It's much more than a status thing. A large navy can project a country's power virtually anywhere in the world. We heard about that in recent days when President Donald Trump ordered the destruction of much of the Houthis' military capabilities in Yemen. That would be by U.S. naval forces in the region.

Armed by Iran, the world's largest exporter of terrorism, the Houthis have crippled much of the world's maritime trade through the Middle East, forcing ships to travel all around Africa at much greater cost in money and time instead of using the Suez  Canal.

Last weekend, President Trump issued a lengthy statement that said, in part:

Today, I have ordered the United States Military to launch decisive and powerful Military action against the Houthi terrorists in Yemen. They have waged an unrelenting campaign of piracy, violence, and terrorism against American, and other, ships, aircraft, and drones.

Joe Biden's response was pathetically weak, so the unrestrained Houthis just kept going. It has been over a year since a U.S. flagged commercial ship safely sailed through the Suez Canal, the Red Sea, or the Gulf of Aden.

The massive scale of China's naval expansion has ominous implications for its continuing threats to take over the island nation of Taiwan, just a few miles off its coast. 

That naval expansion, Trump's new vow to counter it, and the deeply embedded economic and political difficulties he faces in restoring that pillar of defense are the subject of this week's audio commentary, which you can hear here:

This week's Sunday column examined some early signs of voter concerns over the pace and scale of the president's first two months of massive government reforms, including an erratic application of long-threatened tariffs on major trading partners. These could actually increase consumer prices.

The major point was how much easier it is to address concerns early before they become genuinely embedded worries. Republican control of Congress is minute. Loss of that would cripple the president's ambitious agenda for the last two years of his final term.

The most recent audio commentary discussed the newest revelations of the stunning scale of investments in taxpayer dollars that Joe Biden's administration made in burying DEI policies throughout the federal government. I found the imposition of such communist policies quite disturbing.

The impressive scale and breadth of the new presidential administration's actions and reforms continue. Predictably, the left is trying to hamstring the activist administration by filing numerous lawsuits in courts with friendly liberal judges.

However, the southern border wall is back under construction. And you would probably enjoy as much as I do my RedState colleagues' coverage of border czar Tom Homan. He doesn't take No for an answer and is engagingly blunt about his mission and intentions.