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Terry Applegate @CharliesWhiskey - On 3 December 1775, six months after Lexington and Concord, and amid the halting, improvisational birth of a Continental Navy—the newly commissioned USS Alfred unfurled a banner no American warship had ever carried. It was not yet the “Stars and Stripes,” nor anything immediately recognizable as the national emblem that would soon circle the globe, but forcontemporaries it was a quiet, unmistakable assertion: the colonies were no longer merely petitioners. They were a people preparing to defend themselves on the open sea.
The moment belonged to a young naval officer named John Paul Jones, then a newly minted first lieutenant, whose name would soon become synonymous with American seapower. When Jones stepped forward to raise the Continental Union Flag—sometimes called the “Grand Union Flag”—he was not simply performing a ceremonial gesture. He was announcing that the Congress now claimed a navy of its own, however small, and that its vessels sailed under a unified political authority rather than the disparate colonial flags that had marked earlier privateers.
https://thisdayofhistory.com/2025/12/03/december-3-1775-americans-fly-their-own-flag/
Continental ship Alfred (1775–78). Painting in oils by W. Nowland Van Powell, depicting Lieutenant John Paul Jones raising the Grand Union flag as Alfred was placed in commission at Philadelphia, 3 December 1775. Commanded by Captain Dudley Saltonstall, Alfred was flagship of Commodore Esek Hopkins' Continental Navy flotilla during the remainder of 1775 and the first four months of 1776 (NH 85212-KN).
https://history.navy.mil/browse-by-topic/heritage/origins-of-the-navy/birth-of-the-us-navy.html
https://x.com/CharliesWhiskey/status/1996217055528329581

Texas Scorecard @TexasScorecard - Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton is investigating fast fashion giant Shein for potential violations of Texas law involving unethical labor practices, unsafe products, and privacy concerns.
https://texasscorecard.com/state/ag-paxton-investigates-china-owned-fashion-brand-retailer/
https://x.com/TexasScorecard/status/1995916528068235445

Thomas Massie @RepThomasMassie - Pass the PRIME Act to bypass the meat processing oligopoly that prevents regenerative grass farmers from marketing their beef to local consumers. Good for farmers, good for the environment, good for you.
Quote
Cary Kelly @CaryKelly11
Cows aren’t carbon makers. They are carbon recyclers. The people who insist otherwise are either fools or liars.
Source: paulsaladinoMD (IG)