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RUSH: By the way, Joe Biden is... It's looking serious. I don't think there's any doubt about it. Once we learned that after his son passed away -- once they leaked the news -- that on his deathbed the son of Joe Biden, Beau Biden, urged his father to run, we kind of knew that confidence coming. And it looks like it is. Also, just to show you how unsettled the Democrat side -- and there's apparently big time panic (finally; should have been in there a long time) settling in regarding Hillary. Because now there's news out there that...

On today's Morning Joe, Josh Earnest said that President Obama believes that picking Biden as his VP was the "smartest decision he ever made in politics." Joe Scarborough drew the mischievous-but-logical inference that Obama must thus believe it was smarter than picking Hillary as his Secretary of State. Though Mika interrupted to say that's not what he meant, Earnest never said boo to counter Joe's interpretation. Earnest later said that if Biden chooses to run, he could make a "strong" case for his candidacy. He added that other Dem candidates could make "quite" a strong case. Note the qualifier. And...

WASHINGTON — Joe Biden is leaning strongly toward a 2016 presidential bid, a source close to the vice president tells the Herald — news that is spurring excitement among top Democrats in Massachusetts and early voting states who are worried about front-runner Hillary Clinton’s hefty political baggage and sagging poll numbers. An adviser close to Biden, who is familiar with the vice president’s exploration process, told the Herald that Biden will “more likely than not” jump into the 2016 race. A request for comment from Biden’s White House office was not returned yesterday. The news of Biden’s renewed campaign activity...

Former SC Democratic party chair Dick Harpootlian told MSNBC’s Steve Kornacki Sunday Vice President Joe Biden’s consideration of a presidential run actually gives Democrats the best chance of retaining the White House in 2016. Harpootlian said Hillary Clinton’s track record will cause her and the Democrats to “die a death of a thousand cuts,” yet Biden is “an inspirational figure” that voters can rally around. HARPOOTLIAN: I think Hillary comes into the race, as she did in ’08 with all kinds of baggage… There’s going to be distractions, we saw just this week with the Wall Street Journal about payments...

Although many commentators – and the Republican Party’s leadership – believe that Hillary Clinton will be the Democratic Party’s nominee, I’m not so sure. The ultimate proof? Look no further: "Vice President Joseph R. Biden Jr. and his associates have begun to actively explore a possible presidential campaign, which would upend the Democratic field and deliver a direct threat to Hillary Rodham Clinton, several people who have spoken to Mr. Biden or his closest advisers say." Biden and his buddies have started talking to Democratic leaders and donors because the latter are worried by Clinton’s “increasingly visible vulnerabilities as a...

After raising $1 million for Barack Obama during his two presidential runs, New York businessman Jon Cooper was exactly the kind of high-powered political “bundler” Hillary Clinton wanted on her team during this year’s run. But after agreeing to serve as a “Hillstarter” — as the Clinton campaign had dubbed its elite fundraisers — Cooper sat down at his computer a few months ago to write a fundraising pitch for the former secretary of state … and froze. “I was trying to come up with a rationale for her candidacy — and I couldn’t do it,” Cooper tells Yahoo News....

For Democratic leaders, the political logic of having Hillary Clinton as the party's standard bearer in 2016 was, at least for a while, undeniable. President Obama could maintain middling approval ratings, but Clinton's distance from political life as secretary of State gave her ample distance from the president's most controversial policies. Voters may be looking for change, but Clinton's bid to become the first female president gave her campaign a historic sheen that few others could provide. Most significantly, Clinton's independent brand (and record of opposing certain presidential decisions) would allow her to triangulate: distance herself from the White House...

Is Hillary hearing donkey hoofbeats? On his Weekly Standard podcast today, Bill Kristol put the odds at "better than 50/50" that one or more of Elizabeth Warren, Joe Biden or John Kerry would jump into the race against a Hillary Clinton whom he described as "extraordinarily weak." Kristol made an undeniable point, to wit, that "if someone came down and gave you the poll numbers on Hillary Clinton, from the last two, three, four public polls, you would look at that and say, whoah: this is a very weak and very vulnerable frontrunner."

(CBS) — Creepy clowns running around cemeteries and city streets scaring people. There have been reports around the country – and now here in Chicago, too. CBS 2’s Dave Savini talks with a Chicagoan who had a close encounter with a nocturnal clown earlier this month. The cell phone video tells it all: a person dressed in a clown suit, trespassing at historic Rosehill Cemetery in the dead of night. Julia Graham says she was “freaked out” at the figure as it ran toward the main gate. She and her husband were driving by around 10 p.m. “When we get...

Considering how toxic this administration is, Obama may not have anyone with credibility left to send. Kerry has somehow managed to become an even bigger embarrassment than he was before. Susan Rice is hostile, snippy and inept. And her lies about Benghazi on the morning shows haven't done much for her credibility. Hillary Clinton is on the campaign trail. Last time Obama sent Jack Lew into the field, because you know he's Jewish, he got booed. So instead Obama sent the most useless guy in an administration filled with them.

