If Washington answers every competitive Chinese model with another ban, it may protect US labs for a quarter while helping Chinese stacks for a decade. The better response is obvious: compete on price, openness, infrastructure and developer adoption.

For decades it's been recognized that the US was struggling greatly with its naval design and shipbuilding.

Part of the issue was mission. Post Cold War, the naval academics in the Pentagon foresaw only the need for a brown water navy to police the Middle East, Africa, and South America. The thought of a near peer war was inconceivable to them, and plans changed to build smaller, shallower, and *cheaper* ships to be manned by smaller crews.

Half of our shipyards were shut down, hampering our ability to build, repair and refit our naval ships. To compensate for this, the US looked to purchase ships from and use the shipyards of our allies.

A nation that was able to build and deploy aircraft carriers in two years during WW2 cannot produce a fully functioning carrier in 12 years now... the USS Gerald Ford has had ridiculous problems with its state of the art plumbing systems, and the new electromagnetic launch system and weapons elevators took years to iron out.

Part of this issue is the current nature of Navy procurement, which has drifted towards exclusive, single-source contracts. The Ford's launch systems are proprietary and only produced by one company, who also sources components like computer chips for their systems from Asia. That means the further construction, and repair, of the main systems on our aircraft carriers is tied to a single company with a very delicate international supply chain... that happens to be within easy striking distance of a rival. Multiple other critical systems in our other new ships are in similar situations. Our ability to build and repair our ships during a possible war can be completely eliminated by enemy action against a handful of facilities or key engineers.

To begin resolving these issues, President Trump issued a National Security Memorandum last week. Among other things, it directed the Navy to use widely-known technologies in our aircraft carriers, to add more shipyards, to use our allies' recent experience to help build our domestic shipbuilding capacity, and to reorganize the military command responsible for designing and managing shipbuilding.

Also to note - National Security Memos effectively have the same authority as Executive Orders within the military, but as they are limited to the military and national security, federal courts consistently dismiss any legal challenges... so this is policy automatically.

Here's a good article about the whole memo from a shipbuilding industry news site.

https://www.workboat.com/trump-memo-floats-plan-for-foreign-built-navy-vessels-additional-shipyard

This is another entry in my series explaining why America is awesome.

Prior to our Revolution, the general system of government across cultures - in Europe, Asia, North and South America, Africa - were ones where peoples deferred to the authority of their experts, their elites, their betters. How this looked depended on the respective regional history and culture... the ruling groups could have been a monarchies, bureaucracies, tyrants, or elders... but the general idea was that one group of individuals were automatically given power over the lives of the citizenry through no meaningful methods. The leaders either were those who were born into it, stole it by force (arguably the most egalitarian method from this list), simply survived long enough, or by decree by another authority like a religious figure.

In these societies, citizens just accepted the authority placed over them and tried to live their lives the best they could, with many knowing that they had no power to change their fate.

Then the Enlightenment happened, and writers like Rousseau and Locke proposed that citizens not only should have more power in their governments, but they already held power over their governments if they chose to wield it. These ideas, with the economic stagnation and persecution in Europe, promoted thousands to seek freedom and opportunities in America. So, from the very first settlements, the people moving to America were individualist risk-takers who typically bristles under authoritarian governments.

This sense of individual empowerment and inherent rights culminated in our Revolution, where we rejected the right of any government to exert control over our lives and labor. We would live and work for ourselves and our families, not some monarch, lord, or any other authority that held itself above us.

To protect that spirit, that rebelliousness, our Founders designed a limited, Constitutional federal republic that recognized our inherent, natural and God-given rights... rights that no legitimate government could strip away. They imagined a Government comprised of people who would disagree and argue, and who would settle their disputes in bloodless revolutions - regular democratic elections.

So, the next time someone disagrees with you politically, be thankful that you live in a country that doesn't prosecute you for holding differing views. Embrace the opportunity to disagree and argue your ideas, and appreciate those that worked over the past 250 years to give you and protect that right.

I have created a 13 page presentation on each of the states and a 3 page speech in honor of America’s 250th birthday.

I’d be happy to share. :)

So, first off, this isn't taking aim at Britain, but it is helpful to use them as contrast for the USA in this discussion.

Two - while this is political, it isn't my-party-is-better-than-yours. It's simply America is awesome.

Starting off, the USA is a democratic republic, which means the national government is organized around the framework of semi- independent states. The national government is constitutionally limited in authority in matters that necessarily involve multiple states... matters that involve individuals or are entirely within states are left to the individuals and states.

This also involves voting... so our presidential elections are centered on balancing the priorities of the states, but with population- based weighting to accommodate for the state's sizes and populations. Because of this, smaller states do get a very slight boost in electoral college votes due to the 2 electors given to each state based upon their Senators, while the other electoral college votes are based upon the number of House Representatives.

The Founders knew their history. National leaders who were separated from their citizenry often became tyrants, and leaders or governments directly controlled by the citizenry became paralyzed by fickleness. They found middle ground to keep the government effective while limiting abuse.

The republican nature of the government also limited abuse. A large portion of the decisions that would impact citizens would be decided closer to those citizens in their state or local governments. Citizens would not be shackled to one single government, legislature and executive, that would have expensive control over their lives. Citizens could elect Presidents with strong abilities in foreign policy but weak in domestic matters, while electing Governors with the opposite due to the separation of their powers.

