WASHINGTON – In a moving naturalization ceremony in the East Room of the White House, 25 active members of the military declared their allegiance to the United States and became U.S. citizens on Wednesday.

The group hailed from countries ranging from the Ukraine to Cameroon to Honduras. President Barack Obama used the event to highlight his recent immigration announcement and renew the call for comprehensive immigration reform.

The president proclaimed that “America’s success demands comprehensive immigration reform” and that a “Dream Act,” legislation that would give young illegal immigrants a path toward permanent residency, was still necessary.

“For just as we remain a nation of laws, we have to remain a nation of immigrants. That's why as another step forward we're lifting the shadow of deportation…from deserving young people who were brought to this country as children.  That's why we still need a Dream Act to keep talented young people who want to contribute to our society and serve our country,” the president said.

He used the 25 men and women in uniform before him as an example of how the American dream “endures for all those…who are willing to work hard, play by the rules and meet their responsibilities.”

The president also declared the naturalization ceremony as  the “perfect way to celebrate America’s birthday.”  He also said of the group, “All of you did something profound.  You chose to serve.  You put on the uniform of a country that was not yet fully your own in a time of war.  Some of you deployed into harm's way. You displayed the values that we celebrate every Fourth of July: Duty, responsibility and patriotism.”

Last month, Obama announced a policy to stop deporting young illegal immigrants who entered the United States as children if they meet certain requirements.

After administering the Oath of Allegiance, Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano highlighted efforts by the Departments of Defense and Homeland Security to expedite the naturalization process for members of the military.

“Since 2001, U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services has naturalized over 80,000 members of the armed forces, bringing immigration services to our troops wherever they serve. And since 2009, we have offered non-citizen enlistees the opportunity to naturalize before completing basic training so they can graduate as American citizens,” she said.   

It currently takes a few weeks to a few months for an immigrant who has enlisted in the U.S. military to become naturalized citizen.   However, one must be a legal immigrant to enlist, therefore the president’s embargo on deporting young illegal immigrants does not give them an opportunity to enlist and find a way to citizenship via that pathway.

Charles Dharapak / AP

Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney, accompanied by his Ann, address a crowd after they walked in the Fourth of July Parade in Wolfeboro, N.H., Wednesday. At right is son Craig Romney.

WOLFEBORO, N.H.-- Mitt Romney contradicted a top aide to his campaign and aligned himself instead with the Republican establishment in labeling the health care mandate a tax, not a penalty, as Democrats have contended.

"Now the Supreme Court has spoken and while I agreed with the dissent, that’s taken over by the fact that the majority of the court said it’s a tax," Romney said in an interview Wednesday with CBS. "Therefore it is a tax. They have spoken. There’s no way around that.  You can try and say you wish they’d decided a different way, but they didn't. They concluded it’s a tax. That’s what it is."

Romney's description of the health care mandate as a tax aligns his position with that of GOP leaders, who have for days used the Supreme Court's majority decision upholding the law under Congress's taxation authority as a cudgel with which to attack Democrats and the president as having raised taxes.

Earlier this week, Romney senior adviser Eric Fehrnstrom took a position in an interview with NBC's Chuck Todd that the mandate should be labeled a fee or a penalty, not a tax, and repeating again that Romney agreed with the Supreme Court's dissenting opinion, written by Antonin Scalia, that the mandate should be considered a penalty or fee and would therefore be unconstitutional.

By stating that the mandate is indeed a tax, Romney can now join a chorus of Republican leaders in attacking the president for what he claims was breaking a central pledge of Obama's candidacy -- not to raise taxes on middle-income Americans. But in doing so, he opens himself up to a similar attack: that the mandate in the health care law he passed in Massachusetts was also a tax.

"The American people know that President Obama has broken the pledge he made," Romney said in the CBS interview. "He said he wouldn’t raise taxes on middle-income Americans."

Wednesday morning's interview was Romney's first public appearance in several days, as the candidate took the weekend off to vacation at his summer home here on Lake Winnepesaukee. Romney was joined here by all five of his sons and their children, filling his lakeside compound to the brim with activity over several days of boating, volleyball and at least one meeting with top campaign aides on the house's back deck. 

That meeting, attended by campaign manager Matt Rhoades and senior adviser Beth Myers, who heads Romney's vice presidential search effort, has fueled speculation that Romney may be close to picking a number two on the ticket.

Wednesday, Romney took part in the Wolfeboro Independence Day parade, along with most of his family and with Sen. Kelly Ayotte (R-NH), who is considered by many political analysts to be on Romney's vice presidential short list. If parade-goers were looking for clues to the candidate's intentions or to hear policy discussed, they may have come away disappointed.

Instead, the attitude along the parade route through Main street was patriotic and festive, with the candidate criss-crossing the street to shake hands with supporters, snap photos and guzzle lemonade from a roadside stand. At the parade's conclusion at Brewster Academy, which overlooks the lake, Romney praised the "fighting men and women around the world continue to inspire me," and gave brief remarks saluting America on her birthday.

