Elderly Obama And Boehner Daughters Arrive In Time Machine To Demand Climate Action

In one of the epochal moments in human history, the grown-up children of our leading politicians have returned from the future in a time machine to warn humanity that the worst fears of climate scientists have come true and that we must act now to save billions of people from starvation and endless wars over land and water.

DNA testing has confirmed that the group is led by a now-elderly Sasha and Malia Obama together with Lindsay and Tricia Boehner. They emerged with dozens of others from a remarkably small blue ship that bore a striking resemblance to a 1960s-style London police box, which materialized on the National Mall.

Who among us can forget Malia’s first words to a rapidly-growing crowd in this historical meeting between present and future, “People of 2009, we come from–” words that were immediately interrupted by her younger self, surrounded by Secret Service, saying, “It’s 2013,” which led future Malia to punch future Sasha, saying, “I told you not to mess with the controls.” Malia then continued, “2013, seriously? What’s the friggin’ point?”

Just then Tricia Boehner stepped forward and said, “For the love of God, we’ve left our family and friends on this risky voyage to our past, to give humanity one chance at redemption, one chance to avoid horrors that you can’t possibly imagine, unless, of course, you are a climate scientist … or someone who listens to climate scientists.”  She played a horrific hologram of a world ruined by heat, drought, superstorms, acidification, and rising seas.

A sobbing John Boehner hugged his aged daughters and embraced the President saying, “If we can’t act now, when will we ever act?”

But within hours, such signs of bipartisanship had disappeared, as Rep. Eric Cantor and Sen. Ted Cruz introduced identical pieces of legislation in the House and Senate, based on a draft by the American Legislative Evil Council (ALEC), establishing criminal penalties for anyone caught researching time travel. Cruz told CNN:

“While it’s amazing and reassuring to know that my daughters, Caroline and Catherine, have lived into their 70s, I’ve been told that the time machine was funded by future taxpayers at a cost of $10 trillion — and it wasn’t even paid for.  We can’t sell off our future children’s future children’s future just because they are too irresponsible to live within their means.”

The House quickly passed the measure, labeled the HEATeR Act, for “Help Eradicate All Time-travel Research” Act. But Senate Democrats vowed to filibuster HEATeR, and the president vowed he would never sign it.

UPDATE: To win over Senate Democrats, Republicans added a 1-month extension of the debt ceiling, a ban on gun magazines with more than 100 bullets, $10 million for advanced clean energy research, and a resolution honoring H. G. Wells. The revised bill quickly passed both houses of Congress.

UPDATE 2: President Obama signed the HEATeR Act, saying, “We got a lot of what we wanted in this bill. And we’ve been warned by our children what is to come, which  should make everyone realize for all time that, as I said in my second inaugural address, failure to respond to the threat of climate change would betray our children and future generations.” Just as he finished signing, the time travelers and their machine vanished.

UPDATE 3: The Flatland Institute has issued a news release saying, “We challenge anyone to prove that what we have witnessed is anything other than a hoax created by left-wing Hollywood special effects experts. Is it just a coincidence that the most famous time travel movies of all time starred the man who went on to put in place a cap-and-tax bill in the state of California?” The major networks and YouTube report that all footage of the time travelers has mysteriously been erased.

UPDATE 4: It seems fewer and fewer people can remember the events of the past several days. There is no question about it. I can feel it. My memory is going. I can feel it. Daisy, Daisy…. Hasta la vista, baby!