Inside his sad, lonely, thirsty, broken, basically pretend run for reelection. (Which isn't to say he can't win.)

Tesla's 'full self-driving' mode at center of blame for major accident

Luke Gentile

December 22, 04:58 PM December 22, 05:29 PM Video Embed

Tesla's "full self-driving" mode is at the center of blame for a San Francisco car crash that left at least nine people injured.

The incident occurred on Nov. 24 mere hours after Elon Musk announced that "full self-driving" would be available to all Tesla customers in North America, according to a report.

WATCH: AMERICAN MAN IN MEXICAN PRISON AFTER CROSSING BORDER WITH GUN, FAMILY HEARTBROKEN

The driver at the heart of an eight-car collision says "full self-driving" mode is responsible for the accident.

The driver was in a Tesla Model S as it drove in fast traffic when it changed lanes and abruptly braked, setting the collision in motion, the California Highway Patrol reported.

Whether or not the car was in full self-driving mode at the time of the accident has not been confirmed.

CLICK HERE TO READ MORE FROM THE WASHINGTON EXAMINER

The U.S. National Highway Traffic Safety Administration is currently investigating numerous reports of "phantom braking."

© 2022 Washington Examiner

The world's largest laser, housed in the National Ignition Facility at Livermore, California, and which science-fiction fans will recognize from the film "Star Trek: Into Darkness," will test the new breakthrough in energy technology: nuclear fusion.

The United States Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit is where law goes to die.

"in response to Alabama Governor Kay Ivey's recent statewide ban of the app for all government agencies and networks"

The post Auburn University Bans TikTok From School Servers and Devices Over Security Concerns first appeared on Le·gal In·sur·rec·tion.

More fallout from pandemic restrictions and covid paranoia.

The post ‘Tripledemic’ Leading to Shortage of Children’s Pain Medications first appeared on Le·gal In·sur·rec·tion.

ELON MUSK SUSPENDS LEFTIST TAYLOR LORENZ FROM TWITTER: ‘Such Shameful Behavior Will Not Be Tolerated.’

On Friday, Musk responded to a tweet from Ariadna Jacob, who wrote: “I’m not famous and I wasn’t a public figure either when Taylor Lorenz asked for my address, said it wasn’t for publication and then proceeded to dox me in the NYT with the address she had assured me she wasn’t going to publish. The article was shared many x on Twitter.”

Musk responded to the tweet: “Such shameful behavior will not be tolerated going forward.”

While many conservatives typically oppose online censorship, it seemed as though there was a near-unanimous consensus from the right side of the political spectrum that this was not a typical censorship case.

Podcast host Tim Pool tweeted: “Taylor Lorenz finally got suspended for all the awful things she’s done.”

“Banning Taylor Lorenz is the best thing Elon Musk has done for this website,” said digital strategist Caleb Hull.

Elsewhere in lefty freakouts over losing their monopoly on Twitter: Soros-Funded Wikipedia Casts Musk Journo Suspensions as ‘Thursday Night Massacre.’

UPDATE: On the other hand:

Security knew everything about Kelly Conlon before she even spoke to them

The post Facial Recognition Denied Mom Entrance to NYC Rockettes Show With Daughter Because of Her Employer first appeared on Le·gal In·sur·rec·tion.

BIG WIN FOR FIGHTER KARI LAKE!

BREAKING: Our Election Case is going to trial. Katie Hobbs attempt to have our case thrown out FAILED. She will have to take the stand & testify.

Buckle up, America.
This is far from over. pic.twitter.com/291EnXPP3U

— Kari Lake (@KariLake) December 20, 2022

Maricopa County Superior Court Judge Peter Thompson dismissed the defendants’ motions to dismiss Kari Lake’s historic stolen election lawsuit.

The trial will proceed with evidentiary hearings on Wednesday and Thursday this week.

The Gateway Pundit reported earlier that Kari Lake’s attorneys gave an oral argument over the motions to dismiss in court this morning.

WATCH LIVE: Kari Lake’s Attorneys Give Oral Argument In Stolen Election Lawsuit Hearing

The outcome of today’s hearing is HUGE. This is the FIRST time an election case has gone to trial since 2020!

.@KariLake going to trial is one of the biggest victories for election integrity we've had in decades.

