Can we pause the Greenland noise for one second and admit the obvious?

Denmark isn’t sovereign anymore it’s in lockstep with @Maersk.

The UN @IMOHQ is run by NGOs.

Maersk and the UN @IMOHQ are in lockstep with China.

Here’s the history 🧵

https://twitter.com/datarepublican/status/2009953358581485759

In practice, its government moves in near-lockstep with @Maersk—the world’s largest logistics empire.

Not officially.
Not on paper.
But in outcomes, incentives, and red lines.

Here’s how we got here.

Oh Drew, I’m thrilled you asked.

If any of my followers want to explain this to him directly, please jump in. I’ve officially run out of crayons.

Otherwise, I’m happy to walk through exactly how ya’ll at WaPo engineer hit pieces🧵

https://twitter.com/drewharwell/status/2009070183797936402

Foe those unfamiliar here’s the hir piece Drew Wrote about me, a licenses ship captain and MARITIME journalist , who was invited to go with @SecWar on a shipyard tour

washingtonpost.com/business/2026/…

I like this a lot. Some sections are demanding, you have to reread them, but that’s not a flaw. It forces the reader to slow down. And sometimes hard is not only good, it’s necessary.

What many people miss is that linear systems are incredibly efficient but only under very specific conditions: rule-based order, geopolitical stability, and a high degree of trust and safety.

Linear systems excel at things like this: start a business, raise X capital, optimize for Y, expand into Z markets. Capital flows easily because there are few externalities. You don’t worry much about supply-chain collapse, interest-rate shocks, reputational risk from social media swings, or geopolitical sabotage. The system absorbs those risks for you.

For decades, the job of government was to simplify everything:
•One monetary system (the dollar)
•One diplomatic framework (the UN)
•Fewer barriers to trade
•Low interest rates
•Free trade
•Colorblind governance (no DEI sorting)
•Outsourcing complexity to NGOs

This was a very good thing.

The ultimate expression of this logic is a one-world, highly integrated system. From a pure efficiency standpoint, that is also a very good thing.

The catch is simple but fatal: everyone has to agree and act with some degree of honesty.

The reason we ended up with a “uniparty” consensus is that a global linear system made business extraordinarily efficient and reduced many traditional security risks. Conservatives liked it because it boosted growth and stability. Liberals liked it because it freed up capital and cognitive bandwidth for social priorities.

That alignment wasn’t sinister, it was rational.

To make it work, however, you need powerful international institutions capable of managing complexity. Organizations like the IMO, alongside dozens of NGOs, effectively regulate 90% of global trade. For a long time, that worked and it worked well.

“But John, I thought you were MAGA?”

Yes and what I just described is the system we had in the late 1990s and early 2000s. We came remarkably close to a near-optimal arrangement.

But a perfect system depends on trust. And trust broke.

Russia and China refused to play by the rules. Both became aggressively extractive. China hollowed out global manufacturing for themselves. Russia stripped natural resources. And NGOs, operating inside a high-trust, low-scrutiny environment, captured everything else.

Consolidated power plus high trust is an open invitation to fraud.

So now we’re stuck in the worst possible configuration: a system optimized for efficiency, but hemorrhaging value through corruption. The most honest, rule-following participants are being drained to subsidize the least honest ones.

That brings us to the present bifurcation.

We have two choices:
1.Double down on consolidation and linearization, squeezing out even more efficiency so we can do better despite the fraud (liberals)
2.Accept complexity, abandon false simplicity, and actively intervene to repair what’s broken (MAGA)

But this isn’t just MAGA vs liberals.

It’s linear thinkers vs non-linear thinkers.

The skill set required to streamline a functioning system is completely different from the skill set required to diagnose and repair a failing one.

And at the root of all of this is education.

Our education system has spent decades selecting for linear thinkers—because that’s what worked. The formula was clear: honors track, X hours of study, Y tutors, Z credentials. Choose the right majors, follow the prescribed career ladder, earn the right degrees. The path wasn’t easy, but it was linear—and it rewarded intelligence and discipline.

In a well-managed linear system, you don’t need to think broadly. If something matters, the system tells you. If CNN isn’t talking about it, keep your head down and stay on the track.

That model no longer works. 1/2

https://x.com/johnkonrad/status/2009009090820030475

Today, we need people who can hold multiple competing ideas in their heads at once—people who can reason across systems, not just within them, so they can repair the system and end fraud while it’s still running. Those people were liabilities in a smoothly operating machine, so we sidelined them.

That’s why a single-lens worldview, what DR describes, became dominant. The people elevated into leadership across NGOs, international institutions, and finance are highly linear thinkers who need everything reduced to BLUFs and flowcharts.

But here’s the contradiction: we no longer have a linear system.

It’s impossible to go back without repairing the system. The fraud is too great.

And since roughly 2015, instead of adapting to the fraud, liberals pushed harder for linearity—forcing more people into increasingly brittle efficiency tracks—while parallel ideologies (DEI, ESG, Marxist frameworks) taught others how to exploit the growing fraud inside the system.

The result isn’t progress or equity.

It’s systemic failure hiding behind the language of efficiency.

And now the people with the power under a linear system (like the person at CNN who is intelligent and put in the hard work to go to x school, follow y career path, and follow z type stories) are pissed off because they did everything they were told to do and they achieved the pinnacle of the system but they have zero power.

