Strong suspicion. How can we find out for sure? Anyone want to run with this task?

Are we rooting for the bucks?

Hope it's a good game like last night. Everyone expects OSU to roll so I think it may just be.

You think any of the messages of the eulogies being given for the former President are registering with the current President-elect?
None are saints… but Carter and Trump are the extremes for those sitting in “the front row” today.
I wonder what Trump and Obama were conversing about so intently before the service began?

Can anyone please make this make any sense? I don’t know whether to laugh or cry. I told you this would be FAR worse than the last time. “The country survived his first term so it will be fine after his second.” Mother of God with some of you people. We are fooked.

Miami trying again to buy a championship. They'll never learn.

Login to view embedded media

It is great to be an Iowa Wrestling fan.

Go Hawks!

People want stuff without paying for it. That is one thing that has really changed over the years, the people and businesses that dont want to pay taxes or more taxes but they want great infrastructure, roads, bridges, dams, airports, etc etc.

Reports said there was 3 million gallons of water stored high in the hills or whereever around LA. Well they need to pay to have 10-20 million gallons of water. This isnt rocket science.

They cant pump and use salt water but you sure as hell could have a large enough desalination program to maintain those 10-20 million gallons of emergency water supply.

I read the thread of the women yelling at Gov Newson about him trying to talk to the Prez. Yeah she was distressed but the LA fire protection plans are not the Gov's responsibility

During an attempted home invasion in Bradenton, Florida, a homeowner fired at the perpetrators leaving one of the intruders dead.
According to police, both of the two suspects are Chilean nationals.

These commitment ceremonies are silly anyway, but when the recruit says "For the next 3 to 4 years, I will be playing at X University," it makes me chuckle. Many of them with probably hit the transfer portal after their freshman year.

O Canada!

Login to view embedded media

Sorry if a Pepsi

Anti-Gay Hater Anita Bryant Dead At 84​

BREAKING: Anti-Gay Hater Anita Bryant Dead At 84​

January 9, 2025 Variety reports:

Anita Bryant, a former beauty queen and pop singer of the 1960s whose career led her to become a spokesperson for Florida oranges in the early ’70s and an evangelical crusader against gay rights later in that decade, died Dec. 16 at age 84, her family announced Thursday.
The family’s obituary for Anita Bryant Day, as she was known outside the public sphere, was published in her hometown newspaper, the Oklahoman, and said the singer-activist had died at home last month in Edmond, Oklahoma, surrounded by family and friends.
During her heyday as a public figure, Bryant was one of the most polarizing celebrities in America, vilified by much of the show business community for campaigning against what she viewed as a gay takeover of American culture, while being embraced as a hero by many religious conservatives.

Click to expand...

Read the full article. Took them long enough to announce.

I think this kid might turn out to be a huge steal. Long, athletic and skilled. Definitely needs to get stronger, but that should come.

Login to view embedded media

This is an Arctic Plunge update. I just checked and I am now in second place. Team 1 has $1275.00. My team has $1190. Also, team number three is gaining. I know if only a few of you would donate $25.00 - 50.00 (and maybe more) to my team I think we would be sitting pretty good . My goal is at least $1500.00. https://boom.hawkeyewrestlingclub.com/team/625106
I would be ever so thankful for your donations!

FYI.

We should be more alarmed than grateful that the Supreme Court let the sentencing of Donald Trump go forward. The fact that there were four justices prepared to block the proceeding bodes ill for the high court’s willingness to act as a check on Trump once he returns to office.


Make sense of the latest news and debates with our daily newsletter

This was effectively a non-sentence: The judge imposed no jail time, no fine, no conditions of probation. In deference to his status as president-elect, Trump wasn’t even required to turn up in person, as would anyone else convicted of 34 felony counts.
“All hell breaks loose today!” Trump railed in a fundraising email, but no hell did. Trump now gets to appeal his conviction for falsifying business records to cover up his hush money payment to adult-film actress Stormy Daniels. That’s all.

