Oaklandsocialist launches its powerful new Marxist time machine to bring you this news report from February, 2021:

Congressional Republicans walk out as President Biden addresses joint session of congress

February 30, 2021

President Joe Biden gave his first State of the Union speech to a partially empty hall yesterday. The president however was nonplussed as he set a new record for such a speech – three hours and forty-seven minutes long. The new chair of the Senate, Vice President Harris, had to receive massage therapy following the speech as her smile muscles had frozen in place by the end of the speech. Unfortunately, we are unable to report on a single word that President Biden had said as for some strange reason all the TV cameras seemed to malfunction and only showed Biden’s mouth moving but the audio portion didn’t register a single word coming out of his mouth.

Following the speech, the President was asked if he was disturbed by the unprecedented walkout. “Here’s the deal,” he replied. “I have been doing this for a long time. A long, long, long, long time. A lot longer than any of you have been around. I know what I’m doing. I am fully confident that I can restore the soul of America. That means first and foremost that we who you out there have placed your trust in by electing us to these important positions, positions of power which we always seek to use that power wisely and I can by my goodwill and knowledge bring out the best in my good friends from across the aisle. On the other hand, we must not rush to judgement and we know that there are several of my colleagues from across the aisle who have also been around for a long time and as we know the longer we men have been around the more frequently we must take a potty break and we must give our Republican colleagues the benefit of the doubt about this. Furthermore,” the president continued, “I must stress that several of my Republican colleagues remained in the hall to hear the entirety of the State of the Union address.”

However, several of the Republicans who walked out denied that having to take a potty break had anything to do with it. One or two commented that they had walked out in solidarity with Florida Republican Representative Matt Gaetz. Gaetz was denied entry when he refused to surrender his AR-15, his flame thrower and several hand grenades that he was carrying.

Of the Republican senators, the most prominent who did not walk out was Susan Collins of Maine (who was hiding underneath her desk). Senator Mitt Romney of Utah was visible neither among those who walked out nor seated at his desk. However, an empty suit mysteriously remained seated at Senator Romney’s desk during the entire speech.

When asked for his comments on the walkout, Senate minority leader Mitch McConnell replied, “blrrbble ubble gubble mumble bumble.”

The ever outspoken Senator Bernie Sanders issued a strongly worded statement emphasizing that this shows the need for Medicare for All. He also sent out an email to his 497 million followers asking them each to contribute two dollars and forty-seven cents, explaining that if each of the recipients would donate that amount he would have enough money to completely take over the Democratic Party. “Not me, us,” he concluded.

For some reason, Nielson TV ratings for this State of the Union speech hit an all time low of 350 viewers. Some speculated that part of the reason was that some 75 million people had been evicted and were homeless and a further 200 million had had their electricity cut off so they did not have access to a TV. Fortunately, the record homeless population is facing an unusually mild winter with record warm temperatures around the country.

House Majority Leader Nancy Pelosi commented that she did not understand the walkout as just a month earlier a joint meeting of Republicans and Democrats had produced a remarkable $20 trillion ($20,000,000,000,000) economic bailout package, with $1,000 per week going to every adult resident of the United States. This bailout, entitled the Workers and Employers Lost Income Emergency Act (WELIE Act), was enacted in a record time of 25 minutes. A few objected to the clause that gives even more money to the employers, but that issue was generally ignored.

It followed the shocking actions of Martin Luther King Day (January 14, 2021) in which tens of thousands of hungry people entered dozens of supermarkets across the country, filled their carts with groceries, and walked out, refusing to pay for the food. “Eating is a human right; every stomach counts,” commented one of these bandits. This trend has developed following the case of the ten protesters who had originally set the example in a well publicized food giveaway in which they filled shopping carts and walked out to a waiting crowd outside to which they distributed the food. The ones who stole the food were arrested for shoplifting. They insisted on a jury trial and at that trial they acted as their own lawyers and gave a novel defense that their actions were a form of free speech. This resulted in a mistrial as the jury hung and a second trial produced the same results.

While the Republicans walked out of the president’s speech, they had held an emergency joint conference with their Democratic colleagues immediately following the food riots to pass the emergency bill, which newly inaugurated President Biden signed as his first official act in office.

Protester in Ferguson, MO, 2014.