"Coupe" Deval: I Haz Mandate!

Deval Patrick to push for in-state tuition for illegals

Massachusetts Gov. Deval Patrick on Tuesday vowed to adopt the rest of an advisory panel’s immigration reform recommendations, including pushing for in-state tuition for illegal immigrant students at state colleges, during his second term.

The Democratic governor made the announcement to cheers at the Massachusetts Immigrant and Refugee Advocacy Coalition’s annual Thanksgiving luncheon. The group’s executive director served as co-chair of the advisory panel that made the recommendations.

Gee, no conflict of interest there, is there? Patrick soft-pedaled the "in-state tuition for illegals" part of his platform in 2006 and didn't mention it at all in 2010. Given the irregularities in the MA voting process, coupled with the highly suspicious "independent" run of Tim Cahill, Patrick's seven point win over relative unknown Charlie Baker is hardly a mandate to push this idea. Then again, without MA's booming illegal population, who knows what "Cadillac" Deval's lead would have looked like - or even if it had been a lead at all?

Of course, another important question arises: Is Deval Patrick supremely incompetent, or a pathological liar?

"Well, my understanding is ... there is a federal law that is in the way of that, and without a change in the federal law we can’t do it on our own," said Patrick, who promised to push for the proposal while running for his first term. "I’d like to see that federal law changed."

However, several states, including California, Illinois, New Mexico, New York, Texas, Utah, Washington and Wisconsin allow undocumented students to attend state colleges at in-state tuition rates. Federal law does not forbid illegal immigrants from attending universities and colleges in the U.S. State laws vary on whether to grant illegal immigrants in-state tuition rates.

So, either Patrick hasn't done the most basic of research into this issue, in which case he's flagrantly incompetent; or he has, in which case he's lying through his teeth. Deval Patrick may be many things, but stupid is not one of them - I find it hard to believe that he was unaware that several other states (Texas? SRSLY? Alan???) give in-state tuition to illegal aliens. While I hate to think he just flat-out lied through his teeth, that is certainly more palatable than the idea that he was too clueless to look into it. Then again, this idea was soundly rejected four years ago - when the state was even more (D) controlled - so maybe he knows that it's not going anywhere no matter what he says...

Thanks, voters of Massachusetts, for saddling us with this miserable failure of a governor for four more years.

That is all.

Thanks to stretch for sending this story and bringing the bile to the back of my throat...