Trump’s still (barely) private attorneys — his incoming solicitor general, the government’s top lawyer before the Supreme Court, joined by his nominee to be deputy attorney general, the department’s No. 2 post — presented a series of hyperbolic arguments about the supposed harm that would ensue from sentencing.

“President Trump is already suffering grave irreparable injury from the disruption and distraction that the trial court abruptly inflicted by suddenly scheduling a sentencing hearing for the President-Elect of the United States, on five days’ notice, at the apex of the Presidential transition,” they warned the justices. This argument took some nerve, since the delay in sentencing until after the election came at Trump’s behest. As to disruption and distraction imposed on the president-elect and threatening — I’m not making this up — national security, spare us. Trump took time out for a round of golf the other day.


https://www.washingtonpost.com/opin...mc_magnet-opsupremecourt_inline_collection_19

The most outlandish of Trump’s claims was that the doctrine that presidents are immune from criminal prosecution during their time in office somehow also creates an additional category of pre-presidential immunity for presidents-elect.

“Any criminal sentencing, and even the distraction of ongoing criminal proceedings, disrupts and will continue to disrupt the enormously burdensome and sensitive tasks of the Presidential transition,” the lawyers argued.

As the New York prosecutors responded: This is bunk. “No judicial decision or guidance from the Department of Justice has ever recognized that the unique temporary immunity of the sitting President extends to the President-elect,” they wrote. “Such an extension would conflict with this Court’s holdings that Article II vests the entirety of the executive power in the incumbent President alone.”
Follow Ruth Marcus
Trump raised other, slightly more credible arguments: that the jury was improperly allowed to hear evidence that involved Trump’s official acts, in violation of the Supreme Court’s ruling on presidential immunity; and that the doctrine governing immunity for official acts requires that the entire case be paused while that issue is litigated.

But as the five-justice majority noted in its brief order rejecting Trump’s claims: “First, the alleged evidentiary violations at President-Elect Trump’s state-court trial can be addressed in the ordinary course on appeal. Second, the burden that sentencing will impose on the President-Elect’s responsibilities is relatively insubstantial in light of the trial court’s stated intent to impose a sentence of ‘unconditional discharge’ after a brief virtual hearing.” A chilling question: What would have happened if the judge hadn’t announced his intention to impose the wrist-slappiest possible sentence?

The next part of the court’s order was even more chilling: “Justice Thomas, Justice Alito, Justice Gorsuch, and Justice Kavanaugh would grant the application.” In other words, two of Trump’s most loyal — most reflexive — defenders, Justices Clarence Thomas and Samuel A. Alito Jr., and two of his three nominees, Justices Neil M. Gorsuch and Brett M. Kavanaugh, would have taken the extraordinary step of ordering the New York judge, Juan Merchan, not to proceed.
Two of the conservative justices disagreed. Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr. and Justice Amy Coney Barrett, Trump’s third appointee to the high court, joined with the three liberal justices to allow the sentencing to go forward.

This is what passes for good news, I suppose, with the current court — which is to say, not terribly cheery.



https://www.washingtonpost.com/opin...d=mc_magnet-optrumpadmin_inline_collection_18

Barrett, who is being decried by Trump’s MAGA allies as a traitor and worse, has been a welcome surprise for her independence and intellectual honesty. In several significant cases last year — the immunity ruling, the scope of the constitutional disqualification provision and the reach of an obstruction statute used to charge some Jan. 6 defendants — she broke from Roberts and the other conservative justices.
Roberts’s role is more complex. He is the author of the immunity and obstruction opinions and is presumed to have written the disqualification ruling, as well. He seems to have little love for Trump — he rebutted Trump in his first term when Trump complained about “Obama judges,” and Roberts ruled against Trump in important cases, including his efforts to eliminate protections for immigrant “dreamers,” his attempt to add a citizenship question to the census, and his resistance to efforts to obtain his financial records.

But it remains to be seen how willing Roberts will be during Trump’s second term to break with the other conservative justices. The arithmetic of the conservative supermajority is relentless.

