Crocodile Tears No More

John Boehner has long been known as a crier. It seems that his tears come at politically opportune times though. This has led to a great deal of cynicism surrounding his emotional status. Of course, we are not nearly as famous as he is so when we cry it is not debated on the seven o'clock news. Therefore, we shall suspend our judgment.

However, when Gabrielle Giffords announced her resignation there was a cease-fire of sorts to John Boehner's show of emotions. He, like many other represantatives, was emotional at the scene. Mrs. Giffords, the democratic representative from Arizona, was part of the brutal attack on January 8th of last year. She announced this week that she would resign from office. This moved many to tears. John Boehner can be called an opportunist on many occasions, but this one may have been genuine. If not, then he is truly a cold and calculating politician.

Chad Ochocinco and John Boehner

We haven't had a post on John Boehner in a week! How can we be so foolishly distracted by other things? We apologize for our lack of seriousness in pursuing the knowledge of John Boehner with as much vigor as we have been in tracking our coverage of the IKEA vs. Urban Outfitter war or the hipster and their fixie fascination. It is unfortunate but it seems our readership enjoys our faux war and hipster more than Mr. Boehner as well.

President Obama gave the State of the Union last night. Sadly, we feel obliged to post on that and will do so soon. It's not that we don't want to. It's just that everybody already has and we shan't come up with anything original without descending into mockery - something that we're not above doing, but something for which we must pay penance in the form of a cilice for. It's itchy.

But, like many people, Chad Ochocinco was watching the State of the Union address. Unlike many of those that watched it, Mr. Ochocinco had no idea who the grumpy man in the background was. It was of course John Boehner. Chad Ochocinco took to his twitter machine and launched off some tweets about the sad man behind Mr. Obama. He would learn that it was John Boehner and would subsequently cheer him up by calling him angry and pointing out that he was not smiling. It was made better when Chad said, "hope you're ok". John Boehner however was ok and tweeted him the next morning. The conversation ended abruptly when Chad told John Boehner, if all else fails, I love you.

A long awaited post on John Boehner

It has been the goal since the inception of Leibnizian Ramblings way back in December of 2011 to highlight the movers and shakers of this world. As America remains a prominent player in that milieu we have focused a lot of time and energy on her. Two of the main players we've focused on have been House Speaker John Boehner and President Obama. However, we have been wrapped up in hipster quarrels and the much more serious Urban Outfitters v. IKEA struggle for the control of the world and have been neglecting a calling we feel from you the reader. We apologize that so we come to you with a bevy of Boehner and an omnibus of Obama in this post.

John Boehner has chimed in on the popular SOPA and PIPA debate that we highlighted early. We are certain that we were the only ones covering the Wikipedia blackout so trust only us and what we write. Everyone else is pirating our investigative journalism and opinion spinning. In a logical and wise move Mr. Boehner has decided that there will be no vote on the piracy acts in the near future given today's push back by the public. This measured approach towards building a consensus seems to show that Mr. Boehner is learning a bit. What has he learned from? Well, how about the sloshing that his and other house Republicans' reputations took when they pushed the fight over payroll taxes? In true political fashion Mr. Boehner apologized without apologizing for that whole fiasco. He said that he and his fellow Republicans had picked the "wrong timing" for the mess. Given a second chance I'm sure he would have done it in sunnier times. People would have been paying less attention as there isn't a whole lot going on towards of the end of December...

But alas, he was not all conciliatory and consensus minded this week. He and the House Republicans have decided to take a vote to deny the debt ceiling to be raised. This however, is political theater because the bill that will undoubtedly pass the House will never be debated in the Senate. With all of the theatrics going on in Washington we are beginning to wonder if they are taking an idea out of Disney's playbook. Remake and redo the same things and create sequel upon sequel based on seven minute rides. It's the same thing over and over again. I'm beginning to understand the depths of the perplexed 1955 Doc when Marty came running back to him at the end of Part II and the Beginning of Part III. Great Scott! You just keep coming back with the same thing!

Lastly, President Obama has, through the State Department, blocked the Keystone XL pipeline. There's a whole lot of spin going on around this issue. The biggest ones coming from Nancy Pelosi and John Boehner. Mr. Boehner used scare tactics like the Bogeyman China and the President is vetoing jobs. Nancy Pelosi said that the Republicans were to blame for the project being axed because they gave the President only 60 days to decide the matter (never mind that this project has been talked about for years and that the 60 days were set to expire February 21). I'm not going to offer opinion about who is wrong and who is right. Besides, my opinion will not sway yours, you've made up your mind already based on previous political positioning. I'm sorry, that was condescending and assumptive of me. You could be Canadian and just annoyed with both sides in making shipping your dirty oil another way.