While those who were tossed out of the system (I had to leave the navy and follow a very non-traditional career to succeed) are running circles around them because we think nonlinearly and can jump around with a wrench fixing problems.

And here’s the reason why they are getting SO ANGRY at us. Because they cannot see what we see.

It’s not that they are dumb, it’s that they have been trained and selected for a very tunnel vision worldview.

And we are angry because we have no credentials or traditional power combined with a very wide field of view.

We can see all the problems very clearly and multitask…. While they can only focus on one problem in predefined buckets: in this case, that bucket is Maduro.

This hit piece on me by @oliverdarcy wasn’t a mistake.

It wasn’t sloppy reporting.

It wasn’t “concerned journalism.”
It was a coordinated hit by the old Pentagon press corps to kneecap @PeteHegseth and to punish anyone they don’t control.

And this time, they overplayed their hand.

The first hit piece is already live, written by Oliver Darcy. I’m reliably told the second is queued up at @wapo. Same framing. Same tone. Same anonymous whispers. Same goal.

This isn’t journalism.
It’s a pile-on.

Before I tear this apart, let’s establish the inconvenient truth they couldn’t avoid.

I’ve spent over twenty years reporting on the collapse of the U.S. Merchant Marine. My wife sailed a rusting ammunition ship through known minefields during the Iraq War. I’ve fought, publicly and relentlessly, for American shipbuilding, industrial capacity, and a fleet that can actually fight a war.

So yes, I’m 💯 thrilled that a president is finally serious about shipbuilding.

And yes, as one of 🇺🇸’s few remaining licensed ship captains, I was in awe reporting from USS John F. Kennedy.

That’s called expertise.
The legacy press treats it like a crime.
Now the rot.

Instead of reporting on the most advanced aircraft carrier and attack submarine ever built, one reporter, @halbritz, who has made zero effort to hide her contempt for Hegseth spent the tour watching me. Writing about me. Whispering about me. Feeding her impressions to friends embedded in legacy newsrooms.

I’ve done more press tours than I can count. This was the first time I witnessed a reporter actively hostile not to the administration but to other journalists.

She didn’t knowI spent years sailing falling apart rust bucket ships through massive storms and years more in hard shipyards. She didn’t bother to ask, her contempt was plane as she shared stories about being invited to royal palaces overseas by previous administrations. She refused to write articles about our ships being left defenseless under attack under Biden.

That’s not competition.
That’s enforcement.

Now, the lies—because there are many.

Lie #1: “The Pentagon is icing out journalists in favor of sycophants.”

This collapses instantly. Five minutes on gCaptain shows years of hard criticism of both Trump administrations. My own X account shows me being publicly smacked down by the White House press secretary.

Yes, I’m pro-Trump.

No, that does not mean obedience.
That assumption says more about them than me.

Lie #2: “A collection of right-wing outlets.”

They didn’t check. They didn’t care. Independent bias tools rate @gCaptain near dead center. Facts are optional when the target is preselected. The majority of our employees did not vote for Trump.

Lie #3: “Niche media site gCaptain.”
This one is pure contempt. gCaptain is the largest and most-read maritime news site on the planet, covering defense, shipping, energy, labor, and national security. Calling it “niche” is what powerful institutions say when they want to make it socially acceptable to crush someone smaller.

Lie #4: “A very different cast of media figures.”

Blatantly false. Invited to the tour was:
•Two people from CNN
•Fox News—home to @JenGriffinFN, Hegseth’s loudest critic
•A reporter from Bloomberg, a news organization owned by a billionaire who openly hates Trump

That’s diversity of viewpoint.
The old press corps only supports that idea when they control it.

Lie #5: “According to people familiar with the matter.”
This is where the mask slips.

Darcy emailed me warning me about the hit piece while I was still on the Secretary’s plane. I didn’t see it until we landed at Andrews Air Force Base. Walking through the terminal, I asked the other journalists, the only ones who heard my request “Oliver Darcy” was.

No one knew.

Then @halbritz panicked. Grabbed her CNN colleague. Vanished back into the terminal to avoid questions.

So let’s stop pretending.

Where did Oliver Darcy work?

CNN. 1/2 I haven’t read the full article—Darcy refused to send it but I’m told it sneers at something trivial.

What I did was asking Hegseth to sign a book.

Real journalists like Hegseth and I understand book exchanges. We’ve been doing it for centuries. There are literal stacks of books from reporters and officials inside the Pentagon press office where Britzky worked for years before self deporting over new rules meant to seal leaks.

New rules that proved wildly effective during the Maduro Raid. Rules I am proud to follow

Unlike Pete and I, neither Britzky or Darcy are real journalists with books that have been taught in some of the world’s best colleges.

This wasn’t reporting.
It was a warning shot.
Not even against me but against every “niche” journalist who tries to challenge the uni-media’s monopoly over piblic opinion

And now, right on schedule, the rest of the mainstream media, armed with billion-dollar budgets, floors of lawyers and collapsing credibility, are circling like vultures to hammer a journalist from a much smaller outlet.

Power punching down.
Always brave.
And then there’s Brixey.