Thomas and Alito appear automatic in their support for Trump; for liberals, they’re a lost cause. The real disappointments in the court’s actions on Thursday are Gorsuch and Kavanaugh. Especially in the context of a request for emergency relief, which sets a high bar for intervention, and given the weakness of Trump’s arguments, it is astonishing they would have stepped in to halt the sentencing.
That does not provide much hope about what will happen when Trump’s lawyers, pivoting from representing him personally to arguing on behalf of the United States, make their next appearance before the high court.

I'm curious--what's the actual criteria for being labeled a "leftist" or part of the so-called "leftist cult"? So far, it seems like the bar is pretty low. From what I can tell, it includes:

- Not voting for Trump
- Questioning any unverified claims

Are there specific beliefs or actions that qualify someone, or is it just anyone who isn't 100% aligned with Trump? Looking for clarification here.

Story from the New York Times:

Regrets? Joe Biden may have a few.​

Analysis: President Joe Biden’s public comments have offered a glimpse into what is on his mind.

By Katie Rogers
The New York Times

WASHINGTON — President Joe Biden has less than a month to go until his one-term presidency ends, and he is feeling reflective.
He is voicing regrets about his decision not to sign his name to COVID-19 relief checks and about his longtime reputation — once considered a virtue — of being the poorest lawmaker in Congress. And now, with a planned visit to meet with Pope Francis at the Vatican next month, the president is signaling that he may have additional issues on his mind.

The visit, White House officials said as they issued a readout on Biden’s call with the pope last week, is officially to discuss world peace. But according to a person familiar with his plans for the trip, Biden is also going to the Holy See to seek solace and “relief” as he exits the world stage. Francis, that person said, has become an ally and sounding board, trading occasional phone calls with Biden. Some of those conversations have been casual check-ins of the “Hey, how you doing?” variety.

Throughout his long career, Biden’s penchant for narrating his life experiences has shaped how the public understands him. We know the stories: Childhood struggles with a stutter created a scrappy, bully-fighting neighborhood crusader. Mistakes and bad timing upended earlier attempts at the nation’s highest office. And the devastating losses of his first wife and two children created a wellspring of resilience.

But the regrets he has let slip in the lame-duck portion of his presidency are different from the traditional Biden lore he spun on his way up the ladder. As he makes his way down, his recent comments and actions reveal more about Biden’s thoughts on the current political landscape, one that is drastically different from the one he entered after winning his first Senate election in 1972.

Despite being described by his allies as in a pensive, sometimes angry, mood as the end of his term approaches, the president has not made himself available to answer many questions about his recent actions, including his decision to pardon his son Hunter Biden. Still, in public appearances, the president has offered a few glimpses into what has weighed on him.

Earlier this month, in remarks at the Brookings Institution in Washington, Biden spoke about his long-held belief that the key to strengthening the U.S. economy is through bolstering the middle class. But he paused just long enough to touch on a story that he has shared countless times as a candidate and officeholder. “For 36 years, I was listed as the poorest man in Congress,” he told the crowd with a laugh, before adding, “What a foolish man.”

Given the current atmosphere, the joke carried the sting of bitter truth. The billionaires are at the White House gates, ushered in by voters who were again siding with a wealthy man whose politics are antithetical to Biden’s.

In a month, Washington will be led again by Donald Trump, a man who has made no secret of his wealth or his appreciation for the wealth of others. One of his top advisers, Elon Musk, is by some counts the richest man in the world, and his first act of (unelected) political business this month was to try to goad congressional Republicans into a government shutdown.

Aside from joking about his wealth, Biden has openly stewed over one of Trump’s flashier — and apparently effective — stunts as president. During the same speech at Brookings, Biden said he had been “stupid” not to sign his name to COVID stimulus checks that were distributed to Americans early in his term. Trump emblazoned his signature on checks distributed after a relief bill was passed in the spring of 2020.

Biden and his advisers learned a little something from Trump’s tendency to scrawl his name on things. By 2023, signs touting infrastructure projects “funded by President Joe Biden’s Bipartisan Infrastructure Law” began popping up around the country. But those had little political impact compared with a signed check. Already, misleading stories are circulating on social media about Trump possibly bringing stimulus checks back in 2025, despite the fact that the president-elect has not detailed plans to issue more money.