"I love this country," Romney said. "I love the people who have built this country."

Republicans are optimistic about their chances of retaining control of the House despite a dramatic two-year tenure in charge that saw approval of Congress touch all-time lows.

The battle for the House is far from set in stone, but political forecasters are skeptical of Democrats’ ability to achieve the net gain of 25 seats they need to wrest control from the GOP. The change in the chamber’s makeup come January is expected to fall within a narrow band in which Republicans either add or subtract a few seats from their 49-member majority.

J. Scott Applewhite / AP

House Speaker John Boehner of Ohiois flanked by other House GOP leaders during a news conference June 27 on Capitol Hill.

“What’s happened is that the normal gains you would expect Democrats to get coming off a 63-seat loss were offset by some retirements and Republican districts being shored up through redistricting,” said Charlie Cook, editor of the nonpartisan “Cook Political Report,” which follows congressional races.

The renewed GOP optimism marks a slight shift from just a few months ago, when House Speaker John Boehner, R-Ohio, warned his party had a “one-in-three chance” of losing the House.

“Our incumbents are in a strong position, and our challengers are running great races,” said Paul Lindsay, a spokesman for the National Republican Congressional Committee (NRCC). “Voters understand that House Republicans were sent to Washington to stop the madness of this administration, and we've done that.”

Democrats, as one might expect, are quick to disagree. The Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee (DCCC) has outraised its Republican counterpart at points this cycle – a feat for a non-incumbent party – and most recently pulled in $2.3 million in the wake of the Supreme Court ruling upholding President Obama’s health care law.

House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi, who lost the speakership after Republicans’ victories in 2010, told Reuters last week that her party, right now, has the momentum.

"It’s easier to win 25 seats than to hold 63," the California Democrat said at a summit in Washington. "We have out-recruited the Republicans and we have fabulous candidates. This time we will be ready."

But Democrats are quick to caution that political observers shouldn’t consider that statement a guarantee.

“There's nobody who's said we're definitely going to win the House,” said a Democratic strategist familiar with the party’s House campaign efforts. “We've said it's going to be a good night, but we've never guaranteed victory from the outset.

Democrats held a one-point advantage (within the margin of error) in the latest NBC News/Wall Street Journal poll. Forty-five percent of voters said they would prefer a Democratic Congress as an outcome of this fall’s elections, while 44 percent said that they would prefer the GOP to be in charge. Eleven percent said they were unsure.

Still, though, Republicans have in recent months closed an advantage that Democrats had opened in NBC/WSJ polls earlier this year. Democrats held a six-point lead in the generic ballot in January of this year.

January marked what was arguably a low point, politically, for House Republicans. A fight over payroll taxes late last year – when Republicans insisted on offsetting spending cuts to finance an extension of a payroll tax cut favored by the president and Democrats – threatened to crystallize an impression of a House led by hard-charging conservatives.

That followed a year in which Republicans had stared down Obama multiple times on funding the government. And an August showdown that raised the specter of defaulting on the national debt took a toll on nearly every participant involved.

“The possibilities of Republicans self-destructing to the point where it could cost them 25 seats, it was there. You could have seen the path last summer,” Cook said.

So what’s changed? Quite simply, Congress has stayed out of the headlines. While Washington has hardly been a model of good governance, a package last week to extend low student loan interest rates and fund highway infrastructure projects short-circuited some of the claims of a “Do-Nothing Congress.”

“They’re not engaging in a lot of self-destructive behavior,” said Cook, adding that some sort of catalyzing, self-destructive event would likely be needed to put Democrats in position for a takeover.

There’s still much that could change, though, in the battle for Congress. The presidential election could unfold in any number of directions, and lawmakers on both sides are carefully heeding economic indicators set for release over the next couple of months.

Each side, though, has started to firm up its message and reserved millions in airtime this fall to advance it.

Republicans are particularly eager to use the Supreme Court’s determination that the new health reform law is constitutional under the power of Congress to tax. It lends some measure of credence to a tried-and-tested Republican attack – accusing Democrats of raising taxes. The GOP has also sought to tie Democrats to Obama in districts where the president is less popular, prompting some Democratic candidates or incumbents to forgo the party’s summer convention in Charlotte.

Democrats, meanwhile, have enjoyed a degree of political mileage from the past two Republican budgets offered by Wisconsin Rep. Paul Ryan. These budgets proposed reshaping Medicare and drastic spending cuts over the next decade, and the overwhelming majority of House Republicans voted to advance them.

Democrats have made no secret about their intention to turn that budget back against Republicans.

“The Republican budget choices are going to be the focal point this fall,” said the Democratic strategist.

With four months to go until Election Day, the presidential campaigns and outside groups supporting them are spending nearly $15 million on advertising for this week alone, according to ad-spending data from NBC/SMG Delta.

