Hi everyone,

How are you?  How was your weekend?  I had a nice time celebrating a socially distanced Father's Day with Dad Clutter yesterday.  Besides that, I wasn't all that productive, but that's okay.  We'll take care of business this week.  It was steamy in the bedroom last night.  Unfortunately, I mean that literally.  There's no doubt that summer is here.  BDH, Little Buddha, and I are going to revisit the idea of installing some A/C, because that was rough.  Anyway, let's check out the headlines.  The guys made coffee, so grab yourself a nice medium DD, because it's time to clear out some Monday Clutter.

It's two days later, and it's still hard to believe what a disaster Donald Trump's campaign rally in Tulsa, Oklahoma, turned out to be for his campaign.  Trump's campaign manager Brad Parscale (who somehow still has his job) claimed that the campaign received one million ticket requests.  The projections were for a crowd of 19,000 in the arena, and a total of up to 100,000 people outside the building.  There were warnings from public health experts that a crowd this large that refused to wear masks or keep their distance from each other could be a coronavirus "super spreader" event.  Team Trump hyped this as the Great Pumpkin's triumphant return to campaigning, and then a funny thing happened:  Only 6200 people showed up. 

An unqualified failure.  (pic via mainichi.jp)

There are stories about teenagers from across the country hijacking the event and protesting Trump by signing up for tickets under false names.  Good for them, but the main impact of their prank was messing up the Trump supporter database.  That's not why no one turned out for the event (or the overflow area) in a solidly red state.  Whether it's because a good portion of Oklahoma residents support wearing masks and not being part of large events during a pandemic, or something else, Trump couldn't get his supporters to come see him, which has to be raising alarms at campaign headquarters.

On a more substantive note, Trump admitted to the crowd on Saturday that he instructed his administration to cut down on coronavirus testing because he was being hurt politically by the numbers:

"When you do testing to that extent you're going to find more people, you're going to find cases," Mr. Trump said."So I said to my people, 'Slow the testing down, please.' They test and they test. We got tests for people who don't know what's going on."

That's an admission of complicity in over 120,000 American deaths because of political considerations.  Forget impeachment, Trump should be run out of the White House today.  However, we'll have to make do with removing him from office in November.  The public deserves a White House occupant who actually believes in science and will do what it takes to protect American lives.  That's not a lot to expect from the country's leader.

The Lincoln Project has a scathing new ad mocking Donald Trump for the Tulsa debacle.  These guys don't mess around:

Donald Trump's initial defense against niece Mary Trump's upcoming book is that she allegedly signed a non-disclosure agreement which prevents her from talking about anything in said book.  It's not that what she says is false, mind you.  It's that she's not allowed to discuss it.  Also, is there anyone who has forced more people to sign NDA's than Trump?  There's a whole lot of stuff he wants kept secret.  Publisher Simon & Schuster has no comment about the claim at the moment, and Too Much and Never Enough: How My Family Created the World’s Most Dangerous Man is still scheduled to be released on July 28.

House Democrats want former U.S. Attorney Geoffrey Berman to testify about the circumstances of his dismissal.  That's important, but the House Judiciary Committee should have subpoenaed Attorney General Bill Barr today to speak about the same matter, and if Barr refused to appear, impeachment proceedings should have been brought against him tomorrow.   Judiciary Committee chairman Jerry Nadler says impeachment is warranted, but he's not going to bother with hearings because Republicans would save Barr like they did Trump.  He's right about the outcome, but by not holding the hearings, Democrats are just as complicit in Barr's misconduct as Republicans. 

The courts won't block former national security advisor John Bolton's book from being released.   However, it appears that Bolton did include classified information, so he may still be liable to criminal penalties and a loss of royalties.  Serves him right for refusing to testify during Donald Trump's impeachment trial so he could hold out for his big paycheck.  Trump gets embarrassed, and Bolton's got ongoing legal troubles.  Sounds like a win-win.  We'll also mention that we've heard people have uploaded Bolton's book to the Internet, so one can read it for free.

As calls grow for defunding the police, Massachusetts Governor Charlie Baker is moving in the opposite direction by proposing new bonuses for police officers.  Massachusetts is already spending too much on the police - funds should be shifted to more effective ways of protecting public safety that include social workers, teachers, and public health programs.

Did anyone here catch MLB Network's new Ken Griffey Jr. documentary last night?  We missed it, but hopefully it's available on-demand.  "Junior" was a special player.

We're getting ready to set new odds on whether or not football will happen this year, but the New England Patriots are telling season ticket holders that their deposits are due by the end of the month.  The deadline comes with a number of qualifiers about things like refunds being available if games are cancelled, or reserving seats for next season in case the ticket holder is in a high-risk category.

Huge news in the world of professional wrestling:  It looks like the Undertaker has wrestled his last match.  The legendary superstar said as much during the final installment of the WWE documentary about him.  Of course, pro wrestler retirement announcements are a lot like rock musicians calling it quits - you should take it with a grain of salt.  However, if this is it for the big guy, we tip our caps.  Mark Calaway has been wrestling as the Undertaker since 1987.  That's 33 years of putting his body on the line to entertain audiences around the world.  He was one of the last of an old-school generation of performers, and he's more than earned the right to go out on his terms.  Cheers.

A businessman bought the guitar Kurt Cobain played on Nirvana's legendary "MTV Unplugged" show for $6 million on Saturday.  We can only imagine what it would be like to have that much disposable income.  Of course, we'd use it to increase our coffee budget for all of you.   We'd have to find space for all of the cups, but we'd figure it out for you guys.

We've got the first trailer for the Hamilton film, which airs on Disney+ on July 3.  The film is a compilation of three shows featuring the original Broadway cast in 2016.  We're still not going to buy the streaming service, but hopefully this movie will eventually appear somewhere else, because it looks as terrific as you would expect.  See for yourself:

Okay kids, that's going to do it for now.  We need to kick off this week on the right note, so here's Halestorm with, "Mayhem," for today's, "Song of the Day."

That should do it.

Thanks for stopping by, everyone.  It was great to see you, as always.  Be good, stay safe, and we'll catch up with you again soon.  Until next time, that's today's Clearing out the Clutter, and we are outta here.