The container ship that rammed into a support beam of Francis Scott Key Bridge — which caused the Baltimore bridge to <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/baltimore-bridge-collapses-resulting-in-mass-casualty-event-after-its-struck-by-cargo-ship" target="_blank" rel="noopener">collapse</a> in March — suffered a pair of electrical blackouts the day before the collision that resulted in the deaths of six construction workers, according to federal investigators.
The National Transportation Safety Board is investigating the March 26 incident that took place in one of America&#8217;s busiest ports and released a report on Tuesday, saying that the ship, called the Dali, had two electrical malfunctions on March 25. Just hours later, two more electrical blackouts made it impossible for the Dali&#8217;s crew to steer the ship away from the Francis Scott Key Bridge.
&#8220;On March 25, about 10 hours before leaving Baltimore, the Dali experienced a blackout (loss of electrical power to the HV [high voltage] and LV [low voltage] buses) during in-port maintenance,&#8221; the NTSB preliminary <a href="https://www.ntsb.gov/investigations/Documents/DCA24MM031_PreliminaryReport%203.pdf" target="_blank" rel="noopener">report</a> said. The loss of power occurred after &#8220;a crewmember mistakenly closed an inline engine exhaust damper.&#8221;
&#8220;Vessel power was restored when crewmembers manually closed HR2 and LR2 [step-down transformers]. Generator no. 3 continued to run for a short period, but insufficient fuel pressure caused its speed to decrease, and its breaker (DGR3) opened; a second blackout (another loss of electrical power to the HV and LV buses) occurred,&#8221; the report added.
In the early hours of March 26, the Dali suffered two more electrical blackouts before it collided with the bridge&#8217;s support beam and caused the middle section of the 1.6-mile-long bridge to crash into the Patapsco River. Video of the incident shows the Dali&#8217;s lights go out moments before it rams into the support beam. Six men who were working on the bridge at the time fell into the water and died.
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" data-width="500" data-dnt="true">
Breaking News: Mass Casualty event declared in the US after a ship slams into a Bridge
The full video can be seen here.
Developing story<a href="https://twitter.com/hashtag/Baltimore?src=hash&amp;ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">#Baltimore</a> <a href="https://twitter.com/hashtag/USA?src=hash&amp;ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">#USA</a> <a href="https://twitter.com/hashtag/bridgecollapse?src=hash&amp;ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">#bridgecollapse</a> <a href="https://t.co/E5bWMovtjo">pic.twitter.com/E5bWMovtjo</a>
&mdash; Jim Ferguson (@JimFergusonUK) <a href="https://twitter.com/JimFergusonUK/status/1772538786276053349?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">March 26, 2024</a></blockquote>
<script async src="https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>
The Dali remained stuck in the bridge wreckage until earlier this week when authorities used precision explosive charges to remove part of the bridge that was still on top of the container ship, according to <a href="https://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/baltimore-bridge-span-removed-ship-freed-precision-blast-rcna152065" target="_blank" rel="noopener">NBC News</a>. Maryland Governor Wes Moore also announced that a channel should finally be open for ships by the end of the month, which would be key to &#8220;fully opening vessel traffic to the port.&#8221;
Days after the collision, the NTSB released a <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/ntsb-reports-timeline-of-baltimore-bridge-disaster" target="_blank" rel="noopener">report</a> describing the events that led up to the bridge&#8217;s collapse.
“Around 01:26:39 the ship’s pilot made a general VHF [very high frequency] call for tugs in the vicinity of the DALI. MDTA data from around this time indicated the pilot association dispatcher phoned the MDTA duty officer regarding the blackout. Around 1:27:04, the pilot commanded the DALI to drop the port anchor and issued additional steering commands,” the NTSB said. “Around 1:27:25, the pilot issued a radio call over the VHF radio and reported the DALI had lost all power approaching the Key Bridge,” adding that at roughly 1:29 a.m., “the ship’s speed over ground was recorded as just under 7 knots/8 miles per hour. From this moment until approximately 1:29:33, VDR audio recorded sounds consistent with the collision with the Key bridge.”
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The Dali&#8217;s mayday signal allowed transportation officials to stop traffic from traveling across the bridge before the ship struck the support beam, a move that &#8220;<a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/8-people-were-on-baltimore-bridge-at-time-of-collapse-ship-issued-a-mayday-before-collision-authorities" target="_blank" rel="noopener">saved lives</a>,&#8221; according to Maryland Governor Wes Moore.

