“I was moved in the middle of the night to a intensive care unit. My breathing and oxygen are not improving, next step is a ventilation machine. All of this could have been prevented by a vaccine. When its all etched in stone you cant go back and get 2nd chances. We must live with the outcome, if ur not vaccinated then for the love of god please go! Ty for the prayers, kellie and all the kids are still fighting it at home” wrote Travis Campbell, 43, of Bristol, Virginia in a Facebook post. Inspiring!

“Mere months after Gov. Asa Hutchinson signed a bill that banned local mask mandates across Arkansas, the state’s top Republican has asked lawmakers to reconsider the prohibition so that school districts might require children to don face coverings when they return to the classroom this fall. ‘In hindsight, I wish that it had not become law,’ he said at a news conference on Tuesday. In March, when covid-19 cases were declining, Hutchinson allowed a statewide mask mandate to expire. About a month later, he signed a bill that barred local officials from requiring face coverings.”

“Now, Hutchinson wants to undo that legislation. On Tuesday, he called for a special session to reevaluate the ban. The governor’s plea comes amid swiftly rising numbers of new coronavirus infections across Arkansas, which – like much of the South – has seen a resurgence of the virus in recent weeks. At the news conference, Hutchinson said while he is not in favor of a statewide mask mandate, local directives should be a tool available to school districts because children under the age of 12 cannot be vaccinated” – Washington Post.

Axios: “Donations to the Republican Attorneys General Association dipped considerably in the months following the Jan. 6 siege on the U.S. Capitol, records show. Large companies that gave in the past – such as Amazon, Walmart, Visa, Capital One, Johnson & Johnson and CocaCola – didn’t donate to RAGA in the first six months of this year. Another prior donor, Facebook, said it paused its political giving program altogether. State attorneys general played an outsized role in advancing conspiracy theories about 2020 voter fraud, and RAGA’s nonprofit arm did a robocall urging ‘patriots’ to come to Washington and protest the 2020 election results. The fallout could handicap Republican efforts this cycle to capture key state-level law enforcement posts.”

“Segments of corporate America have distanced themselves from groups that pushed efforts to overturn the legitimate 2020 election results. RAGA’s Rule of Law Defense Fund was listed as an organizer of the ‘March to Save America’ rally on the National Mall on Jan. 6. ‘We are hoping patriots like you will join us to continue to fight to protect the integrity of our elections,’ the group said in a robocall promoting the rally. Republican state AGs were also central to court efforts to overturn President Biden’s victories in key states. This year, they’ve pursued legal challenges to key Biden agenda items. In April, RAGA’s then-chairman, Georgia Attorney General Chris Carr, resigned from the group, citing deep differences of opinion about Jan. 6 and the robocall. By the numbers: RAGA raised about $6.7 million in the first half of 2021. That’s down from $8.5 million during the same period in 2019 and also less than the group raised in the first half of 2017.”

“The party plans had been months in the making and many invitees had already arrived on Martha’s Vineyard when former President Barack Obama belatedly announced he was canceling his huge 60th birthday bash scheduled for Saturday. ‘Due to the new spread of the Delta variant over the past week, the President and Mrs. Obama have decided to significantly scale back the event to include only family and close friends,’ Hannah Hankins, a spokeswoman for the former president, said in a statement Wednesday morning. ‘He’s appreciative of others sending their birthday wishes from afar and looks forward to seeing people soon'” – New York Times.

That’s Springfield, Illinois ABC affiliate News Channel 20 TV reporter Jake Emerson on scene with an unrelated report as a truck rolls down the boat ramp and sinks into Lake Springfield on Friday.

Later that day Emerson filed a text article on his station’s website describing the incident with a bizarre and almost sort of disconcerting impersonality: “A white GMC truck slipped off the Spaulding Dam boat launch into Lake Springfield at 6:20 p.m. on Thursday, July 29. No one was inside the vehicle at the time it sank, and no injuries were reported. The owner of the vehicle was in the process of taking a boat onto the lake with a woman and a boy when the incident occurred. The Sangamon County Rescue Squad said on their Facebook page on Friday, July 30: ‘Last night, SCRS responded to Spaulding Dam boat launch at Lake Springfield to assist with the recovery of a submerged vehicle. No injuries were reported with this incident.'”

The mother of silver medalist shot putter Raven Saunders died suddenly Tuesday, just days after watching her daughter take second place in the Olympic Games in Tokyo, USA Today reports.