Perhaps more revealing about Biden’s list of regrets are the items that do not appear on it. The president does not regret debating Trump in June, an appearance that created a slow bleed in his support among Democrats and ended with his ouster as the party’s presidential nominee. Biden has privately told allies that he only regrets not changing the timing because he had a cold, and believes he would have performed better if he had been in better health.

Biden has also not voiced much public regret for deciding to call his economic plan “Bidenomics,” though he has privately groused to allies about his dislike of the name. And while his administration has acknowledged mistakes during the chaotic and deadly troop pullout in Afghanistan in 2021, Biden does not regret pushing forward with the withdrawal.

You don’t wanna mess with those Pella boys!
In this months edition, the Epitaph runs an article about how the Earp boys (Wyatt and brothers) took on the Gaass boys in a feud/fight back in Pella back in the day…. Apparently things dis not go well for the Earps and they got their collective asses handed to them!
The Wyatt’s lived in Pella as youths before moving…the Gaass family is one of the “founders” of Pella, Iowa. There is a pic of the Earp household in the Epitaph article (a row house east of the square) and there is a record of a Earp property north of the town.
I’ll have to try and get ahold of this edition if the Epitaph. Pella has advertised itself as the “childhood home of Wyatt Earp” for decades.
The Epitaph is a monthly that publishes stories of the characters and events of “the Old West.”

Sam Moore, the tenor half of the scorching soul duo Sam & Dave — known for indelible hits like “Soul Man,” “Hold On, I’m Comin’” and “I Thank You” — died on Friday in Coral Gables, Fla. He was 89.
His death, in a hospital after surgery, was confirmed by his wife and longtime manager, Joyce Moore. She said the exact cause was unclear.
At their peak in the 1960s, Sam & Dave churned out rhythm-and-blues hits with a regularity rivaled by few other performers. When “Soul Man” topped the R&B charts and crossed over to No. 2 on the pop charts in 1967 (it also won a Grammy), its success helped open doors for other Black acts to connect with white audiences.
Sam & Dave’s live shows were so kinetic — they were known as the Sultans of Sweat and Double Dynamite — that even as charismatic a performer as Otis Redding was hesitant to be on the bill with them, for fear of being upstaged. Mr. Moore once spoke of his need to “liquefy” the audience before he considered a show a success.
Advertisement
SKIP ADVERTISEMENT


“The strength of Sam & Dave,” he said, “was that we would do anything to please the audience.”

Mr. Moore and Dave Prater, a baritone, met at an amateur night at the King of Hearts, a nightclub in Miami, in the early 1960s. The two unpolished young singers wound up together onstage by accident — Mr. Prater was having trouble remembering the lyrics to a song, and Mr. Moore fed them to him — but they clicked instantly with the audience.
Image

Both men had started out singing in church, and they developed a stirring gospel-tinged call-and-response style that became their trademark. They signed with a local record label, Marlin, and then moved on to Roulette Records in New York. But their early records failed to chart, and they retreated to the King of Hearts.
One night in 1964, Ahmet Ertegun, Jerry Wexler and Tom Dowd of Atlantic Records came to see them perform. Impressed, they offered the duo a contract. The company put the Memphis soul label Stax Records in charge of the production of their records, which would then be released and distributed by Atlantic.
Advertisement
SKIP ADVERTISEMENT


In his autobiography, “Rhythm and the Blues,” Mr. Wexler wrote, “I put Sam in the sweet tradition of Sam Cooke or Solomon Burke, while Dave had the ominous Four Tops’ Levi Stubbs-sounding voice, the preacher promising hellfire.”
Lending them to Stax proved to be an inspired move. In Memphis, Sam & Dave became part of a remarkable musical family that was a grittier counterpoint to Berry Gordy’s humming hit factory at Motown.

