Democratic Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi has called on Democratic New York Governor Andrew Cuomo to resign after the state’s Attorney General released a report alleging Cuomo sexually harassed multiple female employees.

“Under Attorney General Leticia James, a comprehensive and independent investigation into the allegations against Governor Cuomo has been completed,” Pelosi said in a statement.  “As always, I commend the women who came forward to speak their truth.  Recognizing his love of New York and the respect for the office he holds, I call upon the Governor to resign.”

“Top members of the Department of Justice last year rebuffed another DOJ official who asked them to urge officials in Georgia to investigate and perhaps overturn President Joe Biden’s victory in the state – long a bitter point of contention for former President Donald Trump and his team – before the results were certified by Congress, emails reviewed by ABC News show. The emails, dated Dec. 28, 2020, show the former acting head of DOJ’s civil division, Jeffrey Clark, circulating a draft letter – which he wanted then-acting attorney general Jeffrey Rosen and acting deputy attorney general Richard Donoghue to sign off on – urging Georgia’s governor and other top officials to convene the state legislature into a special session so lawmakers could investigate claims of voter fraud.”

“‘The Department of Justice is investigating various irregularities in the 2020 election for President of the United States,’ the draft letter said. ‘The Department will update you as we are able on investigatory progress, but at this time we have identified significant concerns that may have impacted the outcome of the election in multiple States, including the State of Georgia.’ The draft letter states: ‘While the Department of Justice believe[s] the Governor of Georgia should immediately call a special session to consider this important and urgent matter, if he declines to do so, we share with you our view that the Georgia General Assembly has implied authority under the Constitution of the United States to call itself into special session for [t]he limited purpose of considering issues pertaining to the appointment of Presidential Electors.’ The vote count in Georgia became a flashpoint for Trump and his allies and Trump at one point falsely claimed that it was ‘not possible’ for him to have lost the state” – ABC News.

On Monday the Gateway Pundit published this map of supposed 2020 election fraud by county made by a fanboy named Seth Keshel, who Trump of course went ahead and gave a glowing review of as “highly respected” in another bullshit statement on Tuesday:

“Highly respected Army intelligence captain, Seth Keshel, has just released his Report on National Fraud Numbers with respect to the 2020 Presidential Election. I don’t personally know Captain Keshel, but these numbers are overwhelming, election-changing, and according to Keshel, could be even bigger in that they do not account for cyber-flipping of votes. They show I won the election – by A LOT! Now watch the Democrats coalesce, defame, threaten, investigate, jail people, and do whatever they have to do to keep the truth from surfacing, and let the Biden Administration continue to get away with destroying our Country. The irregularities and outright fraud of this election are an open wound to the United States. Something must be done – immediately.”

https://youtu.be/CfGZrFDQ8PM

A 22-year-old Ohio man ended up being duct-taped to his seat after groping two female flight attendants and assaulting a male flight attendant who tried to subdue him on a Tuesday morning flight from Philadelphia to Miami, WFTS ABC News in Tampa Bay reports.

Max Berry of Norfolk, Ohio had two drinks on the flight and spilled his third drink on himself.  After changing shirts with the help of a female flight attendant, Berry walked the aisle and groped the breasts of two female flight attendants.  He then assaulted a male flight attendant who tried to calm him.  He was subdued by the flight crew with the help of passengers and duct-taped to his seat to restain him, eliciting laughs from the other passengers.

A Pentagon Police officer was stabbed to death and the suspect killed by other officer during a morning confrontation at the Metro bus station at the Pentagon transit station, the Associated Press reports.

The incident caused the Pentagon to go on lockdown for about an hour as notifications that there were gunshots heard on the campus.  An Associated Press reporter near the building heard multiple gunshots, then a pause, then at least one additional shot. Another AP journalist heard police yelling “shooter.”

The names of the dead officer and the attacker were not announced.

“Tennessee has sent nearly half a million dollars to farmers who have vaccinated their cattle against respiratory diseases and other maladies over the past two years. But Republican Gov. Bill Lee, who grew up on his family’s ranch and refers to himself as a cattle farmer in his Twitter profile, has been far less enthusiastic about incentivizing herd immunity among humans. Even though Tennessee has among the lowest vaccination rates in the country, Lee has refused to follow the lead of other states that have offered enticements for people to get the potentially life-saving COVID-19 vaccine. Lee hasn’t always been against incentivizing vaccinations.”