Baltimore’s Francis Scott Key Bridge Collapses After Being Struck By Cargo Ship

Ship That Caused Baltimore Bridge Collapse Had Two Electrical Blackouts Day Before Deadly Collision: Federal Investigators

Baltimore

Disasters

Francis Scott Key Bridge

Transportation

U.S.

Though the exact cause of a container ship&#8217;s collision with the Francis Scott Key Bridge in Baltimore, Maryland — which caused the structure&#8217;s collapse — is under debate, the disaster that has claimed at least two lives and caused an untold amount of economic damage has drawn attention to the state of America&#8217;s infrastructure.
The bridge itself accommodated almost 30,000 vehicles each day, and the Port of Baltimore, which will be heavily disrupted by the collapse and reconstruction, saw 52.3 million tons of foreign cargo and 11.7 million tons of general cargo coming into the port in 2023.
President Joe Biden has already <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/biden-pushes-for-federal-gov-to-pay-for-entire-cost-of-rebuilding-baltimore-bridge-but-says-it-will-take-some-time" target="_blank" rel="noopener">promised</a> that the federal government will foot the bill for the repairs to the bridge.
“It is my intention that the federal government will pay for the entire cost of reconstructing that bridge, and I expect Congress to support my effort,” Biden said. “This is going to take some time, and the people of Baltimore can count on us though to stick with them at every step of the way until the port is reopened and the bridge is rebuilt.”
The bridge was originally built in the 1970s at an estimated cost of $141 million, which is around $743 million in today’s dollars, CNS Maryland <a href="https://cnsmaryland.org/2024/03/26/the-history-of-baltimores-key-bridge/#:~:text=Bridge%20construction,%24743%20million%20in%20today's%20dollars." target="_blank" rel="noopener">reported</a>. Experts have estimated that roughly $15 million a day in economic activity will be disrupted as a result of the disaster, <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/baltimore-port-closure-could-cost-15-million-per-day-2024-3" target="_blank" rel="noopener">according</a> to Business Insider.
However, it seems like every election year politicians of both parties clamber to pitch grand infrastructure projects that promise to make voters&#8217; commutes smoother and produce all-important &#8220;shovel-ready&#8221; jobs. Such an infrastructure overhaul was one of the pillars of Biden&#8217;s presidential campaign in 2020, and, on paper at least, he delivered.
Two gigantic pieces of legislation passed during Biden&#8217;s two years in office, the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act (IIJA) in late 2021 and the Inflation Reduction Act in 2022, invested over a trillion dollars into multiple sectors of infrastructure — everything from roads to waterways to broadband — over the next decade, <a href="https://www.brookings.edu/articles/the-start-of-americas-infrastructure-decade-how-macroeconomic-factors-may-shape-local-strategies/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">according</a> to Brookings.
<div id="attachment_717107" style="width: 979px" class="wp-caption alignnone"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-717107" class="size-large wp-image-717107" src="https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2024/04/GettyImages-1353523670-969x576.jpg" alt="WASHINGTON, DC - NOVEMBER 15: U.S. President Joe Biden (C) signs H.R. 3684, the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act, during a ceremony on the South Lawn at the White House on November 15, 2021 in Washington, DC. (Photo by Chen Mengtong/China News Service via Getty Images)" width="969" height="576" srcset="https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2024/04/GettyImages-1353523670-969x576.jpg 969w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2024/04/GettyImages-1353523670-300x178.jpg 300w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2024/04/GettyImages-1353523670-768x457.jpg 768w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2024/04/GettyImages-1353523670.jpg 1024w" sizes="(max-width: 969px) 100vw, 969px" />Chen Mengtong/China News Service via Getty Images</div>
In truth, only a little over $110 billion in the IIJA will actually go toward repairing roads and bridges, the Washington Post <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/2021/08/10/senate-infrastructure-bill-what-is-in-it/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">noted</a>. The rest is parceled out among a myriad of other projects, most notably railroads, broadband, and utility infrastructure.
In 2023, the Federal Highway Administration reported that over 42,000 bridges across the U.S. were in &#8220;poor&#8221; condition, <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2024/03/26/baltimore-bridge-collapse-cost-infrastructure/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">according</a> to WaPo. Between 2020 and 2023, the number of U.S. bridges rated &#8220;good&#8221; increased in only 11 states, while the number considered to be in &#8220;poor&#8221; condition increased in 37 states. While 43,000 bridges saw an improved rating in 2023 compared t0 2020, a whopping 70,000 received a lower rating. Almost 13,000 bridges were downgraded from &#8220;fair&#8221; condition to &#8220;poor,&#8221; but only 10,000 bridges were improved from a &#8220;poor&#8221; rating.
American Road and Transportation Builders Association said that a full third of U.S. bridges are in need of significant repairs or replacement, while 7% of bridges are &#8220;structurally deficient,&#8221; the Council on Foreign Relations <a href="https://www.cfr.org/backgrounder/state-us-infrastructure" target="_blank" rel="noopener">reported</a>.
The American Society of Civil Engineers (ASCE) releases a report card every 5 years on the overall health of the nation&#8217;s infrastructure, giving it an overall &#8220;C-&#8221; grade in 2021. The group&#8217;s diagnosis of bridges and roads in particular does not paint a rosy picture.
