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In engineering and business circles where we diagram processes, there is a concept we use called the "black box." No, it's not a racial thing. Despite the protestations of academia, it is perfectly possible to mention colors like "black" and "white" without referring to race.
A "black box" refers to a part of a process where we don't bother to explain its inner workings as part of the overall process we're explaining. Sometimes this is because they're irrellevant or don't add anything meaningful to the discussion at hand. Other times, it's because we have no idea how they work inside. In any case, it's a box on a process diagram. Stuff goes into the black box and stuff comes out, and what's going on is a topic for another day.
As a thought experiment, forget everything you know (or think you know) about the Supreme Court and think of it as a black box in the judicial process: appeals go into the Supreme Court. Some come out of the black box as rejections. Some are heard, and an opinion comes out of the black box....
Don’t worry!
His “very smart people” are totally right about things this time when it comes to trade.
There is zero - I repeat, zero - moral difference between the people who pushed for "experimenting" with lockdowns because "we have to do something!" and the people who push for "experimenting" with trade wars because "we have to do something!"
Musk is out.
Musk put himself in a corner where he can't rip into Trump and he has to play nice probably at least through the midterms, but just look at the guy's face and watch him refuse to give a straight answer here. He put a lot on the line with endorsing Trump and starting DOGE, and Trump absolutely stabbed him in the back. Trump's supporters will blame congress, but Trump has very openly and loudly endorsed all of the DOGE-defying moves that congress has made, and has viciously attacked the one congressman (Thomas Massie) who has stood against it.
The reason is simple: Trump cares about trophies. Cutting the budget is not a trophy. DOGE trying to take a chainsaw to government was a trophy, but as soon as DOGE became more of Musk's than Trump's trophy, Trump stopped caring about it because congress offered him a Big, Beautiful Bill as a trophy instead. Just like the FBI offered the opportunity to build a Big, Beautiful new headquarters building for them (Trump loves buildings!). ...
As comedy slowly slides into unfunny wokeness hell, the last comedian standing (assuming he doesn't drop dead first, I mean just look at the guy; he's a trainwreck) will be Doug Stanhope. He closed out his recent special "The Dying of the Last Breed" with this bit on how important it is that we be able to make fun of anything. Because making fun.
Language warning, duh.
Preliminary Q2 numbers for Argentina are in. This is still subject to adjustment but so far their preliminaries have been pretty accurate under the Milei administration.
Slashing spending works. Trump and Bessent are very optimistically projecting economic growth of 3% doing the opposite of what Milei is doing to deliver 7.6% - and climbing!
