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ObamaCare court fight startsAP Last Updated: 4:01 AM, September 14, 2010 PENSACOLA, Fla. -- The Obama administration will try today to persuade a federal judge to throw out a lawsuit by 20 states that claim the president's health-care overhaul is unconstitutional. The fight, expected to wind up in the US Supreme Court, will primarily be over two sections of the law -- one requiring individuals to have health insurance or face tax penalties, and a second requiring states to pay additional Medicaid costs not covered by the feds. Attorneys for the states and the Justice Department will each have 45...

The sale of The Inquirer and the Philadelphia Daily News seemed on the verge of collapse Monday, with the prospective new owner reporting no progress in reaching an accord with the company's drivers over their pension benefits. The new owner, Philadelphia Media Network Inc., has a noon Tuesday deadline to close on its purchase of the newspapers and the website Philly.com. The deadline was imposed by Chief Bankruptcy Judge Stephen Raslavich, who has overseen the company's bankruptcy case. Without a contract agreement with the drivers, there will be no sale, according to Gregory Osberg, chief executive officer of Philadelphia Media...

As part of the book deal then-Sen. Barack Obama, D-Ill., inked in 2004, Random House today announced the publication of a children’s book by the president, “Of Thee I Sing: A Letter to My Daughters.” The book will be released on November 16 – roughly two weeks after the midterm elections -- with a 500,000-copy first printing. “Of Thee I Sing,” which President Obama finished writing in 2008, describes thirteen “groundbreaking Americans and the ideals that have shaped our nation—from the artistry of Georgia O’Keeffe, to the courage of Jackie Robinson, to the patriotism of George Washington,” the publisher said...

Vote Christine O'Donnell in Delaware, Johnson for Senate in Wisconsin

"Therefore, the United States has a president who won a modest victory in the popular vote but whose campaign posture and the reality under which he took office have diverged substantially. He has been drawn, whether by inclination or necessity, to the portion of his presidency where he is weakest and most likely to face resistance and defeat. And the weaker he gets politically the less likely he is to get domestic legislation passed, and the defeats will increase his weakness." ... " It is difficult to know the ways of presidents, particularly one who has tried hard to be...

Reps. Eric Cantor, Kevin McCarthy and Wisconsin's Fiscal Dreamboat (WFD) — also known as Rep. Paul Ryan — are releasing a new book today that outlines their plan for the Republican Party. "Young Guns: A New Generation of Conservative Leaders" is not for the politically uninterested: in a 190 page paperback, the three lay out policy proposals and talking points for this year's mid-term elections and beyond. The book provides a full-length explanation of everything that is good and right in the political world. Unfortunately, it's not light on platitudes. I say this with a heavy heart; these guys are...

Here we go again. Republicans just can't help acting like Republicans. Surrender first, fight later, but only if absolutely necessary. It's in their DNA. They're only comfortable playing also-rans, perennial scrubs, running under their traditional mantra: "Vote for us; we're bad, but not as bad as you think." The Democrats haven't been on the run like this in a generation, maybe two, but instead of pursuing his advantage, the man most likely to be the speaker if the Republicans take over the House is already talking compromise on taxes, the one issue that unites independents and party regulars. Rep. John...

Why did Florida pastor Terry Jones garner all that media attention last week for threatening to burn Qurans on Saturday's 9/11 anniversary? I believe it's because network swells had spent weeks trying to frame opponents of the ground zero mosque -- also known as the Lower Manhattan Islamic community center -- as stupid anti-Islam bigots, but that story line wasn't sticking. So networks found a stupid anti-Islam bigot in Florida who had nothing to do with the mosque, but who reinforced their political view. Two people died in protests in Kabul. If Jones had gone ahead with his stunt, pundits...

Mark Levin asked Jim DeMint what he thought about Charles Krauthammer’s remarks on his radio show. DeMint has endorsed Christine O’Donnell. DeMint talks about Palin taking the arrows and providing cover for other candidates like Nikki Haley at around 3:30.

The latest job killing initiative by Barack Obama: focus new taxes on the oil and gas industry. Just last week, President Obama explicitly targeted the industry for two massive tax hikes. First, he'd ban oil and gas companies from using the "Section 199" tax credit, a measure for domestic manufacturers enacted in 2004 to boost US employment. (The Senate is set to vote this week on its version of the ban.) Second, he wants to end "dual capacity" protection for US energy firms. Without this shield against double taxation on foreign revenues, American companies would be competing on an uneven...