The nation&#8217;s roads <a href="https://infrastructurereportcard.org/wp-content/uploads/2017/01/Roads-2021.pdf" target="_blank" rel="noopener">received</a> a &#8220;D&#8221; grade from the group, which noted that 40% of public roads are in mediocre or poor condition. Commuters are forced to spend nearly $130 billion a year in repairs and operating coasts because of the prevalence of poor quality roads, and 17% of all vehicle miles were driven on roads deemed to be in &#8220;poor condition.&#8221;
Bridges <a href="https://infrastructurereportcard.org/wp-content/uploads/2020/12/Bridges-2021.pdf" target="_blank" rel="noopener">received</a> a slightly higher score from the ASCE, a &#8220;C,&#8221; but the group still expressed a great deal of concern. Over 40% of U.S. bridges are over half a century old, the ASCE stated, and the backlog of repairs in 2021 stood at $125 billion. The report advised a much higher investment level over the next few decades to improve the situation.
&#8220;At the current rate of investment, it will take until 2071 to make all of the repairs that are currently necessary, and the additional deterioration over the next 50 years will become overwhelming,&#8221; the ASCE report said.
The ASCE <a href="https://infrastructurereportcard.org/wp-content/uploads/2020/12/2021-IRC-Executive-Summary-1.pdf" target="_blank" rel="noopener">estimated</a> in 2021 that the nation&#8217;s &#8220;infrastructure investment gap&#8221; had increased to almost $2.6 trillion over the next 10 years. The organization warned that the deficit could cost the U.S. $10 trillion in GDP, 3 million jobs, and $2.4 trillion in exports by 2039. It noted that the infrastructure investment gap, if allowed to continue, would cost the average American family $3,300 a year in higher costs.
<div id="attachment_717119" style="width: 874px" class="wp-caption alignnone"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-717119" class="size-large wp-image-717119" src="https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2024/04/GettyImages-1232147264-864x576.jpg" alt="FREDERICKSBURG, VA - APRIL 6: In an aerial view, vehicles on Interstate 95 travel past a construction project to add three lanes to the I-95 Rappahannock River Crossing on April 6, 2021 in Fredericksburg, Virginia. The site of the work is a vital chokepoint for cars and freight trucks moving both north and south along the East Coast. At the end of March, President Joe Biden introduced a $2 trillion plan to overhaul and upgrade the nation's infrastructure. The plan aims to revitalize the U.S. transportation infrastructure, water systems, broadband internet, make investments in manufacturing and job training efforts, and other goals. (Photo by Drew Angerer/Getty Images)" width="864" height="576" srcset="https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2024/04/GettyImages-1232147264-864x576.jpg 864w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2024/04/GettyImages-1232147264-300x200.jpg 300w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2024/04/GettyImages-1232147264-768x512.jpg 768w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2024/04/GettyImages-1232147264.jpg 1024w" sizes="(max-width: 864px) 100vw, 864px" />Drew Angerer/Getty Images</div>
Repairing the nation&#8217;s bridges represents such a huge stumbling block for the federal government because of its inability to appropriate the necessary funds to tackle traditional infrastructure (large portions of Biden&#8217;s infrastructure packages went toward green initiative) and the skyrocketing cost of those necessary repairs.
“I look at South Carolina when the infrastructure bill came through. We only got about $1 billion more than we otherwise would have over a five-year period,” Rep. Nancy Mace (R-S.C.) <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2024/03/26/baltimore-bridge-collapse-cost-infrastructure/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">told</a> Newsmax in the wake of the Baltimore disaster. “I can barely build a bridge in my district for $1 billion.”
Between October 2020 and September 2022, the average cost for highway construction projects increased by 50%, and highway construction costs are almost 3 times higher than they were in 2003, <a href="https://enotrans.org/article/highway-construction-costs-have-risen-50-in-two-years/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">according</a> to the National Highway Construction Cost Index (NHCCI). The index <a href="https://www.constructiondive.com/news/high-prices-road-builders-2024-construction-labor/703909/#:~:text=The%20National%20Highway%20Construction%20Cost,these%20high%20prices%2C%20said%20Black." target="_blank" rel="noopener">reached</a> an all-time high in the second quarter of 2023.
The Francis Scott Key Bridge collapse isn&#8217;t the first major infrastructure disaster of Biden&#8217;s tenure. In 2023, a Norfolk Southern train <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/controlled-burn-of-toxic-chemicals-that-unleashed-mushroom-cloud-over-east-palestine-wasnt-necessary-federal-official-says" target="_blank" rel="noopener">derailed</a> in East Palestine, Ohio, resulting in a controlled burn of toxic chemicals that were released into the air and affected local residents.
Biden was slammed for waiting a year before he visited East Palestine and was met with disappointed East Palestine residents when he made the trip to the small town last month. The total cost of the derailment is <a href="https://www.insurancejournal.com/news/midwest/2024/01/31/758843.htm#:~:text=The%20railroad%20now%20estimates%20the,additional%20penalties%20that%20haven't" target="_blank" rel="noopener">estimated</a> at $1.1 billion.
Despite two major infrastructure initiatives within the last 4 years, the long-term health of America&#8217;s roads and bridges does not look hopeful. Without a major decrease in the cost of repairs and an increase in infrastructure investments, the deterioration will continue, perhaps even accelerate. A poor network of roads and bridges will not only directly pass costs on to normal Americans, but also affect the nation&#8217;s economy as a whole, accentuating our financial woes. And perhaps most importantly, it will almost certainly increase the rate at which we see deadly disasters like the one in Baltimore.

