And strong af.

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Post up some songs. For starters....


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What is wrong with the GOP lately?

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It's being reported that the military has evacuated all non-essential personnel from the embassy in Haiti due to the deteriorating circumstances in the country. Biden is racking up quite the track record of falling us embassies it seems.

Also, trump was right again in regards to Haiti.

Jesus these people are ****ing idiots. World will be infinitely better when he is gone.

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What are the pros and cons of this?

The last time I had a job with a company was 10 years ago. The office was a bit like high school with lots of gossip. I generally avoided the after work happy hours that a dozen or so co-workers went to. I just didn't see much upside. I wasn't trying to climb the company ladder or anything.

I'm self-employed since then and I volunteer at a place that I get referrals from. They have a breakfast or Happy Hour quarterly and I always go, mostly to network but it's good seeing them occasionally. If I saw them weekly, I probably wouldn't go unless it was required.

How about you?

Spoke with 2024 three-star Jaylen Watson yesterday -- he was offered at DB by Iowa after the prospect camp.

And, he's my latest FutureCast. I expect him to go on an official to Iowa this month and commit.

STORY:

Hopefully the child is ok and doesn't suffer any longterm ill effects.

Is this a Pepsi? I see articles on it but they aren't widely publicized.

The owner of an Ohio Chick-fil-A was arrested after authorities alleged he drove over 400 miles to North Carolina to have sex with a 15-year-old.

Stacy Lee Austin, 49, was charged with statutory sexual offense with a child, the Rowan County Sheriff’s Office said.

Police said they responded to a home on a report of breaking and entering Tuesday. When they arrived, the resident allegedly told police that he found Austin with his 15-year-old child.

The sheriff’s office alleged that Austin had communicated with the alleged victim on a social media app and had arranged to pick the child up. Police said they found Austin’s underwear in a bathroom trash can along with some of the alleged victim’s clothes.

Upon interviewing Austin, police claim he admitted to the sexual acts and said he feared losing his job.

It’s not immediately clear if Austin has retained an attorney or entered a plea.


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Federal prosecutors have arrested a soldier and intelligence analyst who allegedly sold national security secrets related to military weapons, exercises and development plans to a man who purported to be a Hong Kong-based geopolitical consultant, according to a federal indictment filed this week in Tennessee.

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Korbein Schultz, who served in the Army, received 14 payments totaling $42,000 between June 2022 and around October 2023, according to the indictment. He is charged with multiple crimes, including conspiracy to obtain and disclose national defense information and bribery of a public official.

Part of Schultz’s Army duties included training members of his unit on how to properly handle, store and disseminate classified and sensitive government information. He was arrested Thursday on the Fort Campbell military base, which is along the Kentucky and Tennessee border.



Schultz held a “top secret security clearance,” according to the indictment, which is the clearance that is required to access the most sensitive secrets. He also was permitted to access materials known as sensitive compartmented information, which is a more protected subset of top-secret information that includes material derived from secret sources and closely guarded intelligence methods.
“Today’s arrest shows that such a betrayal does not pay — the Department of Justice is committed to identifying and holding accountable those who would break their oath to protect our nation’s secrets,” Assistant Attorney General Matthew G. Olsen of the Justice Department’s National Security Division said in a statement.
This indictment is the latest case to reveal how Americans with access to the nation’s most protected secrets can be prosecuted for allegedly circumventing the laws and safeguards that are meant to protect the information. Earlier this week, Jack Teixeira, who served in the Massachusetts Air National Guard, pleaded guilty in federal court to charges that he leaked a trove of U.S. intelligence documents last year on Discord, an online chat platform popular with video gamers.



Former president Donald Trump is set to stand trial for allegedly retaining classified information at his Florida home after he left the White House in 2017 — and then thwarting officials’ attempts to retrieve them. He has pleaded not guilty to the charges.

According to the indictment against Schultz, the soldier sold the secrets knowing that they could damage the United States. The purported Hong Kong-based consultant — whom the indictment identifies as Conspirator A — recruited Schultz and asked him to help him obtain specific information, such as what the U.S. plan would be if Taiwan came under military attack.
Among the information that Schultz provided to Conspirator A, per investigators: documents about the High Mobility Artillery Rocket System (HIMARS), information on hypersonic equipment, studies on the future development of U.S. military forces, studies about countries such as China, and summaries of military drills and operations.



