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Gov. Christie said last week that he had mulled defying a possible order from New Jersey's Supreme Court to restore funding to schools. ... If Christie ignores the ruling, scholars said, he could be ruled in contempt of court and personally fined, he could be impeached for violating his oath of office, or he could trigger a constitutional crisis and the statewide closing of schools. ... The current case had its origins nearly 40 years ago. The nonprofit Education Law Center sued the state for more money for poor schools, saying equitable funding was a right under the state constitution...

President Obama has authorized the use of aerial drone strikes in Libya to aid rebels fighting to oust dictator Col. Moammar Gadhafi, Defense Secretary Robert Gates announced Thursday. Gates stressed that even though the United States will begin using the armed Predator drones in Libya, American soldiers will not be deployed to the country. He said the Libyan people will have to remove Gadhafi themselves, though the U.S. "can provide them with some cover from the air." The announcement falls in line with the Obama administration's pledge to not put American boots on the ground to remove Gadhafi from power....

TALLAHASSEE — The decades-old dream of high-speed rail in Florida died Friday when the state Supreme Court turned down a last-minute lawsuit to save the project and U.S. Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood announced he would send Florida's $2.4 billion to other states.

U.S. District Judge Roger Vinson has issued a stay of his own ruling declaring the health care reform law unconstitutional, giving the Obama administration seven days to file an appeal. The stay means implementation of the law can proceed pending the administration’s appeal to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Eleventh Circuit. In his ruling, Vinson repeated what he has said previously — that “the citizens of this country have an interest in having this case resolved as soon as practically possible.” “That was nearly eleven months ago,” he wrote. “In the time since, the battle lines have been...

WASHINGTON — President Obama ordered his advisers last August to produce a secret report on unrest in the Arab world, which concluded that without sweeping political changes, countries from Bahrain to Yemen were ripe for popular revolt, administration officials said Wednesday. Mr. Obama’s order, known as a Presidential Study Directive, identified likely flashpoints, most notably Egypt, and solicited proposals for how the administration could push for political change in countries with autocratic rulers who are also valuable allies of the United States, these officials said.

First Lady Michelle Obama donned a stunning, one-shouldered, red gown on Wednesday night for the state dinner for visiting President Hu Jintao of China. Her color choice was a gracious nod to her Chinese guests: red, while the dominant color of the Chinese flag, also symbolizes prosperity and happiness in Chinese tradition. The dress was designed by the label of Alexander McQueen, a beloved British designer who committed suicide less than a year ago.

After watching as much as I could take, this debate came down to between Jonah Goldberg a Fox News Contributor presenting in-depth points in this debate moderated by Megyn Kelly, and I do give her credit for keeping things in line, while syndicated radio talk show host Nancy Skinner looked very, very disorganized over the course of the debate as Mr. Goldberg stayed on track. The highlight was when Mr. Goldberg called liberals “ideological ambulance chasers” those who would exploit this very tragic and senseless act in AZ. Spot on Mr. Goldberg.

White House official Tina Tchen was promoted to assistant to the president and chief of staff for first lady Michelle Obama, the administration said Wednesday. Tchen most recently served as deputy assistant to the president and director of the office of public engagement, and as executive director of the White House Council on Women and Girls, the White House said. She will still be the council executive director in her new position. "I am thrilled to welcome Tina to my team," Michelle Obama said. "Tina's tenure at the White House has focused on ensuring that communities across the country have...

STANFORD, Calif. - President Obama is planning to hand the U.S. Commerce Department authority over a forthcoming cybersecurity effort to create an Internet ID for Americans, a White House official said here today. It's "the absolute perfect spot in the U.S. government" to centralize efforts toward creating an "identity ecosystem" for the Internet, White House Cybersecurity Coordinator Howard Schmidt said. That news, first reported by CNET, effectively pushes the department to the forefront of the issue, beating out other potential candidates including the National Security Agency and the Department of Homeland Security.

