I first heard about Mike Waltz on gCaptain News. John Konrad has mentioned him more than a few times in his editorials & he’s been in the media discussing the bill he co-sponsers with Mark Kelly, the Ships For America Act. Mr. Waltz has been asked to take the very influential position of National Security Advisor. Looking good for the Jones Act, US shipping & US shipyards so far.
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Should be interesting to see what comes of this agenda the next four years. Looks good on paper but implementing will be a massive challenge.
Some jones act reform, not repeal, could be a good place to start.
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If this works out it will be great, but frankly I’m skeptical.
The Heritage Foundation is, as most of you know, fairly anti U.S. Flag shipping.
But my over a half century of life has taught me to be skeptical of D.C.
High tariffs would be terrible for shipping, but we don’t know yet if any tariffs will actually be imposed.
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I would think Secretaries of Navy, Trans, and HS would be more impactful to shipping and the MM than State and the National Security Advisor. Since the proposed Sec Defense is being recruited from a Fox News morning host roll I’ll hold my enthusiasm for a bit until those other appointments are named. Konrad for MARAD?
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If I were picking a DOT sec or MARAD chief, my short list would be;
Salvatore Mercogliano
Vince O’Halloran
Matt Cox
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He’s certainly campaigning for it. His Twitter is a MAGA suck fest. I remember a couple years ago he put out an article about potential MARAD Admin’s and he put himself on there lmao.
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At this point Konnrad is clearly more interested in partisan politics than in the U.S. Merchant Marine.
Sad really he could have been a great advocate for us
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The Ships for America Act (?) is bipartisan and if he was actually involved like he claims to be then good for him. I know most if not all of the USMM would welcome the Act and any sign of a policy shift more favorable to shipping/JA.
But yeah, he appears to have gone full cultist. Which, for the record, I think is weird regardless of party affiliation. There’s a handful on this forum who are cultist on the other end of the spectrum and I think they’re equally as weird.
I think he’s done a great job with starting gcaptain and promoting the USMM. I do think, unfortunately, he’s the loudest voice and he says some off the wall shit sometimes and maybe throws out some ideas that don’t make sense so he can get more views/engagement on Twitter.
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Have off and on blocked John on twitter - there was a semi constant stream of "no one knows more about ( pick your topic ) " than John. But I come back - feel bad about blocking a former sailor with similar backgrounds. Have him on block now - see how long it lasts.
He has done some things I quite admire, some things i think are pretty bad - people are complicated
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Agreed. I get the impression he views himself as a journalist with no bias but a Quick Look at his Twitter or any of his news “articles” (they’re really opinions) and you’ll see that’s just not the case.
Again, he’s brought attention to the USMM which is I think a good thing? I just maybe don’t love the route he’s chosen to do so.
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In my opinion Twitter is a waste of time. Originally as intended by Jack Dorsey to be used by folks that wanted to let their friends know what they were doing without any details the characters were limited as they are today Kinda like SMS with word limits but broadcast to the entire world with no explanation. Why anyone would want to tell everyone in the world what they were doing every day to me seemed ridiculous but some people don’t care about privacy. Then Musk buys Twitter and uses it for his own political goals banning and reinstating people on a whim. Musk himself got into the USA on a student visa but only went to school for a couple of days. He violated the terms of his visa and should have been deported but…money talks.
Since Musk bought Twitter he turned it into a political vehicle and the Chinese and Russians best chance to cause division in the USA. It worked somewhat.
I would advise John to leave Twitter land and continue his work in more respected formats. I would be interested in what he thinks of the potential merger with Transoean and Seadrill as John knows a bit about Seadrill during it’s hey day
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I don’t see any reason to flag/block your comment, though I do think it’s acceptable to be critical of certain gCaptain articles even if the people be agrees with the overall cause of advocacy for the Merchant Marine. And more mariners in government is probably going to be a good thing, hopefully.
I see reference to the Ships For America Act, co-sponsored by Waltz, in the gCaptain article and others. They all say it’s going to be introduced, but I can’t find any actual introduction or text. Is anyone aware of the text or draft?
almost exclusively what I use it for 
Every one who is trying to further their agenda is on Twitter. If the president of the United States is on Twitter it’s hard to look at an advocate for a niche community and say “nah, Twitter ain’t a respectable enough space to spread your thoughts.”
The character limits are gone(?) or at least increased to like 10,000 characters for certain users. John literally wrote a novel about his small MA town and how he’s one of 250 republicans and Trump is such a bastion of hope for them.
This is why I started reading gcaptain. If you’re not a part of the oil field you hardly know anything about that industry, and vice versa.
Twitter was much better when it was just a place where people posted pictures of their lunch and were limited to 120 characters.
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I remember when it first came out. I didn’t “get” it. 120 characters?! What do I even say with so little room, and why would anyone care?
Takes me back to the days when the internet was the Wild West — are you REALLY 18 or older?
Yah… totally ((click))
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To steal a motto from that other academy “ Acta non Verba”. Elections have consequences- one of which is you have to stop saying what the other guy did is wrong and what you are going to do- now you have to do something.
The Verba time is over and the Acta time is here.
My hope is this administration will be great for American sea power, shipping, ship building- I will never hope for bad things for my country or my industry.
Time will tell.
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We all always hope that, andcwe always get disappointed.
A trade war, or even just slowing imports, will not be good for shipping.
Then I’m very wary of the Heritage Foundation, they have been opposed to the Jones Act, so we will see.
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I’m not a member of any party. I keep waiting for someone to establish the Realist Party which if practice matched the name I’d join.
As far as American sea power that will always be well funded, maybe not wisely funded but well funded. Too many billions of dollars are being made to muck around much with that. Therefore US ship building will be taken care of in order to build US military vessels at exorbitant prices.
US commercial shipping doesn’t have the same vested interests. On the contrary there are major industries that would prefer to ship on the cheapest ship available. The people manning the Jones Act protected ships and the owners don’t have the money to battle the interests of the business interests such as Big Ag among others that want higher profits cheaper shipping would provide. You can talk about US commercial shipping in time of war but the average voter would not know what you’re talking about and would likely say just put the stuff on a plane. The average citizen only cares about what they can get for the lowest price and don’t care how they get it predatory pricing or not. That’s why Amazon and Walmart are doing great while your local retailers have closed down.
Time will tell is correct, but money not principle will rule in the future just as it always has.
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