Today In "Not a Dime's Worth of Difference" News, Ctd.

Nearly 150 years after the leader of the Republican Party summoned words like these to describe what his country was going through -- 

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The world will little note, nor long remember what we say here, but it can never forget what they did here. It is for us the living, rather, to be dedicated here to the unfinished work which they who fought here have thus far so nobly advanced. It is rather for us to be here dedicated to the great task remaining before us—that from these honored dead we take increased devotion to that cause for which they gave the last full measure of devotion—that we here highly resolve that these dead shall not have died in vain—

-- the modern leader of the same party has conjured up this bucket of rhetorical awesome to explain the Farm Bill catastrophe he and his band of drunken rage-aholic lemurs are in the process of enacting:

“If ands and buts were candy and nuts, every day would be Christmas. You’ve heard that before. My goal right now is to get the farm bill passed. We’ll get to those other issues later.”

And to no ones surprise it turned out that the substance of the bill John Boehner brought to the floor was every bit as ridiculous as the words the leader of the Party of Lincoln was using to waxing dumbfuck about it.  From the WSJ:

House Cuts Food-Stamp Funds From Farm Bill

Republican Leaders Strip Out Food-Stamp Funding to Ease Passage 

WASHINGTON—A sharply divided House approved a bill Thursday that would set farm policy for the next five years, using a strategy that pleased conservative Republicans, angered Democrats and left the future of farm programs and food stamps in doubt.

Bruised by the unexpected defeat of the farm bill last month, House Republican leaders removed funding for food-stamp programs from the legislation, bowing to conservative demands that those programs be dealt with separately. That marked a change in tradition; farm bills in the past won support from a broad coalition of rural and urban lawmakers in both parties because the two programs were linked.

The vote Thursday was 216-208, with all Democrats who cast a vote opposing the measure. Twelve Republicans also voted against the bill.

The Senate, in a bipartisan vote in June, approved a bill that included both farm and nutrition programs, and a senior Democratic leadership aide said senators were likely to insist both remain in the measure.

The White House on Wednesday night said President Barack Obama would veto the House version of the bill if it made it to his desk. "This is not a serious attempt to pass a farm bill or to reform a farm bill," said Rep. Peter Welch (D., Vt.).

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But as bad the bill looks in toned-down language of the WSJ, the legislative process that produced it was so very much worse:

The 600-page bill was dropped by House leadership at 8 p.m. last night, without committee consideration, and is being rushed to a final vote today. No amendments are being allowed. While the legislation contains no money for nutrition programs, it offers a record level of taxpayer support for Big Agriculture. Even with the removal of food-stamp money, conservative groups such as the Heritage Foundation continue to oppose it because of the corporate subsidies that it contains.

Of course all of this could easily have been avoided if only the damn Democrats had had the basic human decency to die off already and make room for a vibrant third party to rise instantly from the ashes and take on and handily defeat Mr. "If ands and buts were candy and nuts" and his band of Neoconfederate zombies.