Take a break from reading doomed congressional budget bills and take our Week to Week news quiz.
Here are some random but real hints: 41st time's the charm; no-blame game; maybe he'll become Harvard's president again, instead; and that'd become da museum. Answers are at the bottom of the quiz.
1. The House of Representatives passed a bill that would prevent a government shutdown in return for what?
a. The defunding of Obamacare
b. The impeachment of President Barack Obama
c. The passage of a flat tax
d. The appointment of an independent prosecutor to examine Banghazi
2. Who told NBC News that "We have never sought or pursued a nuclear bomb and we are not going to do so"?
a. North Korean dictator Kim Jong-Un
b. Texas Senator Ted Cruz
c. Iranian President Hassan Rouhani
d. Syrian President Bashir al-Assad
3. Where were 19 people shot in one day (Thursday)?
a. Outside the Bagram Airfield in Afghanistan
b. Damascus, Syria
c. Chicago
d. The town of Kerdasa, near Cairo, Egypt
4. According to a bill passed by the French senate, what crime would earn someone two years in prison and a 30,000 euro fine?
a. Doing business with the Syrian government
b. Entering a child under 16 in a beauty pageant
c. Insulting the French Republic or its elected leaders
d. The manufacture, sale, or use of weapons of mass destruction
5. The UN released its report on Syria's chemical weapons. Which of the following did it find to be the case?
a. Syrian President Assad could "not in a million years" have used chemical weapons
b. The massacre in Ghouta "unequivocally and objectively" involved chemical weapons
c. There was "clear and convincing evidence" that anti-government rebels used the chemical weapons
d. Syrian President Assad "unequivocally and definitely" ordered the chemical weapons attack
6. Who took their own name out of the running to be chair of the Federal Reserve this week?
a. Timothy Geithner
b. Janet Yellen
c. Charles Schwab
d. Larry Summers
7. The Miss America pageant made history -- and spawned countless racist tweets -- when what happened last weekend?
a. For the first time, the racial demographics of contestants matched the racial makeup of the country
b. The pageant's TV host was Kanye West
c. An American of Indian descent won the pageant
d. The crowning of the winner took place at the White House
8. What do NSA leaker Edward Snowden and Navy Yard shooter Aaron Alexis have in common?
a. They both received legal assistance from Wikileaks
b. They both participated in the same secret online chat room for government officials
c. Neither of them ever voted in a U.S. election
d. Their government background checks were both done by the same private company, USIS
9. What was former President Bill Clinton's response to the controversy over who gets credit for creating the resolution to the Syrian chemical weapons problem?
a. "Hillary was very active behind the scenes and doesn't get enough credit for it"
b. "John McCain and Barack Obama were a great tag-team on this one, weren't they?"
c. "Who cares?"
d. "I always said Vladimir Putin was a man we could do business with"
10. The House of Representatives passed a resolution that would do what?
a. Reduce the food stamp budget by $4 billion a year
b. Eliminate the food stamp budget
c. Fully fund the food stamp budget in return for an investigation into Benghazi
d. Require food stamp recipients to be stamped with a scarlet "FS"
BONUS. What has filmmaker George Lucas threatened to do with his museum of digital and populist art if San Francisco doesn't approve its design and development?
a. Blow it up
b. Move it to Chicago
c. Rename it the Willie Brown Museum of Digital and Populist Art
d. Purchase Crissy Field from the city and build it anyway
The news and the quizzes don't stop there! Join us Monday, October 14 in San Francisco for our next live Week to Week political roundtable with a news quiz and a social hour at The Commonwealth Club.
ANSWERS: 1) a. 2) c. 3) c. 4) b. 5) b. 6) d. 7) c. 8) d. 9) c. 10) a. BONUS) b.
EXPLANATIONS OF THE HINTS: 41st time's the charm: the GOP-led House had already voted 40 times to repeal Obama's health-care law; no-blame game: the UN said chemical weapons were definitely used, but it did not say who did it; maybe he'll become Harvard's president again, instead: Summers was president of Harvard from 2001 to 2006; and that'd become da museum: Lucas threatened to move the museum to Chicago, land of da Bears and da Mayor.