Working with the producers and songwriters Isaac Hayes and David Porter, the house band Booker T. & the M.G.’s and the crisp horns of the Mar-Keys, Sam & Dave were soon enjoying the benefits of stardom, including their own tour bus and plane, plus an entourage of women and hangers-on. They also both became addicted to heroin.
Samuel David Moore’s life can be divided into three almost implausibly tidy acts. Act I began with his birth in Miami on Oct. 12, 1935. His mother, Louise Robinson, was a teacher, and he described his father, John Richard Hicks, as “a street hustler,” a tireless womanizer whose son was soon following in his footsteps. (When his mother married a man named Charlie Moore, the boy took his stepfather’s surname.)
While still in high school, Sam was shot in the leg by the jealous husband of a married woman he was seeing. He later served 18 months in prison for procuring prostitutes. But music lifted him. He sang in a Miami Baptist church, then with an a cappella group called the Majestics and a gospel group called the Mellonaires, before teaming up with Mr. Prater.

​

Act II began with Sam & Dave’s first breakup in 1970, as their popularity waned. When their solo careers failed to take flight, they reunited and broke up several times. The two were never personally close.
“It was a duo,” Mr. Moore said in the 1998 book “Sam and Dave: An Oral History,” edited by Dave Marsh. “But it wasn’t a partnership.”
Image

Sam & Dave toured in the United States, Europe and Turkey, but their drug abuse had begun to take its toll. Their downward spiral was briefly slowed when John Belushi and Dan Aykroyd, as the Blues Brothers, recorded a hit version of “Soul Man” in 1978, bringing new attention to the original.
Sam Moore and Dave Prater performed together for the last time on New Year’s Eve 1981 in San Francisco. After walking offstage, they never spoke to each other again.
Mr. Prater recruited a new partner, Sam Daniels, and they worked together, billed as Sam & Dave or the New Sam & Dave Revue — over Mr. Moore’s objections — until Mr. Prater died in a car accident in 1988.
Advertisement
SKIP ADVERTISEMENT


Act III opened the year after that final show, when Mr. Moore married Joyce McRae, a self-described “upper-middle-class Jewish girl from Chicago” who had first seen him perform in 1967. She helped him get sober, took over managing his career and guided him through a productive professional twilight.
Sam & Dave were inducted into the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame in 1992 and received a lifetime achievement Grammy Award in 2019.
Information on survivors in addition to his wife was not immediately available.
Mr. Moore’s solo album “Plenty Good Lovin’,” which he recorded in 1970 but Atlantic, for a variety of reasons, had declined to release, finally arrived to glowing reviews in 2002. He performed for presidents and recorded with Bruce Springsteen, Conway Twitty, Lou Reed and other singers. He also worked to help secure other performers’ and songwriters’ long-overdue copyrights and royalties.
“It’s been a roller-coaster ride, but mostly a good one,” Joyce Moore said in an interview in 2014. “The single most painful part has been realizing how abused and mistreated Sam and his peers were — and still are. Most of them have never gotten their due. But we’ve been blessed.”

Thinking ahead to what's next for the Hawkeyes in the portal, now that they've landed Mark Gronowski and Sam Phillips. What's their biggest need?

Quick release, quick decision making, on a bad snap he didnt just fall on the ball but picked it up and threw out of bounds to save a big loss, you be the judge

Login to view embedded media

South Dakota State Passing

The matchup vs Ohio State is.

Ohio State heavy favored at
125(#10 Brendan McRone)
141 (#2 Jessi Mendez)
#7 Nick Bouzakis can maybe beat Ayala, depending on how Drake is. I just haven't seen enough if Drake at 133 vs top guys to be sure.
Parco over #12 Dylan D'Emellio we win but a test.
We'll see who we got at 157 vs #7 Paddy Gallagher
I doubt Sasso at this stage could beat Caliendo.
174 #9 Carson Karchla would be a match to see if Kennedy is up ranked high for real
184 #15 Ryder Rogotzke is a test but if Arnold is God we're good
197 we win.
HWT #8 Nick Feldman. Nearly Tech falld Oregon state guy

A win for us, Mathematically, looks challenging

Here is them dominating Oregon St. We did too but if you watch Ohio St looks legit.
Login to view embedded media

Login to view embedded media