The “journalist” who showed up to a heavy-industrial shipyard tour dressed for a lifestyle shoot… leather pants, designer accessories, waxed Barbour jacket… regaling is about the royal palaces the Biden Administration flew her too while cowardly attacking fellow journalists from organizations a fraction of her size.

Being a political enforcer while sneering at smaller reporters must pay well.

Shame on CNN for hiring her.
This wasn’t journalism.
It was discipline.

And the reason they’re panicking is simple:

They’re losing control and they know it.

Losing control to people who have sailed into harms way.

Let me be crystal clear…

Darcy you are lazy and careless.

Haley: YOU ARE A SNAKE SUFFOCATING AMERICA - FUCK YOU

LONG POST WARNING: How did this Somali fraud happen?

I have a close relative who works inside this system. She processes medicalcare claims for a large provider, we’ll call it SMH, in a deep-blue state (not Minnesota).

What people miss is that the biggest fraud isn’t the checks written to individuals. It’s the staggering cost of administering the programs.

My relative isn’t some paper-pusher. She’s a nurse with multiple degrees, managing a full team. Her entire day is spent chained to a computer: nonstop paperwork, Zoom calls, audits. There’s a fingerprint scanner and a camera on her desk. Family emergency? Too bad. Break down in tears from abuse? Still too bad.

Now, start with a real medical event: heart attack, cancer, stroke. The hospital treats you, then pushes you home quickly because long stays are crazy expensive and the hospital doesn’t have enough beds. Fine.

But home recovery requires ramps, grab bars, equipment. The state cuts checks to upgrade homes. Many recipients simply pocket the money. The state knows this, but doesn’t have enough inspectors, so it forces SMH to do “due diligence.”

That means more paperwork. More subcontractors. More verification. More zoom meetings for my relative. One claim can consume hundreds of man-hours.

Then there’s a shortage of visiting nurses. So patients must travel for bloodwork and follow-ups. Transportation services exist, but they’re heavily regulated and audited. That’s expensive.

Cheaper solution? Pay family members. Give them money to add a ramp to a minivan and drive the patient themselves.

Have an uncle who already has a van (because he’s scamming the system too), great we pay him monthly and you have to do nothing.

Now the real games begin.

How much help you get depends entirely on how you answer Zoom questions. Normal Americans say things like, “My son can help” or “A neighbor can drive me.” That caps benefits.

But there are cheat codes.

Say instead:
“I care for my autistic grandson.”
“I provide childcare for my niece.”

Now SMH must either support those dependents or move the patient into a full-service facility which is vastly more expensive than any other option. So they pay for childcare.

Because my relative is a mandatory reporter and children are involved m, every meeting now includes medical care teams, child-safety teams, housing teams, transportation teams. The clock is running. These are highly paid professionals.

Except there doesn’t even need to be children involved because privacy laws prevent basic verification. No birth certificates. No DNA tests. So SMH provides a list of approved childcare facilities.

You can just borrow someone else’s child for the paperwork and give them a new name because things like ID and birth certificates are “anti-immigrant” so they can’t be checked.

Now if the child supposedly has autism, costs explode: specialized care, transportation, services.

Ironically, local public schools often have excellent autism programs but school administrators won’t jump through SMH’s audit hoops. And when a child doesn’t actually have autism, schools quietly disenroll them without paperwork to avoid lawsuits. SMH is left holding the bag so better just to contract with a center.

If anyone complains you can just say the school doesn’t meet your religious needs.

Those are just patient meetings.

There are thred more meeting categories that devour time:

State audits:
Auditors expect problems and won’t leave without finding them. Missing paperwork means more meetings.

Legal:
Endless lawyers. Enough said.

Efficiency
Then come the “efficiency experts.” SMH needs to turn a profit so my relative’s boss is an Ivy League MBA. The solution is always the same: push more work onto families because it’s cheaper than more hospital time. That’s the cheapest option.

And to republicans (the only ones demanding accountability) it makes sense to support families over facilities

Except that if you’re a normal American, you’re screwed. 1/2 The forms are overwhelming. The documentation is insane. You don’t know what photos to take or how to claim modifications on someone else’s house. You don’t understand “the system”.

So you give up and sign a waiver and move in with family who are already exhausted by their jobs but are willing to care for you.

Or SMH is forced to put you in the cheapest facility possible which is crazy expensive and probably sucks.

But if you’re part of a tight-knit tribal group that knows the system, you know exactly how to answer every question on the forms to maximize payouts.

And if SMH pushes back? There’s a nuclear option: state hotlines.

A single complaint alleging elder abuse triggers audits. Audits cost SMH enormous money. So managers pressure staff to just write checks and move on.

Now imagine someone wants to scam the system but they don’t have a real medical condition.

It’s hard to lie to a doctor but easy to import sick relatives from overseas. SMH actually prefers this: no long records, no criminal history, no paperwork, no previous medical conditions they have to worry about. For SMH these patients are a clean slate.

And most importantly non-citizens can’t easily sue.

Now anyone saying MSM is hiding all this is wrong. Occasionally, the media DOES notice and hard working taxpayers are outraged.

People demand action!

A few arrests and deportations (sometimes people who wanted to go back to Somalia anyway) are made and learing center close

But… they just reopen in a few weeks or months under a new name.

