IT HAS A LONG RECORD OF POLITICIZATION AND FAILURE: Can the CDC be fixed?

Flashback: CDC, You Had One Job.

Related: The Suicide of Expertise.

VODKAPUNDIT PRESENTS YOUR DAILY INSANITY WRAP: ‘Eye Broccoli’ Megan Rapinoe to Replace Victoria’s Secret ‘Angels.’

Plus:

• Now even hamsters get to choose their gender
• Will the real Anthony Fauci please stand up?
• Chris Cuomo get schooled on Chris Cuomo

So much more at the link, you’d have to be crazy to miss it.

“PROFILES IN COURAGE IT AIN’T:”  Obamacare wins the SCOTUS hat trick 7-2 … on standing.

JOANNE JACOBS: To vax or not to vax: What will parents do? “A Kaiser Family Foundation survey, also in late May, reported lower numbers: 41 percent of parents with children 12 to 17 plan to get their child vaccinated as soon as possible, including 24 percent whose child has received at least one dose. Another 21 percent will ‘wait a while to see how it is working.’ Fourteen percent will get their child vaccinated only if their school requires it and another 20 percent say they will ‘definitely not’ get their 12-17 year-old vaccinated.”

My 15-year-old has had both Pfizer shots, with nothing worse than a sore arm for 24 hours, and my 10-year-old doesn’t need them for a couple more years.

CLEANEST ELECTION EVER: Significant Election Irregularities Exposed in Fulton County, Georgia.

NOW BACK IN STOCK: Old Post Road Oils Shave Soap.

IT’S GOOD TO BE THE NOMENKLATURA: In Latest Hunter Biden Racism Reveal, Corrupt Democrat Media Silent Again. “Where are the virtue-signaling elites and journalists now that records show Hunter Biden has been racist on more than one occasion? Surely, given that the Biden administration purports to be taking actions against ‘Anti-Asian Violence, Xenophobia and Bias,’ wouldn’t it make sense for left-leaning outlets to cover his family’s track record? Shouldn’t they stay the course on opposing bigotry?”

SO MUCH FOR GRATITUDE: England’s first Black Studies professor accuses his university of being racist: Calls for a ‘total revolution’ to overcome white supremacy.

No matter what you do for the woke, it’s never enough. So why do anything? Plus, note the conflict between #MeToo priorities and woke antiracism:

He told The Independent of an episode with a female senior-level coworker in which she accused him of being “aggressive” and leapt toward a door despite the fact he was seated. Andrews then reported the woman to the university, but they declined to investigate it as a racist incident.

Instead, he says, the university placed him under investigation for the episode. . . . Last week, he appeared on British television and called the Queen “probably the number one symbol of white supremacy in the entire world.”

You know, it was inevitable that the various lefty interest groups controlling universities would turn on each other.

On the other hand, when he’s right, he’s right: “In one appearance, Andrews said Donald Trump was better for black people than Barack Obama was.”

UGH: Another ‘Random’ Black-on-White Shooting, This One With 5 Victims.

MANDATORY INDOCTRINATION: U of Oklahoma refuses to revise mandatory training that makes students agree with transgender ideology.

FOR NOW, ANYWAY: F-35 pilot says ‘Forget drones, the skies still belong to fighter pilots.’

VIDEO: Roger Simon on Brendan Fallon’s show: Virus-Origin Investigation Blocked by U.S. Elites? Politicians, Experts, Media Back China Over U.S.

PJ MEDIA VIP ROUNDUP: Don’t forget that VODKAPUNDIT promo code if you’ve been thinking of joining us.

Matt Margolis: A Group of Parents Sent Their Kids’ Masks to a Lab. What They Discovered Will Horrify You. “Let’s focus on the fact that even if masks have any value at all when it comes to protecting kids from COVID, they’re likely making your kids sick anyway.”

Tyler O’Neil: Cable Networks Bury Dems’ Election Power Grab While Hyperventilating About Election Integrity Laws. “Not once did the networks scold Democrats like Joe Biden for inflammatory rhetoric condemning GOP state election laws as ‘Jim Crow on steroids.’ Instead, the networks occasionally repeated the heated rhetoric.”

Yours Truly: Joe Biden Purposely Fritters Away Any Chance for Peace in the Middle East. “The message from the White House is clear: Any further peace process will have to go through the intransigent Palestinian leadership — and therefore there will be no peace.”

