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It will be years before Raytheon Technologies can build new Stinger shoulder-fired missiles due to a dwindling supply of weapons parts, the company’s CEO said Tuesday. The U.S. has shipped Stingers to Ukraine’s military, which has used them to shoot down Russian aircraft. But there’s only a finite supply as Raytheon has not made Stinger missiles for the U.S. military in nearly two decades. “We're going to have to go out and redesign some of the electronics in the missile and the seeker head,” Raytheon Technologies CEO Greg Hayes told investment analysts Tuesday during the company’s quarterly earnings call. “That's...

Why do ‘Shark treatment’ (or shock treatment as it was once known) on those attending Army Basic Training? Why scream at new recruits getting off a bus? Why have them crawl through sawdust pits or do pushups in the snow in the middle of the night? The U.S. Army recently decided to end the practice “towards a kinder, gentler start.” But that's a wrong-headed approach. For starters, trainees are not soldiers; there are four tests each individual must pass in order to earn that title. Each trainee must qualify (achieve a minimum score) with a rifle. The M-16 rifle was...

Dozens of F-35 Joint Strike Fighters are down for engine repairs, top military officials disclosed Tuesday, as the services grapple with an engine shortage that has afflicted the Pentagon for more than a year. Testifying before the House Subcommittee on Tactical Air and Land Forces, Air Force Lt. Gen. Eric Fick, who runs the F-35 program, disclosed that his service has been the hardest hit by the shortage. As of July 8, the Air Force had 41 aircraft in what's known as "Mission Impaired Capability Awaiting Parts," or MICAP, status, for engines. That means the planes can't be used on...

As the Trump White House this week announced a major deal to pivot photo giant Kodak toward pharmaceutical manufacturing, it made clear this was just the first step in a broader plan to break Chinese dominance of supply chain in manufacturing. With a focus first on healthcare manufacturing, the White House brokered a $765 million loan to Kodak after noticing 90% of the main ingredients of the most common pharmaceuticals taken each day in the United States are manufactured abroad. Adam Boehler, CEO of U.S. International Development Finance Corporation, is a lead administration official on the Kodak deal, and said...

It seems a number of major US media outlets have financial ties to the Chinese Communist Party, and it shows in their coverage. Despite the Chinese Communist Party’s (CCP) record of oppression, corporate media outlets are parroting the authoritarian government’s propaganda, even in the midst of an outbreak the CCP worsened through a cover-up. Many of those media outlets have financial ties to Chinese companies with intense oversight from the CCP.“You often see representatives from American companies with financial ties to China naturally become defenders of the CCP’s policies and spreading the CCP’s propaganda,” said Helen Raleigh, an author and...

Some 50 major American firms have joined the national war on the coronavirus, many volunteering to shift their focus and even assembly lines to deliver needed supplies to doctors, hospitals, first responders and others on the front lines....Most said that they answered President Trump’s call for help and were not pushed into action by the government or threat of the Defense Production Act. The administration has collected a list of about 35-40 major companies that have enlisted. They range from Facebook to Anheuser-Busch to Ford, Fiat Chrysler, and Toyota. “While by no means comprehensive, these are some notable examples of...

Dear Madam Speaker: (Dear Mr. President:) On November 29, 2019, the Secretary of Commerce (Secretary) transmitted to me a report on his investigation into the effect of imports of titanium sponge on the national security of the United States under section 232 of the Trade Expansion Act of 1962, as amended (19 U.S.C. 1862) (the “Act”). Consistent with the Act (19 U.S.C. 1862(c)(2)), I am reporting that in my memorandum of February 27, 2020 (The Effect of Titanium Sponge Imports on the National Security), I concurred with the Secretary’s finding that titanium sponge is being imported into the United States...

With the CCP Virus pandemic having exposed scary domestic shortages of critical medical goods ranging from safety masks to ventilators, along with potential shortages of pharmaceuticals, political leaders across the spectrum are finally regretting having allowed so much output of these products to migrate offshore. China’s role in global supply chains has understandably sparked much of the alarm, since its government has all but threatened to withhold supplies of medicines whenever it wishes. But all told, at least 38 countries (including the 27-member European Union) have curbed exports of anti-pandemic products at some point since the CCP Virus began dominating...

The annual 2019 trade figures for the United States came out last week, heralding some encouraging news. America’s enormous international trade deficit actually declined slightly from 2018. This was the first decrease in six years, with the deficit in goods and services dropping 1.7%, to $616.8 billion. Better yet, America’s bilateral trade deficit with China fell for the first time in four years, dropping a hefty 17.6%, to $345.6 billion. These are promising numbers and they show that tariffs on Chinese products are successfully moving the needle on U.S. trade flows. In fact, America’s 2019 imports from China actually fell...

President Donald Trump is making his first visit to Illinois since becoming president, making a stop in Granite City on Thursday where he is expected to tout the reopening of a U.S. Steel Corp. mill. The White House announced Sunday night Trump will swing through Granite City, in southern Illinois near St. Louis and Dubuque, Iowa, on Thursday. The Trump administration has been highlighting U.S. Steel’s Granite City mill as a trade war success story even as the tariffs have sparked concerns in other sectors, with alarms sounded by Illinois farmers whose main crop is soybeans. The visit will have...

It is as if Donald Trump just walked into a 40-year conversation on conservatism and instead of standing there, nodding his head politely as he got acquainted with the topic at hand, began shouting over the crowd. It is essentially what Trump has done to conservative policy gurus this year. Trump has reached over anti-abortion diehards, foreign policy neocons, and supply siders to tell base voters directly what he thinks they want to hear and it's working. But he still doesn't have a grasp on how what he's promoting fits into long-term movement conservatism objectives -- nor does he seem...

PRESIDENT BUSH is a book reader. Last year, he read three books on George Washington and Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice gave him a book on the peace talks after World War I entitled Paris 1919. This year, he's delved into the new biography of Mao Zedong with simple title Mao. Presumptuous though it is, I have a recommendation of another book for him to read. It's War Footing, edited and partly written by Frank Gaffney Jr., the president of the Center for Security Policy. True, Bush is already on war footing. But this book is filled with fresh ideas...

Call it the Week that Was. In four days, official Washington was wracked by congressional initiatives that threaten immeasurable harm to the war effort, precipitating bitter personal attacks across the aisle and across Capitol Hill. Divisions in Congress and elsewhere have intensified greatly. Senior Bush administration officials have responded increasingly with hollow-sounding calls to "stay the course."

Chinas Xinhua news agency, in a dispatch from Pyongyang, North Korea tonight (Asia time) said the North Koreans have commenced emergency air defense drills (blackout) due to the movement of US military troops/navy in the Korean peninsula area. This was top news on Yahoo in Japanese (www.yahoo.co.jp) a few minutes ago.