Vice President Joe Biden and a team of senior White House officials on Monday attempted to placate the American Jewish community’s concerns about the recent Iranian nuclear deal during an hour-long conference call with leaders and rabbis, according to an audio recording obtained by the Washington Free Beacon. Biden spent nearly an hour trying to convince top Jewish leaders to support the nuclear accord and promised them that if Iran ever violates the deal, the United States is still prepared to carry out a military strike against the Islamic Republic’s nuclear sites. However, Biden also conceded that the United States...

D.C. police have arrested two people in connection with a sex trafficking ring authorities say involved several underage girls who were forced to work out of an apartment in Southeast Washington.The arrests came after the mother of a 14-year-old girl went to police in May. Police said in a court affidavit that up to seven girls, many of them under the age of 18, were prostituting out of an apartment in the 3800 block of South Capitol Street SE.Police said they enlisted the help of the FBI’s Child Exploitation Task Force and uncovered several advertisements placed on a Web site...

Bernie Sanders will never be president. But unless Hillary changes her strategy – and soon – he can still wind up toppling her. Something remarkable is happening in American politics. For the first time in our history, a socialist is running a close second and gaining ground on the frontrunner in a presidential race. Anyway you look at it, Senator Bernie Sanders is making history and may very well play a deciding role in who will be the next president. How real is the Sanders movement? Well, at this point in his campaign in 2007, Barack Obama had 180,000 donors...

Will Vice President Joe Biden enter the 2016 presidential race? People who would like to see that happen think he will. Two leading fundraisers for President Obama have pledged their support for Biden, who hasn't taken any formal steps toward running. Last week, top Obama bundler Jon Cooper signed on to be the national finance chair of the Draft Biden 2016 PAC, an organization encouraging the vice president to enter the race for the White House. Major Obama fundraiser Shiva Sarram also joined the finance team on Wednesday. The Draft Biden PAC has over 100,000 signatures, teams in the...

Biden for President - Yipee! The man who gave us Gay Marriage and took down the states. The man who gave us Obamacare with Obama. The man who gave us the Stimulus Package and wasted BILLIONS OF DOLLARS. The man who with Obama gave us TRILLIONS MORE IN DEBT that EVEN OUR GRANDCHILDREN WILL NOT BE ABLE TO PAY OFF. The man with Obama who gave us the UNDER 30 HOUR WORK WEEK. The man with Obama who FOCUSED LIKE A LASER TO KILL JOBS. YES, BIDEN PLEASE PLEASE RUN

Freedom Partners Chamber of Commerce, the funding arm of the political network backed by the billionaire brothers Charles and David Koch, wants a lot more hard information from the crowded field of presidential contenders before deciding what to do with its considerable resources. The group is pressing every 2016 candidate to detail on the record their plans for economic growth, deficit reduction, entitlement reform, criminal justice and even foreign policy. The tax-exempt entity, a key node in a constellation of conservative entities that aims to spend $889 million before the next White House election, distributed a detailed survey Thursday to...

<p>WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Tensions are building inside and outside the white marble facade of the U.S. Supreme Court building as the nine justices prepare to issue major rulings on gay marriage and President Barack Obama's healthcare law by the end of the month.</p>

JOE BIDEN: "You know it reminds me, I remember back in 1973, I came from Pennsylvania and steel and coal were a big deal, particularly steel. I remember making a speech to the United Steel Workers sponsored by US Steel. There were 3,000 people there and I was a young Senator. Come out and I say, 'you know in World War I we made a mistake, and I was being not unusually Biden controversial. And, I said we made a mistake, we bombed the wrong steel mills. And, I went on to point out that there'd been virtually no innovation...

Discouraged with the lack of private sector investment in the green energy economy, Vice President Biden recalls the same frustration in a speech to american steel workers in 1973: 'In World War I we made a mistake,... we bombed the wrong steel mills.' JOE BIDEN: "You know it reminds me, I remember back in 1973, I came from Pennsylvania and steel and coal were a big deal, particularly steel. I remember making a speech to the United Steel Workers sponsored by US Steel. There were 3,000 people there and I was a young Senator. Come out and I say, 'you...

Senator Joe Biden Admits That Iraq War Vote Was a MistakeSunday, November 27th, 2005 NBC News From 'Meet the Press' - November 27th, 2005 [...] MR. RUSSERT: And yet it's important that we put things in historical context. Senator Biden, you were on the show in August of 2002 talking about Saddam Hussein and his weapons of mass destruction. You concluded your statement by saying, "I think Saddam either has to be separated from his weapons or taken out of power." A month later you voted for a resolution authorizing just that. In hindsight, knowing everything you know now about...