A Republican senator demands accountability. He proposes a bill that will “eliminate loopholes” and “hire more auditors” and “eliminate $5 billion in fraud”.

Democrats agree on one condition: they get to spend half that “savings” on new social services for the immigrant communities.

The bill passes but now an additional $2.5B is being spent on the new programs and costs aren’t cut but instead skyrocket.

The bill results in more paperwork and rules. Lawyers get richer. Americans get buried under more red tape. The system gamers adapt instantly.

And nobody gets put in jail.

Why? Because the SMH lawyers drop gigabytes of paperwork and zoom meeting footage on the DA who can’t possibly manage it all.

Which brings us to the truth of rhe matter:

POSIWID — The purpose of a system is what it does.

P.S. and when a real emergency hits, like COVID, people die, because the whole thing is a brittle, over-engineered house of cards. There are no “transportation providers” or “learning centers” or medical care equipment in the home.

NOTE: I’m not in the medical profession, I probably got some of this wrong, It’s just what I’ve pieced together from years of hearing my relative rant.

I just felt the need to share this because she can’t talk about any of this online… if she did she would lose her license for violating patient privacy laws.

First, yes—this post is anti-American, Pyotr. Second, it’s wrong.

The argument that Europe should unite to compete with the United States and undermine the dollar’s reserve-currency status fails for two basic reasons:

First: that’s exactly why the EU and the euro were created—and they failed to achieve that goal.
Second: the United States built enormous political, economic, and security leverage into the post-WWII system—and we haven’t even begun to fully pull those levers.

I backpacked through Europe in the late ’90s. Pro-American sentiment was real and widespread. But what many people miss is why.

A lot of that “pro-America” feeling was actually anti-EU. Ordinary Europeans understood, intuitively, that the EU wouldn’t work. American culture appealed because it offered an alternative to claustrophobic national systems and an emerging EU globalist blob.

Then reality intervened.

The EU and euro turned out to be both disastrous and convenient. Currency exchanges and border checks were a pain; the EU solved that. That convenience made it popular on a personal level.

But the downsides—work-visa chaos, rigid monetary policy, endless bureaucracy, repeated fiscal crises, and job displacement—were real. They just faded into the background. Functionally, Europeans went from a two-layer government system to a three-layer one.

After WWII, there was serious discussion about folding everything under an American umbrella.

Europe didn’t want that.
France clung to national pride.
The UK wanted to retain remnants of its empire.
And the U.S. didn’t want the hassle of direct control.

But Europe was also too weak to stand on its own.

So we built institutions and systems—NATO, free trade, freedom of navigation, the dollar reserve system—as an umbrella over weak nations.

The EU was supposed to replace that umbrella. But it was designed as direct competition to the U.S. system, which is why we resisted it quietly. And the same national pride that kept Europe from accepting American control also prevented the EU from replacing national governments.

The truth is: the U.S. should have fought harder against the EU. But we didn’t—because as long as Europe didn’t start another war, we didn’t really care.

The EU was sold as “the United States of Europe”—states replaced by nations. That analogy was always nonsense.

The single overriding priority for Americans and the U.S. elite has been simple: no more European wars. Full stop.

We had zero interest in micromanaging Europe’s economy or governance. So we tolerated the EU and the euro—even knowing they’d fail—because they helped our primary objective: stability.

If we’d believed the EU would actually succeed as a true rival system, we would have stopped it. We didn’t, because it never replaced the checks, balances, overrides, and leverage we built after WWII.

It didn’t replace the U.S. political, economic, or security umbrella. It just added another bureaucratic layer beneath it.

Then three things happened:
1.People’s daily lives improved due to easy travel.
2.The EU became a fiscal, security, migration, and bureaucratic nightmare—especially for operating inside a U.S.-led system.
3.The U.S. began quietly pulling the hidden levers.

And then came the Iraq War.

People think Iraq was George W. Bush’s personal vendetta against Saddam Hussein. It wasn’t.

It was a vendetta against Europe.

Conflicts happen constantly around the world. We don’t build coalitions for most of them. We did for Kuwait because Europe—especially the UK—asked us to.

Remember: George H.W. Bush was UN ambassador and CIA director before becoming president. And what did he do in office? He invaded Panama.

Then, in 2016, the Panama Papers exposed what had been happening all along: European elites were undermining the U.S.-led world order with dark money, political favors, and back-channel finance.

That’s the part this argument conveniently ignores. 1/3

https://x.com/johnkonrad/status/2004657253199057355

HW Bush wanted to strengthen the American world order

He didn’t want to do this to strengthen his grip on Europe… he wanted to do it because the world order worked: it brought peace and prosperity to billions.

His plan to strengthen that was called 1000 points of light but to accomplish it he first had to regain control of a the grift and dark money he found while he was CIA.

Hence panama.

But Europe (especially the UK) was building that dark network as their own leverage against America…. And they were doing it right in our backyard… not just in Panama but CIA shell companies registered in the Cayman Islands, Bermuda, Bahamas… and even Canada

So they got us in a war to distract us from Panama and to take down HW Bush.

Why did he agree to it? IDK. But he did.

And the war was a success to everyone except him and his 1000 points of light.

Europe, with the help of the dark money, backed Clinton and big business (which wanted to retain global dominance) backed Ross Perot. And the vote was split and Clinton won.