Baltimore Bridge Collapse Highlights The Sorry State Of American Infrastructure

Inflation Reduction Act

Infrastructure

Joe Biden

Readers Pass

When you cater to crazy people, you end up with a crazier country.
And you deserve to lose if you decide to cater to the crazy. That&#8217;s true on every side of the political aisle. All the American people want is some semblance of normalcy. That&#8217;s all they want. They&#8217;re begging for it. Some semblance of just being an adult with a normal set of values would be amazing from anyone.
But, instead, we&#8217;ve decided we&#8217;re going to elevate crazy on pretty much every side of the political aisle. It&#8217;s totally wild and insane. We&#8217;re tearing ourselves apart by elevating crazy.
I think there&#8217;s a reason why we are elevating crazy to this extent. And I think the real reason why we&#8217;re elevating crazy across the aisle is because we don&#8216;t have a centralizing set of values.
It used to be that the older generation would say to the younger generation, “Guys, you&#8217;re morons. You don&#8217;t know what you&#8217;re talking about. Let me give you some time-tested wisdom,” as Thomas Sowell has talked about in the realm of economics.
It’s true across all branches of knowledge. There are a few ways to gather data; controlled studies is one way, but even controlled studies are not going to be as good as time-tested wisdom used over the course of centuries.
This is why it is very important to transmit culture, rules, and values to your children. This is why religion has traditionally been an extremely useful preserve of actually maintaining cultural and systemic health.
When I teach my kids the rules and I say, “God says you should do X, Y, and Z,” I&#8217;m not just saying, “God says you should do X, Y, and Z because I read the Bible this morning.” I&#8217;m saying that God says, “Do X, Y, and Z because I have a transmitted history of cultural utility that is thousands of years long, and these rules have worked over the course of thousands of years, and I&#8217;m transmitting them to you.”
The proof of the godliness of the rules on a utilitarian level is that they work. The rules are useful; thus, it&#8217;s good proof that if God said them, He was right. And even on a utilitarian level, even if God didn&#8217;t say them, they would still be right.
But as religion has declined, as people are afraid, as parents fear inculcating values in their kids, a problem arises.
<h4><a href="https://www.dailywire.com/episode/ep-1935-barack-obama-is-back-member-exclusive" target="_blank" rel="noopener">WATCH: The Ben Shapiro Show</a></h4>
There are some critiques that are made of classical liberalism along these lines, and those critiques are somewhat well-founded. There are conservatives who say the problem with classical liberalism — which suggests freedom of speech, freedom of religion, and so on — is that they can quickly lead to moral relativism if there is no centralizing, coherent set of values we all share.
That&#8217;s true. Liberalism can lead to moral relativism. The idea to “let a thousand flowers bloom” is fine as long as the flowers are within a certain set of parameters. To say all views are equivalent and thus liberalism is important, is wrong. Not all views are the same, and not all views are good. There are certainly very many bad views.
The rationale for liberalism is to restrict tyrants. Liberalism is a response to people who would shut down valuable speech.
But the roots of classical liberalism lie in a shared tradition of virtue. That&#8217;s true for any set of freedoms. Any set of freedoms has to exist within a set of broader rules.
Think about any game that you play. If you&#8217;re playing chess, you have the freedom to make any move that is within the rules on the board. If you just upturn the chessboard, that is no longer liberalism; you have taken the freedoms and extended them into a realm that defeats and destroys the freedoms.
There should be a shared set of rules and parameters in order for any of this to be upheld. What has happened in our culture is that religion and religious values, Judeo-Christian biblical values, used to be the shared basis for our culture, and then we could share a lot of freedom within those broad parameters. But as people have changed Judeo-Christian values, as fewer people go to a church or synagogue that actually teaches the Bible — some synagogues and churches are teaching the church of Karl Marx or the Church of John Dewey or the Church of FDR or the Church of Barack Obama or the Church of Joe Biden — religion has declined. As that happens, you let in the crazies, because once there&#8217;s no shared set of parameters, then any conspiracy theory at all gets through the door.
The only reason conspiracy theories end up getting a lot of traction is due to institutional distrust. Such institutional distrust has certainly been earned by, for example, the legacy media or the scientific community, which promote absolute lies on a fairly regular basis because they have a set of values and narratives that override the facts, such as the entire scientific community declaring that boys can be girls and girls can be boys. As this occurs, obviously institutional distrust is going to set in.
The converse of that is people who aren&#8217;t going to trust anything the government has to say when it is incompetent at so many tasks and also involves itself in your life in a myriad of ways. They have institutional distrust for the government and anything the government says they are not going to believe.
The major check on this used to be godly values. It used to be church. It used to be going out and touching grass, being with some real people, and discussing what&#8217;s rational and true. But as sources of truth and values decline, what fills the gap is a necessity to explain the world around you.
People have always wanted to explain the world around them, and they have historically had many tools to do so. One of those tools, the most important tool, was biblical religion in the West — the idea there is a God who stands above the creation of the universe, and there is a logic to His universe, and there is a set of moral rules that provide guidance for navigating through that universe. That is the basic religious principle of all biblical living.
But as that declines, people see a disconnected set of events so they immediately search for some sort of explanation for that disconnection.