“Tennessee’s Herd Health program began in 2019 under Lee, whose family business, Triple L Ranch, breeds Polled Hereford cattle. The state currently reimburses participating farmers up to $1,500 for vaccinating their herds, handing out $492,561 over the past two fiscal years, according to documents from the Tennessee Agriculture Department. Tennessee’s vaccination rates for COVID-19 hover at 39% of its total population, versus over 49% nationally for the fully vaccinated. The state’s COVID hospitalizations have more than tripled over the past three weeks and infections have increased more than five-fold. Speaking at the Tennessee Cattlemen’s Association annual conference on Friday, Lee said he did not think incentives were very effective, WBIR-TV reported. ‘I don’t think that’s the role of government, The role of government is to make it available and then to encourage folks to get a vaccine.’ In an email reply to questions about the contrast to incentivizing vaccination for cattle, spokesperson Casey Black said ‘Tennesseans have every incentive to get the COVID-19 vaccine – it’s free and available in every corner of the state with virtually no wait. While a veterinarian can weigh in on safely raising cattle for consumption, the state will continue to provide human Tennesseans with COVID-19 vaccine information and access'” – AP.

“A Wisconsin lawmaker says he’s working on securing donations for a review of last year’s presidential election even though he and other Republicans have railed against using private funds to run those elections. Rep. Timothy Ramthun of Campbellsport made the comment in a recent online video that also questioned a state Supreme Court election that was decided by more than 10 points. Ramthun titled his video ‘The Calm Before the Storm’ – a phrase frequently used by QAnon, a baseless conspiracy theory that contends the government is controlled by a cabal of Satanist pedophiles. QAnon believers have repeatedly falsely claimed that former President Donald Trump will be reinstated in the White House even though dozens of courts have upheld President Joe Biden’s victory, including in Wisconsin” the Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel reports.

“Rep. Timothy Ramthun, R-Campbellsport, said in an online video he’s working on securing donations for a review of last year’s presidential election and also questioned a state Supreme Court election in 2020 that was decided by more than 10 points. Assembly Democratic Leader Gordon Hintz of Oshkosh called Ramthun’s efforts an attack on democracy and said he was troubled by his allusions to QAnon. ‘I think it’s the kind of thing that should give most people in Wisconsin chills,’ he said. ‘If you are embracing those ideas to start with, boy, I mean, this cancer has spread a lot further than we thought.’ Ramthun made his claims as he seeks to widen a review of the presidential election. As part of that effort, he said in a second video that he would participate in a rally Friday at the state Capitol with former Milwaukee County Sheriff David A. Clarke Jr. and Republican Rep. Janel Brandtjen, the head of the Assembly Elections Committee.”

CBS Miami: “Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis doubled down Tuesday in defending his actions and his ban of mask mandates amid the coronavirus pandemic just as the state once again broke its record for COVID-19 hospitalizations. During an event at Shark Valley in the Everglades, DeSantis gave a reporter a terse response when he was asked about seven children at Joe DiMaggio Children’s Hospital with COVID, two in the ICU. The question was could masks have helped? ‘You’re blaming the kids saying they weren’t wearing masks so they’re in the ICU. With all due respect, I find that deplorable to blame a victim who ends up being hospitalized,’ said DeSantis.”

“He never did give his thoughts on whether he thought masks would have helped and only took three questions. ‘This has been a really negative thing throughout this whole thing, with some of these, quote, experts, some of the media, somebody can contract a highly transmissible airborne virus and they’re viewed as having done something wrong. That’s just not the way you do it,’ he added. This comes after DeSantis banned all school districts in the state from imposing mask mandates saying he wants to let parents to decide whether children will masks in schools. His Executive Order also empowers the state to deny funding to any districts that don’t comply. The governor also touted hospitalizations being lower than they were last summer, but acknowledged they’ve been going up, and he’s watching emergency room visits. ‘We follow that very closely. It went up sharply during most of July, towards the end of last month, it started to stabilize. We’ve basically been plateau, so we’re looking to see that roll over, and when that rolls over, I think you’re doing to see some of the other indicators roll over as well.'”

“After a deadly rollover crash that killed her husband over the weekend, a Texas woman says he was to blame for the accident. The wife told police she had been trying to divorce him, according to a Lubbock police report. The two were separated, and the husband was staying in a La Quinta Inn.”

“The report said the wife was behind the wheel of a GMC Envoy, her husband in the passenger seat, when the fatal crash happened around 5:10 p.m. Saturday. The wife said that ‘[the husband] was being a ‘jerk’ to her, so she told him she was going to drive him back home, to La Quinta. [The husband] got upset and yanked the wheel,’ the report said. The SUV careened right off the roadway, rolling over and coming to a stop in the parking lot of a business, according to police. The husband was ejected from the vehicle and was later pronounced dead at the scene” – KAMC.

New York Times: “Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo sexually harassed multiple women, including current and former government workers, and retaliated against at least one of the women for making her complaints public, according to a much anticipated report from the New York State attorney general released on Tuesday. The 165-page report said that Mr. Cuomo, a third-term Democrat, and his aides cultivated a toxic work environment in his office that was rife with fear and intimidation, and helped enable ‘harassment to occur and created a hostile work environment.'”

