By David G. Savage

Reporting from Washington - Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr. told law students Tuesday that he found it "very troubling" to be surrounded by loudly cheering critics at President Obama's State of the Union address, saying it was reason enough for the justices not to attend the annual speech to Congress.

"To the extent the State of the Union has degenerated into a political pep rally, I'm not sure why we are there," Roberts said at the University of Alabama School of Law.

By LAURA MECKLER

Lawmakers working to craft a new comprehensive immigration bill have settled on a way to prevent employers from hiring illegal immigrants: a national biometric identification card all American workers would eventually be required to obtain.

Under the potentially controversial plan still taking shape in the Senate, all legal U.S. workers, including citizens and immigrants, would be issued an ID card with embedded information, such as fingerprints, to tie the card to the worker. 

US attacks East Jerusalem plans
US Vice-President Joe Biden has condemned Israel's approval of 1,600 new homes for ultra-Orthodox Jews in East Jerusalem.

Mr Biden, in Israel as part of US attempts to kick-start the peace process, said it was "the kind of step that undermines the trust we need".

Palestinian leaders also condemned the controversial move.

Israel insisted it was a procedural step with no connection to Mr Biden's visit.

The National Enquirer really hit a grand slam in 2008 with their Rielle Hunter/John Edwards story: not only did it bring some previously unthought-of prestige to the tabloid (they’re up for a Pulitzer!) for uncovering the affair, but now Edwards may actually be indicted by a grand jury for diverting political campaign funds for both Hunter and hush money. Now we’re talking not just a politician’s love-life, we’re talking federal charges. Enquirer Executive Editor Barry Levine was on Bill O’Reilly tonight to discuss.

WATCH FEATURE VIDEO ABOVE

 by Glynnis MacNicol | 9:39 am, March 9th, 2010»

Considering the now years-long deluge of images President Obama has been the subject of you may have missed the fact he has apparently been intentionally avoiding iconic images. Who knew, right? A cynic might suggest that Obama has spent enough time turning himself into a sort of icon that he has no need for back up. Either way, he has no use for the Statue of Liberty as a backup player. From the Daily Caller:

By LAURA MYERS
LAS VEGAS REVIEW-JOURNAL

By LAWRENCE MOWER
LAS VEGAS REVIEW-JOURNAL

A man shot three people, one fatally, before being gunned down by police in a southeast valley apartment complex Monday afternoon.

A witness to the shooting described a horrific scene. He asked that his name not be used for fear of reprisal.

House Democrats have found a way to address Republicans’ polling advantage on national security: Teach candidates a better way to talk about the issue.

While President Barack Obama still outpolls congressional Republicans on national security, a new Third Way/Greenberg Quinlan Rosner poll out Monday gives the GOP the edge in a generic Republican vs. Democrat matchup on the issue. And the problem is particularly acute for Democratic women: A study to be published in the Journal of Women, Politics & Policy shows support for Democratic women drops 11 percent when public fear of terrorism is high.

by John Hawkins

"The trouble with our liberal friends is not that they are ignorant, but that they know so much that isn't so." -- Ronald Reagan

One of the reasons liberals tend to do such an incredibly poor job of governing is that they fundamentally misunderstand the nature of the American people. Given that liberals also fundamentally misunderstand Christianity, the Constitution, economics, and human nature, I guess it's no big surprise that they don't get the American people either. Come to think of it, I guess it's pretty much par for the course. I mean, let's face it, without conservatives around to help keep them in check, liberals would utterly destroy everything that is good about America and most of them would be baffled about what they were doing wrong right up until the end. But enough about the Left's general lack of common sense -- let's talk about how they misjudge the American people.

Thomas Sowell

Abraham Lincoln once asked an audience how many legs a dog has, if you called the tail a leg? When the audience said "five," Lincoln corrected them, saying that the answer was four. "The fact that you call a tail a leg does not make it a leg."

That same principle applies today. The fact that politicians call something a "stimulus" does not make it a stimulus. The fact that they call something a "jobs bill" does not mean there will be more jobs.

by Phyllis Schlafly

Far more personal information on students than is necessary is being collected by public schools, according to the Fordham Law School Center on Law and Information Policy, which investigated education records in all 50 states. States are failing to safeguard students' privacy and protect them from data misuse.

Some states collect a lot of data that has nothing to do with student test scores, including Social Security numbers, disciplinary records, family wealth indicators, student pregnancies, student mental health, illness and jail sentences. A couple of states record the date of a student's last medical exam and a student's weight.

