One can hardly contain one's astonishment. In fact, my own "shocked" expression might remain forever frozen.

Ready for this? The establishment media colludes with Democrats, and the federal government swindles Americans. Who knew?

Thursday on social media platform X, with the prospect of a government shutdown looming, independent investigative journalist and former CBS reporter Sharyl Attkisson shared what she called a "quick story about govt. shutdowns and the theatrics behind them."

Attkisson recalled that around 2013, she and CBS News colleagues searched in vain for a government shutdown's "real life impact."

"When we couldn't find any, *that* should have been part of the story. Instead, we kept trying to create the appearance of an impact," she wrote.

Attkisson then attributed their behavior to journalists' tendency to fit facts to a predetermined narrative.

Of course, they had plenty of help from Democrats, including then-President Barack Obama's administration.

"Anyway, the Ds were blaming Rs for the shutdown, so we were calling Ds and the Obama administration for ideas to report what was the real impact. Taking our cue, these officials fabricated impact that we could report," she wrote.

The fabrication came in the form of cordoning off public monuments in Washington, D.C.

"We knew and even discussed in the newsroom that this made no sense. These monuments weren't 'manned' to begin with," she wrote.

Attkisson characterized this incident as simply the most memorable among multiple acts of shutdown-related theater and deceit.

"There are other examples but this is the one I remember the most," she concluded.

The 63-year-old Attkisson, author of "Slanted: How the News Media Taught Us to Love Censorship and Hate Journalism" (2020), has made amends for that behavior, though she certainly qualified as old enough to know better at the time.

The real story, however, involves two facts that remain relevant to this day.
First, the establishment media will stoop to any degree of dishonesty, provided it helps Democrats.

CBS's own "60 Minutes," for instance, got caught doctoring an interview with Vice President Kamala Harris in October during her failed presidential campaign.

Second, Democrats and their allies in the Republican establishment desperately want Americans to regard the federal government as essential. After all, the federal government functions as the mechanism by which the establishment plunders American citizens.

According to U.S. News & World Report, suburbs of Washington, D.C. accounted for five of the 10 wealthiest counties in America by median household income in 2023. Only a massive transfer of wealth to the nation's capital can produce a statistic like that.

Thus, government shutdowns temporarily save Americans from their own government.

Of course, Democrats' allies in the establishment media would go to any length to convince us otherwise.

I remain too "shocked" for words.

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Convince me he’s not an All Big player. Because you’re wrong. Most complete player in the Fran era.

(CNN) – Black Friday kicks off one of the biggest shopping weekends of the year, but it may be a bumpy ride for Amazon, which is facing a global strike.

Amazon workers on six continents are planning strikes and protests from Friday through Cyber Monday.

The strike involves workers in more than 20 countries, including the United States, Germany, India and Japan.

Employees and supporters want Amazon to improve fair pay, working conditions and climate accountability.

This is the fifth year of the “Make Amazon Pay” campaign.

I listened to the Cubs win over the Marlins last night, and Pete Crow-Armstrong his an inside the park home run, circling the bases in 14+ seconds. Pat Hughes asked his producer who had done it the fastest, and was a little shocked they only had records going back to 2015, and Byron Buxton has the two fastest times in. circling the bases since then.
It got me wondering, why can't they review video footage and get a solid time down for some older players, and who would you just guess was the fastest? Ron Coomer on the broadcast crew went with Willie Wilson. What about Deion Sanders? I'd also throw out Omar Moreno. Ichiro? It isn't just about the raw speed, it's about efficiency in rounding the bases, too.
Throw out some names, HBOT.

We didn’t improve sports by giving irrational, hostile, obsessive people access to the Internet with a constant stream of consciousness….😂

It is great to be an Iowa Wrestling fan.

Go Hawks!

Please note that "Baby it's Cold Outside" is ineligible in this thread because the backlash against that song is woke nonsense and it's actually a really great duet song.

The WORST Christmas song of all time is this:

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Prove me wrong.

University of Northern Iowa President Mark Nook and Director of Athletics Megan Franklin announced on Tuesday that Todd Stepsis has accepted the UNI Football head coaching position. Stepsis joins the Panthers after a six-year stint as the head coach at Drake University. He has also served as Drake's offensive coordinator for the past three seasons.

The Shelby, Ohio native guided the Bulldogs to consecutive appearances in the FCS Playoffs after winning back-to-back Pioneer Football League championships. Drake compiled a 16-7 record over that two-year span in 2023-24, including a 15-1 mark in conference play. Stepsis earned Pioneer Football League Coach of the Year honors for a second consecutive year in 2024.

Franklin confirmed that Stepsis has agreed to terms of a five-year contract. He will be formally introduced to the UNI community at a press conference in the near future. Details on that event at the McLeod Center will be shared when finalized. Coach Stepsis' introductory press conference will be streamed live via the UNI Athletics YouTube channel.

Bison win 28-21. Miller 13/19, 180 yards and 3 TDs. For years I sat next to his grandparents in R section at all the Iowa games for years. Awesome. " I hate the Jackrabbits " - Miller after the game...

