Laughing with the Moon

By Jonathan Bert

The Extreme Moderate

February 25, 2010

Moon, you can laugh, you're a quarter million miles away. I have to laugh to keep from crying.

Obama, what a disappointment. We needed someone with tremendous skill and intelligence to get us out of the mess the Bush bunch got us into, and we get this character that can screw up a wet dream. This dumb-ass was elected to reform the financial system, but instead of financial reform, he's spending all of his time on health care reform and pollution control while Wall Street is still getting seven figure bonuses and the middle class is broke. You stupid shit head, get the country running on all cylinders and back to prosperity, your popularity would be incredible, then nobody, from Maxine Watters to John Boner (did I spell that wrong?) would dare to step out of line when you push your pet programs. Obummer.

Now we have the "Tea Party." I guarantee you that these clowns are not drinking tea. Anybody that thinks dingbats like Sarah Palin and Michelle Bachmann make sense must be smoking crack with their bourbon. And they believe the "Birthers." Hawaii might seem nice, but it is still part of the United States. Remember how pissed off the U.S. got when the Japs bombed it? Duh!

The Republican Party IS the party of "No!" No compassion, no integrity, no ideas.

The Democratic Party is the party of "Moe," as in Larry, Curly and Moe. And Moe government!

I am impressed with the dignity W is displaying in his time out of office. Dick Cheney, on the other hand, is still the bastard from hell. A leopard can't change his spots.

Car Insurance must be one hell of a racket. They're damn near the only businesses that can still afford to advertise!

The rest of the ads are from lawyers suing drug companies. That is why I only do drugs that are not FDA approved!

The cops in Murderapolis were braggin' that there were only 19 murders there last year. The thugs must have felt 'dissed, the murder rate is back to normal, with seven just in January.

Sarah Palin writes notes on her hand. Hey, ding-a-ling, you're not in junior high anymore.

Raul Emanuel shouldn't call people "Retards," Democrats are supposed to be politically correct. Rush Limbaugh shouldn't call people "Retards," without retards he wouldn't have an audience!

Bailout? Hell, the best thing to happen to General motors is Toyota. Honda is having trouble, too. I guess cheap Japanese crap is still cheap Japanese crap. Buy a Buick.

A killer whale killed one of it's trainers. Maybe now some of these morons will figure how these critters got their name.

Those boneheads from Idaho, (where else?), were supposed to save orphans in Haiti, but none of the 33 kids they grabbed were actually orphans! These people were up to something shady. I don't know what they had planned for the girls, but I think they were going to sell the little boys to priests.

Moon, I can't laugh anymore, I'm going to start crying. Your laughter just makes it hurt more. I'm going to send my pennies, (all three of them!), to NASA to help buy another rocket to shove up your dark side.

Obama’s Worst Report Card

By Jonathan Bert
The Extreme Moderate

March 20, 2009

Every idiot blogger and turdball pundit has been grading our new President’s performance way before enough time has passed to make a truly fair assessment. Being an idiot blogger, and turdball pundit, myself, here is my unfair assessment:

The economy is job number one. Obama somehow drove our economy on a downhill slide years before he took office. Nothing the Bush administration did could slow Obama’s encouragement of the massive collection of “Toxic Assets” that our major financial institutions managed to own, and insure. Now, in the guise of a stimulus, he is giving these institutions more money, taxpayer dollars in fact, to mismanage. He must be given credit for saving the bonuses for the people running these firms. There are those that feel that the executives of the corporations that are being bailed out should be denied their millions of dollars in bonus cash just because they made a couple of little mistakes. Someone in Congress even tried to put a provision in the “bailout” bill to cancel these bonuses! But we can thank the Obama Administration, with the help of their friend, Senator Christopher Dodd, for eliminating this amendment, guaranteeing that these poor fellows will get their hard-earned wages. Obama also deserves an A+ for not giggling when talking about how “outraged” he is about these bonuses. On the down side, Obama is giving the unemployed more money, and extending the time they can collect Unemployment Insurance benefits. Any sensible person knows the best way to deal with unemployment is to let the unemployed starve to death, at which time they will no longer be unemployed. Overall, in dealing with the economy, Obama deserves a D-.

