. "The American experiment has survived for nearly 250 years, continuing the tradition started by the ancient Greeks who created the concept of democracy... but today we have seen its end. The man who won more votes than anyone else has been sworn in as president, and that's just not how democracy works."
Experts predicted that the country may never be the same, as having the man people wanted to be president actually win the election was an unexpected assault on American democracy. "We're not used to this," constitutional scholar Owen Gaffney said. "The United States can't survive when it's simply left to the people voting to choose their leaders. Democracy has now died. Thanks a lot, voters."
Reports quickly emerged that lawmakers were hard at work putting measures into place to revive democracy by keeping overwhelmingly popular candidates from winning elections ever again.
At publishing time, memorial services for democracy were being planned as Democrats urged all Americans to flee the country in search of refuge in more oppressive, totalitarian countries.
© shironosov/GettyElderly person reads an intricately handwritten letter
"It's easy to do for a half hour a day or a week," Suzanne Isaacs, community manager with the National Archives Catalog, said
Reading cursive can now be added to the list of most-wanted skills — at least according to the U.S. National Archives and Records Administration.
The federal organization tasked with archiving the country's most precious records and documents is currently looking for volunteers who can read the cursive writing of over 200 years' worth of documents, USA Today reported.
The majority of the handwritten documents that need transcribing are from the Revolutionary War when writing in cursive was the standard form of penmanship, the outlet said.
© The Babylon BeeConfused mourners place flowers on corpse-like Biden at Jimmy Carter funeral
According to eyewitnesses, the mistaken mourners seem to have confused the dead former president with the unmoving, unblinking, statuesque Biden.
"There had been a line going up at the Cathedral to put flowers on Jimmy," said Vivian Glecker, a White House staffer. "And a few of the people in line accidentally stopped to start laying flowers on Biden instead. One of them even tried to close his eyes. It got really awkward after they split up into two lines, with one going to each president to pay their respects. It was touching, I guess, though it took Secret Service kind of a while to sort things out."
Reports from the Washington Cathedral state that the misunderstanding was eventually corrected, though Jill Biden had to be rescued from a partial avalanche of roses that had spilled over from the pile mounting atop Biden.
"It was fitting, in a way, you know?" asked Keith Simmons, a member of the general public who attended the funeral. "Carter always was the sort of guy who could name fifty parts of a flower's anatomy, but never got flowers."
At publishing time, Biden had gotten up to deliver some remarks and accidentally eulogized himself instead of Carter.
© The Babylon Bee
Meta founder Mark Zuckerberg released a video statement outlining the upcoming changes that would be made to content restriction policies on Facebook and Instagram, revealing that Facebook would stop suppressing all the free speech he had previously insisted wasn't being suppressed on Facebook.
"This is a major shift toward no longer doing the things I said we weren't doing," Zuckerberg said in the statement. "While we never suppressed free speech and expression at Facebook, we felt that the election of 2024 was a cultural pivot point that made it clear that we had to stop suppressing free speech and expression. Even though we absolutely never did it, starting now, we're going to stop doing it."
"Please stop embarrassing the FBI!"
The statement comes just hours after X users discovered all suspects and motives related to the recent terror attacks in New Orleans and Las Vegas.
The statement reads in part:
"It is in the public interest that all X users stop solving crimes immediately. Solving crime is the responsibility of the federal government and local law enforcement. If we do not solve crimes first, we cannot control the narrative, and that's important for national security reasons we cannot discuss at this time.""You're going to put us all out of a job," said FBI Director Christopher Wray, commenting on the public statement. "We're supposed to be the ones solving crimes. Please stop demonstrating how useless we are."
As an incentive, the FBI is promising not to raid anyone who complies. "All you have to do is not report on suspects, observe obvious connections to other crimes, or complain when we prosecute parents of school-aged children," a spokesman for the bureau explained. "You scratch our back, we leave your back alone. Get it?"
At publishing time, the FBI had prosecuted an X user for interfering with a cover-up.
Upon news of the bill's failure, Alex Soros — son of billionaire George Soros — posted his displeasure on social media, expressing concern that all the work he had accomplished while controlling Biden would be undone by the moves Musk was making while controlling Trump.
"Elon is controlling Trump!" Soros said on X. "No billionaire should hold the power to influence the incoming leader of the free world to make decisions that counter the power we have to influence the current leader of the free world. Something has to be done to stop this. But only for presidents we don't like."
With only a month until Trump's inauguration, Democrat leaders warned that Trump's age may make it easy for Musk to manipulate him. "It's dangerous and unconstitutional for some billionaire businessman to hold so much sway over a president," said Biden's White House Chief of Staff Jeff Zients. "Now, if you'll excuse me, I have a very important lunch with Alex Soros to receive marching orders for President Biden's last month in office."
At publishing time, politicians and members of the media had still not decided what to call Musk's unprecedented petitioning of Congress, though some were unofficially referring to it by using the more familiar term "lobbying."
Comment: Bonus holiday Bee!
Merry Christmas to all!
Nancy Pelosi
Sources say that the Democrat representative is now in stable condition, having downed several vodka tonics and three glasses of wine since the incident.
"We almost lost her," said Dr. Johann Warstein, who has been caring for Pelosi since she was hospitalized earlier today. "Ms. Pelosi skipped her usual four morning screwdrivers, then accidentally drank too much water over lunch. Her blood alcohol levels, normally around 50%, plunged to almost legal levels. If not for the quick actions of our emergency personnel to get a fifth of vodka in her bloodstream, we may be having a different conversation. It was touch and go."
Condolences and casks of alcohol have poured into the Luxembourg hospital where Pelosi is staying overnight, in a heartwarming effort to keep Pelosi safely sloshed. Initial reports note that the doctors have graciously tried some of the gifts themselves so that they can make sure the alcohol content is high enough for Rep. Pelosi.
At publishing time, doctors had outfitted Pelosi with one of those beer hats to ensure she always had a steady supply of alcohol at the ready.
© The Babylon BeeMusk's minutes-long silence on his platform sparked followers' concern about his wellbeing.
Officers reportedly knocked on the door of Musk's home after he didn't post or repost anything on X for more than a quarter of an hour, something his friends said hadn't occurred in years.
"He really had us worried," friend Tommy Harrison told police. "When he didn't comment his usual 'Interesting' or 'Hmmm' while reposting every single post he reads in a 20-minute period, we started to get concerned."
Police arrived to find Musk was playing Diablo IV and had set his phone down for the first time in several months.
"I usually play Diablo IV while posting on X, but I was just a little tired tonight so I decided to take a break," Musk explained. "I understand why my friends were worried. I promise to continue to post every 15 seconds as I normally do to not cause any more concern."
Musk then reportedly posted replies to 24 posts in 12 minutes, half of which simply said "True."
At publishing time, Musk had opted to implant Neuralink into his brain to beam X posts directly into his thoughts while multitasking in an effort to increase efficiency.
© The Babylon Bee
Despite conspiracy theorists claiming that the unidentified objects hovering along the coast could be extraterrestrial craft, officials obtained high-resolution images of the drones that showed them to be outfitted with turbans, thick beards, machetes, bombs, and "Death to Israel" signs, proving them to be of Iranian origin.
"This is clear evidence that these drones came from Iran," said New Jersey Governor Phil Murphy. "There were many different theories flying around about where these craft were coming from, but once we got an up-close look, there was no mistaking it. The beards, the turbans, the threats to Israel... each one of them is like a mini, hovering Ayatollah."
Comment: Although the idea is amusing, more is being lost than just the skill: