Twenty-six is a magical number in the debate over health care reform.

Twenty-six is the number of times the House GOP has voted to repeal, raze or strike funding for the Affordable Care Act (ACA), which became law in 2010.

Twenty-six million is the number of people who will still find themselves without health insurance under the ACA.

In other words, despite all of the commotion from House Republicans that they would annul President Obama's health care law, they've been unsuccessful. So far. To be fair, that's mostly because such a plan doesn't stand a chance of making it through the Democratically-controlled Senate. Plus, there is virtually no chance that Mr. Obama would sign any such repeal.

On top of that, Democrats still fall short in their effort to provide "universal" health care coverage for all Americans. The structure of the new health law basically helps provide coverage for about half of those who lack insurance.

And you can bet that the numbers 26 and 26 million will emerge as key figures batted around if the Supreme Court decimates the ACA with its decision on the constitutionality of the law in late June.

Health care reform was a crystallizing event in the 2010 midterm elections. It's what melded traditional Republicans with those aligned with the tea party movement. They viewed the effort as a gross overreach of government. And Congressional Republicans are prepping to make this year's elections about health care reform, too. Many Republicans are already jockeying for position if the High Court takes a blow torch to the law. Republicans believe they can exhibit such an opinion as concrete evidence that the president and Congressional Democrats wantonly abandoned the Constitution when crafting the 2010 statute. With a favorable ruling, they'll assert that their efforts to defeat the law are now fully vindicated.

But this outcome creates special issues for both parties.

You know things have completely spun off the Capitol Hill rails when the usually chipper House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) makes a statement like this:

"I haven't heard Kumbaya in so long I wouldn't even recognize it around here."

That's Pelosi's assessment after President Obama summoned her, House Speaker John Boehner (R-OH), Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-NV) and Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) to the White House for a conversation about his "to-do" list Tuesday.

"No Kumbaya," said Pelosi when describing the atmospherics of the conclave. "But hoagie-like could we say?"

Hoagie-like? We'll try to explain that in a minute....

It has come to this:

Democrats and Republicans can't agree on anything. And Boehner is not only talking about yet another need to raise the debt ceiling. But the Ohio Republican is insisting on a requisite number of spending cuts which would exceed the size of the debt limit hike.

Democrats don't like this talk at all. And even though the debt ceiling won't need an increase until late fall or winter, Democrats pushed back at Boehner this week.

You saw all of these guys before in grade school.

The "good students" and the "teacher's pets" always sat up front. They were attentive. Respectful. Always turned in their homework on time. They were the students who worked within the system and never challenged it.

And then, there was always the group in the back of the classroom.

You never knew who was going to make a wisecrack. Who might fire off a paper airplane. Maybe stir up some ruckus that would require the teacher to intervene. But everyone always paid attention to them - because you always knew they were going to stir the pot.

Such was the case early last week when House and Senate members convened around a gigantic square table, wedged in front of the dais in room 216 of the Hart Senate Office Building. This exercise was a called a "conference committee." In this case it's a forum where "conferees" assemble to decant a single, unified version of a massive transportation bill from two separate, very disparate pieces of legislation approved by the House and Senate.

The students who rarely rock the boat sat up front. As head of the Environment and Public Works Committee, Sen. Barbara Boxer (D-CA) was tapped to chair the conference committee, flanked by Sen. Jim Inhofe (R-OK), House Transportation Committee Chairman John Mica (R-FL) and the top Democrat on that panel, Rep. Nick Rahall (D-WV). Perched nearby were other senior lawmakers like Senate Majority Whip Dick Durbin (D-IL) along with Sens. Kay Bailey Hutchison (R-TX) and Tim Johnson (D-SD).

And then there was the group clustered toward the back corner. All were voted in to challenge the establishment - sometimes in upset elections. All are House Republican freshmen: Reps. Chip Cravaack (R-MN), Reid Ribble (R-WI), James Lankford (R-OK), Steve Southerland (R-FL), Richard Hanna (R-NY), Rick Crawford (R-AR), Larry Buschon (R-IN) and Jamie Herrera Beutler (R-WA).

Which of these things is not like the others?

The construction of an East Coast ballistic missile shield
Aid for Pakistani counterterrorism efforts
Gay marriage
Health care for military retirees
The Pentagon's budget
The fate of Air National Guard planes

President Obama's endorsement of gay marriage dominated Beltway chatter Wednesday afternoon.

The House Armed Services Committee labored throughout the day Wednesday and into the wee hours of Thursday morning, crafting a massive Pentagon funding measure. But the heat yielded by the gay marriage issue was so incandescent that it cauterized traditional military topics and spurred the feistiest debate of the marathon session.

Most of these lengthy Armed Services meetings are sprinkled with discussions about MRAPs, JDAMs, engines for the Joint Strike Fighter and troop rotations.

But the colloquy about providing for the common defense of the United States devolved into a debate about stoning, sin, parsonical rights, "gayness" and canonical interpretations of the Old Testament.

Perhaps as Sun Tzu said, "all warfare is based on deception."

The wrangling started over two amendments designed to curb the impact of gay marriage on the periphery of the armed services.

Rep. Steven Palazzo (R-MS) concocted a provision which would ban the performance of same-sex marriage ceremonies on military installations. A "conscience clause" forged by Rep. Todd Akin (R-MO) would allow military chaplains to refuse to wed gay and lesbian couples.

A central rule prevails on big league diamonds when rhubarbs erupt on hot, muggy summer nights.

Players, managers and coaches are certainly allowed to argue with the umpire over a close call. Sure, they might get tossed out if they protest too vehemently or curse. But they had better not touch the umpire or spit on him.

Major League Baseball suspended St. Louis Cardinals catcher Yadier Molina for five games for bumping and spitting on umpire Rob Drake during a blowup last summer. Baseball sat down Cardinals' shortstop Ryan Theriot for two games for making contact with umpire Mike Muchlinski last season as well. In 1996, Hall of Famer Roberto Alomar got the gate for five games for spitting in the face of umpire John Hirschbeck. And the National League suspended then-Cincinnati Reds manager Pete Rose for a month after he twice shoved umpire Dave Pallone in legendary 1988 donnybrook.

Touch the ump, and "y'er out." For a while.

This is precisely why seven-time Cy Young Award-winner Roger Clemens finds himself in federal court these days.

Clemens bumped the ump.

In this case, the official was the U.S. Congress. And Clemens, being Roger Clemens, stormed out to argue the call.

"Who'd have thought they'd lead ya?
Here where we need ya?

Yeah, we tease him a lot ‘cause we've got him on the spot.
Welcome back.
Welcome back. Welcome back. Welcome back."

- Theme song to "Welcome Back, Kotter" by John Sebastian

Members of the House of Representatives faced an anguishing decision just a year-and-a-half ago. Lawmakers fretted over what discipline they should mete out to 21-term Rep. Charlie Rangel (D-NY).

The House Ethics Committee determined that the once powerful Chairman of the House Ways and Means panel failed to pay income taxes and used Congressional resources for private enterprises.

And most lawmakers found their charge to be exceptionally onerous.

The challenging part wasn't assessing whether Rangel had done wrong. What vexed lawmakers was sentencing Rangel, one of the most popular and convivial members of the House. A Purple Heart recipient left for dead on a Korean battlefield. An innovative, legislative engineer. A coalition builder. And here lawmakers had to sanction him.

It was a "this hurts me more than it hurts you" moment.

Strangely, a fete lawmakers threw for Rangel Monday night in the Rayburn House Office Building best demonstrates how difficult the House's assignment was to punish Rangel in late 2010.

Not everyone agrees with Charlie Rangel. But an awful lot of people in Congress, Democrats and Republicans, like him. (read more)

"The only thing we have to fear is fear itself."
- Franklin Delano Roosevelt

"Ask not what your country can do for you. Ask what you can do for your country."
- John F. Kennedy

"Mr. Gorbachev, tear down this wall."
-Ronald Reagan

"Blah, blah, blah, blah, blah."
- House Speaker John Boehner (R-OH)

+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

Historians often distill political careers into pithy quotes. These are emblematic excerpts which exude a politician's goals, achievements and core values. After all, politicians speak a lot. So it's important to decant their verbiage into something succinct, representing volumes about who they were and what they did.

The press got a kick out of House Speaker John Boehner (R-OH) at his weekly news conference on Thursday.

Brian Beutler of Talking Points Memo posed a question to Boehner about a dispute between the Obama Administration and Congressional Republicans. The sides are squabbling about whether the GOP can spend less in this year's annual government funding bills than what was called for in last year's debt ceiling package.

"Last week, the acting OMB Director sent a letter to Congressional appropriators saying that basically the top line agreed to in the Budget Control Act, that the president would veto it if it's not met," stated Beutler.

Boehner never even waited for Beutler's question.

"Blah, blah, blah, blah, blah," blurted Boehner.

The press corps howled with laughter.

Fox News video shows Robert Blagojevich, the brother of imprisoned former Illinois Gov. Rod Blagojevich (D) leaving the House Ethics Committee after speaking voluntarily to ethics investigators behind closed doors today.

Robert Blagojevich would only utter "no comment" as he walked down the hall and got into a cab.

He was asked by the Ethics Committee to come in for an interview and agreed to do so.

The Ethics Committee is informally investigating Rep. Jesse Jackson Jr. (D-IL) and allegations that he made efforts to "buy" the vacated Senate seat now held by President Obama.

Robert Blagojevich wrote to the Ethics Committee more than ten times to give his side of the story. He was initially charged alongside his brother but charges were dropped after the jury deadlocked.

The former governor is now serving a 14 year sentence for corruption charges.

Fox News Producer Ruth Ravve contributed to this report.

House Speaker John Boehner (R-OH) is telling everyone what most political experts already knew: the odds are in the Republicans' favor to retain control of the House of Representatives. But Boehner adds a caveat: there's a reasonable chance Republicans could lose control of the House, too.

Still, the political world exploded when Boehner laid out this stark assessment of conventional wisdom to FOX's Bill Hemmer in a recorded interview on Monday, scheduled to air on America's Newsroom at 9 am ET today.

"I'd say there is a two in three chance that we win control of the House again. But there is a one in three chance that we could lose," Boehner said. "We've got a big challenge and we've got work to do."

It's rare for a Speaker of the House to offer such a candid, on-the-record appraisal about electoral prospects. But let's take a step back and truly consider what Boehner is saying: there's a two-thirds chance the GOP holds the House, a one-third chance Republicans lose the House.

This isn't a newsflash. And those who closely follow House contests know that while it's more than likely the GOP holds the House, there's always some scenarios where the Democrats might prevail.

But what's unique here is that Boehner didn't stop himself at just saying "there is a two in three chance" that Republicans maintain control of the House. One wonders if there would have been much consternation in the press had Boehner just left it at that and not defaulted to the pessimistic odds. Even though Boehner implied the "one in three" chance immediately after stating the "two in three" possibility, it's likely that political reporters would have little to chatter about. While obvious under Boehner's soothsaying, those gloomy odds would remain unsaid - and probably not command much news oxygen. But Boehner completed the syllogism by stating the rest of the handicap. Thus the headline becomes "Boehner says Republicans have a one in three chance of losing the House."

Obama administration officials reacted with lightning-fast speed this morning to condemn images published in the Los Angeles Times that appeared to show American forces posing with the corpses of Afghan insurgents. 

But the head of the House Armed Services Committee, Rep. Buck McKeon, R-Calif., seemed to know nothing of the controversy when asked about the images Wednesday afternoon.

At first, McKeon believed a reporter was asking about the notorious Abu Ghraib pictures from 2004 and asked why he was being queried about that now.
Reporters then told him about the new photos and a surprised McKeon declined to comment until he learned more.

In addition, McKeon did not agree with some suggestions that President Obama fire Mark Sullivan, the head of the Secret Service, over the separate military/Secret Service scandal in Colombia.

"I think it's a reach, though, to go after the head of an organization because of a few bad apples," he said.