This is from the Wall Street Journal:

America’s Industrial Base Isn’t Ready for War With China

The war in Ukraine should galvanize Washington policy makers. It has demonstrated that America’s defense-industrial base isn’t up to the job of supplying the U.S. military with weapons for a prolonged conventional conflict with a major power such as China. Production lines for Stinger and Javelin missiles destined for Ukraine are stretched to capacity, with critical components no longer produced in sufficient quantity to meet demand.

The industrial competencies required for sustained conventional warfare have atrophied. In 2018 the Trump administration identified nearly 300 significant gaps across 10 “risk archetypes” in the defense industry, such as reliance on a foreign supplier, that could directly undermine the U.S. military’s ability to fight a major war. The causes of these gaps vary and are subject to debate. They range from the general decline of domestic manufacturing to Congress’s failure to ensure a predictable defense-funding cycle and from the predatory industrial policies of other nations to an assumption that America’s future wars would be quick and decisive. Whatever the causes, the status quo is profoundly dangerous.

During the Cuban Missile Crisis, the U.S. had 28 shipyards capable of building oceangoing naval or merchant-marine vessels. The Navy’s ship-repair facility on Guam was closed in the 1990s, requiring substantial repair work for U.S. submarines to occur on this side of the Pacific. Only two naval shipyards and fewer than 20 dry docks remain in the Pacific Fleet area of operations, well below what the Navy needs. Most harbor cranes—essential for ship repair and construction—are built abroad, and often in China. In the event of a war, the Navy would have a hard time repairing its ships

Without a defense-industrial base that can rapidly produce and repair platforms and munitions, America’s military will be like a great football team that can play only through the first quarter. To address this weakness, the administration and Congress must make immediate, targeted investments. These should be focused on air, naval, space and munitions capabilities, including private and public shipyards, ship-repair facilities and associated infrastructure.

The U.S. may soon need to fight and win a more intense war than it has faced in decades. China won’t be deterred unless it sees that the U.S. is ready, and the industrial base is essential to that. There is no time to waste.

This article was written by Elbridge Colby, who according to his biography is:

Mr. Colby is a principal at the Marathon Initiative. He served as deputy assistant secretary of defense for strategy and force development (2017-18). Mr. Gray is a senior adviser at the Marathon Initiative. He served as special assistant to the president for the defense industrial base (2017-18) and chief of staff of the National Security Council (2019-21).

Mr. Colby is right but missed a YUGE part of the problem.

It’s not just our defense manufacturing base, it’s our entire manufacturing base.

Our cranes from from China, but so does much of the steel to make them.

Along with the loss of manufacturing, we’ve lost the people and skills to have WWII level production.  We have atrophied across the board.

We can’t just have defense manufacturing.   We have to have manufacturing in every sector do those skilled people and resources have the ability to move and develop.

We retooled tractor factories to make tanks, and the same people who welded bucket loader bucket and forged caterpillar treads could easily transition to welding armor plate and making tank treads.

Without other manufacturing, defense manufacturing cannot survive on it’s own.

What wasn’t said, probably because this is a Wall Street publication, is that this was done to America by the financial sector.

Every outsourced job, every factory closed down and moved overseas was another Jenga block pulled out of our infrastructure base.

We were told it would make us better and our goods cheaper.

It didn’t.

It just made the financial sector richer, the middle-class poorer, and the country less strategically safe.

I know that I have become an extremist in many ways.

This was done to me.

I used to be the libertarian guy who said “of course Rubbermaid had to shut down production in South Carolina, it’s cheaper to make trash cans in China, the market makes these decisions.”

I was wrong.

We undermined our economy, our workforce, and our self sufficiency as a nation for the profit of holding companies.

So now I want to course correct, and harshly.

If tye government want to give tax incentives to build up domestic manufacturing, fine.

But I also want to take the financial, management, and consultants who did this in the first place and put them to the wall for treason.

Then I want to dump their bodies in board rooms across the country and say “you will figure out how to make America self sufficient on manufacturing again or I will have you shot for treason as well.”

