President Obama traveled to Colorado Springs, CO on Friday, where devastating forest fires have displaced thousands of families, to survey the damage and praise the fire fighters and volunteers working to stop the blazes there.

Standing in front of a makeshift triage center at the city’s Fire Station Number 9, where he had just thanked a group of firefighters and officials, the president urged Americans to show solidarity with the victims of the destruction here and elsewhere in the country.

“Whether it's fires in Colorado or flooding in northern parts of Florida, when natural disasters like this hit, America comes together and we all recognize that there but for the grace of God go I. We've got to make sure we have each other's backs.”

He praised the bravery of the firefighters, noting in particular some he met who had just salvaged three homes, whose work “means the world” to the communities they’re helping. 

“We can provide all the resources, we can make sure they're well-coordinated but as I just told these firefighters what we can't do is to provide them with the courage and determination and professionalism, the heart they show when they're out there battling these fires.” 

The president also stressed the importance of firefighters in all communities, not just those in peril, seeming to make a subtle allusion to one of his chief jobs priorities -– preserving and hiring more state and local government employees, including firefighters.

“For folks all around country, I hope you are reminded of how important our fire departments are,” he said. “Sometimes they don't get the credit that they deserve until your house is burning down or your community is being threatened.”

“And we've got to make sure that we remember that 365 days a year,” he continued.

Shortly before he made his remarks, the president toured the Colorado Springs neighborhood of Mountain Shadows, where fires burned through a path that completely destroyed some homes while leaving adjacent houses untouched.

He passed half-melted children’s swing sets in backyards of razed homes and one charred frame of a small white Toyota sedan.

According to reporters traveling with the president, the air smelled like smoke.

He also visited a YMCA shelter housing evacuees, telling the few dozen people gathered there that he could “only imagine how humbling it is to lose a home” but that “everybody else in the country has Colorado Springs’ back.”

Obama got his first glimpse of the damage as he flew into Colorado Springs and over the still-evacuated Air Force Academy, when, aides say, he looked out and surveyed the scene. The smoke from the fires was evident to those aboard Air Force One. According to one observer, “a thin, hazy layer of gray blanked the sky as far as the eye could see.”

Before the president headed out to Colorado, he declared the High Park and Waldo Canyon fires a disaster. This move allows federal funds to be made available to state and local governments to aide in helping evacuees and fighting the fires which have been burning since early this month. 

Yesterday, multiple federal agencies promised more air support and grants to help bring the fire, which has already claimed one life and left others missing, under control. This morning officials said the Waldo Canyon fire was 15 percent contained and had affected over 16,000 acres of land. 

Updated 4:!6 p.m. - As expected, the Justice has informed Congress that the U.S. attorney will not prosecute Attorney General Eric Holder for contempt, despite Thursday's House vote.

"The longstanding position of the Department of Justice has been and remains that we will not prosecute an executive branch official under the contempt of Congress statute for withholding subpoenaed documents pursuant to a presidential assertion of executive privilege," says Deputy Attorney General James Cole in a letter to the House speaker, John Boehner.

The letter notes that during the Reagan administration, DOJ took the position that the contempt statute could not constitutionally be applied to an official who asserts the president's claim of executive privilege. That policy was first articulated in a memo written by Ted Olson when he was at DOJ in 1984. 

Cole writes that the position has been asserted several times since then, most recently during the Bush administration in 2008.

He concludes by saying that the Justice Department has determined that Holder's response to the House committee subpoena "does not constitute a crime" and the Department will not refer the matter to a grand jury "or take any other action to prosecute the attorney general."

Move over Cory Booker, Bill Clinton, and Ed Rendell.

The latest Democrat the Romney camp is invoking in an effort to discredit President Obama and his campaign is Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, who was Obama's opponent during the 2008 Democratic primary season.

To counter the Obama ads pummeling Romney in the battleground states -- like here and here and here -- Team Romney is now airing an spot that concludes with these words Clinton uttered in '08: "Shame on you, Barack Obama."

The ad, according to SMG Delta, is airing in at least five battleground states: Colorado, Nevada, North Carolina, Ohio, and Virginia.

The transcript:

Barack Obama’s attacks against Mitt Romney. They’re just not true. 

The Washington Post says on just about every level this ad is misleading, unfair and untrue. 

But that’s Barack Obama.  He also attacked Hilary Clinton with vicious lies. 

[Hillary Clinton]:“He continues to spend millions of dollars perpetuating falsehoods.”

Mitt Romney has a plan to get America working.

Barack Obama: Worst job record since the Depression.

[Hillary Clinton]: “So shame on you Barack Obama.”

Now that the Supreme Court has ruled the health care mandate is constitutional and Mitt Romney has renewed his commitment for a full repeal of the law, Democrats have continued to point out the similarities between Romney's Massachusetts law and the Affordable Care Act.

But some Republicans aren't on message.

Yes, it’s the return of 'Obamneycare.'

The term -- linking the Massachusetts plan with the federal one -- was first coined over a year ago by Romney’s opponent-turned-surrogate Tim Pawlenty during an appearance on Fox News Sunday.

“Well, you don't have to take my word for it. You can take President Obama's word for it. President Obama said that he designed Obamacare after Romneycare and basically made it Obamneycare,” Pawlenty said. 

On a conference call this morning, Louisiana Gov. Bobby Jindal (R) got a little tongue-tied during his defense of Romney and a repeal of the law.

“There's only one candidate, Gov. Romney, who's committed that he will repeal the Obamney -- the Obamacare tax increase,” Jindal said. “He will repeal Obamacare as soon as he's elected.”

Though Jindal quickly correct himself, the damage was done. Just an hour later, Maryland Gov. Martin O’Malley (D) had already seized on the comments to show the similarities between the two laws.

Speaking on a conference call organized by the Obama campaign, O’Malley said of the tax penalty for people who do not buy insurance, “It was a penalty provision that was also in Romneycare, or as Gov. Jindal just called it, Obamneycare.”

Republican presidential hopeful Mitt Romney has laid out a first term agenda that is nothing short of ambitious, outlining a list of priorities that would require him to marshal a near-impossible amount of political capital to achieve.

"What the court did not do on its last day in session, I will do on my first day if elected president of the United States. And that is I will act to repeal ‘ObamaCare,’" Romney said Thursday in Washington, adding to his portfolio the politically thorny pledge to undo President Obama’s health reform law.

Jonathan Ernst / Reuters

Republican Presidential candidate Mitt Romney gives his reaction to the Supreme Court's upholding key parts of President Barack Obama's signature healthcare overhaul law in Washington June 28, 2012.

The list of promises Romney has made for his first term is extensive. His two “Day One” ads outline other policies the former Massachusetts governor would put in motion on his first day:

• Seeking tax cuts and deficit reduction,
• Approving the Keystone XL oil pipeline,
• Issuing more aggressive strictures for trade with China,
• And seeking the repeal of “job-killing regulations” (the financial regulatory reform bill, Dodd-Frank, is an example Romney mentions frequently on the campaign trail)

More substantially, Romney has promised to seek some type of comprehensive immigration reform – an accomplishment that has escaped both Obama and President George W. Bush – in his first year in office.