Foreign affairs are a big part of a President’s job. Of course, Obama is screwing this up. Instead of continuing a war against an enemy that posed little threat, he wants to wind that war down. And we haven’t finished the job there! Intelligence gathered during the Bush administration clearly showed that Iraq has weapons of mass destruction, but Obama is going to take our troops out of there before said weapons are found! Instead, he’s going to expand the war in Afghanistan, where our actual enemies are found, where 9/11 terrorists trained and had safe harbor! Any idea what a can of worms that would be? Fighting actual enemies? Bush had way more sense than that. He went after an easy target, which was pretty much contained by international forces, and was toppled quite easily. The fact that he stirred up some actual enemies is neither here nor there; his intentions were good. As far as terrorism goes, Obama is looking at the vulnerability of our infrastructure. Bush put all of his energy into protecting airports from further hijackings. Obama seems to think that his Muslim brethren might think of a new way to attack us, and that we might be open to assaults not involving airports! How ridiculous! On top of that, he wants to “talk” to Iran! Have meetings and discussions with the leaders of the pivot point of the “Axis of Evil.” It’s almost like he wants to “Dine with his enemies.” This sounds like something Jesus Christ would say! And, as is obvious to anybody familiar with modern American Christianity, you don’t pay any attention to what Christ said! This is why the biggest objection to this move comes from the heavily Christian extreme Right. On foreign affairs, Obama gets a D-.

When it comes to Cabinet appointments, Obama screwed up again! For Secretary of State, the person responsible for dealing with foreign leaders, he chose someone intelligent, knowledgeable, charming, and experienced in dealing with foreign leaders! He should have found someone incapable of independent thought, someone that does what she is told to do, and says what she is told to say, in a voice with the same pleasant sound as a dental drill. Like Condoleeza Rice! Other Cabinet positions he tried filling with people that got caught scamming on their taxes! He has got to fill these posts with people that are smart enough to scam their taxes with out getting caught! On his Cabinet, Obama gets a D-.

On domestic issues, Obama is screwing up again! One of his first acts as President, he signed a bill continuing the misguided effort to make women equal to men! Nature didn’t even make women equal, who does he think he is to argue with Nature? And then he makes an “Executive Order” to fund stem cell research. Instead of using the hundreds of thousands of unused embryos in an attempt to find cures for horrible diseases, we should stuff those unused embryos into welfare mothers eight or nine at a time! Obama deserves some credit, though, for proposing that injured veterans should let their private insurance pay to treat their injuries. These deadbeat vets think they can travel to a foreign country, get their legs blown off by an IED, then expect the Army to pay for it? How ridiculous! All the same, on the subject of domestic issues, Obama gets a D-.

I could go on and on, then go on and on some more, about how badly Obama has performed these first two months on the job, but I can’t, and I’m sure you can’t, stomach any more. So far, Obama has gotten five or six grades of D-, which averages a big, fat F.

So I conclude this most premature and unfair of all premature and unfair assessments of President Obama’s job performance. I expect a job offer from Fox News any minute.

Thank you.

Sincerely,

Jonathan Bert

Barking at the Moon

By Jonathan Bert
The Extreme Moderate

March 16, 2009

I screwed up this month. Somehow, I didn't get the scheduled publishing thing right, so this post is now 6 days late. It didn't get too stale, so I'm putting it out there now. Sorry Moon, I know you're at the last quarter, but I am only human. Gonna have to get my own Internet service sometime.

The World didn’t end in 2000, it didn’t end on June 6, 2006 (6/6/06), so now, for whatever odd reason, the magic number is 2012. In 2013 they will pick a new number. After living through scores of crackpot predictions, I’m going to make a few of my own.

After Obama’s first 100 days in office, pundits will figure out he has 1,361 days left.

Former Illinois Governor Rod Blagojevich is going to abandon politics and become a successful Television Evangelist.


Louisiana Governor Bobby Jindal will abandon politics to become the host of a children’s show.

