Hi everyone,

Welcome back!  How are you?  We're already having an interesting day here.  I woke up at 3:00 this morning to discover a *bird* flying around the bedroom.  That will get your heart racing quickly...and maybe give you a bit of a stomach ache.  The problem is that by the time I got my bearings, the bird disappeared, and I haven't been able to find it since.  1) That eliminated any chance of me going back to sleep.  2) I can't help thinking there's a 5% chance it was a dream, but I really don't think that's the case.  I need to go grocery shopping later, as well as take a trip to the bookstore for BDH and Little Buddha.  However,  it looks like the rest of the day will be spent trying to find this thing, or else risk never sleeping again.  That's fun.  We're going to need some extra coffee.  There's a fresh pot on the counter, so grab yourself a nice medium DD, because it's time to clear out some Tuesday Clutter.

*(Someone just raised the possibility that we're talking about a bat instead of a bird.  Gonna pretend we didn't hear that for now.)

In case anyone has missed it, Donald Trump and Republicans are pulling out all the stops to subvert this year's election.  Conservatives have been fighting a fake war on voter fraud for years, using it as an excuse to purge minority groups from the voter rolls.  However, now it's an all-out assault on the voting process, including Trump's lying about mail-in voting fraud and his simultaneous attack on the Post Office to make sure they can't handle an increase in ballots that are due to the coronavirus pandemic. 

Trump knows he'll be humiliated if it's a fair election in November, and perhaps more importantly, he'll lose the legal protections he's currently enjoying while in office.  Meanwhile, his Republican enablers are more than happy to help him undermine democracy, because they know they too would lose badly if voting was easy in this country.  The GOP only exists to protect the top 1%.  Everyone else is irrelevant to them, so Republicans as a whole need voting to be as difficult as possible.  We are under attack from within, friends.  

At war with democracy.  (pic via summarizer.co)

Donald Trump's press conference yesterday was dishonest from start to finish, to the surprise of no one.  We wonder if Trump even remembers half the things he says at these events by the time they're done.

Donald Trump was forced to admit that his recent statements about signing an executive order to mandate insurance companies cover pre-existing conditions was a completely empty statement, because the Affordable Care Act already has that requirement. 

The CDC says the United States has seen about 200,000 more deaths than would normally be expected at this point in the year.  Considering that some 160,000 of them are identified coronavirus-related cases, that leads experts to believe that the true devastation of this pandemic has been under-counted.

A Facebook internal investigation reportedly shows that QAnon groups have millions of members on the site.  For those not familiar with these guys:

QAnon is a right-wing conspiracy theory that originally formed around the idea that President Donald Trump is leading a secret war against the “deep state,” a group of political, business and Hollywood elites who, according to the theory, worship Satan and abuse and murder children. These baseless claims emerge from posts by an anonymous user on a fringe internet forum who goes by “Q.”

Don't they sound fun?  It is unclear what actions Facebook will take to reduce the harm caused by the propaganda from these people, but considering that they're Donald Trump supporters, we're not expecting Mark Zuckerberg and company to aggressively limit them.  Can't be hurting Facebook's great cash cow, after all.

Good for California for getting a judge to block Uber and Lyft from misidentifying their drivers as independent contractors instead of employees.  That incorrect classification allows the companies to get away with not providing these folks benefits, and it should be blocked.  We expect this court case to continue for some time to come before a final result is reached, but this is a positive first step.

Kodak's stock took a hit yesterday after news that the company's $765 million government loan to help its transition into becoming a pharmaceutical company has now been put on hold because of an investigation into allegations of insider trading.  The stock fell 30% on Monday.

The good news is that J.D. Martinez finally hit his first home run of the "season" last night.  The bad news is that the Boston Red Sox lost 8-7 to the Tampa Bay Rays to fall to 6-10 on the year.  Boston's offense was clicking for once, but when your pitching gives up 16 hits and 8 walks, you're going to be in trouble. Martin Perez takes the mound for the Sox against the Rays tonight.

We're sorry to hear Brian Johnson is no longer with the Boston Red Sox.  The pitcher apparently asked for, and was granted, his release yesterday, after it probably became clear the team had no plans for him.  If he couldn't crack this year's thin rotation, it was definitely time to move on to the next adventure.  Johnson's career stats were nothing remarkable (7-9 with a 4.74 ERA), but he was able to start or relieve, depending on what the Sox needed from him, and after his battles with anxiety and depression, we were pulling for him to do well in the majors.  Considering all of the pitching injuries this year, Johnson should have a decent chance of catching on with another team, and we wish him the best of luck.

The Cleveland Indians sent home two pitchers for breaking the team's coronavirus protocols. Zach Plesac and Mike Clevinger are the first two MLB players to be punished for these kinds of violations.   Good for the club for cracking down.  This is one of the reasons why this "season" should have been played in a bubble, but since it's not, at least the team showed there are repercussions for not following the rules.

The New England Patriots came to agreement with Lamar Miller on a one-year deal yesterday.  The former Houston Texans running back ran for 2,934 yards and 13 touchdowns in three seasons with the Houston Texans before tearing his ACL in a preseason game against the Dallas Cowboys last year.  The Patriots have a long list of options at the position now as they discover their offensive identity in the post-Tom Brady era.

Huge news for Doctor Who fans:  Christopher Eccleston is back as the 9th Doctor in a new series of Big Finish audio adventures that will be released in 2021.  Eccleston was the first star of the revived series in 2005, but there were behind-the-scenes issues that led to him leaving after only one year (when he was replaced by David Tennant.)  He never got enough credit for his work, and there seemed to be a lot of hard feelings associated with his time on the show, so hopefully this will help address both of those situations.  We look forward to hearing Eccleston back in action next year.

ABC is finally making the episode of Black-ish that it pulled in 2018 available on Hulu.  It seems the network is no longer afraid of angering Donald Trump or his supporters.

CBS is reportedly working on a short-run CSI revival to mark the 20th anniversary of the show's debut.   Which cast members need to return for this to grab your attention?

Today marks the 6th anniversary of the death of Robin Williams.  It may have been six years, but we remember it like it happened yesterday.  Williams' widow is apparently releasing a new documentary about Lewy Body Dementia, the neurodegenerative disorder which was revealed to be the cause of his suffering in his later years.  We read about about that in Dave Itzkoff's biography about the comedian a few years ago, and it sounds terrible.  It might be too depressing for us to deal with in the midst of everything else going on, but you should feel free to drop us a line with your thoughts if you watch Robin's Wish (which will be out on September 1.) 

We're sorry to hear about the major layoffs at DC Comics and the DC Universe streaming service yesterday.  It's a dark moment for the comics industry.

Metallica will play their first live concert of 2020 before the end of the month.  The band is filming a new show to be screened for fans on August 29 as part of the Encore Drive-In Nights series.  Tickets are $115 for a car of up to six people, and that also includes four downloads of Metallica's new S&M2 album.  Have you ever been to a drive-in?  We have a vague recollection of doing it once or twice in college, but that may be it. 

Okay kids, that's going to do it for now.  Guess there's no way to escape taking another look for that bird, so we might as well have the Beatles close things out with, "Blackbird," for today's, "Song of the Day."

Thanks for stopping by, everyone.  It was great to see you, as always.  BDH and Little Buddha want to remind you that it's supposed to be really hot today, so do whatever you need to in order to stay cool.  If you want, you can help us look for this bird.  Otherwise, be good, wear your masks, 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.