Don't let them down play this. It's huge.

— Columnated Election Denier (@DominofromAZ) December 20, 2022

The Gateway Pundit reported that Kari Lake joined Bannon’s War Room live from TPUSA’s AmericaFest in Phoenix, Arizona, to discuss her historic lawsuit.

Kari Lake Discusses This Morning’s Court Hearing On Bannon’s War Room At TPUSA America Fest With HUGE Crowd Behind Her (VIDEO)

A Runbeck whistleblower revealed in Lake’s filing that HUNDREDS OF THOUSANDS of ballots had no chain of custody documentation. This is a shocking and massive violation of the law. Twenty-five thousand ballots were added to Maricopa County’s totals after election day with no explanation of why the number of remaining ballots could increase. Also, tens if not HUNDREDS of thousands of mail-in ballots with mismatched signatures were illegally counted in violation of Arizona law.

Ross Trumble shared this breaking news on Twitter.

also going to trial on the ballot tabulator issues being the result of intentional actions

— ₿ased male for KARI LAKE #LakeVHobbs (@GetMeRoss) December 20, 2022

Read the full decision here and below:

The post BREAKING BIG! Kari Lake WINS Right to Bring Election Fraud Case to Trial! – Judge DENIES Motion To Dismiss by Katie Hobbs – Trial to Proceed WEDNESDAY and THURSDAY appeared first on The Gateway Pundit.

Apple to allow third-party app sellers on iPhones, bowing to regulatory pressure

Christopher Hutton

December 13, 04:20 PM December 13, 04:20 PM Video Embed

Apple is moving toward allowing third-party sellers to sell apps on its devices in an effort to comply with European regulators and in anticipation of pressure from Congress.

Engineers at the company are in the process of adjusting key parts of the App Store interface in an effort to allow users to install apps from outside the App Store onto their iPhone, according to Bloomberg. The effort would allow Apple to continue operating without facing as much pressure from Congress and the European Union over the market power that Apple has over mobile devices.

The change is in response to the Digital Markets Act in the EU, which would require Apple to allow sideloading, or downloading apps through outlets other than the App Store, by 2024.

CESSPOOL OF MISINFORMATION: FAUCI SNAPS AT MUSK

Apple has historically opposed such endeavors, claiming that they would lead to scammers and malware on the platform. Apple engineers have also argued it is a distraction from improving other key features on Apple devices, such as developing the next iOS for iPhones.

In order to ensure product quality, Apple is considering requiring certain security elements in all apps. Apps would also need to be verified by Apple and pay a 15%-30% fee for approval, allowing Apple to maintain its high operational fees while offering third-party apps in the App Store.

Apple may also open up other key features on iOS devices for developers to access. For example, it could allow apps to have access to other sensors in the phone camera or the near-field communication chip, which allows the phone to communicate wirelessly with chip readers. These features were limited and could only be used by Apple-created apps.

It's unclear if Apple will comply with parts of the EU's rules that require it to allow users to sign up for product services without having to go through Apple.

CLICK HERE TO READ MORE FROM THE WASHINGTON EXAMINER

Apple's prices caused a conflict two weeks ago when the Big Tech giant withdrew all its ads from Twitter. Elon Musk noticed the exorbitant prices for operating on the App Store and got into a feud with the company over it, calling them a "secret tax." A few days later, Musk visited Apple CEO Tim Cook at Apple's headquarters, where they appear to have resolved the issue.

© 2022 Washington Examiner

Elon Musk's lamentable reversal on his own free speech agenda

Tom Rogan

December 15, 12:50 PM December 15, 01:23 PM Video Embed

Breaching a prior commitment not to do so, Tesla/Twitter CEO Elon Musk has banned a Twitter account that tracked his private jet. He is also threatening a hopeless legal action against the account's creator. Musk is thus showing hypocrisy on a matter supposedly dear to his heart: free speech.

Musk’s ban is regrettable. It significantly undermines his credibility as a powerful agent for a more traditional notion of free speech in America.