The gene that causes homosexuality will be found and isolated, and fetuses will be screened for this gene. Most of those found with the gene will be aborted. The Right wing will be okay with this, as the right to life doesn’t extend to queers.

Physicists are trying to find the particle responsible for gravity. They’ve even named it, “Graviton.” This particle is responsible for the mass of everything from feathers to lead bricks, and they can’t find it. Some day one of these guys is going to see the forest through the trees and figure out that gravity isn’t a particle, it is probably a dimension. It will be called the “I’ve Fallen and I Can’t Get Up!” dimension.

After the economy totally tanks, and everybody is starving, young girls will abandon the “Crank Whore” look, because everyone will look that way. They will gobble down potatoes and lard to achieve the “Rosie O’Donnell” look.

Obama’s honeymoon is going to crash and his relationship with the populace will need major repair. He is reaching too far, too fast. He’s even promising a cure for Cancer! (A statement like that forgets that Cancer is not one disease, but a group of related diseases, one cure for all is unlikely, it will need several cures. Plural.) Eventually, it will be realized he is not a miracle worker. He will be a better President than W., but not a lot better; his inexperience is already showing. The only thing that is going to save his ass in 2012 is Republicans are failing to offer anything new, just more of the same crap that screwed up the country the past eight years.

Bernie Madoff will be convicted of ripping off investors of billions of dollars in a “Ponzi Scheme.” The judge will throw the book at him and sentence Nadoff to two years confinement in the Playboy Mansion.

A great Republican lie is that taxing incomes over $250,000 will discourage small business from hiring. Companies will look for deductions to keep their take home pay under that mark. Payroll and related expenses are deductible! Hiring people can slide them into a lower tax bracket! The only people that will get hurt are those that can’t “Get By” on $249,000.

HLN’s Nancy Grace will marry a great guy and find true happiness, thus ruining her career.

George W. Bush will follow in the footsteps of Jimmy Carter, John Quincy Adams, and others, by doing more good for planet Earth after his Presidency than during it. (Especially if he continues his efforts to improve the health situation in Africa.) If he just stops doing mass quantities of damage it would be a start.

Some day, a man will land on Mars. After he climbs down the ladder, the astronaut will say “One small step for a man, one giant heap of money blown.”

The Catholic Church, in an attempt to stop centuries of immoral behavior, will allow priests to marry altar boys.


Rush Limbaugh will receive medicine’s first reverse lobotomy, thus ruining his career.

Many fear Obama might fail. Morons like Limbaugh want him to fail. Limbaugh’s popularity will not drop; people that are stupid enough to listen to him now are too stupid to wise up, ever.

Obama and Nancy Pelosi will start butting heads. This will help save America! Power will shift to a coalition of moderates from both parties. However, this will require that not only Pelosi, but Harry Reid and John Boner (Did I spell that wrong?), et al, be made irrelevant. Please!

I see signs that the old John McCain is returning. He will be more instrumental in saving the country than he would have had he won last November. He doesn’t have to kiss-butt anymore, his seat in Arizona is pretty safe. He will be key to forming the above-mentioned coalition.

As the economy tanks, bank robberies will go up. The problem will be finding a bank that is still open.

The mother of octuplets is going to make a fortune off of books, movies and even a reality show. This will prompt other welfare moms to have nine.

A gang of fanatics will corner Dick Cheney and drive a wooden stake through his heart. Cheney will just laugh; he isn’t a vampire, he is more evil than that.

The Minnesota Senate race between Republican Norm Coleman and Democrat Al Franken will be settled before the 2014 elections. (Going out on a limb with that one.)

Republicans will figure out that anyone with half a brain isn’t going to buy their newfound respect for fiscal responsibility. After Reagan started mortgaging our future to give the rich money to “Trickle Down” and Bush Sr. followed suit even though he called it “Voodoo Economics,” there was a pause in deficit spending called “The Clinton Administration.” But then W. made up for lost time by setting deficit records almost every year he was in office. The Republican rebranding effort will involve selling the idea that deficit spending is a good thing, and that they are the masters.

