Congress leaves pile of work undone as it heads off for vacation

House Speaker John Boehner is very confident in the job his caucus has done, saying they've made a real difference in jobs and the economy and making the nation a great, friendly place for Republicans. But considering how much work they ditched in order to go off on a five-week break from legislating lady parts, Boehner's judgement on that score has to be questioned.

The most serious and immediate in Boehner's remarkable failure has been in getting his caucus behind a farm bill. Like the transportation bill debacle before it, the farm bill fuck up is remarkable and historic. For the first time in modern history, the House hasn't been able to pass a farm bill because the crazies in the caucus are fighting it. The Senate has even managed to pass a farm bill, making Boehner's failure even more remarkable. So in a last-minute rush to try to cover up that failure, Boehner got a stop-gap small bill pushed through to help one segment of agriculture producers, dropped it on the Senate, and then promptly recessed. The Senate, not being interested in bailing Boehner out on this one, rejected this as way too little and too late.

But that's just a drop in the bucket of the work Republicans have allowed to languish heading into this long break.

On Thursday, a bipartisan cybersecurity bill that would have established standards for the computer systems that oversee the country's critical infrastructure was stopped by a filibuster as some leading Republicans yielded to the concerns of major business interests.

The renewal of a measure to protect women from domestic violence ' an issue that has also generally enjoyed bipartisan support in both chambers ' stalled and routine spending bills and tax measures were also languishing, even as Congress faces a year-end pileup of expiring tax laws and spending cuts.

And now the worst Congress in the modern era is rewarding itself with five weeks off. During those five weeks, Republicans who have managed to do nothing but demonstrate how much they hate President Obama and lady parts will hammer the president incessantly for not having done enough to fix the economy.

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