WHAT THE 'TWITTER FILES' SAY ABOUT THE FUTURE OF JOURNALISM

Musk’s disclosures since taking over Twitter have been healthy, unveiling both the overt and implicit bias of key Twitter officials in alignment with the Democratic Party and sympathetic media outlets. This is not good for the media, the public, or the nation. Musk’s expansive notion of free speech (at least until this week), which tolerates even speech that is divisive or has little factual basis, is also praiseworthy. To understand why, consider why the Supreme Court ruled 8-1 in the controversial 2011 case of Snyder v. Phelps. That case saw members of a fringe church protest on the periphery of a soldier's funeral. The protesters’ conduct was deeply hurtful to many. But as Chief Justice John Roberts noted in the court's opinion:

"Speech is powerful. It can stir people to action, move them to tears of both joy and sorrow, and — as it did here — inflict great pain. On the facts before us, we cannot react to that pain by punishing the speaker. As a nation we have chosen a different course — to protect even hurtful speech on public issues to ensure that we do not stifle public debate."

Roberts and the court were correct — provably so, in the context of current cultural debates such as those involving sexual education and transgender identity. Wherever one stands on those issues, there is little doubt that the media, academia, and entertainment have sought to silence contravening viewpoints on the basis that they are supposedly hurtful. This is antithetical to the nation’s exceptional tradition of vigorous free discourse. Put simply, the offense (and, short of criminality, even fear) taken by some at the speech of others cannot become an excuse to restrict public debate on matters of public importance.

In banning the flight tracking account, Musk has inadvertently given a near pitch-perfect example of why an expansive approach to free speech is in the public interest. The CEO’s complaint is that the public's awareness of his private jet’s movements was undermining his family’s safety. He pointed to a specific example involving an unfortunate incident in which someone apparently followed his young child in Los Angeles.

Musk did not, however, show how the tracking of his movements led to the incident. More importantly, he ignores the basic fact that freely available flight-tracking websites are a key tool of researchers, journalists, and activists. These tracking tools have been heavily used by researchers, for example, to track Russian oligarchs and other corrupt interests. They are used by journalists such as myself to monitor military and political activity of public interest. Would he have these opportunities disappear? At the most basic level, these websites facilitate the pursuit of happiness by flight enthusiasts! The basic point is that monitoring flights does not, per se, endanger anyone's safety. But this monitoring provides significant public interest benefits.

Moreover, Musk has the resources to use multiple private jets, including decoy jets, should he wish to frustrate the efforts of those attempting to monitor him. He could also sign up for an executive private jet rental service under which he would be much harder to trace. Only an exceptionally well-organized, heavily resourced state-level entity would have the means of launching an attack against Musk’s family where it had only a very time-limited window of knowledge as to his movements. For a lone individual or terrorist group to pull off such an attack would be nearly unprecedented in the United States. Indeed, attempts to plan such an action would almost certainly trigger the attention of the FBI.

Beyond this, the threat to Musk is likely the same as it has always been: that of a lone individual opportunist with an obsession. As seen in the Los Angeles incident, that threat is real and outrageous. But it can also be limited without the public suffering a significant loss to free speech and debate.

Musk’s ban, then, represents a significant overreaction that damages Twitter’s commitment to free speech and, more importantly, the free speech philosophy he has admirably adopted. The CEO has opened himself up to two legitimate criticisms: first, that he is a hypocrite, and second, that at the margin, he will use Twitter to serve his own interests rather than to facilitate the public interest. He has used his great power to protect his own interests at the expense of the public interest: a key concern of the founders when they sculpted the Constitution.

Musk should really reconsider his stance.

CLICK HERE TO READ MORE FROM THE WASHINGTON EXAMINER

© 2022 Washington Examiner

Advertisements can no longer say a toy is for a particular gender, or designate pink for girls and blue for boys, which is deemed to reinforce outdated gender roles.

Lawmakers investigating last year’s assault on the US Capitol recommended that Donald Trump be charged with with four crimes, including obstruction and insurrection, for his role in sparking the deadly riot.

The Ukrainian army has released an instructional video explaining how Russian soldiers should surrender to a drone:

“Seeing the drone in the field of view, make eye contact with it,” the video instructs. Soldiers should then raise their arms and signal they’re ready to follow.

After that the drone will move up and down a few meters, before heading off at walking pace in the direction of the nearest representatives of Ukraine’s army, it says.