"In my first year I will make sure we actually do take on immigration, we secure our border, we make sure that we grow legal immigration in a way that provides people here with skill and expertise that we want," Romney said at a fundraiser earlier this week.

All this is on top of lofty expectations Romney’s set for himself on the economy; he said in May that an unemployment rate above 4 percent is “not cause for celebration.”

“It's going to be busy,” deadpanned a House Republican leadership aide, speaking of Romney’s agenda.

Presidential candidates are not typically modest in their election year promises.

Obama, as a candidate in 2008, made a number of promises that haven’t made their way to fulfillment. Romney has been eager to highlight, for instance, the president’s inability to accomplish comprehensive immigration reform.

And to Romney’s credit, despite the criticism the presumptive Republican nominee has weathered for offering few specifics about his first-term agenda, his first term proposals seem to outpace Obama’s ambitions for his second.

Romney, like Obama and any number of candidates entering their first term as president, might encounter a stark reality. Governing is about as easy as herding cats, and that process isn’t helped by the glacial pace on Capitol Hill.

First Thoughts: Ending the month on a high note

Presidents often enjoy a “honeymoon” in which they’re able to advance a major element of their platform. Bush got education reform and his signature tax cuts; Obama got his stimulus bill.

And that’s to assume, the Republicans maintain control of the House and take over the Senate – in which case, prospective Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) would be tasked with convincing a non-trivial number of Democrats to join the GOP in advancing Romney’s agenda.

Romney could seek the repeal of health care as his first priority, something he might accomplish by using the process of budget reconciliation. House Majority Leader Eric Cantor (R-VA) suggested Friday on “Morning Joe” that Republicans could use this tactic, which allows the Senate to approve legislation with a simple majority of votes, to gut the heart of Obama’s law.

But even if this were to be achievable practically, it would be a bloody fight on which Romney would have to spend considerable political capital.

“He comes into office, and Day One is getting your secretary of State or secretary of Treasury confirmed!” said former Delaware Sen. Ted Kaufman (D), who long served as an aide in the chamber before succeeding Joe Biden in the chamber, of a new president’s traditional to-do list.

“You’re just going to declare war on the Democrats from the first day you get into office?” Kaufman said. “Obama didn’t do that, and he had 60 votes.”

There are always foreign policy crises and the unexpected issues – like 2010’s oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico – that can divert from the business of governing.

“If the Democratic leadership wants to criticize a President Romney for fulfilling his promises, it's not something that's going to play well with voters,” said the House Republican aide, evaluating the broad range of issues Romney has promised to advance.

On some of those issues, too, Romney is boxed in politically. Republicans in Congress have so frequently voted to repeal the president’s health care law – the next vote is set for July 11 – in part because they made it a cornerstone of their 2010 campaign.

“If Romney is to win, that's a major part of what he's run on,” the GOP aide said of Romney’s vow to repeal the law. “Despite protestations from Democrats, some of whom will vote for repeal, that A) depoliticizes it, but B) is also part of why he's running.”

But Romney will also have to reckon with the so-called “fiscal cliff” – the cocktail of expiring tax cuts, automated spending cuts and necessary extension of the nation’s debt ceiling – early in his term, unless Congress were to reach a deal in its lame-duck session, an unlikely prospect.

 “You may be critical of Obama – why’d he use up all of his mojo on health care reform?” Kaufman noted. “You’re going to need mojo just to get a debt limit vote and figure out what we’re doing on the Bush tax cut.”

Even after all of this has been addressed, even in the best case scenario for Romney, in which the GOP controls both chambers, he’ll be dealing with a Congress that prides itself on regular order. Romney has prepared few detailed plans or pieces of legislation to drop on Capitol Hill’s doorstep; in fact, when asked earlier this month on CBS about which tax exemptions he’d kill to finance tax reform, Romney said he’d “go through that process with Congress.”

That process can be lengthy, though, and force any president to prioritize agenda items. And congressional Republicans are cognizant of that.

“It's something that could be moved through a process,” the GOP aide said of Romney’s immigration reform plans. “Does it end up at a president's desk? That remains to be seen. Things that are comprehensive take a long time.”

Updated 2:12 p.m. - Congress ended months of partisan bickering on Friday by passing and sending to President Barack Obama a comprehensive extension of highway and infrastructure projects, along with a one-year extension of low student loan rates that were set to double.

The House voted 373 to 52 to approve a $120 billion, 27-month bill to fund highway projects. Attached to that bill was the student loan extension, which prevented rates from doubling from 3.4 percent to 6.8 percent on July 1.

The Senate approved the package shortly thereafter in a 74-19 vote. The legislation now heads to the White House for the president's signature.

The package lumps together some of the biggest stumbling blocks to beguile lawmakers in the past few months. Squabbling over how to finance each priority had divided the Republican-controlled House and the Democratic-run Senate.

Republicans had also insisted on including a measure to move the Keystone XL oil pipeline forward. President Obama and Democrats opposed it, though, and it was ultimately omitted from today’s bill.

Instead, Republicans were able to use funds set aside for "beautification, bike paths, and sidewalk lighting" for higher priority infrastructure projects such as the national highway system instead.  They were also able to keep funding at current levels.

The package also cuts the average review and permitting process for new infrastructure projects in half, done mostly by streamlining environmental reviews so they can run concurrently, something for which Republicans had also fought.

ARLINGTON, VA -– Mitt Romney deployed New Hampshire Sen. Kelly Ayotte to speak on his behalf at a pro-life conference just outside the nation’s capital Friday morning, where she repeatedly attacked President Barack Obama.

“How we treat the weakest among us is truly a reflection on who we are as a nation and President Obama’s record shocks the conscious when it comes to protecting life and unfortunately on many other issues as well,” Ayotte told the crowd at the National Right to Life conference. “He has a vision of America that is very different from what we want for our children and our grandchildren. I shudder to think what would happen in a second term.”

Sen. Ayotte, who is commonly mentioned as a possible vice presidential choice for Romney, talked highly of the man she endorsed early on for president this cycle.

“I want you to know, that Gov. Romney is a fighter who will stand up for life and he will restore conservative values based on our moral, our moral grounding in the White House and he will govern as a pro-life president,” she said inside a Hyatt hotel ballroom here.

Referring to the presumptive GOP nominee as “my friend” and “a strong leader” during her roughly 20 minute address, Ayotte laid out just how important she believes the election on November 6 is for the country.

“Life is on the line in this election –- it truly is and we can’t afford to just play defense, we have to get on the offense and we need to elect a pro-life president. We need to elect Mitt Romney to make sure we protect life in the White House,” she said and even jabbed Obama for always having so many celebrities campaigning with him.

“When you stand up for what is morally right, when you stand up for those who don’t have a voice –- that is much more powerful than any celebrity that can come in this room.”

Ayotte, the former Attorney General from New Hampshire, told the several hundred people in attendance that she is the only female pro-life senator in Congress and would work as hard as she could to fight for the future of this country.

The event Friday morning was originally planned as a prayer breakfast but organizers changed it Thursday afternoon to a rally aimed at repealing Obamacare after the Supreme Court’s ruling to uphold President Obama’s healthcare law.

“Yesterday’s Supreme Court decision highlights what is at stake in this race,” Ayotte noted during her address.