Schultz is also accused of handing over Air Force manuals related to specific aircraft and weapons systems. Distributing these materials violates the Arms Export Control Act, according to the indictment.
He allegedly communicated with Conspirator A through multiple encrypted channels online. Schultz was allegedly told he would be paid more money for information he sent that had higher classification levels.
At one point, according to the indictment, Conspirator A offered Schultz more money if a document about U.S. Navy exercises in the Philippine Sea that he provided contained classified information.
“I hope so! I need to get my other BMW back!” Schultz allegedly responded.

On Nov. 27, Conspirator A asked Schultz if they could speak on the phone to “to discuss work for the next year,” according to the indictment. The two then allegedly discussed their work plans.
“The unauthorized sale of such information violates our national security laws, compromises our safety, and cannot be tolerated,” U.S. Attorney Henry C. Leventis for the Middle District of Tennessee said in a statement.

By Paul Krugman
Opinion Columnist
On Thursday, Katie Britt, the junior senator from Alabama, delivered the Republican response to the State of the Union address. Her overwrought performance has been widely mocked; that’s OK for late-night TV, but I’m not going to join in that chorus.
What I want to do instead is focus on the centerpiece of Britt’s remarks, a deeply misleading story about sex trafficking that she used to attack President Biden. Her use of the story — which turns out to have involved events in Mexico way back when George W. Bush was president — wasn’t technically a lie, since she didn’t explicitly say that it happened in the United States on Biden’s watch. She did, however, say: “We wouldn’t be OK with this happening in a third-world country. This is the United States of America, and it’s past time we start acting like it. President Biden’s border crisis is a disgrace.”
That’s a clear attempt to mislead — the moral equivalent of a lie — and the careful wording actually suggests that she knew she was being misleading, and wanted an escape hatch if someone called her bluff.
To really understand the significance of her de facto lie, however, we need to put it in political context.
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Over the past few months, there’s been a palpable shift in Republican rhetoric away from attacks on the Biden economy and toward dire warnings about “migrant crime.”
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This shift has in part been forced by the fact that the Biden economy is actually doing very well these days, with inflation receding while unemployment remains near a 50-year low. In political terms, the narrative of a bad economy seems to be fading.

If I were a Republican strategist, I’d be especially worried about the changing tone of news coverage. The San Francisco Fed maintains a daily index of “news sentiment.” In the summer of 2023, although the economy was arguably already performing pretty well, this index was roughly as low as it was in the depths of the Great Recession. Since then, however, it has shot up to levels roughly comparable to those that prevailed on the eve of the Covid-19 pandemic.
Republicans, then, need a new issue. And there really does seem to have been a surge in illegal attempts to cross our southern border. So there are strategic reasons for Donald Trump and his party to hype the dangers of migrant crime — and for Trump and his allies to maximize the fear factor by blocking bipartisan legislation that would have helped secure the border.
My guess, however, is that Trump’s rants about migrant crime aren’t purely strategic. He has a history of being obsessed with alleged crimes by dark-skinned people, going all the way back to his demand, after the arrests of the Central Park Five, who were eventually exonerated, to reinstate the death penalty. And his claims about the dangers posed by migrants are so extreme that they may well be self-defeating.

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The other day, for example, he declared, “I will stop the killing, I will stop the bloodshed, I will end the agony of our people, the plunder of our cities, the sacking of our towns, the violation of our citizens and the conquest of our country.” Which towns and cities, exactly, have been sacked and plundered? Did Attila the Hun swing by for a visit while I wasn’t looking?
Yes, figuring out how best to secure our borders is a real issue, but the data just doesn’t show that there’s a crisis of migrant crime. Indeed, homicides in America surged in 2020 — a year in which Trump was still president and apprehensions at the southern border were way down. By contrast, in the past couple of years, the homicide rate has come down even as border activity has increased.
So what do you do when the numbers don’t support your dystopian fantasies? You zero in on the most horrific individual stories.
Without question, the killing of Laken Riley, for which an undocumented immigrant has been charged, is devastating. But in a country as big as ours, it’s almost always possible to find examples of unspeakable tragedies involving individual members of whatever group you name. There are probably more than 10 million undocumented immigrants in the United States. Based on the available evidence, however, immigrants are less likely than native-born Americans to commit crimes.
In any case, the migrant crime wave — the “plunder of our cities” Trump seems to endlessly decry — is a myth. But it may be a myth Trump believes in, and the possibility that in this instance he may actually be sincere is alarming.
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Why? Because if Trump really believes migrants are an existential threat, if he wins in November, as president he might go through with his plan to engage in sweeping raids and mass deportations, very likely catching up many people who simply look as if they might be undocumented immigrants.
So don’t wave away Britt’s remarks as a mere example of bad acting. They may be the harbinger of a reign of terror that will wreak havoc in America.

