Hi everyone,

Welcome back.  Congratulations on making it to the end of January.  How are you?  I'm a little thrown at the moment - woke up this morning to a text message that a friend passed away recently.  It hasn't really sunk in yet, but we'll put that to the side for the moment.  BDH and Little Buddha say today's to-do list is a bit long, so there probably won't be time to check out the new releases at the bookstore.  Maybe I'll be able to sneak it in tomorrow. 

Anyway, let's get to work.  The guys made coffee, so grab yourself a nice medium DD, because it's time to clear out some Tuesday Clutter.

The Manhattan District Attorney's Office reportedly convened a grand jury to present evidence regarding Donald Trump's involvement in the hush money paid to adult film actress Stormy Daniels in 2016.  Former Trump fixer Michael Cohen has already served prison time for his role in this cover-up, and he has repeatedly said he acted on Trump's orders.  Thus, it stands to reason that Trump also broke the law and should have been indicted a long time ago.  By reimbursing Cohen for the payment to Daniels and lying about its purpose, Trump could be guilty of a charge of falsifying business records, which is a felony. 

Trump wasn't charged for this before, because the Justice Department said it wouldn't prosecute a sitting president.  That's not an obstacle now, so let's get moving here.

A man with a complete contempt for the law.  (pic via aol.com)

A new poll shows Rep. George Santos' constituents overwhelmingly want him to resign.  It's hard to get people to agree on much these days, so when 78% of your district says you should get out, that's a statement.  This sociopath seems to be enjoying the attention too much to give it up, so if he has no shame, where is the pressure point to force him out the door?  It certainly won't come from Speaker Kevin McCarthy, who desperately needs every single vote he can find in the House.

Meanwhile, a number of George Santos' major donors don't appear to exist.  If shame won't push him out of office, maybe an indictment for fraud will do it.

Elected officials will pay lip service to mourning Tyre Nichols, but many of them have no interest in actually doing anything to pass meaningful policing reform.  The obvious first step is to eliminate qualified immunity.  Let these officers be subject to lawsuits for their actions, and you'll see a dramatic change in behavior in a heartbeat. 

Twitter reportedly started making its debt payments, so at least the platform won't be declaring bankruptcy this week.  (Hey, you take your wins where you can find them.)  However, Twitter's ad revenue remains severely down, thanks to Elon Musk's ongoing coddling of right-wing trolls.  Just looking at the numbers, Musk is worth an estimated $181.3 billion, and Twitter has about $12.5 billion in debt.  He could pay the whole thing off and still have more money than future generations of his family will ever be able to spend.  Instead, we'll have to watch this clown show continue for as long as he remains focused on his shiny new toy.

One more day to go before the Federal Reserve announces the latest interest rate hike.  Everyone expects it to be 0.25%, but all eyes will be on what chairman Jerome Powell indicates about future increases.  The Clutter investment team will be stunned if he says anything about cutting rates before the end of 2023.  The best-case scenario is some hint of limiting future increases, in light of the data that shows inflation is cooling down in the United States.  In the meantime, our crew continues to enjoy earning a healthy yield on their savings account.  According to the linked article, it's been about 15 years since cash earned this strong of a return.  Who knows when it will happen again?

We've got almost two weeks before the Kansas City Chiefs face the Philadelphia Eagles, so let's start the conversation by pointing out it's neat that this is the first time two Black quarterbacks will start in the Super Bowl.  Of course, there's already been the usual griping online about highlighting this historic moment.  Nothing but a bunch of sad white guys having temper tantrums over it being celebrated.  We're old enough to remember people saying Black men weren't smart enough to be quarterbacks.  Even now, if the Eagles win, Philadelphia's Jalen Hurts will only be the fourth Black quarterback to get the victory.  This is an AFC house, so we're pulling for Patrick Mahomes to become the first Black quarterback to win multiple Super Bowl.  No matter what, history will be made.

San Francisco 49ers quarterback Brock Purdy reportedly suffered a complete UCL tear in his throwing elbow and is expected to be out for six months.  That's too bad, the kid deserved a much better ending to this run.  Purdy's injury likely means Trey Lance will have another chance to win back the job at the start of training camp. 

That didn't take long:  Kellen Moore is the new offensive coordinator for the Los Angeles Chargers, less than 24 hours after losing the same job with the Dallas Cowboys.

The Boston Red Sox traded Matt Barnes to the Miami Marlins for reliever Richard Bleier yesterday.  You may remember Bleier as the guy who lost a game last year by throwing a record three balks in the same inning.  Exciting.  The move saves the Red Sox some money, and the team holds an option on Bleier for 2024, so the risk is pretty low, just like Chaim Bloom likes it.  We wish the best for Barnes.  He showed promise at times, but things seemed to implode almost the day after he signed his last contract extension.  Hopefully the change of scenery will do him some good.

We've got a trailer for Murder Mystery 2, starring Jennifer Aniston and Adam Sandler.  This thing looks so stupid, it almost makes us want to see the movie.  We never watched the first one, but odds are pretty good we'll be able to catch up quickly, right?  Something tells us we're going to be mad if we keep the Netflix subscription through March just to watch this...but we might do it anyway.  Have a look:

Actor Zachary Levi stirred up some controversy by recently tweeting some criticism of Pfizer Inc., saying he agrees the pharmaceutical company is, "a real danger to the world."  To the extent that he's talking about the nonstop drug commercials that run on TV, he's not wrong.  Those shouldn't be allowed on the air.  However, if Levi is talking about being anti-vaccine (which he hasn't clarified), we're going to take a pass on checking out that Shazam! movie after all.  Actually, after reading some of the other comments in the linked article, yeah, we'll skip that one.

Showtime is reportedly being absorbed into the Paramount+ streaming service and will now be called...Paramount+ with Showtime.  Could that name possibly be any lazier or more awkward?  Streaming sounded like a fascinating idea back in the early days, and now it doesn't seem more more interesting than cable.

We're sorry to hear that actress Cindy Williams died, although if we're being honest, we thought that happened a couple of years ago.  Maybe we were thinking of Penny Marshall.  Both women were beloved on the show Laverne & Shirley, which ran from 1976 to 1983.  If you're of a certain age, you can sing the theme song in your sleep.  Our condolences go out to Williams' family and friends.  She was 75 years old.

KISS manager Doc McGhee said the band's final show of their "End of the Road" tour will definitely happen in 2023.  What we get out of that is that this particular tour will in fact end this year.  However, we're still skeptical that this is really it for the band.  We remember when Ozzy said the "No More Tears" tour would be it for him, and that was 30 years ago.  Meanwhile, Mötley Crüe continues to tour, despite saying they were done performing back in 2016.

Okay kids, that's going to do it for now.  Here are The Beatles to close things out with, "In My Life" 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, tell your people you love them, 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.