Bombshell Lawsuit Sheds Light On Governor Cuomo’s Anti-Semitic Coronavirus Order

According to a new lawsuit filed by Ron Coleman and Harmeet Dhillon, Governor Cuomo issued “a targeted” executive order that particularizes coronavirus restrictions to a specific religious minority — Jews.

The audacious governor “freely and repeatedly admitted his decision was not driven by science, or data, but, by ‘fear,’” the two powerhouse lawyers wrote in a complaint on behalf of Jewish community leaders, which was filed in federal court in the Southern District of New York. The Jewish community has “been unfairly singled out by this fear-driven Executive Order due to numerous recent false and discriminatory statements directed towards these communities by Governor Cuomo,” the lawsuit explained.

You might be asking yourself at this point, how bad was the spread of coronavirus in this religious community? “They were not redlined,” Ron Coleman explained in an interview. Numerous communities actually had a higher rate of spread. But they were not targeted with a particularized Order; just the Jews.

Governor Cuomo’s anti-Semitic Order is mind-boggling, to say the least. It exceeds the bounds of leftist power-grabs amid the pandemic that we have seen from other Democrat governors. As Ron Coleman aptly expressed in his letter, it is “a particular[ly] offensive abuse of power.”

Readers of this blog know that I did a lot of coverage of how Cuomo and de Blasio treaded the Orthodox Jews of New York.

Examples include sending the Waffen NYPD to raid Synagogues during Shabbat services, hunt for Minyans and Yeshivas (prayer groups and Hebrew schools) operating in basements during the lockdown, chaining closed the gates of Jewish cemeteries, and restrictions on Orthodox neighborhoods, all while allowing or encouraging BLM riots and other Leftist agitation.

I want this proven in court.

Andrew Cuomo may have to pay damages, and I hope he does, but what I really want is to rub the faces of fellow Jews in it like a puppy who pooped on the rug.

I heard constantly how “Trump and the Republicans are antisemites” while the Left’s anti-Trump COVID hero (many called Cuomo “America’s de facto president”) was channeling his inner Hans Landa during COVID.

Ok cupcakes, allow me to tell you one little thing: THERE IS NO SUCH THING AS BOOK BANNING ANYWHERE IN THE US.

A bookstore in Florida or anywhere else can carry any of the books in the list and you can buy them. If you are too lazy to go to the store, you can get them in Amazon or any online bookstore and have them delivered to your door without the fear of the FBI or local yokels coming and making you wear steel bracelets.

When you hear or red ZOMG BANNED BOOKS is nothing more than a political and merchandising campaign. Don’t believe me?

Thhis is from Learn About Banned Books | Powell’s Books (powells.com). Oh yes, they sell books online and at their physical location in Portland, Oregon. And if the store is familiar to readers of this blog, is because I posted about them when they caved to the pressure of Antifa and removed Andy Ngo’s book Unmasked: Inside Antifa’s Radical Plan to Destroy Democracy from their store because it was “fascist”, but it seems other books by assorted fascist are not an issue for them to sell.

Here is a bit confirming by point

Powell’s Books in Portland, Ore., closed early each day this week after protestors plastered signs on the store’s windows. The protesters are opposing the store’s offer of pre-orders of conservative journalist Andy Ngo’s book Unmasked: Inside Antifa’s Radical Plan to Destroy Democracy on its website. The book will be published in February by Center Street, the politically conservative imprint of Hachette Book Group.

On Monday, Powell’s Tweeted, “This book will not be placed on our shelves. We will not promote it. That said, it will remain in our online catalog. We carry a lot of books we find abhorrent, as well as those that we treasure.”

Powell’s Responds to Anti-Ngo Protestors (publishersweekly.com)

But I guess that ban does not count.

In this day and age of internet sales of dead tree book and EBooks delivered instantly to your favorite device, the concept of banning books has simply ceased to exist. Anybody telling you otherwise is full of political mushroom-growing medium.