Kansas Gov. Sam Brownback, who once backed Texas Gov. Rick Perry in the GOP primary, keynotes the closing banquet of the three-day conference Saturday evening. In addition to sending Ayotte on his behalf, Gov. Romney also sent a video message to attendees.

After the Supreme Court’s second day of oral arguments, back on March 27, there was a sense that the justices were not sold on the health care law.

“I think it’s very doubtful that court is going to find the health care law constitutional,” NBC’s Pete Williams said at the time. “I don’t see five votes to find the law constitutional.”

And with good reason. The justices were very skeptical of the thrust of the government’s case -- that the mandate was justified under the so-called “commerce clause” of the Constitution and the government’s right to regulate markets. It was clear Chief Justice Roberts and Justice Anthony Kennedy, usually a swing vote, were skeptical of the “commerce clause” argument, especially how it could be limited to the health care market. And star conservative lawyer Paul Clement, who argued for the states that filed suit against the law, focused his case on it.

Stringer / Reuters

In this courtroom illustration, U.S. Solicitor General Donald Verrilli (R) speaks at the lectern to members of the U.S. Supreme Court in Washington March 27, 2012.

The rough day in court for the government led some to criticize the government’s lawyer, Solicitor General Donald Verrilli. The Republican National Committee went so far as to mock Verrilli with this video, focusing on style -- a pause and stammer.

But court arguments are not television anchor tryouts; they’re about the merits of an argument, and a review of the transcript of the oral arguments from that day (with the benefit of hindsight, of course) finds Verrilli made a strong case for the government’s taxing power. While the taxing power argument was certainly not the focus of post-oral arguments analyses, it was the one that eventually won the day. And though Chief Justice John Roberts gave few clues that he might be leaning toward the argument, there were some signs he might have been warmer to the government’s case than some thought.

The heart of Verrilli’s argument, that the mandate should be considered justified under the Congress’ taxing power, seemed to center on this point, which he made twice that day -- that the mandate would be administered by the Internal Revenue Service, the agency responsible for taxation.

“With respect to the question of characterization,” Verrilli told Justice Scalia, “the -- this is -- in the Internal Revenue Code, it is administered by the IRS; it is paid on your Form 1040 on April 15^th.”

A few minutes later, pressed by Justice Roberts, he reiterated the point. “[I]t is in the Internal Revenue Code,” Verrilli said. “It is collected by the IRS on April 15^th.”

Verrilli fended off tough questions from nearly all the justices on the taxing power argument, from the court's conservatives to liberals.

Some of the toughest questioning came as it related to the president and members of Congress arguing the mandate was not a tax. But Verrilli countered that: (1) Some members of Congress did argue that the mandate would be valid under the taxing power, and (2) that shouldn’t matter; that it’s up to the court to decide what’s justified under the law, not the rhetoric of politicians.

With Scalia:

JUSTICE SCALIA: The president said it wasn't a tax, didn't he?

GENERAL VERRILLI: Well, Justice Scalia, what the -- two things about that. First, as it seems to me, what matters is what power Congress was exercising. And they were -- and I think it's clear that the -- they were exercising the tax power as well as -­

JUSTICE SCALIA: You're making two arguments. Number one, it's a tax; and number two, even if it isn't a tax, it's within the taxing power. I'm just addressing the first.

GENERAL VERRILLI: What the president said -­

JUSTICE SCALIA: Is it a tax or not a tax? The president didn't think it was.

GENERAL VERRILLI: The president said it wasn't a tax increase because it ought to be understood as an incentive to get people to have insurance.  I don't think it's fair to infer from that anything about whether that is an exercise of the tax power or not.

With Kagan:

JUSTICE KAGAN: I suppose, though, General, one question is whether the determined efforts of Congress not to refer to this as a tax make a difference. I mean, you're suggesting we should just look to the practical operation. We shouldn't look at labels. And that seems right, except that here we have a case in which Congress determinedly said, this is not a tax, and the question is why should that be irrelevant?

GENERAL VERRILLI: I don't think that that's a fair characterization of the actions of Congress here, Justice Kagan. On the -- December 23rd, a point of constitutional order was called, too, in fact, with respect to this law. The floor sponsor, Senator Baucus, defended it as an exercise of the taxing power. In his response to the point of order, the Senate voted 60 to 39 on that proposition. The legislative history is replete with members of Congress explaining that this law is constitutional as an exercise of the taxing power. It was attacked as a tax by its opponents. So I don't think this is a situation where you can say that Congress was avoiding any mention of the tax power.

It would be one thing if Congress explicitly disavowed an exercise of the tax power. But given that it hasn't done so, it seems to me that it's -- not only is it fair to read this as an exercise of the tax power, but this Court has got an obligation to construe it as an exercise of the tax power, if it can be upheld on that basis.

Scalia again pressed Verrilli in a somewhat testy exchange. But Verrilli held his own. Ultimately, Scalia backed down, albeit with a sarcastic conclusion:

JUSTICE SCALIA: You're saying that all the discussion we had earlier about how this is one big uniform scheme and the Commerce Clause, blah, blah, blah, it really doesn't matter. This is a tax and the Federal Government could simply have said, without all of the rest of this legislation, could simply have said, everybody who doesn't buy health insurance at a certain age will be taxed so much money, right?

GENERAL VERRILLI: It -- it used its powers together to solve the problem of the market not -­

JUSTICE SCALIA: Yes, but you didn't need that.

GENERAL VERRILLI -- providing affordable coverage -­

JUSTICE SCALIA: You didn't need that. If it's a tax, it's only -- raising money is enough.

GENERAL VERRILLI: It is justifiable under its tax power.

JUSTICE SCALIA: Okay. Extraordinary.

And perhaps most telling, here’s Verrilli’s most extended exchange with Roberts on taxing authority in which Verrilli admits the likely political considerations for the president and members of Congress not calling it a tax.

That admission may have clarified things and won the day.

Note Roberts’ conclusion:

CHIEF JUSTICE ROBERTS: Why didn't Congress call it a tax, then?

GENERAL VERRILLI: Well -­

CHIEF JUSTICE ROBERTS: You're telling me they thought of it as a tax, they defended it on the tax power. Why didn't they say it was a tax?

GENERAL VERRILLI: They might have thought, Your Honor, that calling it a penalty as they did would make it more effective in accomplishing its objectives. But it is in the Internal Revenue Code, it is collected by the IRS on April 15th. I don't think this is a situation in which you can say -­

CHIEF JUSTICE ROBERTS: Well, that's the reason. They thought it might be more effective if they called it a penalty.

Team Obama, after a rough start, ends the month on a high note… Obama the escape artist… Can Republicans still repeal the law?... And do they have the appetite to do so?... Roberts puts his stamp on the decision... Obama travels to Colorado (arriving at 1:55 pm ET) to inspect the wildfires there… Rothenberg Report doesn’t see a House wave coming… And “Meet the Press” will have Nancy Pelosi, Bobby Jindal, and Howard Dean.

Pete Souza / AFP - Getty Images

President Barack Obama talking on the phone with Solicitor General Donald Verrilli in the Oval Office of the White House June 28, 2012 after learning of the Supreme Court's ruling on the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act.