The Brazilian government has announced trade sanctions against a variety of American goods in retaliation for illegal US subsidies to cotton farmers.

The World Trade Organization (WTO) approved the sanctions in a rare move.

Brazil published a list of 100 US goods that would be subject to import tariffs in 30 days, unless the two governments reached a last-minute accord.

By MATTHEW LEE

The Obama administration said Monday that Israel and the Palestinians have agreed to indirect peace talks brokered by U.S. special Mideast envoy George Mitchell.

In a statement released as Vice President Joe Biden is visiting Israel, Mitchell, who is also in the region, said he was pleased that the two sides had accepted the proposal for talks that will see him shuttle between Israel and the Palestinian territories over the next several weeks.

South Korea —  North Korea's army said Monday it is ready to "blow up" South Korea and the U.S., hours after the allies kicked off annual military drills that Pyongyang has slammed as a rehearsal for attack.

South Korea and the U.S. — which normally dismiss such threats as rhetoric — began 11 days of drills across South Korea on Monday morning to rehearse how the U.S. would deploy in time of emergency on the Korean peninsula.

The U.S. and South Korea argue the drills — which include live firing by U.S. Marines, aerial attack drills and urban warfare training — are purely defensive. North Korea claims they amount to attack preparations and has demanded they be canceled.

The North's People's Army issued a statement Monday, warning the drills created a tense situation and that its troops are "fully ready" to "blow up" the allies once the order is issued.

The North also put all its soldiers and reservists on high alert to "mercilessly crush the aggressors" should they encroach upon the North's territory even slightly, said the statement carried by the official Korean Central News Agency.

The communist country has issued similar rhetoric in the days leading up the drills. On Sunday, it said it would bolster its nuclear capability and break off dialogue with the U.S. in response to the drills.

by Michael Barone

"Stop messing with Texas!" That was the message Gov. Rick Perry bellowed on election night as he celebrated his victory over Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchison in the Republican primary for governor. In his reference to Texas' anti-littering slogan, Perry was making a point applicable to national as well as Texas politics and addressed to Democratic politicians as well as Republicans.

His point was that the big government policies of the Obama administration and Democratic congressional leaders are resented and fiercely opposed not just because of their dire fiscal effects but also as an intrusion on voters' independence and ability to make decisions for themselves.

by Kevin McCullough

Geographically speaking, it made no difference. From the east, west, north, and south, protestations and attempted justifications declared repeatedly that the collective has more responsibility for the individual's happiness than the individual.

And friends if this IS the belief of the nation, we've lost America.

by Joseph C. Phillips

Speaking on ABC's "This Week", House Speaker Nancy Pelosi commented, "I think everybody wants affordable health care for all Americans. They know that this will take courage. It took courage to pass Social Security. It took courage to pass Medicare. And many of the same forces that were at work decades ago are at work again against this bill."

There is that word again. What exactly does affordable mean? The left tosses the word about but never bothers to define exactly what they mean by affordable. It could mean anything and everything and no doubt it will. Affordable is a political term that is unassociated with actual costs, only addresses price and means, "you pay according to the amount of political capital you have." For instance if you belong to the SEIU you pay less than if you didn't. But I digress.

by Carol Platt Liebau

Karl Marx insisted that history repeats itself, first as tragedy and then as farce. It seems that at least some of California’s teachers are determined to prove him right.

Aside from the disturbing specter of children being used as political props by their teachers, the spectacle is ludicrous. Reportedly, the rally’s “big slogan” was supposed to be “save our students, save our teachers, save our schools, save our future.” Ironically, that’s what the spending cuts are designed to do – even as state government employees continue to stand in the way.

by Harry R. Jackson, Jr.

Most of us remember the stellar advertising campaign A Mind is a Terrible Thing to Waste designed at giving underprivileged elementary children a bite at the educational apple. This week Senator Joe Lieberman (I-CT) decided to use this concept to become an advocate for middle school and high school students as well. Lieberman and five colleagues weighed in on D.C. politics, filing an amendment to a tax extenders bill to reauthorize the D.C. Opportunity Scholarship Program.

The D.C. OSP was created in 2004 under the Bush administration. These $7,500 scholarships made it possible for students to attend a private school. The students that used these scholarships felt a greater degree of safety as well as made major academic strides. A federally mandated evaluation of the program also showed these private school students received the equivalent of 3.7 months of additional learning than others. This has been done while actually reducing the District’s costs as these students only received half of the city’s $15,000-per-pupil assessment.

With approval ratings south of 20 percent, Congress isn't exactly acing its performance review -- and one congresswoman thinks it's time the American people started docking members' pay.