My Two Cents: Is this a pick the biggest neocon douchenugget competition? End Two Cents.

An Exclusive interview, Alex Jones speaks with Sen. Rand Paul on NDAA, TSA undercover on Houston busses, Obama’s overall neglect of the Constitution, his possible impeachment and much more. This is a must see video.

Secretive cabal selected John Edwards as Kerry’s number 2 in 2004.

A story in today’s Washington Post written by veteran columnist Al Kamen suggests that the Bilderberg Group may have a decisive role to play in picking Mitt Romney’s running mate, continuing a recent trend in which the secretive cabal has had a direct influence on the U.S. presidential election.

Kamen has been writing for the Washington Post for over three decades and also worked with Watergate icons Woodward and Bernstein, suggesting the title of his column, “In the loop,” has some meaning behind it.

Kamen remarks on how both President Obama and Hillary Clinton are heading to the Summit of the Americas this weekend in Cartagena, Colombia to meet with over 30 other heads of state. They will be joined by Senator Marco Rubio (R-Fla.), who has been touted as a potential VP having endorsed Mitt Romney last month.

“Curiously, not many senators seem to be going. In fact, it may be that the only one going from the Senate Foreign Relations Committee is Marco Rubio (R-Fla.), a possible vice presidential pick, who we’re told is flying commercial to attend,” writes Kamen, adding that Rubio’s presence could “help boost his foreign-policy chops” just as a visit with the clandestine Bilderberg Group was key in John Edwards being picked as John Kerry’s number two in 2004.

“Reminds us of a foreign jaunt made by another potential vice presidential pick back in 2004. That would be John Edwards , whose criminal trial is set to begin Thursday in Greensboro, N.C. Edwards gave a speech in June 2004 at the Bilderberg conference that was widely credited as one reason John Kerry chose him,” writes Kamen.

CONTINUED at Prison Planet. Written by Paul Joseph Watson.

Who will be Mitt Romney’s running mate?

With the Republican presidential hopeful closing in on the GOP nomination, attention is beginning to turn to who he will pick to be by his side as he takes on President Obama and Vice President Biden for the White House.

Could it be Sen. Marco Rubio, a Hispanic conservative from the swing state of Florida? Maybe it will be Chris Christie, the bombastic governor from New Jersey unafraid to speak his mind? Or could it be a total dark horse candidate, say Gov. Susana Martinez from New Mexico, another conservative Hispanic from a swing state?

According to Larry Sabato, the director for the Center for Politics at the University of Virginia, Romney has two ways to go with his decision.

CONTINUED at CBS DC.

Rick Santorum, showing signs of fatigue and frustration while grasping for strategies to right his unsteady White House bid, is trying to derail Republican front-runner Mitt Romney using any means available — even contradictory messages.

Santorum has called Romney “the worst Republican in the country” to challenge President Barack Obama, but in a subsequent interview he said he would consider serving as Romney’s running mate. He is not letting pass a vulgar fight with The New York Times while betting big on the health care debate, which his campaign says is intensifying at the perfect time to resurrect his fading candidacy.

“This is the most important issue in this election,” Santorum declared outside the Supreme Court on Monday while attorneys inside debated the constitutionality of the president’s health care law. “There’s one candidate who’s uniquely disqualified to make the case. That’s the reason I’m here and he’s not.”

CONTINUED at CBS DC.

“I am The one person who can take young people away from Obama”.

Congressman Ron Paul appeared on CNN’s Piers Morgan Tonight Thursday and dropped a significant hint that he would consider accepting a spot on the 2012 GOP ticket if it was offered to him.

Paul has vowed to stay in the GOP nomination race going into the national convention, and he still believes he can win it. However, there has been increasing talk of Paul potentially being on the ticket, regardless of whether he secures the nomination or not.

When asked by Morgan whether he would take a position in a Mitt Romney administration if it was offered to him, the Congressman shot back:

“I’ll have to wait and see. Maybe I’ll have to ask him if he wants to help me when I get in.”

Morgan conceded that he was hasty to discount Paul’s chances of winning, explaining that he framed the question in that way because he believes the Republican party would “be mad” not to use Paul in some form, given his popularity.

“In every state I always win among young people aged 18-30.” Paul pointed out. “If they are thinking about the future or even the Fall election, young people are very very important, and I am the one person who can take young people away from Obama.”

CONTINUED at Prison Planet. Written by Steve Watson.

The media speculation about some supposed cooperation between the Ron Paul campaign and Mitt Romney has gotten completely out of hand. Ron Paul is running for President of the United States. His son, Sen. Rand Paul, is supporting his father’s run for President of the United States. That’s all that’s going on here. There is no secret “conspiracy.” During a radio interview this morning in Chicago, Sen. Paul said:

“If there’s a secret deal they’re keeping it secret from me, I think that’s mostly internet chatter and fun for people to speculate on…”

Speculative fun is exactly right. Sen. Paul explained his own views on the supposed Romney/Paul connection this morning, including his comments about being “honored” if he were to be considered as the GOP vice presidential nominee:

I think the story kind of got misrepresented, because you know when I was asked, every time I’m asked these kind of questions, these are hypothetical questions, I always say you know what? I still have my first choice in the race and that’s Ron Paul. My first choice would be a Ron Paul presidency and my first choice for a position would be an unofficial adviser to a Ron Paul presidency…