From July 2 through July 8, the Obama campaign has purchased $6.5 million of advertising in the battleground states; the Romney camp $4.3 million; the conservative group Americans for Prosperity $2.6 million; and the pro-Obama Priorities USA Action $1.4 million.

In fact, the Obama campaign has bought a whopping $24.1 million -- in Colorado, Florida, Iowa, Nevada, New Hampshire, North Carolina, Ohio, Pennsylvania, and Virginia -- for the entire month of July.

Overall, since the general election contest began in the spring, the campaigns and the outside groups have spent nearly $200 million on ads, with Obama and his supporters outspending Team Romney, $110 million to $85 million. Here's the total breakdown:
Obama $94.4 million
Crossroads GPS $24.4 million
Romney $22.8 million
Americans for Prosperity $13.6 million
Restore Our Future $11.5 million
Priorities USA $10.4 million
Concerned Women of America $4.8 million
American Future Fund $4.5 million
American Energy Alliance $3.2 million
SEIU/Priorities $2.5 million
Planned Parenthood $1.4 million
Priorities/League of Conservation Voters $980k

And here are this week's 10 hottest advertising (in terms of advertising points from 7/2-7/8):
1. Colorado Springs, CO (Obama 950, Romney 900, AFP 250, Priorities 200)
2. Orlando, FL (Romney 985, Obama 700, AFP 150, Priorities 150)
3. Tampa, FL (Romney 950, Obama 580, AFP 215, Priorities 200)
4. Richmond, VA (Obama 775, Romney 690, Priorities 250, AFP 200)
5. Roanoke, VA (Obama 830, Romney 720, AFP 350)
6. Reno, NV (Obama 850, Romney 715, AFP 150)
7. Grand Junction, CO (Obama 775, Romney 550, AFP 350)
8. Denver, CO (Obama 750, Romney 650, Priorities 40, AFP 125)
9. Columbus, OH (Obama 660, Romney 530, Priorities 360, AFP 100)
10. Cleveland, OH (Obama 765, Romney 580, AFP 125, Priorities 125)

Actor Andy Griffith died this morning at his home in North Carolina, NBC News reports. He was 86.

Griffith may have been most famous for his roles in "The Andy Griffith Show" and "Matlock," but he also played a prominent role in politics.

Most recently, he starred in an ad promoting Medicare and touting the president's health-care law.

And that wasn't the first time Griffith's name came up with regard to politics. Democrats always dreamed of Sen. Griffith. 

In fact, Griffith was so seriously considered to run for the Democratic nomination in 1990, that the polling outfit Mason-Dixon tested him against then-Sen. Jesse Helms (R).

Griffith led Helms by nine points, 48-39%, in that 1989 poll, a wider margin than former Gov. Jim Hunt (D), who had lost to Helms in a nasty 1984 race. Hunt led Helms in that poll 50-42%. (Hat tip to our friends at National Journal's Hotline.) (Former Charlotte Mayor Harvey Gantt, who is black, wound up being the Democratic standard bearer. And race became a central issue. That was the election where Helms ran the "Hands" ad - below.) 

"North Carolina has lost its favorite son," Democratic North Carolina Gov. Bev Perdue said in a statement. "Andy Griffith graciously stepped into the living rooms of generations of Americans, always with the playful charm that made him the standard by which entertainers would be measured for decades. Throughout his career, he represented everything that was good about North Carolina: a small town boy and UNC graduate who took a light-hearted approach to some of the attributes he grew up with and turned them into a spectacularly successful career. And regardless of where that career took him, he always came back to North Carolina and spent his final years here. In an increasingly complicated world, we all yearn for the days of Mayberry. We all will miss Andy, and I will dearly miss my friend."

The Raleigh News and Observer wrote of Griffith in 2010: "Griffith has been a closer for Democrats, an unimpeachable saintly figure who fills his rare political spots with folksy charm and obvious references to his role as a small-town North Carolina sheriff."

As Mitt Romney approaches his announcement of a running mate, a series of clues about whom he might pick continue to seep into the media.

The presumptive Republican presidential nominee's campaign confirmed, per NBC's Garrett Haake, that New Hampshire Sen. Kelly Ayotte (R) would meet with Romney and march with him at a Fourth of July parade tomorrow in Wolfeboro, N.H.

Brian Snyder / Reuters

New Hampshire Sen. Kelly Ayotte plans to meet with presumptive GOP nominee Romney and march with him at a Fourth of July parade in Wolfeboro, N.H.

Ayotte is one of several rumored short-listers who have appeared with Romney on the campaign trail; these ventures have been interpreted as informal tryouts for potential GOP tickets. A slew of other vice presidential hopefuls joined Romney on his bus tour through the Midwest last month.

Meanwhile, this morning on CNBC, New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie seemed to warm to the idea of serving as Romney's pick for a vice president.

"I love being governor of New Jersey, you can tell," Christie said. "But the fact is, if Gov. Romney picks up the phone and calls, you have to answer the call and listen at least."

