“Now listen, we made clear when we took over, that we weren’t going to be doing commemorative legislation on the floor. A lot of changes. In addition to that, most Americans think we have too many laws. And what they want us to do is repeal more of those. So I reject the premise to the question.”

— Speaker John Boehner (R-OH), quoted by the Huffington Post, rejecting the idea that Congress has been “historically unproductive.”

The woman whom Rep. Steve Cohen (D-TN) “has been claiming is his out-of-wedlock daughter is not, according to a paternity test revealed,” Politico reports.

Said Cohen: “I was stunned and dismayed at the results. I still love Victoria, hold dear the time I have shared with her and hope to continue to be part of her life.”

The relationship was disclosed when Cohen sent tweets to the woman during the State of the Union address.

The U.S. Capitol Police announced it arrested a legislative director for Rep. Michele Bachmann (R-MN) in connection with a string of burglaries at the Rayburn House Office Building, The Hill reports.

NBC Washington reports they caught the aide in the middle of a theft with hidden cameras.

New York points out there’s a compelling Establishment reason for Speaker John Boehner to pass an immigration-reform bill: “It has become a Washington truism that the party must expand its appeal to Latino and minority voters if it wants to remain viable in the future.”

“The trouble is that there is one group that emphatically doesn’t want immigration reform, at least in its current Senate iteration: a key, very conservative cohort of the House Republicans, which Boehner just happens to lead. Which means his speakership, of late, has become a case study in minefield walking, forcing him to balance one survival instinct against another. If he doesn’t make an attempt at a serious bill, he’ll have almost nothing to show for his leadership, suffering yet another humiliating defeat in a two-plus-year string of humiliating defeats. But if he tries to forge a deal with the Democrats and let the bill come to the floor (where it will need Democratic support to pass), he’ll face a revolt from his own rather large backbench–and he already survived one this winter, when twelve Republicans tried to oust him in a coup.”

“And so, faced with choosing between passing historic legislation and saving his own hide, John Boehner has spent most of this summer punting.”

A new Brookings Institution analysis finds the last House of Representatives was the most conservative in more than 60 years.

House Republican leaders “have decided to drop food stamps from the farm bill and are whipping the farm-only portion of the bill for a vote that will likely come this week,” Roll Call reports.

“The nutrition portion of the bill would be dealt with later.”

“The ‘new’ farm bill would be the bill as it finished on the floor before the break, with the addition of a repeal of the 1949 law that requires the passage or extension of a farm bill.”

Congress returns today with many pressing issues and little guarantee that any of them will be dealt with, the New York Times reports.

“Even in some of the worst years of partisan gridlock, a deadline has meant something to Congress — until 2013. Drop-dead dates have come and gone this year, causing real-world consequences. On Jan. 1, tax rates went up not only for affluent families, but also for virtually all workers when lawmakers looked the other way and let a payroll tax cut expire. On March 1, after leaders from both parties declared that automatic, across-the-board spending cuts would never happen, they happened anyway because of inaction.”

“At this time in 2011, Congress had passed 23 laws on the way toward the lowest total since those numbers began being tracked in 1948. This year, 15 have been passed so far.”

David Hawkings: “The small number of new laws projected for this year, in other words,
is another good indication of the brokenness of the legislative branch.”

Chris Cillizza: “Politics is a team sport. Except the way House Republicans have played it for the past few years.”

“At the root of the problems that afflict the majority party in the House is that there are simply too few members willing to occasionally set aside personal interests and ambitions for the broader interests of the party. They just won’t take one for the team… Examples of this go-it-alone approach are everywhere.”

“The much-criticized 112th Congress – from 2011 to 2012 – was the least productive and least popular Congress on record, according to the available statistics,” First Read reports.

“Now six months in – highlighted by a string of legislative stalemates – the 113th Congress (2013-2014) is on track to match or even surpass those dubious distinctions.”