The city of Davenport is taking the state auditor to court over an investigation into $1.9 million in settlements paid out to former city employees.



The city is opposing a subpoena that Iowa Auditor of State Rob Sand has issued for records related to conversations that Davenport city officials had with staff attorneys and contracted attorneys over actual or potential litigation related to the settlements.


Sand’s subpoena calls for the city to produce closed-session minutes and recordings of five City Council or committee-of-the-whole meetings, as well as copies of all emails and memos discussing proposed settlements with former City Administrator Corri Spiegel and two city assistants, Samantha Torres and Tiffany Thorndike.




The subpoena also demands access to the three individuals’ employment agreements and to the final, signed settlements between the city and the three.


Last November, shortly after a city election had taken place, Davenport city officials announced they had agreed before the election to pay Spiegel, who already was planning to leave her job with the city, $1.6 million due to some form of “prolonged and documented instances of harassment” by unidentified elected officials.


The payouts to Thorndike and Torres, totaling $297,500, are also tied to the unspecified allegations of harassment.


Since the settlements were announced, concerns have been raised that some council members may have supported the use of taxpayer money to dispose of legal claims that stem from their own behavior or the behavior of their fellow council members.





In response to the state auditor’s demand for access to records, the city has gone to court and asked a judge to modify the subpoena to exclude all of the recordings and minutes of the closed-session council and committee discussions, arguing they are “absolutely” covered by attorney-client privilege since they involve discussions of settlements with the city’s attorneys.


The auditor, in turn, has told the court that Iowa law specifically provides that the office when, conducting any audit or review, “shall at all times have access to all information, records, instrumentalities, and properties used in the performance of the audited or reviewed entities’ statutory duties or contractual responsibilities.”


The auditor notes that the law also dictates that if the records at issue are confidential, the auditor’s office “shall have access” to them with the understanding that it must “maintain the confidentiality” of the records once it has gained access to them.


A court hearing on the dispute is scheduled for March 25.


Last month, in separate but related court proceedings, the Iowa Freedom of Information Council intervened in litigation over the city’s refusal to comply with public-records requests for a letter from Spiegel that allegedly outlines her allegations against the city. The city has asked the court to rule on whether it can make the letter public.


This article first appeared in the Iowa Capital Dispatch.

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Great performance by Marshall at the NCAA Championships.

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Consolation semifinals and 7th place matches.
Lot of work to do this session to move up in the team standings. Everyone but Riggins has secured an auto bid to NCAAs. There are only 8 auto bids at 184 for the Big Ten, but Riggins is still wrestling for 9th, as finishing one place beyond the conference allocations is a factor used for at large bids.

First matchups for the Hawks:
2 Ayala vs. 9 Peterson (RUT)
14 Teske vs. 4 Van Dee (NEB)
3 Woods vs. 4 Hardy (NEB)
3 Rathjen vs. 4 Kasak (PSU)
4 Franek vs. 8 Blaze (PUR)
3 Caliendo vs. 11 Moore (ILL)
3 Kennedy vs. 5 Welsh (OSU) (good test for PK)
13 Riggins vs. 10 Rogotzke (IND) (to make the 9th place match, not the same Rogotzke who beat him yesterday)
7 Hill vs. 4 Slavikouski (RUT)

Team standings after day one/finalists/consi semis:
Penn State 136/7/2
Michigan 105.5/4/5
Nebraska 89/1/7
Iowa 88.5 /1/8
Ohio State 78.5/2/4
Rutgers 71.5/1/5
Minnesota 66/2/2
Wisconsin 43/1/0
Purdue 34/0/2
Maryland 31/0/3
Indiana 29/0/1
Illinois 28/1/1
Michigan State 19.5/0/0
Northwestern 14.5/0/0

Go Hawks!

Adam, Ross and I sit down and talk how Caitlin Clark and Iowa defeated Nebraska to win their third-straight Big Ten Tournament. Plus, the men's loss to Illinois, and their NCAA Tournament hopes.

PODCAST:

It is great to be an Iowa Wrestling fan.

Go Hawks!

A bill advancing in the Iowa Legislature would require Iowa public and private schools to determine why a fire alarm went off before evacuating children from classrooms.



Senate File 2191 was spurred by a policy developed by the North Scott school district in response to the 2018 school shooting at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Fla., where the shooter pulled a fire alarm.


The bill unanimously passed the Senate last week and advanced out of a House subcommittee Monday.




