The Obama campaign thinks it is smarter to give up two states with a cumulative 47 electoral votes, which are true battleground states, and try to win in 7 states which have increased their GOP voting margin over the past 12 years. This is a campaign relying on day-to-day polling, rather than looking at what people say compared to how they have voted in the past.

I have said it before. Ohio is THE state to win for anyone who truly wants to be President in November.

Now, let's look at the basis for Obama's strategy. Well, it's simple. He's counting on black people. He's counting on racial division to win the election. How about that?

Team Obama believes it has a shot to win Virginia and such Bible Belt states as Georgia, Louisiana and Mississippi, with their sizable number of black voters.

A Rasmussen Reports poll released yesterday shows Virginia a dead heat - 45 percent for Obama, 44 percent for McCain.

"That's a big story," said pollster Scott Rasmussen. "If I were in the McCain campaign, I'd be concerned."

Virginia hasn't gone for a Democratic president since Lyndon Johnson's 1964 landslide, but it has tilted in recent years, with Democrats winning the governorship and a Senate seat.

The Obama campaign has him winning 82 electoral-college votes in at least seven swing states and 200 electoral-college votes in safely Democratic states.

It also hopes to convert GOP states Colorado, Iowa and New Mexico and to retain Michigan, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin, which voted Democratic in 2004.

None of these polls, upon which the Obama campaign is setting its cap, have anything to do with what people will be thinking in November. What these kinds of reports from the Obama campaign represent to me is simply this:

Hillary Clinton ran a completely incompetent campaign. The nomination was her's to lose and she managed that nicely. To lose a nomination to someone so historically illiterate and socially arrogant is truly, truly a testament to the incompetence of the Clintons.

Now, many in America will vote for Barak simply on the basis of race, as he has predicted. But the race card being played by this campaign has nothing to offer to the "what's in it for me" gene all humans are possessed of. To vote only on the basis of one's color - to campaign on the basis of one's color - exemplifies the danger of racism.

NCRI - More than three million Iraqi Shiites signed a declaration calling for eviction of the Iranian regime and its agents from Iraq and removal of restrictions imposed on the members of the People’s Mojahedin Organization of Iran (PMOI/MEK) residing in Ashraf City (home to the members of the PMOI in Iraq).

The following is the text of the declaration which was announced at the fourth annual session of the Solidarity Congress of the Iraqi People that was held in Ashraf and was attended by more than 1,000 representatives of 138 Iraqi parties as well as political and social associations:

To be certain, there is an attempt in Iran to create a new Persian empire. This is predicated on the nuclear ambition, meddling in Iraq, and calls for a pan-nationalist (a la 1950's) Islamic empire by the current Iranian regime.

Iraqis - and Shi'ites to boot - are rejecting this notion. The prospect of self-determination seems more powerful than subjugation. If this is not a reflection of the current success of MNF work in Iraq, I don't know what is.

Read the rest>>>

I think Obama will take Michigan and Wisconsin and McCain will take Iowa and New Mexico (but even if Obama takes all four, it still leaves him 6 votes short). So it comes down to Ohio.

Unless there is some huge upset away from the trend of the past 10 years or so, the up-for-grabs state is Ohio and this is more likely to be a Republican won state than Michigan.

There you have it - our early embrace of the electoral landscape. Enjoy.

It is a Kaffiya-licious day for all youwho “identify with the struggle” of the Shia Mujahaddin. Hizb’allah isnow in control of Western Beirut! Having wrested control from the evil, elected, pro-western government they are determined to solidify a cornerstone of a new Persian/Ottoman Empire.

Hezbollah militias took control of western Beirut onFriday, dealing a major blow to the U.S.-backed government in the worstsectarian violence since the end of Lebanon’s civil war in 1990.

Walid Jumblatt, a Druze leader and part of the pro-government coalition, described it as a “coup.”

Two pro-government TV stations shut down. Nadim Mounla, the head ofFuture TV, said Hezbollah was sending a “clear message” that it woulddestroy the stations.

Later, an engineer from Future TV said that, according to witnesses,the station’s building in predominantly Muslim West Beirut had been seton fire.

I am certain there are celebrations happening in Syria, Iran, and USCollege campuses at this historic return to chaos and antisemitism inwhat was once a gem of a city.

The Sudanese government has been providing air support for Janjaweed fighters for some time. This is an example of the Khartoum government taking action against civilians in Darfur without Janjaweed attack.

KHARTOUM, Sudan (AP) — The peacekeeping force in Darfur said Tuesday it was still trying to evacuate those wounded in airstrikes two days earlier that an aid group reported left 12 people dead, including six children.