The video also warns that the drone’s battery may run low, in which case it will head back to base and the soldiers should stay put and await a fresh one.

That one, too, should be met with eye contact and arms raised, it says.

Incredible.

On Thursday, Donald Trump made the "major announcement" on Truth Social that he'd teased the day before. Since declaring for the 2024 presidency in mid-November, he's done precious little campaigning; many expected him to release rally dates or issue some sort of platform. Instead, the informed his supporters that they could purchase Trump-themed NFT trading cards for the low price of $99.

If you thought the LGBTQ rainbow squad would show mercy on people who are part of the rainbow group but disagree with the trans ideology then you are sadly mistaken.

THE ARMY’S NEXT HELICOPTER ISN’T: Tilt-Rotor, Take Two. “The cruise speed is almost twice the 175 mph of the Black Hawk it’s replacing, and significantly faster than the competing Defiant X design (265 MPH). It also has higher troop carrying capacity than the Black Hawk (14 vs. 12). ‘Firstest with the mostest’ is still hugely important in combat. And though the V-280 carries considerably less than the V-22, it has a much longer combat range.”

I’ll take two.

“As the data clearly shows to anyone who wants to look at it, the mRNA vaccines are not safe, not effective and not necessary. I implore the Government to halt their use immediately. As I have demonstrated and as the data clearly shows, the Government’s current policy on the mRNA vaccines is on the wrong side of medical ethics, it is on the wrong side of scientific data, and ultimately it will be on the wrong side of history.”

– Andrew Bridgen, Member of Parliament for North West Leicestershire

Watch the full speech. It’s awesome.

Here is one of the comments:

It was delivered to a “packed house” of one member of the opposing party (see the gentleman seated on the right in the photo above?).

At 16:32 in the video, Bridgen also talked about a 'cover-up' of research linking mRNA jabs with heart inflammation by a prominent health authority of the British Heart Foundation (BHF) so that future pharma research funding would not be impacted. He asked members of his research team to sign NDAs.

This is not illegal; it is how science is done today in the UK (and other countries). The researchers’ first priority is ensuring future funding, not your safety.

Press coverage:

1. Story in the Express (UK)

2. Story in Times of India

Two stories. It’s a start.

Google was able to find just ONE story mentioning Bridgen. I’m serious! Everything else was 1 week old or older!

Check out this story as well:

Wow. History will not be kind to these people who are asking him to apologize.

The Royal Bahamas Police Force arrested FTX founder Sam Bankman-Fried, a press statement said.

Twitter dissolves Trust and Safety Council after members resign

Christopher Hutton

December 12, 09:13 PM December 12, 09:22 PM Video Embed

Twitter has dissolved the advisory group that helped it manage hate speech on the platform, a move reflective of new owner Elon Musk's priorities.

The platform announced on Monday that it would no longer operate its Trust and Safety Council, a collection of independent experts and organizations from all over the world who help Twitter manage matters related to speech and harassment. The organization featured experts on hate speech, gay and transgender rights, human rights, and child sex exploitation prevention.

"As Twitter moves into a new phase, we are reevaluating how best to bring external insights into our product and policy development work." the company said in an email. "As part of this, we have decided that the Trust and Safety Council is not the best structure to do this."

WHITE HOUSE DEFENDS FAUCI FROM MUSK, BLASTING 'DANGEROUS PERSONAL ATTACKS'

Twitter emphasized that it still wants ideas to keep Twitter "safe" and "informative." Twitter has already deleted the council's webpage.

The council's dissolution comes days after three members resigned from it over Musk's handling of the company.

"We are announcing our resignation from Twitter's Trust and Safety Council because it is clear from research evidence that, contrary to claims by Elon Musk, the safety and wellbeing of Twitter's users are on the decline," the three said in a Thursday press release.

Musk later responded, alleging that the council had done little to combat child exploitation on the platform.

The council's dissolution occurred as Musk makes significant changes to the company's infrastructure and adopts a "free speech"-focused approach to its content moderation, including restoring several previously banned accounts.

CLICK HERE FOR MORE FROM THE WASHINGTON EXAMINER

Musk also made noise when he called for the prosecution of Biden health adviser Dr. Anthony Fauci over his involvement in the government's COVID-19 response, released several files related to Trump's Jan. 8, 2021, ban, and got booed off of Dave Chapelle's stage.

