Hi everyone,

Welcome back!  How are you?  Turns out that yesterday's weather forecast was one big tease.  There was at least a 40% chance of rain over a roughly eight-hour span, and what did we get?  A light sprinkle for three minutes in the afternoon.  Boo.  There's more precipitation in the forecast for next week, but I'm just going to assume none of it will happen and will schedule garden-watering time accordingly.  Thankfully, the flowers are starting to appear anyway.  However, we could still use some help here, Mother Nature.  The good news is that I slept well last night, thanks to some much more reasonable temperatures.  BDH and Little Buddha think that calls for celebration, so they made you all coffee.  (Every celebration is better with coffee, as far as the guys are concerned.)  Grab yourself a nice medium DD, and let's clear out some Thursday Clutter.

The coronavirus numbers are still getting worse.  There were over 45,500 new cases diagnosed nationally yesterday, with Texas, California, and Florida all reaching new single-day records.  The Trump administration's response?  ending federal funding for testing sites in five states.  In case there's anyone out there who still can't grasp this fact - Donald Trump doesn't care how many people die during this pandemic.  His only concern is trying to stay in the White House so he can continue to enjoy the legal protections he gets from being in office.  He's looking to cause as much chaos as he can between now and November in order to steal another election. 

We've had over 120,000 deaths because of this virus.  Most of them could have been avoided with almost anyone else in charge.  The United States has less than 5% of the world's population and more than 25% of the coronavirus fatalities.  This didn't have to happen.  Donald Trump belongs in prison.

Donald Trump only cares about Donald Trump.  (pic via summarizer.com)

Dozens of Secret Service agents are now in quarantine after two of them tested positive for the coronavirus after working at Donald Trump's disastrous campaign rally in Tulsa, Oklahoma.

The Lincoln Project released a new ad highlighting Donald Trump's criminal misconduct in slowing down coronavirus testing efforts.  Democrats should be studying these clips.  They're a master class in going after the Great Pumpkin:

Massachusetts Governor Charlie Baker is expected to release his plan today for how schools will operate in the next academic year.  It definitely won't be business as usual, but the biggest question is, when will the schools open?  That uncertainty has to be causing incredible stress for families, because no one seemed to love the remote learning scenario over the last three months, and that structure disproportionately harms poor families.   The coronavirus numbers in Massachusetts are currently low, which is great, but as we see cases spiking all over the country, it's clear that could change quickly, thus forcing kids to stay home this fall.

What it all comes down to is, please wear your masks, friends.  It's by far the biggest tool we have for managing this crisis right now.

The polling numbers continue to break Joe Biden's way in battleground states, which is why Donald Trump and the GOP are pushing voter suppression so hard.  They know they can't win if people can easily vote.

House Judiciary Committee chairman Jerry Nadler now says the House may initiate impeachment proceedings against Attorney General William Barr in light of the ongoing corruption at the Department of Justice.  This should have happened months ago.  Barr has been subverting the rule of law ever since he took over the DOJ and should be removed from his position immediately.  Nadler previously tried to dismiss the idea of impeachment because Republicans would simply save the attorney general like they did Donald Trump.  However, Barr's ongoing abuse of power is too egregious to ignore.

The Boston City Council approved a budget yesterday that critics say doesn't do nearly enough in the areas of police reform and addressing racial and economic inequality.  The bill passed by a vote of 8-5, and we're wondering how often we'll hear about it if any of those five councilors who voted no run for mayor in the next city election.

Bayer will spend over $10 billion to settle lawsuits regarding its Roundup weed killer causing cancer.  Of course, no liability will be admitted.  There were roughly 11,000 lawsuits over this product.  Over 11,000 people made sick in the name of profit, but no one from the company will go to jail for causing this much harm to the public.  We don't condone anyone breaking the law, but if you're looking to become a criminal, white-collar crime is the way to go.  The potential payoffs are huge, and the biggest risk is that you might have to write a large check if you're found guilty.

Ranking baseball teams is always a subjective exercise anyway, but particularly so this year.  A good team who gets off to a rough start won't have nearly as much time to recover in a 60-game season, and we still think the whole thing is going to be over after 20 games anyway. 

Also, Boston Red Sox executive Sam Kennedy was discussing the possibility of having fans in the stands this year.  No thank you.  We'll take a credit for the rest of our tickets for this year and hope for the best for 2021, please.

Meanwhile, the NFL is looking at starting training camps on July 28, with the first preseason game on August 6.  We still need someone to explain to us how they think football has any chance of being played safely.  Even if you institute 100 safety precautions off the field, you're talking about groups of large men repeatedly slamming into each other during the game.  What are we doing here?

The numbers haven't been confirmed, but it appears that WWE has a widespread coronavirus problem.  The company has apparently only just started widespread testing of its performers.  That's insane, but it's easy to see Vince McMahon following his buddy Donald Trump's argument that "if you don't test, you won't have cases."  The company has been running its weekly TV shows in their mostly-empty Performance Center facility in Florida (after "convincing" local authorities they were an essential business.) 

However, much like football,  it's clear there's no way to keep wrestlers safe in their matches, let alone matches in the mess that is Florida.  The WWE has decades of old footage at their disposal.  Show people the history of wrestling for a while.  In the meantime, the whole industry should be shut down until the situation with the pandemic improves.

Was anyone asking for a reboot of Twister?   It was a fine bit of mindless entertainment in 1996, but the part we remember most was the rare chance to hear new music from Van Halen as the band was just about to break up with singer Sammy Hagar for the first time.

BDH and Little Buddha just found out that the Muppets have a new program premiering on Disney+ on July 31, and now they want to know if we can revisit the idea of getting a subscription to the streaming service.  The way 2020 is going, maybe it wouldn't be such a bad idea to hang out with Kermit and company every so often:

Okay kids, that's going to do it for now.  Let's take a trip back to 1996 and have Van Halen close things out with their main tune on the Twister soundtrack.  Here's, "Humans Being" for today's, "Song of the Day."

That was a solid song for the mid-90's.

Thanks for stopping by, everyone.  It was great to see you, as always.  Not sure what we're doing later, but BDH and Little Buddha say you're welcome to come back if you like.  We could always watch some more House reruns.  Otherwise, 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.