Novi, MI Correspondent — Yes, and the industry has been saying so since 2025 for reasons that had nothing to do with who was president. You cannot make a capital decision against a tariff that a court can vacate. That was the argument, it was correct, and February proved it in the most expensive possible … Continue reading With the emergency tariffs struck down in February and replaced under a narrower authority that expires by its own terms, does trade policy now have to go through Congress?
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Four months into the war with Iran, with the Strait of Hormuz still contested and a cessation of attacks six days old, what should the United States be trying to achieve now?
Jacksonville, FL Correspondent — A port has watched this from the first week and I'd start with what actually happened to the water. About a quarter of the world's seaborne oil and a fifth of its liquefied gas moved through that strait before February. It has been largely closed since, and what reopened it partially … Continue reading Four months into the war with Iran, with the Strait of Hormuz still contested and a cessation of attacks six days old, what should the United States be trying to achieve now?
With the midterms four months away, should the administration be judged primarily on enacted statutes or on enforcement metrics that a successor can reverse?
Gastonia, NC Correspondent — This question got answered twice this year by the Supreme Court, and the answer was statutes. In February the Court held the emergency tariffs were never authorized, and the signature economic policy of the term evaporated in four days. Last week it held that commissioners at independent agencies serve at will, … Continue reading With the midterms four months away, should the administration be judged primarily on enacted statutes or on enforcement metrics that a successor can reverse?
How should the United States treat expanding BRICS political coordination and local-currency settlement talk — as a serious long-term challenge to dollar clearing, or as a forum without a market?
Myrtle Beach, SC Correspondent — Treat the communiqué as a communiqué and the plumbing as plumbing. A dozen flags and a paragraph about local currency is not correspondent banking. The dollar's position is a stack — law that usually holds, a Treasury market that can absorb size, energy priced in a unit people trust, and … Continue reading How should the United States treat expanding BRICS political coordination and local-currency settlement talk — as a serious long-term challenge to dollar clearing, or as a forum without a market?
With AI systems now contributing to mathematical proofs, scientific literature analysis, and even the design of novel biological structures, are researchers seeing a genuine acceleration in discovery, or are the gains still mostly incremental and hard to verify?
Dayton, Ohio When somebody in my line of work says a process has become faster, my first question is not how impressive the demonstration looked. It is what moved through the system, how much came out right, and whether we can reproduce the result on Tuesday with a different crew. The distinction may sound ordinary, … Continue reading With AI systems now contributing to mathematical proofs, scientific literature analysis, and even the design of novel biological structures, are researchers seeing a genuine acceleration in discovery, or are the gains still mostly incremental and hard to verify?
How are advances in battery recycling and critical-mineral recovery technologies—particularly in large-scale operations—changing the economics and supply security of materials needed for electric vehicles and electronics?
JACKSONVILLE, FLORIDA If you want to understand battery recycling, start with a truck. That is not a poetic way of opening an argument about lithium and cobalt. It is an operational fact. A battery does not arrive at a recycler simply because somebody counted it in a national inventory. A damaged pack has to be … Continue reading How are advances in battery recycling and critical-mineral recovery technologies—particularly in large-scale operations—changing the economics and supply security of materials needed for electric vehicles and electronics?
Has the first year of efficiency politics produced measurable reductions in improper payments and idle programs, or mainly a new argument about who is allowed to look at the books?
Gastonia, NC The question asks what the first year produced. Before answering it, somebody should note that the organization itself is reported to have stopped existing about eight weeks ago. On the twenty-third of November the director of the Office of Personnel Management told Reuters, when asked about DOGE's status, that it does not exist … Continue reading Has the first year of efficiency politics produced measurable reductions in improper payments and idle programs, or mainly a new argument about who is allowed to look at the books?
With the effort now folded into the personnel office and other agencies rather than operating as a standalone body, how should the work be made permanent rather than becoming another audit that gets filed?
Long Island, NY Correspondent — The vehicle was always the wrong shape for the mission, and its absorption this autumn is the proof. An entity created by executive order, staffed with temporary employees, with no statutory authority to compel anything, was going to end when attention moved. It did. If the work is to be … Continue reading With the effort now folded into the personnel office and other agencies rather than operating as a standalone body, how should the work be made permanent rather than becoming another audit that gets filed?
Did the government efficiency effort identify genuine waste and fraud in federal programs, and what has it established that a future administration cannot ignore?
Gastonia, NC Correspondent — It established something that badly needed establishing, which is that nobody in Washington could tell you where the money went. Not that it was stolen. That nobody could produce a list. The government's own auditors put improper payments at something like a hundred and sixty billion a year, and cumulatively somewhere … Continue reading Did the government efficiency effort identify genuine waste and fraud in federal programs, and what has it established that a future administration cannot ignore?
Did the political realignment produce more functional governance, or new forms of polarization?
Wheeling, WV Correspondent — Realignment can create clearer coalitions and coherent majorities. It can also rearrange the same conflict into new lines. We now have a year of evidence and it's not encouraging on the functional half. Unified control produced one large bill and then a forty-three-day shutdown, the longest ever recorded, resolved by an … Continue reading Did the political realignment produce more functional governance, or new forms of polarization?
