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My political prediction for 2012 (based on absolutely no inside information): Hillary Clinton and Joe Biden swap places. Biden becomes Secretary of State — a position he’s apparently coveted for years. And Hillary Clinton, Vice President. So the Democratic ticket for 2012 is Obama-Clinton. Why do I say this? Because Obama needs to stir the passions and enthusiasms of a Democratic base that’s been disillusioned with his cave-ins to regressive Republicans. Hillary Clinton on the ticket can do that.

Those from Occupy Wall Street took their great shout from downtown to uptown this week, up the East Side to where some noted rich guys live, including Jamie Dimon, who runs JPMorgan Chase. When it was over, here was a building super who gave his name as Frank and his age as 50, said he was born in Puerto Rico and raised on the West Side. He was standing around the corner from Dimon's building on Park Ave., saying he was still amazed at what he had seen and heard. "Yelling like that, you don't expect that up here," he...

The burgeoning of populist protests in New York and other cities shows that resentment over the economy is growing, and Democratic strategists are moving aggressively to show that President Obama and his party are taking steps to solve the problem while Republicans are standing in the way.

Ron Paul is still mad as hell over America's killing of U.S.-born terrorist Anwar al-Awlaki - and he's warning that members of the media could be next on the government's target list. The Republican presidential hopeful told an audience at the National Press Club on Wednesday that if citizens do not protest al-Awlaki's death, the country could start broadening its threat list to include reporters. "Can you imagine being put on a list because you're a threat? What's going to happen when they come to the media? What if the media becomes a threat? ... This is the way this...

PEOSTA, Iowa — US President Barack Obama on Tuesday played down prospects for a spectacular Al-Qaeda attack 10 years after the September 11th strikes, saying he worried more now about solitary extremists. "The most likely scenario that we have to guard against right now ends up being more of a lone wolf operation than a large, well coordinated terrorist attack," he told CNN television during a campaign-style swing through Iowa.

Roseanne Barr wants her own party, but not the type you might expect. The famously outspoken star appeared on Thursday night's "Tonight Show with Jay Leno" and made a startling announcement: "I am running for President of the United States." COULD ROSIE BE DIVORCEE IN CHIEF? A LOOK AT H'WOOD SPLITS But don't expect Barr, who has famously bucked tradition at almost every turn, to join an established political party. "I'm not for either party because they both suck and they're both a bunch of criminals," she told Leno. "So I made up my own party. It's the Green Tea...

On the surface, the current debt limit debate appears to be a traditional argument between Republicans and Democrats over spending and tax priorities and two seemingly incompatible visions about the role of government - a discussion that Americans have been having for more than a century.

This morning the local news station was interviewing Kirsten Gillibrand and she concurred with the fawning anchor that the death of Bin Laden was the "defining moment" in Obama's presidency. For his next trick Obama will pull 400,000 jobs out of his scrawny ass and pee out $1 a gallon gasoline.

President Barack Obama should make the most of his "Daily Show" appearance on Wednesday night - charming the pants off Jon Stewart and the crowd, as he did when he showed up there two years ago. It's a terrific show, Stewart is a great interviewer and Obama makes good television. Then, the President should cancel all future trivial media appearances. While they may have kept him personally popular, in broad terms they've degraded the Obama brand. Obama's handlers were supposed to be smarter than this. They were supposed to use his celebrity strategically to advance his agenda. Instead, they've been...

One in four dollars raised by Daniel M. Donovan Jr., the Republican candidate for New York attorney general, can be traced to a $17 billion hedge fund whose chief executive has emerged as a staunch and influential defender of Wall Street this election year, campaign records show.

As you may have heard, conservative talk show host Rush Limbaugh and Terry Jones (you know, the Gainesville, Fla., pastor who threatened to burn Korans on 9/11) graduated from the same high school in Cape Girardeau, Mo., in 1969. On Friday, Pastor Jones was all over morning TV and continued to go back and forth on whether he would be burning any Korans on the ninth anniversary of the terrorist attacks. Interestingly, Limbaugh referenced the Pastor Jones story on two recent occasions. But according to transcripts, he never disclosed their shared past. Instead, Limbaugh referred to him simply as "the...