Not just because of the money but also because European media pushed the narrative that Bush was there just to control the oil (which makes no sense but that’s another rabbit hole)

And in exchange for winning Clinton made a deal:

Throttle back on the dark money networks and make it legitimate with the Euro/EU

And he made a special consession to the brits: NAFTA will give you free access to the USA via the commonwealth of canada

Now nobody in America really like the EU and there was a lot of pushback against NAFTA but Clinton gave them top cover

The new @USNavyCNO reading list is out—and #1 is about the US Merchant Marine pioneering containerization 🇺🇸🙌

Seapower. Logistics. American innovation.

Outstanding list, Admiral. Links in 🧵 The Box: How the Shipping Container Made the World Smaller and the World Economy Bigger

One of my all time favorites!

amzn.to/4qoefOz

Everyone knows that so called “double tap” strikes on land are legal, Obama did it all the time, but CNN keeps inviting land lawyers on to say narco terrorists have special privileges at sea.

Let’s look at the admiralty law: 🧵 Source: International law studies @NavalWarCollege

“Rudderless and Adrift: States’
Unwarranted Timidity Respecting
Stateless Vessels
Andrew Norris”

digital-commons.usnwc.edu/cgi/viewconten…

Why was the old pentagon press corps so bad?

Why are subject matter experts in the new press corps getting attacked?

David absolutely nails it. Must-watch.

What’s most troubling is this: 🧵

https://twitter.com/thechiefnerd/status/1997134342200463361

yes, @DavidSacks has conservative views, yes he’s outspoken but he’s also chair of the President’s Council of Advisors on Science & Technology.

Even the far-left in Silicon Valley doesn’t deny his technical credibility.

The fact he’s getting attacked should worry everyone.

I disagree completely — and that’s strange, because I think the reason Thomas Massie is getting flak is the same reason Mamdani won.

I’m a New Yorker. I’ve seen every layer of this city — the grit of the Bronx and the glass towers of Midtown, the preachers and the traders, the liberals and the cops. My wife and I logged more than ten years in New York’s colleges; I even attended the same ultra-progressive gifted high school as Lina Khan. At one point, debates couldn’t even happen unless I showed up — because without me, there was no one to take the conservative side.

I’ve lived among the poorest in the Bronx, where my mother worked as a nurse in the projects — and I’ve sailed with Manhattan’s elite.

My grandfather was a Methodist minister. My father, a devout Catholic. My godfather is Jewish. I worked for an all-Hindu company in India and an all-Muslim one in Boston. I’ve read every sacred text — not because I wanted to prove any of them right, but because I wanted to understand why so many people are willing to die for an idea.

And I learned early what ideas can cost.
My father died from Agent Orange when I was a kid — a casualty of both Communism and our own government’s incompetence. Since then, I’ve spent a lifetime studying how nations rise and rot. I’ve worked with people from every end of the spectrum — from one of the most liberal senators in America, Mark Kelly, to the Heritage 2025 team — all trying to rebuild the same sinking ship.

So enough about me. Let’s get to the heart of it. 1/4

https://x.com/johnkonrad/status/1986120515472228783

The Real Divide Isn’t Left vs. Right — It’s Chaos vs. Order

Trump won in 2016 — and again in 2024 — for the same reason he lost in 2020.

It’s the same reason de Blasio failed where Bloomberg thrived.

The same reason Rudy Giuliani could command a city, and Mamdani could win one.

This isn’t about Epstein, or Israel, or inflation. It’s about order and following a systemic plan.

Giuliani tore corruption out of New York. Bloomberg tore sloth out of its bureaucracy.

Trump in 2016 promised to bring in the “best and brightest” to drain the swamp — but by 2020 those “best and brightest” had revealed themselves as the swamp itself.

Chaos killed him. He was fighting an internal battle and didn’t have a plan for the next four years.

Americans want a plan, preferably an extreme plan because we all know centrist plans won’t work today

Trump came back in 2024 not with slogans, but with Project 2025 (and several other great plans) — a blueprint to re-engineer the American machine. Ruthlessly. Without taking prisoners.

De Blasio and Biden failed not because of ideology — but because of entropy. No plan. No structure. Just drift.

Mamdani won because he has a plan — to dismantle capitalism and replace it with Communism.
And he’s backed by sharp minds like Lina Khan, who see not markets or morals, but systems. Systems to be broken and rebuilt. 2/4

Yesterday, for the first time, I turned my back on a liberal neighbor and walked away. For Charlie.

I get asked daily by conservatives how I can possibly live in the most liberal town of the most liberal state.

Truth is, I’ve always been fascinated by how they think. I usually just laugh at the irrational takes.

But a single gunshot drained all curiosity and humor out of me.

He simply asked how I was. I said I was sad. He asked why.

“It’s 9/11. My dad was FDNY. And yesterday I lost a friend.”

His face softened. “I’m so sorry.”

I didn’t want to cry, so I backpedaled. “It’s ok, we weren’t close. Just spoke a few times but he felt like a good friend.”

“Who was it?” he asked.

“Charlie Kirk.”

Empathy turned to anger. Like I’d tricked him.

“Well, I don’t know him, and I don’t care what happens to him.”

“But he was my friend. I’m your friend. Isn’t that enough to care?”