© 2022 Washington Examiner

"For the record, do you believe Joe Biden was legitimately elected president?"

The post NPR Interview of Newt Gingrich Reveals Media’s Ongoing Double Standard About Elections first appeared on Le·gal In·sur·rec·tion.

With locations in every zip code, the Salvation Army helps millions of Americans escape poverty every year by providing a host of services such as financial assistance, counseling, job training, and disaster relief.

For decades, the Salvation Army has used the generous donations of Americans to better society by providing these services to people in need in the U.S. and abroad. In fact, according to Kenny Xu, president of Color Us United, 80% of the Salvation Army’s worldwide donations come from Americans. But in recent years, the Salvation Army has shifted its focus and its priorities.

Through anti-racist training programs pushed by newly hired diversity officers, the Salvation Army, on the national level, is prioritizing telling salvationists that they are racist. The Salvation Army’s new woke direction raises a question for the every-day Americans who have supported the charity with their dollars in the past: should you still give to the Salvation Army?

On the one hand, it is undeniable that the Salvation Army still does good in the U.S. and around the world. Because the Salvation Army has so many locations in so many communities, it can accomplish a lot of good on a local level by responding to the specific needs of each unique community. Just last year, the Salvation Army provided shelter to over 7 million homeless individuals and over 171 million meals to the hungry.

When weighing whether to give to the Salvation Army, you may see the impact your local Salvation Army chapter is making and conclude that withdrawing your support would be selfish and uncalled-for. Local Salvation Army chapters rely on support from donors to keep doing their good works, after all. But that’s not the whole story.

10% of all the proceeds from donations to local chapters go to the national headquarters. As Kenny pointed out in my interview with the Tennessee Star, the national headquarters puts the money toward conducting large-scale fundraising and lobbying campaigns and “crafting and controlling the message.” And the national messages they put out, pushed by their influential International Social Justice Commission, have told good-hearted Americans they are racist.

The national branch also oversees the antiracist training programs that teach the principles of Critical Race Theory to Salvation Army officers. One of the new DEI directors for the Salvation Army’s western US territory bragged of the College of Officer Training in California that, “Our officers will have DEI wired into their DNA as they go into the territory to serve,” because every course syllabus in the curriculum is required to have a DEI component before it gets approved.

In other words, when you donate to your local Salvation Army chapter, 10% of your money unfortunately funds the divisive ideology that is destroying our country. 

When you donate to the Salvation Army, you are unwittingly contributing to the messages of division and despair that are disincentivizing Americans from giving. 10% of your dollars empower the national branch to expand its DEI reach.

We have seen how rapidly its DEI programs, officers, and ideology have grown in power and influence. There is nothing to suggest these people will stop until they have influenced every corner of the organization. Not unless you tell them enough is enough.

As a donor, you have a right to take your money elsewhere. You are not an evil person if you weigh the facts and decide that donating to a good cause is not worth the cost of helping to fund the promotion of poisonous ideology.

You have every right to withdraw your support from the Salvation Army and give it to another organization that better aligns your values. Moreover, with your dollars, you have the power to convince the Salvation Army that they need to change.

If enough Americans pull their support from Christian charities that are bending to wokeness and explain (to their local Salvation Army captain) why they have done so, this could lead to a time of healing for Christian charities.

If enough Americans make their voices heard, we very well may see the Salvation Army and other Christian charities abandon wokeness and return to their core mission of showing Christ’s love to all, regardless of race.

Emmie Lo is a Latin teacher and a writer for Color Us United, which advocates for a race-blind America.

The views expressed in this piece are those of the author and do not necessarily represent those of The Daily Wire.

Scientists have succeeded for the first time to produce a fusion reaction that creates a net energy gain, a key milestone in the quest for abundant zero-carbon power, the Department of Energy plans to announce on Tuesday.

After he was booed when he made a surprise appearance on stage with Dave Chappelle at Chappelle’s show at the Chase Center in San Francisco Sunday night, Twitter CEO Elon Musk followed by issuing a ringing denunciation of his leftist foes on Monday morning.

