A federal appeals court judge on Tuesday seemed to take offense to comments President Barack Obama made earlier this week in which he warned that if the Supreme Court overturned his signature health care overhaul it would amount to overreach by an "unelected" court.

The Supreme Court is set to issue a ruling later this year on whether to strike down some or all of the historic health care law.

During oral arguments in Houston in a separate challenge to another aspect of the federal health care law, U.S. 5th Circuit Court of Appeals Judge Jerry Smith said Obama's comments troubled a number of people who have read them as a challenge to the authority of federal courts.

"I'm referring to statements by the president in the past few days to the effect, I'm sure you've heard about them, that it is somehow inappropriate for what he termed unelected judges to strike acts of Congress that have enjoyed, he was referring of course to Obamacare, to what he termed a broad consensus and majorities in both houses of Congress," Smith told Dana Kaersvang, an attorney with the Justice Department in Washington, D.C.

On Monday, Obama issued a direct challenge to the Supreme Court, saying he didn't believe the high court would take the "unprecedented" step of overturning a law passed by a strong majority of Congress.

"I want to be sure that you are telling us that the Attorney General and the Department of Justice do recognize the authority of the federal courts through unelected judges to strike acts of Congress or portions thereof in appropriate cases," Smith said.

A somewhat surprised Kaersvang told Smith the Justice Department does recognize this power by the courts and made reference to a landmark 1803 case that formed the basis for judicial review.

However, Smith ordered Kaersvang to submit a letter to the appeals court by Thursday stating the position of U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder and the Justice Department on the concept of judicial review.

"The letter needs to be at least three pages, single spaced, no less and it needs to be specific. It needs to make specific reference to the president's statements," Smith said.

President Barack Obama weighed into the controversial killing of a black teenager in Florida in very personal terms on Friday, comparing the boy to a son he doesn't have and calling for American "soul searching" over how the incident occurred.

Seventeen-year-old Trayvon Martin, dressed in a "hoodie" hooded sweatshirt, was shot dead a month ago in Sanford, Florida by a 28-year-old white Hispanic neighborhood watch volunteer who said he was acting in self-defense.

"If I had a son, he'd look like Trayvon," Obama said in his first comments about the shooting, acknowledging the racial element in the case.

"Obviously, this is a tragedy," Obama told reporters. "I can only imagine what these parents are going through. And when I think about this boy, I think about my own kids."

The case has galvanized the nation and prompted rallies protesting the failure of police to arrest the shooter, George Zimmerman, and more broadly, a pattern of racial discrimination that black leaders cite in Sanford and elsewhere in the country.

Obama, the first black U.S. president, made his remarks at a White House event to announce his pick to lead the World Bank, waiting briefly after the announcement to take a reporter's question about the incident.

Martin's parents thanked the president for his words.

"The president's personal comments touched us deeply and made us wonder: If his son looked like Trayvon and wore a hoodie, would he be suspicious too?" they said in a statement.

Florida's "Stand Your Ground" law allows people to use deadly force in self-defense.

Similar laws are in effect in at least 24 states including Florida, according to the Brady Campaign to Prevent Gun Violence. Calls are mounting to repeal them. Earlier this week, a Florida state senator said he was drafting new legislation to drastically change the law in Florida.

A South Carolina state representative said on Friday he had introduced a bill to repeal his state's law.

RACIAL DIVIDES

Bakari Sellers, a black Democrat and gun owner, said he wanted to prevent an incident like the Trayvon Martin shooting happening in his state. "I'm six-five and a black guy," he said. "I just know that it could have been me."

Obama said the "Stand Your Ground" laws should be studied.

"I think all of us have to do some soul-searching to figure out how does something like this happen. And that means that we examine the laws and the context for what happened, as well as the specifics of the incident," he said.

"Every parent in America should be able to understand why it is absolutely imperative that we investigate every aspect of this, and that everybody pulls together - federal, state and local - to figure out exactly how this tragedy happened."

Obama, the son of a white mother from Kansas and black father from Kenya, does not comment frequently on race, a sensitive topic in the United States, which still grapples with a legacy of slavery, segregation and discrimination.

An image purporting to show a racist, anti-Obama bumper sticker on the back of a vehicle has been garnering lots of attention on Facebook in the past 24 hours.

The bumper sticker reads, "Don't Re-Nig in 2012." And in smaller print below, "Stop repeat offenders. Don't' reelect Obama!" The sticker also features an image of the Obama campaign logo crossed out.

Several viewers have claimed the image has been digitally altered. After all, it seems shocking that someone would proudly display an openly racist image on their vehicle in 2012. So, is the image authentic?

It's still unclear is the image of the vehicle has been altered in any way, but a website called "Stumpy's Stickers" offers the bumper sticker for sale for $3. And as The Root points out, the site also several other racially insensitive items for sale as well. The urban myth debunking site Snopes says it cannot yet determine the origins of the photo, but also points out the availability of other similar t-shirts and bumper stickers.

There is even an eponymous "Dontre-nig.com" website that appears to have crashed. Going to the page brings up a "Bandwith Limit Exceeded" warning message. I checked the domain registration service site WHOIS, which listed the site as belonging to an anonymous owner who purchased the URL through the company DomainsByProxy.com, based in Scottsdale, Arizona. The company specializes in keeping the names of Internet domain owners private.