If you had a 1/4 million bucks, where would you invest it? Given that the country is run by a deranged nut and the markets are all over the place. Thank you!

When will Nancy Pelosi, Chuck Schumer, and the DC Mayor be dragged in front of Congress to answer for their J6 crimes?

Why did they refuse President Trump’s request for more security?

The American people deserve to know.

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The University of Iowa is prioritizing arena and medical parking as well as child care in its latest proposals for the Iowa Board of Regents.

The plans include a $96 million five-level parking ramp next to Carver-Hawkeye Arena that will replace the existing parking lot as well as a new, standalone childcare facility to support UI Health Care and Carver College of Medicine staff. The school is also planning updates to one of the oldest residence halls on campus. Each project will go in front of the Iowa Board of Regents at its next meeting on Thursday, Feb. 27.

One hostage's story:

For many freed captives, catching up has been excruciating.

Eli Sharabi, 52, had no exposure to media during his 16-month ordeal, according to his brother, Sharon Sharabi.

Forced to speak at a staged Hamas ceremony before his release, a gaunt Sharabi told a crowd of masked militants and journalists that he was looking forward to seeing his wife and two teenage daughters back in Israel.

Then he learned the crushing reality shortly after his arrival in Israel: all three had been killed at home during the Oct. 7 attack.

“Beyond the emotional burden and difficult experiences he faced in captivity, he had to bear this horrible loss on the first day that he left from there,” his brother told Israeli Army Radio.

The Full, FREE Story:

Many of President Donald Trump’s appointees have been self-evidently bad — unqualified, ethically-conflicted cranks. A few, though, were supposed to be competent. Responsible, even. Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent, a respected hedge fund manager, was considered a relatively traditional pick, allowing him to clear his confirmation vote with the help of 16 Democrats. Secretary of State Marco Rubio similarly sailed into his Cabinet post with unanimous support from his former Senate colleagues.


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Yet, two weeks in, they have both turned out to be spineless cowards.
Both are complicit in the ongoing dismantling of the federal government and shredding of the Constitution. They have potentially compromised classified data, threatened Congress’s power of the purse, and handed over the nation’s checkbook to an unelected oligarch.


For months, Elon Musk, who is neither an elected official nor even reportedly a paid government employee, had been demanding access to Treasury’s sensitive payments system. This is the system that issues Social Security checks and Medicare payments and makes good on all the bills our government legally owes to contractors (including, incidentally, some of Musk’s rivals). It is largely automated, with only a few career officials having access to it.
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That’s for good reason: Maintaining undisrupted continuity of Treasury cash flows and debt payments is critical for operational reasons, as well as constitutional ones. (The Constitution forbids defaulting on federal debt obligations.) The payment system also contains private and classified data, which makes it a cybersecurity target.
The operatives in Musk’s “Department of Government Efficiency” demanded control anyway. The most senior career civil servant at Treasury, then-acting secretary David A. Lebryk, refused. The White House ordered Lebryk placed on administrative leave — on Bessent’s recommendation. Instead, Lebryk resigned after serving 11 treasury secretaries in Republican and Democratic administrations, without issue, since 1989.


Then, on Friday evening, the newly minted treasury secretary granted Musk’s deputies access to the federal financial plumbing. Musk has suggested he plans to unilaterally block payments to recipients he dislikes, such as for faith-based organizations helping refugees. It is unclear whether has done so yet, or if he can; the White House told the New York Times that for now DOGE has been granted just “read only access” to these confidential payments.
Where are all those “constitutional conservatives” in Congress — the ones who appropriated funds for these commitments, and whom the Constitution says control power of the purse? What happened to the Treasury pick whom markets supposedly could trust?
In fact, on Monday, Bessent also seized control of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau at Trump’s behest. Congress created this independent agency after the 2008 financial crisis, meaning it is required to exist by statute. Bessent suspended virtually all of the agency’s work.


This pattern of events might sound familiar to anyone following the collapse of U.S. diplomatic relations and soft power under Rubio’s watch.
When he was a senator, Rubio repeatedly praised the U.S. Agency for International Development, an independent agency that receives foreign policy guidance from the secretary of state. Rubio lauded USAID’s global work fighting infectious diseases, aiding hurricane victims and providing humanitarian assistance to victims of brutal communist regimes. He publicly urged his colleagues to “recommit to supporting critical programs” through USAID.
Yet when Musk went nuclear on the agency, the just-sworn-in secretary remained silent.

This past weekend, USAID’s website went offline. The blackout initially appeared to be part of Trump’s broader purge of government data — but then Musk vowed to shutter the agency entirely, apparently with Trump’s blessing. One of Musk’s underlings told the 10,000 or so USAID staff that the building would be closed on Monday.



https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2025/01/29/rfk-trump-covid-conspiracy-narrative/

Meanwhile, representatives of the Department of Governmental Efficiency pushed their way into the agency and demanded access to personnel files and security data, “including classified systems beyond the security level of at least some of the DOGE employees,” NBC News reported. John Voorhees, the agency’s director of security, and his deputy Brian McGill refused. The DOGErs then threatened to bring in U.S. marshals. These heroes still refused.
They have now been placed on administrative leave.