Clarissa Saunders was attending a watch party with her other daughter, Tanzania, for the families of US Olympic athletes in Orlando when she died.  The cause of death and the circumstances of her death were not provided.

“My mama was a great woman and will forever live through me,” Raven posted on Twitter. “My number one guardian angel … I will always and forever love you.”

“I’ve seen enough. Shontel Brown (D) defeats Nina Turner (D) in the #OH11 special election Democratic primary.”  —Dave Wasserman

Republican California Congressman (and bovine hater) Devin Nunes filed a lawsuit against NBC Universal, saying he was defamed by a comment MSNBC’s Rachel Maddow made linking him to a 2016 plot to work with a Russian agent to throw the 2016 election to Donald Trump, Bloomberg reports.

Nunes claims Maddow reported that Nunes had refused to give a package he had received from a Russian agent to the FBI.  Nunes claims that he actually had given the package to the FBI, and that she failed to call for a comment to get the facts, demonstrating her malicious intent.

The ranking member of the House Intelligence Committee, Nunes apparently doesn’t think his federal job is enough, because he’s had time to sue a number of different media companies for malice– CNN, the Washington Post, Esquire and McClatchy–as well as two Twitter accounts–“Devin Nunes’ Cow” and “Devin Nunes’ Mom.”

A wall of ice collapsed at the Titanic museum in Pigeon Forge, Tennessee, injuring three patrons who apparently taunted the giant iceberg that was built at a museum commemorating the most infamous act by ice in the last 130,000 years, the Associated Press reports.

The wall of ice–which is actually made of ice, not some type of faux ice, which wouldn’t’ve sunk a ship–fell over Monday afternoon.  The museum immediately closed, but opened Tuesday; the wall of ice exhibit will be closed until they can reform the iceberg.

The museum, shaped like a ship (presumably to depict the ship in the first three days of the voyage) and which inexplicably is located in east Tennessee, allows paying guests experience such delights as shoveling “coal” into a boiler and the chill of 28 degree water.

“I’ve seen enough. Trump-endorsed Mike Carey (R) wins the GOP primary in OH-15 and will face state Rep. Allison Russo (D) in the special general election on 11/2/21” says Cook Political Report’s “I’ve seen enough” guy Dave Wasserman.

“A right-wing New Jersey gym owner with a brother who was on Michelle Obama’s Secret Service detail will plead guilty in connection with the Jan. 6 attack on the U.S. Capitol, his attorney told HuffPost on Tuesday. Scott Fairlamb – a fitness instructor, former ultimate fighter, and son of a New Jersey state trooper – will plead guilty to one count of obstruction and one count of assault, his attorney Harley Breite told HuffPost on Tuesday. Fairlamb had faced a 12-count superseding indictment, which included a felony civil disorder charge. A spokesman for the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the District of Columbia, the Justice Department component prosecuting the Jan. 6 cases, did not immediately respond to a request for comment.”

“Court records indicated on Tuesday that a plea agreement hearing was scheduled for Friday at 1 p.m. before Judge Royce C. Lamberth. Fairlamb has been held in custody for roughly six months since his arrest. Breite, Fairlamb’s attorney, noted that his client had suffered a heart attack behind bars, lost his business, that his wife was not going to be able to keep up with the mortgage on their home. ‘He wishes to assume responsibility for the things that he did,’ Breite told HuffPost. ‘He wants to make amends for them and move on with his life'” – Huffington Post.

#FromACertainPointOfView pic.twitter.com/V7mnnzvLTr

— Mark Hamill (@MarkHamill) August 3, 2021

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention announced an extension of the eviction moratorium for renters, but the continuation will only be impact areas that have a high number of new coronavirus infections, the Washington Post reports.

The two-month continued moratorium is limited to counties that have “substantial and high levels of community transmission” of the coronavirus, which currently covers about 90% of the counties in the United States thanks to the spread of the highly-contagious delta variant.

According to the Post, the 19-page order lists criminal penalties including fines and prison time if someone is found to have violated the eviction moratorium.

Buzzfeed: “A federal judge on Tuesday blocked Texas from restricting who can transport immigrants after they cross the southern border, delivering a blow to Gov. Greg Abbott’s anti-immigration efforts. The ruling, issued by US District Judge Kathleen Cardone, came just a week after Abbott issued an executive order notifying state officials that only law enforcement officials could transport immigrants who crossed the border unlawfully and were detained or subject to a policy that allows quick expulsions. Abbott added that the Texas Department of Public Safety was ‘directed to stop any vehicle upon reasonable suspicion of a violation.'”