This is why conspiracy theories thrive; when institutional trust declines and when biblical values — which offer an ultimate explanation for everything — decline, there&#8217;s nothing to fill the gap except for constant conspiratorialism.
That’s why there is this new push to explain everything through conspiracy. Everything is a conspiracy because the world’s a puzzling place and people need an explanation. And the easy explanation is to make one up in your own head about how there is a group of people in a back room somewhere who are manipulating all the systems.
It can&#8217;t just be that life is totally chaotic and that there are a lot of people who are morons out there doing stupid things. It can&#8217;t be that. It has to be that there is actually something deep and nefarious going on.
And it&#8217;s every single story.
When a bridge collapses in Baltimore, the Left makes the claim it has something to do with dirty fuel and the Right makes the claim it has something to do with DEI.
I don&#8217;t know because I don&#8217;t know the facts yet. The facts are still coming out. But when the facts come out, we&#8217;ll know exactly why that happened.
Then weird conspiracy theories about Princess Kate surface when she goes missing. Yet it&#8217;s fairly obvious when a rather prominent person goes missing, it&#8217;s probably a health problem. But instead, there are just tons of conspiracy theories on all sides of the aisle.
And then when Princess Kate says she is undergoing chemotherapy for cancer, a new slate of conspiracy theories arises. <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/technology/2024/03/27/kate-middleton-video-cancer-ai/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">According</a> to the Washington Post, “Users on TikTok, X and Facebook shared videos pointing out alleged AI breadcrumbs, such as a ring disappearing and reappearing on Catherine’s hand. Others said her hair moves unnaturally, or that the bed of daffodils in the background is suspiciously still.”
The tendency of our society right now to buy into nearly every conspiracy theory and give them all a hearing without just saying, “Nope, that sounds stupid,” is a reflection of the complete decentralization of values — because now, you&#8217;ll be willing to hear pretty much anything.
“Is the CIA behind everything that you see and hear? Is it possible that the moon landing never happened?” These kinds of conspiracy theories are arising because of the vacuum of values. That vacuum of values is almost solely due to the decline of religion.
The decline of religious life in America is the single worst thing that&#8217;s happened to the United States since about 1950. It continues apace today. Yet all the secular institutions that were supposed to fill that gap have failed because, of course, they were always going to fail; no secular rationale can fill the explanation God plays in our lives.
So you end up with a bunch of fools running around suggesting their own supposedly plausible explanation for what is happening.
This is why the ultimate explanation, the most self-serving conspiracy theory of all and the one that has arisen on all sides of the political aisle, is a sense of victimization.
When you feel the world around you is chaotic and confused and discombobulated, when you feel like a victim, and then you look for an explanation as to why your failures are not your own fault, it must be because there’s someone who&#8217;s stopping you from succeeding.
And the hardest thing to understand in the world when you are failing is that perhaps it is your fault. Maybe you do need to change what you&#8217;re doing in your life. This is true for 90% of human problems, at least in a free West. There are certainly places in the world where tyranny abides, but that is not true in the United States of America.
Politicians always have a stake in engaging in a conspiracy theory because the beauty of being engaged in one is that the prophet is the person who promulgates it.
The person who promulgates the conspiracy theory is the person you&#8217;re supposed to listen to because they will guide you forward, they will help you, and they will alleviate all your problems. If you just give them enough power, they will fight it. They will destroy the Matrix. They will destroy all of what you&#8217;re seeing, and they will lead you free. It&#8217;ll be like Plato&#8217;s cave. They&#8217;ll come back from outside the cave, and they will lead you back toward the light.
But they never lead you toward the light because every failure can now be attributed to that same conspiracy. If they fail to lead you, if you buy into their conspiracy theory, and if you give them power and your life still does not get better, they just say it&#8217;s because the conspiracy is so damned powerful. There&#8217;s no way they can overcome it.
This is the danger of conspiratorial thinking, and it is filling up every cup that has been left empty by God, religion, and community. It&#8217;s filling up all the political cups right now.
It&#8217;s extremely dangerous.
The Left-wing brand is, of course, what Joe Biden is doing by suggesting that the system is rigged against a wide variety of people. But it&#8217;s also happening on the Right, where the suggestion is — without evidence in many cases — that the system is rigged.
Here&#8217;s the thing: There are situations in the United States where the system is rigged, but you can tell what they are — not because someone posited a conspiracy theory without any evidence whatsoever, just spitting out dumb conspiracy theories — but because people say it and they do it.
It is not a conspiracy theory, for example, to suggest that Asians are being discriminated against on college campuses. How do you know it? Because you can see it in the statistics, recruitment materials, documentation, and at all of the major colleges. That&#8217;s not a conspiracy theory.
What America needs to get back to normal is the same thing it always needed: church, community, and a fact-based, rational approach to politics. That&#8217;s all people need.
Maybe they don&#8217;t want it. Maybe it&#8217;s too easy in this day and age to jump immediately to some sort of narrative that explains why you&#8217;re a victim of the society in which you live in the freest, most prosperous society in the history of humanity.
But that&#8217;s not going to lead to a happy life.

