Republican lawmakers are moving quickly to try and allow states to require proof of citizenship for a voter registration form after the Supreme Court rejected an Arizona law that did just that.

In a blow to Arizona’s efforts to toughen its voter ID standards, the high court on Monday ruled 7-2 that states could not unilaterally require would-be voters to prove citizenship in order to use a federal registration form. The court ruled that because the federal “Motor Voter” registration law — which created the form — doesn’t require that documentation, Arizona could not on its own demand it.

In response, Sens. Ted Cruz, R-Texas, and David Vitter, R-La., announced an amendment to the Senate immigration overhaul that would explicitly allow states to impose those requirements.

In a statement, Cruz said the Supreme Court ruling leaves a “hole in federal law” that must be addressed.

“This encourages voter fraud and we must ensure that our elections are fair and accurately reflect the will of our citizens,” he said.

The amendment would adjust the federal law so that states would be able to require proof of citizenship in order to complete any federal voter registration form.

On the House, side, Rep. Matt Salmon, R-Ariz., also plans to introduce a separate bill on Tuesday to change the law in a similar fashion. His bill would grant states the authority to ask for additional documents to prove citizenship.

Meanwhile, Sen. Rand Paul, R-Ky., is pushing an amendment of his own that would ensure immigrants given visas or legal status under the immigration overhaul cannot vote in federal elections until they become citizens. His amendment would also allow states to check citizenship before allowing them to register to vote.

The high court justices cited the existing federal law in their ruling against Arizona’s voter ID measure.

Federal law “precludes Arizona from requiring a federal form applicant to submit information beyond that required by the form itself,” Justice Antonia Scalia wrote for the court’s majority.

The 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals earlier said that the National Voter Registration Act of 1993, which doesn’t require such documentation, trumps Arizona’s Proposition 200 passed in 2004.

Arizona appealed that decision to the Supreme Court, and the high court agreed.

“Today’s decision sends a strong message that states cannot block their citizens from registering to vote by superimposing burdensome paperwork requirements on top of federal law,” said Nina Perales, vice president of litigation for the Mexican American Legal Defense and Educational Fund and lead counsel for the voters who challenged Proposition 200.

“The Supreme Court has affirmed that all U.S. citizens have the right to register to vote using the national postcard, regardless of the state in which they live,” she said.

Justices Clarence Thomas and Samuel Alito dissented from the court’s ruling.

The Constitution “authorizes states to determine the qualifications of voters in federal elections, which necessarily includes the related power to determine whether those qualifications are satisfied,” Thomas said in his dissent.

The federal “motor voter” law, enacted in 1993 to expand voter registration, requires states to offer voter registration when a resident applies for a driver’s license or certain benefits. Another provision of that law — the one at issue before the court — requires states to allow would-be voters to fill out mail-in registration cards and swear they are citizens under penalty of perjury, but it doesn’t require them to show proof. Under Proposition 200, Arizona officials require an Arizona driver’s license issued after 1996, a U.S. birth certificate, a passport or other similar document, or the state will reject the federal registration application form.

While the court was clear in stating that states cannot add additional identification requirements to the federal forms on their own, it was also clear that the same actions can be taken by state governments if they get the approval of the federal government and the federal courts.

Arizona can ask the federal government to include the extra documents as a state-specific requirement, Scalia said, and take any decision made by the government on that request back to court.  Other states have already done so, Scalia said.

Published June 18, 2013 / FoxNews.com / The Associated Press contributed to this report.

WASHINGTON –  The Supreme Court ruled Monday that states cannot require would-be voters to prove they are U.S. citizens before using a federal registration system designed to make signing up easier.

The justices voted 7-2 to throw out Arizona’s voter-approved requirement that prospective voters document their U.S. citizenship in order to use a registration form produced under the federal “Motor Voter” voter registration law.

Federal law “precludes Arizona from requiring a federal form applicant to submit information beyond that required by the form itself,” Justice Antonia Scalia wrote for the court’s majority.

The court was considering the legality of Arizona’s requirement that prospective voters document their U.S. citizenship in order to use a registration form produced under the federal “motor voter” registration law. The 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals said that the National Voter Registration Act of 1993, which doesn’t require such documentation, trumps Arizona’s Proposition 200 passed in 2004.

Arizona appealed that decision to the Supreme Court.

