If a politician or any public figure wanted to impress me or give me “ hope and a sense of purpose” they would be wearing a mask in any public place. Assuming the responsibility that comes with being a politician or prominent public person puts them absolutely in a position to do what has been deemed necessary to provide “ hope and a sense of purpose.
These public examples “ MUST” start at the top with the people that have the responsibility to protect everybody. Authorative people in my past such as my parents, coaches, teachers, bosses etc. have always made more impression on me when they actually led by example. Only when they actually got down in the trenches and worked with me and for me did they have a greater impact on my ability to see that there is a way to get through, over or around difficult situations in my life.
It’s time for such leading people in our lives including the President and Vice President to start acting and doing the responsible things necessary to give us “ hope and a sense of purpose” when they are out in public.

As you put it there is nothing wrong with it IF that is the extent of it.

But wait.....there's more. My understanding is that China now not only makes the majority of our drugs and ships them to us but they also make the ingredients of those very same drugs. I have heard America is no longer capable of manufacturing even our most common used drugs to fight illness because we don't even have the ingredients to manufacture them. I have also heard that China manufactures parts for some of our most sophisticated military weapons.

Now I ask anybody, IF this is true then how stupid are our politicians from the top down and from at least the past 50 years. We continually have heard for years that China is/could be one of our most feared enemies. China has been building up militarily for years now. They are building fortified military islands in the Pacific. Yet we nor any other country has said anything. China could declare war at any time citing America's refusal to purchase products from them and saying it hurts their country economically.

So now, hypothetically we are at war with China. We need military parts. Sorry but they come from China. We need medicines. Sorry they come from China. Does anybody see a problem with this? America must get back to being a self sufficient country for the safety of us all.

Dennis

Well, I certainly think it's a bit loony to call Toyotas cheap junk. I've owned them exclusively since 1977, with the brief exception of owning an awfully unreliable Oldsmobile I inherited from my Dad.

I can say, unequivocally, that while Toyotas may be boring in some respects, MOST of them, and the Lexus products they make, are incredibly reliable.

The Avalon Hybrid is the pinnacle of large sedan designs, from a performance and a reliability and mileage standpoint, according to Consumer Reports.

The Corolla is the most popular car in the world. I've owned two of them ('77 and '98). They're really hard to kill! Treated properly, a ten year or 300,000 mile life span is not unusual. Not bad for an econobox. I traded my first after six years and 92,500 miles, because I wanted a Celica. The '98 was totaled at 178K.

The Prius is exceptionally reliable AND economical. We currently own four of them. A drunk totaled my first one. Other family members own them as well. One is on her second, after another drunk totaled her first one. I'm a walking, unsolicited evangelist for the Prius, and no, I'm not a tree-hugging liberal. We bought them for their lowest total cost of long-term ownership, and their physical practicality.

Don't get me wrong... I WISH these cars were built by an American company. I WISH our auto industry had half the integrity of Toyota. I WISH they had listened to quality/efficiency expert, Ed Deming, back in the 1950s. https://asq.org/quality-resources/total-quality-management/deming-points

We could learn a lot from the Japanese. We taught them much of what they know about technology, and quality mass production, because American businesses were too stubborn to listen to the experts.

Better stop shopping period. Go to Target -- half their stuff is from China, ditto for just about any company you can name. Go to Kohl's and see what percentage of clothing you find made in the US -- mostly Indonesia, South American Countries, Philippines. WalMart tried to stay with US goods longer than most, but competition forced them to seek lower costs as well. If they had stayed with only US goods, there would be no WalMart today. You would be thankful for a WalMart if disaster strikes your area. Their trucks with free water and other supplies show up before FEMA does. They will ship generators to areas and charge the same price for them as their normal pricing, not gouge the public. Are they perfect, no, but no other company is either. The majority of WalMart haters do so because they are the #1 company in size in the world. It is a mental thing where a percentage of people will always hate the top dog. When Dallas was "America's Team" there were people who hated the Cowboys, same is felt today for the Patriots. Talk about hate -- when the Yankees were on top for such a long period in the 50's and 60's there was real trash talk about those teams. WalMart is a decent charitable company that often gets knocked because it is convenient to do so. One story that shows something good about the company. Back about 25 years ago there was a large drugstore chain called Osco. It was a hybrid operation that had a pharmacy but was large and sold a lot of dry goods as well. The head operators drove the company into bankruptcy by over inflating the value of their inventory, borrowing against value that didn't exist, paying executives high salaries while all this was going on. This prompted a lot of people to become cautious when investing in Retail companies. WalMart with it's own funds hired an independent accounting firm to closely examine their books and inventory accountability. The company found WalMart to be "squeaky clean". WalMart has alway prided itself with doing the right thing. Back in the 60's they ran an ad selling a shotgun for a really good price. A farmer sent in a complaint that he had driven 100 miles to get one and it was out of stock. Sam Walton called the manager of that store and told him to drive to the next WalMart some 60 miles from his store, pick up one of the shotguns and deliver it to the farmer, and not charge him anything. That attitude still resides with a lot of WalMart employees as they are indoctrinated with Sam's vision. With a company as large as WalMart, not everyone gets the message even when they have heard it numerous times. One employee or manager not treating a customer right will echo much louder than 10 good experiences. That is just the nature of how we as people think and what we do. It is common knowledge that if someone gets exceptional service from a company only about 3 people are ever told of the experience. If someone gets bad service, they tell at least 10 people. WalMart perhaps does not deserve to be put on a pedestal, but it doesn't deserve the bad press it often gets as well.

I would doubt the part about China supplying our military if not for something that happened about 4 years ago. I recall the military sending out an advisory to stop using drones made in China. It was felt there was a possibility a backdoor program was built into the drones that would allow the Chinese to eve-drop on the units using the drones. I think the degree we are invested in China is absurd. Forget the weapons aspect -- what if war broke out and we simply needed medicine for our troops -- this alone could be a disaster! We need to bring a lot of manufacturing back to the US, there is no doubt about this. I say we refuse to elect anyone to congress or the White House that does not have a pledge to move this action forward. I want to hear it and see it in writing that it is part of their platform.