We’ll get to politics and punditry and Trump’s racism and all of that in a moment but...well, let’s begin this Super Bowl Sunday by commenting that this is what the second greatest rivalry in college sports should look like…
First lead by UNC in the game. And the Heels held on for the .04 seconds.
But I wanted my team to be the one to hand Dook loss #2.
I want to start the major sports story by saying this: I don’t mean to take ANYTHING away from American figure skater Ilia Malinin. I mean, Malinin has been doing these quad axels in competition for years. How in the hell does anyone hang up in the air long enough to do THAT?
So...Malinin performed the first legal backflip in Olympic competition in 50 years.
Nice. And Malinin can do them and land on one blade, although he has not done that in these Olympics.
You know where I am going with this.
France’s Surya Bonaly is the empress of the backflip.
One blade.
Thing is, if Bonaly had not fell earlier in that program, she might not have attempted this backflip.
This is Black History Month, after all, just so we understand.
Now...on to politics and punditry…since today is Super Bowl Sunday, a little bit of a breather for today.
Although, do I really need any pundit to do punditing about the tacky shoe salesman’s depiction of former President Barack Obama and First Lady Michelle Obama as apes on a Truth Social post that stayed posted for 12 hours?
I don’t.
Trump is the exact same petulant child who is forever doing mischief (think Dennis the Menace or Bebe’s Kids) but as most of the behavior stays out of the public eye, parents dismiss it. Or deal with it.
Then when the behavior gets into the public eye...the parents act as if they are outraged. Mortified.
Spare me.
Donald John Trump has been a known quantity (especially his anti-Black racism) for a very long time.
Parents tend to be less angry about the child’s street behavior in such moments (which the child is known to be capable of) than the fact that the child is out in the streets embarrassing them.
x
Republicans are waking up to the con that Donald Trump is.
Listen to this Trump voter who called into C-SPAN to apologize to the American people for voting for Trump.
He tears Trump apart for his racist meme about the Obama’s, as well as his inhumane ICE raids and his corruption. Is it too late?
— (@alexjungle.bsky.social) 2026-02-06T18:14:23.371Z
Oh, I think that Republicans are quite (ahem!) woke on these matters.
There are political and constitutional ways to discipline this particular unruly child. Use them.
Cate Brown of The Guardian writes up an exclusive about how Directorof National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard treated highly classified information collected by NSA.
Last spring, the National Security Agency (NSA) flagged an unusual phone call between two members of foreign intelligence, who discussed a person close to Donald Trump, according to a whistleblower’s attorney who was briefed on details of the call. [...]
But rather than allowing NSA officials to distribute the information further, Gabbard took a paper copy of the intelligence directly to the president’s chief of staff, Susie Wiles, according to the whistleblower’s attorney, Andrew Bakaj.
One day after meeting Wiles, Gabbard told the NSA not to publish the intelligence report. Instead, she instructed NSA officials to transmit the highly classified details directly to her office, Bakaj said.
Details of this exchange between Gabbard and the NSA were shared directly with the Guardian and have not been previously reported. Nor has Wiles’s receipt of the intelligence report.
Tim Swarens of USA Today writes that Americans are increasingly going into debt because of sports gambling.
Americans legally wager almost $150 billion a year on sports, including the NFL’s biggest game. Before and even during the game between the New England Patriots and the Seattle Seahawks, NFL fans are expected to bet $1.7 billion on everything from who will win the opening coin flip to how many passes quarterbacks Sam Darnold, of the Seahawks, and Drake Maye, from the Patriots, will complete.
Taxes on those bets – New York assesses a 51% levy on sports gaming revenue – add billions to state budgets. But it comes at a high cost to the public. [...]
In 2025, researchers from UCLA found a “substantial increase” in bankruptcies, loan delinquencies and debt sent to collection agencies in states that have legalized sports betting.
...all of this temptation to lay your money down has come at a price. A U.S. News survey published in July found that a quarter of Americans who bet on sports say they have been unable to pay a bill because of gambling on games, and 30% say they are carrying debt linked to their bets.
Finally today, Paola Nagovitch of El País in English gives us hints about what Grammy Award winning artist Bad Bunny halftimeshow will look and sound like.
It will be 13 minutes watched live by more than 300 million people around the world. Little is known about what Martínez Ocasio has planned for what is expected to be the first Super Bowl halftime show performed entirely in Spanish — a language that, under Trump, has become an excuse to harass and detain hundreds of thousands of migrants, regardless of whether they were in the country legally or had spent decades building a life and contributing to the national economy.
What little Bad Bunny — known for keeping his plans under tight wraps and always capable of surprising with his originality — has revealed is that it will be a “huge party,” and he just wants people “to have fun.” “I know I told them that they had four months to learn Spanish, but they don’t even have to learn Spanish; it’s better if they learn to dance,” he said on Thursday at a press conference where he offered few details. When asked whether he would have guests, as he himself was in 2020 during the show headlined by Shakira and Jennifer Lopez, he replied: “A lot... All the Latino community around the world that supports me and the whole country.”
I wonder how many people remember that Bad Bunny has already performed at the Super Bowl? I don’t even follow BB that closely and I remembered that.
Everyone have the best possible day that you can!