Romney himself has said little about the vetting process since being forced to acknowledge in June that his campaign was evaluating Florida Sen. Marco Rubio, among other candidates, for the VP nod.

The list of other top-tier candidates is considered to include Ohio Sen. Rob Portman (R) and former Minnesota Gov. Tim Pawlenty (R).

Another governor long rumored to be among favorites for the vice presidential nod is Bob McDonnell of Virginia. It might be difficult for him to serve as Romney's running mate, though, in his new role, announced Monday, as chairman of the platform committee at this summer's Republican National Convention.

Three times on "Meet the Press" last Sunday, House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi said the payment individuals must eventually make for failing to buy insurance under the health-care law is a penalty, not a tax.

"It's a penalty that comes under the tax code," Pelosi said, "for the 1%, perhaps, of the population who may decide that they're going to be free riders" by not buying insurance.

Moderator David Gregory persisted. "But it's a new tax. It is a new tax on the American people," he said.

"No, no, no, no," Pelosi responded. "It's not a tax. It's a penalty for free riders."

So what is the payment that virtually all citizens must make if they decline to obtain health insurance when that provision of the Affordable Care Act takes effect in 2014?

In his Supreme Court opinion declaring the law constitutional under Congress's taxing authority, Chief Justice John Roberts called it a tax no fewer than 26 times. The health-care law itself repeatedly refers to the payment as a penalty, but Roberts said that didn't matter. The conclusion about what it is, he said, "should not change simply because Congress used the word 'penalty.'" 

For him, the issue is how it actually works, not the label attached to it in the statute.

Penalties, Roberts said, work much differently from taxes. Quoting an earlier Supreme Court decision, he said a penalty "is an exaction imposed by statute for an unlawful act." But failing to buy health insurance is not unlawful, because a citizen has an alternative -- either buy insurance or pay a tax. The conclusion: It cannot be a penalty.

"Neither the Act nor any other law attaches negative consequences to not buying health insurance, beyond requiring a payment to the IRS," Roberts wrote. "The shared responsibility payment merely imposes a tax citizens may lawfully choose to pay in lieu of buying health insurance."

It is, he put it succinctly, “a tax on going without health insurance.”

Is all this semantics, or does it matter? It made all the difference to Chief Justice Roberts. His opinion makes it amply clear that if he thought it wasn't a tax, he would not have voted to find it constitutional. Under the law of the case, the Supreme Court declared that payment a tax, not a penalty.

In lieu of our regular First Thoughts, here's the news and reporting we're watching this morning.

The Obama campaign is up with a new TV ad resurrecting the charge that Romney is an outsourcer. “Mitt Romney’s companies were pioneers in outsourcing US jobs to low-wage countries,” the ad goes, citing a recent Washington Post piece, which the Romney camp disputes. "President Obama believes in insourcing. He fought to save the US auto industry. And favors tax cuts for companies that bring jobs home.”

The Obama camp is also highlighting a new Vanity Fair piece looking into Romney's complicated offshore accounts in Bermuda and the Cayman Islands.

The Wall Street Journal notes that Obama and Romney finally agree on something: a health-care mandate is a penalty -- not a tax. "Mitt Romney's campaign is aligning itself with President Barack Obama—and breaking from Republican leaders—by saying the government will be imposing a penalty, not a tax, on people who don't buy insurance as required by the new health-care law."

NBC's Garrett Haake confirms that New Hampshire Sen. Kelly Ayotte (R) -- a potential VP pick -- will appear with Romney tomorrow at a July 4th parade in the Granite State.

Haake also confirmed yesterday's New York Times report that Romney will visit Israel later this summer.

And in an interview with the Washington Post, Attorney General Eric Holder said this about last week's vote holding him in contempt of Congress: “I’ve become a symbol of what they don’t like about the positions this Justice Department has taken,” he said. “I am also a proxy for the president in an election year. You have to be exceedingly naive to think that vote was about ... documents.”

Mitt Romney will travel to Israel this summer on a leg of a foreign trip for the presumptive Republican presidential nominee before the height of the fall campaign season.

The Romney campaign confirmed a New York Times report on a long-suspected trip by Romney to Israel. While the exact timing of the trip is unclear, a previous campaign aide told NBC News that it's likely that he'll travel to Israel from London, where the GOP nominee will head at the end of this month for the opening of the Summer Olympics.

Romney's approach toward Israel has been one of the main areas in which he's distinguished himself from President Obama on foreign policy issues. Romney had previously accused Obama of having thrown Israel "under the bus" for outlining preconditions of a peace process. Romney's also been hawkish toward the prospect of an Iranian nuclear program, a major concern of the Israeli government.

Arizona Sen. John McCain, the GOP's presidential nominee in 2008, made a similar trip to Israel. A visit to Israel has traditionally been seen as a way to appeal to evangelical voters in the Republican base, and perhaps pick off Jewish voters who tend to favor Obama.

