Mixed messages from Washington
Seems like we are not getting consistency from our elected and appointed officials.
Let’s go first to tariffs… the President has said they will return millions of jobs to our country, right? That companies are standing in line to build new factories for all intents? Welcome news, indeed. I’ve watched the steel industry shutter, the computer industry selling itself to Big China… okay, technically the contract manufacturers who actually MAKE your iPhones, desktops, notebooks, etc. – some of them are Taiwanese companies. But much of their production and most of their factories are where? You got it, manufacturing supercenters near Chengdu, Shenzhen, and many other cities you know. So the workers getting the benefits are Chinese. (And it’s a long way from slave labor in most cases – between cost of living, company paid dorms, eating halls, uniforms, etc. a low skilled line worker at the Foxconn factory made a better effective income than my daughter who was getting through college via WalMart.)
Donald Trump’s secretary of Commerce seemingly admitted on Sunday that US workers would not see long-lost manufacturing jobs return as a result of the president’s new tariff strategy, which places duties on nearly all US imports.
Howard Lutnick appeared on CBS’s Face the Nation on Sunday and promised that “trillions” of dollars would flow into the US in the form of new investments in America’s manufacturing sector. Margaret Brennan, the show’s host, questioned whether those factories would be “automated”, as Lutnick had said previously.
Lutnick went on to portray the automization of iPhone assembly as one of the benefits of the president’s plan, claiming that the “army” of “millions” currently employed in Apple’s factories overseas would no longer be part of the process. America, he said, would see an explosion of mid-level trade employment opportunities including “mechanics”, “HVAC technicians” and more in support of this hypothetical surge in growth of US manufacturing. The Independent
I can see bringing jobs back to the US – I’m all over that and have actively participated in that process. But if you have a highly automated line, what you need is maintenance staff. And the more automated it is, the fewer of those maintenance positions you normally need. I’m not sure that millions of folks want to wait for the jobs, or become part of the maintenance team. Although it does sound like a good way for the factory owners to feel good.
And just one more item on Mr. Trump himself…remember how Biden was excoriated for checking his watch during the transfer in (called a “dignified transfer”) of military casualties? He at least was there.
Presidents do not always attend dignified transfers, but are often present. The HuffPost reported in September 2020 that of the 96 dignified transfers that took place from the start of Trump’s first term, Trump had only attended four.
About one a year. Must not have been many casualties 2017-2020.
The bodies of the U.S. soldiers who died in Lithuania were recovered this week after authorities dug their armored vehicle out of a peat bog in Lithuania. The soldiers were identified as Troy S. Knutson-Collins, 28; Jose Duenez Jr., 25; Edvin F. Franco, 25; and Dante D. Taitano, 21.
The four soldiers, who were part of the 1st Armored Brigade Combat Team, 3rd Infantry Division, were on a tactical training exercise then they were reported missing on March 25. Their vehicle was found the following day submerged in water, and it took days to pull it out.
Lithuania’s President Gitanas Naus?da attended a departure ceremony on Thursday to honor the soldiers, as hearses carried their bodies to Vilnius airport to be flown to the U.S. for burial.
Good on Mr. Nauseda.
NBC News first reported that Trump would not be present for the transfer at Delaware’s Dover Air Force base on Friday because he is attending a dinner reception in Florida.
The president departed the White House for his Doral resort in Florida on Thursday and dined with leaders of the LIV Golf tour later that evening. Newsweek
Mr. Hegseth represented the administration. It’s not a press event, but like Mr. Lewis (yes, C.S.) said, “Integrity is doing the right thing even when no one is watching.” A golf dinner seems like a poor excuse for not paying respects to the first military dead in his administration. Bad optics.
Category: International Affairs, The Warrior Code, Trump!
As for me, I’m used to the hyperbolic way DJT talks. Maybe it was working in NYC for years, but I know you can’t take everything literally. Examples: well have the best of whatever means it well be pretty good. Millions of jobs coming back to the states jobs long gone from the US returning means perhaps not millions, but 50,000 to a 100,000 jobs returning from a once extinct manufacturing sector will seem like a million.
