(1) Possibly Irrelevant Image for today:
(2) Judge Blocks Az. Law S.B. 1070. Breaking news--U.S. District Court Judge Susan Bolton blocked key parts of Arizona's restrictive and invasive immigration law, which was to go into effect in a couple of days. Here's what the New York Times has to say:
But Judge Bolton took aim at the parts of the law that have generated the most controversy, issuing a preliminary injunction against sections that called for officers to check a person’s immigration status while enforcing other laws and that required immigrants to carry their papers at all times.
Judge Bolton put those sections on hold while she continues to hear the larger issues in the challenges to the law.
Read the judge's order. Read the rest of the Times article.
(2) Dean Baker on the CBO and Social Security: Dean Baker suspects the Congressional Budget Office is joining in the frenzy to target Social Security as a way to deal with deficits (or rather, the frenzy to use deficits as an pretext for targeting Social Security). At issue is the way the CBO models the effect of deficits on private investment:
CBO changed its modeling of the impact of deficits and debt on the crowding out of private investment. As a result, the 2010 projections show that deficits in the near future will crowd out far more investment than the 2009 projections. This leads deficits to have a far more negative impact on GNP growth.
Read the full issue brief. For more on "crowding out," see this article by our own Alejandro Reuss.
(3) Financial Reform, Round Two: As we reported yesterday (item two), the banks have already moved on to figuring out how to influence rule-making related to the new financial regulations--by hiring former regulators. Mary Battari of BanksterUSA has pointed out a second sense in which we are in Round Two of financial reform: the opportunity to push for further changes like a transaction tax.
Repo the Dough:The Rising Tide:
More interesting posts by Mary and others at BanksterUSA, including a recent one on efforts to make sure Elizabeth Warren is named head of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau.
(4) Employers on Strike: Last but not least, we just posted John Miller's latest column, Employers Go on Strike--Because They Can, from our current (July/August) issue. Enjoy!
--Chris Sturr