Whoah!?! Red State licences “illegals”?

Timmeh better be askin’ those Utah R Senators ’bout this! (But don’t hold your breath….)

http://www.stateline.org/live/…..tId=234828

Only Utah currently issues a different sort of license for people, including immigrants, who don’t have Social Security numbers. The state’s “driver privilege card” has red outlines and, at the top, states the card is “not valid identification for Utah government entity.”

“We paid very, very close attention to developments with Real ID and best practices,” said Jill Laws, a spokeswoman for Utah’s Department of Public Safety.

I can’t believe people acting shocked — shocked, they say – that the frontrunner is attacked by other candidates. Like, of course, man.

I’m not shocked. But then when their supporters assert that a) it wasn’t an attack, b) Hillary isn’t the front-runner, and c) that their candidate made a far more logically coherent argument that Hillary…

Well, I gotta laugh. The attack was to get Clinton flustered and to hope that it would result in some major F*ck-up. It didn’t. She came out of it virtually unscathed. Her poll results after the debate didn’t change an iota.

And it’s not so much that a front-runner was attacked, it was that Edwards and Obama, who have traditionally tried to portray themselves as being Presidential timbre because they were “above the fray” of political attack, stooped to it. It was almost like an episode of the McLaughlin group up there for awhile. One might have expected it from Dodd, or Biden…but not those two.

As far as actually coming out with a position on this issue distinct from Hillary…Obama, after the debate, essentially came down on the same side as Spitzer and Clinton.

And I’ve posted Edward’s somewhat difficult to comprehend position, enunciated on Stephanopolis’ show above.

Myrtle June @ 144

cinnimonape – Edwards was hammering the point that hillary is unable to give a straight answer. Dodd’s the only one that held issue on the actual position of what is not the domain of the President.

Well if that wasn’t his view in the Debate…he made it in the Stephanopolis interview. So I assume that he agrees with Dodd…and with Clinton that the Drivers Licenese issue is a State level decision. But like Hillary, he also has an opinion on whether Spitzer is going about it in the correct manner.

The point was that Hillary really never gives an answer in any difinitive way. That’s true. Presidents aren’t to meddle in state’s rights is the correct answer from Hillary. Had she done that, it wouldn’t have been an issue.

First off that’s what she said. But she also said she agreed with Spitzer’s approach. BTW SHE was the only one there at the debate that SUPPORTED Spitzer’s decision. Edwards, Dodd and Obama attacked her coming down on the same side as Spitzer. Just who was it at the debate saying that it was “Spitzer’s decision” OTHER than Hillary. I guess it’s only meddling when a Presidential candidate SUPPORTS a governors decision. But when the other candidates attacked Spitzer’s position… that’s NOT interference?

Second…Hillary recognized that it was also an issue that relates to comprehensive immigration reform, that it’s not simply an issue of licensing of drivers. That IS within the purview of a Senator, and a President. i didn’t here any of the other candidates say this in the debate…that there is an essential relationship between the proble,ss faced by Governors and the failure to deal with immigration issues nationally.

Edwards in the Stephanopolis interview essentially said precisely what Hillary said in the debate regarding the Governors perogative. He also picked up her point on it requiring larger immigration reform. If you disagree with that please point out the differences???

But Edwards, in that interview gave his own views as to a “proper” licensing system. He ONLY wants to give licenses to those “on the way to citizenship”.

Oh wait…isn’t that meddling with Spitzer’s decisions if a Presidential candiadate uses it as a campaign issue…and an area that the ex-Senator has already said isn’t his perogative? I’m now confused?

Now to the substance of Edward’s position on Driver’s Licenses: restricting DL’s to only those “on the way to citizenship”. What about all those foreign students attending New York universities and colleges. Should they be banned from driving? What about resident aliens or visiting businessmen who have no intent of becoming US Citizens? Should they be restricted from driving? And what does Edwards mean by “those on the way to citizenship”? Does he mean that people will ave to bring in a a copy of an application they have made to the US Immigration and Naturalization service? That they have applied for legal residency? That they have been granted legal residency?