He pivoted to politics. Gun violence. Assault weapon bans. “You people.”

I said it was a bolt-action rifle. He didn’t care. He said he didn’t care about Charlie.

Even though Charlie was a father? A friend? A believer?

“No,” he said. But his body language betrayed him. He did care.

Then: “I don’t want to talk politics.”

“I’m not,” I said. “I lost a friend. A friend with a wife and two beautiful daughters.”

Again: “I don’t care.”

So I turned and walked away.

He could have changed the subject, asked me about my Dad and 9/11 instead. But he was fixated on political drama not true empathy.

Some Republicans will say I should’ve stood my ground, yelled, fought back, told him off.

Some Democrat friends will say I should’ve leaned in harder with empathy and spent time getting him to understand my point of view.

But here’s the truth: I’m done.
Done debating. Done convincing. Done trying to “win” them over.

Charlie lived that. He spoke truth with compassion, even behind “enemy lines.” He never saw Democrats as the enemy. He saw Americans missing key pieces of the truth. He gave empathy and respect coupled with hard truths until his last dying breath.

He was a better man than me. Better than most of us.

And now he’s gone.

I’m not a great men Charlie, I’m a Captain in the U.S. Merchant Marine. We don’t talk, or seek glory & fame, don’t ask for thanks or forgiveness. We just move cargo. LOTS of cargo.

Our motto is simple: Acta Non Verba.

Actions, not words.

So why don’t I fight harder in my own neighborhood? Why do I let it go when a neighbors took down my flag on “no kings day”? Why do I remove the Trump magnet on my tesla when I get home.

Because the consequences are real. They don’t just punish me my kids will suffer for the sins of the father. But as the man said, he doesn’t care. That’s the line I won’t let them cross.

And because I do not have the courage of Charlie.

But gratitude for Charlie demands something more. Something bigger than my town which isn’t going to change. Debate is over. Tears are over. The time for action is here.

Not violence. Not riots. Not theatrics.

Political action.

Votes. Campaign cash. Pink slips across DC. Crowds of conservatives in every GOP office in congress demanding they stop doing TV appearances and start playing hardball.

Laws flipped at local, state & federal levels.

A dozen Scott Preslers in every California & Vermont farm town & every NYC church, rising Christians to vote out Sanders, Newsom, AOC & Mamdani.

An army of white hats exposing criminal NGOs, with Mike Benz, Data Republican, and a phalanx of lawyers volunteering for Will Chamberlain to get convictions.

Mass action against every Marxist policy.

We will not out-scream them. We will out-organize them. You can literally debate them until your last dying breath and nothing will change.

They don’t care and there is no way to change the mind of an apathetic man.

The time for debate is over.

We must speak softly and start carrying a big stick.

Acta non verba.

For Charlie. tldr

They have the best theater kids. They have top Ivy league debaters. They have most MSM pundits.

What do we have in abundance?

Protestant Work Ethic

We can’t replace Charlie. But you can couple your individual talent with the work ethic of Charlie Kirk.

This ship wasn't a tanker carrying gasoline or a RoRo with EV cars. It was a simple bulker carrying coal for export.

Did you know that coal has been one of the most dangerous cargoes ever transported at sea? A history 🧵

https://twitter.com/AZ_Intel_/status/1957590461075660940

The danger isn’t new. As early as September 1753, near the end of a 2-month voyage to Virginia, Captain Thomas Francis warned of smoke in the hold of the Pearl, identifying sulfur-rich coal as the culprit. It was a harbinger of disaster to come.

Sal has confirmed the explosion of a ship in Baltimore. This is a bulk carrier.

We don’t know the cargo but Baltimore is a major exporter of coal & Mauritius is a coal importer.

Coal can create methane and is subject to self-heating and liquefication. Bulkers can explode… 1/4

https://twitter.com/mercoglianos/status/1957586721899704520

Even a ship “just carrying grain” can become a floating bomb.

A dust explosion happens when fine particles ignite in the air. One spark in the hold and the rapid combustion can blow steel apart.

Grain and coal dust can be as dangerous as dynamite when concentrated. 2/4

The Trump Administration just issued a potential death blow to the UN’s most ambitious and consequential Green initiative proposed by their powerful maritime arm @IMOHQ in London This is a marked shift. Normally the United States ignores this body and sends a small delegation of USCG SES and relatively Jr state department diplomats over just for committee meetings.

While other nations have full time Maritime Ambassadors snd teams of delegates permanently stationed in London.

Prior the last voting session State, DHS and @JerryHendrixII’s maritime team at NSC issued a letter warning the IMO to back off extreme measures.

Measures so extreme that one proposal suggested any ship that makes “ocean sounds” be banned from entering port.

In 1973, this French Navy warship steamed into NYC, guns out, to haul away tons of America’s gold.

In her wake, the global economy was changed forever. 🧵 The French frigate De Grasse quietly docked, crew crisp in dress uniforms. Below decks?

Empty space soon to be packed with crates worth hundreds of millions.

Alright, I’ll admit it—I was a fat kid. Not 2025 fat, but early 1980s fat, thanks to off-brand processed food because we were poor.

Here’s how the Presidential Fitness Test SAVED me from bullying. Strap in, this is a long story!

