† The Right To Bear Arms Belongs To Us All: Part II: A home invader forced a MD maintenance man into his apartment and fired a shot at him. But the tables unexpectedly turned on the criminal, reports The Washington Post:

"The victim … had a weapon inside the home that he used to shoot the suspect," said Cpl. Mike Rodriguez, a spokesman for the Prince George's County Police Department. "We believe that the victim had every right to defend himself." …

Law enforcement sources said the shooting appeared to be justified - a classic case of an armed homeowner shooting an intruder. It remains unclear, however, how the maintenance man obtained his gun or whether he possessed it legally. Investigators said they were still exploring that. …

While he was being interviewed by detectives, his mother granted a brief interview and said, "G-d had a shield of protection all around him."

Yup, and that divine protection took the form of a pistol, which he had the fundamental right to own for self-defense.

† Living In These Mad, Mad, Madoff Times: A new Pew Research Center survey finds that one out of two Americans have experienced financial setbacks during the recession, including unemployment, pay cuts reduced hours at work or part-time jobs, reports The Washington Post:

Nearly half of the survey's respondents say they are in worse financial shape as a result of the downturn, which destroyed 20 percent of Americans' wealth. …

Among adults 62 and older who are still working, 35 percent say they have postponed retirement. Six in 10 working adults between ages 50 and 61 say they may be forced to do the same. Meanwhile, half of the survey respondents say they have whittled down their mortgages, credit card balances, car loans and other borrowing.

Four in 10 adults say they have tapped savings and retirement accounts to make ends meet. Others have sought help from friends and family. Almost a quarter say they have borrowed money from someone. And one in 10 - including 24 percent of workers from 18 to 29 years old - say they moved back in with their parents to weather the economic storm.

The new, more frugal lifestyles may outlast the recession and its immediate aftermath, the survey indicated. Nearly half of respondents say they plan to save more; nearly a third say they plan to spend less and 30 percent say they plan to borrow less.

† Updates To Previous Posts (sixth item, A To Z Approach On Illegal Immigration In AZ): The border state’s new immigration law, which permits police to arrest illegal immigrant day laborers seeking work on the street or those trying to hire them, doesn’t kick in until July 29^th, but it’s already working, reports The Associated Press:

"Nobody wants to pick us up," Julio Loyola Diaz says in Spanish …

Many day laborers like Diaz say they will leave Arizona because of the law, which also makes it a state crime to be in the U.S. illegally and directs police to question people about their immigration status if there is reason to suspect they are illegal immigrants. …

An estimated 100,000 illegal immigrants have left Arizona in the past two years as it cracked down on illegal immigration and its economy was especially hard hit by the Great Recession. A Department of Homeland Security report on illegal immigrants estimates Arizona's illegal immigrant population peaked in 2008 at 560,000, and a year later dipped to 460,000.

The law's supporters hope the departure of illegal immigrants will help dismantle part of the underground economy here and create jobs for thousands of legal residents in a state with a 9.6 percent unemployment rate.

So where are the illegals going? Some of them are deporting themselves back to Mexico, but others are going to states and cities that look the other way at illegal immigration or have seen their attempts at controlling it through local ordinances shot down in court.

The Arizona Republic traces the 2,700-mile route taken by one Luis Sanchez and his wife, Marlen Ramirez, from Phoenix, to UT and finally to PA. The Republic (known to the locals as “The Repugnant”) reports that “[t]he day after Gov. Jan Brewer signed Arizona's new immigration law on April 23, Luis and Marlen decided to leave” and that “[h]undreds, perhaps thousands, of families have fled Arizona … [m]any … to neighboring states, many of which may soon try to adopt laws similar to Arizona's.”

The Associated Press reports that [l]Lawmakers or candidates in as many as 18 states say they want to push similar measures when their legislative sessions start up again in 2011. These states include ID, MI, MN, MA, NE, OK, RI and SC. Obviously, many of the states considering an AZ-type law do not border Mexico, but are citing such problems as Mexican drug gangs, depletion of community resources and shaky state budgets.

Looks like Attorney General Eric Holder may end up suing at least a third of the states and, in the process, thwarting the will of a sizeable percentage of the electorate. According to a recent Rasmussen Reports telephone survey, 58 percent of voters favor passage of a law like AZ’s in their own state.

†Updates To Previous Posts (second item, The Keystone Kops Are Enforcing U.S. Immigration Laws): Five years ago the Department of Homeland Security’s the Domestic Nuclear Detection Office promised to create a "global nuclear detection architecture” to prevent terrorists from smuggling nuclear materials into the U.S. and detonating a dirty bomb. But the Congressional auditors at the Government Accountability Office found that “[i]nstead of formulating a plan, the Domestic Nuclear Detection Office … spent more than $200 million on an ill-fated project to develop and deploy thousands of new high-tech detectors for screening vehicles and cargo at ports,” reports The Washington Post.