*** Ending the month on a high note: Perception-wise, June started off as a rough month for President Obama and his allies. First came that disappointing May jobs report; then the Democrats’ loss in the Wisconsin recall; then more bad news out of Europe; Obama’s “the private sector is doing fine” remark; and finally the development that Team Romney outraised Team Obama in May. But the thing about perception is that it can change, and it did in the second half of the month. The president’s immigration/deportation announcement put Romney on the defensive; the Washington Post made the charge that Romney invested in firms that shipped jobs overseas; numerous polls showed that the overall fundamentals of the race hadn’t changed, suggesting that the Obama ads have been more effective in the swing states than the GOP ads; and yesterday the U.S. Supreme Court -- countering a lot of the conventional wisdom -- upheld his signature health-care law. So what started out as a rocky month for Obama ended in a better place for him, just as he embarks on his post-July 4 bus tour through Ohio and Pennsylvania next week.

*** The escape artist: Yesterday’s SCOTUS outcome was typical of what we’ve seen for Obama over the past four years: He finds his back against the wall -- sometimes due to his own doing, sometimes not -- and then escapes disaster. We saw this during the Dem primary season before Iowa (remember the summer of ’07); during Jeremiah Wright; during the ’08 general after the McCain-Palin bounce, during the 2009-2010 health-care fight; and now after the Supreme Court’s ruling yesterday, which easily could have gone the other way. And make no mistake: The decision upholding the law was something Obama and his allies NEEDED; they had to have something to show for the steep price they paid for the health-care law. This was a hurdle the president had to clear to get to November; but the ruling is no political booster rocket. He simply doesn’t have a new drag. Of course, as relates to his re-election, Obama once again finds his back against the wall. The unemployment rate is at 8.2%, and a majority of Americans think the country is on the wrong track. Can he again pull a rabbit from his hat here? We’ll find out in four months.

*** Can Republicans still repeal the law? As for Mitt Romney, his campaign made lemonade out of yesterday’s health-care lemons by announcing that it and its victory fund raised more than $4 million from 42,000 donors since Thursday’s ruling. (Although do keep in mind that Team Romney averaged $2.5 million per day last month.) And Romney made this argument after the decision -- vote for me because I will repeal the health-care law. But is repeal a realistic outcome? On “Morning Joe,” House Majority Leader Eric Cantor said that Senate Republicans could do it through reconciliation. But conservative writer David Frum argues that Republicans would no longer have the high political ground; they’d find themselves in the same position Democrats did in 2009-2010. “Suddenly it will be their town halls filled with outraged senior citizens whose benefits are threatened; their incumbencies that will be threatened.” The New Yorker’s Ryan Lizza makes two other points: 1) the Congressional Budget Office, like it did last time, would probably rule that repealing the health-care would INCREASE the deficit, and 2) reconciliation can be used only for things that have a budgetary effect. “Much of the A.C.A., such as the insurance exchanges and subsidies, would fall under these categories. But a lot of it, including the hated individual mandate, does not.”

*** And how much appetite do they have? Here’s a separate question: How much appetite will Romney have in continually making this repeal argument? Indeed, Obama already had a rebuttal to this in his own remarks yesterday: Isn’t it time to move on? “The highest Court in the land has now spoken… But what we won’t do -- what the country can’t afford to do -- is refight the political battles of two years ago, or go back to the way things were.” There’s also the risk for Romney that talking about repealing health-care will only give Team Obama opportunities to show clips like this one, via American Bridge, of Romney touting his Massachusetts health-care law and its own individual mandate. And Romney’s folks may come to the conclusion that they don’t need to talk about health care because every other Republican will. He may have the luxury (and political necessity) to pivot off of health care, other than using it at rallies, while the various House and Senate GOP candidates pound away. This is one of those issues that could have less impact on the presidential but more on the downballot races.

*** Roberts puts his stamp on the decision: And, of course, we have to talk about Chief Justice John Roberts. Back in March, after the oral arguments in the health-care case, we wrote about the negative consequences of another 5-4 decision. But the 5-4 decision we got yesterday -- with the conservative Roberts joining the four reliable liberal justices – was something different: It made the court look less political. “The fact that the chief justice, a conservative appointed by Republicans, wrote the opinion today would and should give Americans a lot of confidence in the decision that it's not just a political thing," SCOTUSBlog’s Tom Goldstein told NBC’s Pete Williams yesterday. In the process, Roberts is getting lots of praise in the MSM (though also criticism on the right). Here’s Dana Milbank’s headline in the Washington Post: “The umpire strikes back.” For you conservative historians, we even saw some Twitter references to the old “impeach Earl Warren” billboards. That said, we’re fascinated by the contortions many more serious conservative commentators are doing re: Roberts. They are actually holding their fire.

*** Obama travels to Colorado: Transitioning from yesterday’s health-care decision, Obama heads to Colorado today to inspect the wildfires spreading throughout the state. He arrives in the state at 1:55 pm ET.

*** Team Rothenberg doesn’t see a House wave coming: The Rothenberg Political Report has updated its House forecast for November. Bottom line: It (like the Cook Political Report) doesn’t see a wave coming. “Our new projection for gains/losses in the House this November is now between a +1 gain for Republicans and a +6 gain for Democrats.” More: “We rate 201 seats a safe GOP, 161 safe Dem, 25 as Lean/Favored for the GOP, 19 for Lean/Favored for the Dems, and we have 29 total tossups. The 29 includes 9 pure toss-ups (CA-7, CO-6, IL-11, MN-8, NY-1, NY-19, NY-21, NY-27, PA-12), 15 Toss-Up/Tilt GOP (CA-52, CO-3, FL18, IA-3 moved this week toward the GOP, IL 12, IL13, MI 1 moved this week toward the Democrats, MI11, NH1, NV3, NY11, NY18, OH, 16, TX 23 and UT4), and 5 Toss-Up/Tilt Democrat (CA-41, NY24, RI1, WA1).”

*** On “Meet” this Sunday: NBC’s David Gregory will interview House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi, plus have a debate between Louisiana Gov. Bobby Jindal and Howard Dean.

Countdown to GOP convention: 59 days
Countdown to Dem convention: 66 days
Countdown to Election Day: 130 days

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*** Friday’s “Daily Rundown” line-up: Gov. Deval Patrick (D-MA) and Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchison (R-TX) on the Supreme Court’s ruling… NBC’s David Gregory on the campaign consequences of it all… NBC’s Kerry Sanders with the latest on George Zimmerman’s bond hearing in Florida… More 2012 trail news with NBC’s Tom Brokaw, Demos’ Bob Herbert and the AP’s Beth Fouhy.

*** Friday’s “MSNBC Live with Thomas Roberts” line-up: MSNBC’s Thomas Roberts talks with DNC Chair Debbie Wasserman Schultz, former Ohio Governor Ted Strickland, former RNC Chair Michael Steele, Time magazine’s Michael Crowley, and all four co-hosts of MSNBC’s “The Cycle” -- Steve Kornacki, S.E. Cupp, Krystal Ball & Toure.

*** Friday’s “NOW with Alex Wagner” line-up: Alex Wagner’s guests include “The Newsroom” Creator/Writer Aaron Sorkin, former Pennsylvania Gov. Ed Rendell (D), the Washington Post’s Ezra Klein, USA Today’s Jackie Kucinich, and MSNBC’s Chris Hayes.