“It was the latest legal maneuver by a Republican governor who has been critical of the Biden administration’s approach to immigration policy. Abbott had successfully challenged President Joe Biden’s moratorium on deportations and joined a group of states that convinced a judge to no longer allow new DACA applications.’The Executive Order causes irreparable injury to the United States and to individuals the United States is charged with protecting, jeopardizing the health and safety of non-citizens in federal custody, risking the safety of federal law enforcement personnel and their families, and exacerbating the spread of COVID-19,’ Cardone wrote in the order.”

On Friday, Missouri Governor Mike Parsons pardoned racist ambulance chasers Mark and Patricia McCloskey, aka the “St Louis gun couple” who became MAGA folk heroes for their angry threats to shoot a bunch of Black Lives Matter protestors who had been marching past their home on June 29th, 2020. The couple pleaded guilty to misdemeanor 4th degree assault and harassment charges on June 17th, 2021. Mark McCloskey’s campaign for the GOP nomination to replace retiring Republican Senator Roy Blunt, announced on May 18th, appears to be going nowhere fast.

Biden really makes reading a teleprompter look hard.

— Donald Trump Jr. (@DonaldJTrumpJr) August 3, 2021

Don Junior’s complaint about a president misreading the words of a speech on a teleprompter is just shy of a year to the day from this classic Don Senior moment on August 4th, 2020:

Kansas City Star: “Macon County Coroner Brian Hayes handles the death certificates for this cattle, corn and soybean region of 15,000 in north-central Missouri, near Kirksville – roughly 130 to 140 deaths each year. That includes certifying the deaths of the few dozen residents who have succumbed to the coronavirus. And in some cases, it has meant excluding COVID-19 from death certificates. COVID-19 is as much a political issue as a personal tragedy for some families. They don’t want the virus on any official record for their dead loved one.”

“So the solution: Leaving COVID-19 off the death certificate entirely – an ethically questionable approach frowned on by much of the U.S. medical community as it tries to ascertain the the deadly extent of the pandemic in rural sections of the country and halt its spread. The Macon County coroner omitted COVID-19 on at least a half-dozen death certificates in cases where another major factor – pneumonia in an elderly patient or ‘you know, grandma had one lung and smoked all her life,’ for example – could be justified as the sole cause of death. ‘A lot of families were upset. They didn’t want COVID on the death certificates,’ Hayes said in an interview. ‘I won’t lie for them, it’s gotta be true, but I do what pleases the family.'”

The British Navy has issued an alert about a possible ship hijacking in the Gulf of Oman off the coast of the United Arab Emirates on Tuesday, as tensions in the region increase as the West pushes Iran to re-enter into a nuclear deal, the Associated Press reports.

The British military’s United Kingdom Maritime Trade Operations issued an alert Tuesday about “an incident is currently underway” in the Gulf of Oman off the coast of the Emirati city of Fujairah.  Hours later, the UKMTO updated the notice to be a “potential hijacking.”

Details of the incident are still unclear, but independent maritime intelligence organizations identified the ship as the Panama-flagged asphalt tanker Asphalt Princess. 

“An Arizona judge ordered the state’s Republican-led Senate to produce records related to its audit of the 2020 election in Maricopa County, delivering a big win for critics of the controversial review. The documents, sought by left-leaning watchdog group American Oversight, are subject to Arizona’s public records statute and must be provided to the organization ‘immediately,’ Maricopa County Superior Court Judge Michael Kemp ruled Monday. American Oversight sued Republican state Senate President Karen Fann in May, listing state Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Warren Petersen and the state Senate itself as additional defendants, and invoked the Arizona Public Records Law in search of access to communications and other records between the Senate and its lead audit contractor, Cyber Ninjas” the Washington Examiner reports.

Probably the most entertaining part is that this ruling on Monday went unnoticed probably mostly because it was overshadowed by Maricopa County’s Board of Supervisors telling the state senate and their Cyber Ninja squad to fuck off with their subpoena for various records and equipment. Meaning on the same day Arizona Republicans were told to shove it on their bad faith oversight, they were ordered by a court to submit to legitimate oversight. Karma’s a female dog.

https://youtu.be/31UXmNpoFK4