Princess Diana was captivating, over-emotional and a "manipulator," former British Prime Minister Tony Blair says in his new memoir. "I really liked her and, of course, was as big a sucker for a beautiful princess as the next man: but I was wary too," Blair wrote, saying he was on guard against her "wildness of emotions," referring to her as an "unpredictable meteor." In Blair's "A Journey," he discusses his meeting with Diana a month before her tragic death in a 1997 car crash to tell the Princess of Wales that her relationship with millionaire Egyptian playboy Dodi Fayed was...

There are so many warning signs that negativity is devouring honest political discourse in our country, and one of these recently made me a very unwilling part of it. When misogyny becomes part of victory at any price, our democracy is embarrassed and endangered. Here's what happened, and here's why I'm angry and why I feel any American of whatever party or gender should be furious too. Suddenly it was widely reported on the Internet that a GOP political blog in Minnesota had posted a disgusting video that proclaimed Republican women -- candidates and supporters -- are attractive and that...

He took center stage leading the Haiti earthquake relief, and now Wyclef Jean has confirmed he's running for president of his native country. The rapper told Time.com he plans to announce his candidacy Thursday, just days shy of Saturday's deadline. "If not for the earthquake, I probably would have waited another 10 years before doing this," the Haitian-born superstar said Tuesday night. "The quake drove home to me that Haiti can't wait another 10 years for us to bring it into the 21st century." Jean, 37, collected donations for earthquake relief through his charity, Yele Haiti. "If I can't take...

STATEN ISLAND, N.Y. --- The Consulate of Mexico last night “strongly condemned” the latest assault of a Mexican immigrant in Port Richmond and expressed “profound concern for the recent surge” in attacks on Mexican immigrants on Staten Island. “We will act decisively in order to protect our citizens and will actively promote that those guilty of these vicious attacks are brought to justice expeditiously. We are working hand-in-hand with local authorities on all levels,” said the Consul General of Mexico in New York, Rubén Beltrán in a statement emailed to an Advance reporter. “In response to the escalating violence against...

New York Rep. Charlie Rangel is 80 years old and facing ethics charges that could derail his career of nearly four decades in Congress, but he's still in fighting trim. Just ask NBC correspondent Luke Russert. The two got into a dust-up Thursday in the Capitol after Russert asked Rangel whether he was afraid of losing his job. "What are you talking about?" Rangel snapped back as other reporters looked on. "You just trying to make copy? How do you think I got my job? I was elected. How do you think I lose it?"

President Obama says daughters Malia and Sasha may be looking for babysitting jobs to supplement their allowances. He made the remark during an interview with ABC News about the consumer benefits in the financial overhaul bill he signed on Thursday. In the interview, broadcast on Friday, the president was asked what he and wife Michelle are teaching their daughters, who are 12 and 9, about money. "You know, it's a great question. What I'm doing now . . . is they're getting an allowance. They're starting to get old enough where they may be able earn some money babysitting. They've...

A National Tea Party leader protesting a proposed mosque near Ground Zero set off a firestorm of anger Wednesday by saying that Muslims worship "the terrorists' monkey god." Mark Williams, chairman of the Tea Party Express, blogged about the 13-story mosque and Islamic cultural center planned at Park Place and Broadway, calling it a monument to the 9/11 terrorists. "The monument would consist of a Mosque for the worship of the terrorists' monkey-god," Williams, a frequent guest on CNN, wrote on his Web site.

Jon Stewart, the host of Comedy Central's Daily Show, has been not-so-quietly waging war with Fox News for years -- and recently he's been turning up the heat. His most recent battle with the News Corp. (NWS)-owned network hinged on an airing of Fox & Friends, which two weeks ago asked (more than once) whether the crescent-moon shaped logo that the White House used during a nuclear security summit was some sort of Islamic image. As the New York Times recently reported, Stewart had his staff call the White House to ask just that, and lo and behold, discovered that...

WASHINGTON (March 31) -- Do Democrats need a new "silent majority" to speak up and save them from electoral ruin in November? Does such a group even exist? And, if it does, will the tea party movement prove to be the right-wing mirror of the leftist anti-war movement of the 1960s? These are not idle questions for President Barack Obama, who has seen little bounce from his party's victory in passing health care reform legislation. "The good news for Democrats, after health care passed, was that Democratic intensity levels went up," party strategist James Carville told reporters Wednesday. The bad...