Some things you just can't make up

Study: Constitutional amendment should allow non-citizens to vote

LOS ANGELES -- A UCLA study released Wednesday says the state constitution should be amended so California's 4.6 million non-citizen adults can vote in local elections.

Nearly one-fifth of the state's adults are non-citizens and in 12 cities they form the majority, according to the study, which was commissioned by UCLA's Chicano Studies Research Center.

The study also found that non-citizens make up more than one-quarter of the population in 85 California cities and that 28 percent of the state's non-citizens are Hispanic.

"It's really a harbinger of things to come and unless we start to address this issue, we're going to have a political apartheid in California," said Joaquin Avila, the study's author and an instructor at UCLA law school.

Political apartheid? They're illegal aliens!

"The distinction between citizens and non-citizens has been seriously eroded over the past generations and the only difference left is the ability to vote. That's not a trivial thing," said Mark Krikorian, executive director of the Center for Immigration Studies in Washington, D.C.

"A person who isn't a citizen yet is essentially shacking up with America. It's important to the health of the body politic that that difference be preserved."

I would have been more clinical than just "shacking up." And who's to say they aren't voting already?

But here's good news - Social Security checks could go south of border

U.S. and Mexican officials are discussing an agreement that would allow millions of Mexicans to return home and still collect U.S. Social Security benefits.

The controversial proposal that could transfer hundreds of millions of dollars in Social Security payments south of the border has riled some Republican lawmakers. They worry that it could reward scores of undocumented Mexican immigrants with a U.S. pension, draining the country's Social Security trust fund at a time when its future solvency is in doubt.

"Talk about an incentive for illegal immigration," said GOP Rep. Ron Paul of Texas. "How many more would break the law to come to this country if promised U.S. government paychecks for life?"

Er, how did they get Social Security numbers? Or more to the point whose Social Security numbers were they using? But don't worry:

And Mexico is prepared to administer an agreement, Social Security Commissioner Jo Anne Barnhart told lawmakers at a congressional hearing earlier this year.

I'm just brimming with confidence!