Hi everyone,

Welcome back.  How are you?  Our crew is doing well at the moment.  Last night was the best sleep I've had in about a week, so I'm ready for whatever BDH and Little Buddha put on today's to-do list.  The guys say the list isn't that long, but that I should try to finish it before it starts raining this afternoon.  Can do.  I struck out with the new releases at the bookstore yesterday, but that's fine.  The latest issue of Doctor Who Magazine arrived in the mail, and that almost counts as a mini-book (and it has pictures!), so the guys should be set for the rest of this week.

Now, let's take a peek at the headlines.  There's a fresh pot of coffee on the counter, so grab yourself a nice medium DD, because it's time to clear out some Thursday Clutter.

The United States government will likely hit its debt ceiling today, which will force Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen to start moving money around, which should buy some time until June.  The problem is that the federal budget runs through the end of September.  CNN has a handy review of how this fight has played out over the years.  Once again, Republicans only care about this issue when there's a Democrat in the White House. 

It's time for Secretary Yellen to break out the emergency measures.  (pic via wgbh.org)

Put a Republican in the Oval Office, and suddenly no one in the GOP cares about debt.  Donald Trump's tax cuts added trillions to the national debt, and Republicans had no problem with it, because the rich got even richer, and that's all that matters to them.   It would be a disaster on multiple fronts if the U.S. defaulted on its bills.  However,  the domestic terrorists in the GOP seem to get off on holding the country hostage.

Speaker McCarthy appointing Reps. Marjorie Taylor Greene, Paul Gosar, and Lauren Boebert to the House Oversight Committee is yet another example of how the GOP has no interest in actually governing, but man, is it a political gift to President Biden and the Democrats.  These three extremists will waste everyone's time over the next two years, while loudly showing how disconnected today's Republicans are from reality.  The 2024 campaign commercials will write themselves.

Donald Trump is pushing for Facebook to allow him to return after a two-year ban.  First, that's a terrible idea.  As we've said before, Trump repeatedly violated Facebook's content policies in the past, and there's no reason to think this time would be any different.  The man promotes violence, and that can't be tolerated.  Second, what this plea really says to us is that Trump's acknowledging his Truth Social platform is a miserable failure, and he wants out of it.  Facebook already said they're reviewing the issue.  The right answer is to leave this public safety threat out in the wilderness.

ICYMI - Donald Trump recently blasted evangelical voters for not being "loyal" and supporting his 2024 presidential campaign.  Of course, anyone who actually cared about morality on any level would never consider voting for Trump in the first place.  Trump's obsession with loyalty continues to fascinate.  It doesn't take much understanding of psychology to know that this sad man is trying to cover his self-loathing by insisting everyone should bow before him.  As we've said many times before, this country could have been in a much different place if Fred Trump had ever hugged his son.

The great fraud, Rep. George Santos, claims his mom was in NYC on 9/11, but immigration records show she wasn't even in the United States at the time.   SNL should bring back the character of Tommy Flanagan, so he and Santos can face off in a lying contest.  It might just turn out that Flanagan is Santos' father:

President Biden released his first list of judicial nominations for this year yesterday.  Appointing federal judges is one of this administration's top priorities, and they're off to a great start so far.  Their pace should increase, now that Democrats have expanded their control of the U.S. Senate.  The courts are where the long-term policy impact happens.  Biden's efforts to remake the judiciary will benefit the country long after he's gone from the White House.

Twitter's revenue is reportedly down by 40%, as advertisers continue to distance themselves from Elon Musk.  Turns out these companies don't like being associated with Donald Trump, right-wing trolls, and massive staff cuts that harm the site's content moderation practices.  Who could have seen that coming?  Musk will probably blame some left-wing conspiracy, but this is all on him.  He has no idea how to run this platform, and there's no reason to be optimistic about a turn-around as long as he remains in charge.

The Meta Oversight Board said the company should redefine its nudity policy to be more inclusive for transgender and non-binary people.  The recommendation comes after Instagram removed several pictures posted by a transgender couple raising money for one of them to have gender-affirming surgery.  The posts were originally taken down for supposedly violating Meta's "sexual solicitation" policy.  While the pictures have already been restored anyway, the board said the policy itself is the bigger problem and needs modifying.

JP Morgan Chase CEO Jamie Dimon thinks interest rates will likely go higher than what the Fed is projecting for this year, because he believes more will need to be done to break inflation in this country.  The Fed is talking about an end point of 5.1%, but Dimon thinks 6% could be in play.  The Clutter investment team doesn't put a lot of weight into predictions like these, because things can always change quickly.  However, if Dimon ends up being right, the team will appreciate the chance for its savings account to earn even more for a while.  After years of earning roughly seven cents a month in interest, the staff still enjoys now getting enough to pay for more than one cup of coffee.

The NFL announced that the New England Patriots will be one of the teams playing a game overseas next season.  Bill Belichick and company will be in Germany at some point, but we'll have to wait until later this year to find out when, and who will be their opponent.  Germany is six hours ahead of us, so we're looking at a start time somewhere around 9:00 in the morning that week. 

Rob Gronkowski called out Aaron Rodgers for being seemingly more interested in winning another MVP award than another Super Bowl, and we are here for it.  When asked about comments Rodgers made in a recent interview, the retired tight end said,

"It's just that 'I think I can win another Super Bowl,' and then, that would have been totally fine. Why are you thinking MVP? Like, don't you want Super Bowls? Super Bowls are, I think, five times greater than an MVP award."

We'll always love Gronk anyway for his amazing accomplishments with the New England Patriots, but anyone who thinks Rodgers has his priorities in the wrong place is also always good with us.

It's no surprise former NFL coach/current NBC Sports analyst Tony Dungy fell for that ridiculous "cat litter boxes in schools" conspiracy theory.  Dungy has a long history of homophobic comments, so of course he would unthinkingly use that as an argument to criticize a Minnesota state bill that would require menstrual products in boys' school bathrooms.  The litter box story was debunked months ago, but there's no need to let reality get in the way, right, coach?

Who wants to see the first publicity photo from the new season of Ted Lasso?  Click on the link, and ye shall receive.

Speaking of Ted Lasso, show creator Bill Lawrence (who also created Scrubs) has a new series coming on Apple TV+ called Shrinking.  It stars Jason Segel and Harrison Ford.  We're still not getting this streaming service anytime soon, but we'd be interested in watching this show if it ever appeared on a different platform:

Apparently we weren't the only ones really excited to see the Night Court revival this past Tuesday:  The first two episodes had the highest comedy debut ratings in five years on NBC.  Like we said yesterday, we give the show a B so far, mostly because of John Larroquette, but we're pulling for it to do well. 

Okay kids, that's going to do it for now.  Here's Fall Out Boy to close things out with their new tune, "Love From the Other Side" for today's, "Song of the Day."

Thanks for stopping by, everyone.  It was great to see you, as always.  Enjoy the rest of your day, be good, 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.