By Dr. Ileana Johnson Paugh ——Bio and Archives--May 4, 2025

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I renewed my driver’s license recently for $42. The license and photo looked the same as the old one except for the star in the upper right hand corner. I wondered why the star was there.

I did not protest the extensive line and the various identifications I had to bring with me besides my old license.

State bureaucracy and the huge influx of illegal aliens made for a long wait in line at our local DMV and the fact that most of the customers did not speak English. Lucky for them, all the bureaucratic clerks were Hispanic and fluent in Spanish, the emerging national language of the United States. Not sure if Arabic will bypass Spanish but that is a topic for another day.

The clerk informed me that I was getting a REAL ID and I will be able to fly and enter all federal buildings with this DL. I was a bit perplexed as to why we would need the real I.D. with a star. Were our DLs not real IDs?

I have flown quite a bit with my old DL and........

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