Punxsutawney Phil's Prediction Is...; Does Anyone Really Care Who Trump Endorses?; Independents Will Decide This Election; Did Romney Really Say That About The Poor?; Egypt Soccer Riot; Green News Update

A 100 year old woman revealed her secret to staying sharp was playing her Nintendo.  Sadly, no one has the heart to tell her that's the garage door opener.---Conan

• BREAKING WORLD NEWS: Punxsutawney Phil  (hey, if I didn't spell Phil's first name correctly, big deal. He's a groundhog for God's sake) predicted we'll have six more weeks of winter. Where?  On the East Coast winter hasn't even started. Did anyone tell Phil? By the way, do groundhogs taste good? Just askin'.

• Last night, most news reports had Trump endorsing Gingrich. This morning they are reporting he's endorsing Romney. Do you really give a rat's ass who Trump endorses? Have you noticed a trend with Trump? He always finds a clever way to promote his name, his brand. When he's out of the limelight for more than a month, he says or does something that always grabs the attention of the media (including me I guess). From that standpoint, he's a genius.
• Yesterday I referred to the impact Independents will have on this up-coming election. USA Today reports this morning that a record 40% of Americas now identify themselves as Independents. This is a bigger voting block than Democrats or Republicans. It's up from 35% in 2008. In fact, in 2008, as I wrote, Obama took the Independent by 52% to McCain's 44%.  But, as of today, Obama has lost the majority of Independents. Only 37% of them approve of his job performance. Doug Schoen, former Clinton pollster, agreed with my assessment when he said, "Independents decide elections..." Polls also show that Independents don't want no-nonsense messaging. They want an optimistic story going forward.
• There's been some criticism of Romney for what he allegedly said about the poor yesterday. The media is having a field day as are the Democrats and some of his Republican opponents. But let's take a look at his comments in context. In many publications, all you're seeing is this statement "...I'm not concerned about the very poor." It's true. He said it. But he said also said this in the very same sentence: "I'm in the race because I care about Americans. I'm not concerned about the very poor, we have a safety net there. If it needs repair, I'll fix it. I'm concerned about the very heart of America, the 90-95% of Americans that are struggling." Of course, Romney was referring to the safety net that includes food stamps, Medicaid, housing subsidies and more. Having said that, the Democrats will have a field day with this one statement should Obama face Romney.

• Moreover, the while the media is targeting Romney for what he said, they rarely take Obama on for what he's done. Namely, we have some of the highest rates of poverty now in history. We have historic highs of Americans on food stamps in addition to the high unemployment.(AP just published some unemployment numbers. El Centro, CA, is the highest in the nation at 26.8% with Yuma, Ariz., following at 23.1%. Iowa City, Iowa, came in at 4.3%.)
• "Recession is Over News" American Airlines reported they will be cutting 13,000 jobs.
• But there is some good news on the employment front. NBC News in NYC is reporting that the City will hire 100 more workers to help human services with all of the people applying for food stamps.
• To be fair and balanced, first time unemployment claims did fall this past week (by the way, the bounce upward last week was revised UPWARD. Almost every week the numbers are revised up but it's rarely reported).
• Hey, how's that Arab Spring working for you Egypt after 70 are killed at one of your soccer matches?
• Breaking News On The Green Front: A whopping 603 Chevy Volts were sold in January. Let's see. If I divide 603 by 50 states (or 57 if use Pres. Obama's calculation of the number of state in the United States), I come up with each state selling how many...?