A major donor to pro-Romney efforts, casino magnate Sheldon Adelson, has been a major proponent of Israel's, and has cited it as a motivation for defeating Obama this fall. Moreover, Romney has maintained a relationship with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu both of them worked decades ago at Boston Consulting.

Alex Moe and Michael O'Brien contributed

Video edited by NBC's Jordan Frasier.

Updated 12:04 p.m. - The Supreme Court's determination last week that health care reform could be sustained as an extension of the power of Congress to tax has launched a battle of political semantics in Washington over taxes. 

Republicans have latched on to the high court's ruling that the individual mandate -- the requirement that individuals have insurance, or pay a penalty to the IRS -- was essentially a tax. Though the majority decision was authored, ironically, by conservative Chief Justice John Roberts, it offered an affirmation of Republicans' long-held contention that President Barack Obama's signature domestic achievement represented a tax hike.

Democrats have preferred, instead, to call it a "penalty" rather than a tax, parrying Republicans' attacks by using language presumptive GOP presidential nominee Mitt Romney has used in defense of his own similar health reform law in Massachusetts.

As recently as this Monday morning, the Romney campaign was using the same language.

"It was a penalty, and the governor had all the authority he needed under our state constitution to put in the reforms that he did put in place," Romney adviser Eric Fehrnstrom said this morning on MSNBC. "The governor has consistently described the mandate in Massachusetts as a penalty."

Romney adviser Eric Fehrnstrom

The aftermath of the court's ruling, in short, has resulted in a bizarre situation. Republicans -- including Romney -- attack "ObamaCare" as a tax, even as the party's standard-bearer uses language to defend the Massachusetts law that closely resembles Obama's law. (The Romney campaign is also quick to note that there are other taxes included in the health care law beyond the mandate.)

“The Supreme Court left President Obama with two choices: the federal individual mandate in Obamacare is either a constitutional tax or an unconstitutional penalty. Governor Romney thinks it is an unconstitutional penalty. What is President Obama’s position: is his federal mandate unconstitutional or is it a tax?” asked Amanda Henneberg, a spokeswoman for Romney.

And Democrats are uncomfortably wedded to a Supreme Court decision that handed them their desired outcome, but created for them a new political headache. Mindful that embracing a new tax could be politically treacherous for them in November, the White House and Democrats downballot are scrambling to spin the mandate as anything but a tax, despite the court's ruling and the fact that the "penalty" is paid to the IRS.

Republicans pointed to House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi's comments toward the decision on "Meet the Press" this Sunday as an acknowledgement of that.

"It's a penalty that comes under the tax code for the 1 percent, perhaps, of the population who decide they're going to be free riders," said the California Democrat, who as House speaker was one of the law's chief proponents.

The GOP is likely to find much more success in using this tactic downballot. They have been hammering away at House and Senate candidates since the decision was first announced.

The National Republican Congressional Committee, for instance, has targeted Democratic candidates in releases and videos throughout the weekend for supporting, they assert, a tax hike.

For its part, the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee, has pushed back by launching automated calls against Republicans that accuse them of wishing to "put insurance companies back in charge of our health care."

But that appears set to be a separate battle from the one between Romney and Obama. Republicans' most visible figure this election year will have trouble explaining to voters how his proposal in Massachusetts is not a tax, but Obama's is. That was a chief conservative criticism of Romney during the primary: that he was the worst possible candidate to challenge Obama on health care, because of the similar law he had passed.

Four month to go until Election Day… GOP’s tax argument on health care cuts both ways… Roberts switched his vote?... Why this matters to conservatives: They realize they were thisclose to overturning the whole law… Obama makes plea to his donors… And RGA/DGA announce 2ndQ fundraising numbers.

*** Four months to go: Heading into this July 4 holiday week -- and with both President Obama and Mitt Romney without events today and tomorrow -- it’s not a bad time to look down the road to see what remains ahead of us in the presidential contest. At the end of this week, we’ll reach the four-months-out point of the race. In addition, now that we’ve cleared the Supreme Court/health care mile marker we have three more markers to pass: Romney’s VP pick (coming either this month or next), the conventions (in late August and early September), and the presidential debates (in September and October). And those are just the things we know are coming down the road; the unexpected also awaits us.

Nam Y. Huh / AP

Health care overhaul supporters hold signs during a rally at Daley Plaza in Chicago.

*** A taxing issue: As for Thursday’s Supreme Court decision, so far it appears to have created a political status quo. But the right has done their best to make lemonade out of the health-care lemons by taking advantage of the court’s rationale that the mandate is a tax. Make no mistake: House and Senate Republicans want to run against something, and this gives them their opening. (Then again, don’t forget that Republicans -- in 2010 -- ALREADY used this strategy, arguing that the health-care law raised taxes.) But this strategy puts Romney in a box. After all, he signed into law legislation creating a mandate, too. So was that also a tax? Indeed, the Obama campaign highlighted this exchange yesterday between FOX’s Chris Wallace and Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell. Wallace: “If the Obama mandate is a tax on the middle class, isn't the Romney mandate a tax on the middle class?” McConnell: “I think Gov. Romney will have to speak for himself on what was done in Massachusetts.” Ouch. By the way, how many Democratic candidates for House and Senate will use Romney to push back against these attacks? We’re betting many of Romney’s health-care sound bites will become more well-known on the congressional level.