On Monday, Rubio belatedly announced that he was taking control of USAID, assuming it continues to exist. Meanwhile, Rubio has nothing to say about Trump’s decision to strip legal protections from 350,000 Venezuelans who have been living and working in this country lawfully. They are now vulnerable to deportation back to their repressive homeland — a fate Rubio described in 2022 as a “death sentence.”

Our top diplomat likewise has had little to say about our crumbling relationships with important allies across the Americas. Nor does he appear to have enough influence, or perhaps backbone, to block another State Department nominee who wants to hand Taiwan, a key U.S. ally, to China and has stated, “Competent white men must be in charge if you want things to work.”
The “adults in the room” sometimes failed in Trump’s first term. Now, they’re not even pretending to try.

ESPN panel talked about expanding the NCAA Tournament to 76 teams today on College Gameday. Fans at Alabama booed the entire time -- as they should.

Why fix it if it ain't broke?

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Seems to be thoroughly researched and well delivered.

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Feb 21 Update:

Since Dec 12 I have been tracking to see just how bad Iowa's rebounding currently is. What follows INCLUDES last night's games.

Check out below how good Drake (+5) is.

IOWA (-5) is currently ranked #341 out of 364 D1 teams in rebounding margin.

Rebound Margin Rankings:

+11: Milwaukee (leads the nation)

+10: Illinois

Other notables:

+9: Michigan State (#4 in the nation)

+5: Drake (#33 in the nation)

+5: Michigan (#36 in the nation)

+5: Iowa State (#41 in the nation)

+5: Maryland (#42 in the nation)
........................................................................

-5: IOWA (#341 in the nation)


The Full List:


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Original Post:


20 Clown second chance points tonight off 18 Clown offensive rebounds.

100% unacceptable, but it's the same sh*tty lack of rebounding, different game.

The Clowns win 89-80 after Iowa had led for 33:28 of the game (the game was tied for 3:27).

Iowa led by 13 points in the first half (39-26 with 4:09 to go) but blow the opportunity.

DEI = Twice as qualified

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Well, since Canada has made it clear they don't want to be our 51st state, we might as give them a reciprocal anthem greeting and then kick their asses!

I know Pizza Ranch is bigly popular here on HORT. Should I turn around and grab a pizza?

Mexico is threatening to take Google to court over its “Gulf of America” name change on maps for users in the United States, pointing out that much of the body of water lies outside U.S. maritime borders in regions controlled by Mexico and Cuba.

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Mexican President Claudia Sheinbaum said Monday at a news conference that President Donald Trump’s executive order to rename the Gulf of Mexico applied only to the U.S. continental shelf — the area of seabed to which the U.S. lays claim under the law of the sea and maritime agreements with other coastal states. It has asked Google to fully restore the name “Gulf of Mexico” to its Maps service for areas outside U.S. territory.

“What Google is doing here is changing the name of the continental shelf of Mexico and Cuba,” Sheinbaum told reporters.

“Gulf of America” went into official use last week on a U.S. government database of geographic names, as well as on Google Maps. Google said at the time that people in Mexico would still see the name “Gulf of Mexico,” while those outside the two countries would see both names.

A year ago, hardly anyone here was willing to call what's happening in Gaza "genocide." Many were outraged at those who labeled it such.

Is that still how we feel?

Major implications, but, what comes next?
https://www.bleachernation.com/cubs...lly-agreed-to-separate-after-the-2025-season/

I'd venture to guess we are getting near the accurate number in these polls. It will always be lower than actual due to the married (to women) men being secretive regarding their true sexuality and their side man-pieces.

Gallup Polling reports:

Gallup’s latest update on LGBTQ+ identification finds 9.3% of U.S. adults identifying as lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender or something other than heterosexual in 2024. This represents an increase of more than a percentage point versus the prior estimate, from 2023.

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16 of the 17 training supervisors have been fire.

As she runs away from the press.
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Why?

There are endless stories about things like this. What the **** is the answer?!

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Deplorable:

President Donald Trump has terminated the head of the National Archives and Records Administration, targeting an independent agency that was involved in trying to recover documents he took to his Florida estate after his first presidential term.

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Colleen J. Shogan was named archivist of the United States by President Joe Biden in 2022 and confirmed to her role in 2023, a year after the Archives referred its search for documents in Trump’s possession to the FBI. On Friday evening, Shogan wrote on LinkedIn that Trump “fired” her.

The independent agency she led, known as NARA, oversees research facilities as well as 13 presidential libraries and 14 regional archives. It also houses many of the country’s founding documents, such as the Declaration of Independence, holds 13 billion pages of text and 10 million maps, charts and drawings, and tens of millions of photographs, films and other records.


“No cause or reason was cited. It has been an honor serving as the 11th Archivist of the United States. I have zero regrets — I absolutely did my best every day for the National Archives and the American people,” Shogan said on LinkedIn. In a subsequent statement, Shogan told The Washington Post, “It was an honor to serve as the 11th Archivist of the United States. I did so with integrity, patriotism, and honor.”
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Sergio Gor, the director of the White House Office of Presidential Personnel, confirmed Shogan’s dismissal.
“At the direction of @realDonaldTrump the Archivist of the United States has been dismissed tonight. We thank Colleen Shogan for her service,” Gor wrote on the social media platform X.