The bill, introduced by Sen. Chris Cournoyer, R-Le Claire, requires all charter, public and accredited non-public schools to include a policy in their emergency operations plan on how individuals in a school building should respond when a fire alarm is activated outside of a scheduled fire drills to protect the individuals in case the alarm was activated due to an active shooter on school grounds.


“This takes care of, when you pull a fire alarm you don’t create a target-rich environment for a shooter,” said Rep. Steven Bradley, R-Cascade, who served on the House subcommittee.


Margaret Buckton, representing the Urban Education Network of Iowa and the Rural School Advocates of Iowa, said school staff can “very quickly” check the alarm panel to see where the threat is, look at video feeds, check for smoke and conduct firsthand inspections to confirm the threat before issuing a building-wide evacuation.


Both groups are registered in support of the bill.

Penalties for grooming by teachers​

Iowa lawmakers passed a bill that would require school districts to report to state officials if a licensed employee is disciplined for grooming or abusing a student.


Current law requires that districts must report to the state Board of Educational Examiners — the state’s educator licensing body — if a teacher or other license holder is disciplined for conduct that constitutes “soliciting, encouraging or consummating” a romantic or inappropriate relationship with a student.


House File 2487 would add “grooming behavior” and “abusing a student” to the list of actions that must be reported to the board if an employee is disciplined. Grooming behavior is defined in the bill as “any attempt to seduce, solicit, lure, or entice a student, or a person believed to be a student, to participate in a sex act … or engage in any unlawful sexual conduct.”


If the Board of Educational Examiners has evidence that a school staff member committed a crime, the board would need to report it to authorities under an amendment House lawmakers added on Monday. The amendment would also remove the three-year limitation on investigating a complaint if it falls under the “grooming behavior” definition.


The bill passed the House unanimously on Monday. A Senate companion bill has not been passed out of a committee.

Topsoil bill resurrected, heads to back to Senate​

Republicans, in a rare move, resurrected a bill that failed to pass the Iowa House last week during floor debate.


The bill, Senate File 455, passed the House Monday following a motion to reconsider. It initially failed to pass the chamber March 6 on a 49-44 vote, with 16 Republicans joining all Democrats in voting against it. Seven House members were absent or did not vote.


The bill passed on its second attempt 53-46, with 10 Republicans joining all Democrats in voting against. Only one member was absent or did not vote.


Senate File 455 would prohibit counties and cities from adopting regulations stricter than what the state permits for topsoil management at construction sites. It also would restrict the regulations local jurisdictions can place on the stormwater infrastructure required for new developments.


During floor debate, proponents said the bill was designed to make housing more affordable for developers and homeowners. Opponents said it would infringe upon local governments’ ability to regulate stormwater.


The bill was amended by the House and now heads back to the Senate to approval.

Iowa AG joins GOP lawsuit challenging new EPA rule​

Republican Iowa Attorney General Brenna Bird has joined a multistate lawsuit seeking to block the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency from setting tougher air emission standards and tightening limits on particulate matter generated by factories, powers plants and other industrial users.


Republican attorneys general from 24 states filed a joint challenge stating that a new EPA rule would raise costs for manufacturers, utilities and families and could block new manufacturing plants and infrastructure such as roads and bridges. Texas filed a separate suit, as did business groups led by the U.S. Chamber of Commerce and National Association of Manufacturers.


Environmental and public health groups have hailed the new soot rule, finalized last month, saying it will help improve air quality and benefit children and older adults with asthma and those with heart and lung conditions, as well as people in low-income and minority communities adversely affected by decades of industrial pollution.


Republicans and industry groups say the United States already has some of the strictest air quality standards in the world — more stringent than the European Union and far stricter than major polluters such as India, Indonesia and China.


The GOP attorneys general argue the new EPA rule would block the permitting of new manufacturing facilities and drive good-paying jobs out of Iowa and overseas.


“The Biden administration’s latest green scheme threatens American jobs and businesses,” Bird said in a statement. “With this radical mandate, costs will soar for Iowa families and businesses, driving good-paying jobs out of Iowa and to other countries. I’m suing to protect Iowans’ hard-earned money, keep American businesses at home, and halt the Biden EPA’s illegal mandate.”

Iowa’s unemployment rate unchanged​

Iowa’s seasonally adjusted unemployment rate remained unchanged at 3 percent in January, slightly higher than a year ago but below the national rate.


The state’s jobless rate was 2.9 percent one year ago. The U.S. unemployment rate remained at 3.7 percent in January.


The number of unemployed Iowans fell by 1,100 in January to 50,900. The total number of working Iowans decreased by 1,200 to 1,653,800.