The case focuses on Arizona, which has tangled frequently with the federal government over immigration issues involving the Mexican border. But it has broader implications because four other states — Alabama, Georgia, Kansas and Tennessee — have similar requirements, and 12 other states are contemplating such legislation.

Justices Clarence Thomas and Samuel Alito dissented from the court’s ruling.

The Constitution “authorizes states to determine the qualifications of voters in federal elections, which necessarily includes the related power to determine whether those qualifications are satisfied,” Thomas said in his dissent.

Opponents of Arizona’s law see it as an attack on vulnerable voter groups such as minorities, immigrants and the elderly. They say they’ve counted more than 31,000 potentially legal voters in Arizona who easily could have registered before Proposition 200 but were blocked initially by the law in the 20 months after it passed in 2004. They say about 20 percent of those thwarted were Latino.

But Arizona officials say they should be able to pass laws to stop illegal immigrants and other noncitizens from getting on their voting rolls. The Arizona voting law was part of a package that also denied some government benefits to illegal immigrants and required Arizonans to show identification before voting.

The federal “motor voter” law, enacted in 1993 to expand voter registration, requires states to offer voter registration when a resident applies for a driver’s license or certain benefits. Another provision of that law — the one at issue before the court — requires states to allow would-be voters to fill out mail-in registration cards and swear they are citizens under penalty of perjury, but it doesn’t require them to show proof. Under Proposition 200, Arizona officials require an Arizona driver’s license issued after 1996, a U.S. birth certificate, a passport or other similar document, or the state will reject the federal registration application form.

Arizona can ask the federal government to include the extra documents as a state-specific requirement, Scalia said, and take any decision made by the government on that request back to court.

Glenn Beck announced last evening that within the next 24 hours he will be revealing a new whistle-blower whose testimony is so shocking that “It will take down the GOP, it will take down the Democrats, it will take down many members of Congress…pretty much the whole power structure.”

This country is going to be rocked in the next 24 hours with some things that have been going on in Washington.  You are going to witness things in American history that have never been witnessed before. – Glenn Beck

Beck said, “This guy is so afraid for his life that he has said he will only tell his story on live television in front of Congress…
The one document from the source that our team has seen would take down pretty much the whole power structure, pretty much everything. It will take down the GOP, it will take down the Democrats, it will take down many members of Congress…
The American people, you haven’t even begun to be outraged.”

PUBLIUS

The source of the bombshell leaks about the U.S. government gathering information on billions of phone calls and Internet activities was an American employed as a contract worker for the National Security Agency, The Guardian newspaper, which broke the story, said Sunday.

The British newspaper has identified the source as 29-year-old Edward Snowden, who worked for defense contractor Booz Allen Hamilton and was a former technical assistant for the CIA.

The Washington Post followed the Guardian announcement by saying Snowden was the source for its surveillance stories that followed.

Snowden told The Post from Hong Kong, where he has been staying, that he now intends to ask for asylum from “any countries that believe in free speech and oppose the victimization of global privacy.”

In a nearly 13-minute video that accompanied The Guardian story Sunday, Snowden says he has no intentions of hiding because he has done nothing wrong.

“When you’re in positions of privileged access … . You recognize some of these things are actual abuses,” Snowden said about his decision to be a whistleblower. “Over time, you feel compelled to talk about it.”

The Guardian broke the story late Wednesday that the federal government was collecting phone call records from Verizon customers.

The paper and The Post followed with a series of reports about the calls being taken from other telecommunications companies and that the NSA and FBI have a Internet scouring program, code-named PRISM, that records Internet activities, all part of a post-9-11 effort to thwart terrorism.

Booz Allen said Sunday that Snowden was employed at the firm for less than three months and was assigned to a team in Hawaii.

“News reports that this individual has claimed to have leaked classified information are shocking, and if accurate, this action represents a grave violation of the code of conduct and core values of our firm,” Booz Allen said in a release. “We will work closely with our clients and authorities in their investigation of this matter.”

White House spokesman Josh Earnest said the Oval Office would not comment on Snowden before Monday.

The Office of the Director of National Intelligence declined to comment on Snowden’s disclosure, saying the issue has been referred to the Justice Department.

However, the agency said: “Any person who has a security clearance knows that he or she has an obligation to protect classified information and abide by the law.”

