Mass Murder, Mass Appeal: President Joe Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris went to Atlanta yesterday to speak up about violence against Asian Americans after the massage parlor murders in which six of eight people killed were Asian.

  “They’ve been attacked, blamed, scapegoated and harassed,” Biden said. “They’ve been verbally assaulted, physically assaulted, killed. It’s been a year of living in fear for their lives.”

  After meeting with Asian American leaders, Biden said you have to speak up, “Because our silence is complicity. We cannot be complicit. We have to speak out. We have to act.”

  Surveillance video shows Robert Long waiting in his SUV for an hour before entering the first spa where he began his murder spree, killing the eight people in three Atlanta area massage parlors. The Baptist church where long was a member called his actions “the result of a sinful heart and depraved mind.”

  Investigators have yet to say outright that the killings were an anti-Asian hate crime. Long has told investigators that he was addicted to sex and was eliminating the temptation. FBI Director Christopher Wray told NPR “it does not appear” race was the motive for the killings.

  Acting as the comforter in chief to families of the dead, Biden said, “The day will come when their memory brings a smile to your lips before it brings a tear to your eye, as unbelievable as that is now.” He said, “It will take a while, but I promise you it will come, and when it does, that’s the day you know you’re going to make it.”

Fox Patriotism: President Biden stumbled three times and fell on the steps of Air Force One yesterday, but finished at the top with an athletic flourish and a salute. Fox News, which loves to point out Biden’s verbal stumbles, is all over it even though Donald Trump stumbled through his whole presidency.

  Fox host Sean Hannity opened his show last night talking about Biden’s fall and his “very weird cognitive struggles.” At the same time though, Hannity is angry that Russian President Vladimir Putin “is openly mocking the president of the United States for his own amusement.” Hannity told viewers, “and frankly, I find it, as an American citizen, humiliating.”

 After Biden described Putin as a killer, the Russian president challenged Biden to an on-air conversation to discuss Biden’s latest warning that Putin would “pay a price,” for election meddling

  Putin told a reporter in Moscow, he wanted to talk to Biden “on the condition that we do it actually live.” 

  The Fox host who was indignant that anyone else would insult Biden then asked,  “Why would Vladimir Putin immediately call for a debate with Joe Biden with no time to prepare? What have I been saying? … When you compare Joe Biden to 2012 and even 2016, Joe Biden looks extremely weak, frail, often confused, and, yes, he is struggling cognitively. It is obvious. This is not brain surgery.”

The Spin Rack: — The FBI is investigating whether New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo and his aides provided the Justice Department with false numbers about  deaths of Covid-19 in nursing homes. — Captain Jay Baker of the Cherokee County Sheriff’s Office in Georgia has been removed as the spokesman for the investigation of the massage parlor murders after say the shooter had had a “really bad day.” — Loudmouth Republican Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene was banned from Twitter for 12 hours because of the hateful nature of her tweets. — Organizers of the Tokyo Summer Olympics announced that because of the pandemic, spectators from out of the country will not be allowed to attend. — The second-ranking prosecutor in Bucks County, Pennsylvania, who makes about $125,000 a year, has been demoted after getting caught making DoorDash food deliveries during working hours. Gregg Shore said he did the deliveries mostly at night. The District Attorney he didn’t fire Shore because he had a history of “always being there to answer the call, including during these DoorDash times.”  

The Obit Page: Greg Steltenpohl, a pioneer in the fresh juice business who had a spectacular rise and fall with his company Odwalla, has died at age 67 from complications of a liver transplant.

  Starting out squeezing juice from the back of a Volkswagen van, Steltenpohl built Odwalla into a $59 million business until disaster struck. An E. coli outbreak in its raw apple juice killed a child and made scores of other customers sick.

   Odwalla evaporated, but after several years of trying other things, Steltenpohl came back with Califia Farms, which makes almond milk, cold-brewed coffee, and other nondairy products. The Califia carafe-shaped bottles are now a familiar item in grocery shelves 

Weeding Out: Several White House staffers were asked to resign, were suspended, or asked to work remotely after admitting in their background checks that they have used marijuana. Five were actually fired. 

  The White House says that for those fired there were additional issues, including hard drug use.Recreational marijuana is legal in 14 states and also where the White House is located, the District of Columbia. It is not federally legal.

  To be granted an exception to the White House anti-weed policy, staffers must agree to stop using it, pledge to not use marijuana during government service, and undergo random drug tests. 

  But at this point, they should be asking whether they can trust someone who denies ever smoking marijuana.

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