Carolyn Kaster / AP

Obama’s ‘Unprecedented’ Remarks: Is the President Running Against the Supreme Court?

“I’m confident that the Supreme Court will not take what would be an unprecedented extraordinary step of overturning a law that was passed by a strong majority of a democratically elected Congress,” President Obama said Monday of the High Court’s consideration of his signature health care legislation.

Political Pictures of the Week, March 24-30

Darren Hauck / Reuters

TIME’s photo editors bring you the best pictures of the past week from the Beltway and beyond.

Supreme Court Health Care Protests in Pictures

Chip Somodevilla / Getty Images

TIME captures proponents and critics of the Affordable Care Act as they square off outside the Supreme Court, which is hearing arguments on the law’s constitutionality this week in Washington.

Senate Blocks Republican Contraception Measure, but the Debate Can’t Be Voted Away

In a 51-48 vote on Thursday, the Senate rejected a Republican amendment that would have allowed any employer to deny medical coverage for services it objected to on religious grounds. Drawn up in the wake of the Obama Administration’s decision to mandate contraception coverage at Catholic universities and hospitals, the amendment, championed by Roy Blunt [...]

Conflict Over Obama’s Contraception Rule Intensifies

The Administration’s decision to require Catholic charities and universities to provide free birth control through employee health coverage is several weeks old, but the maelstrom of dissent it’s created is widening. Republicans, who charge that the measure violates such organizations’ religious freedoms, have allied with Catholic groups in opposition, and in recent days a handful [...]

The Komen Controversy: Planned Parenthood Claims a New Kind of Victory in the Culture War

Following a press conference by Washington state Senator Patty Murray, Planned Parenthood supporters hold up signs at a Planned Parenthood clinic in Seattle on Feb. 3, 2012

When the history of Facebook-enabled activism is written, the backlash against the Susan G. Komen foundation’s decision to end grants to Planned Parenthood clinics will fall somewhere behind the Arab Spring and ahead of the effort to get Betty White to host Saturday Night Live. The Betty White campaign took months; the Komen foundation reversed [...]

Q&A: Bill Clinton’s Vision for ‘A Smart Government and a Strong Economy’

Martin Schalk / Life Ball 2011 / Getty Images

Bill Clinton, the 42nd President of the United States, spoke with TIME’s Rick Stengel about his new book, Back to Work, and how to fix the economy. Excerpts from that conversation follow.

“PerryCare”

Michele Bachmann, in what appears to be a broadcast from her local public access studio, coins the term in reference to Rick Perry’s executive order mandating the HPV vaccine for teenage girls. (No mention of the uninsured rate in Texas).

11th Circuit Rules Health Care Individual Mandate Unconstitutional

Jay Mallin / Bloomberg via Getty Images

A three-judge appellate panel in Atlanta on Friday ruled a key pillar of the Affordable Care Act, Obama’s 2010 health care reform law, unconstitutional. In a lengthy opinion, two judges, one appointed by President Bill Clinton and one by George H.W. Bush sided with 26 states that argued that the individual health insurance mandate violates [...]

Health Care Lawsuits: Why the 11th Circuit Might Matter More

Jay Mallin / Bloomberg via Getty Images

Updated at 3:20 p.m. The Affordable Care Act was back in court on Wednesday, with the government and a coalition of 26 states presenting arguments in an Atlanta courtroom for and against the constitutionality of the law. Oral arguments lasted longer than expected, but observers left the courthouse today with little indication of how the [...]