New York Republican Rep. Peter King, chairman of the Homeland Security Subcommittee on Counterintelligence and Terrorism and a member of the Select Committee on Intelligence, said: “If Edward Snowden did in fact leak the NSA data as he claims, the United States government must prosecute him to the fullest extent of the law and begin extradition proceedings at the earliest date. The United States must make it clear that no country should be granting this individual asylum. This is a matter of extraordinary consequence to American intelligence.”

Washington officials have acknowledged all branches of the federal government — Congress, the White House and federal courts — knew about the collection of data under the Patriot Act.

Still, the leaks have reopened the debate about privacy concerns versus heightened measure to protect against terrorist attacks. They also led the NSA to ask the Justice Department to conduct a criminal investigation.

Fox News confirmed the Obama administration took the first steps Saturday in a criminal investigation when officials filed a “crimes report.”

National Intelligence Director James Clapper has decried the leaks as reckless. And in the past days he has taken the rare step of declassifying some details about them to respond to media reports about counterterrorism techniques employed by the government.

“Disclosing information about the specific methods the government uses to collect communications can obviously give our enemies a ‘playbook’ of how to avoid detection,” Clapper said Saturday.

PRISM allows the federal government to tap directly into the servers of major U.S. Internet companies such as Google, Apple, Microsoft, Facebook and AOL, scooping out emails, video chats, instant messages and more to track foreign nationals who are suspected of terrorism or espionage.

The chief executives of Facebook and Google have said their companies were not aware the data grab.

Officials say the government is not listening to any of the billions of phone calls, only logging the numbers.

President Obama, Clapper and others also have said the programs are subject to strict supervision of a secret court.

Obama said Friday that the programs have made a difference in tracking terrorists and are not tantamount to “Big Brother.”

The president acknowledged the U.S. government is collecting reams of phone records, including phone numbers and the duration of calls, but said this does not include listening to calls or gathering the names of callers.

“You can’t have 100 percent security and also then have 100 percent privacy and zero inconvenience,” he said. “We’re going to have to make some choices as a society.”

However, the president said he welcomes a debate on that issue.

Snowden is quoted as saying that his “sole motive is to inform the public as to that which is done in their name and that which is done against them.”

The Guardian reported that Snowden was working in an NSA office in Hawaii when he copied the last of the documents he planned to disclose and told supervisors that he needed to be away for a few weeks to receive treatment for epilepsy.

Snowden is quoted as saying he chose Hong Kong because it has a “spirited commitment to free speech and the right of political dissent” and because he believed it was among the spots on the globes that could and would resist the dictates of the U.S. government.

Snowden is quoted as saying he hopes the publicity of the leaks will provide him some protection and that he sees asylum, perhaps in Iceland, as a possibility.

“I feel satisfied that this was all worth it. I have no regrets,” Snowden told the Guardian

Snowden was said to have worked on IT security for the CIA and by 2007 was stationed with diplomatic cover in Geneva, responsible for maintaining computer network security. That gave him clearance to a range of classified documents, according to the Guardian report.

“Much of what I saw in Geneva really disillusioned me about how my government functions and what its impact is in the world,” he says. “I realized that I was part of something that was doing far more harm than good.”

As we demonstrated in our article of May 16, 2012, True Champions of American Blacks, the Democratic Party has a long history of doing everything in its power to curtail the advancement of America’s minorities. This destructive assault is well documented in this video>.

What began as a decades-long violent opposition to American blacks and other ethnic and religious minorities (Germans, Italians, Catholics, Mormons, etc.) was eventually transformed into an exploitation campaign wherein blacks and other minorities were converted to a voting coalition with the sudden and wholesale “adoption” of them by the Democratic Party. Indeed, the same party that had blocked voting and civil rights acts fought for by the Republicans in Congress and the White House, now pretended to be the friends and advocates of minorities, promising them social and economic elevation and fulfillment of the American dream—in exchange for their votes and their autonomy.

As a direct result of Democratic policies, American blacks were immediately forced into lifetime welfare status and herded into ghettos called government housing. For decades our black brothers and sisters have endured an assault on their spirit that few could survive, and we have seen the results in cyclical poverty, tens of millions of abortions, the breakdown of the black American family, the wholesale dependency on drugs and alcohol, etc.