Eventually the crybabies will get all of the airports closed down. The United States will build one huge airport in the middle of North Dakota where it won’t bother anyone. People will ride high-speed rail to and from other parts of the country, giving the crybabies something new to cry about.

Sarah Palin will run in the Republican Presidential primaries in 2012. She will, however, lose the nomination to Joe the Plumber.

The American economy will eventually recover. It will be debated whether the Democrat’s stimulus plan helped. All will agree that we’ll have one hell of a bill to pay.

The guy that correctly predicts the day the World ends won’t be around to gloat about it.

The Democrats will manage to outlaw guns. After violent crime against a defenseless populace skyrockets, they will be desperate for an excuse, and blame it on the full Moon.

I Feel So Stimulated!

By Jonathan Bert
The Extreme Moderate

February 17, 2009

Today we get our new economic stimulus plan. Oh Boy! This is going to be good!

This bipartisan plan (it did get three Republican votes) is designed to give our economy a good kick-start toward prosperity. This stroke of genius will devalue our dollar, sell our banks to foreign interests, and drive our debt so high that our great-grandchildren won’t even get it paid off! Ain’t that swell? Excuse me, I have to look up “prosperity” in my dictionary, it seems I’ve had it wrong all these years.

Obama wanted support from Republicans, he wined them and dined them but then he let the Democratic leadership in the House write the damn thing. After years of getting pushed around by Bush and his extreme right cronies, the Democrats in the House are not in the mood for anything resembling bipartisanship. The Republicans are intransigent, being really sore losers, and after three decades they all of the sudden rediscovered fiscal responsibility! The parties are making this a showdown, gambling big. If the economy shows measurable improvement in two years, it’s a win for Democrats, and Republicans will be driven even closer to extinction. If the economy is still faltering two years from now, Obama might be dealing with a Republican Congress.

Our hope is that history repeats itself. It seems like Republicans get us into big economic messes, like the Depression (Hoover), the 1975 Recession (Nixon, Ford), the malaise of 1991-92 (Bush the Elder) and then get bailed out by Democrats. Another point is Buchanan, considered the worst President, was followed by the best, Lincoln. Bush the Junior is to be ranked right down there with Buchanan, Fillmore, et al, so maybe, if history is nice, Obama will turn out to be up there in skill with Lincoln, Roosevelt, and other leaders that got the country out of big messes. What is very scary about this particular disaster is that many Democrats in Congress, many still in Congress, were of great assistance to the GOP in creating the mortgage crisis, which has been the grease in this downhill slide.

So even if Obama is great, he still has to deal with a Congress full of idiots. Nancy Pelosi doesn’t even belong there, much less be there in a leadership position. On the other side of the aisle, we have John Boner (did I spell that wrong?), who is pretty much the same story. The Senate is in a very sad situation. There actually are some moderates in the Senate, but they tend to get kicked into the corner and forced to wear dunce hats.

The big problem is that American politics has been taken over by the stupid. The GOP has had big wins appealing to the backward and ignorant of the Deep South, rural areas, and places like Alaska. The Dems have their base among the undereducated of the inner cities. Anyone with an I.Q. North of the Mason-Dixon Line is left scratching his or her head trying to figure out who is the lesser of two evils. The problem is that there isn’t a lesser evil.

It has been demonstrated that the country runs best when power is divided. When Congress and the Presidency are in gridlock, they tend to do the least damage. Look at the last six years of Slick Willie’s terms. America ran like a well-oiled watch, at least until the GOP tormented Bill for liking women. How dare he! He should like men and little boys, like they do! Then you look at W’s first six, you get the definition of disaster. Not only did Republicans have control of the House, Senate and the White House, the Democrats showed their intestinal fortitude by caving at every reasonable opportunity. The past two years weren’t long enough to show much progress, mainly because the Republicans, being losers, did the best possible job of being pains in the ass.