*** Friday’s “Andrea Mitchell Reports” line-up: Chis Cillizza, filling in for NBC’s Andrea Mitchell, interviews NBC’s Kelly O’Donnell and Miguel Almaguer, former Department of Justice Prosecutor David Rivkin, Georgia Attorney General Sam Olens, the Washington Post’s Jonathan Capehart and Ruth Marcus, USA Today’s Susan Page, National Journal’s Major Garrett and Medora Works Directors Davy Rothbart and Andrew Cohn.

*** Friday’s “News Nation with Tamron Hall” line-up: MSNBC’s Tamron Hall interviews Newsweek’s Zachary Karabell,  Dem strategist Jimmy Williams,  Natoma Canfield – the woman mention yesterday in Obama’s speech after the healthcare ruling, and Colonel Jack Jacobs on the Stolen Valor ruling.

*** Saturday's and Sunday's "Melissa Harris-Perry" line-up: On Saturday, Melissa Harris-Perry interviews, among others, House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi, writer Rebecca Traister, and former SC GOP Chair Katon Dawson. On Sunday, she interviews Dem strategist Karen Finney and The Nation's Katrina Vanden Heuvel

Harvard professor Laurence Tribe, who taught both President Obama and Chief Justice John Roberts at Harvard, wrote on SCOTUS Blog: “Today, Chief Justice John Roberts delivered a heroic rebuke to the growing number of Americans who feared the Supreme Court had lost the ability to rise above the narrowminded partisanship that dominates the country’s political discourse.

“More than a year ago, writing in the Boston Globe, I made a simple point … that ‘this law doesn’t literally force anybody to do anything; it just increases the tax liability of those who refuse to buy insurance.’ Fortunately, the Chief Justice ended up articulating essentially the same common sense view despite protestations and pressure from his conservative colleagues on the Court that he approach the case more artificially.”

Dana Milbank with the headline of the day: “The umpire strikes back.” His lead: “John Roberts was the first justice to appear from behind the curtains when the buzzer sounded in the Supreme Court chamber at 10 a.m. sharp. He forced a tight grin and scanned the audience, which, on this historic day, included several members of Congress and retired Justice John Paul Stevens. The only hint of what was afoot came from Justice Antonin Scalia, who, taking his place at the chief justice’s right, bowed his head as if in mourning… In the audience, Sen. Orrin Hatch (R-Utah), an opponent of the law, folded his arms across his chest, his mouth slightly agape. Sen. John Barrasso (R-Wyo.) put his chin in his hand. Rep. Tom Price (R-Ga.), a leader of House conservatives, shook his head. Scalia was reclining in his chair, staring blankly. Justice Clarence Thomas was practically horizontal.”

And: “Whatever one thinks of the health-care ruling, Roberts’s opinion was extraordinarily brave.”

National Review didn’t think it was brave, but a “folly” instead: “If the law has been rendered less constitutionally obnoxious, the Court has rendered itself more so. Chief Justice Roberts cannot justly take pride in this legacy… Opponents should take heart: The law remains unpopular. Let the president and his partisans ring their bells today, and let us work to make sure that they are wringing their hands come November.”

Charles Krauthammer calls this decision by Roberts his “Nixon-to-China” moment. “Why did he do it? Because he carries two identities. Jurisprudentially, he is a constitutional conservative. Institutionally, he is chief justice and sees himself as uniquely entrusted with the custodianship of the court’s legitimacy, reputation and stature. … As a conservative, he is as appalled as his conservative colleagues by the administration’s central argument that Obamacare’s individual mandate is a proper exercise of its authority to regulate commerce. … But he lives in uneasy coexistence with Roberts, custodian of the court, acutely aware that the judiciary’s arrogation of power has eroded the esteem in which it was once held.”

In fairness, as one of us will write later this morning, the taxing power argument didn’t come out of nowhere. Solicitor General Donald Verrilli argued strongly for it. For example: “If there is any doubt about that under the Commerce Clause, then I urge this Court to uphold  the minimum coverage provision as an exercise of the taxing power.”

Verrilli fended off eight justices, including the liberals, who came after him for the president and members of Congress denying that it was a tax. He argued that not all members of Congress denied it was valid under the Congress’ taxing authority, including Sen. Max Baucus (D-MT), who was entrusted as one of the key shepherds of the bill. And Verrilli acknowledged the legislative politics, but pointed out the reality: They might have thought, Your Honor, that calling it a penalty as they did would make it more effective in accomplishing its objectives. But it is in the Internal Revenue Code, it is collected by the IRS on April 15th.” 

Republicans want move toward repealing the law. House Majority Leader Eric Cantor (R-VA) on MSNBC’s Morning Joe this morning unabashedly called for the Senate, assuming a narrow GOP takeover of the Upper Chamber, to use “reconciliation” to kill the law.

But David Frum calls GOP hopes of repealing the law a “fantasy” and the ruling a “Waterloo.” “First, today's Supreme Court decision will make it a lot harder to elect Mitt Romney. President Obama has just been handed a fearsome election weapon. 2012 is no longer exclusively a referendum on the president's economic management. 2012 is now also a referendum on Mitt Romney's healthcare plans.”

He also notes that Republicans will be the ones faced with political backlash. “[I]t will be their town halls filled with outraged senior citizens whose benefits are threatened; their incumbencies that will be threatened.” And that since many Republicans want to keep elements of the bill, that one-page repeal bill “will begin to grow.” He adds that there’s “no internal consensus on what a replacement would look like. Worse, any replacement of the law's popular elements will require financing. But where is that money to come from?” And he contends the bill will become not just more popular, but more difficult to undo as states begin to implement it in 2014.

In other words: “If replacement does not happen in the first 100 days, it won't happen at all—that is, it won't happen as a single measure, but rather will take the form of dozens of small incremental changes adopted episodically over the next 20 years. The outlook then: Even if Republicans win big in 2012, they will have to fight inch by bloody inch for changes they could have had for the asking in 2010. Truly, this is Waterloo—a Waterloo brought about by a dangerous combination of ideological frenzy, poor risk calculation, and a self-annihilating indifference to the real work of government.”

On the other side of the aisle…

Huffington Post’s Stein and Grim: “Democrats won [yesterday’s] battle, but the war over health care remains unsettled… Having endured years of sustained attack for constructing a bill that was based, fundamentally, on conservative principles, Democrats on Thursday were conceiving of ways to make the Affordable Care Act more popular rather than structurally different.” And: “[A] bill that has been sold to the public before would need to be presented once again during the presidential campaign.”

Josh Marshall at left-leaning Talking Points Memo: “In politics like in everything else, wins tend to generate more wins. They excite the winners and demoralize the losers, especially when the losers were certain they were about to win big. Getting the wind knocked out of you and desperately choking for breath for a minute on the field isn’t a plus. So a loss for the opponents of ‘Obamacare’ strikes me as what it is: a loss for the opponents of ‘Obamacare.’ On all levels.”