Conspiracy Theories And Returning To Normal

Ben Shapiro

Christianity

Conspiracy Theory

Jewish

Judeo-Christian Values

I’m sure I have canceled MSNBC talking head Joy Reid before. I can’t remember specifically at this moment because all of the ignoramuses discussed during my Daily Cancellation segment blend together in my mind, forming one big, loud, ball of stupid. I can only assume that Joy has been featured multiple times because she is so aggressively, obnoxiously terrible in every way a person can be terrible.
There are evil people who think they’re virtuous and there are dumb people who think they’re smart: Joy Reid falls into both categories. She even looks the part, with the bleach blond, short cropped hair and permanent scowl she looks like the kind of middle aged woman who yells at the pizza delivery guy because the pizza doesn’t have pepperoni on it, even though it’s not the delivery guy’s fault, and even though she didn’t order pepperoni. The point is, I’m not especially a fan of Joy Reid. But today we have to pay her some special attention once again, unfortunately. In fact, we are covering this today because the Joy Reid segment in question takes a certain turn that makes it even more relevant.
So, Joy took to her low-rated cable news show last night to call out the alleged racist conservatives who have been engaging in alleged racist conspiracy theories surrounding the Baltimore bridge collapse. We talked about the conspiracy theory angle yesterday, but Joy takes this in a different direction. It would probably be easiest just to play the segment and walk through all the many ways that she gets things wrong. Watch:
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Actually, Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-GA) didn’t suggest it was an intentional attack. And even if she did, that’s not a conspiracy theory. Intentional attacks on infrastructure are a well known threat. There’s nothing outlandish about suggesting that it may have happened. But she’s not even suggesting. That tweet that Joy briefly flashes on the screen says: “There should be a serious investigation into the horrifying tragedy of the Francis Scott Key Bridge in Maryland. Is this an intentional attack or an accident? Praying for the victims, survivors and families.”
Which part of that tweet is conspiratorial or outlandish? In fact, I can’t imagine a more measured and normal way to respond in a situation like this. Is Joy Reid suggesting that it’s inappropriate to even wonder whether the incident was intentional? That’s odd, because the people investigating the crash also wondered about that. So far they’re saying they don’t think it was, but that’s obviously an angle they pursued immediately. 
Are they conspiracy theorists too? Joy doesn’t say. Let’s continue:
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A few points here. Number one, it is fashionable to be openly racist in this country, just not against black people. But Joy Reid herself proves, and what comes next in this segment will again demonstrate, that racism against white people is indeed very fashionable.
Second, she is showing us tweets to prove whatever point she’s trying to make. As we’ve seen, the first tweet she displayed from Marjorie Taylor Green totally contradicted her point. She wants to demonstrate that conservatives are being wildly conspiratorial about this. So she showed us a tweet where Marjorie Taylor Green was completely measured and utterly reasonable. Next we see a tweet from some congressional candidate I’ve never heard of. And then we see one from an anonymous account on X called “I am yes you are no” with a cartoon profile photo. You know, that guy. That world famous conservative thinker named “I am yes you are no.”
<h4><a href="https://www.dailywire.com/episode/ep-1335-the-mayor-of-baltimore-attacks-white-people-as-the-city-deals-with-bridge-collapse-member-exclusive" target="_blank" rel="noopener">WATCH: The Matt Walsh Show</a></h4>
Now, obviously, Joy is correct that it doesn’t require DEI to get a black man elected mayor in Baltimore. Every Baltimore mayor for the past 30 years, except one, has been black. They’ve also all been terrible, as the city has plunged into decades of crime, violence, and rampant drug use, but that’s a topic for another day. But she is right that the joking nickname given to this guy by an anonymous cartoon Twitter account is not technically accurate.