Every time an American Communist or leftist dies, you can count on one thing: the New York Times will run a major obituary, and it will be misleading, incomplete, or very favorable to their life and record. The latest example of the paper’s favoritism to deceased men of the far Left is Saturday’s obituary of Irwin Silber, the first editor of the folk music magazine Sing Out! and a secret rather than open member of the Communist Party, U.S.A. I happen to know a great deal about Silber. My very first published article appeared in that magazine in 1955, and...

Is the government making plans to confiscate your retirement money? The Obama administration is certainly exploring the idea. This question no longer seems far-fetched when the group-thinkers in Washington unabashedly promote a doctrine of wealth redistribution and central planning. These Keynesian socialists know they will need vast new sources of revenues to fund their relentless spending binges to "transform" this nation. A logical next step would be to legitimize the confiscation of private retirement assets; an idea that was contemplated in the recent past by the Clinton administration. According to the Investment Company Institute, there was $7.835 trillion in IRA,...

Peter Gregg, speaking for New York Farm Bureau, said there’s more paper work and it is more time-consuming. “The government has made it worse by an added level of bureaucracy and red tape,” he said. The program now requires farmers... spend hours filling out nearly 10 forms and applications (four forms are new this year).

Tom Wolfe’s whole career has been defined by his search for new status-spheres to explore, from the worlds of test pilots and NASCAR races, to the self-described “Masters of the Universe” on Wall Street in the mid-1980s. This is how he defined what makes up a status-sphere to an interviewer in 1980: Most people put themselves into a status sphere. Whether they’re intellectuals or stock car racers, they tend to emphasize values that, if they were absolute, would make them special people. About 1920, for example, we began to hear the phrase “the booboisie.” The idea was that Americans were...

First Lady Michelle Obama, who has been unable to convince the Smoker-in-Chief to give up that dreadful habit, now has some health suggestions for other American families and for restaurant menus across the country. The goal is to eat healthier, although that might hurt restaurant sales and cause disappointed children. Obama, who has made combating childhood obesity and inactivity her favored causes, addressed the National Restaurant Assn. (See the text below, along with photos of her husband not eating arugula.) She, of course, has her own personal chef brought in from Chicago and took full parental responsibility for guiding her...

My second night in Denver, I skipped dinner in favour of a smooth $10 cigar. Crossing right leg over left on a bench in the 16th Street Mall-the city's downtown commercial strip-I enjoyed a long smoke and listened to the music swell from one of the many painted pianos on the tree-lined central median. Lightheaded and content, I watched hundreds of people pass by, often stopping to appreciate the music. I spoke to those people who, one after another, for whatever reason, sat next to me on that bench, people whose lives I wouldn't have even been aware of if...

On Religion Muslims and Islam Were Part of Twin Towers’ Life Michael McElroy for The New York Times Sinclair Hejazi Abdus-Salaam, now retired in Boca Raton, Fla., prayed at the trade center. By SAMUEL G. FREEDMAN Published: September 10, 2010 Recommend Twitter Sign In to E-Mail Print Single Page Reprints Share Close LinkedinDiggMixxMySpaceYahoo! BuzzPermalink. Sometime in 1999, a construction electrician received a new work assignment from his union. The man, Sinclair Hejazi Abdus-Salaam, was told to report to 2 World Trade Center, the southern of the twin towers. Related Times Topic: Muslim Community Center in Lower Manhattan (Park51) In the...

In all the noise coming out of Delaware, we shouldn't overlook the prime directive: Stop Obama and repeal the damage he's done. I have to say, I’ve resisted weighing in on the Delaware Republican primary since resuming life in the blogosphere, both because I’ve been busy writing about other things about which I know a whole lot more, and because it’s become so divisive that it’s gone off the charts.So the first thing I’d like to say about this particular primary is that I have no dog in the fight. Both the candidates have things in their records to recommend...

Democrats in Washington, confronting a mammoth tidal wave of angry voters as November approaches, are desperate to change the subject. They know there is little they can say about themselves or their record of governing over the past two years that would not worsen their prospects, so they naturally want to talk about Republicans instead. But they seem uncertain whether the problem with Republicans is that they want to do too little or too much.

Listen Live: Sound Off Connecticut with Jim Vicevich 9 a.m. to noon ET (Daily Thread)Sound Off Connecticut is a popular conservative/libertarian call in talk show hosted by Jim Vicevich weekday mornings from 9 a.m. to noon ET. Although based in Connecticut, the show welcomes callers from all over the United States! This is your chance to sound off America! Call into the show toll free (800) 966-9842! Listen to the LIVE AUDIO STREAM at http://wtic.com - it's free and NO registration is required! If you're in southern New England listen over the air to WTIC 1080 AM, the 50,000 watt...