“Buy American provisions ensure we won’t get nearly as much infrastructure for the money as we otherwise could.
That’s because domestically manufactured materials and products often cost more than foreign alternatives. Otherwise, you wouldn’t have to require that project sponsors use them.
Buying American steel for infrastructure projects costs around twice as much as importing it from China, according to a 2019 Congressional Research Report. That requirement cost American roadbuilders an additional $2 billion from 2009 to 2011, back when then-Vice President Biden was overseeing the spending of stimulus dollars on infrastructure projects.
Procuring American-made buses means that we pay twice as much as Japan and Korea do for their rolling stock. Our train cars cost as much 34 percent more because we insist on buying domestically.
Because these requirements can be so onerous, federal departments often grant exemptions to Buy American rules when they make projects economically infeasible. Biden is making sure fewer projects get those cost-saving exemptions.”
“The electric drones have a 7.5-foot wingspan and can fly for hours at 1,300ft and need only the coordinates of their target so they can carry out their mission automatically, Bulatsev said.
A smaller reconnaissance drone called Spectre flies alongside to identify targets before the Punisher strikes.
After the fighting started in eastern Ukraine in 2014, a group of veterans launched the drone-making company, UA-Dynamics, according to an Haaretz report, last month.
“Three-quarters of the company’s employees are veterans with experience in special operations deep in enemy territory,” Maxim Subbotin, a marketing expert and an unofficial spokesman for UA-Dynamics, told the newspaper.
Bulatsev said that the main targets were stationary, including fuel and ammunition storage, electronic and counter-electronic warfare stations, and anti-air systems.
Different units in the Ukrainian military are using the drones, but the number of how many and the locations where the Punisher drones are being deployed is classified, Bulatsev said.
Bulatsev previously told The Sun that stealthy Punisher drones had been “causing havoc behind pro-Russian lines on Donbas for years because the enemy has no idea what has hit them.”
He told the outlet that the drone is relatively small and light and is undetectable to radars.
“What’s more, it can drop three bombs at a time or hit three separate targets then return to base to be reloaded and sent back into battle within minutes,” Bulatsev told The Sun.”
“If concentration in the marketplace was somehow to blame for rising prices, then it would make sense to attack that problem by expanding competition. Give consumers more choices and they will naturally flock to lower-priced alternatives, putting pressure on other sellers to keep prices down.
The problem, for Biden, is that so much of his economic agenda is pointed in exactly the opposite direction. In one breath, he complains about the lack of consumer choice driving up prices. With the next, he proposes to further restrict consumer choice.
“We will buy American to make sure everything from the deck of an aircraft carrier to the steel on highway guardrails are made in America,” Biden said, before promising that his administration would make some of the “biggest investments in manufacturing in American history” to bring about “the revitalization of American manufacturing.””
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“”Shifting demand to American producers with ‘Buy America’ polices [sic] that stop firms and consumers from buying at the lowest cost, no matter how politically attractive, are inflationary. This is something all economists should agree on,” Summers tweeted. “Blaming inflation on corporate greed or holding out the prospect that capacity can be expanded rapidly is at best diversionary.””
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“Tariffs are also contributing to inflation by artificially raising the prices of imported goods, including products like raw steel, aluminum, and lumber that are necessary inputs for American manufacturers and home builders.”
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“The two researchers found that costs imposed by trade barriers were passing along nearly in full to consumers. For every 1 percentage point increase in the cost of imported construction materials caused by tariffs, for example, they found domestic price increases of 0.9 percent after six months.”
“Republican Gov. Greg Abbott, responding to a memo from Republican Attorney General Ken Paxton, ordered the state’s Department of Family and Protective Services (DFPS) to launch these investigations. Paxton argued in his memo that any sort of medical treatment of a trans minor constituted child abuse because some treatments may interfere with the child’s ability to reproduce.
However, this threat didn’t just cover gender reassignment surgery—something that normally doesn’t happen to minors anyway—but also hormonal treatments that block the impacts of puberty on a trans teen—something that doesn’t sterilize them and is reversible. The order also came with a massive threat to any government official or health worker inclined to look the other way: They could also be prosecuted if they knew a parent was pursuing medical treatment for a trans child and did not report them to the authorities.
While this might have looked like the latest loudmouthed culture war fight—the memo doesn’t change the state’s statutory definition of child abuse—the Texas DFPS has begun investigating parents of trans kids. The first target was one of their own. The New York Times reports that the DFPS put one of its own staff members on leave as the agency investigates her over the medical treatment her 16-year-old trans daughter is receiving. The agency has attempted to demand the mother (who is not identified) provide the teen’s medical records. She’s refusing, and now with the ACLU’s help, she’s suing to attempt to stop both the investigation and enforcement of Abbott’s order.”
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“Critics of helping minors transition say parents are rushing into major decisions without a full understanding of the risks. Whether that’s true, the solution is not to put politicians and the government in control of what constitutes legitimate medical treatment.”
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“throwing the parents of trans teens under the bus is a big political winner, according to Abbott’s political strategist. Don’t trust politicians in general, but especially don’t trust politicians who only believe in certain parents’ rights and not others.”
“Adaptation and the development of low-carbon energy generation technologies will both be required to address and mitigate the challenges of man-made climate change. And yes, the world is slated to get warmer, but humanity is not running out of time to avert a harrowing climate future.
Again, when bad weather meets poverty, people die. The recipe for successfully adapting to climate change is continued economic growth and technological progress.”
“Given the horrendous loss of life and destruction caused by Putin’s war of choice in Ukraine, it certainly makes emotional sense for many across the world to yearn for his downfall (and indeed, some cheered Biden’s comments).
But that statement coming from the president of the United States carried some weighty implications — and risks.
The big one was that Putin would interpret this as an escalation and that tensions between the nuclear-armed US and nuclear-armed Russia would get even worse, hurting efforts to negotiate a settlement in Ukraine and raising the risks of war. Biden has said many times that he does not want war between the US and Russia, and he reiterated that Monday, but the question is whether Putin understands that.”
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“More extensive clean-up from Biden personally ensued when the president spoke to reporters at the budget event Monday. He said:
“I was expressing the moral outrage I felt toward the way Putin is dealing, and the actions of this man — just — just the brutality of it. Half the children in Ukraine. I had just come from being with those families…
… I want to make it clear: I wasn’t then, nor am I now, articulating a policy change. I was expressing the moral outrage that I feel, and I make no apologies for it.”
The president went on to clarify that these were his “personal feelings,” not policy, adding:
“He shouldn’t remain in power. Just like, you know, bad people shouldn’t continue to do bad things. But it doesn’t mean we have a fundamental policy to do anything to take Putin down in any way.
… Nobody believes I was talking about taking down Putin. … What have I been talking about since this all began? The only war that’s worse than one intended is one that’s unintended. The last thing I want to do is engage in a land war or a nuclear war with Russia. That’s not part of it.
I was expressing my outrage at the behavior of this man. It’s outrageous. It’s outrageous. And it’s more an aspiration than anything. He shouldn’t be in power. People like this shouldn’t be ruling countries, but they do. The fact they do — it doesn’t mean I can’t express my outrage about it.””