“The findings of the report could fuel support for impeachment proceedings against Mr. Cuomo in the State Legislature, which Democrats overwhelmingly control, lead to additional calls for his resignation and influence public opinion as he considers running for a fourth term. Outside lawyers hired by the Assembly’s judiciary committee are currently looking at not only the sexual harassment claims, but a series of scandals with a common theme: whether or not Mr. Cuomo abused his power while in office. The investigation was conducted by two outside lawyers hired by Letitia James, the state attorney general: Joon H. Kim, a former top federal prosecutor, and Anne L. Clark, a well-known employment lawyer.”

“The Pentagon is on lockdown after multiple gunshots were fired near a platform by the facility’s Metro station.” —Jonathan Lemire of the Associated Press

“Unjected, an anti-vaccination dating app, has been removed from the Apple Store for violating company policy, a move the app owner says is censorship. ‘Apparently we’re considered ‘too much’ for sharing our medical autonomy and freedom of choice,’ app founder Shelby Thomson says in an Instagram video. ‘So of course, Apple removed us.’ Unjected had been downloaded about 18,000 times. Apple says the app violated its policies on disinformation. ‘Specifically, your social networking app inappropriately refers to the COVID-19 pandemic in its concept or theme,’ the message from Apple states. The app founders have filed an appeal to Apple but do not expect the request to be granted. However, the app is still available on the Google Play Store for android devices. Unjected being removed Saturday from the Apple store marks at least the second time the company had ran afoul of Apple rules. The first occurred during the review process” – JustTheNews

Politico: “A month before Giuliani made Four Seasons Total Landscaping a perfectly odd footnote in U.S. political history, the Trump campaign made a fairly sizable expense to another landscaping company with an almost identical name. Sometime in late September, the Republican National Committee booked an event staging and property company called Four Seasons Landscape and Property Services to spruce up a location for a West Coast fundraising swing for then-President Donald Trump. The Santa Clarita-based company charged the committee $48,515.78 for the job. The total was paid by Trump Victory – a joint fundraising venture of the RNC and the Trump campaign – on Dec. 15. It showed up for the first time in a campaign finance report filed by Trump Victory on Saturday and immediately led to speculation that the bill was for the Giuliani presser.”

“In fact, they were two separate Trump campaign events, each involving a landscaping company named Four Seasons. In a phone interview, Dan Blumel, the owner of Four Seasons Landscape and Property Services, relayed that the event for which his company did work took place in October. He did not say where specifically, citing a nondisclosure agreement with the client. But he did reveal that one major hiccup fouled up the planning. ‘Sadly,’ Blumel said, ‘Mr. Trump got Covid.’ And that, Blumel thought, was that. Trump recovered from Covid. The election happened. Joe Biden won. Except, it wasn’t so simple. A few days after the vote, Giuliani held his infamous presser at the similarly named Four Seasons Total Landscaping, turning an obscure company into an emblem of the shambolic conspiracy hunts that were to follow. Blumel’s phone blew up with texts from friends and acquaintances asking the obvious question: Is this, in any way at all, related to you? ‘We happen to have the same name as the other one,’ he said. ‘But no, we are not affiliated.'”

I would like to know if we have enough solitary confinement cells in Arizona available for the entire Maricopa Board of Supervisors and the execs at the fraud machine company. We are going to need a lot.

— Wendy Rogers (@WendyRogersAZ) August 2, 2021

“A week of public health reversals from the White House and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has left Americans with pandemic whiplash, sowing confusion about coronavirus vaccines and mask-wearing as the Delta variant upends what people thought they knew about how to stay safe. Vaccines remain effective and highly protective against hospitalization and death, even among those infected with the extremely contagious Delta variant. Mask-wearing prevents transmission of the virus to those most at risk. But the crisis President Biden once thought he had under control is changing shape faster than the country can adapt.”

“An evolving virus, new scientific discoveries, deep ideological divides and 18 months of ever-changing pandemic messaging have left Americans skeptical of public health advice. So although the White House had promised a ‘summer of joy,’ the nation is instead caught in a summer of confusion. ‘While we desperately want to be done with this pandemic, Covid-19 is clearly not done with us, and so our battle must last a little longer,’ Dr. Rochelle P. Walensky, the director of the C.D.C., told reporters on Monday. ‘This is hard. This is heavy. But we are in this together.’ Monday was another day that underscored the crosscurrents for the nation’s leaders as their efforts at a disciplined public health campaign collided yet again with the chaotic nature of the pandemic. Instead of a consistent message, the result was another dizzying jumble of news stories and divergent announcements” – New York Times.