Why doesn’t Edwards simply say that he isn’t in favor of giving illegal aliens Drivers Licenses? Or does he really intend on stripping the driving privileges of millions of people who currently have Drivers Licenses in this country?

And when he ran in 2004 why did Edwards say he was in favor of giving undocumented immigrants drivers licenses?

Why the flip-flop now?

So just who is unable to give a straight answer????

She’s the “frontrunner” but virtue of a country that can’t let go of the past and polls based on maybe 1-2000 land line who are home at the time of the call, who want to respond. That one poll even came out of the Hillary campaign.

Sorry! There have been scores of polls showing that Hillary is well ahead of Obama and that Edwards sits down about 10%. My preferred candidate isn’t even in it. It’s not just a single poll…and not one “out of the Hillary campaign”. These are polls from all sorts of different sources ranging from TV networks to large newspapers (LA Times, Washington Post, LA Times), to colleges, to independent survey organizations (Zogby). They are all pretty consistant in their results. They have cumulative, sampled tens of thousands of people randomly…different people every month.

The very reason that Edwards and Obama have focussed their attention on Hillary is because THEY ALSO KNOW that they are behind and she is the strong frontrunner, not only nationally, but also in the early primary states.

I just wish we could all reserve the coronation until some actual voters have voted and even then not call this “race” until all the primaries have concluded. People do want to feel their vote counts or they won’t vote at all. Its not fair to the voters who are pretty swayed by “popular opinion”. Which I also don’t understand….. but they are.

I agree with you but unless you intend to ban the 1st Amendment and outlaw polling and surveys on anything. Otherwise I don’t know what to do about that except to encourage people to make up their own minds, watch the debates, look at a persons voting record and legislative history, and their prior statements. But you can’t force people from being lazy and opting to follow the crowd. In addition, people tend to gravitate to those that they believe will be competitive.

And the Right Wing hate screeds against Hillary have made her sort of an icon, justified or not, as the “anti-Republican”. Their own attacks have given her free media exposure for the last 18 years that she would never have gotten otherwise. Without it she’d be about as well-known as Mamie Eisenhower.

Hillary admittedly gains an advantage, but also an albatross by her “name recognition”. But in polls Obama has also come out of nowhere and surpasses Edwards, who was a Presidential candidate in 2003-4 and actually was the Vice-Presidential candidate with Kerry. Edwards should be doing far better than 10% or so based on name recognition. But because he “disappeared” from the political scene for four years he lost a lot of momentum. He didn’t have to take stands on many of the prominent issues of the time as a sitting Senator. He didn’t really come out and run actively for the last three years, building up a widespread national base of grass-roots support. I suspect that has hurt him. A lot of potential Edwards supporters jumped to Obama, who WAS the new face.

In my view if people really want to stop the Hillary leviathan either Edwards or Obama need to drop out and ask their supporters to support the other one. And that has to occur soon after the Iowa/NH primaries. If not before. It will require a great deal of will and humility, and supporters of that candidate will have to not stray to other candidates. My prognosis. T’aint gonna happen.

RockPaperScizzors says (at 70): Solution: the US annexes (sounds much better than invade or pre-emptive war) Mexico, steals incorporates its’ resources, expands oil exploration and get off the middle-east oil tit, and the mexican populace become taxpaying citizens of the new and expanded United States and allowed the privelege of applying for a driver’s license.

It’s called Security and Prosperity Partnership of North America

LOL!

I think the proper name would be the “Greater Asian North American Co-Prosperity Sphere”

You all did see that Wilkes is guilty on all 13 counts, right?

I guess that Wilkes should have cooperated with the prosecution like his buddy Mitchell Wade did. He better start squeling fast on all those Congressmen and Senators that he used his whores and cash to sway.

My guess is that there are going to a lot of very nervous Republicans deciding whether they want to become “undocumented immigrants” to Paraguay or Laos over the next fewweeks!

Okay, lesse now … Millions of undocumented immigrants (where’s katymine ? *g*) own homes,
stocks, businesses and cars but people want to deny them Driver’s Licenses ?