Matt Yglesias on what’s at stake in November: “[I]t turns out that the provisions a Romney administration would need to repeal to gut the law are wildly popular. According to a Reuters poll earlier this week, 78 percent of self-identified Republicans favor ‘banning insurance companies from denying coverage for pre-existing conditions’ and 86 percent of them support ‘banning insurance companies from canceling policies because a person becomes ill.’

“In other words, once the basic framework of the law is in place, it’ll be all but impossible to kill. That’s probably why no country that’s instituted a universal health insurance program has ever rolled it back—even strong conservatives like Margaret Thatcher in the United Kingdom or the current right-wing government in Canada leave existing programs in place. The problem for Democrats is that if Romney takes office in 2013, none of this stuff will have actually happened yet. Repealing the law in its abstract form is a bit politically risky for Republicans but not nearly as risky as it will become in the future.”

Something else the Obama administration has to see as good news: “Eurozone leaders agreed to radically restructure Spain’s €100bn bank recapitalisation plan during all-night talks at an EU summit that ended in the early hours of Friday,” the Financial Times writes. “The agreement will result in EU bailout funds eventually being injected directly into teetering Spanish financial institutions, meaning Madrid can sweep the burden of the bailouts off its sovereign books.”

Political Wire: "European leaders at a two-day summit in Brussels said they would speed up plans to create a single supervisor to oversee the euro zone's banks, and agreed on measures aimed at reducing soaring borrowing costs for Spain and Italy," the Wall Street Journal reports.

“In upholding most of President Barack Obama’s health care law, the Supreme Court handed the tea party a new lease on life,” Roll Call writes. “While activists spouted made-for-TV rancor through megaphones outside the court Thursday, the behind-the-scenes strategists who helped Republicans take the House in 2010 prepared for a flood of donations they said will fuel even greater gains this November.”

The Romney campaign, for example, said it had received more than $4 million yesterday.

But for all the talk of winners and losers, Glen Johnson points out: “The Supreme Court’s health care ruling today is a political victory for President Obama if you simply accept Mitt Romney’s most recent statement prior to the decision being handed down. Speaking Tuesday in Virginia, the presumptive Republican presidential nominee girded for the ruling by saying if the nation’s highest court overturned what he derides as Obamacare, ‘then the first 3 1/2 years of this president’s term will have been wasted on something that has not helped the American people.’ Yet the court, with the vote of conservative Chief Justice John Roberts, today upheld the law’s constitutionality. Accepting Romney’s logic, that would mean that the bulk of Obama’s first term in office was spent on something that helped the American people. Roberts is not someone Romney can dismiss, either. On his campaign website, he pledges to nominate Supreme Court justices ‘in the mold of Chief Justice Roberts,’ as well as other court conservatives.

Andrew Sullivan also points it out: “‘As president, Mitt will nominate judges in the mold of Chief Justice Roberts ...’ - MittRomney.com.” 

Michael Shear on how the Romney campaign orchestrated the GOP message machine after the ruling yesterday: “Moments after the Supreme Court ruled on President Obama’s health care law, Lanhee Chen, the policy director for Mitt Romney, sent an e-mail to about three dozen senior Republicans on Capitol Hill and in state attorneys general’s offices. ‘Please stand by. Reviewing. Will circulate answer,’ the e-mail, sent at 10:17 a.m. said in part. Minutes later, at 10:27 a.m., Mr. Chen sent another e-mail: ‘Go with upheld.’ Those three words unleashed a public relations plan that was nine weeks in the making and designed to make sure that the Republican response to whatever the court decided served Mr. Romney’s presidential ambitions.”

“For more than two months, a group of top aides to Mr. Romney met weekly with staff members to Republican lawmakers, legislative campaign committees and representatives of the state attorneys general. The meetings, led by Jeff Larson, the chief of staff at the Republican National Committee, were usually held at 3 p.m. in a conference room on the fourth floor of the committee’s headquarters. The group developed three scenarios.” There was some disagreement, “But in all cases, it was agreed that Mr. Romney, the presumptive Republican nominee, was in charge of the message.”

Jeff Zeleny points out: “Republicans swiftly sought to turn the court’s reasoning against President Obama, recasting the legislation as a tax increase. Mr. Romney, who as governor of Massachusetts signed a similar health care law, was one of the few in his party who did not join in that argument.”

Mitt Romney's successor as governor of Massachusetts, Deval Patrick (D), praised the Supreme Court's ruling upholding the 2010 health-care law -- and tweaked Romney in the process.

"Today's decision is a victory for the American people, a victory for the proper role of government, and a victory for our constitutional checks and balances," Patrick said at press conference in Boston.  

Patrick, an Obama campaign co-chair, sought to tie the federal health-care plan to the one Romney signed into law as Massachusetts governor.

"Congress acted, in 2009, for the same reasons our legislature. And Gov. Romney acted in 2006 because health is a public good and everyone deserves access to it -- because reforming the system brings costs down and improves the system for everyone. Today the court upheld that power."

"[Romney] deserves credit for his role together with the Democratic legislature and Sen. Kennedy and the business community and patient advocates for doing a lot of good, for helping people help themselves," he added.

Patrick said the system in place in Massachusetts has improved coverage, citing stabilizing premiums and coverage of 99.8% of children. Patrick then used Massachusetts' results to counter Romney's claims that the federal law will raise taxes, drop coverage, and eliminate jobs. 

"Each and every one of the list of horrors Gov. Romney now says will happen in America because of Obamacare did not happen in Massachusetts because of Romneycare," Patrick said. 

Patrick also praised Chief Justice John Roberts for setting aside partisanship by siding with the Court's liberal justices to uphold the law.

"The chief justice said basically that it's not the court's business to offer an opinion about whether they approve or disapprove of the choices the Congress has made, but instead in a constitutional system to determine whether the Congress had the power to make the choices it made," Patrick said. "The Affordable Care Act is not ultimately about President Obama or Chief Justice Roberts or any other member of the Court or Congress. It's about Americans all across this country who are trying their very best to make their way forward.  It's about helping people help themselves."

Ohio Rep. Jean Schmidt (R-OH) found herself caught in the preliminary confusion over the Supreme Court's ruling on health care reform.

A source passed to NBC News some video, taken by iPhone, of Schmidt standing outside the court as news of the ruling was apparently being passed to her via cell phone.

"Yes! Yes!!! And what else?!" Schmidt says into her cell phone, under the belief that the Supreme Court had struck down the law. (Like most Republicans, Schmidt was an ardent critic of the law.)

Her reaction is a testament to the initial flurry of misinformation surrounding the court's ruling. Even President Obama had thought that his signature legislative achievement had been defeated at the court, before an aide informed him otherwise.

NASVHILLE, Tenn. -- On the same day that the nation's high court upheld President Obama's health-care legislation, First Lady Michelle Obama told black churchgoers in Nashville that the black community's legal fights for justice continue long after the Civil Rights era. 

"The connection between our laws and our lives isn't always as clear as it was 50 years or 150 years ago," Mrs. Obama told thousands of members of the African Methodist Episcopal Church at their quadrennial conference in Nashville. "And, as a result, it's sometimes easy to assume that the battles in our courts and legislatures have all been won."

The first lady urged the audience to begin by addressing issues like their children's education and health with responsible parenting, but she added that civic engagement remains an important part of the equation. 

