Burning Atlanta

Usually I don't post articles from the Washington Times because they are suffering from a guilt by association problem because the Reverend Sun Yung Moon, or whatever he's called, owns them. But this mentions a couple of aspect that bear noticing. Also, there've been several incidents of police arresting jerks bringing in loads of illegals to Maryland to get licenses. Even if Maryland enacts/has a residency requirement all it takes is some bogus receipts.

Take a stand for this nation.

Maryland is one of just five states that do not require that driver's license applicants be able to show they are in the United States legally, according to the Maryland Motor Vehicle Administration (MVA).

Marylanders gave the governor a 33 percent job-approval rating, slightly below Mr. Bush's rating. The poll also showed that 66 percent of respondents favored giving police the right to check the immigration status of drivers when they are pulled over for a traffic violation, while 76 percent said illegals should be barred from obtaining driver's licenses. But at the same time, however, the governor was coming under pressure from CASA of Maryland — the state's number one lobbying group for illegal aliens — not to yield at all. Politicians, typically, don't give a damn what the people want. They think they know best. And the only time they really get concerned about the will of the people is election time. Sadly, as we've seen, people keep voting these twits back into office. Often seems like a lesser of evils vote. "Yeah, this guy is a slime but he's not as big a slime as his opponent."

For now, the O'Malley administration's legislative priority is killing off the Brinkley and George Bills. So, the MVA has quietly released position papers which take no official position on either bill, raising questions about the costs and "confusion" resulting from the new regulations (welcome to government 101). Bureaucratic niceties aside, the bottom line is this: if H.B. 288 and S.B. 621 die this year, the governor believes that in 2009, with a Democrat in the White House, tougher standards for obtaining driver's licenses will whither on the vine. I think much of the legislation we're seeing passed falls under the category of, "Let's act like we're doing something by passing these laws but they won't take effect until AFTER the election and, hopefully, Congress will take this monkey off our backs."