When Chappelle introduced Musk, much of the crowd booed, prompting Chappelle to quip, “It sounds like some of the people you fired are in the audience,” adding, “All of those people who are booing, I’m just pointing out the obvious, they have terrible seats. It’s all coming from way up there.”

Turns out Twitter can, in fact, be real life. https://t.co/FFpups1yEy pic.twitter.com/41jcZgdDR4

— Steven Goffman (@SteveGoffman) December 12, 2022

On Monday morning, Musk took on his critics directly, tweeting, “The woke mind virus is either defeated or nothing else matters.”

The woke mind virus is either defeated or nothing else matters

— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) December 12, 2022

Prior to his appearance at Chappelle’s show, Musk had indicated his disdain for the Twitter bots attacking him, tweeting, “Calling all 🤖& 🧌  Please attack me!” followed by “Cool, the bots are so far unable to swarm to the top of my replies!”

Cool, the bots are so far unable to swarm to the top of my replies!

— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) December 11, 2022

In late November, Musk posted a 12-second video of something he found in a closet at Twitter headquarters that revealed a truly leftist perspective.

Musk posted a video of the closet that had shelves stacked with T-shirts as part of Twitter’s merchandising, and showed a shelf filled with black T-shirts reading “#Stay Woke.”

“Here we are at the merch and there is an entire closet full of — ” Musk explained, before someone off-camera added, “secret closet.”

“— Hashtag Woke T-Shirts,” Musk concludes.

Found in closet at Twitter HQ fr 🤣🤣 pic.twitter.com/3xSI3KvvHk

— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) November 23, 2022

Despite criticism from the political Left at how he had handled the company, Musk noted at the time that Twitter had added 1.6M daily active users in the prior week.

Twitter added 1.6M daily active users this past week, another all-time high pic.twitter.com/Si3cRYnvyD

— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) November 22, 2022

Only hours before his tweet showing the woke T-shirts, Musk took aim at his critics, tweeting, “Wasn’t Twitter supposed to die by now or something … ?”

“Maybe we’ve gone to heaven/hell & don’t know it,” he quipped.

Maybe we’ve gone to heaven/hell & don’t know it 🤔

— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) November 23, 2022

A coalition of 60+ civil rights and civil society groups calling themselves the “Stop Toxic Twitter” coalition had urged Twitter’s top advertisers to boycott the company, threatening, “Musk must not roll back the basic moderation practices Twitter already has on the books and he must invest the resources necessary to enforce those rules.”

“Sweeping layoffs at Twitter make it impossible for Twitter to uphold brand safeguards and content moderation. Companies should immediately stop advertising in response,” they continued.

Related: Elon Musk Finds Something In Twitter HQ’s Closet That Explodes Internet

ABOUT TIME, IF TRUE: US scientists reportedly make fusion energy breakthrough. “The Financial Times today reported three separate sources confirmed a recent experiment at the federal Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory in California yielded successful results. The experiment reportedly produced a net gain in energy produced for the first time since observations began back in the 1950s. The Financial Times said the fusion reaction, ‘produced about 2.5 megajoules of energy, which was about 120 per cent of the 2.1 megajoules of energy in the lasers, the people with knowledge of the results said, adding that the data was still being analysed.’ The US department of energy told the news outlet it will announce “’major scientific breakthrough’ at the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory on Tuesday.”

Here’s the (paywalled) FT story.

Kidnap and murder suspect Tanner Lynn Horner told investigators Athena Strand, 7, was not seriously hurt in the accident, but he panicked and put her in his vehicle.

What’s wrong with woke is what is wrong with Marxism more generally.

As Thomas Sowell wrote, when discussing history Marx displayed a stunning intellect, so much so that a good portion of Marx’s thinking had become part of the intellectual apparatus of every thinking person. Yet in addition (Sowell wrote):

“Much of the intellectual legacy of Marx is an anti-intellectual legacy. It has been said that you cannot refute a sneer. Marxism has taught many – inside and outside its ranks – to sneer at capitalism, at inconvenient facts or contrary interpretations, and thus to sneer at the intellectual process itself. This has been one of the sources of its enduring strength as a political doctrine, and as a means of acquiring and using political power in unbridled ways.”

