The political ramifications of the party failing to pass the Farm Bill have been thoroughly analyzed, but less discussed has been the life-or-death implications of what will happen to the program now. And on that score, there’s a strong chance that Republicans’ unholy combination of malice and dimwittedness might actually yield the reverse of its desired effect: fewer cuts than they sought, not more.

First, some background. The Democratic-controlled Senate passed its own Farm Bill that would cut SNAP by some $4 billion, an amount already troubling to people concerned about hunger in America. The House then took that $4 billion cut and multiplied it by five, calling for a $20.5 billion reduction.

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As the Republican House leaders consider the way forward, they would do well to consider the decisions of the past two generations of top Republican legislators, without whom the Voting Rights Act would never have existed.

Most students of history know that President Lyndon Johnson’s mastery of the legislative process – and his huge Democratic majorities – were key to the bill’s original passage. But few know that the final bill was written in the office of the Republican minority leader, Everett McKinley Dirksen of Illinois.

President Lyndon Johnson feared a Southern filibuster might defeat the bill. To prevent a filibuster, two-thirds of the Senate would have to move to the bill to a final vote, and achieving this would require Republican votes. So Johnson turned to Dirksen. “…[ Y]ou come with me on this bill,” Johnson told him, “and two hundred years from now school children will know only two names: Abraham Lincoln and Everett Dirksen.”

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The fight will continue in the states, and conservative Republicans may even keep up the fight in Congress, but leadership is ready to throw in the towel. "While I am obviously disappointed in the ruling, it is always critical that we protect our system of checks and balances," Boehner told reporters today after the Supreme Court struck down DOMA. "A robust national debate over marriage will continue in the public square, and it is my hope that states will define marriage as the union between one man and one woman." States, not Congress.

“It sounds to me that that battle will be moving to the states,” John Cornyn, the No. 2 Republican in the Senate, said. Eric Cantor hit the same tone, adding, "the marriage debate will continue in the states." "Congressional Republican leaders are speaking with resounding unity: the same-sex marriage fight is ending on Capitol Hill," Politico's Jake Sherman and Ginger Gibson reported today.

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One never knows when a politician will get sick of it all and move on, but until that happens keep your money on more stories about Boehner’s speakership at risk, more stories of floor fiascoes such as the farm bill debacle this week – and more instances of Boehner surviving all of it.

Why? Because Boehner is actually doing his job well. It’s just that it’s an impossible job right now. The basic structure for why it’s impossible is well known. Boehner’s Republicans have a relatively slim majority; on any particular vote, it’s likely that either a group of moderates or a group of radical conservatives will want to dissent; and in a polarized House it’s unlikely that Democrats will furnish many votes without substantive concessions – and cutting deals with Democrats is almost impossible when Republican activists consider any compromise a betrayal. And, meanwhile, some bills simply have to be passed, meaning that 218 votes have to be found somehow. It all means that fiascoes such as the farm bill debacle this week are extremely likely.

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Now then, what's the problem? Oh right, it's the House of Representatives, which is terrible at everything, and offers no indication of being any other way until at least 2023. Let's give some credit: They're adept at passing go-nowhere bills to repeal Obamacare or ban abortion or tattoo the words "Under God" to every baby's forehead. Great work there from the House Republican Party. On issues that might appeal to an even slightly broader cross-section of the country, though, they've got nothing. You know this. You've seen the same routine in nearly every important vote since 2009. Remember that time the government considered arbitrarily defaulting on the public debt and destroying the global economy forever? That was a head-scratcher for the House; took some real "working out" before they concluded it would best be averted, for now.

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“I have no intention of putting a bill on the floor that will violate the principles of our majority and divide our conference,” Boehner said, according to GOP aides, the Washington Post reports. “One of our principles is border security. I have no intention of putting a bill on the floor that the people in this room do not believe secures our borders. It’s not gonna happen.”

From the Post:

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“I would consider that a betrayal of the Republican members of the House, and a betrayal of the Republicans throughout the country," Rohrabacher told WorldNetDaily radio. "Just as legalizing the status of illegals and suffering consequences of fifty million new people heading in our direction is a betrayal of the interests of the American people."

He continued: "And if Spekaker Boehner moves forward and permits this to come to a vote, even though the majority of Republicans in the House - and that's if they do [call a vote] - oppose whatever it is that's coming to a vote, he should be removed as Speaker."

Here's the audio, via Right Wing Watch.

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Luckily or not, Rubio’s wimpy reply was overshadowed by reaction to a deeply reported New Yorker piece by Ryan Lizza that placed the Florida Republican at the center of the "Gang of Eight" negotiations. It featured a choice quote dissing American workers from an anonymous Rubio aide, explaining why his boss backed the Chamber of Commerce over the AFL-CIO when it came to a guest worker agreement (they eventually compromised): “There are American workers who, for lack of a better term, can’t cut it. There shouldn’t be a presumption that every American worker is a star performer. There are people who just can’t get it, can’t do it, don’t want to do it. And so you can’t obviously discuss that publicly.”

