I cheered when I heard that Marine veteran Daniel Penny had been found not guilty.  

And I felt shocked and saddened when I saw the footage of UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson being executed in the middle of Manhattan.

 Those two reactions would surely be the correct and appropriate ones for anyone with an ounce of fairness and humanity in their heart?

Penny risked his own safety on the crime-ravaged New York subway to protect a dangerous, mentally ill, homeless man with a lengthy rap sheet of violence from carrying out his ranting threat to kill someone.

For six minutes he kept the man, Jordan Neely, in a restraining chokehold as he waited for the police to arrive, alternating between applying pressure and not, a tactic he’d learned in the military to subdue people.

Why did Penny do this?

Because he saw the frightened faces of nearby women and children and wanted to protect them.

We know this because nine of the 11 witnesses who testified at the trial said that Neely’s behavior was the scariest experience they’d had on a subway.

 That’s why Penny walked free: because the jury understood he was a hero, not a villain.

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It was a tragic accident that Neely – who was high on drugs at the time – ended up dying, but that was a direct consequence of his own menacing actions, not Penny’s attempt to stop him from hurting innocent people.

Yet with pathetic predictability, there was an immediate campaign by left-wing activists to frame this as a racially motivated crime akin to the murder of George Floyd despite there being zero evidence to support this theory and no comparison in the circumstances of the two incidents.

 Race-baiting charlatan Alexandra Ocasio-Cortez shamefully posted on X: ‘Jordan Neely was murdered.’

Others branded Penny a ‘white supremacist’ without producing anything to back up such an appalling slur.

Walter “Hawk” Newsome, the founder of Black Lives Matter in New York, said that anyone who thought Penny was innocent had “racism in their heart,” and “the KKK got another victory.”

Newsome was at it again after the verdict, appearing outside court to shriek: ‘We need some black vigilantes. People want to jump up and choke us and kill us for being loud, how about we do the same when they attempt to oppress us.’

He then made a direct threat to Penny, warning: “It’s a small f–king world, buddy.’ 

Why has he not been arrested himself for such brazen incitement to deadly violence?

If the Left’s hateful conduct over this was bad enough, consider the very different way they responded to the disgusting, cold-blooded murder of Brian Thompson.

Many openly celebrated, led by liberal journalist Taylor Lorenz, who worked until recently for the New York Times and Washington Post, and who posted: “And people wonder why we want these executives dead.”

She later commented “I am not alone” on another X post saying, “Healthcare Executive Down” adorned with party balloons.

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In an interview that’s now gone viral, I confronted her on my “Uncensored” show Monday night about these repellent comments, asking: “Why would you be in such a celebratory mood about the execution of another human being? Aren’t you supposed to be on the caring, sharing left where, you know, you believe in the sanctity of life?”

To my astonishment, rather than back down — or apologize — she went even further, saying: “I do believe in the sanctity of life, and I think that’s why I felt, along with so many other Americans, joy.”

 I was incredulous. “Joy?! Seriously? Joy at a man’s execution?”

“Maybe not joy,” Lorenz smirked, instantly realizing how callous she’d sounded, “but certainly not empathy.”

To which I retorted: “How can this make you joyful? This guy is a husband, he’s a father, and he’s been gunned down in the middle of Manhattan. Why does that make you joyful?”

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At which point, Lorenz accused Thompson of murdering “tens of thousands of Americans” with his company’s healthcare policies, and then repeatedly laughed as we went back and forth over her incendiary rhetoric until I eventually lost my temper and exclaimed: “Taylor, I don’t mean to be rude, but why the f–k are you laughing all the time?”

Staggeringly, her stunningly heartless reaction to Thompson’s assassination has received widespread praise from left-wing social media accounts, who have tried to turn the killer, Ivy League graduate Luigi Mangione, into some kind of sick pin-up hero.

And I would bet good money that many of those same people celebrating the murder of a non-violent, non-threatening, non-criminal man in the street were also outraged by the accidental death of a violent, threatening, habitual criminal on the subway.

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The reaction to the two deaths has been very illuminating about the woke left’s shocking double standards and warped, hypocritical morality.

They promote the hashtag #BeKind and profess to be so much more caring, sensitive, and tolerant than conservatives.

But they also think courageous veterans like Daniel Penny are villains, and deranged shooters like Luigi Mangione are heroes.

And if you believe those two things, you’re a disgusting excuse for a human being.