*** Roberts switched his vote? Over the weekend, CBS reported what many had been speculating ever since the Supreme Court upheld the constitutionality of the federal health-care law: that Chief Justice John Roberts had switched his vote. “… Roberts initially sided with the Supreme Court's four conservative justices to strike down the heart of President Obama's health care reform law, the Affordable Care Act, but later changed his position and formed an alliance with liberals to uphold the bulk of the law, according to two sources with specific knowledge of the deliberations.” More from CBS: “Roberts then withstood a month-long, desperate campaign to bring him back to his original position, the sources said. Ironically, Justice Anthony Kennedy - believed by many conservatives to be the justice most likely to defect and vote for the law - led the effort to try to bring Roberts back to the fold.”

*** Why this matters to conservatives: This reporting has raised the obvious question: Who leaked these deliberations? Supreme Court clerks? The justices themselves? Whoever it was, this explanation is now going to be the only one conservatives will believe and accept, even if somehow other leaks from the court end up contradicting this storyline. Until they go to their grave, most conservatives will believe Roberts somehow flipped and did so under pressure. Here’s another question: Does it even matter? But to conservatives, it matters A LOT. Why? They now realize they were thisclose to overturning the whole law. Trust us, many still can’t believe they had Kennedy for a full overturn.

*** Spare some change? Also over the weekend, the Daily Beast got its hands on a recording of a fundraising call Obama made to his donors while he was returning from Colorado aboard Air Force One. His message: Given all the GOP-leaning outside money, he needs help from his contributors. “‘The majority on this call maxed out to my campaign last time. I really need you to do the same this time,’ the president said in a highly unusual (and presumably legal) fundraising pitch from Air Force One on his way back to Washington from Colorado Springs, where he’d been assessing the terrible damage caused by uncontained wildfires. A special phone on the government aircraft is dedicated to political calls that are paid for by the campaign. More: “‘I’m asking you to meet or exceed what you did in 2008,” the presidential pitchman continued… ‘Because we’re going to have to deal with these super PACs in a serious way. And if we don’t, frankly I think the political [scene] is going to be changed permanently. Because the special interests that are financing my opponent’s campaign are just going to consolidate themselves. They’re gonna run Congress and the White House.’”

*** Must be the money! Speaking of fundraising… The Republican Governors Association says it raised $16.7 million in the second quarter, which it notes is twice the amount it brought in during the second quarter of 2008. And so far this year, the RGA has raked in $29 million -- slightly more than it raised at this point in 2010, when there were 37 gubernatorial races around the country. (Think the Walker recall helped here?) For its part, the Democratic Governors Association says that it raised $13 million across all of its entities (including its Super PAC and 501c4) this quarter, and that it has raised a total of $21 million for the first half of this year. The RGA number doesn’t include the money it raised through other entities.

*** A final note: Our morning column will be off tomorrow and Wednesday, but we’ll return on Thursday. As always, of course, we’ll update the blog as news warrants. Happy Fourth of July!

Countdown to GOP convention: 56 days
Countdown to Dem convention: 63 days
Countdown to Election Day: 127 days

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*** Monday’s “Daily Rundown” line-up: Romney Campaign Senior Advisor Eric Fehrnstrom… NBC's Mark Potter with the latest on Mexico's presidential vote… A deep dive into whether Romney can win the White House without winning the industrial midwest… More 2012 campaign trail news with the Washington Post's Dan Balz, USA Today's Jackie Kucinich and former DNC spokeswoman Karen Finney.

*** Monday’s “Jansing & Co.” line-up: MSNBC’s Chris Jansing interviews Utah Gov. Gary Herbert (R), former Obama administration economist Jared Bernstein, GOP economist Doug Holtz-Eakin, Mother Jones’ David Corn, USA Today’s Susan Page, and GOP strategist Chip Saltsman.

*** Monday’s “MSNBC Live with Thomas Roberts” line-up: MSNBC’s Thomas Roberts talks with RNC Communications Director Sean Spicer, Rep. Bill Cassidy (R-LA) on Red States Bucking Health Care Law, NBC Latino Contributor Raul Reyes, and Power Panel guests Alice Stewart, Chris Kofinis, and Perry Bacon.

*** Monday’s “NOW with Alex Wagner” line-up: Alex Wagner’s guests include the Huffington Post’s Sam Stein; The Nation’s Ari Melber, MSNBC Political Analyst Richard Wolffe, Bloomberg News’ Margaret Talev,  Priorities USA Action head Bill Burton, and Kevin Bleyer, author of “Me the People.”