We saw a government sign the other day that explained to park visitors that by giving the bears handouts, it would make them dependent on handouts and destroy their ability to provide for themselves and to thrive. This sign was printed by the same government that has made an entire race of Americans entirely dependent on its handouts, and has re-enslaved them in the process.

“We liberals made a terrible mistake, going back 30 years ago. We made a dependent society because we thought we were doing the right thing. We had things like public housing, and we had welfare payments, and all that bred dependence.” Bob Beckel, Liberal Commentator.

So what has the Democratic Party done for American blacks and Hispanics lately?

Since Barack Hussein Obama and his Democrats entirely took over the government just 4 years ago, the average American family has lost 40% of its wealth and assets (worse for minorities), with 11 million family homes sinking into the quicksand of foreclosure during Obama’s tenure in office, and the rate climbing fast in 2012, much more of the remaining wealth will be destroyed by the time the next president takes the oath of office.

Since taking office Obama has seen the addition of over 6 million Americans to the poverty rolls, with those on food stamps doubling to 47 million, and unemployment averaging 9%–15.5% if you figure in those who have dropped off the rolls after their 99 weeks of benefits expired and they just gave up.

Which Americans are bearing the brunt of Obama’s socialist takeover? American minorities, of course.

Under Obama we are now suffering the highest, longest-running unemployment rate since the Great Depression. The average unemployment rate under George Bush was 5.2%, and candidate Obama blasted him for that number. President Obama promised Americans that if they would support his $900 billion spending stimulus package, unemployment would sink to less than 5.6%. As with every leftist promise, it was a lie.

Here are some real world numbers of the past 3.5 years that the president can’t spin:

• Women in poverty has skyrocketed to 17,000,000, up 800,000
• 7,500,000 women are in extreme poverty,
• 25% of Hispanic women are in poverty
• 2,500,000 women over 65 are in poverty
• Most of the job losses under Obama have been women (780,000), who have now left the workforce
• Official black unemployment rates are 14.4 (actually much higher)
• Official black youth unemployment rates are 40%
• Official Hispanic unemployment rates are 11 (actually much higher)

Every week the “New Jobs” reports come out, and with fanfare the administration announces a number like 80,000, which is actually a seasonally adjusted number, not reflective of the reality of the dismal job market, and most of which are mere temp jobs, not career positions with benefits. Those numbers are quietly downgraded every week, uncovered by the mainstream media.

What’s worse, is that population growth demands 200,000 new jobs, just to keep up with the expanding workforce. Obama’s tiresome whining that it is a republican economy, not his, is belied by George Bush’s low unemployment rates, not to mention Ronald Reagan’s million job a month growth at this point in his administration, in a much smaller population and following the horrific economic crash under President Carter and his Democrats.

American Blacks and Hispanics have been led down a dangerous path by the Pied Pipers of the left. Their only hope for a brighter future is to reject the new plantation bosses of the Democratic Party and to move to traditional American values and politics, which provide personal liberty and economic freedom for all.

PUBLIUS

The New York Times editorial board, which twice endorsed President Obama and has championed many planks of his agenda, on Thursday turned on the president over the government’s mass collection of phone data — saying the administration has “lost all credibility.”

The grey lady’s editorial section lately has shown frustration with the administration’s civil liberties record. It has criticized the escalation of the lethal drone program, and it lashed out after the Justice Department acknowledged seizing reporters’ phone records last month.

The report that the National Security Agency has been collecting phone records from millions of Verizon subscribers appeared to be the last straw.

An editorial published late Thursday said the administration was using the “same platitude” it uses in every case of overreach — that “terrorists are a real menace and you should just trust us.”

The editorial continued: “Those reassurances have never been persuasive — whether on secret warrants to scoop up a news agency’s phone records or secret orders to kill an American suspected of terrorism — especially coming from a president who once promised transparency and accountability. The administration has now lost all credibility.”

The editorial board claimed Obama “is proving the truism that the executive will use any power it is given and very likely abuse it.”

The language was a far cry from the Times’ Oct. 23, 2008, endorsement of then-candidate Obama. At the time, the Times praised Obama’s “cool head and sound judgment,” and said he was “putting real flesh on his early promises of hope and change.”