The Archives may be one of the most apolitical arms of the federal bureaucracy, but in 2022, it became the target of public ire from Trump and his allies when the agency sought to retain documents from his Mar-a-Lago estate. When they recovered 15 boxes from Trump’s home in January 2022, agency officials found a mess of disorganized papers lacking any inventory.

Highly classified material was mixed in with newspaper clippings and dinner menus. And Archives officials believed more items were still missing. The Archives then took the extraordinary step of referring the matter to the FBI — sparking a high-profile investigation that led to an August 2022 raid of the estate, which yielded classified material.
Shogan, however, was not the head of the Archives at the time the agency was dealing with the document recovery efforts. Her first Senate confirmation hearing took place in September 2022 — about six weeks after the FBI’s Mar-a-Lago search. She was confirmed by the Senate in May 2023 with all but three Republican senators opposing her nomination.

Trump had repeatedly denied any wrongdoing in refusing to turn over documents, at times suggesting that the records were his and should not be returned to the Archives.

Federal prosecutors, in an investigation led by special counsel Jack Smith, charged Trump with illegally hoarding classified documents from his presidency and conspiring with aides to cover up his actions. He faced 40 charges in total, but a judge last year dismissed the federal indictment against Trump. Smith resigned from the Justice Department just before Inauguration Day, and late last month, DOJ fired more than a dozen officials who worked on Smith’s investigations into Trump’s criminal cases.
The dismissal of the nation’s record keeper marks the latest effort by the new Trump administration to reshape the federal government, with attempted changes that have included a sweeping buyout offer for federal employees, a purge of some 15 inspectors general across different federal agencies and the gutting of the nation’s foreign aid agency, USAID.

William J. Bosanko, deputy archivist of the United States, sent a notice to all National Archives employees to inform them that Shogan had been dismissed from her position.

“In accordance with statute, I am temporarily assuming the role as Acting Archivist,” Bosanko wrote in the notice, according to a copy shared with The Post. “We will share more information with you as soon as possible.”
Shogan was the first woman to serve as archivist. She was previously senior vice president and director of the David M. Rubenstein Center at the White House Historical Association. She also held roles at the U.S. Senate and the Library of Congress.
The Wall Street Journal reported last year that during her tenure leading the Archives, Shogan was accused by longtime employees of making changes to exhibits in the National Archives Museum that amounted to censorship. She also invited Melania Trump to speak at a naturalization ceremony at the Archives in 2023 where Shogan presented the former first lady with copies of the conviction record of Susan B. Anthony, who was arrested for casting a ballot before women had the right to vote in the United States, and Trump’s 2020 presidential pardon of Anthony.


Shogan’s predecessor, David S. Ferriero, left his role in 2022, telling The Post that he decided to retire partly because he was worried about the political future.
“It’s important to me, that this administration replace me,” he said in 2022. “I’m concerned about what’s going to happen in 2024. I don’t want it left to … the unknowns of the presidential election.”

Deplorable:

An Iowan was among 1,000 National Park Services employees unexpectedly fired on Valentine's Day.

Brian Gibbs' Facebook post announcing his sudden departure garnered more than 73,000 reactions, over 11,000 comments and 180,000 shares — something the former Effigy Mounds education park ranger didn't expect but knew was a story he needed to tell.

"My life every day is that I put on the green and gray. That is who I have been the past year," Gibbs said in an interview. "Long term, I'm not sure what's next."

The fired National Parks Service members are part of President Donald Trump's efforts to shrink the federal workforce, writes Pete Thomas of For The Win, USA Today. The National Parks Service has yet to officially announce the layoffs.


'It's a lie':Federal workers incensed by performance language in termination letters

The 1,000 workers are roughly 5% of the NPS workforce, which employs more than 20,000 people, according to the NPS website.

The announcement came alongside approval from the Trump administration to begin hiring 5,000 seasonal workers even though federal hiring had just been put on a freeze.


"Unfortunately, today’s cuts will leave parks understaffed, facing tough decisions about operating hours, public safety and resource protection," a release from the National Parks Conservation Association said Friday.

The fallout from President Donald Trump’s takeover of the Kennedy Center’s board and purge of its leadership continued Thursday, as the center’s staff worried about the storied arts institution and shows began to disappear from its lineup.

Comedian, actress and Hollywood creator Issa Rae said on Instagram that she was pulling her sold-out show, “An Evening With Issa Rae,” from the slate of programming, becoming the first major artist to publicly cancel an upcoming show at the Kennedy Center.

“Unfortunately, due to what I believe to be an infringement on the values of an institution that has faithfully celebrated artists of all backgrounds through all mediums, I’ve decided to cancel my appearance at this venue,” she wrote, adding that tickets will be refunded.

The cancellation comes the day after the new board of trustees installed Trump as its new chair, while also voting to terminate Deborah Rutter as president and making former acting director of national intelligence Richard Grenell interim president.