A Shameless Hillary Declares Victory in Florida

The Clinton's are without a doubt the lowest form of political animals. Once again they've demonstrated they will do anything to gain power. Despite a vow to not seek the votes of Florida, not only does Hillary seek their votes but promises to steal the delegates, whom have been told would not be counted. In the process, Hillary has plenty of press coverage for "winning the primary" in Florida. She gets free media coverage and diverts attention from the South Carolina fiasco and the Kennedy snub. Never mind that the candidates didn't campaign in Florida. Is that fair? The Clintons are not about fair. If it comes down to a brokered convention Florida delegates could be counted. The Clintons are committing a fraud for all to see and will probably get away with it:

The sanctions make Tuesday night's results largely meaningless to the Democratic presidential race. Obama described the primary as a "beauty contest" Tuesday, and his campaign issued a statement declaring the race a tie in the delegate count: "Zero for Obama, zero for Clinton."

But Clinton has pledged to fight to have the state's delegates seated at the August convention in Denver, and has increasingly stressed the state's importance since losing Saturday's hotly contested primary in South Carolina to Obama.

[...] Though Democrats agreed to leave the state off their itineraries in a show of solidarity with the national party, Clinton attended permitted fund-raisers in Florida on Sunday and planned to appear with supporters there after polls closed.

And turnout was high for the race even though no delegates were at stake. Nearly 400,000 people cast early or absentee ballots ahead of the primary, and Tuesday's vote was expected to top the nearly 800,000 who turned out in 2004.

Donna Brazile, who managed former Vice President Al Gore's presidential bid, said many Democrats were likely to turn out to vote on a state constitutional amendment that would limit property tax increases and expand homestead exemptions.

"People are very afraid this will cut public services, cut back education," said Brazile, a CNN analyst. "So the Florida Education Association and all of the unions are spending millions of dollars to get voters to turn out."

Study: Afghanistan Could Fail as a State

What we need is a surge for Afghanistan. Expect to hear this call from that half-wit occupying the White House. Or is he busy looking for war with Iran? Then again there isn't much oil in that country:

Afghanistan risks sliding into a failed state and becoming the "forgotten war" because of deteriorating international support and a growing violent insurgency, according to an independent study.

The assessment, co-chaired by retired Marine Corps Gen. James Jones and former U.N. Ambassador Thomas Pickering, serves as a warning to the Bush administration at a time military and congressional officials are debating how best to juggle stretched warfighting resources.

The administration wants to re-energize anti-terrorism efforts in Afghanistan and Pakistan, where al-Qaida is regenerating. But the U.S. still remains heavily invested in Iraq, and officials are sending strong signals that troop reductions there will slow or stop altogether this summer.

[...]Sen. John Kerry said it was "past time for wakeup calls" and that a "comprehensive, thoughtful approach" in Afghanistan was urgently needed.

"The same extremist group which plotted the attacks of 9/11 are reconstituting themselves on the Afghan border and grow more organized by the day, making the stakes higher and higher," said Kerry, D-Mass., a senior member of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee.

The Jones-Pickering assessment, slated for public release on Wednesday, says the U.S. should rethink its military and economic strategy in Afghanistan in large part because of deteriorating support among voters in NATO countries.

Bush, Neocons Taking Over Government in Afghanistan

Bush is trying to consolidate his conquests before he leaves office. The latest includes installing a American citizen as the next President of Afghanistan:

Senior Foreign Office officials believe the Afghan-born US ambassador to the UN, Zalmay Khalilzad, is planning to stand for the presidency of Afghanistan and played a complex role in advising the current president, Hamid Karzai, to block the appointment of Lord Ashdown as the UN envoy to the country.

Ashdown, the former Liberal Democrat leader who became the international community's high representative in Bosnia, withdrew his application for the role on Sunday in the face of Afghan objections, leaving western policy in chaos.

America and Britain had been lining Ashdown up for a senior role since October, and believed they had the support of the UN secretary general, Ban Ki-Moon, and Karzai.

High-level British sources believe that Karzai changed his position as he faced mounting objections from Pashto-speaking warlords and after advice given to him by Khalilzad, a former US ambassador to both Iraq and Afghanistan. Khalilzad is himself a Pashtun. British sources suggested that contrary to the official US position, Khalilzad had been warning Karzai that Ashdown was an interventionist figure and would weaken his authority still further.