As to the suggestion that DEI might have something to do with the bridge collapse itself, that may not be accurate. We still don’t know. We may never know for sure. There are many factors that played into this incident — factors that are still being investigated — and at this point it’s just not possible to say for sure whether or not DEI policies played a part. But if people immediately speculate about the role of DEI in incidents like this, it’s not because those people are so terrible. It’s because DEI is so terrible. The fact remains that DEI policies have deliberately and systematically lowered standards across the board in virtually every industry, all in the name of making every industry less white. That is a fact. It has happened. It is happening. Joy Reid supports and promotes these policies. And now we are witnessing the collapse of competence across the country because of it. 
That doesn’t mean that every catastrophe is linked to this campaign of destruction in the name of diversity. But it does mean that it’s perfectly reasonable to wonder whether any particular catastrophe is linked to it. And it also means that inevitably some people will draw that connection even before it has been factually established. That’s what happens when you come up with a racist policy that intentionally makes everything worse in every conceivable way. The problem here is the policy. Not the random Twitter accounts that Joy Reid is crying about.
But it wasn’t enough to have Joy Reid cry about them on her own. She also brought the mayor of Baltimore on the air to respond. You would think that the man has a crisis to attend to and would be too busy to spend time doing an interview to respond to a joking tweet from an anonymous Twitter account, but you would be wrong. Watch:
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I’m going to skip right past the mayor’s statement that it requires courage to say the n-word. Something tells me that if any white person did say it in his presence, he would have a lot of things to say in response, and praising them for their courage would not be one of the things. The bigger headline here is this part. He said: “Me being in this position means that their way of thinking, their way of life of being comfortable while everyone else suffers is at risk. And they should be afraid because that’s my purpose in life.”
Just to recap the situation here. The mayor of Baltimore, in the midst of a major disaster, has taken the time to go on a political talk show to play the victim because someone tweeted something mean about him. And then, in the middle of this little pageant, he proceeded to issue a threat, and even declare that his “purpose” is to put “at risk” the livelihood of these people he’s threatening. You might hope that his primary purpose right now is to figure out what to do about the fact that a bridge that carried 30 thousand commuters a day is now lying at the bottom of the Patapsco River. But apparently not.
And who is the “they” that he’s talking about here? He says that “their way of life is at risk.” And “they should be afraid.” I suppose the most charitable interpretation is that he’s talking about people he deems racist. Even that would be disturbing. An elected official — a mayor in particular — should not be threatening anyone for having thoughts he disagrees with. Much less should he be declaring that they should be afraid and that he intends to put their “way of life” at risk. 
It’s worse than that, though, because Mayor Brandon Scott of Baltimore has obviously demonstrated himself to be a typical far-Left race-baiting Democrat. We would know that even without these statements on MSNBC, simply because that’s the only kind of person who gets elected to lead cities like Baltimore these days.
Far-Left, race-baiting Democrats believe — and will tell you this explicitly, if they’re in an honest mood — that all white people are inherently racist. They certainly believe that all white conservatives are inherently racist. Which means any threat issued obliquely against racists is intended for a particular racial group. This was an anti-white statement, make no mistake about it. Just as DEI is anti-white. Which means that Mayor Scott really has earned the moniker “DEI Mayor” after all, just for a slightly different reason.

