Posted on 11/17/2025 3:53:00 PM PST by E. Pluribus Unum
The U.S. Navy has reduced its reinstatement time of service members separated for declining a Covid-19 shot from six months to two, Secretary John Phelan told The Federalist Wednesday.
“I think we are pretty far ahead of most of the other services” in fulfilling the Trump administration’s promise to reinstate service members with back pay and erase career penalties for conscientious refusals to accept Covid-19 shots, Phelan said during Q&A at a public event. A War Department official confirmed to The Federalist after business hours Friday evening that the Navy is farther ahead than the other services in reinstating concience-separated soldiers.
The Federalist is pursuing more specifics about the military branches’ fulfillment of President Trump’s executive order 10 months ago promising, “Those who are reinstated will receive their former rank and full back pay with benefits.” Follow-up inquiries to fulfill Phelan’s promise — “I can have someone follow up with you to give you specific numbers” — are pending with military press offices.
Phelan noted he tasked his assistant secretary of manpower and reserve affairs with re-integrating soldiers the Biden administration punished for conscientious objections to Covid shots. That acting assistant secretary, C. Scott Duncan, was himself previously removed from naval command as a lieutenant colonel over his religious objections to the shot mandate.
This reporter broke the news that the Biden administration initially attempted to mandate Covid shots via a press release lacking any legal authority, was among the first to argue against lockdowns, and reported on the Biden administration’s harsh treatment of soldiers whose consciences would not allow them to take medications made from the cells of unborn children whose tissues may have been harvested while they were alive.
(Excerpt) Read more at thefederalist.com ...
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In the Tariff negotiations, South Korea committed to $150 billion to American Shipyard infrastructure development and expansion, including workforce. That is a huge component of our industry we must restore. And it will allow us to build a workforce to use in an additional shipyard when we build it.
Another reason I appreciate and support President Trump in his implementation of tariffs to level the playing field.
I once was a bad ass. But every country has young men wanting to be bad asses and willing to die for their country.
What made us the bad asses as a country, wasn't young men willing to die. In the words of Patton:
“The object of war is not to die for your country but to make the other bastard die for his.” https://www.brainyquote.com/quotes/george_s_patton_102496
It was out manufacturing, industry and technology.
We beat our enemies into the ground with “stuff.”
It's our ability to invent an A-bomb, build B29 bombers (the most capable and probably advanced bomber of WWII), go from blue print to full scale production of a P51 (one of the best fighters of the war) in 6 months, supply our troops across an ocean better than an enemy just 200 km from their industrial heart (Ruhr), break their Enigma, but come up with our own that's better and doesn't get broken...
It's our ability to invent, to come up with technical solutions to problems, and mass produce like no one else that just makes us pummel our enemy into submission: https://youtu.be/F7LgWZzel-Y?si=xLxb_e9rSy4B7YGC
Lose the tech and manufacturing advantage, and we're just highly motivated kids willing to die for our country.
Our goal needs to be to ensure we maintain a war enabling technical and manufacturing capacity advantage in domestic industry.
We need to align our most trusted and inner circle of allies with us (economy of scale) and certain critical technologies.
The new era we are entering will challenge us industrially like we never have been before. We are facing off with someone that already today has TWICE our manufacturing base, more engineers, more patents in the sciences and engineering, etc: example AI.
https://fortune.com/2025/11/11/is-china-about-to-win-the-ai-race/
>build B29 bombers (the most capable and probably advanced bomber of WWII)
DEVELOP and build B29 bombers. And there is no doubt it was the most advanced.
The development effort for the B29 was greater than that for the Manhattan project (!!!). VDH covers that at length in his excellent The Second World Wars, which I highly recommend to all.
At some level, every commercial airliner flying today owes a debt of gratitude to that project.
I agree, and think partnering with the likes of Japan and South Korea is a good approach. Oddly, I have a feeling if push came to shove, that Vietnam wouldn't ally with China. I have heard that there is some genuine pro-American sentiment there, and it is hard to believe given their history that they would ally with China, even if they still are communists.
I wonder about Australia. I always loved meeting Aussies over the years (never been there) but I always appreciated that they fought with us in Vietnam, and regarded them as somewhat legendary from our WWII alliance. But I have heard strange things over the last decade, especially since COVID, that make me wonder.
I'm concerned also, it goes back to the Civil War, some Aussies joined the Confederates, others sided with the Union, but didn't join.
To get all the motivated workers needed for shipyards and multiple other projects we are going to have to stop feeding and caring for able bodied men so they can backfill menial jobs qualified people now hold. If there are ant such qualified people.
We have to try. If there is a way, we are obligated to find it.
Many of us have wondered if it is too late. It may be. But we have to try.
Oh, I agree. I am often heard to say that without trying there is a 100 percent chance of failure. When it comes to doing things I am responsible for and can control I am not nearly so pessimistic.
I admit though I have lost confidence in US.compared to what I consider our greater days before the great society, diversity, dei and all the other horseshit that have become our downfall. Government is rotten to the core with these things.
We once did amazing things in very little time.The thing is, we older ones and students of history know that much better is possible. There are a lot who are in control for whom much better is not in their normal or possible vision. We also have a whole bunch of people working by the hour who can’t be fired and when you are employed by those terms work always expands to fill all the time available. Tomorrow and tomorrow and tomorrow Somehow you have to build a sense of urgency. The lack of urgency and red tape remind me of this though not entirely apropos? It signifies lack of purpose though?
Tomorrow, and tomorrow, and tomorrow,
Creeps in this petty pace from day to day,
To the last syllable of recorded time;
And all our yesterdays have lighted fools
The way to dusty death. Out, out, brief candle!
Life’s but a walking shadow, a poor player,
That struts and frets his hour upon the stage,
And then is heard no more. It is a tale
Told by an idiot, full of sound and fury,
Signifying nothing.
I also must admit Musk and his Space X are doing amazing things in relatively little time. Musk builds urgency as he did a few years ago with Space X by telling them that if the next shot didn’t go well they were out of a job because he was tapped out for $250 million failures. He is not at all risk averse as well though. How he has managed for that not to be his downfall is borrowed time to me.
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