The Day Before The Superbowl

Today's trivia quiz: What do these people have in common?

Moon Unit Zappa

Dick Van Dyke

Danny DeVito

Tony Bennett

Art Garfunkel (and not Paul Simon)

Chaka Khan

Jack Nicholson

Madonna

The Unitarian Universalist Church



**Maybe the second question in why. All those named are on the NRA's "enemies" list. Does this mean Paul Simon carries an AR-15? Dick Van Dyke as America's leading subversive? Even Richard Nixon could not come up with that one. How about Mary Tyler Moore?

**Correction: Beyonce admitted she did lip-sync the National Anthem at President Obama's inauguration. She sang it at the Superbowl rehearsal just to show everyone she could.

**Punxsutawney Phil came out of his hole at Gobbler's Knob, Pennsylvania, today to tell us Spring will come early. How does climate change affect a Groundhog? How can we rely on him anymore?

**Geraldo Rivera wants to run for Senate in New Jersey as a Republican because he likes the GOP of Jacob Javits.  Interesting idea.

**Right-wing talking heads question whether President Obama has ever shot a gun. President Obama said that he skeet shoots at Camp David. John Stewart mocked the idea, challenging the President to show a photo of a black man shooting. Today, skeet-gate was put to rest as the White House released a photo of President Obama shooting a rifle.

++By the count of his fans, Chuck Hagel muffed his hearing--all 8 hours of it. Supporters wanted him to be crisp and authoritative and humorous. The White House still expects he will be confirmed and the GOP will not filibuster his appointment. So far he has not lost a Democratic vote but he has managed only one GOP supporter--Thad Cochran of Mississippi. Frankly,I did find his testimony weak.

++Steve Erickson, the novelist and sic-fi writer, has a long article on John McCain's bitter farewell, where he reams John out for his increased crankiness.

++Filibuster Reform sure has turned out great. The GOP threatens to filibuster Richard Cordray as head of the Consumer Protection Agency,which he now heads. Actually the CPA has done some good stuff--check out their website.

++Steven Chu has resigned as Secretary of Energy. One of my favorite cabinet members. He leaves with a blast a climate change deniers, a record of doubling renewal energy,and designing the cap for the BP oil spill. He wrote movingly of the human cost of weather disasters and concluded with an Indian saying that we are only borrowing the earth from our future generations. 

++Paul Krugman continues to wack away at the deficit hawks in the Beltway. America teeters on the edge of a recession again--but one created by Congress. With job creation numbers adequate,the Dow back at 2007 highs, manufacturing on the increase and housing back,all this might go whoosh with ham-fisted sequestration. Virginia government contractors are now circling their wagons as the state will face hundreds of thousands of job losses. 

++Meanwhile Jerry Brown's California has been responsible for the lion's share of jobs created and companies relocated from other states. It flies in the face of GOP governors pandering to business interests and right-to-work laws. Walker's Wisconsin continues to lose jobs, despite his claims. He even ordered a new way to calculate unemployment so he would look better. 

++The GOP is facing pushback from their base on immigration reform. Marco Rubio, once the darling of the Tea Party, is now seen as naive about immigration. Lindsey Graham seems to be getting skittish because he fears a primary challenge. Meanwhile, President Obama has set a dubious record as being the President who deported the most undocumented immigrants.