We just had an open forum a few days ago, so I was going to skip the Friday Forum. Then I read this, my head exploded, I already was struggling because I didn’t sleep at all last night, so I need some time to mop up and repack my head:
The Department of Justice filed a lawsuit against Minnesota Wednesday for its laws that provide free and reduced tuition rates to illegal aliens. The laws, a DOJ press release contends, unconstitutionally discriminate against out-of-state U.S. citizens, who are not afforded the same privileges at Minnesota’s public colleges and universities….According to the lawsuit [“…which names Gov. Tim Walz, Attorney General Keith Ellison and the Minnesota Office of Higher Education as defendants”], federal law prohibits states from providing illegal aliens with any post secondary education benefit that is denied to U.S. citizens….The lawsuit explains how a 2013 state law allows illegal aliens who establish residency in Minnesota to benefit from reduced, in-state tuition rates….Additionally, the DFL-controlled Minnesota Legislature established in 2023 a free tuition program for students whose families make less than $80,000 annually. Illegal aliens are eligible for the program. The lawsuit asks the U.S. District Court to declare the laws unconstitutional and prohibit their enforcement.
“We are reviewing the lawsuit and will vigorously defend the state’s prerogative to offer affordable tuition to both citizen and non-citizen state residents,” a spokesperson for the attorney general’s office said.”
KABOOM!
A few rueful points, and then you write about whatever you want…
- Why are we just hearing about this now, when the knuckleheaded governor of Minnesota was running from August 2024 to November to be a heartbeat from the Presidency? Why didn’t Trump confront Harris with that insanity? Why did no one in the news media, Axis or not, report on it?
- These laws are the equivalents of “Welcome, illegal immigrants!” invitations to break the law, with Minnesota being a “sanctuary state.” Minnesota citizens are that stupid, or in the alternative, that clown car crazy? How did they get that way? Can they be treated?
- What logic can possibly justify this?
- Note that the Minnesota AG is still obfuscating, not having the honesty of integrity to call a metaphorical spade a spade. “Non-citizen state residents”! The state lies, cheats and steals under Walz, but this is what the Democratic Party now stands for. No wonder he thinks he has a shot at the Presidential nomination in 2028.
Back to brain clean-up…
Ethics Alarms 
i probably need to spend some time with AI to understand the ins and outs of tuition that is In State and Out of State. Like – what an arcane dumbass system. “If you go to school far from your home and remove your safety nets, we’re going to charge you more.”
What justification is there for universities charging different prices to different people anymore?
In Wyoming, we only have one University. There is a private Catholic four-year college that offers a single degree as well, but otherwise, we only have the one university for four year degrees, though we have seven community colleges which can prepare you for UW or get you an associates degree.
Because of this, In-State Tuition helps our kids get an education for a lower price, and we want to prioritize our kids. One thing we have found in this state is that out-of-state folks tend to hate working in our climate and low population areas. We can get folks from out of state to come here and work for a couple years, and then they always go back to places where there are shopping malls, concert halls, and theaters.
In-State tuition, as well as our generous In-State scholarships are meant to encourage kids who are more likely to stay here with those degrees that our tax and mineral money subsidize. We want to keep local kids nearby, educate our populace, and keep the good brains in the state. Out-of-State Tuition being higher is to discourage people who will take up some of the limited space and then disappear. I am still a little peeved that over half of my graduating class from ChemE took their efforts elsewhere instead of hitting up all the jobs the state has to offer.
There is, at least here out West, a real divide between states, with each person being more like Lee than Lincoln. We see ourselves as a [fill in State here] first and American second. This is partially because most of what comes out of DC has little value out here. Also, Colorado and the West Coast are totally crazy. I have often heard expressed that the USA is an empire and we are in the “countries” (after all, that is what state used to mean) that make it up. The culture between the states differs greatly out here, and from my stint out east, differs even more greatly between the “East Coast” and the “Midwest” and what we experience out here. With different cultures, priorities, and attitudes, I cannot see that preserving our culture at the cost of discouraging crazies (looking especially at you Colorado, Oregon, Washington, and California) from coming is not a bad thing.