We here at the Leibnizian Ramblings strive for optimism. When that proves to be impossible we try to serve out the harsh criticism equally. In this case there is plenty of scorn to go around.

John Boehner offers a comparably light rebuke of President Obama

While congress was recessing President Obama appointed three people to the National Labor Relations Board and appointed Richard Cordray to head the new Consumer Financial Protection Bureau. The whole separation of powers thing that Montesquieu wrote about and America subsequently adopted is what has people upset about President Obama's appointees. Most of the time when a president picks someone to do something congress gets to vet that person and ok or disallow the appointment. This way the President doesn't get to install unelected leaders to hang on to their posts after he has left office.

I'm not going to say that President Obama has done some political chicanery here. I'm sure that what will happen is that the Republicans will gather enough fury to make this an issue and then President Obama will go out on the campaign and point this out to Republican obstructionism and win some points. But, the National labor Relations Board is something that deals a lot with unions. Republicans were going to block anyone that President Obama appointed to it, even if it were a janitor, unless of course the janitor was non-unionized. Also, the Dodd-Frank law demands that the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau have a head. Since congress has been unwilling to approve President Obama's appointee, congress in some sense is acting against the spirit of the law. If you don't like the law, rewrite it. You're congress.

Some of the Republican Presidential candidates have had some strong words about President Obama's usage of congressional recess to appoint the people to their positions.

Ron Paul has called for the president to be taken to task for his "clear disregard of the constitution".

Newt Gingrich calls President Obama an "imperial president" and urges congress to defund the National Labor Relations Board.

Mitt Romney has an even scathier scathing word for President Obama, "President Obama has wasted no time in returning to one of the top items on his agenda: doling out favors to his big labor political allies and giving them a dangerous level of power over businesses and workers". Ouch! Cronyism and corruption. Bam.

On the other hand John Boehner has offered a bland criticism of the president's actions saying, "This action goes beyond the President’s authority, and I expect the courts will find the appointment to be illegitimate". Obviously the recess was not long enough because Mr. Boehner seems to be exhausted from all the smackdown he has been receiving from House Republicans. Or its possible that the short vacation from those meanies has allowed him to return to a more demure and moderate self. Either way I'd expect some more venom from the mouth of John Boehner in the coming days, even if it is written by his Tea Party puppeteers.

A lamentable haircut, Donald Trump, and the Urban Outfitters' Conspiracy.

Hanover Line I-IV

It appears that Norris Cole has cut his House Partyesque hair, thus ruining my hopes for a renaissance of Kid N' Play records. I'll simply devote a few hours tomorrow to my corner shrine.

On the topic of parties, it appears as though the GOP has lost Donald Trump, who has reregistered as an independent. In other and totally unrelated news, the GOP has gained much of the credibility they had lost over Boehner's miscalculation on the House Republicans payroll tax showdown.

Still concerning parties, there has been a rash of ugly sweater and turtleneck parties in recent Christmas seasons. For any Beltway insiders, there is one in your neck of the woods going on right now until 11 PM. I have to admit I'm all for sarcasm, satire and lowbrow jokes. I'm even for ruthless mockery and self-deprication, a staple of these parties. However, I find these Ugly Christmas Sweater parties to be nothing more than an excuse for hipsters to commingle with people who secretly want to be hipsters. It is this commingling that has me worried about the growing power of Urban Outfitters, Inc.

Urban Outfitters may model itself as a hipster/hipster-curious hot spot for fashion, accessories and entertainment, but what they sell with their wares are ideals and controls. Ideals that state that not only is it ok to be countercultural, that to be noncountercultural is in fact, countercultural. This anthropogenesis of the androgynous authenticating abstraction is absurd and arid. In other words, a hipster can be laughed at and generally ignored because while he may claim some vox-pop, hipsters generally can't stand being in large groups for long enough to create any lasting idea or movement. Hence, the control.

If this was all UO was doing successfully than we could simply ignore them. However, what UO is doing is as sinister as it is ingenious. By creating generations upon generations of hipsters, UO will render the willpower of men and women to be so weak that these wolves in sheepskin can finally come out and devour all of us with their vapid and vicious soul-crushing consumerism. They've already started to acculturate us to the idea of them redrawing the map in a "personalized" way (see picture). Pretty soon we'll simply defer to UO for real map redistricting since they'll promise to make sure to evenly spread out the butterflies amongst us.