“Vitaly Shishov, the head of a Kiev-based organization helping Belarusians flee abroad, was found dead on Tuesday, a day after he went missing, according to Ukraine’s National Police. Shishov, the head of Belarusian House in Ukraine (BDU), ‘was found hanged today in one of Kiev’s parks, not far from his place of residence,’ said police in a statement. ‘Vitaly’s mobile phone and personal belongings were removed from the scene.’ Police have launched a criminal case into the suspected ‘premeditated murder’ and will investigate all possibilities, including the possibility that it was ‘murder disguised as suicide,’ said the statement” CNN reports.

“Police added they would question witnesses and analyze footage from security cameras, and asked those who knew Shishov to come forward with any relevant information on the last few weeks of his life and possible threats he faced. Police said earlier on Monday that Shishov’s partner had reported him missing after he went for a run and did not return. Belarus has been in political and social turmoil since last year, when a disputed election led to mass protests, then a violent crackdown by President Alexander Lukashenko that has been condemned by the international community. The discovery of Shishov’s body comes as Belarus faces increasing international scrutiny, after a Belarusian Olympic sprinter alleged that she was forcibly removed from the Tokyo Games and told to return home against her will, where she fears arrest.”

Daily Beast: “Undeterred, a faction of Trump fans predicted that he would reclaim his throne this month. The baseless theory has piqued Trump’s interest, helped inspire at least two Homeland Security warnings about a heightened risk of far-right violence, and now appears to be driving far-right QAnon voices to connect Trump’s return with the latest coronavirus surge. As The Daily Beast previously reported, Trump fans can trace that latest prophecy not to any legal scholars, but to pillow salesman Mike Lindell. Lindell, the founder of MyPillow, predicted this spring that the 2020 election results would be nullified by, or sometime in, August.”

“When Trump began telling confidantes that he expected to retake office this month, Lindell took credit for the theory, telling The Daily Beast, ‘If Trump is saying August, that is probably because he heard me say it.’ Reached for comment Monday, Lindell admitted that his August timeline – which he had already suggested was elastic – might now be further delayed. ‘We’ll be bringing our findings to the Supreme Court in late August or early September, some time after the cyber-symposium ends, and it proves it was an attack by China,’ Lindell told The Daily Beast of non-existent election fraud, and an upcoming event devoted to the same. ‘When I gave my prediction about August, and that was several months ago, that was an estimate at the time. But it took so long to get this symposium set up. However long it takes for the Supreme Court to take it up and decide on this, I can’t predict that. I’m not the Supreme Court.'”

A DC Metropolitan Police Officer who responded to the January 6th domestic terrorist attack at the Capitol died of suicide earlier this year, the police department reported Monday, accounting for the fourth officer from January 6th to end their lives, HuffPost reports.

Officer Kyle DeFreytag was found dead at his home last month, and the family recently told the police department that he died by suicide.  The announcement of his death comes on the same day another officer’s suicide was made public.

DeFreytag was 27-years-old and had served on the DCMP since November 2016.

The National Suicide Prevention Hotline in the US is available 24 hours a day at 1-800-273-8255. Call them if you need to talk to someone.

Six former Trump Administration Department of Justice officials received letters from Donald Trump’s attorney stating Trump will not attempt to block their testimony if they comply with a Congressional subpoena, Politico reports.

Trump’s lawyer (and formerly one of the dumbest members of Congress) Doug Collins wrote the six–former White House Chief of Staff Mark Meadows, former acting Attorney General Jeffrey Rosen, former acting Deputy Attorney General Richard Donoghue, and former Associate Deputy Attorney General Patrick Hovakimian–telling them he would not seek a judicial injunction to bar the testimony.

“[W]ithout in any way otherwise waiving the executive privilege associated with the matters the committees are purporting to investigate, President Trump will agree not to seek judicial intervention to prevent your testimony or the testimony of the five other former Department officials … who have already received letters from the Department … so long as the committees do not seek privileged information from any other Trump administration officials or advisors,” Collins wrote. “If the committees do seek such information, however, we will take all necessary and appropriate steps on President Trump’s behalf to defend the office of the presidency.”

A 100-year-old man who served as a guard at a Nazi Concentration Camp will stand trial in Germany, accused of being complicit in the death of 3,500 prisoners, after a medical assessment ruled him fit for trial, the BBC reports.

The unnamed man was a guard at the Sachsenhausen camp near Berlin between 1942 and 1945.  Tens of thousands of prisoners at the camp died of starvation, hunger or assault, or in the camp’s extermination center.

More than three-quarters of a century after the end of the war, Germany officials have not stopped investigating and prosecuting people who committed crimes during the Holocaust, even as the number of them dwindle with age.  A year ago, a 93-year-old was convicted for his actions during World War II, and in March, a 96-year-old was found to be unfit for trial.