BREAKING:

Iowa lands the commitment of Nathan McNeil. Y'all knew it was coming. Premium story coming shortly.

STORY:

NDSU SDSU fcs semi game
tied at 7-7 in first quarter
former iowa oc and current ndsu hc tim polasek showing off what he learned under brian. good game, better than iu-nd from last night

That’s quite an entrance

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Just got some intel that Iowa is expecting to host a wide receiver soon.

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He coached Julio Jones at Bama under Saban as a WR coach....is this why he is able to get so many good players from JMU to now go to freaking Indiana?

How come iowa cannot get any players even though Ferentz is supposedly so respected and makes NFL players, yada yada YAWN!!

Get out ferentz. no one likes you anymore

I gots me 1 Abe Lincoln!

How ‘bout you?

A couple of nights my wife and I were out to dinner with another couple. I ordered an Old Fashioned using Bulleit bourbon. The other husband ordered a Scotch Old Fashioned.

Now I have had rye whiskey or bourbon in an Old Fashioned but never scotch. I guess I am not “worldly” enough to know about that particular drink. I did order one after I finished my Bulleit and it was decent.
This couple was from New Jersey. Is this more common out east?

You guys ever had a Scotch Old Fashioned?

About to hit the road with the GF and head to Ida Grove for family Christmas with my dad's side of the family. About four hours on the road ahead.

A good amount of stuff to unpack from the presser today, so I'll see if/when I can get some more together tonight before the craziness ensues with the family. Videos are taking forever to upload, but if/when they get on YouTube, I'll drop them here. Got some good stuff from a few of the guys today.

I'll mostly be absent for Saturday and Sunday, but if a commitment or something happens, I'll be here and available.

Appreciate y'all. Enjoy the new edition of the CFP this weekend. Should be fun.

Technically, it was at 4:21 a.m. eastern time.

Missed it by that much.

Looking forward to the days getting longer again.

Just an absolute display of weakness. A real man and leader keeps his emotions in check when facing adversity.

Question for those HROT'ers out there who are well-versed in long-term investment and the different forms of IRA's:

What type of retirement investment account would you recommend to someone who already has a decent 401k built up and is considering opening a supplementary retirement account? In this case the target would be to invest around 5-7k per year for the next 30 years in hopes of building a solid foundation for a meager but comfortable retirement. Appreciate any and all input!

Goes pretty hard.
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• Congress avoided a government shutdown after passing a spending bill that was revised from an original version, which Elon Musk and President-elect Donald Trump sank.

After a wild week of last-minute revisions and negotiations, Congress passed a shorter spending bill in the middle of the night early Saturday, averting a government shutdown.

The result was legislation that ran just over 100 pages. In addition to funding the government at current levels until mid-March, it provides $110 billion in aid for natural disaster survivors and farmers, while granting an extension to the farm bill.

By contrast, the original version of the spending bill that was negotiated by House Speaker Mike Johnson and congressional Democrats was more than 1,500 pages.

The change came after Elon Musk and President-elect Donald Trump blew up what had looked like a done deal, raising the odds of a government shutdown.

On Wednesday, Musk ripped the bipartisan spending package, calling it one of the worst bills ever written and demanding that it be killed. Trump joined in and threatened any Republican who voted for it, forcing Johnson to scrap the bill that he was defending earlier.

On Thursday, a shorter version backed by Trump failed to pass the House as a bloc of conservative Republicans rejected his demand to increase the debt limit, which wasn't in the earlier bill.

The bill that cleared Congress early Saturday ditched the debt-ceiling boost while also cutting other provisions. But despite slashing the page count, Brian Riedl, a senior fellow at the conservative-leaning Manhattan Institute think tank, told the Washington Post that the new funding deal won't translate to much savings for taxpayers.

That's part due to the fact that some of the language that was taken out wasn't directly related to the budget as must-pass bills often get unrelated "riders" attached to them. Here's what else came out of the spending package.

The original bill sought to reform pharmacy benefit managers, who are the middlemen between drug manufacturers and insurers, by requiring more transparency on prices while tightening pricing requirements in Medicaid and Medicare plans. PBMs have come under more scrutiny lately, and even Trump called them "rich as hell."

Lawmakers also denied themselves a pay hike as the initial spending package called for a 3.8% cost-of-living adjustment to their base salary of $174,000 a year. It would've been their first raise since 2009.

Other provisions that were dropped include a crackdown on "junk fees" charged by ticket sellers and hotels, criminalization of deepfake "revenge porn," further restrictions on U.S. investments in China, funding for pediatric cancer research, and reimbursements for recipients of foods stamps who had their benefits stolen.

While the spending bill also removed language to give the municipal government of Washington, D.C., greater control over RFK stadium, the Senate approved that in a separate vote via a stand-alone bill.

There was a lot of QB talk from Kirk Ferentz on Friday, including:

* Iowa's newest QB (Hank Brown)
* adding more players out of the transfer portal
* Brendan Sullivan's health
and more.