If you look at a college education as a limited resource to those who can afford it (and are smart enough to get through it), then charging different prices makes sense. We have to prioritize our resources to take care of our own population. This is not much different than the immigration issue, where we want only the immigrants who can follow the laws and contribute to our nation. Here, we want the people who can most likely help the state.
“What justification is there for universities charging different prices to different people anymore?”
In short, State colleges and universities are subsidized by State tax money, so the idea is that if you’re only eligible for that subsidy if you’re a resident of the given State (and a taxpayer).
–Dwayne
A Tale of Two Brothers: The Ethical Obligation to be Competent
I wrote recently on the importance of understanding American history unfiltered from the biases of authors looking to take gratuitous shots at President Trump. If you’ve been around here for very long, you know I read a lot of books. A lot. Mostly history. Do you know what gets on my nerves besides blatant bias? Wrong information.
I don’t mean an interpretation of an event or its significance with which I don’t agree. I mean the facts written are incorrect.
I am currently reading William Hazelgrove’s “Madam President: The Secret Presidency of Edith Wilson”. This is a particularly timely subject for Americans. As the Trump Deranged ignore the precedents set by many previous presidents of having unelected advisors helping them (Just to pull a name out of a hat, how about Woodrow Wilson and his confidant Col. Edward House?), it is ironic that Edith Wilson’s usurping of the role may have set a precedent for what seems to have happened with our last president. Scuttlebutt appears to be that advisors of Dr. Jill Biden were involved in running interference for her declining husband. How much Dr. Jill was involved remains to be seen, but the example of Edith Wilson had to have been considered while it was happening. The story of Mrs. Wilson and the doctor hiding the President’s condition from the public, keeping Cabinet members and other government functionaries away from him, letting bills he never saw pass (if only auto-pens existed back then!) and cutting the Vice-President (Indiana’s own Thomas Riley Marshall) out of the process completely is essential for Americans to understand. Like so much of our history, it’s a cautionary tale that we should know about so we can make sure it doesn’t happen again. Too late for that, I suppose.
I was even happy that this book was published in 2016 so it was likely to be free of the anti-Trump screeds that have been infuriating me of late.
Lack of Trump Derangement, notwithstanding, a writer of history must get the facts right. In chapter 14, Hazelgrove starts off by describing the Best Picture-winning movie The King’s Speech which chronicles the difficulty Prince Albert, the Duke of York, had overcoming his stutter. Known as Bertie, he was the younger brother of Edward, Prince of Wales, who was the heir to the throne. Edward became King only to abdicate when he wanted to marry Mrs. Simpson. At the end of the movie, Bertie became King George VI in his place and gave one of the most important speeches of his life by addressing the nation at the outset of World War II.
I assume Hazelgrove actually saw the movie. Then again…
From pages 87-89, he repeatedly misidentifies the Prince of Wales. In 1919, King George V and Queen Mary, along with Edward, Prince of Wales, visited the United States. While here, each of them met Wilson who was recovering from his stroke.
The following passages are transcribed as they are written in the book, including the missing punctuation.
Page 87: “King Edward has no choice but to abdicate and the stuttering prince of Wales becomes king on the eve of World War II.”
Bertie was the one with the stutter and, while he did become king upon the abdication of Edward, he was not the Prince of Wales. Edward had been Prince of Wales before he became King and was when he met Wilson in 1919. Bertie never held that title.
Page 88: “The prince of Wales visited a week later and Wilson charmed the younger man…The prince, unlikely future king, sat down on the bed and found himself looking for words…The stutter was there. The prince of Wales had a problem getting the words out, literally.”
Again, Edward was the Prince of Wales. Edward did not stutter. There are no footnotes in this book, just a select bibliography at the end. What is the author’s source that Edward stuttered when he spoke to Wilson? In case you’re wondering, there is also no evidence that Bertie was on this trip and met Wilson instead of or in addition to Edward.
Page 89: “The prince would take over the throne from his brother in 1939, the year Hitler invaded Poland, triggering the Second World War. The ‘speech’ in The King’s Speech is the speech he would have to give over radio announcing the Declaration of War on Germany with all its cataclysmic results. But now he was talking with a man who had ushered the world through the First World War. From a historical perspective it was a poignant meeting, for here are two men whose fates were strangely linked. On the one side, President Wilson is dying from the pressures of the First World War and on the other the prince of Wales, the future king, who would come into his own during the conflict precipitated by the future of the League of Nations. If it weren’t for Wilson’s debilitating illness the League of Nations might have been formed and World War II avoided.”