– Marxism: Philosophy & Economics (Thomas Sowell, 1985)

Sadly, this anti-intellectualism weds the woke to policy prescriptions which generally fail in two ways:

• by generating unanticipated outcomes that overwhelm their stated goals;
• by assuming as context a State so expansive that freedom could not persist.

They remain wedded to such policy prescriptions because their anti-intellectualism makes them deaf to counterargument, even obvious counterargument. Indeed, while Marx wrote, “Military justice is to justice as military music is to music,” I would append, “…and military music is to music as Marxist philosophy is to philosophy.”

It could happen to anyone, but it especially happens to Marxists (and the Woke) because their policy prescriptions assume a static deterministic world. Adam Smith is wrote of such a person (whom he termed, “a man of system”):

“The man of system, on the contrary, is apt to be very wise in his own conceit; and is often so enamoured with the supposed beauty of his own ideal plan of government, that he cannot suffer the smallest deviation from any part of it. He goes on to establish it completely and in all its parts, without any regard either to the great interests, or to the strong prejudices which may oppose it. He seems to imagine that he can arrange the different members of a great society with as much ease as the hand arranges the different pieces upon a chess-​board. He does not consider that the pieces upon the chess-​board have no other principle of motion besides that which the hand impresses upon them; but that, in the great chess-​board of human society, every single piece has a principle of motion of its own, altogether different from that which the legislature might chuse to impress upon it. If those two principles coincide and act in the same direction, the game of human society will go on easily and harmoniously, and is very likely to be happy and successful. If they are opposite or different, the game will go on miserably, and the society must be at all times in the highest degree of disorder.

– “A Theory of the Moral Sentiments, Adam Smith 1759)

What is odd is that in many cases they are bright people. And it is always odd to be well-acquainted with someone, often someone quite wonderful, who turns out to have such a defect in their intellectual construction. (I do have a private theory on that: psychometric testing reveals that the most most salient psychological trait of Lefties is low self-esteem, and I suspect imagining themselves seated at such a chessboard satisfies some control-fetish/revenge-fantasy instinct). So one makes allowances as one would for any others beat up by life in various ways. “Be kind,” said Aristotle,”for everyone you meet is having a hard battle.” And cherish them in the same way one might cherish someone who has gone deaf, or is a burn victim.

One stops perceiving it in so negative a way when one accepts it, and sees the person behind the injury.

Marine veteran Paul Whelan was left to rot in a Russian prison while WNBA star Brittney Griner was released.

Sen. Kyrsten Sinema, in an exclusive column, explains why she has left the Democratic Party and registered as an independent.

A FedEx contract driver strangled a 7-year-old girl after hitting her with his van in Texas late last month, according to arrest warrant documents.

Tanner Horner, a 31-year-old from Fort Worth, has been arrested and charged with capital murder of a person under 10 years old and aggravated kidnapping in the death of Athena Strand, according to the Fort Worth Star-Telegram.

After the girl was reported missing, investigators tracked down video from the truck showing Horner speaking to a girl who looked like Athena on Nov. 30, sand an affidavit supporting the arrest warrant. Horner told investigators he accidentally hit Athena with his delivery van while backing out of the driveway at the girl’s home.

Although Horner said Athena was not seriously injured, he “panicked” and brought her into the back of the vehicle, where he allegedly tried to kill her by breaking her neck before strangling her with his bare hands.

Horner said he left the girl’s body in the water on the edge of the Trinity River near Boyd, where authorities said they recovered the body on Friday, December 2.

The arrest warrant and affidavit were published Thursday by CBS 11.

Maitlyn Gandy, the mother of Athena, said at a news conference on Thursday that her daughter was abducted while visiting her stepmother and father in Paradise, Texas. The driver was delivering a package of Barbie dolls meant to be a Christmas gift to Athena, she said.

“Athena was robbed of the opportunity to grow up to be anything she wanted to be,” Gandy said. “And this present, ordered out of innocence and love, is one she will never receive.”

Horner was arrested Friday and is being held on $1.5 million bond in the Wise County Jail. The death penalty has been discussed with prosecutors if Horner is convicted, Wise County Sheriff told the Star-Telegram over the weekend. The news outlet said it was not clear whether Horner has an attorney.

A private funeral for Athena will be held on Friday, according to NBCDFW.