The Bruen decision gutted the NY City and state permitting sham for the infringement it was. It was almost impossible for a normal person to get a permit to carry a firearm. It was even difficult to get a premise permit (government permission to own a gun in your own home.)

It was also rife with corruption. Over the years multiple people involved with the permitting process have gone to jail for taking bribes. It really was who you knew and how much you were willing to pay that got you a permit.

The permitting denial process centered around “good cause”. You had to show that you had a unique and directed reason in order to be granted your second amendment guaranteed rights.

In one case a man was kidnapped off the street, he was threatened and almost lost his life. The criminals realized that they had kidnapped the wrong person and set him free. He applied for a permit as he feared that the same mistaken identity would happen again. He was denied a permit “because the threat wasn’t against him in particular, it was against the actual target.”

Of course he was kidnapped again. And his second application was denied for the same reason.

With Bruen in place the good cause requirement is gone. Instead NYS put into place a series of requirements that are almost impossible to meet. Starting September 1st, 2022 those requirements take effect. One of those requirements is a training requirement. The state has until early 2023 to have the requirements for the training ready for presentation. The state then has still more time until they have to actually approve the training.

It is likely that it will take even more time for instructors to be certified to provide the training.

What this means on a practical matter is that as of September 1st, 2022 there will be NO permits issued for at least 6 months and much more likely 12 to 18 months.

Fortunately for some people, Bruen took effect on June 23rd, 2022. There is a back log of permits under the old laws that must be processed under the old laws. Including permits that were denied because of lack of good cause and permits that were downgraded.

NYC Police Department has issued a “NOTICE OF ADOPTION OF EMERGENCY RULES FOR RECEIVING A CONCEALED CARRY HANDGUN LICENSE AND RESUBMITTING CERTAIN RECENTLY DENIED APPLICATIONS”

It is unclear from the order what training is required, regardless, people that were denied under the old scheme now have an opportunity to get their permits under the old laws minus the “good cause” requirement.

NYPD issues emergency rules for receiving a concealed carry handgun license

This is a group of children beating a grown man to death.

This is NYC. A group of kids beat a NYC taxi driver to DEATH in broad daylight. Police have arrested two scumbags, and are searching for three other teenage girls, 13, 15, and 16 years old. To make it worse, they are charging the one who landed the fatal blow with manslaughter… pic.twitter.com/6eog2ouUF1

— Steve Oatley (@steveoatley) August 18, 2022

Getting killed by a group of children is still getting killed.

Your children will never see you again.  You family will still lose you.

You don’t get a mulligan because your skull was caved in by a 15 year old instead of a 25 year old.

You must deal with the threat as it presents itself, and that threat may be a bunch of teens with hearts full of murder.

You might have to kill a child in self defense.

Be prepared for that reality.

Scene, a courtroom.

Prosecutor: “So you went to the victim’s home and proceeded to beat him to death with a ball-peen hammer.”

Defendant: “Yes, that’s correct.”

Prosecutor: “No more questions your honor.”

Defense attorney: “Can you read the DM you got from the victim into evidence?”

Defendant: Reads above DM

Me on the jury: “NOT FUCKING GUILTY!!!”

Fellow Blogger Big Country Expat requires much needed and righteous assistance.

Adriana Grace came into this world on October 26, 2020 in Kingsport Tennessee. She’s a beautiful and inquisitive 22 month old, who means the world to her Gigi and Papi. Unfortunately, her parents are completely incapable, if not downright dangerous. Her birth father/donor she was born to is an abusive person, small minded, petty and viscous. He suffers from ‘small man syndrome’ (4’11-5ft only) and enjoys hurting smaller and weaker people, especially women and children. He’s also someone who has previously lost custody of her older sister Kylie, as well as his child from a previous relationship. He has a slew of arrests for Domestic Violence, (8 arrests, one felony conviction) and her Mother, my step-daughter, Emily suffers from extremely well documented mental health issues from the age of 5 until present day, never mind that she’s lazy, entitled and incapable of any sort of basic human decency. Needless to say, they should NOT be raising this child.