The Angry Bear

SCOTUS is moving to limit the power of congressionally legislated Agencies to write Regulations and Rules as delegated by Acts of Congress. The decision forces actions normally taken by empowered legislative Agencies back into Congress where they can be challenged. SCOTUS is picking on the EPA, restricting various regulations and rules it dislikes using the “major questions doctrine.” Process Congress writes Acts and passes them. These Acts...

I’m not a big consumer of liturgical music. I still listen to Handel’s Messiah on Christmas. So it surprised me when I found myself enjoying a boxed set of LPs of Bach’s St. Matthew Passion recorded about 50 years ago. It’s in German, of course, so I’m not following the libretto, just the voices and instruments.There’s a theme that will be familiar to those, like me, who have attended a church that features Christian hymns. The title varies, but is...

by New Deal democrat Weekly Indicators for June 27 – July 1 at Seeking Alpha My Weekly Indicators post is up at Seeking Alpha. There was yet more deterioration this week, focused on the long and short leading indicators. But consumer spending still seems to be holding up. As usual, clicking over and reading should bring you up to the virtual moment about the economy, and bring me a little pocket change to buy lunch....

“Manufacturing and construction start out the second half of 2022 with more bad news“  – by New Deal democrat Let’s take a look at the new month’s first data, on manufacturing and construction. The ISM manufacturing index, and especially its new orders subindex, is an important short leading indicator for the production sector. In June, for the first time, the leading new orders index showed slight contraction, declining below 50 to 49.2...

“Ending Roe is a pure exercise of Republican power, wielded to reduce women’s freedom and equality” – Los Angeles Times (latimes.com), Erwin Chemerinsky Freedom and equality have expanded enormously over the course of American history, which makes the ending of a constitutional right virtually unprecedented. In Dobbs vs. Jackson Women’s Health Organization, the court overruled a half-century of decisions protecting a constitutional right of...

A Break On The JCPOA Iran Nuclear Deal?  Maybe. It is now reported that “talks are to resume,” although most observers are not optimistic. But then today there is a report of a shakeup in the Iranian Revolutionary Guards hierarchy who seem to control the most serious of these things. Head of their intel, Taeb, has been removed, although it is unclear what this will lead to, despite noises he was too hardline and maybe a deal can be cut with...

For the sake of the nation, the current Supreme Court majority needs to acknowledge that they were wrong and rescind their decisions on Roe, EPA, Guns, Church and State, Vaccinations, and School Prayer; then, resign en masse. They need to do so in order to save the nation the agony of the traditional fifty – one-hundred years wait for overturning such odoriferously bad decisions: in order to reduce the strain on our already strained democracy. As...

RJS: Focus on Fracking ________ Summary: US oil supplies at an 18 year low, SPR at a 36 year low, total oil + oil products supply at a 13½ year low. _________ Detail: The Latest US Oil Supply and Disposition Data from the EIA  Sidenote: The US oil data reported this week by the US Energy Information Administration includes updated data for the week ending June 17th, which should have been published last week but wasn’t due to a...

Real personal income and spending decline in May, while the saving rate increases (not good!) In May nominal personal income rose 0.5%, and spending rose 0.2%. But since the personal consumption deflator, i.e., the relevant measure of inflation, rose 0.6%, real income fell -0.1%, and real personal spending fell -0.4%. While both real income and spending are well above their pre-pandemic levels, I have stopped comparing them with that, but...

What does this make you think? .@JakeMGrumbach and I looked at public opinion on abortion in today's @monkeycageblog. We find that a majority of the public in about 40 states support legal abortion rights. (1/2)https://t.co/aTB76HGayc pic.twitter.com/IT4Sd2y0aa— Chris Warshaw (@cwarshaw) June 25, 2022Option 1:  This is a moral outrage! Option 2:  We need to figure out how to win elections! Politics is not a morality play, folks!  If you...