IS BIDEN AND PRESIDENT KLAIN SETTING KAMALA UP FOR FAILURE? The Abuse of Kamala Harris:

For all the Biden administration’s efforts to make Kamala Harris into a co-consul in the bipartite “Biden-Harris administration,” the public has not taken as warmly to the vice president as they have to her boss.

Among registered voters, the vice president’s favorability—distinct from whether they approve or disapprove of the job she is doing—routinely underperforms Joe Biden’s. Moreover, voters who have an unfavorable view of Harris are more likely to have a “very unfavorable” view of her than her supporters are to express a “very favorable” opinion of her.

Maybe that explains why the Biden White House seems so comfortable setting Harris up for failure. It’s hardly unusual for vice presidents to be tasked by their boss with heading this or the other task force with the aim of mitigating the undesirable effects of the latest crisis. Political observers could be forgiven for thinking there is no higher purpose behind this tried and tested strategy than ensuring the White House has a readily disposable fall guy when things go south. And yet, it’s hard not to notice that Kamala Harris has received more than her fair share of unenviable tasks—particularly given her high profile in the Biden administration.

And she winds up with headlines like this: Vice President’s Office on Defense After Faceless Kamala Cookies Go Viral.

The Vice President’s office clarified a decision by Kamala Harris to hand out cookies with her likeness on them to reporters at an off-the-record visit during her trip to Guatemala.

In a statement to reporters on background on Monday, the Vice President’s office said that cookies were a “gift” from a staff member to the team marking her first foreign trip as the vice president.

“Cookies that were provided to passengers on Air Force Two on Sunday were a gift from a member of the staff,” the statement to reporters read. “The vice president wanted to make sure the cookies were shared with everyone.”

USA Today White House correspondent Courtney Subramanian shared a photo of the cookies on Twitter on Sunday — which immediately drew fire from the vice president’s political opponents.

Thus allowing GOP Chairwoman Ronna McDaniel an easy layup on social media: “Handing out cookies with her face on them as the border crisis rages…The modern-day equivalent of ‘let them eat cake.'”

Why is President Klain’s team so bad at optics? President Klain himself is perplexed by his would-be second in command: White House “perplexed” that Harris bungled question about visiting the southern border.

WONDERING? NO, IT MERELY CONFIRMS WHAT YOU ALREADY KNEW: Who’s Really Running the Country? A Jill Biden Photo Has Us Wondering.

HEY, THEY ONLY CENSOR PEOPLE THEY DISAGREE WITH: Amazon Defends Sale of Anti-Cop Merchandise: Tech giant sells products featuring ‘Blue Lives Murder’ slogan.. “We do not endorse the content of any particular book, video, or product.” Actually, once you started banning stuff you disagree with, it became an implied endorsement of anything you don’t ban.

UH, NO, SEX IS NOT ‘ASSIGNED:’ It shouldn’t have to be said, but in the present age many things that ought not have to be said, must be, over and over and over. The Colson Center’s Joseph Backholm offers three solid reasons to reject the myth at the heart of the transgendering madness.

BIDEN IS REFILLING THE BUREAUCRATIC SWAMP: President Donald Trump’s executive order making it easier to fire incompetent bureaucrats was a major step toward accountability in the federal career civil service.

Now, according to James Sherk of the America First Policy Institute (AFPI), His Fraudulency, by repealing Trump’s order, is putting the bureaucrats back in charge. Is this significant for everyday Americans? You bet it is and Sherk aptly explains why:

“With a protected bureaucracy, Americans can vote for whatever policies they want — but they only get them if the bureaucracy agrees. Trump ran on draining the swamp. Biden is now refilling it.”

Sherk is exactly right. I saw this up close and personal during my years in Reagan era serving as a political appointee at the U.S. Office of Personnel Management (OPM) under Director Donald Devine.

Devine’s “Political Management of the Bureaucracy: A Guide to Reform and Control” ought to be required reading for every individual in the next Republican presidency. Trump might still be in the Oval Office if he had understood the absolute necessity for a GOP chief executive to control the bureaucrats.

LOW ENERGY: Biden’s “jam-packed” first foreign trip later and less ambitious than Trump’s.

Even though Biden waited until June to go abroad, I couldn’t find an ABC report– or any report through an internet search– that points out Biden has now “been in office the longest number of days, without a foreign trip, since Lyndon B. Johnson… Nov. 22, 1963.”

The White House and many in the media are describing Biden’s trip as “jam-packed” and “intense.” If that’s the case, then Trump’s trip was super jam-packed and uber ambitious.

According to reports about Biden’s planned schedule, eight days of meetings will take place starting Wednesday. He’ll visit three countries in a relatively small geographic area of Europe.

Easy prediction: As many as eight early lids will be called.

CULTURE OF CORRUPTION: Hunter Biden Facilitated Deal for Democratic Consultants Now Under Federal Investigation: Emails show Biden served as conduit between Burisma Holdings and Blue Star Strategies.