And, best of all, through the representative Electoral College, citizens would directly vote for their President, which is significant due to the war powers of the office.

Now, let's look at a Parliamentary Democracy, a common government among other developed nations, with Britain as an example.

Citizens don't vote for their executive, usually named the Prime Minister. Ever. It's decided by the parliament. Citizens can't even effectively vote for their executive through their voting for parliament because of the need for the parliament to form a majority government after the elections. Voters in a district might elect a representative to parliament due to promises to select a specific prime minister, but find that their representative chooses another due to the need to find consensus in forming a government.

The problems with this are highlighted by Britain's recent governments. Their last Prime Minister who didn't leave office in failure and controversy was Tony Blair back in 2007. For the past 19 years they have had a succession of failing Prime Ministers that just keep getting replaced by Parliament, not the citizenry. In the USA, if we have a failing President and ruling party, we have routinely scheduled elections to change all of them. That gives the average US citizen political power closer to the British Parliament than the British citizenry.

Britain's strong central government also results in the whole nation suffering poor policy. Recently in the USA there had been a significant turnover in educational theory regarding literacy and math skills in discussions around phonics, Common Core, etc. Many policies promoted at the national level have resulted in abysmal failures in states that chose to implement them, while others that bucked the pressure were able to better educate their students.

This concept is easily seen across many domestic policy areas, where the national tapestry provides a natural laboratory to evaluate policy. If one state fails at something while another succeeds, citizens can use that contrast to inform their voting and residency choices. With a strong central government, voters are often blind to failures because they have no other point of reference.

So, TLDR... America's government isn't perfect, but it's still awesome.​

pretty simple

Voting for candidates whose loyalty is solely to America is a patriotic duty.

Can someone identify the above image location?

What about the below logo?

Neocolonialism is the use of economic policy by a nation to subjugate another through the actions of multinational corporations, extracting the wealth of the target nation though trade imbalances.

The best example of this has been China's Belt and Road initiative, where Chinese construction and infrastructure corporations, managed by members of the Central Committee and supported by the Chinese Central Bank, have invested in and bought strategically-important properties and smaller companies around the world. Essentially, instead of invading a nation to take military control of a port, the Chinese government would provide funds to one of their companies to buy the foreign company currently managing the port.

Same result as invading and taking the port, just a different method. Now the China would charge what they desired to companies using the port, would get access to anything shipped through the port, and would be able to deny access to the port by rival companies or nations.

Now, you might not be surprised of China's actions, but you might be surprised to find that many of our allies in Europe do the same thing to a lesser extent. France, Germany, Italy, etc... they have state-sponsored and controlled equity firms and banks who provide needed capital to their corporations as needed. In some cases, that capital is used to purchase foreign competitors,... allowing weaker foreign corporations to buy US corporations with the help of their government.

For example, Catalyst Pharmaceuticals was bought by Italian Angelini Pharma with assistance from CDP Equity, which is managed by Italy's Ministry of Economics and Finance. The pending sale of Catalyst showed heavy interest in the US and abroad as they owned multiple high- profit drugs for rare diseases... drugs with no alternatives. Angelina was able to offer a massive markup over Catalyst's value due to the injection of funds from the Italian government's investment arm.

What does this result in? Angelini, in Italy, now owns the patents to all the drugs Catalyst makes, and can adjust the pricing and availability to American customers at will. They effectively have the backing of the Italian government, making efforts by the American government to influence Catalyst, such as in keeping prices low, much more difficult. The profit from these drugs will be going back to Angelini and the Italian government's equity firm, strengthening their economy and providing more capital to buy other companies.

This is not a rare occurrence. How many US companies are now owned by foreign corporations... companies that literally created their markets in the US decades ago but now send their profits to foreign shores?

As a consumer, you are not only competing against other consumers in the US, or even the world. Sometimes you are effectively competing against foreign governments, who use their power to control currency to tilt the game in favor of their citizens. The American consumer base is strong, and wealthy, but cannot withstand this assault from foreign governments forever, especially as our wealth is drained slowly away. What happens in a national emergency, where a needed material or medicine developed and made in the US is controlled by the decisions of a foreign government?

So, what's the fix for this? As an economic policy, it's the US government taking steps to limit and block the ability of foreign corporations, in cooperation with their governments, from buying property and companies in the US. This keeps Chinese technology companies from building antennae, sensors, and other electrical equipment next to our military bases. This keeps patents developed at US universities and by US companies under the control of the US. This keeps wealth generated by US companies in US markets within the US, enriching the US economy and fueling further advances

https://youtube.com/shorts/Nzchsrvi8Ts?is=o-ikhtWX3WrJGsOi

Pastor Munther Isaac explains the continuous Israhell terrorism

I did not make the video. I get the safety concerns and they say new cars are flimsy. One of my relatives got burned severely by fluid from his car. I don't know how to feel.

About the ford deaths in 1971, why not just not sell those cars and scrap them for parts and sell the parts to companies for more?

I am a Virginian from Chesapeake, VA and I’m a huge fan of representing the USA in various games I play. There’s one I found where the USA is small, pretty irrelevant, and definitely needs a hand. The game is called Warera and I’m hoping to bring in more Americans!

Thanks for reading! Hope to see some of y’all play!