"But while we certainly need to start at home," she said, "we all know that we canot stop there because the fact is that our laws still matter."

Mrs. Obama did not directly mention the issue of health care in her speech -- or today's 5-4 ruling in favor of the health law's requirement that most Americans buy insurance.

But, later in the day, at another event in Memphis, Obama directly addressed the Supreme Court case:

“When it comes to healthcare, please, please tell people about the historic reform this president passed,” she said. “Tell them that today’s Supreme Court  decision was truly a victory for families all across this country. ... Because of this reform, help them understand that insurance companies will have to cover preventative care for things like contraception, cancer screening, prenatal care... Insurance companies will no longer be able to cap your coverage because you’re 'too sick' … (or) deny you coverage just because you have a preexisting condition."

During her speech here, she referenced civil rights battles that were won in dramatic court cases like Brown v. Board of Education. Today's fights, she said, are far less clear than that landmark 1954 court victory to end segregation. 

"What about all those kids growing up in neighborhoods where they don't feel safe, kids who never have opportunities worthy of their promise," she asked. "What court case do we bring on their behalf? What laws do we pass for them?" 

About 10,000 participants were on hand for the First Lady's address, which included some teasing of those who might shy away from talking politics at the churches that anchor their communities. 

"To anyone who says that church is no place to talk about these issues," she said, "you tell them there is no place better, because ultimately these are not just political issues, they are moral issues." 

Then-Sen. Barack Obama addressed the same conference during his presidential campaign in 2008. 

The first lady's remarks Thursday included frequent references to black leaders who she said paved the way for her husband's historic ascent to the presidency. She referenced the story of a son of an African American White House staffer who asked the president if his hair felt the same as his own. 

"If you ever wonder whether change is possible in this country, I want you to think about that little black boy in the Oval Office touching the head of the first black president," the first lady said. "And I want you to think about how children who see that photo today think nothing of it because that is all they have ever known. Because they have grown up taking for granted that an African American can be president of the United States." 

It must have been a long 40 seconds.

Minutes after 10 o’clock this morning, as news of the health-care ruling was coming out, President Obama -- who does not get any forewarning from the Supreme Court on its decisions -- was, like much of the rest of the country, relegated to watching television.

He stood in front of a television, with a split screen of four different channels, when banners flashed on two cable networks showing that the law’s central tenet -- the mandate requiring all Americans to buy health insurance -- had been struck down, according to White House aides who briefed reporters today.

For about 40 seconds, the president believed that his landmark, legacy-defining legislative accomplishment, had been gutted.

That was until White House counsel Kathryn Ruemmler came into the room and gave the president two thumbs up -- the law had actually been upheld. She quickly explained to a confused president what had happened.

While others, including NBC News and MSNBC, reported the correct information, the White House also did have a government lawyer at the high court relaying information to Ruemmler.

Obama’s first call, according to White House aides, was to his Solicitor General Donald Verrilli to congratulate him. Verrilli, who argued the case before a sometimes contentious row of justices, had been mocked by some in the legal community for his handling of the case.

The president made it clear he was not among the doubters. He told Verrilli he always thought he had done an excellent job. Ruemmler got a hug.

On the details of the law, one aide stressed that some estimates show less than one percent of people will end up having to pay -- what’s now been labeled by the court as -- the health-care tax.

Aides believe the Medicaid portion of the decision is not particularly significant, because, in the past, when faced with such decisions (the Children’s Health Insurance Program, or CHIP, for example), the states usually end up enacting the laws.

The White House is also downplaying any kind of poll bump the president could get from the ruling. Advisers to the president believe the country is burned out on the health-care argument, the last thing people want is a bloody fight, and there's no way the GOP can repeal it without such a fight.

The White House also happily points out that Obama's challenger, presumptive Republican nominee Mitt Romney, put a mandate in place as governor of Massachusetts, and that now he's running away from it -- at least as federal law.

One aide also admitted that advisers had always assumed the Commerce Clause argument was the better way to get five justices on their side.

Of course, there's also the legislative reality that calling the mandate a "tax" would have made the law even less palatable when trying to pass it through Congress.

Gerardo Mora / Getty Images

Republicans in the House voted Thursday to cite Attorney General Eric Holder for contempt of Congress.

Updated 5:01 p.m. - Republicans in the House voted Thursday to cite Attorney General Eric Holder for contempt of Congress in a politically-charged vote stemming from an investigation into alleged gun-running by the U.S. government.

The House voted 255-67, with one member voting "present," to cite Holder for criminal contempt. Most Democrats, led by the Congressional Black Caucus, abstained from the vote and staged a walk-out. But 17 conservative moderate and Democrats voted in favor of the resolution; two Republicans broke ranks to oppose it.

The House staged the vote against Holder for refusing to turn over documents subpoenaed by the House Oversight and Government Reform in relation to its investigation into the "Fast and Furious" program. The investigation is probing whether the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms deliberately allowed firearms to fall into the hands of drug cartels in Mexico.

The vote came on a day already marked as politically significant, after the Supreme Court issued its opinion upholding President Barack Obama's signature health reform law.

"Over the past fourteen months, the Justice Department accommodated Congressional investigators, producing 7,600 pages of documents, and testifying at eleven Congressional hearings. In an act of good faith, this week the administration made an additional offer which would have resulted in the Committee getting unprecedented access to documents dispelling any notion of an intent to mislead," White House communications director Dan Pfeiffer said in a statement. "But unfortunately, a politically-motivated agenda prevailed and instead of engaging with the president in efforts to create jobs and grow the economy, today we saw the House of Representatives perform a transparently political stunt."

Republicans had sought an agreement with the White House earlier in the week, but talks broke down.

"We'd rather not be there. We'd rather have the attorney general and president work with us to get the bottom of a very serious issue," House Speaker John Boehner (R-OH) told reporters on Capitol Hill Wednesday morning. "We're going to proceed. We've given them ample opportunity to comply."

House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi, speaking after the walk-out, called the vote an "abuse of power."

The vote, like most scheduled in Congress for the rest of this summer, is certainly imbued with election year politics. The oversight panel, led by California Rep. Darrell Issa, has been a consistent thorn in the administration's side, and has tangled frequently with Holder.

"Today's vote is the regrettable culmination of what became a misguided -- and politically motivated -- investigation during an election year," Holder said. "By advancing it over the past year and a half, Congressman Issa and others have focused on politics over public safety."

Tensions escalated last week when the White House invoked executive privilege over documentation sought by Issa as his committee prepared its own contempt vote. Republicans, in turn, have asked how the White House could invoke privilege when there are few indications that it had anything to do with "Fast and Furious."

That program came to national attention in late 2010 when a border agent was killed with a firearm purchased by suspects under investigation by the ATF. Conservative news outlets have pushed the story as a potential example of federal malfeasance, and Republicans have voiced suspicion about whether the Obama administration had known about the program. A Fortune magazine investigation published Wednesday, however, suggesting the ATF's work to intercede in illegal arms trafficking was hamstrung by personnel disputes and prosecutorial discretion.

"It is a political hatchet job and I believe the American people are disgusted with Congress, these types of actions, and we should vote no on this contempt process that will be on the floor tomorrow and return to the real problems confronting the American people," New York Rep. Carolyn Maloney (D) said on Wednesday of the vote.