†Updates To Previous Posts (sixth item, Garbage In, Garbage Out: Part II): No longer will NYC pedagogues being investigated for everything from pilfering to pederasty be allowed get paid in full for doing nothing while waiting for their cases to be adjudicated, reports The New York Times:

For the last several years, teachers accused of incompetence or wrongdoing have been forced into rubber rooms, formally called Temporary Reassignment Centers, where they receive a full salary but do not work while they wait for the Department of Education or a hearing officer to decide their fate. But in April, city officials and the teachers’ union agreed to eliminate the rooms, which had been a source of embarrassment for all. Beginning in the fall, those teachers will perform administrative duties or be sent home if they are deemed a threat to students.

So Monday was the last day for the roughly 700 teachers and administrators spread among seven reassignment centers, where they were sent after being accused of transgressions as small as persistent tardiness and as serious as sexually harassing students.

This is a small victory for overtaxed NYers, but while the teachers are doing administrative tasks – whatever those may be – their pay grade should be adjusted accordingly.

† Updates To Previous Posts (eighth item, NJ Taxpayers Must Choose Between Dollars And Dolphins): The New York Times examines how Gov. Christopher Christie (R-NJ) signed the state’s smallest budget in five years into law with “little of the usual horse-trading” to get “major cuts to schools, municipalities, mass transit and other areas”:

Despite months of wrangling, Mr. Christie, a Republican in his first year in the State House, made no major concessions to the Democrats who control the Senate and the Assembly, as they allowed passage of a $29.4 billion budget that most of them opposed. But his toughest showdown with Democrats could come in the weeks ahead, as he seeks an amendment to the State Constitution to limit property taxes. …

More than any of his recent predecessors, he has repeatedly shown, on the budget and other issues, that he is willing to ignore Trenton’s customs and flex his political muscle. …

Throughout, his budget cutting and blunt style have made him a favorite of conservative commentators across the country.

“We do not feel like our job is anywhere close to being completed,” Mr. Christie said after signing the budget bills at a fire station in South River, in Middlesex County. “What I feel like is this kind of success gives us the momentum to go further, faster and harder and tougher.”

His goal, he said, is “to get government the hell out of your way and the hell out of your pocket.”

Christie is at loggerheads with the state Legislature over how much to limit annual growth of local property taxes. He wants a 2.5 percent cap, but lawmakers passed a bill that calls for a 2.9 percent limit. Though Christie pooh-poohs the effort as “Swiss cheese” because of the loopholes that The Times notes the paradigm shift: “The previous governor, Jon S. Corzine, a Democrat, had to fight forces in his own party to enact a 4 percent cap.”

†Updates To Previous Posts (second item, The Pluck Of The Irish): The New York Times contends that cutting spending instead of “stimulating” its economy with deficit spending has brought the “once thriving” Ireland to rack and ruin:

Nearly two years ago, an economic collapse forced Ireland to cut public spending and raise taxes, the type of austerity measures that financial markets are now pressing on most advanced industrial nations. …

Rather than being rewarded for its actions, though, Ireland is being penalized. Its downturn has certainly been sharper than if the government had spent more to keep people working. Lacking stimulus money, the Irish economy shrank 7.1 percent last year and remains in recession.

Joblessness in this country of 4.5 million is above 13 percent, and the ranks of the long-term unemployed - those out of work for a year or more - have more than doubled, to 5.3 percent. …

Despite its strenuous efforts, Ireland has been thrust into the same ignominious category as Portugal, Italy, Greece and Spain. It now pays a hefty three percentage points more than Germany on its benchmark bonds, in part because investors fear that the austerity program, by retarding growth and so far failing to reduce borrowing, will make it harder for Dublin to pay its bills rather than easier.

The two experts that The Times quotes directly actually undermine the premise of the article:

“When our public finance situation blew wide open, the dominant consideration was ensuring that there was international investor confidence in Ireland so we could continue to borrow,” said Alan Barrett, chief economist at the Economic and Social Research Institute of Ireland. “A lot of the argument was, ‘Let’s get this over with quickly.’ ”

“Europe is in a tough bind,” said Kenneth S. Rogoff, a former chief economist at the International Monetary Fund and now a Harvard professor. “If you want to escape default, the Irish path is the only way to go. But the Ireland experience points to the profound challenges that the current strategy implies.”