“When someone crosses John A. Boehner, he or she can expect a couple of reactions from the House speaker. Sometimes it’s a thwack on the back and a disapproving shake of his head, quickly followed by a begrudging smile to indicate that all is forgiven. Sometimes it’s a fake yell and then a shrug. One recalcitrant even got rewarded,” the Washington Post reports.

“Never — ever — is there a sense of real anger from the Ohio Republican. His leadership style does not involve rapping knuckles, breaking arms or even threatening to rap knuckles or break arms. He has sworn off intimidation and punishment, in a House that has rarely been run on anything else.”

“As a result, Boehner has allowed rank-and-file Republicans more freedom to vote their will, with him or against him, than any speaker in modern times.”

About 90 members of Congress “collected a government pension atop their taxpayer-financed $174,000 salary in 2012, National Journal found in an examination of recent financial records. Including a dozen newly elected freshmen who reported government pensions last year, the number now stands above 100. That’s nearly one-fifth of Congress.”

“Mankind has existed for a pretty long time without anyone ever having
to give a sex-ed lesson to anybody. And now we feel like, oh gosh,
people are too stupid unless we force them to sit and listen to
instructions. It’s just incredible.”

— Rep. Louie Gohmert (R-TX), quoted by Right Wing Watch, adding that it all reminded him of the Soviet Union.

Chris Frates:
“GOP lawmakers, strategists, and insiders say Boehner and House
leadership are enabling foot-in-mouth disease by allowing divisive
social issues to reemerge at a time when Republicans were finally
winning the daily messaging war against a controversy-plagued White
House.”

David Hawkings: “A four-day weekend for the House is affording GOP leaders extra time to go over the long list of lessons they were retaught by the farm bill’s catatonic collapse. Perhaps the most obvious and the most important among them: If you’ve got the votes, then vote. If you don’t, bide your time. But be sure you can count well enough to know the difference.”

“Forgetting this one lesson next time, on the immigration bill, will almost surely prove fatal to the most sweeping domestic policy overhaul of this decade. It will very likely lead to the dismissal of all three men at the helm of the majority caucus. And it could well poison the Republican Party for years in the eyes of the nation’s fastest-expanding demographic group.”

“From the amount of obesity in this country, by people we’re told do not have enough to eat, it does seem like we can have a debate about this issue without allegations about wanting to slap down or starve children.”

— Rep. Louie Gohmert (R-TX), quoted by National Journal, on the debate for funding food stamps.

Politico: “The defeat of the farm bill — after both parties were privately bullish it would pass with large margins — shows … how massively dysfunctional the House and its leadership have become. And it plainly reveals that a bipartisan rewrite of the nation’s … politically charged immigration laws are a pipe dream in the House, at least for now. Preventing a government shutdown and debt limit fight are not far behind.”

The Week notes Boehner officially has no control over his caucus.

The House defeated the farm bill resoundingly on a 195-234 vote, “dealing a blow to Speaker John A. Boehner and prompting a bitter round of finger pointing between Democratic and Republican leaders,” Roll Call reports.

“Most Democrats opposed the bill, unhappy with a deep $20.5 billion, 10-year cut to food stamps and backed by a White House veto threat, while Republicans split into competing factions, with a sizable group opposing the bill over concerns it did not cut deeply enough.”

Rep. Phil Gingrey (R-GA) said that young boys and girls should take classes on traditional gender roles in a marriage because there are some things fathers do “maybe a little bit better” than mothers, the Huffington Post reports.

Said Gingrey: “You know, maybe part of the problem is we need to go back into the schools at a very early age, maybe at the grade school level, and have a class for the young girls and have a class for the young boys and say, you know, this is what’s important. This is what a father does that is maybe a little different, maybe a little bit better than the talents that a mom has in a certain area. And the same thing for the young girls, that, you know, this is what a mom does, and this is what is important from the standpoint of that union which we call marriage.”

A new Landmark/Rosetta Stone poll shows Gingrey leading the GOP Senate primary in Georgia.