The Angry Bear

And Babies? Uvalde = My Lai. This is not hyperbole. War crimes are an inevitable byproduct of war. Mass shootings are an inevitable byproduct of militarism and a militarized culture.  The same political process that led to and perpetuated the war in Vietnam continues to perpetuate the slaughter of innocents in American schools, supermarkets, nightclubs, subways, and synagogues. It is not just the “extreme right” doing this. It is the...

Planters have been running all out over the last few weeks as the envelope to get spring planted before summer heat and drought sets in even further. We will start with what the market was expecting yesterday and the results of the USDA Planted Progress Report as of yesterday. Discussed at length on yesterday’s Go Farm Yourself spaces meeting via Ag Twitter, the hosts, commodity traders, and the listeners, mostly agriculture producers, farmers,...

The end of Roe The era of judicial protection for abortion rights appears to ending.  The Supreme Court is poised to uphold a Mississippi statute that prohibits most abortions after 15 weeks, and it is likely to do this by overruling Roe entirely.  When this happens, many states will enforce draconian laws limiting access to abortion.  There is a real possibility that Republicans will seek a national ban on abortion the next time they gain unified...

Boston Public Radio May 19th episode held a discussion of the consequences for the nation when abortion is outlawed. The guest was Jonathan Gruber, the Ford Professor of Economics at MIT. He was involved with the ACA and the Mass health insurance system. Getting right to it: Based on studies: Women who wanted an abortion but could not get one are more likely to die in child birth, have worse mental health outcomes and a huge increase in...

RJS, MarketWatch 666 Summary: Retail Sales Rose 0.9% in April after March Sales Revised 0.9% Higher Seasonally adjusted retail sales rose 0.9% in April, after retail sales March were revised 0.9% higher, while sales for February were revised a bit lower . . . the Advance Retail Sales Report for April (pdf) from the Census Bureau estimated that our seasonally adjusted retail and food services sales totaled a record high $677.7 billion...

Not quite star wars yet. The past and old age of warfare is changing as we watch the conflict in the Ukraine between one ill equipped small defender and the more modern equipped large attacker. It is only because of NATO and the US equipping Ukraine has the stubborn resistance held up. The lessons to be learned from watching the Ukrainians beat the Russians is something which the US should be paying attention too. While our military may not be as...

Expanding BRICS?  Chinese paramount leader Xi Jinping has called for the BRICS group to expand to include Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan, Thailand, Indonesia, Argentina, Nigeria, Senegal, Egypt, and Saudi Arabia. The original group, suggested by the research department at Goldman Sachs in 2001 as a group to leading future world economic growth was Brazil, Russia, India, and China, who then decided to officially form a group, which then added South Africa...

RJS, Focus on Fracking Summary: Strategic Petroleum Reserve at a 34 year low, US oil supplies at a 17 year low, total oil + products  inventories at a 13½ year low The Latest US Oil Supply and Disposition Data from the EIA US oil data from the US Energy Information Administration for the week ending May 13th indicated that after a jump in our oil exports, another oil withdrawal from the SPR, and an increase in demand that could not be...

I stole this comment from a place from I read on a regular basis. An Incredible commentary. Having grown up in that era, I felt it had merit and believe the commenter gets it right. The programs mentioned here are under attack by Republicans. SCOTUS is using nondelegation as the basis to dismantle programs. Congress did pass these programs, allocated funds to support the programs, and established the means for administration. A program can be...