The Mayor Of Baltimore Attacks White People As The City Deals With Bridge Collapse

Joy Reid

Matt Walsh

MSNBC

Racism

The National Transportation Safety Board has released a <a href="https://twitter.com/NTSB_Newsroom">timeline of events</a> leading to the cargo ship DALI slamming into the Francis Scott Key Bridge in Baltimore on Tuesday.
The NTSB gleaned the information from the DALI’s voyage data recorder (VDR), which provides six hours of data between 12:00 a.m. EDT and 06:00 a.m. EDT on March 26.
“The VDR data is comprised of audio from both the ship&#8217;s bridge as well as recordings of the ship&#8217;s VHF (very high frequency) radios,” the NTSB noted. The VDR also recorded ship speed, engine RPM, rudder angle, ship heading, and some alarm information.
The ship departed Seagirt Marine Terminal at approximately 12:39  a.m. By 1:07 a.m., it had entered the Fort McHenry Channel. By 1:24 a.m., the ship was underway on a true heading of approximately 141 degrees in the Fort McHenry Channel at an indicated speed over ground of approximately 8 knots/9 miles per hour.
Roughly one minute later “numerous aural alarms were recorded on the ship&#8217;s bridge audio,” the NTSB <a href="https://twitter.com/NTSB_Newsroom/status/1773156489609282029/photo/1" target="_blank" rel="noopener">reported</a>, adding, “Around the same time, VDR ship system data ceased recording, however, the VDR audio continued to be recorded using the VDR&#8217;s redundant power source. Around 01:26:02, the VDR resumed recording ship system data. During this time, there were steering commands and rudder orders on the VDR audio.”
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“Around 01:26:39 the ship&#8217;s pilot made a general VHF radio call for tugs in the vicinity of the DALI. MDTA data from around this time indicated the pilot association dispatcher phoned the MDTA duty officer regarding the blackout. Around 1:27:04, the pilot commanded the DALI to drop the port anchor and issued additional steering commands,” the NTSB continued. “Around 1:27:25, the pilot issued a radio call over the VHF radio and reported the DALI had lost all power approaching the Key Bridge,” The NTSB stated, adding that at roughly 1:29 a.m., “the ship&#8217;s speed over ground was recorded as just under 7 knots/8 miles per hour. From this moment until approximately 1:29:33, VDR audio recorded sounds consistent with the collision with the Key bridge.”

NTSB Reports Timeline Of Baltimore Bridge Disaster