Hopefully, very hopefully, this plan might work. The tax breaks will have a modest, but immediate effect. People building roads and bridges will not only be employed, but will eat at the local lunch counters. And the ripple effect will continue. The Art Community will employ artists, who will no longer have to work at the lunch counters, creating openings for unemployed youths. Other facets of the program also might create jobs. Ignore the whinings of the sore losers, there actually isn’t a whole lot of “Pork” in this bill. And the most attractive facet of this plan is that it is based on a “Trickle Up” theory, which is much more realistic than “Trickle Down.” Republicans seem to think that the money mongers are the power behind an economy, that thy will somehow direct the money in ways beneficial to the economy. Sorry Bozos, you really overrate your importance. The working class is the engine that drives our country. Republicans are short sighted; they like handing the money directly to the rich, which shows the general stupidity of the GOP. Get the money to middle class, and the money will get to the rich, even more money than if it’s handed directly to them, it just requires a little patience. That is because the middle class is equally stupid, because they will spend their money at Wal Mart, Best Buy and other “Big Box” stores rather than the local markets, destroying any hope of anybody of their class achieving the American Dream.

If it seems like foreign economies are being treated as if they don’t matter, well they don’t, at least not much. They need us more than we need them, for the time being.

So hang on. We are in a tailspin. Will we pull out of it? Will we make a graceful splash in the Hudson? Or will we land flat? Pray for the best. There are no atheists in foxholes.

Barking at the Moon

By Jonathan Bert
The Extreme Moderate

January 10, 2009

How do you spell relief? This is the last Moon to look upon us as ruled by George Bush and friends. Next Moon we will have a new President. Contrary to popular belief, Obama cannot and will not walk on water, but we will no longer need hip waders to walk through the bullshit coming out of the White House. I guarantee that Obama will be much more honest with us than Dick Cheney and his Muppet, W.

We are in deep trouble. Congress and two Presidents are trying to figure out how bail out our economy. It’s like trying to bail out the Titanic with an ice cream bucket.

Car companies are in trouble, but car insurance companies must be making money hand over fist! How can they save us so much money when they are spending multiple millions on advertising? I’m sick of it. I almost miss the political ads. Do you smell some sort of racket?

Another racket is those guys that want to buy your old gold jewelry, etc. You will get screwed. Take your stuff to some legitimate jewelers to find the best deal.

This year, for a New Years resolution, I decided to try something achievable! I swore to become an alcoholic! But, as usual, I’m failing. One beer doesn’t qualify.

I might go back to smoking a lot of Pot, but then...uh, what was I talking about?

Osama bin Laden is a genius. An evil genius, but a genius all the same. All he needed was one attack, then let Bush use fear and hatred as tools to start stripping us of our American rights. America is about our constitution, not about flags. Face it, compared to almost any other country, we are safe, our greatest danger is paranoia. Big Brother is alive and well and must be stopped.

Bill Richardson withdrew his nomination as Commerce Secretary because of some questions about a campaign contributor. I really, really hope everything is on the up and up. I have respected Richardson as an honest and rational man for a long time. If he turns out to be dirty, I will lose all faith.

George Bush the senior thinks his son Jeb should be President. I think the Bush’s should practice birth control. Let’s send them all gift certificates from Planned Parenthood.

The comedy of the Minnesota Senate race is crawling to the finish. Democrat Al Franken has been certified the winner over Republican Norm Coleman by 225 votes. But there will be court challenges, likely followed by more court challenges. Too bad they can’t both lose.

I’m a long-suffering Minnesota Vikings fan. All Viking fans deserve the title of long-suffering. I’m surrounded by Packers fans, so I suffer more.

One of the most dangerous situations to be dealt with is in Pakistan. Al-Quaida has a good foothold there, with plenty of friends and hiding places. The government is weak, and has minimal control over the Army. Pakistan is primarily Muslim, and has frequent conflicts with neighboring India, which is Hindu. Both countries have nuclear arms. Nobody involved likes us a whole lot, so our ability to broker peace is nil. Moon, please tell me everything will be okay.

The Moon is silent, as always. It will be a morning crescent as it watches us usher in a new era in America. Obama is intelligent, with a heart of gold, similar credentials to Jimmy Carter. Carter tended to be paralyzed by indecision. We can’t have indecisiveness now. We need quick work to regain our respect and power in the World, to get our priorities back in order, to return to true American values.

Forgive me Moon if my bark is a little timid tonight.