Obama admits he doesn’t have authority to “drone” American citizens… sorta

This just in, via Allahpundit:

Strictly speaking, Eric Holder already acknowledged this yesterday after three agonizing minutes of Ted Cruz teasing it out of him. But Rand Paul wanted a formal statement from the White House as a condition of ending his filibuster.

And now, apparently, he’s got it:

Judge on Pennsylvania Voter ID: “Sounds like a good idea. So, ..no”.

Why do I live in such a stupid state?

Courtesy of MSN.com:

Updated at 11:10 a.m., 10/2/12 — A Pennsylvania judge has blocked enforcement of the key section of a voter identification law which the state legislature enacted and Republican Gov. Tom Corbett signed last March, meaning that the law will not be in effect for the Nov. 6 election.

Judge Robert Simpson said that even with the streamlined procedures that state officials proposed to make it easier for voters without ID cards to obtain them, “the proposed changes are to occur about five weeks before the general election, and I question whether sufficient time now remains to attain the goal of liberal access” to ID cards.

He said, “I expected more photo IDs to have been issued by this time. For this reason, I accept Petitioners’ argument that in the remaining five weeks before the general election, the gap between the photo IDs issued and the estimated need will not be closed.”

Notice that the judge doesn’t bother to specify what amount of IDs would have qualified as “more”. Thanks so much, Justice Nebulous….

However, it wasn’t a total loss:

Simpson also said that those challenging the law have conceded that the part of the law which requires proof of identification for absentee voting does not harm would-be voters and may be implemented.

Okay, that’s something, especially since early voting tends to favor the Democrats.

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Rather than go off on my typical rant, I’m just going to offer a refresher course in why Voter ID makes total, absolute sense and those folks throwing a fit over it are clearly either (A) up to no good or (B) semi-sentient.

This post ran back during the summer, and was from our Guest Noggin, ‘LivinRightInPGH’. I’m just including the essential parts, but you’re certainly welcome to go back and read the entire thing.

I’m intrigued and more than a little concerned by the whole issue that surrounds the integrity of voting in these great United States.  Moreover, I’m perplexed as to why the US Department Of Justice, led by Eric Holder, is doing everything in its power to block any measure that would enforce Voter ID laws.  I’d like to say that I don’t understand why they’d do such a thing, but sadly…I do.

If you can’t win on the issues, and if you can’t win fairly at the ballot box, you’re going to need a whole bunch of dead folks, non-citizens, et al, to swing the election your way.

Perhaps this is why Holder’s Justice Department stopped non-partisan election reform by claiming that unless there was a “D” next to a candidate’s name, African-American voters “wouldn’t be able to identify and vote for the Democrats.”  He went on to call laws requiring valid voter ID a “poll tax,” with the clear aim of stoking racial animus.  It was such a distasteful argument that even the Ninth Circus Court of Appeals rejected it.

As I recall, JTR covered a ton of places where ID is needed in a post several months ago. They included:

• Driving
• Getting on an airplane
• Opening a bank account

(Oh, by the way:  If you want to visit the USDOJ, you need to show proper and acceptable ID.  Just sayin’…)

The whole argument against voter ID laws from the left is a smokescreen of perceived racism just to cover up one simple fact:  Without voter fraud, they CAN’T win.

The Heritage Foundation recently noted:

“Georgia, which has had voter ID since 2007, allows six different forms of ID to vote.  And there has been no stampede of would-be voters who lack identification:  ‘The number of photo IDs issued by Georgia to individuals who did not already have one of the forms of ID acceptable under state law is remarkably small, averaging less (than) 0.05% in most years, and not even reaching 3/10ths of 1% in a presidential election year.’”

You may be interested to know, however, that in Georgia, Hispanic voting increased over 140% from 2004 to 2008, while African-American voting increased by 42% over the same time frame.

So much for disenfranchisement.

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One more quote from Heritage:

“America cannot allow its elections to be anything but secure and legal.  Preventing voter fraud is common sense, and it is outrageous that the U.S. Justice Department would stand in the way.”

Well, my friends, outrageous or not, this is EXACTLY what they’re doing.