The state’s labor force participation rate decreased to 67.3 percent from a revised December rate of 67.5 percent.


”January’s report was mixed. On the positive side, it shows the total number of nonfarm jobs remains 12,700 above last year’s total, even after retail businesses pared 2,000 jobs following the holidays,” Beth Townsend, executive director of Iowa Workforce Development, said in a statement. “We also saw 2,300 people leave the workforce voluntarily in January.”

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A 'male' humanoid robot was unveiled in Saudi Arabia. It then inappropriately touched a female reporter.​

Joshua Zitser
Mon, March 11, 2024 at 10:14 AM CDT·2 min read




A Saudi robotics company's unveiling of a "male" humanoid robot didn't go as planned after it appeared to inappropriately touch a female reporter.

Saudi robotics company QSS debuted "Muhammad the Humanoid Robot" at DeepFest in Riyadh last week. The robot, dressed in traditional Saudi attire, spoke Arabic and English.

In a DeepFest post on X, Muhammad was described as "the first Saudi robot in the form of a man," as well as a national project to highlight Saudi Arabia's AI achievements.

During a presentation, a reporter for Al Arabiya, Rawya Kassem, stood in front of Muhammad as she spoke to the audience.
A viral video of the incident showed the robot appearing to extend a hand forward to touch her backside.
In the clip, Kassem can be seen responding with a stern glare, followed by a raised palm at Muhammad, before she continues to talk.

On X, social media users accused the robot of inappropriately touching the female reporter.
QSS, which did not immediately respond to BI's request for comment, told Metro that the robot was "fully autonomous" and was operating "independently without direct human control."

The robotics firm said staff had "proactively informed all attendees, including reporters, to maintain a safe distance from the robot during its demonstration."

According to Metro, QSS added that it had reviewed the footage and the circumstances surrounding the incident, finding that there were "no deviations from expected behavior" of Muhammad.

It said it would take "additional measures" to prevent anyone from "getting close to the robot within its areas of movement."
Last November, Business Insider reported that humanoid robots could be one of the next big things to come out of the AI boom.

According to MarketsandMarkets, the industry could be worth $13.8 billion by 2028.

But there's still a long way to go before these robots start coming for your job.

What the hell.....I'll make it into a wood thou as well.


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It may be time for Americans to consider packing their bags and moving to the very countries all of the illegal immigrants crossing our southern border are leaving. They will surely be empty before long and much cheaper to live in. Plus, the United States will barely be recognizable soon.

National correspondent for Fox News, Bill Melugin, just commented on X that “Per CBP sources, there were more than 12,600 migrants encountered at the southern border in the last 24 hours, the highest single day total ever recorded.”

BREAKING: Per CBP sources, there were more than 12,600 migrants encountered at the southern border in the last 24 hours, the highest single day total ever recorded. The true number is *significantly* higher because there are thousands still waiting to be processed in Eagle Pass…

He adds that this number fails to account for the thousands more that still need to be processed in Eagle Pass, Texas. His assessment is confirmed in another X post shared by Jorge Ventura Media, which notes that 3,000 more are standing in line as they wait to be processed.

Might we remember that the American people are funding this atrocity by way of a government that refuses to stop it? How do we claim asylum from this lunacy as our representatives, on both sides, have run amuck. They aren’t doing their jobs.

For President Joe Biden, the continuation of the flow spans well beyond an impeachable offense. It seems as intentional as the very cell phones, gift cards and plane tickets our government gives these criminals as they cross the border. Let’s not forget that they are breaking the law by illegally entering the United States.

According to the House Homeland Security Committee interim staff report as shared by The New York Post, “Americans could pay up to $451 billion to care for migrants who entered the US illegally, but have been released into the country or escaped from custody.” It furthers that a small fraction of the cost is ever recouped by these illegals.

The American people are fed up with this lawlessness. Even if illegal immigration ended today, it would take time to get ahead of this disaster. But it isn’t going to end. Evidence shows it is just increasing daily. Americans can’t afford it and don’t want it.

We can only hope that it costs the Democrats the election in 2024. In the meantime, state officials like Texas GOP Governor Greg Abbott are forced to deal with the federal government’s deliberate inaction, lest he no longer has a state left to run. Earlier in the week, Abbott signed the SB4 bill, “making Texas the first state in the union to give law enforcement officers the authority to arrest migrants who illegally enter the state,” according to Breitbart.

Anyone who dares believe we can continue to allow thousands of migrants into our country without the United States eventually buckling shouldn’t be running the country. Someone take the keys away, please.

MSN