They also pay Social Security taxes (for which they will never claim), sales taxes (which go for services that many do use, admittedly), property taxes (if they live in apartments…that goes to the state, county or municipal tax base for schools). Probably there is a disproportionate number of single undocumented immigrants…thus they are not using school services at the same rate they put money into the system.

Where they DO likely place a burden on the system is in the case of them using Emergency Room Services and the fact that they don’t carry insurance because of their undocumented status. But we could reduce that “cost” by allowing them access to clinics where they pay for preventative health care without threat of deportation…and allowing them to obtain licenses and insurance. The licenses could be IDL’s, thus not indicative of citizenship status (which is actually true of all other State issued DL’s and ID’s…they are not a document of citizenship status, either). They could be used in Mexico, Guatamala, Canada, etc. The big issue is insurance and how to sort that mess out. But I’d rather have an undocumented have insurance than not.

I don’t fault Spitzer for trying but I thought it was a bit overly optimistic to think folks would waltz right into a DMV and sign up for ICE. After all we already have a nifty little document called an international drivers license which could easily serve Spitzers plan. I also appreciated one point Senator Dodd made about not creating extra bureaucracy.

True, but one needs a drivers license already to obtain the International Drivers License. There’s no “licensing system” to obtain it…meaning that you don’t go in and take a drivers test for, specifically, the Int’l Drivers License. It’s issued ASFAIK by the AAA.

So an immigrant not eligible currently for a State issued license would need to apply in their country with their foreign license. And I think states restrict the time period an individual can drive on an IDL without obtaining a more permanent license.

But the IDL structure could be adapted, allowing individuals to pay a fee for the test, and either obtain an IDL via the AAA or bring thye AAA system into the State procedures.

Here’s the interesting thing. If an undocumented individual had already obtained an IDL in their home country they can “legally”: drive in the US using that document. I’m not sure if that allows them to obtain insurance without additional identification, though.

Drivers licenses are not indicators of CITIZENSHIP. They simply indicate that the individual has the privilege to drive. That would make them a national id card…something that most Americans have resisted.

cinnimonape – Edwards was hammering the point that hillary is unable to give a straight answer. Dodd’s the only one that held issue on the actual position of what is not the domain of the President. The point was that Hillary really never gives an answer in any difinitive way. That’s true. Presidents aren’t to meddle in state’s rights is the correct answer from Hillary. Had she done that, it wouldn’t have been an issue.

I just didn’t see this as an attack at all. Its a debate and the methods by which one would govern and communicate is an important point. She’s the “frontrunner” but virtue of a country that can’t let go of the past and polls based on maybe 1-2000 land line who are home at the time of the call, who want to respond. That one poll even came out of the Hillary campaign. I just wish we could all reserve the coronation until some actual voters have voted and even then not call this “race” until all the primaries have concluded. People do want to feel their vote counts or they won’t vote at all. Its not fair to the voters who are pretty swayed by “popular opinion”. Which I also don’t understand….. but they are.

The debates are to show their strengths and weakness’ or else it would be called a tea party.

Anyway, its a mess with about three actual valid issues all rolled up into one “immigration” issue. Impossible to sort out given the framing of the conversation. The driver’s license doesn’t solve one bit of it either. It just creates more problems, really.

I can’t believe people acting shocked — shocked, they say – that the frontrunner is attacked by other candidates. Like, of course, man.

I just didn’t see this as an attack at all. Its a debate and the methods by which one would govern and communicate is an important point. She’s the “frontrunner” but virtue of a country that can’t let go of the past and polls based on maybe 1-2000 land line who are home at the time of the call, who want to respond. That one poll even came out of the Hillary campaign. I just wish we could all reserve the coronation until some actual voters have voted and even then not call this “race” until all the primaries have concluded. People do want to feel their vote counts or they won’t vote at all. Its not fair to the voters who are pretty swayed by “popular opinion”. Which I also don’t understand….. but they are.

The debates are to show their strengths and weakness’ or else it would be called a tea party.

Anyway, its a mess with about three actual valid issues all rolled up into one “immigration” issue. Impossible to sort out given the framing of the conversation. The driver’s license doesn’t solve one bit of it either. It just creates more problems, really.