Capitalism 3 - Art 1.

On a more optimistic note, Merry Christmas.

Tax chicken, not chicken tax

Recently we have talked about the cold war era Chicken Tax and the payroll tax extension, specifically how it was not a good idea to try and force a stalemate on this issue. The house Republicans however did not heed my thoughts and decided to play a game of chicken with the Senate and President Obama. The House Republicans blinked first. The payroll tax extension went through today in spite of Tea Party grumbling. This was the right call. It is a shame that the House Republicans tried to politicize this and their gamble did not pay off very well. But, as I optimistically wrote, the payroll tax extension went through.

The Guardian has a colorful, if not brutish description of Tea party bran muffins and the effect it had on John Boehner's digestive track to describe the situation that I appreciated very much. Check it out here. Colorful rhetoric aside, a little humility from the House Republicans might spur on some more cooperation in Washington.

Constant defense and Payroll tax

Hanover Line I-II

With all this talk of chicken tax and irony and more tax it got me thinking about governance and politics. Specifically, American governance and politics. Incredibly, a two-party system designed to check and balance each other is working by checking each other. The bicameralism is even working really well right now with House Republicans blocking the Senate. Fair play to the defensive maneuvering! Cheers.

However, while I'd like to be optimistic about the incredible defense we have seen in the past year by both sides of the aisle I have to admit that it has all been rather dull and unimaginative. Democrats propose one thing, Republicans block it, Democrats get angry and complain loudly. Republicans propose another thing, Democrats scoff and block it, Republicans cry foul. There's little agreement on any topic these days in Washington, which is fine. We should have these debates. Single party domination has never worked. Just ask the continually growing China. Their united front has not worked one bit.

Poor tasting jokes aside though, the recent blocking of the payroll tax extension by John Boehner and company in the House after the Senate passed it 89-10 is incredible for all the wrong reasons. The argument that the two month deal simply pushes the problem down the road to be dealt with later is 100% true. By only passing the two month deal the American government will have to deal with it again, in two months. However, if anyone truly believes that is why they are going this course they are not doing their due diligence as concerned American citizens. The move is completely political, meant to bend the left side of the government to their whims.

The political and economic environment of the times demands short-term fixes. Of course, a one-year deal is better suited to the American public because it provides stability. However, a two-month deal is infinitely preferable to no deal at all. When constant posturing and political maneuvering replaces actual governance the legislative branch must accept temporary deals. Unfortunately, many of the Tea Party Republicans are showing a lack of wisdom. Compromise in methodology is not a compromise in ideology. Everyone agrees on this one, left, right and center - the payroll tax needs to be extended to help Americans. In this climate, temporary fixes might be all that is achievable. That's pragmatism. Anyone remember it?

All this blame however should not be shouldered by House Republicans. The disagreements go too far now and politics has become increasingly nasty. I wonder though if politics has always been this nasty but because of the internet more people have a forum. 295 years ago I, a famous and well-versed philosopher would have the ear of all of Europe, but would the mere blogist (I understand that the term is blogger, but I think blogist has a better ring to it)? Everyone can comment on everything now and spew unthoughtful responses at the speed of their typing fingers. But, this digression distracts me from the task at hand, heaping coals upon the heads of the legislative branch of the United States. Where was I?

Oh yes, the House Republicans are not the only one to blame in this. While this obstructionism is coming from them this time the response of many Democrats has not been helpful. Why are the Democrats and Republicans unable to get along and work out legislation these days? Because they are too busy with populist demagoguery. This is a populist move to drum up anger in the Tea Party wing of the Republican base. Unfortunately though the loss will be for people of all bases...

However, all this negativity is nonsense. Eventually, the tactic will work or fail. Because of the importance of this tax break the extension will happen. Then both sides will take credit for pushing the deal through and we'll throw a parade. Undoubtedly, somebody will protest the parade. In a strange and ironic twist though, the protesters will then be occupied by other protesters. In all of this active protesting there will be a lot iPod, iPad and Android app creation dealing with the measuring of angst and depression. Somebody will pick up on this and get funded to do research on the connection between legislative gridlock and seasonal depression. Researchers will pay people to participate in the study, pumping money into the economy. Drug companies will design the correct drug for the condition, creating jobs, thus pumping money into the economy. Lawyers will sue the drug company for creating a drug with a unreported side-effect, creating wealth and most importantly distracting the American public from the continuing political stalemate in Washington. A win for everybody!