*** Monday’s “Andrea Mitchell Reports” line-up: NBC’s Andrea Mitchell, hosting from the Aspen Ideas Summit, interviews the Washington Post’s Chris Cillizza and E.J. Dionne, Financial Times Managing Editor Gillian Tett, Politico’s Mike Allen, Citigroup Global Banking Vice Chairman Peter Orszag, MSNBC Political Analyst Charlie Cook, New Orleans Mayor Mitch Landrieu, The Atlantic’s Jeffrey Goldberg and the Aspen Institute’s Walter Isaacson.

*** Monday’s “News Nation with Tamron Hall” line-up: MSNBC’s Tamron Hall interviews The Hill’s AB Stoddard, Dem strategist Jimmy Williams, the DNC’s Patrick Gaspard, and the NY Times’ Jim Rutenberg.

On the rebound… Political Wire: “A new Reuters/Ipsos poll finds that support for President Obama's health care law rose to 48% after the Supreme Court's ruling that it was constitutional, from 43% before the court decision.”

Let the conspiracy theories begin…

“Chief Justice John Roberts initially sided with the Supreme Court's four conservative justices to strike down the heart of President Obama's health care reform law, the Affordable Care Act, but later changed his position and formed an alliance with liberals to uphold the bulk of the law, according to two sources with specific knowledge of the deliberations,” CBS’s Crawford reports. “Roberts then withstood a month-long, desperate campaign to bring him back to his original position, the sources said. Ironically, Justice Anthony Kennedy - believed by many conservatives to be the justice most likely to defect and vote for the law - led the effort to try to bring Roberts back to the fold.”

More: “[S]o the conservatives handed him their own message which, as one justice put it, essentially translated into, ‘You're on your own.’ The conservatives refused to join any aspect of his opinion, including sections with which they agreed, such as his analysis imposing limits on Congress' power under the Commerce Clause, the sources said. Instead, the four joined forces and crafted a highly unusual, unsigned joint dissent. They deliberately ignored Roberts' decision, the sources said, as if they were no longer even willing to engage with him in debate.”

Politico’s Mahtesian: “From Crawford’s piece, you get the sense that Roberts played the politician’s role in the vote – he was the one looking at the angles, considering the historical consequences, and the one thinking about the effect of the decision on the court’s public standing.”

You also get the sense that members of the court, including the arch-conservatives who wouldn’t even sign onto portions they agreed with, are every bit the partisans that members of Congress are.

“Chief Justice John Roberts could have taken down the entire, massive health care law that his fellow Republicans deride as ‘Obamacare,’” the AP writes. “He could have prevented the Supreme Court decision that largely disabled the most disputed aspects of Arizona's crackdown on illegal immigrants. He didn't do either, and in the process surprised (or dismayed) longtime court observers of every political stripe. Those two outcomes in the finals days of his seventh year on the court offer some clues for reassessing what kind of chief justice Roberts is and intends to be. Is he no longer the rock-ribbed conservative loved by supporters and jeered by opponents? Has he become a pragmatic leader mindful of the court's place in history? Is he more canny, but still solidly conservative?”

“Like most minorities, Hispanics traditionally have leaned Democratic,” AP writes. “But a recent Pew Research poll indicates that Hispanics also are the fastest-growing group of independent voters, with 46 percent now shunning a party label compared with 31 percent six years ago. Such results only underscore how diverse Hispanics are and the challenges for the political parties.”

The Obama campaign claims it outraised Romney since the Supreme Court’s ruling Thursday. The Romney campaign says it raised $4.6 million from 47,000 donors.

“The late Senator Edward M. Kennedy’s message to the country after the Supreme Court upheld the national health care law last week would be to let the reforms take effect and move on to other business, his widow said Sunday,” the Boston Globe writes.

The New York Times takes a look at the youth vote, and it notes that young voters (especially those 18-24) aren’t as fired up and ready to go.

“The US ambassador to Kenya, once a confidant of President Obama, abruptly announced Friday — days before the release of an internal audit — that he was resigning, citing ‘differences with Washington,’” the New York Times reports. “Scott Gration’s departure will leave the top embassy post vacant at a time when Kenya is increasingly being drawn into a battle with militant Islam.”

Romney is celebrating this holiday week with his family in New Hampshire. The Washington Post’s Rucker reports on the Romney’s vacation traditions. “The Romneys, 30 in all these days, spend their time away from the stresses of everyday life — like, say, wrapping up the Republican nomination for president — by following a highly orchestrated, highly competitive regimen of sports and games known as the ‘Romney Olympics,’” the Post writes. “The Romney Olympics have long included a mini-triathlon of biking, swimming and running that pits Mitt and his five sons and their wives against one another. But after Mitt once nearly finished last, behind a daughter-in-law who had given birth to her second child a couple of months earlier, the ultra-competitive and self-described unathletic patriarch expanded the games to give himself a better shot.

Now they also compete to see who can hang onto a pole the longest, who can throw a football the farthest and who can hammer the most nails into a board in two minutes — not exactly the kind of events they’ll be giving out gold medals for in London this month.”

