The survival of President Barack Obama’s health care overhaul rests with a Supreme Court seemingly split over ideology and, more particularly, in the hands of two Republican-appointed justices.

Chief Justice John Roberts and Justice Anthony Kennedy put tough questions to administration lawyers defending the health care law during three days of arguments that suggested they have strong reservations about the individual insurance requirement at the heart of the overhaul and, indeed, whether the rest of the massive law can survive if that linchpin fails.

But Roberts and Kennedy also asked enough pointed questions of the law’s challengers to give the overhaul’s supporters some hope. In any event, justices’ questions at arguments do not always foretell their positions.

The court’s decision, due in June, will affect the way virtually every American receives and pays for health care and surely will reverberate in this year’s campaigns for president and Congress. The political effects could be even larger if the court votes 5-4 with all its Republican-appointed justices prevailing over all the Democratic appointees to strike down the entire law, or several important parts of it.

Not since 2000, when the court resolved the Bush v. Gore dispute over Florida election returns that sealed George W. Bush’s election as president, has a Supreme Court case drawn so much attention.

Read More at OfficialWire By Mark Sherman, Associated Press

As he struggles to keep up with frontrunner Mitt Romney and parries calls for him to drop out of the Republican presidential race, Rick Santorum has said in recent weeks that he has actually won more delegates than some media counts show. Those counts, Santorum says, are not taking into account Republican party rules, as well as the state-level meetings that actually determine how many delegates go to each candidate.

“Here’s one of the things that I can tell you I didn’t know,” Santorum told a small group of reporters at a breakfast in Washington Monday. “Every single state is different. Every state. Every single state is different. It’s different on how you get on the ballot. It’s different on their structure, how they allocate delegates, whether they are bound, whether they are unbound, when they’re committed, how long they committed, how they’re selected. Our math is actually based on the reality of what’s going on in the states.”

Now, the Santorum campaign is providing some numbers to flesh out the candidate’s claims. In a long conversation Wednesday evening, John Yob, the campaign’s national and state convention director, pointed out that many high-profile primaries have been little more than beauty contests, and that delegates in many key states are actually being awarded in county, district, and state conventions, which are often dominated by conservative activists. “In that process, we are doing very well,” said Yob. “The moderate candidate almost never performs better than a conservative candidate in a county, district, or state convention process.”

Many states are just now starting their conventions, and it is impossible to say precisely how many delegates each candidate will win. The Associated Press delegate count, widely cited in media stories, shows Romney with 568 delegates to Santorum’s 273, with Newt Gingrich at 135 and Ron Paul at 50. Yob’s count is significantly different: according to his estimate, Romney has 482 delegates to Santorum’s 331, with Gingrich at 158 and Paul at 91.

What accounts for the differences? First, the Santorum campaign believes that delegates from Florida and Arizona will ultimately be awarded proportionately, and not as winner-take-all contests. The AP account currently gives Romney all 50 Florida delegates and all 29 Arizona delegates. Santorum and Yob point to a recent article by Morton Blackwell, the longtime conservative activist and member of the Republican National Committee rules committee, suggesting that if the race is close, it is likely the party convention in Tampa this summer will award Florida and Arizona delegates proportionately. Doing so would not be a delegate gusher for Santorum, but it would lower Romney’s count, since Romney won both states and now has all the delegates in his column. In the end, Yob believes Romney will end up with 23 delegates in Florida and 14 in Arizona, for a combined loss of 42 delegates.

Read More at The Washington Examiner By Byron York, The Washington Examiner

(CNSNews.com) – The Obama administration’s new manual for detaining illegal aliens “reads more like a hospitality guideline for illegal immigrants,” House Judiciary Committee Chairman Lamar Smith (R-Texas) said on Wednesday.

“Under this administration, detention looks more like recess,” Smith told an oversight hearing mockingly entitled “Holiday on ICE.” ICE is the acronym for the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement Agency.

“While funds for American students’ physical education classes are being cut, the new detention standards expand recreation for illegal immigrants,” Smith said in his opening statement.

“For instance, illegal and criminal immigrants in ICE custody will have options such as soccer, volleyball and basketball. It would be nice if all American students got those options.”

Smith said federal law enforcement agents should not act be acting as concierges, and he criticized the Obama administration for putting the interests of illegal immigrants ahead of those of American taxpayers.

Read More at CNS News By Edwin Mora, CNS News

THE RETURN of Vladi­mir Putin to the Russian presidency ought to have caused the Obama administration to reshape its policy toward the Kremlin. Putin based his election campaign in large part on anti-Americanism; he has increasingly pursued policies contrary to vital U.S. interests, such as his military support for the Syrian regime of Bashar al-Assad and his threats against NATO’s European missile-defense system.

Most important, Mr. Putin’s decade-old autocratic regime is looking shaky. Hundreds of thousands of Russians have turned out to demonstrate against fraud in the presidential and parliamentary elections, and to demand political reform. Many Russian experts are saying that the Kremlin’s economic and political policies are unsustainable, and that Mr. Putin will not finish his six-year term unless he makes major concessions to the opposition — which he shows little sign of doing.

Remarkably, however, President Obama has responded to Mr. Putin’s return to the presidency by strongly affirming his commitment to partnering with the strongman. His meant-to-be-confidential assurance to outgoing President Dmitry Medvedev on Monday, that “after my election I have more flexibility” to solve “all these issues, but particularly missile defense,” was only the latest sign that Mr. Obama has decided to bet on deal-making with Mr. Putin rather than on democratic change in Russia.

Days after Mr. Putin’s election in a vote that international observers described as not free or fair, the White House issued a statement saying that Mr. Obama had called Mr. Putin “to congratulate him on his recent victory” and propose that “the successful reset in relations should be built upon during the coming years.” The statement made no mention of democracy or human rights in Russia, and Mr. Obama has said nothing on the subject since the election.

Instead, Mr. Obama has invited Mr. Putin to meet in Washington shortly after his inauguration in May to discuss an agenda that Mr. Obama says will include a new agreement on reducing nuclear weapons. His lobbyists are pressing hard, meanwhile, for the repeal of a 1974 law limiting trade with Russia while resisting a congressional proposal, supported by many Democrats, that would tie the repeal to a new law punishing Russian human rights abusers.

Read More at The Washington Post