HMM: Could humans be too heavy to land on Mars?

Landing a relatively light rover like the Perseverance rover is one thing, but landing craft carrying the crew of astronauts – and much of the provisions and equipment needed to keep them alive on Mars for many months – would be heavy.

And that means it needs a powerful rocket motor to touch down safely.

For the Apollo moonlandings, the descent motor mostly blasted dust horizontally away across the surface, and no visible crater was gouged out by the rocket.

This is because over billions of years, the lunar surface has become compacted, and the vacuum conditions allow the rocket exhaust to disperse.

However, the situation is very different on Mars. Its surface material is much looser, and the atmospheric pressure serves to keep the engine plume focused on one small spot, allowing it to blast much deeper.

This means, Metzger says, that the descent engine of a large Martian lander would blow loose rocks across the surface at high speeds up to a kilometre away – presenting a risk to the crew habitats or other equipment that the mission needs to touch down near.

This is where reusable spacecraft will become even more valuable, creating a more affordable way to test landing larger, heavier spacecraft.

THE BISHOPS HAVEN’T CARED WHAT CATHOLICS THINK FOR A LONG TIME: Bishops beware: 74% say no Communion for Biden.

THE CCP IS DESPERATE TO SHUT DOWN OPPOSITION MEDIA IN HONG KONG: Apple Daily accused of using journalism to endanger national security. “Hong Kong’s national security police have arrested two executives and three news staff of Apple Daily, the only pro-democracy newspaper in the city, for foreign collusion, and raided its office. . . . Li accused the paper of publishing over 30 pieces of articles, both online and in print and in both Chinese and English, that sought foreign sanctions.”

China deserves sanctions, for this and for spreading a deadly worldwide pandemic.

A Hong Kong friend writes: “A well-placed Mainlander told me that Hong Kong will be just like every other city in China, except for a lower tax rate in five years time. I’m not so sure….. It doesn’t look as if it will take that long.”

KRUISER’S MORNING BRIEF: I Keep Missing the Part Where Biden Brings Back Dignity. “Since I’m not on the side that has to pretend Biden’s behavior is normal, I don’t think it’s dignified or presidential when he responds to a serious question from the press by laughing like village idiot.”

MORE FOREIGNERS DOING THE JOBS AMERICANS WON’T: Australian Media Mocks CNN’s Glowing Coverage of Bumbling Joe Biden.

WAR ON JOURNALISM, FOREIGN COLLUSION EDITION: Biden Screams at Female Reporter, Laughs as Putin’s Thugs Assault American Journos: A Dangerous Time to Tell the Truth.

SUMMER READING: Irresistible Revolution: Marxism’s Goal of Conquest & the Unmaking of the American Military.

IT’S COME TO THIS: If you thought calling women “birthing people” was bad, just wait until you see what the leftist “science” community has come up with as the new nomenclature for men.

SPACE RACE II: Three Chinese astronauts set to launch to new space station this week. “In April, China began construction of its next-generation space station with the launch of the Tianhe core module. Two additional modules will be launched in the coming 18 months, but Tianhe is ready for habitation now. When complete, the station will provide a human outpost in low-Earth orbit for China, allowing the country and partner countries to perform science experiments for the next decade.”

IT WOULDN’T BE THE FIRST TIME FBI INFORMANTS SPURRED ILLEGAL ACTIVITY: Tucker: What if FBI operatives actually organized the insurrection?

In fact, both among communists and the KKK, the conventional wisdom was that the guy in your group encouraging illegal activity was the FBI mole.

UPDATE: Some skepticism about a related story.

SPUD DUD: Brian Stelter mashed by competition, suffers worst ratings of 2021.

PUSHBACK: Continental Europe Enters the Gender Wars: Germany and Spain Reject Laws Recognizing Gender Self-Identification. “Last month the Spanish parliament voted against a bill that would allow people to determine their own gender. A day later Germany’s voted down two such bills. Few newspapers took any notice. Self-id, as it is known, is the idea that people be allowed to change the legal markers of their sex simply by saying so, without jumping through any medical hoops. Trans-rights groups say this is crucial for trans people, who face daily prejudice. In Germany one of the bills, put forward by the Green Party, proposed that children be allowed to have gender-reassignment surgery from the age of 14, even if parents oppose it. It would also have introduced a fine of €2,500 ($3,045) for referring to a trans person based on their natal sex.”