But 17 of Maloney's colleagues -- as many 20 conservative and moderate Democrats, according to reports -- broke with their party and join Republicans in holding Holder in contempt. The politically powerful National Rifle Association sent notice to lawmakers that it intends to "score" this vote -- or, in other words, monitor members' votes in determining their endorsements in this fall's elections. (The pro-gun rights group is encouraging a "yes" vote to cite Holder for contempt.)

Democrats, when they controlled the House in 2007, voted to cite then-White House chief of staff Josh Bolton and former White House counsel Harriet Miers for contempt for refusing to testify in an investigation into allegedly politically-motivated firings of U.S. attorneys.

But contempt citations -- the House voted Thursday on both a criminal and civil contempt citation -- rarely proceed with much effect. While the citations are usually referred to a U.S. Attorney to present before a grand jury, administrations have historically invoked privileges that, they contend, don't compel them to prosecute.

The whole situation would seem to risk adding a degree of tarnish for the Obama administration as the president himself heads into the thick of the election season. Republicans have also sought to stoke inquiries into the administration's management of a program of loans to green energy companies, including the defunct solar energy firm Solyndra.

But while Mitt Romney frequently mentions the Solyndra bankruptcy on the campaign trail, he's made scant reference to "Fast and Furious." A spokesman for said the former Massachusetts governor supports citing Holder for contempt.

NBC's Frank Thorp contributed reporting.

Updated 2:34 p.m. - Democrats are no doubt thrilled by Thursday's Supreme Court ruling upholding the president's health care reform law.

So thrilled, that House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) is throwing a party for select Democratic staffers on Capitol Hill.

NBC News obtained the following invitation sent out this morning a few hours after the decision:

Nancy Pelosi
Democratic Leader
United States House of Representatives

requests the pleasure of your company at a reception honoring today's victory on the Supreme Court decision to uphold the Affordable Care Act on Thursday, the twenty  eighth day of June, two thousand twelve at five o'clock in the afternoon

Leader's Conference Room
United States Capitol

A Pelosi aide adds: "This reception will consist of Costco cake and brownie bites. No taxpayer dollars being spent, very informal." No alcohol will be served.

WASHINGTON -- Mitt Romney condemned the Supreme Court's ruling upholding the president's health-care reform law, and called for opponents of the law to support him if they wish to see the law repealed.

"This is a time of choice for the American people," Romney said from a rooftop overlooking the Capitol. "Our mission is clear: If we want to get rid of 'ObamaCare,' we're going to have replace President Obama."

The presumptive Republican nominee, who spoke for four minutes and did not take questions, said that while the Supreme Court chose not to strike down the law as unconstitutional, he will work to repeal the act which he considers bad law and bad policy.

"As you might imagine, I disagree with the Supreme Court's decision," Romney said, "and I agree with the dissent. What the court did not do on its last day in session, I will do on my first day if elected president of the United States -- and that is I will act to repeal 'ObamaCare.'"

Romney, who has long been haunted by his support for an individual mandate, similar to the one undergirding President Obama's reform package, did not mention the mandate specifically today and did not take questions. He instead focused his ire on the law's tax and deficit implications.

"Obamacare raises taxes on the American people by approximately 500 billion dollars," Romney said. "'ObamaCare' cuts Medicare, cuts Medicare by approximately $500 billion, and even with those cuts and tax increases, 'ObamaCare' ads trillions to our deficits and to our national debts, and pushes those obligations on to coming generations."

Romney also broadly laid out some of the "real reform" he would enact to replace the Affordable Care Act, calling for legislation to help keep health-care costs down, keep insured those with preexisting conditions who had been continuously covered, and support state-based reform efforts.

ANALYSIS

It’s interesting to note that two prominent conservative judges have upheld the individual mandate under the Commerce Clause -- Judge Silberman of the D.C. Circuit and Judge Sutton of the 6th Circuit.

It’s interesting that Roberts went a way no other conservative judge from the lower courts had gone. He upheld it under Congress’ constitutional power to tax. Why does this matter? It suggests Roberts is guarding his legacy as the Chief Justice to show the Supreme Court has not become totally political and predictable. And that conservatives can be independent thinkers and not lock-step.

A veteran, conservative Supreme Court lawyer said Roberts will likely be seen as being intimidated by the Left. He added that he believes it’s clear the opinion was initially a 5-4 decision to strike down the law under the Commerce Clause and that  Roberts flipped in the end. He points out that it's unusual for there to be a jointly written dissent among four justices. In the decision, Roberts appears to be saying to the Right, "Look, I’m with you on the Commerce Clause, but it can be upheld under taxing authority."

In the end, there is also a big policy issue. The court said to Americans, you don't have to buy insurance under the mandate, but you have to pay the tax. What will Congress do next? That’s the big question – stay tuned.

Updated 1:00 p.m. - Among the flurry of conservatives vowing to redouble their efforts to repeal President Obama’s health reform law was the handful of Republicans whom Mitt Romney might pick as a running mate.

Below is a rundown of portions of their statements, which we will continue to update throughout the day.

Ohio Sen. Rob Portman:

While the Court has deemed the law constitutional as a tax on the American people, it is still flawed policy that is unaffordable for our families, our small businesses, and our government.  The President's one-size-fits-all health care spending law is the centerpiece of a failed agenda that has increased economic uncertainty, stalled job creation, and deepened the spending hole that Washington has dug. 

Florida Sen. Marco Rubio:

What's important to remember is that what the Court rules on is whether something is constitutional or not, not whether it's a good idea. And while the Court has said that the law is constitutional, it remains a bad idea for our economy, and I hope that in the fall we will have a majority here that will not just repeal this law, but replace it with real solutions that will insure more people and cost a lot less money.

Wisconsin Rep. Paul Ryan

Today’s decision strengthens the case for repeal and replace. With the right leadership in place, I am confident we can advance real health care solutions for the American people. It is now in the hands of the American people to determine whether this disastrous law will stand.

Virginia Gov. Bob McDonnell:

Today's ruling crystallizes all that's at stake in November's election.  The only way to stop Barack Obama's budget-busting health care takeover is by electing a new president. Barack Obama's health care takeover encapsulates his Presidency: Obamacare increases taxes, grows the size of government and puts bureaucrats over patients while doing nothing to improve the economy.

New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie:

Today's Supreme Court decision is disappointing and I still believe this is the wrong approach for the people of New Jersey who should be able to make their own judgments about health care. Most importantly, the Supreme Court is confirming what we knew all along about this law - it is a tax on middle class Americans.

New Hampshire Sen. Kelly Ayotte:

By imposing a coercive tax on the American people, the president's health care law represents an unprecedented federal overreach into individuals' personal lives. ... If we don't repeal it, Americans can expect to see higher costs, less choice and fewer jobs.  I will continue to fight to repeal this law and replace it with market-based reforms that reduce costs and expand consumer choice.

Louisiana Gov. Bobby Jindal:

Ironically, the Supreme Court has decided to be far more honest about Obamacare than Obama was.  They rightly have called it a tax. Today's decision is a blow to our freedoms. The Court should have protected our constitutional freedoms, but remember, it was the President that forced this law on us.