What hot mess is this? Nearly three pages devoted to making a point about a young man who will lead his country during a future war meeting an old, sick man who helped end the last one is a moot endeavor when you aren’t writing about the correct person.
Edward, Prince of Wales, will not lead his country during World War II. He will abdicate in 1936, not 1939 when WWII started, and let his stuttering brother, Albert, absorb the toll of leading the British Empire, something that the Royal Family believed contributed to Bertie’s early demise. Now that is somewhat of an eerie parallel to Wilson, if you ignore Bertie’s lifelong massive smoking habit.
And that’s not even getting into the notion that Wilson’s health is what prevented the League of Nations from being formed which then caused World War II. In fact, the League of Nations was formed and it did not prevent another war. What he probably means is that Wilson drained his strength trying to get approval for the United States to join the League. Even if he hadn’t had a stroke, there was no guarantee we would have joined up as there were serious questions about what membership would entail, as well as huge opposition in the U.S. to us being members at all. Further, there is no evidence that our membership would have prevented WWII in the slightest.
Did no one proof-reading or anyone else at any stage of the publishing process catch that the author was mixing up two different men? The issue here is competence. Lack of competence is unethical, especially when writing about history, because it makes readers dumber which is definitely unethical.
I ranted to Mr. Golden about this and he, the non-history buff, had two observations:
Exactly.
Ugh. That is just discouraging.
I see posts on Quora (mainly about the Civil War) that get facts obviously wrong and it just makes me want to reply to correct them. There was a post yesterday that mentioned something about the battle of Shiloh and then threw in a reference to the battle of Antietam the year before.
The only problem with that is that Shiloh happened in April, 1862 and Antietam September, 1862. And it’s not like they are obscure battles. Grrrr.
Among other things in your book, I would question the idea that Wilson was dying from the pressures of WWI.
And certainly Wilson’s actions in Paris, 1919, when the treaty of Versailles was being negotiated, had far more of an effect on the causes of WWII than his stroke, which happened in the fall of 1919, if memory serves. Wilson was in full possession of his faculties in Paris.
By the way, if you haven’t read her books, I heartily recommend Margaret MacMillan, the Canadian historian. She’s written several books on WWI among others. I’ve also watched a number of YouTube videos of her lectures.
I would question the premise of Wilson’s leadership during the war being responsible for his decline in health, as well, but it seemed like such a minor complaint in comparison to the other glaring flaws in his argument. Wilson certainly pushed himself too hard during the peace negotiations in Paris and in fighting with Lodge and Congress over the League, but there may have been slowly-building health problems over the previous years that contributed to the stroke when it finally happened.
I am beginning to wonder if Hazelgrove based his writings solely on The King’s Speech film and just forgot who was who? We all know that films often condense the timeline of real-life events especially in biographies. The movie did that by making it seem as if WWII came on the heels of Edward’s abdication. Perhaps, he only saw the film and never did any further research. Sloppy, incompetent and unethical.
And thank you for the recommendation! I am always looking for interesting books written by people who know what they’re doing.
I just reread that quote from page 89 and it gets much worse the second time around. I think I saw at least six serious problems with what he wrote. The first sentence, as written, appears to imply that the King’s abdication was what precipitated World War Two.
Even if one excuses his inaccuracies regarding the British royals as only tangential to the books main thrust, one would expect him to really be accurate when describing events pertaining to his actual subject — Wilson.
From what I recall (correct me if I am off base), the chance was there get the U.S. to join the League of Nations. It was mainly Wilson’s actions and attitudes towards the Senate that cost him the support needed — was the League of Nations a treaty that we had to join?
My other recollection is that Wilson was winding up a tour to rally public support for the League when he had his stroke and had to cut short the trip.
I totally agree with your frustration. An actual historian is supposed to do his research to make sure his facts are in order. If they didn’t teach him that when he got his masters and doctorate then he went to some very substandard schools.
Along the lines of illegal immigration, we have this report from HotAir, that the raid on the meat packing plant in Nebraska was not simply due to the fact that the plant hired so many illegals. Instead, the focus of the raid was on an identity-theft ring running out of that plant.