AP’s Kasie Hunt went along to a Mormon church in Wolfeboro that Romney attended: “The family's devotion to the Mormon faith is a part of Romney's life that the electorate rarely sees. Romney himself almost never mentions it in public. And his campaign typically bars the media from seeing him participate in a religion with which many Americans are unfamiliar. But it's a part of his life that could help him connect with an American public that's only just now starting to get to know him -- one that includes many church-goers. Romney's campaign doesn't tell reporters when Romney is going to church. But the Wolfeboro branch is open to visitors and an Associated Press reporter attended the same sacrament service the Romney family attended.

“It featured bread with water instead of wine, a variation on communion that allows for the Mormon prohibition on drinking alcohol. And it provided a rare glimpse into his practice of a faith that has permeated every aspect of Romney's life: his childhood, his college years and time as a missionary, his marriage, his life in Boston, even his business career. … As the first section of the service concluded, Romney and the congregation sang all the verses of "America the Beautiful," a song the candidate often quotes on the campaign trail. Many attendees departed while others prepared for the second portion of the service, a Sunday school for adults.”

Good luck with that… “[F]or now, Mitt Romney remains the least liked challenger since Bill Clinton at this point in 1992,” the Wall Street Journal writes. "But by late October 1992, just weeks before the election, Mr. Clinton had pulled off an extraordinary transformation. His favorable ratings had skyrocketed. Over half of Americans viewed him positively, while just over a third viewed him negatively... So how did Mr. Clinton do it? He started his abrupt climb in June with a round of extended town halls and by yucking it up on late-night TV, including a saxophone solo on the Arsenio Hall show. That July he got the biggest convention bounce in modern political history, followed by a five -day bus tour with his new vice-presidential pick, Al Gore." (H/t: Political Wire.)

Fair and balanced… “News Corp. chief executive Rupert Murdoch used Twitter on Sunday to share some advice with presumptive Republican presidential nominee Mitt Romney: Drop the “old friends” from your campaign and hire ‘some real pros,’” the Boston Globe reports.

JINDAL: “On a call with reporters, Jindal said that the decision to uphold the healthcare law as a tax is a ‘blow to our freedoms,’” The Hill reports. “ What's next?’ he said, expressing concern for people who ‘refuse to eat tofu’ or ‘refuse to drive a Chevy Volt’ — a popular hybrid car.”  

He also nearly called the health law, “Obamaneycare.”

MCDONNELL: “In an interview published on Tuesday by WTOP, McDonnell said, ‘I’m not discussing the vice presidential vetting process.  You can address those questions to the Romney campaign.’”

PAWLENTY: He gets two Pinocchios for saying, “Anyone who understands the budget crisis facing this country understands that entitlements have to be talked about. And we need a leader to address that in detail. I’ll come to your house, Bob Schieffer, and mow your lawn if you can find President Obama`s specific proposals on reforming entitlements in this country.”

Glenn Kessler: “Pawlenty’s challenge sounds a lot like a bluff in light of the facts. Perhaps he knew that the yard-less Schieffer couldn’t collect the spoils.”

Speaking of specifics… here was Pawlenty also on Face the Nation about Romney: “So he hasn’t put out a specific plan to eliminate any of the particular deductions within the tax code, but he has talked pretty specifically about how he would reform, reduce and slow down government spending overall.”

RUBIO: He’s on his book tour.

Mitch McConnell says the GOP only needs 51 votes to repeal the health-care mandate. "Reconciliation is available because the Supreme Court has now declared it a tax," McConnell said on FOX News Sunday, per Roll Call. "They have unearthed the massive deception that was practiced by the president and the Democrats to constantly deny that it was a tax…. And as a tax, it is eligible for reconciliation."

A long way down… “Members of Congress from both parties are increasingly mulling the unthinkable: going home in December without acting to avoid the $4 trillion in tax hikes and deep spending cuts known as the fiscal cliff,” Reuters writes. “Neither Democrats nor Republicans claim this is their preferred option, as it could rattle global financial markets badly and anger their constituents. But as they circle each other in an ever-more partisan atmosphere they see little prospect for a settlement acceptable to both parties in the lame duck session of Congress after the November 6 election.

“A coalition of Hispanic groups wants the feds to oversee vote counting in the electoral squabble between Harlem Rep. Charles Rangel and state Sen. Adriano Espaillat,” the New York Daily News writes. “Rangel was declared the victor in last Tuesday’s Democratic primary, but his Election Night margin of 2,300 votes has dwindled into the triple digits.”

Mike Pence equated “the Supreme Court’s surprise health care ruling to the September 11 terrorist attacks,” the New York Daily News writes. It wasn’t clear what Pence, who’s running for governor of Indiana, actually said, but he apologized. “My remarks at the Republican Conference following the Supreme Court decision were thoughtless,” he said in a statement. “I certainly did not intend to minimize any tragedy our nation has faced, and I apologize.”