Scalia: No plans to attend Obama's State of the Union address  —  Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia told The Hill on Monday evening that he does not plan on attending the State of the Union address on Tuesday.  —  The conservative-leaning jurist said that he hasn't “gone to the State …

Obama won't endorse raising retirement age or reducing Social Security benefits  —  President Obama has decided not to endorse his deficit commission's recommendation to raise the retirement age, and otherwise reduce Social Security benefits, in Tuesday's State of the Union address …

White House Says Chinese Folk Song Played During State Dinner Was Not An Insult; Experts Divided  —  Ivories that were tickled last Wednesday night at the White House are, to some conservative media, no laughing matter.  —  At the White House State Dinner for Chinese President Hu Jintao …

National Archives Discovers Date Change on Lincoln Record  —  Thomas Lowry Confesses to Altering Lincoln Pardon to April 14, 1865  —  Washington, DC...Archivist of the United States David S. Ferriero announced today that Thomas Lowry, a long-time Lincoln researcher from Woodbridge, VA …

GOP to push for D.C. gay marriage ban  —  House conservatives say they will pursue legislation that would ban gay marriage in the nation's capital.  —  Rep. Jim Jordan (R-Ohio), chairman of the conservative Republican Study Committee (RSC), told The Hill that he will push for a vote on the controversial issue in the 112th Congress.

Report: George W. Bush aides violated Hatch Act  —  During the 2006 midterm elections, White House political aides to President George W. Bush engaged in widespread violations of a federal law which limits partisan political activity by government employees, a long-running federal investigation has found.

NBC: U.S. can't link accused Army private to Assange  —  Military also denies allegations that Bradley Manning is being mistreated  —  Below:  —  U.S. military officials tell NBC News that investigators have been unable to make any direct connection between a jailed army private suspected …

Bachmann: SOTU rebuttal is not a ‘competition’ with Ryan  —  Rep. Michele Bachmann (R-Minn.) said her rebuttal to the president's State of the Union address tomorrow isn't a “competition” with Rep. Paul Ryan (R-Wisc.), who's delivering the official Republican response.  —  “This is not a competition,” Bachmann said.

Financial Crisis Commission Finds Cause For Prosecution Of Wall Street  —  The bipartisan panel appointed by Congress to investigate the financial crisis has concluded that several financial industry figures appear to have broken the law and has referred multiple cases to state or federal authorities …

Raising False Alarms  —  If there's a better government program than Social Security, I'd like to know what it is.  —  It has gone a long way toward eliminating poverty among the elderly.  Great numbers of them used to live and die in ghastly, Dickensian conditions of extreme want.

Dentist uses sexy dresses to distract patients  —  Advanced drugs can cure many ills, new technology can revolutionise surgery but sometimes a low-cut, sorry lo-tech, solution is all you need - one dentist has bought herself and her ten nurses tight-fitting, cleavage-maximising dresses to distract worried patients while they work.

2012 siren: Barbour to South Carolina  —  Mississippi Gov Haley Barbour will visit the Republican-heavy Upstate of South Carolina Wednesday for two private events with local GOP officials to discuss a potential presidential run, POLITICO has learned.  —  Barbour will meet with Republicans first in Greenville and then in Spartanburg.

NastyLeaks  —  Far from a triumph for transparency, the Palestine Papers are a victory for the enemies of peace in the Middle East — but only if Palestinian leaders embrace Al Jazeera's narrative.  —  The Palestine Papers — more than 1,600 internal Palestinian documents summarizing negotiations …

Ventura sues over body scans, pat-downs  —  Former Minnesota Gov. Jesse Ventura sued the Department of Homeland Security and the Transportation Security Administration on Monday, alleging full-body scans and pat-downs at airport checkpoints violate his right to be free from unreasonable searches and seizures.

Judicial arrogance  —  With startling arrogance and audaciously twisted reasoning, two appellate judges ignored more than 100 years of legal precedent, invented a new definition of “residency” and ordered Rahm Emanuel off the Feb. 22 mayoral ballot.  —  With the election just four weeks away …

The Note: Your Guide To The State Of The Union  —  When President Obama goes before both chambers of Congress tonight to deliver his State of the Union address, he will be walking something of an economic and political tightrope.  —  He plans to make a forceful case for new investments in innovation …

CNN Poll: Americans more optimistic on state of nation  —  Washington (CNN) - Hours before President Barack Obama gives his State of the Union address before Congress, a new national poll indicates a surge in optimism about the state of the nation.  —  According to a CNN/Opinion Research …

E-mails Show Bear Stearns Cheated Clients Out of Billions  —  Lawsuit alleges the bank took extreme measures to defraud investors, and now JPMorgan may be on the hook Former Bear Stearns mortgage executives who now run mortgage divisions of Goldman Sachs, Bank of America …

The War on Demand  —  Something really strange has happened to the debate over economic policy in the face of the Great Recession and its aftermath — or maybe the real point is that events have revealed the true nature of the debate, stripping away some of the illusions.