“In 2021, nearly 43,000 people died on American roads, the government estimates. And the recent rise in fatalities has been particularly pronounced among those the government classifies as most vulnerable — cyclists, motorcyclists, pedestrians.

Much of the familiar explanation for America’s road safety record lies with a transportation system primarily designed to move cars quickly, not to move people safely.

“Motor vehicles are first, highways are first, and everything else is an afterthought,” said Jennifer Homendy, chair of the National Transportation Safety Board.”

The Exceptionally American Problem of Rising Roadway Deaths.

Matt Gertz, from best to worst.

That smile.

From “A Political Party Unhinged From Truth” which is adapted from Robert Draper’s book “Weapons of Mass Delusion”.

“What happens to a political party when it becomes unhinged from objective truth? A couple of weeks ago, I received a phone call from a woman who until recently had served in a position of regional prominence in the Texas Republican Party. The woman had read something I’d written pertaining to the insurrection at the Capitol and found it to be thoroughly inaccurate. She wished to inform me that friends of hers had been there on January 6 and had seen nothing remotely riotous taking place. But, the woman added, whatever violence had occurred that day had been the work of antifa. She then said that House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s videotaped phone conversations that afternoon, in which she implored governors to deploy National Guard troops to the Capitol, had been entirely staged. The woman closed by declaring that those who remained in federal custody for January 6–related offenses were being ‘politically persecuted.’ When I asked her where she had gotten all this information, the woman replied that she had done her own research.”

The jokes write themselves. Another reminder that checks and balances and good governance matters. While many are chuckling at the debacle, Brits suffer a declining quality of life.