Take a deep breath. Really deep. Fill your lungs. Now exhale. Hold your breath until your lungs are reedy to explode. Then repeat. Now imagine that your lungs get 5% smaller each time you do this. Now imagine you are standing in a stadium with 50,000 people watching you slowly die. You are getting tired but refuse to succumb. Refuse to even kneel. That’s how it feels to be a supporter of shipbuilding during this administration. The thrill and excitement of walking into the stadium for the first time and your issue taking center stage. Fits of joy at each major milestone. Then long periods of nothing. You stand on the pitches mound waiting for the team to tun out from the dugout. You wait for the umpire to walk out with the game ball. Waiting for the game to start. It never happens. Trump has done more for American shipbuilding than any President since Nixon. He uncovered the grounds. He turned on the lights. He set up the scoreboard. He paid the salaries. And he filled the stadium with fans eager to cheers. The Maritime Executive Order The White House Maritime Action Plan The reintroduction of the SHIPs for America Act Hegseth’s Arsenal of Freedom Tour New energy at MARAD in DOT Navy acquisition reform OMB, Labor, Treasury, Energy and Commerce ready to pitch in All the pieces of the puzzle are on the table ready to be assembled. And yet nothing is getting built. The problem is shipbuilding requires a monumental all of government approach. It’s not a Mavy problem or a Merchant Marine problem or a USCG problem or a Steel, or UN, or alliances or whatever It’s a truly all of government problem. All the players are ready but we have no manager calling a huddle and walking everyone out to the field. The outgoing secretary of the Navy John Phelan did a lot of good, but he never called that huddle. Will Hung Cao? He has the enthusiasm and passion and ability to lead the team. Problem is he has an enormous Navy to run. Hung Cao needs a manager, a pitching coach, a batting coach… a small cadre of guys who really understand shipbuilding. Not just Naval shipbuilding but the entire landscape of commercial, finance, trades, union, allies best practices, and all the levers of government available. Now is the time. It shouldn’t have to be the duty of @SECNAV to hold this much water but every other department tasked (except OMB) has stood their and watched as opportunity after opportunity sailed by. There is still enough excitement for shipbuilding to start the game but the pitcher is quickly running out of breaths. The game needs to start asap and @HungCao_VA has the last chance before the midterms to start the show.

Did this post trigger a staffer immune response so severe my phone kept ringing until 2:53 a.m.? Were there veiled threats to tank maritime legislation, strip NDAA provisions I care about, and slow-roll future maritime appointments for friends like @HungCao_VA? Is the Pope Catholic? I owed one staffer who reached out a serious favor, so I moved the post to subscribers only. They call it the Blob for a reason. She didn’t ask for it to be deleted. He definitely didn’t want it deleted. But the message from the powers that be was clear: leave it up, and there would be consequences. Who ordered the takedown? Nobody will say. I could have called out her former boss @SenatorCantwell until the cows came home and absolutely nothing would have happened. But name one mid-level staffer who’s built a fiefdom blocking literal life-saving appropriations at sea? All hell breaks loose, and rogue waves start crashing across the decks. Our elected officials don’t run the Senate. A handful of very powerful staffers do. And guess what? It’s not just the Senate. These staffers are embedded across the administration as political appointees too. That’s the price any new administration pays to get its appointees confirmed, federal judges included. That’s how the Blob reaches into all three branches and touches everything. The worst part? The best staffers get poached by K Street. What’s left behind is a small handful of true patriots (yes, some staffers are excellent), and a much larger group who either stayed behind because they love power or aren’t offered jobs anywhere else.