More Proof That The Fat Lady Has Sung For Britney

As if any more proof that the life of Britney Spears is not in a final meltdown, her new single, GIMME MORE barely moved on the pop charts from #56 to #54 this week, proving that airplay is declining and that Spears is no longer even a top 40 music act any longer. This is vitual proof that her musical career is over.

With all of her personal problems including her losing child custody, the fact that her music comeback appears to be crashing is a huge new bad omen for the once popular singer. She no longer makes headlines for her music, but for all the "trainwreck" problems in her life. Today the main subject on DR. PHIL is the crash of Britney Spears for example. Dr. Phil's message to Spears, "Get help" before it's too late and things get even worse.

With all of the serious news that could be reported, the tragic decline of Britney Spears somehow continues to fascinate the public.
(Photo is under Creative Commons ShareAlike license by copyright holder, BUDSMR, who has licensed this photo for use by any news source provided that the copyright owner is given this legal attribution).

Dueling Washington Clowns

At first the Republican clowns in Congress hoped to change the discussion about Iraq by bringing up the phony MoveOn.org crusade involving the General Patraeus ad. It wasted a good week back in Washington. Now clown Democrats are making a similiar absurd cause against overweight drug addict, Rush Limbaugh, and his "phony soldiers" comment to describe U.S. soldiers critical of the Iraq War.

Unfortunately both wacko crusades only divert time from serious matters in Washington, where many Americans still go without health care, more jobs are lost to low wage nations, many lose their homes to foreclosure and fuel prices and home heating oil break new price records.

Two wrong still do not make a right. And the continued phony crusades for purely political reasons only serve to undermine the credibility of Congress and turn off voters. This is not the government that the public expects.

Putin Nearly Certain To Hang On To Power

Russian President Vladimir Putin now states that he will head the slate of United Russia parliamentary candidates by his party in the December elections. This will almost certainly keep Putin as in power as the Prime Minister of Russia, and his hand picked successor for president will also continue his grip on power.

Who couldn't have seen this coming all the way up Broadway?

Dallas Oil Company With White House Ties Complicates Peace In Iraq With Oil Deal

Dallas oilman Ray L. Hunt, who is closely related to figures in the Bush White House, has made a huge new oil deal with the Kurds in Northern Iraq, complicating any efforts by the Iraqi government to establish a oil revenue sharing plan. It is also another sign that this Iraq War was always about oil, and further evidence of the Bush White House opening up Iraq with the war and loss of life to allow friends of the Bush White House to profit from the Iraq War.

It was also recently disclosed that Saddam Hussein offered to leave Iraq and go into exile if he was paid $1 billion dollars which could have prevented the 2003 war. If such a plan was actually open to discussion, then the huge loss of life could have been potentially avoided, but huge defense contractors would not have profitted from the war by selling arms.

On Friday, defense contractor stocks were up sharply on Wall Street as news of a Bush White House additional $200 billion dollars for the Iraq War were requested.

The big boys get the profits from war. The little people get the bodybags it seems.

Paul Newman Supporting New Effort To Electing A Democratic Senate

Former liberal Republican actor, Paul Newman, is sending out a new appeal letter this weekend via Email to Democratic Party supporters to help elect a majority Democratic Senate. The new appeal is on behalf of the Democratic Senatoral Campaign Committee.

Newman notes that Richard Nixon added him on to his "enemies list" because of his then support for Sen. Eugene McCarthy. Newman goes on to assert that, "I was proud to stand against an imperial president back then. And I am proud to stand with a new generation of Democrats against a president who poses what I believe to be the biggest internal threat to American democracy in my lifetime".

Newman notes that the tiny Democratic margin of just 51-49 votes is highly subject to both Republican vetoes and filibusters to prevent the Democrats from moving ahead with their policies.

When former liberal Republicans like Paul Newman no longer find themselves at home in the Republican Party, it is a sign that the party has drifted too far to the right to be inclusive like it once was. Even the support for an absurd and unqualified candidate like Fred Thompson is another sign that the party is heavily controlled by the political right only concerned with ideology and not more moderate or decent leadership.

John McCain Declines Down To Single Digit Support Level

A new daily tracking poll from the reputable Rasmussen Reports organization has the support of John McCain dclining down to single digits of just 9% support. This is not only a weak 4th place finish in this poll, but is also only two scant points better than Mike Huckabee, the leader among the second tier candidates. If anything this terrible showing in the poll should only help to depress any new financial support for the McCain campaign and signal that the McCain campaign is on life support.

McCain will likely drop out right after the first primaries, now just 13 weeks away, when he badly loses the primaries forever ending his dream of becominmg president. McCain could have become the nation's oldest president if he had been successful.

The unraveling of John McCain came in stages among many Republican voters. He was once wrongly viewed as a liberal because of his maverick positions, then lost his reputation for "straight talk" after becoming a defender of the Bush White House, and finally destroyed himself by his overhawkish views on the Iraq War, wanting even more troops for the war than the White House. Now there is no return for the steady damage to his reputation as a viable Republican candidate. His dream is effectively over.

Senate Votes For Plan For Eventual Breakup Of Iraq

Yesterday a bill from normally controversial Senator Sam Brownback passed on a vote of 75-23 that will likely lead to the eventual breakup of Iraq. The plan calls for a loosely confederated central government with three semi-autonomous states that are Kurdish, Sunni and Shiite. While this certainly seems like a step forward to resolving the difficult sectarian frictions in Iraq, sharing the oil revenues could remain a major problem as in the main Shiite state, almost all of the oil assets of Iraq remain.

In 1922, after the defeat of the Turkish Ottoman Empire, Winston Churchill called in British troops to occupy the land now know as Iraq when Britain discovered that large oil reserves existed in Iraq and three ethnic groups with nothing in common, Kurds, Shiites and Sunnis were grouped together. Britain sided with the Sunni minority at the time, but despite the destruction of entire villages by the British with bombings or mustard gas attacks, the violence continued until the 1958 rebellion in Iraq which forced the British out. The 1950's winessed the growth of the Baathist movement and Arab Socialism in Egypt, Syria and Iraq. Egyptian strongman Gamal Nasser was able to lose the Suez Canal dispute in 1956 to combined British, French and Israeli forces, yet was able to advance the Arab Socialist movement and strengthen Baathist parties all throughout the MidEast.

The history of the conflict between the Sunni and Shiite sects of Islam started soon after the death of Muhammad in 632AD. Rival groups of followers joined two different visions of Islam, with the father-in-law of Muhammad largely involved in the formation of the Shiite sect and only followers of Muhammad involved in the formation of the Sunni sect. Shiites tend to view the Sunni sect as not legitimate as it does not involve the formation by relatives of Muhammad and makes reconciliation by the two sects difficult.

Given the complexities of the sectarian riff between the Sunni and Shiite sects, it is only likely that Iraq will face a breakup only too similiar to that of Yugoslavia into several states.