K-12 IMPLOSION UPDATE: Teacher Dana Stangel-Plowe Speaks Out About NJ’s Dwight-Englewood School.

During a recent faculty meeting, teachers were segregated by skin color. Teachers who had light skin were placed into a “white caucus” group and asked to “remember” that we are “White” and “to take responsibility for [our] power and privilege.” D-E’s racial segregation of educators, aimed at leading us to rethink of ourselves as oppressors, was regressive and demeaning to us as individuals with our own moral compass and human agency. Will the school force racial segregation on our students next?

I reject D-E’s essentialist, racialist thinking about myself, my colleagues, and my students. As a humanist educator, I strive to create an inclusive classroom by embracing the dignity and unique personality of each and every student; I want to empower all students with the skills and habits of mind that they need to fulfill their potential as learners and human beings. Neither the color of my skin nor the“group identity” assigned to me by D-E dictates my humanist beliefs or my work as an educator. Being told that it does is offensive and wrong, and it violates my dignity as a human being. My conscience does not have a color.

D-E claims that we teach students how to think, not what to think. But sadly, that is just no longer true. I hope administrators and board members awaken in time to prevent this misguided and absolutist ideology from hollowing out D-E, as it has already hollowed out so many other institutions.

Read the whole thing.

CRT WAS BORN AT HARVARD: That probably comes as no shocker to many Instapundit readers, but Kenny Xu provides the details of how Critical Race Theory (CRT) was born in Cambridge as “Critical Legal Studies.”

And, oh by the way, if you are puzzled by how CRT has swept through corporate boardrooms, Xu has the explanation: “Critical race theory gained steam at Harvard Law, and married into the managerial attitudes of its neighbor Harvard Business School, which sought to eliminate inefficiencies in human relations by grouping and managing.”

WHEN GOVT. POWER IS YOUR GOAL, LIMITED GOVERNMENT IS AN OBSTACLE: Why the Early Progressives Rejected American Founding Principles.

ANN ALTHOUSE ON THE NY TIMES’ DEFENSE OF its American-flag-hating editorial board member Mara Gay:

The NYT tweet came out yesterday, so I guess what I wrote is within the category “attacks on her today” and my circumspect and considered remarks have been denounced as “ill-informed and grounded in bad-faith.”

So I’m going to say that tweet is ill-informed and grounded in bad-faith! What a ridiculous blanket statement with no regard for the individuals who listened to Gay and made our own interpretations and expressed our opinions.

It’s so hypocritical to obsessively protect her while attacking all her critics with broad-brush insults!

Well, the NYT. Plus, from the comments: “Gay seems to think she has some special dispensation to hate on America or the flag because she is black, or because she is a journalist. How odd. Hating the flag doesn’t make her special, it’s an attitude she shares with most Democrats, New Yorkers and journalists. A lot of people in those groups hate the flag, and Americans. But the black people I know don’t share Gay’s repugnance at their country or its flag.”

Plus: “The Times saying it’s ‘taken out of context’ really means she’s a poor communicator, which is not a good look. So I’m not sure why the Times is saying anything here.”

And, of course: “Serious Question: How would all this be being handled, IF instead of an American flag, it was a Rainbow flag that she had an ‘aversion’ to?”

SALENA ZITO: Joe Manchin’s West Virginia values: ‘No’ means ‘no.’

BILLIONAIRE BEHIND ‘BILLIONAIRES BUYING ELECTIONS’ SPOTS: His name is Hans Wyss, he’s a Swiss national who made a fortune in the U.S. and he is likely second only to George Soros in the funding he has provided to those tearing down this country. Alana Goodman at the Washington Free Beacon shines some much-needed light in a very dark corner of American politics.

THAT ’70S SHOW: Deutsche Bank Issues a Terrifying Warning for America Under Biden. “The authors warned that ‘neglecting inflation leaves global economies sitting on a time bomb.’ They noted similarities between the 1970s and today.”

I had been assured by all the very best people that flooding the economy with printed-up trillions while suppressing economic activity was no problemo.

HMM: GOP Senators ask Biden ATF nominee if he ever lost possession of his service weapon; he denies it. “But a Senate staffer said their office has received information suggesting that Chipman’s answer may not be true, and they are still looking into the matter.”

HEY NEW YORK TIMES. I KNOW A WAY NOT TO BE DISTURBED BY AMERICAN FLAGS:  NY Times Defends Editorial Board Member ‘Disturbed’ by American Flags on Long Island.

We beseech you to move to Cuba. Lock stock and ink barrel. We’ll help you pack. Heck, out of the kindness of our hearts, we’ll start a gofundme for your ticket.

DUH:  Update: Smear of Mom Nicole Solas Was Prepared By Public Relations Firm Hired By South Kingstown (RI) School Committee.

OH, GOOD. THE WORLD’S MOST DELUSIONAL RED DIAPER BABY…  Democrats Enlist Obama to Defend Critical Race Theory.