President Joe Biden is bragging about the lower inflation that has been going down since April of this year. That is a good thing BUT what was the cause of that inflation?

There is a lot of debate about the cause of current inflation. People have blamed things like the Russian invasion of Ukraine and corporate price gouging for current high rates of inflation.

Despite all the controversy, according to Fortune, economists generally agree on some of the causes behind the high inflation that has defined the economy over the last several months:

• The pandemic shifted consumer demand away from services toward goods, which left producers unable to keep up with demand.
• Factory closures from early in the pandemic reduced supply just as demand was rising, which sent prices up even further.
• Russia’s invasion of Ukraine caused a spike in oil prices, which increased the cost of both manufacturing and shipping, while also forcing up the price of wheat and other commodities.

The improving inflation numbers are great but it was not the result of anything the president did. It was the result of the increased interest rates thanks to the Federal Reserve.

June CPI Report Key Stats

• CPI rose 0.2% for the month versus 0.1% in May.
• Core CPI rose 0.2% after rising 0.4% in May.
• CPI rose 3.0% year over year after rising 4.0% in May.
• Core CPI rose 4.8% year over year after rising 5.3% in May.

What great country we are. We have decided to provide Ukraine with cluster bombs. I am horrified!

Cluster bombs are a type of weapon that is designed to disperse smaller bombs over a large area. They are also known as cluster munitions, with the smaller bombs referred to as submunitions or bomblets. They are banned by 120 nations.

Watch the news and listen to government spokes people justify their use. Perhaps we should provide Ukraine with mustard gas or perhaps a few small nuclear weapons.

WASHINGTON (AP) — President Joe Biden on Friday defended what he said was a “difficult decision” to provide cluster munitions to Ukraine, a move the administration said was key to the fight and buttressed by Ukraine’s promise to use the controversial bombs carefully.

The decision comes on the eve of the NATO summit in Lithuania, where Biden is likely to face questions from allies on why the U.S. would send a weapon into Ukraine that more than two-thirds of alliance members have banned because it has a track record for causing many civilian casualties.

Washington Post opinion piece response

Here’s why supplying Ukraine with cluster munitions would be a terrible mistake

By Patrick Leahy and Jeff Merkley

Patrick Leahy, a Democrat, is a former U.S. senator from Vermont. Jeff Merkley, a Democrat, is a U.S. senator from Oregon who serves on the Foreign Relations Committee.

A few weeks after the Kremlin launched its full-scale invasion of Ukraine last year, reports from the battlefield revealed that Russian troops were using cluster munitions against Ukrainian targets. This news prompted a top U.S. official, as well as observers from dozens of other countries and humanitarian organizations, to denounce Moscow’s use of a weapon widely recognized as causing disproportionate civilian casualties.

Yet President Biden has now approved providing cluster munitions to Ukraine. This is a serious mistake.

We voted for billions of dollars in military aid for Ukraine and strongly believe we must continue to help the Ukrainian people defend themselves against Russian aggression. But supplying Kyiv with cluster munitions would come at an unsupportable moral and political price. Knowing that these weapons cause indiscriminate terror and mayhem, both of us — like many others in the international community — have worked for years to end their use.

Cluster munitions, such as land mines, undeniably offer some battlefield advantages — yet using them would compound the already devastating impact of the war on civilians and Ukrainian troops, with effects lasting for years to come.

Unlike Russian President Vladimir Putin, the United States subscribes to the laws of war and the importance of minimizing civilian casualties, and our support for Ukraine must be guided by such principles. Biden has recognized that this effort is about standing up for sovereignty, freedom and democracy in the face of horrific war crimes justified with Putin’s lies.

The impact of cluster munitions on innocent civilians persists for weeks, months, even years, sometimes long after a conflict ends. These weapons are designed to disperse swarms of small submunitions, known as “bomblets,” over large areas, causing widespread death and destruction. To make matters worse, they often fail to explode as designed. Russia’s use of cluster munitions in Ukraine killed and wounded hundreds of civilians between February and July 2022. In Laos and Vietnam, some of the tens of millions of unexploded U.S. cluster munitions deployed more than 50 years ago continue to maim and kill civilians. As senators, we traveled to Vietnam, where we witnessed firsthand the devastating and long-lasting effects these weapons have had on civilians.

Modern U.S. cluster munitions are no exception. They are scattered by the thousands, and while they have lower dud rates than in the past, those that fail to detonate can be activated by anyone who encounters them, whether a child or a Ukrainian soldier or anyone else. That is why 123 countries, including 23 out of 31 NATO members, have signed the Convention on Cluster Munitions, which bans the use and transfer of these weapons. While the United States is not a party to the convention, since 2003 the U.S. military used them only once, in Yemen, in 2009.

Since then, Congress, in a law one of us wrote, has prohibited the transfer of cluster munitions with a failure rate greater than 1 percent, which would restrict the number of unexploded bomblets that could endanger civilians long after the end of a conflict. Previously, this was also the Pentagon’s own policy. The law also stipulates that any agreement pertaining to the transfer of cluster munitions must specify that the munitions will not be used where civilians are known to be present. Any cluster munitions provided to Ukraine would exceed the 1 percent failure rate, and in providing Ukraine with cluster munitions the White House would therefore be acting contrary to that law.