Incidents like the Abby Gate 13 will/should always have the CIC present. I’m not sure of the record of previous Presidents for all those lost in training missions/regularly scheduled deployments. All of us know how dangerous any job in the military can be. I bet Reagan did not attend the dignified transfer after a shipmate of mine that was killed in training accident in 1987. I don’t think it lessens the sacrifice if the SECDEF is there instead of the POTUS. If DJT attended, Dems would scream about him flying around in Air Force One too much. For those lost in Lithuania, Rest in Peace young warriors for your reward is the Kingdom of Heaven.
The families of the fallen requested a private, no media dignified transfer. As such knowing if Trump attended the media vultures would be all over it he stayed away.
He should go to the ramp ceremony.
However, the only President I know of that went to practically all of them was George W Bush. When he couldn’t go he sent Cheney, which was rare. He felt responsibility for the wars he had taken on and had put up on the country and felt it was his duty.
For an idea of the number of died on duty here is a link. Numbers for 2023-24 not available.
https://dcas.dmdc.osd.mil/dcas/app/summaryData/deaths/byYearManner
Better than:
My take is that if the President is the one that required them to be there (where they were that caused them to die) then it should be the President who is present when they come home. In this case it was a training accident, and I am fine with the SEC DEF representing the government.
As for George Bush attending almost all… well he did start the wars.
He didn’t start the war in Afghanistan. The rest are all his.
I’m pretty certain he was President when I got to Afghanistan in 2002.
True that, but he didn’t start it, they did.
So far as automated factories go “maintainers” are often engineers. You practically need an engineering degree to deal with the software and mechanics of a modern industrial robot. These aren’t low skill, low wage jobs. Quality control and other such jobs are lower skill but tend to pay well.
A modern industrial robot isn’t just cheaper it is safer, faster, more precise and productive. It makes better and higher quality everything. If we tried to make a hand assembly line in 2025 it would be a complete catastrophe.
Even so, we won’t have a large enough labor pool to support as an large industrial base that we had through the 70s that made most everything for everyone, even if it is highly automated.
You are going to blow some heads up on here….
Excuses in one…two…three….
Barracks doctors, lawyers and executives….
Tariffs are a double edged sword. Ultimately, the end user pays the tariff when they purchase the product. Not been a whole lot of talk in the media of tariffs that other countries have been charging on our goods v what we have been charging on theirs. The Bad Orange Man is trying to level the playing field a bit. Good luck with that, the biggest expense of any product is labor costs, pure and simple. You cut labor costs down, then you can either lower the cost…or add to your profit. Adding to the profit ALWAYS makes the owner and/or the stockholders happy. Business management 101. No American worker is going to perform a task as cheaply as one in a place like Chyna, Viet of The Nam, Indonesia, India, Mexico, the list goes on. And how long is it going to take to re-open closed plants in the US and/or build new ones to make stuff here? What about training up skilled workers to operate these plants? That’s going to take a long minute, too. We didn’t give away our manufacturing ability overnight and we damn sure aren’t going to bring it back quickly…if ever.
On whether or not The President needs to be at every Transfer Ceremony? A judgement call has to be made. The way I understand it, in this latest case, the families requested a “private ceremony”. Wouldn’t have been very private if Trump had of been there. One way to insure that we don’t lose Service Members in foreign countries is to not send Service Members to foreign countries. YMMV
umm, no, the President does not attend the dignified transfer of all troops, particularly those not lost to combat. Bush was an exception, true, but it was also Bush that had to be embarrassed into allowing families to attend the dignified transfers, even of those killed in combat.
Given the current climate if Trump attended the response would be he was taking a photo op at the expense of the families. How many still believe that is what happened with the Gold Star families of Abbey Gate at Arlington?
Trust me, families do see these comments and discussions. It is routine for families, particularly over time, to scour the internet for every mention of their loved ones’ names. Think about that. You are using the most intimate pain of another as political commentary.
I am sick to death of the pontificating on what “should” or “should not” happen. Just stop.
I did not advocate for a press event nor a photo op… now whether Trump could refrain from making it into a press event is another question. What was suggested is that it would be appropriate for him to have attended. Apparently he attends almost none.