By any standard, white voters’ rejection of Democrats in November’s elections was daunting and even historic. Fully 60 percent of whites nationwide backed Republican candidates for the House of Representatives; only 37 percent supported Democrats, according to the National Election Poll exit poll conducted by Edison Research. Not even in Republicans’ 1994 congressional landslide did they win that high a percentage of the white vote. Moreover, those results may understate the extent of the white flight from the Democratic Party, according to a National Journal analysis of previously unpublished exit-poll data provided by Edison Research. The new data show that...

The White House Office of the Press Secretary For Immediate Release December 27, 2010 Executive Order - Recruiting and Hiring Students and Recent Graduates EXECUTIVE ORDER RECRUITING AND HIRING STUDENTS AND RECENT GRADUATES By the authority vested in me as President by the Constitution and the laws of the United States of America, including sections 3301 and 3302 of title 5, United States Code, it is hereby ordered as follows: Section 1. Policy. The Federal Government benefits from a diverse workforce that includes students and recent graduates, who infuse the workplace with their enthusiasm, talents, and unique perspectives. The existing...

Seniors should be older before the receive Social Security and wealthy Americans should receive less benefits across the board, says Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C. He made the argument in an interview on Sunday's Meet the Press, but it's a position Graham has advocated for on the stump in South Carolina, including a 2009 stop at The Citadel with Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz. "What I'm going to do is challenge this country to make some hard decisions," Graham said at the time, telling the crowd of cadets, Tea Partiers, and Graham supporters that they shouldn't give Congress a pass on the...

Most of the the nation was shocked during the 2008 presidential campaign when videos came out of Reverend Jeremiah Wright. After all, this was candidate Barack Obama’s spiritual advisor and mentor.  The initial reaction was typical of our divided nation.  Conservatives pushed the Wright videos and the Left tried to silence their importance.  After a while people just got sick of talking about it. When the dust settled the accepted ‘reality’ was that Jeremiah Wright was nuts but Obama barely knew the guy and never heard any of Wright’s more extreme teaching.  Today if you bring up Jeremiah Wright, eyes...

Like many political Americans, right or left or center, I'm still grappling with what President Obama did this week.  I'm trying to get a handle on what it means not so much for the country and the economy, but rather for Barack Obama. On Monday evening came the remarkable announcement by Obama that he had compromised with Republicans on a "framework" to extend the Bush tax cuts.  My take on that action was that Obama was motivated entirely by politics and not at all by ideology. That take was quickly reinforced on Tuesday, when Obama, almost chastising his angry left-wing...

Seems the DUmmies are having a bit of sport at Sarah Palin's expense, so........

President Obama is engaging in a relentless assault on our freedoms and constitutional government. The growing backlash against the new Transportation Security Administration (TSA) airport screening procedures signifies that Americans finally may have had enough. There is a grass-roots revolt against state-sanctioned sexual harassment. And who can blame the protesters? Children are stripped of their shirts, and their private parts are touched. Nuns and old ladies are groped by intrusive TSA agents. Breasts have been fondled. Men's crotches have been patted down. Full-body scanners show images of people naked - a clear violation of privacy and civil liberties. The administration...

The TSA says flight attendants will be able to bypass the agency's new airport security procedures, effective immediately... In an email to Bloomberg, TSA spokesman Nicholas Kimball said, "Flight attendants, like pilots, are a known and trusted group."

WASHINGTON — Cabinet secretaries, top congressional leaders and an exclusive group of senior U.S. officials are exempt from toughened new airport screening procedures when they fly commercially with government-sanctioned security details. New heightened security procedures by the Transportation Security Administration, which require either a scan by a full-body detector or an intimate personal pat-down, have spurred passenger outrage in the lead-up to the Thanksgiving holiday airport crush. The senior government officials can opt out of such measures if they fly accompanied by government security guards approved by the TSA. The agency would not explain why it makes these exceptions, but...

When I was 11, my father thought it was time to show my sister and me the nation's capital. I have only vague memories of that trip — the heat, the expanse of the White House's grounds, the Jefferson Memorial. I do remember we took Route 1 through Baltimore (no I-95 yet), and it was there that I saw my first sign with the word "colored" on it — a rooming house, I think. This was 1952, and the United States was an apartheid nation. It is Sarah Palin who brings back these memories. In her new book, she reportedly...