In a sign of increasing desperation on the left, speculation is rife that Barack Obama will kick Vice President Joe Biden off his team and replace him with that perpetual presidential wannabe, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton. As Hillary’s fans see it, such a maneuver would bring fat dividends to the Democratic ticket.

The only truly useful role Biden plays in the administration is that of a lightning rod and a diversion. Next to Mr. National Embarrassment, the president looks like a tower of intelligence and wisdom, his missteps dwarfed into insignificance by the Niagara Falls of gaffes the buffoonish VP disgorges with clockwork regularity. Otherwise, Biden’s utility is highly doubtful.

The white working class is not buying his faux regular-guy credentials, while the open war declared by the administration on the Roman Catholic Church has negated the Catholic vice president’s usefulness as the administration’s liaison to his church. On top of that, Biden’s personal popularity has been dropping like a lead balloon (in the latest polls, 42 favorable/45 unfavorable, and a lot worse, 40/54, where it really counts — in the battleground states). In short, rather than being an asset, the vice president increasingly looks like a liability to his boss and a serious drag on his campaign.

The secretary of state, on the other hand, looks like a winner. Hillary Clinton is hands down the most popular member of the administration, consistently scoring ratings in the mid-60s. She has been tirelessly cross-crossing the world, building up her resume as well as logging frequent flyer miles in six digits on her executive 757 (technically, a C 32A). During the primary season four years ago, she amassed 18 million votes and beat Obama among white women, seniors, and the middle class. These voters, never enthusiastic about Barack Obama, reluctantly voted for him in the general, but two years later wandered off the reservation and played a prominent part in the thorough drubbing the voters meted out to the Democrats in the off-year elections. The thinking of Hillary’s fans among the Democratic strategists is that she should be able to lure the prodigal sons and daughters back into the fold.

It is not a given, however, that Obama will draft his erstwhile rival. As Charles Krauthammer argues astutely, the president’s narcissism will make it very hard for him to make a move reeking of disloyalty to his own pick, Joe Biden, which would also call into question his judgment. More importantly, Obama would be loath to create an impression that he is desperate and has been reduced to go to Canossa and seek succor from the Clintons (two for the price of one). Furthermore, the powerful distaff tandem reportedly keeping Obama firmly under its thumb, his wife Michelle and his closest confidante and advisor Valerie Jarrett, detest and hate the secretary of state and would be aghast at the horrible prospect of yielding center stage in Washington to their nemesis. But aside from all that, is Hillary really that formidable? Will her luster hold up under close scrutiny?

Read More at American Thinker.  By Victor Volsky.

Photo Credit: US Embassy New Zealand (Creative Commons)

You and the American people have been deceived about matters of enormous significance. You may remember that on the night of Sept. 9, 2009, President Barack Obama gave an address to a joint session of Congress, which was televised to the nation. His purpose was to urge members of the House and Senate to pass the administration’s vaunted health-care bill. As he explained in his opening remarks,

… we did not come here just to clean up crises. We came to build a future. So tonight, I return to speak to all of you about an issue that is central to that future – and that is the issue of health care.

The speech was filled with promises and assurances that have proved to be shockingly false, and the president’s premise was based on deception. This comment stands out:

And one more misunderstanding I want to clear up – under our plan, no federal dollars will be used to fund abortions, and federal conscience laws will remain in place.

These two promises were specious (some would say dishonest). Long before Mr. Obama’s Big Night on Capitol Hill, he told the American people during his campaign that his first act as president would be to sign the pro-abortion “Freedom of Choice Act.” The Democrat-led Congress was never able to pass the legislation, but the president would have signed the pro-abortion bill if given the chance. This was, and still appears to be, his highest priority.

Read More at WorldNetDaily. By James Dobson.

Wisconsin voters are set to go to the polls on Tuesday to decide whether Gov. Scott Walker (R) will stay in office, an election that could have implications far beyond the state and could prove to be a key test of union power ahead of the November presidential election.

Walker himself became a conservative icon after confronting labor last year by pushing through legislation that limited public workers’ collective bargaining rights, leading to the recall.

Major unions and Tea Party groups have plowed substantial funds into the recall election. Politicians on the national scene have journeyed to the state to campaign with their chosen candidates.
But the stakes are particularly high for labor groups, which have invested heavily in the fight to unseat Walker and have expressed concerns that their traditional Democratic allies haven’t been as committed.

More than $63 million has been spent by Walker and Milwaukee Mayor Tom Barrett, his Democratic challenger, as well as outside groups. That figure tops the more than $34 million spent on the 2010 gubernatorial race, making it Wisconsin’s most expensive state contest in history.

Read More at The Hill.  By Kevin Bogardus and Meghashyam Mali.

Eric Holder, who heads Mr Obama’s justice department, is said to have become “incensed” after being accused by David Axelrod of complaining publicly about political interference in his office.

“That’s bull****,” Mr Holder said in a confrontation after a cabinet meeting, according to author Daniel Klaidman. He writes: “The two men stood chest to chest. It was like a school yard fight”.

The relatively mild-mannered Mr Axelrod is said to have told the attorney general: “Don’t ever, ever accuse me of trying to interfere with the operations of the Justice Department”, a taboo in US politics.

In ‘Kill or Capture: The War on Terror and the Soul of the Obama Presidency’, Klaidman discloses the struggles within Mr Obama’s White House at it mounted its controversial campaign against al-Qaeda.

He writes that Mr Holder and Mr Axelrod were separated by Valerie Jarrett, a White House adviser and confidante to Mr Obama. Ms Jarrett “pushed her way between the two men, her sense of decorum disturbed, ordering them to ‘take it out of the hallway’,” says Klaidman.

Read More at The Telegraph. By Jon Swaine.

America has been overrun by control freaks. Once upon a time the United States was considered to be “the land of the free and the home of the brave”, but today there are millions of laws, rules and regulations that tightly regulate our daily lives. Most of these laws, rules and regulations were established by people who believed that they had “good intentions”, but at this point the nanny state has become so oppressive that it is strangling the life out of us. If you look back throughout history, the societies that have really thrived have had a very high degree of liberty and freedom. When the bureaucrats get the upper hand, it can suck the life out of any economy. Unfortunately, our political system seems to be a magnet for control freaks. These control freaks truly believe that they know better than the rest of us and they are systematically moving toward taking total control of our lives. Our rights are being stripped away a little bit more with each passing day, and we are being told that we need a “permit” or a “license” for almost everything. Many younger Americans have been living this kind of “straight jacket existence” for so long that they don’t even remember what real liberty and freedom are. We are steamrolling down the road toward totalitarianism, and most Americans don’t even realize what is happening.

Sadly, there are many Americans that actually agree that the state should regulate nearly every detail of our lives. There are many Americans that actually believe that life is better when there are millions of rules that we all have to follow. There are many Americans that actually believe that too much liberty and freedom is a bad thing.

If we are not careful the control freaks are going to destroy this nation. They always tell us that the rules that they are imposing upon us are “for our own good”, but every time they lay another burden on our backs they just suck a little bit more life out of us all.

The following are 18 examples of the nanny state gone wild….

#1 New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg has announced that he wants to ban the sale of all large sodas and sugary drinks in order to fight obesity. Personally I don’t have any sodas in my refrigerator, but I certainly do not want the government telling me that I am banned from drinking large sodas. Every American should have the freedom to decide if they want to drink soda or not.

Read More at informationliberation.com.  By Michael Snyder.