THE OTHER SHOE DROPS: Updates To Previous Posts
† Small Towns Cry “Tio” Over Lawsuits To Overturn Anti-Illegal Immigration Ordinances: Last year, after residents of the Dallas suburb of Farmers Branch enthusiastically voted to approve an ordinance passed by the town council barring landlords from renting to forged documented aliens, U.S. District Judge Sam A. Lindsay issued a temporary injunction to prevent its enforcement. Lindsay has struck the ordinance down as being unconstitutional on the grounds that only the federal government can regulate immigration, reports The Associated Press. The anticipated this outcome and has a Plan B to achieve the same goal: “require[ing] prospective tenants to get a rental license from the city, which would then ask the federal government for the applicant's legal status before approving it.”
† Proposed Amendment To CO Constitution Extends Rights To Fertilized Human Eggs: CO Secretary of State Mike Coffman confirmed that a proposed state constitutional amendment that defines a fertilized human egg as a person garnered an estimated 103,000 valid petition signatures - 76,000 were required - to make it on the November ballot, reports Rocky Mountain News.
† Heartless Hospitals: Hollywood Presbyterian Medical Center has settled charges it left a paraplegic man crawling around downtown Los Angeles' skid row in a hospital gown and colostomy bag, reports the Los Angeles Times. Under the terms of the agreement – the largest to date in L.A.’s crackdown on hospitals that “dump” indigent patients along skid row - Hollywood Presbyterian agreed to adopt new discharge rules and enhance services for homeless patients, will pay a $1 million fine that will go to nonprofit groups that provide medical care to indigent and homeless patients in the Hollywood area, and be monitored by a former U.S. attorney for up to five years. “Kaiser agreed to a smaller settlement last year, and the L.A. city attorney's office said it is investigating more than a dozen other hospital and medical offices suspected of dumping,” according to the Los Angeles Times.
† The Devil Is In The Disclosure Details: Political donors are telling columnist Robert Novak that “Sen. John McCain complains he is under pressure from President Bush and his former political adviser Karl Rove to select former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney as his vice presidential running mate.” As of this writing, Fox News, The Wall Street Journal, and other media outlets using Karl Rove as a political analyst continue to keep viewers and readers in the dark that he is hardly a disinterested observer, and that his insights cannot possibly be objective.
† Be Careful What You Wish For: By mid-July, 131 million households will have received a total of $110 billion in taxpayer rebates - up to $600 for individual filers with incomes over $75,000, and $1,200 for couples filing jointly earning less than $150,000, plus $300 for each eligible child under the age of 17. Half that money has already been disbursed, and The Associated Press was curious what they would do with the mini-windfall and asked “a small but broadly diverse group of consumers” in Chicago, Denver, Miami, Montpelier (VT) and New Orleans how they spent their rebate:
Many Americans allowed themselves to fantasize about large-screen TVs, European vacations and other luxuries when they learned of the federal rebates they'd be getting this spring and early summer.
Or maybe - shh, don't tell the president - they'd pay off a credit card or set the rebate aside for a big purchase in the future, notwithstanding Washington's intentions that they pump it immediately into the flagging economy. …
But reality has interfered, in the form of ever-climbing food bills and $4-a-gallon gasoline. Day-to-day living costs have sopped up the checks for many other early recipients and spoiled their rebate fantasies. Government figures released Friday showed consumer spending inched up just 0.2 percent in April, despite widespread anticipation of the stimulus payments sent out starting late in the month.
Based on a small but broadly diverse group of consumers who tracked their rebate spending in detail for The Associated Press, there was no mass rush to the malls for shopping sprees after the payments started showing up in bank accounts in significant numbers in May. The greater economic ramifications may not be seen for months.
The New York Times came across a Web site put up by a freelance writer in Brooklyn, NY, encouraging people to share HowISpentMyStimulus. Maybe there’s hope for the economy yet.
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