I want to make it clear I am all in favor of whoever in the world who wants to come to the United States to make a better life for themselves should have the opportunity. I’d give top priority to those who wish to become US citizens, but I’m generally in favor of letting into the country far more people than our current immigration system allots. How many more, I can’t say, as I’ve not crunched the numbers. But in general more immigrants means more workers, more production, higher demand for services, all which contribute to a growing economy that enriches everyone here.
In general, I agree with the principle that our nation can absorb a great many immigrants and that is a net-positive. And I agree that, while the massive influx of illegals under the Biden administration has taxed many municipalities near to breaking, eventually the strain will ease once production and services ramp up to accommodate the population surge.
Where I differ with the pro-illegal-immigrant crowd is that the manner in which these immigrants arrive really does matter. Undocumented migrants are at high risk of exploitation. We don’t know how many illegal immigrant children have been abducted into pedophile sex rings, but there was a recent sting operation that rescued scores of “critically missing” children from such a ring, and there are hundreds of thousands of missing illegal immigrant children. I strongly suspect many of them have been abducted and peddled. It is very easy to make someone who is undocumented, and whose parents feel they can’t contact authorities, disappear. But even adults are exploited – paid less, unable to take advantage of tax benefits, and often permanently indebted to the coyotes who “helped” them cross. Making the legal path for entry less onerous than illegal entry would curtail a great deal of this exploitation.
But illegal entry has additional effects that are too often ignored, and the identity theft I mentioned above is one such problem. We’ve created a society where you need an identification number to function in society. You need one to get licenses, bank accounts, lodging, practically everything except for voting. Some illegals have benefited from programs that make them quasi-documented, but many have to get a hold of valid Social Security Numbers and pretend those numbers are theirs. This has at times led to humorous situations, like an illegal’s wages getting garnished because the true SSN holder owes child support, but it has other worse consequences, some of which are called out in the HotAir piece.
This problem also gives lie to the “law-aiding” mantra spoken about so many illegals. Many, many of them are not just guilty of illegal entry, but identity theft, fraud, all those white-collar crimes that they have to commit just to function in society.
There is also a bit of an issue related to the ethics of employers who hire illegals. There are unscrupulous businesses that knowingly hire illegals, pay them under the table at below minimum wage, and do not withhold payroll taxes. However the employer in the HotAir article used e-Verify which is a federal government website to validate that the employee is legally allowed to work. As an employer is not a law-enforcement agency with the means to investigate identity theft, and do a more thorough investigation of the validity of the provided identification (drivers license, birth certificate and SSN which can all be fake or stolen) my impression is that the employer is ethically in the clear; if they go above and beyond mandated compliance (using e-Verify) to establish whether somebody is legally allowed to work the employer may run afoul of anti-discrimination laws. Ethically in the clear does not mean that they will not face legal challenges however, in addition to the disruption of business and the reputational hit.
Below is an article that highlights more ethical concerns related to the so-called “good hard working undocumented immigrants”
https://thefederalist.com/2025/06/19/going-soft-on-illegal-labor-is-a-betrayal-of-american-workers-like-my-family/
To summarize:
1) illegal immigration creates legal issues and business disruption for employers who in good faith check work status with the means provided by the federal government
2) illegal immigration creates false competition between businesses, as the crooked once can outbid the honest once due to lower labor costs
3) illegal immigration creates false competition at the labor market, as it put American citizens with skills at minimum wage level at a disadvantage.
Interestingly the meat packing plant in the HotAir story got plenty of people (American citizens) applying for a job to replace all the arrested illegals. So much for the myth that illegals do jobs that Americans won’t do.
Couldn’t this (in-state tuition issue) be looked at in the same light as laws preventing criminals from profiting from their illegal actions, even if the “profit” is passed on to someone otherwise innocent? For example, if a bank robber buys a car with stolen money and gives it to his child, the car can still be considered part of the theft and attached and confiscated.
How is the tuition different? The alien’s crime/illegal residency status enables him to acquire state/taxpayer funds for his family’s use.
logic is irrelevant to the illogical. If NY continues along it’s path it will soon be as illogical as MN.