The U.N. Humanitarian Coordinator for Sudan, Ameerah Haq, called for immediate access to the wounded.

“I am deeply perturbed by the reported bombings of a school, water installations and a market where civilians, especially women and children are present,” she said in a statement.

Gen. Martin Luther Agwai, commander of the joint African Union-UN peacekeeping mission, said the bombings were “unacceptable acts against civilians” and said recent Darfur violence reflected a “total lack of commitment” by the government and the rebel groups to the peace process.

U.S.-based Darfur Diaries said six children, ages 4 to 11, were killed in an airstrike Sunday on a school it funds in the village of Shegeg Karo in North Darfur. Six more people were killed when the village’s market area was bombed.

Residents reported that a Sudanese government aircraft hovered over the area for some time before repeatedly bombing it, the aid group said.

What we are being offered is a trifecta of stupid ideas, which have no chance of doing anything to improve health care, nor make it more available. I mentioned earlier in the year that John McCain’s health care plan was going to grow government, but more information is coming our that you should understand.

In the “Before taxes  deductions” column of my pay statement are “Health” and “Dental”. John McCain’s plan will change that. While John McCain wants to offer a $5,000 tax credit for health care, he also wants to move health care into the taxable income bracket. What does this do? Looking at this from a very shallow, strictly monetary standpoint of the average employee, it does nothing. If you have 2500-3000 dollars in cost for insurance today, plus about 2K in out of pocket expenses, you are close to break even.

However, companies now lose almost all of the incentive to offer subsidized health benefits - because they will also be taxed - which makes these benefits either vastly more costly to the average American or incents the companies to drop health care from their compensation packages altogether.  In a climate where businesses are already struggling with the cost of health care for employees, this is going to damage us economically - but more importantly, the morale of the average worker in America will be impacted severely.

The answer to the cost of health care is not creative finances and more government involvement. It is not taking from the average American worker to give to those who have less. The answer is to attack those things which make health care so expensive.  Health care is expensive for several reasons, but the largest reason is liability. Doctors are insured to ridiculous levels because of liability and the potential for punitive judgments against them. Doctors are more apt to order procedures which are not necessary to the case because of liability.

If the government wants to help Americans with health care costs and really wants to make health care more accessible, they should insert themselves in reforming medical tort policy.  Insurance rates would go down for doctors and Americans would be less prodded and prescribed. The cost of medical attention would decrease almost immediately.

Again, John McCain wants the government to provide relief to Americans by getting out of the process for a few months. Hillary's plan is to punish "Big Oil" by having the oild companies pay for the "tax holiday". This means that Hillary is not proposing a tax holiday at all, but is tying back into Nancy Pelosi's plan of cutting into oil company profits.

"We have a choice," Clinton told a crowd in Hendersonville, N.C., ahead of Tuesday's primary. "We can choose to have you continue to pay the federal gas tax this summer or we can choose to try to make the oil companies pay it out of their record profits."

She proposed an "excess profit tax" on oil companies, although she did not name which companies should be taxed.

"(Oil companies) have record profits that they frankly are just sitting there counting because they are not doing anything new to earn it; they are just taking advantage of what's going on," Clinton said. "We ought to say, 'Wait a minute, we'd rather have the oil companies pay the gas tax than the drivers of North Carolina, especially truck drivers, or the farmers, or other people who have to commute long distances.'"

What this all boils down to is actually very simple. Hillary calls her plan a tax holiday, but the plan is actually a mirror of Barak Obama's plan - while sounding like she agrees with John McCain. We called William Jefferson Clinton, "Slick Willy". We need to call Hillary Rodham Clinton, "Slick Hilly".

Now, the insidious part of this whole thing is what Hillary and Nancy know that you might not have thought of yet. People "poo poo" the idea that the liberals in our country are little more than communists. Meaning they want a strong, authoritarian government that supplies most of the people's needs and they want to redistribute wealth from everyone except the political elite. Here is another example.

When Pelosi, Obama, and Clinton talk about punishing "Big Oil", they are talking about punishing the millions of people who have a mutual fund, a retirement fund, or a 401k.

78% of Conoco Phillips is owned by investment and mutual fund holders.

53% of Exxon Mobile is owned by investment and mutual fund holders.

Less than one percent in each of these companies is owned by insiders.

So, who pays for Hillary's gas tax holiday? You do.

Some holiday - but that is Slick Hilly for you. She will give you an apple for free, if you will pay her for the priviledge of taking it from her. What a sham.