The United States is by far the world’s largest donor for the clearance of land mines, cluster munitions and other unexploded ordnance, having contributed $213 million in 2022 alone. We have worked to increase Ukraine’s capabilities to clear Russian mines and unexploded munitions, and this costly, dangerous work will need to continue for decades.

Sending cluster munitions to Ukraine would not only reverse decades of U.S. policy and practice. It would also kill more civilians and exacerbate the very problem we are seeking to address when we provide millions of dollars for ordnance clearance. And it would go against the two-thirds of NATO members and other allies and partners who are party to the convention, and whose support is critical to our collective defense of Ukraine. The last thing we need is to risk a rupture with key allies over a weapon that the United States should be leading the global effort to prohibit.

Finally, providing cluster munitions to Kyiv would erode the moral advantage held by Ukraine and its supporters since the start of the war. While Russia has used cluster munitions in its barbaric onslaught, Putin’s propagandists could use our actions to further discredit Ukraine and its allies among nonaligned countries.

We must continue to provide Ukraine with the military, economic and humanitarian aid it needs to persevere, but in a manner that is worthy of the United States.

Bill Barr, former Attorney General under Donald Trump, Ramps Up His Showdown With ‘Troubled Man’ Trump in Stunning CBS Interview: He’s Like ‘A Defiant 9-Year-Old.’

In a stunning CBS interview on Sunday with Robert Costa, Barr doubled down on his opinion that Trump has only himself to blame for his current predicament.

“This is not a circumstance where he’s the victim or this is government overreach,” Barr said. “He provoked this whole problem himself. Yes, he’s been the victim of unfair witch hunts in the past. But that doesn’t obviate the fact that he’s also a fundamentally flawed person who engages in reckless conduct. And that leads to situations, calamitous situations like this, which are very destructive and hurt any political cause he’s associated with.”

The former attorney general did say that while Trump has “many good qualities” and “accomplished some good things,” his actions ultimately endanger the GOP cause.

“He is a consummate narcissist and he constantly engages in reckless conduct that that puts his political followers at risk and the conservative and Republican agenda at risk,” he said.

Barr then added this jawdropping postscript:

“He will always put his own interests and gratifying his own ego ahead of everything else, including the country’s interests. There’s no question about it. This is a perfect example of that. He’s like a 9-year-old — a defiant 9-year-old kid who’s always pushing the glass toward the edge of the table, defying his parents to stop him from doing it. It’s a means of self-assertion and exerting his dominance over other people. And he’s a very petty individual who will always put his interests ahead of the country’s, his personal gratification of his ego. But our country can’t be a therapy session for a troubled man like this.”

The Associated Press (AP) published an article today asking answering this question, “How much prison time could Trump face? Past cases brought steep punishment for document hoarders.”

Donald Trump should be very afraid if he is found guilty of the crimes he has been charged with doing.

The AP full response should have Trump shaking in his boots. However since Trump really believes he has done nothing he most likely believes he will be found not guilty or there will be a hung jury.

WASHINGTON (AP) — The FBI investigators who searched Harold Martin’s Maryland property in the fall of 2016 found classified documents — including material at the top secret level — strewn about his home, car and storage shed.

Unlike former President Donald Trump, the former National Security Agency contractor didn’t contest the allegations, ultimately pleading guilty in 2019 and admitting his actions were “wrong, illegal and highly questionable.” But his expressions of contrition and guilty plea to a single count of willful retention of national defense information didn’t spare him the harsh punishment of nine years in prison.

The resolution of that case looms as an ominous guidepost for the legal jeopardy Trump could face as he confronts 37 felony counts — 31 under the same century-old Espionage Act statute used to prosecute Martin and other defendants alleged to have illegally retained classified documents. Even many like Martin who have pleaded guilty and accepted responsibility have nonetheless been socked with yearslong prison sentences.

When major companies start large employee layoffs you know a recession is coming.  Jerome Powell and the Federal Reserve are raising interest rates and the effect is obvious. Powell is not finished raising rates as proven by the continuing low Unemployment Insurance Weekly Claims Report issued by U.S. Department of Labor.

Major US technology companies have collectively laid off more than 100,000 workers in January alone, with the majority of the firms citing a bleak economic outlook and recession fears as the core reason for the layoffs.

Amazon on March 20, 2023 announced that it will cut additional 9,000 jobs, after announcing 18,000 job cuts in January 2023. That included the closing of DP Review the camera advice web site. 

Electronic Arts, the maker of video game franchises such as Battlefield, FIFA and Madden, announced layoffs affecting roughly 6% of its workforce in March 2023. That translates to 775 jobs.

Warner Music Group, the New York-based entertainment company announced job cuts affecting 270 positions. 

Lucid Group, a San Francisco Bay area electric car maker, announced an 18% job cut of its more than 7,200 employees. 

Disney announced earlier in March that it is planning to layoff 7,000 employees across divisions. 

PayPal unveiled cut 2,000 employees, becoming the latest U.S. company to reduce its headcount, just hours after software company HubSpot announced it would lay off 500 positions in an effort to reduce costs. 

For those of you who are professional & amateur photographers the end of DP Review is a sad event. I have used this site repeatedly over the years to learn more about cameras and their abilities. I do not know of a site that does the job they perform. The site is owned by Amazon. Amazon is all about making money. Think about that.

YOUTUBE.COM

The end of DPReview

Sadly, the decision has been made to end DPReview.com and DPReview