Friday Clutter: Trump, DeSantis, Defense Secretary Austin, Uvalde Massacre, Google, Bill Belichick, NFL Playoffs, Curb Your Enthusiasm, Van Halen, Green Day, and more
01/19/2024
Hi everyone,
Welcome back, and a happy Friday to you all. What's on the schedule for this weekend? I'm not sure if we have much besides staying warm until these frigid temperatures pass, and watching the NFL playoff games. We're also keeping an eye out for more snow, but the last forecast BDH and Little Buddha heard said we were only looking at about an inch at most. Here's hoping that's the case.
The guys are eager to get to work, so let's do it. 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 Clutter.
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Donald Trump's legal team warned the U.S. Supreme Court that the MAGA cult will have a violent response if the efforts to remove Trump from the ballot are successful. According to the lawyers, trying to keep an insurrectionist from running for office, as outlined in the U.S. Constitution, "promise(s) to unleash chaos and bedlam." The whole reason we're having this discussion is because these thugs tried to violently kill our democracy on January 6. If President Biden is re-elected in November, we have every expectation the right-wing will try it again. The United States is under direct attack from Team Trump, and it needs to be stopped, once and for all.
Lock him up. (pic via usnews.com)
Governor Ron DeSantis now says he should have done more mainstream media appearances at the start of his presidential campaign. We'd argue that probably wouldn't have helped him much. All the increased exposure probably would have done is made it clear to even more people how extreme and awkward he is, and it wouldn't have made a dent in Trump's support. The governor's real mistake was thinking that getting into a fight with Disney would somehow swing the cult members his way. The man completely overestimated his standing as a "culture warrior."
Congress passed a short-term funding bill which kicks the threat of a government shutdown down the road by a few weeks. (That's assuming of course that President Biden signs the bill.) Some of the funding would have expired today, but now those programs are okay until March 1. The other line-items in question would have run out of money on February 2, but now they have enough to get them to March 8. It's outrageous that Republicans are constantly threatening to hold the national economy hostage like this. Keeping the lights on is a basic requirement of lawmakers' jobs, and the GOP seems to resent it. It would be great if one of our two main political parties wasn't always trying to bring down the United States.
The House Armed Services Committee wants Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin to testify on February 14 about the failure to notify people in a timely fashion about his recent hospitalization. We have no doubt Republicans would use the opportunity to grandstand, but Secretary Austin should appear before the committee. The public has the right to know why his status was hidden from key officials (including President Biden), as well as the rest of the country.
The families of the victims of the Uvalde school massacre in 2022 are once again calling for criminal charges to be brought against those who failed to protect their loved ones during that shooting. This renewed push comes after the Department of Justice released a scathing report detailing how law enforcement officials failed to do their jobs and made things worse on that terrible day. The police left the armed gunman alone in the Robb Elementary School for over an hour before taking action, and 19 students and two teachers lost their lives because of it. That's inexcusable, and firings aren't enough. The DOJ report documents staggering incompetence that requires criminal prosecution.
A new study says Google search results are getting worse, as more junk sites focus on gaming the system via affiliate marketing and Search Engine Optimization. Thus, their low-quality content is getting higher rankings than it should otherwise receive. Google says it's working on the problem, but it's not clear how to fix the issue. This shows the danger of having the entire Internet so dependent on one company.
Bill Belichick will reportedly have a second interview with the Atlanta Falcons this weekend. The Falcons are fairly talented, and the NFC South is a weak division, so it's easy to see how that could be an appealing situation for Belichick. It would also be easier for us to continue rooting for him if he takes a job in the NFC, which would be nice.
Also, New England Patriots offensive coordinator Bill O'Brien is leaving for the same position with Ohio State University. We really thought hiring O'Brien again would bring some competency to this year's Patriots offense. Well, you can't get them all right. We're curious to see who New England head coach Jerod Mayo hires as O'Brien's replacement, and what that will say about the team's approach moving forward.
We're looking forward to this weekend's NFL divisional playoff round. All four games look like they should be fun. Give us the San Francisco 49ers beating the Green Bay Packers, the Baltimore Ravens beating the Houston Texans (although we wouldn't be shocked if rookie quarterback C.J. Stroud leads his team to an upset), the Detroit Lions beating the Tampa Bay Buccaneers, and the Kansas City Chiefs beating the Buffalo Bills. Who have you got?
Here's a fun look back at the history of Curb Your Enthusiasm, as the series prepares for its final(?) season, starting on February 4. Maybe this is really the end for Curb. However, as someone says in the linked article, it's hard to believe this is the last we'll hear from Larry David.
Nyambi Nyambi has officially joined the cast of Night Court as new court clerk Wyatt Shaw. He replaces Kapil Talwalkar, who played Neil (who we don't think ever had a last name.) Neil was reportedly set up to be a potential love interest for Judge Abby Stone in the reboot's first season. However, the showrunners changed creative plans, and now we have Wyatt, a single father who will apparently be focused on his kids. We didn't know Nyambi before this week's episode, but he seemed like a good fit with the rest of the cast.
Andrew McCarthy wrote and directed a documentary about the Brat Pack, which will be out later this year on Hulu. That might be enough to get us to finally subscribe to the streaming service. As kids of the 1980's know, McCarthy and the rest of that crew dominated Hollywood for a good stretch of that decade. It would be interesting to hear their thoughts about their run at the top of the mountain, and how it impacted the rest of their careers.
David Lee Roth used a lot of colorful language recently to basically say, "Sammy Hagar should keep my name out of his mouth." We're Van Halen and "Van Hagar" fans, and yes, Hagar is the better singer of the two by a mile. However, Roth has a point. It's a little odd that Sammy still can't stop talking about him after all these years. He's got a million projects going on, and he should leave DLR off to do whatever it is "Diamond Dave" does these days. Move on, man.
Okay kids, that's going to do it for now. Here's Green Day to close things out with their new single, "Bobby Sox" for today's, "Song of the Day."
Thanks for stopping by, folks. It was great to see you, as always. Enjoy your weekend, stay warm, 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.
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