Hi everyone,

Welcome back!  How are you?  We're still doing a little birthday celebrating for BDH here, which has been fun.  He and Little Buddha do so much around Clutter Headquarters, it's a treat to be able to celebrate them now and again.  It's also nice to have a party to help power through this point in the winter.  We even had a few birds return from down south to join the festivities!   Of course, once these festivities wrap up, we still have Little Buddha's birthday to celebrate at the end of August.  Besides all of the hardcore raging, it's basically business as usual around here this weekend.  The guys just said the coffee is ready, so help yourself to a nice medium DD, and let's clear out some Sunday Clutter.

Donald Trump made it clear that his "national emergency" is a complete fraud.  Trump made even more unbalanced and inarticulate comments than usual on Friday, but the most telling one was his acknowledgement that, "I could do the wall over a longer period of time. I didn't need to do this." Good luck to the administration attorney who has to defend that comment before a federal judge in any of the legal challenges to this declaration.  After making his announcement, Trump then decided to handle this "crisis" the only way he could imagine:  By going to play golf at his course in Florida.  This has to give some of his die-hard supporters at least a little pause.  As awful as the Trump administration has been so far, it's daunting to think about the damage it could have imposed if the Great Pumpkin wasn't so incompetent.

Paul Manafort could be looking at about 19-24 years in jail, following the dissolution of his plea deal.  He's got to be counting on a Trump pardon that would have no justification except for whatever rambling lie pops into Trump's head at that moment.

Former Massachusetts governor William Weld announced he's forming a 2020 exploratory committee to challenge Donald Trump in the Republican presidential primary.  Weld is far more liberal than the current GOP, but for all of those Republicans who claim to be distressed about the modern party, they now have a clear alternative.  Actions speak much louder than words.  Should Weld be able to gain any sort of traction, it could open the door to additional challengers.

Amazon made an $11 billion profit in 2018, and the company will pay $0 in federal taxes. That's outrageous.  It's a moral and political failure, and it's just another example of why proposals to make the top 1% pay their fare share in taxes are so popular these days.

It's been revealed that Twitter may be holding onto users' deleted DM's longer than they previously claimed.  It looks like CEO Jack Dorsey and company were jealous of all of the media attention Facebook continually gets for privacy violations, and they didn't want to be left out of the conversation. 

Guys, a new study says being able to do at least 40 push-ups in a row can dramatically slash your risk for heart disease.  We'll be starting training sessions on Monday morning.  BDH and Little Buddha will handle the counting.  We can do this!

We're sorry to hear German actor Bruno Ganz died on Friday. Our older friends may be more familiar with his body of work, but we're guessing almost everyone here has seen him in one of those YouTube clips where his dialogue as Adolf Hitler was replaced with whatever the current subject of satire was at the time.  Ganz was 77 years old.  Our condolences go out to his family, friends, and fans.

Colin Kaepernick and Eric Reid settled their collusion case against the NFL on Friday. The terms were not disclosed, and a confidentiality agreement applies to all parties.  However, you know the players didn't drop their case cheaply.  The fact that the owners were willing to pay what is likely to have been a significant figure shows they were busted and they knew it.  Now we're wondering what comes next for Kaepernick?  Reid is still playing with the Carolina Panthers, but where does Kap go from here?  We're guessing a social justice campaign is about to get a significant cash infusion.

What's the next step for Kap?  (pic via sfexaminer.com)

New York Yankees pitcher CC Sabathia announced he's retiring after the 2019 season. We've always liked Sabathia, apart from the whole "pitching for New York" thing, so cheers to him.  Of course, we still have no problem with Red Sox batters bunting all day, every day, anytime they face the lefty this year.  Hey, you go out there with a bad knee, you can't expect anyone to take it easy on you.

Hey Criminal Minds fans, quick question:  We watched the show regularly for the first 5-6 seasons and then bailed, so we weren't really up-to-date on the current episodes, but how do you feel about this year's season finale?   Does it ring true to you?  We may need to start re-watching some of the old shows again to see if that holds up.

Which is more surprising:  The fact that we're coming up on the 30th anniversary of the debut of Baywatch, or that Bryan Cranston is one of a number of future celebrity guests who appeared on the show?   (Yes, there were other people on the show besides Pamela Anderson and the Hoff.)

Former Nirvana manager Danny Goldberg has a book coming out in April that looks back at his time with the band. Consider us intrigued.

Okay kids, that's going to do it for now.  Seeing how it's Sunday and all, here's Dusty Springfield to close things out with, "Son of a Preacher Man," for today's, "Song of the Day."

Thanks for stopping by, everyone.  On behalf of our entire crew, it was great to see you, as always.  Enjoy the rest of your day, be good, and we'll meet up again for more fun soon.  Until next time, that's today's Clearing out the Clutter, and we are outta here.