If the President… any President… attends a dignified transfer, it will be a press event. Barring the press, even at the request of the families would be a disaster. I can see limiting the size of the press pool and making it very clear that any misbehavior or shenanigans will mean immediate removal from any further events.
Bullshit. I don’t recall our prior presidents showing up at some AFB when bodies of servicemen came home from training accidents. An entire patrol was wiped out by hypothermia at the Florida Ranger Camp. The President didn’t show up when their coffins were delivered. Looks like you took the bait from some Prog agitprop. I thought you had more smarts than that.
People die in training accidents every year. There is a difference between that and servicemen who die in a combat zone due to hostilities. Finally, Trump didn’t have anything to do with these people being in Lithuania. This training mission was sent there by the Biden admin. I would like to know who thought it was a good idea to drive an M88 tank retriever into water.
Peat bogs. Looks like solid ground. When tracks cut the surface mat of roots and grasses, it’s thin muddy soup underneath. Gunning the track just speeds up excavation.
I watched our medics park an M113 between trees in a Fort Stewart woods that was bog. They breached the crust with a pivot steer and in seconds, with everyone screaming “stop!”, the track dug in and sunk to within about 3 inches of the top deck. Ten seconds or less at high throttle trying to escape. Amother second and it woukd have sunk, likely killing all aboard. It later took -three- M88 recovery vehicles to extract it.
That M88 crew in Lithuanua likely had no one who understood bogs, and dug themselves a marshy grave.
Thanks for info. My unit in Germany had M113’s and we even did a swimming exercise of them at Grafoenwehr. But in the multiple times in the field with them, we never encountered a bog. I did see an M88 get stuck in soft ground once; it took another M88 and an M578 to get it out.
Believe I speculated the ssgt who survived drowning may have been something like the squad leader and maybe was in an upper hatch when it started sinking? Still seems likely
Who thought it was a good idea to send that M88 out there alone?
Good question, since one weighs 82 tons.
I had two soldiers murdered in theater and Obama was a no show when they arrived home. Reporting from CBS was scant to say the least.
Jus’ sayin’…
Lake City seeds distributed by Sam & Lala over there is the only trade I’m need’n.
Gotta drop (more) potatoes in ground to-day.
Ah yes…Sam’s Garden Accessories is my go to for seeds.
https://pbs.twimg.com/media/Gn8LiKdbwAAS1dO?format=jpg&name=large
Testify!
IIRC it was “Blowjob Willie” Clinton who gave China Most favored nation trading status along with another boondoggle sending American textile mill jobs to Africa.
Yes, it happened in 2000. It was one his parting gifts to the nation, along with NAFTA that created that giant sucking sound of our jobs headed to Mexico.
Wel Johnny Chung and Ng Lap paid him millions dollars so there was that.
Of course he probably pissed it away on blow and out of country teenage hookers/ trafficking victims. So it went straight back out of the country again.
“Seems like we are not getting consistency from our elected and appointed officials.”
Have we ever gotten consistency?
Sadly, yes. Most are uniformly and consistently bad.
They are all equally worthless to me.
My dad spent his early youth as a bombardier for a B-17.
Then he sent his son to the viet of the Nam.
It almost rhymes.
I think Big Green sent you to the Viet of the Nam.
p.s. I was on your beloved Monkey Mountain once for a STABO training. My LRRP teams and I had the experience of being pulled up through the trees on Monkey Mountain by Huey with ropes attached to our STABO harnesses.
I don’t know, my team did more than a few Transfer missions at Dover and not once was the CinC or any other major official present that I know of. We’d get the call, link up with a GO at Fort NcNair, Fort Myer, or Davison Army Airfield, and fly into Dover. The USO always had a nice meal set up, and when the bird landed and was ready for offloading (k-loader for commercial aircraft, ramps for C-17s), we be staged and ready to conduct the mission.
Glad I was TOG 86-90. All we buried were old-timers. Seeing a flow of combat casualties would have been different for sure.
I was 26L on Monkey Mountain in DaNang.
Birds eye view of the casualties coming into China Beach.