Howie Carr on Gov. Patrick's drive to give in-state tuition to non-legal immigrants.

Did you ever notice that on the Internet, when someone starts using all capital letters, you can safely assume that you are in the cyber-presence of a crank?

Meet Gov. Deval Patrick: crank.

But then, in his online chat with Herald readers, he was once again defending the indefensible - in-state (in effect, free) tuition for illegal aliens. Here’s what he said:

“I have advocated that aliens who were raised here and educated in our public schools - AND ARE IN THE PROCESS OF STRAIGHTENING OUT THEIR IMMIGRATION STATUS - should pay the same tuition as the kids they graduated from high schools with.”

This, of course, is the Big Lie - I’m tempted to say BIG LIE, but let’s keep this discussion calm. The moonbats claim that this latest giveaway would apply only to aliens who’ve been squatting here for a few years.

But that’s not what the bill says. Deval can use as many caps as he wants, but the actual bill makes no distinction between the long-term freeloaders and the ones who just forded the Rio Grande last week.

Let’s go straight to the House bill, filed by Haitian-born tax deadbeat Marie St. Fleur. In the Senate, it used to be sponsored by Sen. Tony Galluccio, (D-Billerica) House of Correction, until he got a snootful of Michelob Ultra Brite.

The proposed giveaway would apply to any illegal alien who “has achieved graduation from a high school in the commonwealth or attained the equivalent thereof.”

What part of “the equivalent thereof” do you not understand, Deval? I mean, you went to Harvard and Harvard Law School, so you must have done very well on the SATs and the LSATs, right?

I know, there are “only” a few hundred “kids” looking for this latest free ride. I’m sure they said the same thing in Texas too. The latest numbers are . . . 12,000 illegals paying in-state tuition in the Lone Star State. Military members don’t get the in-state nod, but illegals do.

UPDATE: More from the Globe.

SECOND UPDATE: More from the Globe and Red Mass Group.

THIRD UPDATE: More from the Herald.