I was also uncoordinated, so uncoordinated that the gym teacher gave me a 30-minute head start just so I wouldn’t get roasted by the other kids.

I also got laughed off little league and soccer teams.

And boy did I dread the Presidential Fitness test.

But you have no idea how much that motivated me. I did sprints and shuffles in my backyard.

Problem was I couldn’t do a single pull up and there was no way to practice the rope climb.

Dad was the best dad ever in some ways and not at all supportive in others. He built me a pull-up bar and after to weeks watching me hang there trying, he cane out with hard advice only a Vietnam vet could

“You’re too fat. You’ll never get up there hanging. You need to jumpstart the pull-up”

So I got a little stool and jumped up half way pulling myself the rest of the way up.

After a few weeks I got my first pull-up.

YOU HAVE NO IDEA HOW GOOD THAT FELT

The confidence doing something hard and succeeding got me to new levels.

Then the Fitness Test came and there was just no way I was going to get the Presidential award for being in the top 85%

But I was fairly certain my practice could get me the National Award for the top 50%

Boy was I wrong. You had to climb a rope and touch the ceiling of the gym. It was about two stories up but felt like five.

I couldn’t climb 10 feet.

I wasn’t good enough in the other events to get in the top 50% without the rope climb points.

PLUS, if you made the rope climb you got your picture on the wall in the hallway.

That certificate and picture was important because I was getting bullied a lot for being fat and poor. And I’m not just talking verbal abuse, I got into many fights.

The worst bullies weren’t the most motivated kids and I figured when they called me fat I could just shrug and say “I don’t see your picture on the wall”

I ran all the way home, over a mile, that afternoon and begged dad to buy a practice rope. He said no.

I knew I could pass if I practiced as hard as I did for the pull-up but you can’t practice without a rope.

So I did two things.

I climbed the tallest tree and sat up there for hours one weekend until the fear of heights left.

And for however many weeks the fitness test was open I did nothing else in gym class but the rope.

Then I had to spend all day with my fists clenched to hide the sores on my hands from the teachers so they didn’t ban me from getting it.

Almost everyone who accomplished the rope climb did it in the first couple of days so well before the testing period was over the photo wall had been set. It was a done deal.

But I kept going. By the last day of the test I could get halfway up. That’s it. But I set my sights on the rope and refused to back down.

10 minutes of climbing agony I touched the ceiling. Problem was I was exhausted and nobody saw me do it.

So I yelled “look at me” and everyone laughed. “Where is John” they were looking all around the gym for me but nobody thought to look up.

Finally one kid did. Then they all started look. Then the gym teacher looked and just stared red.

I was in agony.

“Did I win the award?”

“YES,” she said. “You made nationals, now come down!”

“I want my photo!”

“We turned the camera back to the media department yesterday. Just come down.”

I refused. The principal was called and a frantic school wide search for a camera (these were the print days) ensued.

After about 15 minutes they found one.

I GOT MY PICTURE

Next problem was I didn’t have any practice descending from that height and my hands were raw.

I showed them to the teacher and she shrugged.

So slowly, very slowly, I made my way down and when I reached the mat the entire class clapped and cheered.

One of the best feelings of my life!

1/4 Fast forward to High School and I get into a magnet track for smart kids.

Problem was I’m dyslexic and not nearly as smart as the kids in my class.

I’m not joking either, WAPO wrote a book about the class and my best friend Adrian Cavalieri now is now a lead scientist at the proton accelerator in Switzerland. Unbelievably smart kids.

Most were unbelievably wealthy and could afford tutors too.

As puberty hit I became rail thin but I was still only one of the few poor kids snd the ONLY republican and one of the few from a military family.

There was no question I was joining the military and the one and only place I did really well was on the water sailing… so I was absolutely determined to get into the Naval Academy

It became my mission. Problem was I was at the bottom of my, albeit brilliant, class and I still wasn’t great with ball.

No way I was getting in with sports and extracurriculars.

I was extremely shy and a teacher suggested I apply for a magnet theatre and modern dance program. I was accepted.

I can not even begin to describe how much I hated it. BUT I got through it. Extracurricular done.

I still needed a varsity letter. I tried out for Lacrosse and didn’t even make the freshman team. Not even the fencing geeks would have me.

But the cross country coach offered me a tryout. Not only was I a fat kid but I have short legs. I also couldn’t lift them high enough.

But I could do one thing nobody else could: not stop. Ever.

End of freshman season I was the very fist kid in my class to get a varsity jacket. At the awards dinner my coach showed a photo of me running and said

“This kid is clearly in pain. He looked like this whenever I saw him. We just had to give him a letter.”

I got 7 more.

All that effort, and god knows how many hours struggling to study for four years, all for one goal:

To attend Annapolis.

Problem was Annapolis had a presidential fitness test too. And I failed it bad.

I could do everything except throw a simple medicine ball overhead with both hands.

I came nowhere close to the minimum standards. Problem was the coaches back then discouraged long distance runners from bulking up with weights. My arms were noodles.

But the Presidential fitness test taught me the secret. Practice until you physically can’t.

Months I spent on the basketball court in my knees throwing the MF’n medicine ball. I just kept throwing until my knees started to bleed.

And I passed. And I got I to Annapolis.

I want to say I lived happily ever after.