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“The president outlined last week that these were important national security programs to help keep Americans safe, and give us tools to fight the terrorist threat that we face,” Boehner continued. “The president also outlined that there are appropriate safeguards in place to make sure that there’s no snooping, if you will, on Americans here at home.”

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Back in January, reports surfaced that a group of conservative Republicans were plotting to remove Boehner from his post over his handling of the "fiscal cliff" deal, which many Republicans opposed. Though conservatives needed 17 defectors to get rid of Boehner, in the end they were short by five.

Rep. Steve Southerland, R-Fla., was one of the potential defectors, but he, like several others among his would-be co-conspirators, told the Post that God told him not to:

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“If Congress doesn’t act by July 1, federal student loan rates are set to double,” he said.

Obama also called on students to "make their voices heard" and pressure lawmakers to improve upon a House measure that he said fails to "lock in low rates for students next year” and “eliminates safeguards for low-income families.”

Interest rates are currently at 3.4 percent, but, come July 1st, are set to rise to 6.8 percent. The president's proposal would freeze rates as they are, which White House officials say would save more than 7 million young people with student loans thousands of dollars.

But some Republicans believe the president's bid to keep student loan rates low is an effort to "change the subject" from his "growing list of scandals," as the Washington Post reports:

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Seizing on the Benghazi tragedy, IRS probe, and whatever else they can get their claws into, today’s Republicans on Capitol Hill and the outraged echo chamber at Fox News are vultures of the breed Sam P. Jones saw in the political world of his day. The fresh meat they have no taste for is what we might call productive reform legislation, which their diversionary tactics prevent from being put front and center. The vultures feed instead on rotten issues like abortion (how many babies did Planned Parenthood kill today?) or dismantling Obamacare before it can do good, put government in a positive light, and lead to further reform of a system that is stacked in favor of private insurance companies.

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“It’s pretty inconceivable to me that the president wouldn’t know,” Boehner said on Fox News on Wednesday. “I’m just putting myself in his shoes. I deal with my senior staff every day. And if the White House had known about this, which now it appears they’ve known about it for about a year, it’s hard to imagine it wouldn’t have come up in some conversation.”

“They could have attempted to insulate the president from this news,” he continued. “But with as many people that were involved in the audit, the number of people involved in the investigation, somebody — and the number of people in the White House that knew — it really is inconceivable that he wouldn’t have known about it.”

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It began with tweets by Republicans:

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But then the White House started trolling them:

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The hashtag, which began trending, also inspired some political pundits to get in on the joke:

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But even ultra-conservative Republican Rep. Steve Stockman knew where to draw the line:

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This time around, House Republicans are fueled by the IRS scandal, because of the agency's role in distributing funds from the law. The Washington Post reports:

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"There are laws in place to prevent this type of abuse. Someone made a conscious decision to harass and to hold up these requests for tax exempt status," Boehner told reporters Wednesday. "I think we need to know who they are and whether they violated the law. Clearly someone violated the law."

The Justice Department is opening a criminal investigation of the Internal Revenue Service just as another probe concludes that lax management enabled agents to improperly target tea party groups for extra scrutiny when they applied for tax exempt status.

Attorney General Eric Holder said he ordered the FBI to investigate Friday — the day the IRS publicly acknowledged that it had singled out conservative groups.

"Those (actions) were, I think, as everyone can agree, if not criminal, they were certainly outrageous and unacceptable," Holder said. "But we are examining the facts to see if there were criminal violations."

Holder is scheduled to testify Wednesday before the House Judiciary Committee. It is the first of several hearings that will focus on the issue.

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“There are laws in place to prevent this type of abuse," Boehner continued. "Someone made a conscious decision to harass and to hold up these requests for tax-exempt status. I think we need to know who they are and whether they violated the law. Clearly someone violated the law."

On Tuesday, Attorney General Eric Holder said that he has ordered the FBI to investigate whether any criminal violations occurred. Holder is scheduled to appear before a House committee on Wednesday, where he will likely face questions about this scandal, as well as the Department of Justice's decision to subpoena phone records from the Associated Press.

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To be fair, Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Patrick Leahy, D-Vt., has built a reputation for defending privacy rights, especially online. He said in a statement, “The burden is always on the government when they go after private information -- especially information regarding the press or its confidential sources. I want to know more about this case, but on the face of it, I am concerned that the government may not have met that burden,”

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Lawyers with the Office of the Director of National Intelligence briefed House and Senate Intelligence Committee members in March about the emails, which ABC News released today to much hullabaloo, after officials said they would make them available to members of Congress in February.

Yesterday, Boehner called for the release of the emails, but the administration officials, who agreed to speak on a conference call with reporters only on the condition of anonymity, said today that Boehner would have seen them had he attended the briefing, to which he and Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi were also invited.

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As the Washington Post reports, Republicans have tried to use procedural tricks, in addition to full-on floor votes, to repeal Obamacare, meaning that the exact number of times they've tried is somewhat disputed. Some say it's been 33 times since 2010, others say closer to 40.

Cantor, R-Va., tweeted on Tuesday:

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From the Post:

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