But when they push and push and push, and say ‘What about Romney? Would you do it?’ I mentioned that it would be an honor, and what I meant by that is sort of like if you were nominated for an academy award, what’s your response? You’d say “It’s be an honor to be nominated’ and so I think it would be silly for me not to say that if anybody considered me that I’d be honored by it, but I think it was somewhat overblown, it sort of fits into this sort of cabal that people write about…

That there’s this big strategy between Ron Paul and Romney, really the Ron Paul strategy as far as I’m aware of it is to gather delegates and to try to win, and one of the unwritten stories really is that Ron Paul may have already won a couple of states but people haven’t realized it because the delegates haven’t been allotted in Iowa yet, and we still think there’s an reasonable chance we can win Iowa we they count the delegates, we think there’s a reasonable chance we can win Maine when they count the delegates, and this is sort of an unwritten story that’s out there, and also why I don’t like the story out there that somebody’s trying to angle for some other position other than I’m just trying to help my dad at this point…

Source: Ron Paul 2012. Written by “Southern Avenger” Jack Hunter.

President Obama greeted the Chinese heir apparent in the Oval Office on Tuesday morning, a venue where the U.S. president usually receives only the nation’s closest friends.

But even as the two countries eye one another warily, the Obama administration wants to keep its options open with Vice President Xi Jinping as he prepares to take his place as president next year.

In a joint appearance before their meeting, Obama told reporters that the U.S. relationship with China is based on “mutual interest and mutual respect,” and that such a relationship is in the interests of the rest of the world, too.

The United States welcomes China’s “peaceful rise,” Obama said, which he said has the power to “help to bring stability and prosperity to the world.”

Xi said that he and Vice President Joe Biden had reached a “new consensus” during their talks, though he didn’t say what that was, and that his goal is to “move forward the U.S.-China relationship.”

Xi, 58, is expected to succeed Chinese President Hu Jintao as leader of the Communist Party later this year and as president next year, a position he will probably hold for a decade.

His five-day tour of the U.S. gives the Obama administration a chance to open the official relationship on a positive note — and to get a sense of Xi’s agenda and style in advance of his ascent.

One of the key goals of the White House is to express the importance of achieving harmony on economic issues, administration officials say.

Obama began delivering that message even before the leaders went behind closed doors Tuesday.

With China’s expanding power comes increased responsibility, Obama said. When it comes to trade, he said, China must follow “the same rules of the road” as does the United States.

Source: The LA Times.

Although largely unknown outside her district in eastern Washington state, Republican Rep. Cathy McMorris Rodgers could be the next U.S. vice president.

First elected in 2004, McMorris Rodgers is now in her second term as vice chairman of the Republican Conference, which makes her the highest-ranking Republican woman on Capitol Hill. She has built a significant amount of behind-the-scenes clout, and has become one of her party’s most influential leaders on issues like international bailouts, earmark reform and the fight against Obamacare.

McMorris Rodgers also has the kind of compelling life story that political operatives always look for. The daughter of produce farmers who operated a fruit stand, she was the first member of her family to attend college. She earned her MBA from the University of Washington in 2002. By the age of 24, she was a member of the state House of Representatives.

Married to a retired U.S. Navy commander, McMorris Rodgers is also one of only eight women to have ever given birth while serving in Congress, and the only woman who has done it twice.

Her first child, Cole, was born a month premature and was diagnosed with Down syndrome. That experience led her to form a bipartisan Congressional Down Syndrome Caucus, which educates lawmakers about the disorder and aims to protect Americans who have it.

According to Kellyanne Conway, a veteran Republican strategist who was among the first to float Sarah Palin’s name as a possible VP pick in 2008, McMorris Rodgers might actually benefit from her relatively low profile.

CONTINUED at The Daily Caller.

Like President Obama, Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton says she hasn’t been watching the Republican primary debates. But at least Clinton has an excuse for tuning out — she says she’s quitting government after the election no matter who wins.

“What could we do to persuade you to run for vice president?” a staffer asked at a State Department town hall meeting Thursday, referring to cyclical rumors and the wishful thinking of some supporters. “Oh, my goodness,” Clinton replied.

“I will certainly stay on until the president nominates someone and that transition can occur,” said Clinton, who has insisted repeatedly that she will be a one-term secretary. “But I think, after 20 years …of being on the high wire of American politics, and all of the challenges that come with that, it would probably be a good idea to just find out how tired I am.”

The famously workaholic secretary said she has “no idea” what she will do in the future, and doesn’t want to think about it because it might divert attention from today’s diplomatic tasks. The election, she said, is going to “suck up a lot of the attention from following areas that we think are so important,” including “trying to resolve frozen conflicts” and “trying to build up America’s reputation” in the world.

But that might be good thing, she said, because “maybe we can even get more done” if the rest of the country is fixated on the polls.

“It’s a little odd for me to be totally out of an election season,” Clinton said. “But, you know, I didn’t watch any of those debates.”

And what about that vice president question? Although friends and colleagues say neither she nor the White House is interested, Clinton took a pass.

“I am happy to work with Vice President Biden, who does an excellent job and is a huge advocate and support for this department,” she said.

Source: The Washington Post.