I did not. My life went horribly wrong.

2/4

BREAKING NEWS: Massive shipbuilding changes in DC. None of them good.

@gCaptain has confirmed from a White House source that Trump has closed the shipbuilding office at the NSC.

Reuters reports that Ian Bennitt, the President’s Special Assistant for Shipbuilding at the White House, has been fired.

Favored candidates for Provost and Superintendent positions at the U.S. Merchant Marine Academy have received denial notices.

At a recent USNI shipbuilding conference, it became clear: major shipbuilding primes are actively fighting plans to expand commercial shipbuilding.

Sources inside the Pentagon say Admirals and SES are digging in their heels on several key shipbuilding objectives.

Some Jones Act companies now expressing fear that building new ships could devalue their current fleets.

Congressional sources say progress on the SHIPS Act is stalling in committee.
It’s also unlikely the new Commandant will be confirmed before the August break.

We’ve confirmed that the French billionaire who offered to invest $20B in U.S. shipping sent a letter to Trump saying he’s not getting the support he needs to move forward.

The U.S. Coast Guard is slashing cutter orders left and right.

Reports from my sources in Korea say the new far-left, pro-China president is chilling U.S.-Korean shipyard cooperation.

Nobody has seen or heard from @SecDuffy’s new acting Maritime Administrator.

The plan to centralize shipbuilding under the Department of Commerce is apparently stalled or stalling.

I spoke with half a dozen senior sources in DC—every single one is frustrated.

Yes, there’s still optimism around @SECNAV’s commitment to shipbuilding but his plate is full with emerging priorities

Not a single Admiral has publicly supported the SHIPS Act or the White House’s “Restoring America’s Maritime Dominance” plan.

Deadlines are being missed or pencil-whipped on the Maritime Executive Order, and with the NSC shipbuilding office closing, no one knows how the next deadline will be met.

Zero follow-through on Trump’s State of the Union promise to open a dedicated White House shipbuilding office.

New intel confirms more Navy shipbuilding delays, including further slippage in carrier programs.

Despite Trump requesting her resignation, the rogue U.S. delegate to the @IMOHQ still attended last month’s meeting, compromising U.S. objectives. @michaelgwaltz’s confirmation as UN ambassador is still not scheduled.

A Panama Canal pilot confirms U.S. military ships are still paying for transits, and @Michael_Yon confirms that China’s bridge over the canal is still under construction.

New Houthi attacks on ships in the Red Sea point to a failure of massive US bombing (first revealed during signalgate) to reopen the Red Sea.

It’s been 252 days since the election, and not a single new ship has been ordered.

Still no updates on public hearings into Biden-era maritime disasters, including the Gaza Pier and Baltimore Bridge.

The Baltimore Bridge removal is delayed another 9 months, and retrofits to prevent future bridge strikes around the nation are postponed.

Still zero word from @PeteHegseth on fixing the Army Corps of Engineers, the agency responsible for inland rivers and dredging.

What am I missing? The number of panicked and/or depressed calls I’ve received from DC in the last few days is unreal.

I’m struggling to find a silver lining. For background listen to @mercoglianos and I on the @CavasShips podcast last week

podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/cav…

USCG hero Scott Ruskan saved 165 lives this week.

But few realize the Rescue Swimmer program that made this possible was born from tragedy, made possible by three men history has forgot.
🧵

In 1983, the WWII-era cargo ship Marine Electric sank in freezing Atlantic waters.

Of the 34 men aboard, 31 died—many seen clinging to wreckage, slowly succumbing to hypothermia as Coast Guard helicopters circled above.

They could see the men.
But they had no one trained to jump in.

The real mystery with the Mexican Navy tall ship ARM Cuauhtémoc isn’t what went wrong, we know the engine was likely stuck in reverse.

It’s why the tugboat wasn’t tied up.

I spoke with a New York Harbor pilot and a tug captain near the scene.

Here’s what we know 🧵👇

https://twitter.com/johnkonrad/status/1923947432947118436

This is important because the ship only has a small 1,125 horespower Auxiliary engine installed.

The Tugboat Charles D. McAllister is 58 years old but was repowered in 2007 with two CAT 3512 engines with 2,800 horespower.

mcallistertowing.com/our-fleet/char…

Here’s my thread on what we know so far. For notes I have been a competitive sailor and I am licensed to captain ships of any size but I have not sailed tall ships. 🧵

https://twitter.com/nova_campaigns/status/1923934572732899382

First of all this photo confirms there were Mexican Navy’s Cadets on the highest yardarms.

The incident happened at 8:30PM with current traveling upriver.

Currents aren’t strong but it’s only 1.5 hours after low tide so they were still building and hadn’t reached maximum which happens approximately 3 hours after low tide.

Average maximum current at the bridge is usually 2-3 knots.

What can you tell me about the current in the east river at nine pm may 17th based on this data

Nothing in my 18 years since founding gCaptain has caused more panic than @USTradeRep’s recent proposal to charge companies that own Chinese ships $1 million per port call in the US.

USTR held hearings on the fees and today issued major modifications. 🧵 The biggest problem was the original port fees proposed by Trump late February was there were ship size and type agnostic.

All Chinese built ships would be charged $1.5 million per port and $1 million for any ship owned by a company that operates chinese built ships.