Lawmakers on both sides of the aisle voiced concern on Thursday about the records collection effort. It was first reported by The Guardian newspaper, which obtained a copy of a secret court order allowing the government to collect phone call information – though not monitor the calls themselves — directly from Verizon. Civil liberties-conscious lawmakers like Sen. Mark Udall, D-Colo., and Sen. Rand Paul, R-Ky., cried foul, as did the American Civil Liberties Union.

Lawmakers in the loop on the program tried to assuage concerns, however. Sen. Dianne Feinstein, D-Calif., and Sen. Saxby Chambliss, R-Ga., who lead the Senate intelligence committee, defended the program as necessary to keep the country safe.

White House Deputy Press Secretary Josh Earnest also said there is “extensive oversight” on such activity.

“The order reprinted overnight does not allow the government to listen in on anyone’s telephone calls. The information acquired does not include the content of any communications or the name of any subscriber. It relates exclusively to call details, such as a telephone number or the length of a telephone call,” he said.

The Times editorial described this explanation as “lame” — “as though there would be the slightest difficulty in matching numbers to names.”

“Essentially, the administration is saying that without any individual suspicion of wrongdoing, the government is allowed to know who Americans are calling every time they make a phone call, for how long they talk and from where,” the Times editorial board wrote.

The Times editorial board has long opposed The Patriot Act, which was the legal basis for the records collection, and reiterated that opposition in light of the latest revelations.

But the law’s author, Rep. Jim Sensenbrenner, R-Wis., said Thursday that this application of the law was “never the intent.”

Published June 06, 2013 / FoxNews.com

There is a growing divide in the United States, as there is throughout the world, regarding the role of governments in economies.

Following the phenomenal success of “The American Experiment” of the Eighteenth and Nineteenth Centuries, the world saw the rise of socialism in the early part of the Twentieth Century, when the economies of China and Russia were usurped by the mass murder of many millions of their citizens who owned or produced more than the bare minimum.

This “redistribution” of wealth was sold to the common people as “fairness,” and the Red Army was simultaneously forgiven its atrocities as the blood of millions stained the Eastern Hemisphere.

After World War II, less militaristic forms of socialism spread to the west, first in Europe, then to Banana Republics where dictators quickly rose to power on the backs of local revolutionaries they slew once “independence” was gained.

To understand Socialism, we should contrast it with its opposing economic system—Capitalism. Capitalism is a system where individuality reigns supreme, and independent persons utilize whatever resources they can develop, individually or in a voluntary aggregate, to generate the production of goods and services, which are sold to others who need them as an unhampered market requires. This is the system that catapulted America to world leadership in mere decades.

Socialism, on the other hand, is a system where government officials dictate every aspect of economic production and distribution. Government bureaucrats ascertain and determine what products will be produced, which services will be required, and which people will provide them. Socialism decries individualism, citing the accumulation of economic and social power into the hands of a few as a natural result of unbridled performance.

Socialism was proved a flawed system when those nations who had adopted it collapsed under their own weight, or as in the case of China, moved toward capitalism to save their faltering economies. The social impact on the citizens of those countries was much worse than the economic difficulties created by centralized control, however. The concentration of wealth and power under capitalism was eclipsed under socialism, where a mere handful dictated terms of life to the masses and lived like potentates compared with the working class.

Leftists in the U.S. have long eyed the wealth produced by America’s economic engine and have waged a hundred year war to siphon its prosperity off to socialistic programs. Indeed, power has shifted from the individual American to state and federal bureaucracies as individual liberties have been subordinated to government institutions through burdensome taxation and regulation. This loss of individual liberties has been accomplished in the name of “fairness” by the same methods employed in China and the U.S.S.R., only on a slower course.

President Barack Hussein Obama outlines in his own autobiographies his affinity with socialism, and his disdain for what he terms colonialists (essentially, America’s founders). He has surrounded himself with socialists and communists his entire life, including during his presidency. His open agenda has been to subordinate and nationalize large portions of the American economy, and his insatiable appetite for spending the money of his fellow Americans, present and future, knows no practical bounds.

Obama, and all of those on the left who fantasize about a socialistic utopia covering our once-great land, should take some lessons in reality from history—recent at that. Lacking the wisdom to do that, they should reconsider the sage words of U.K.’s former Prime Minister:

“The problem with socialism is that you eventually run out of other people’s money.” ― Margaret Thatcher

PUBLIUS