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Obama Official Notes Russians Trolling Joe Biden on Son Hunter We’re Investigating a University’s Attempt to Cancel a Professor States, Cities Play Games with Post 911 Driver’s License Law San Francisco State University to Host Terrorists Obama Official Notes Russians Trolling Joe Biden on Son Hunter Americans weren’t generally aware of Joe and Hunter Biden’s shenanigans in Ukraine, but Obama’s State Department certainly was, as was Ukraine, its pro-Russian newspaper sardonically referring to the soon to be then-Vice President Joe Biden showing up to protect his son’s business in Ukraine. We learned this from three pages of State Department...

They were previously allowed to use mere driving licenses. But residents of some US states may soon require additional ID, such as passports, if they wish to embark on air travel - even if just domestically. That's the new procedure on the horizon for people from states that have not yet introduced the standards required by the 2005 Real ID Act, which demands stricter regulations for state-issued IDs. The states that haven't yet fallen into line each now have a grace period of three months to meet the revised criteria. This deadline expires on 22 January 2018.

Think you only need a passport to board an international flight? In 2016, some fliers better have one to fly domestic, which means they had better be paying their taxes. It now looks as though your passport could be cancelled if you owe the IRS. The Real ID Act created a national standard for state-issued IDs. It hits air travel in 2016. Some states initially refused to comply, fearing that the feds would make a national database of citizens. Others cited high administrative costs and a 50% increase in fees for drivers. Most states are OK, but millions in Louisiana,...

State driver’s licenses are among those from four states that will no longer cut it for clearing airport security under tightened measures that will go into effect sometime in 2016. But travelers may not face any obstacles anytime soon. The DMV has asked for an extension from Homeland Security for the Real ID Act, which calls for the extra ID measures in the wake of the 9/11 terror attacks. “We have no reason to believe that any New Yorker will have a problem using their current state-issued ID card to get on a plane come January 2016,” the DMV said...

If you don’t have a passport already, you may need to get one soon. Residents of certain states are going to need to show their passports — rather than simply their IDs — even if they’re only flying domestic. Yes, it will infringe upon states’ rights handed to them by the 10th Amendment and create unnecessary cost to taxpayers in order to implement the change, but let’s be real — the government doesn’t care about that. From Zero Hedge: To comply with the 2005 Real ID Act, which the U.S. government has been slowly implementing for the past decade, citizens in a...

Federal investigators were able to get fraudulent driver’s licenses in all three states where they tried, according to a report released Friday that shows continued problems with states’ ID programs more than 11 years after the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks highlighted the problem. States are particularly flummoxed by out-of-state documents, according to investigators from the Government Accountability Office who conducted the audit. The investigators used forged birth certificates purportedly issued by Ohio and New York, and successfully submitted them in three other states. “In most of these five attempts across the three states, we were issued permanent or temporary licenses...

Lawmakers opposed to President Barack Obama's plan for national health care reform are hoping to spur a nationwide "civil disobedience" that can derail Obamacare. State Rep. Brian Calley, R-Portland; State Rep. Justin Amash, R-Kentwood; and State Sen. Wayne Kuipers, R-Holland, have each introduced similar constitutional amendments that seek to trump the national health care bills. For example, Sen. Kuipers' bill would prohibit a federal law from compelling any person, employer or health care provider to participate in any health care system. It also prevents anyone from being penalized for ignoring the federal law. "Where this is going, I don't know,"...

Note: The following text is a quote: Statement by DHS Press Secretary Sara Kuban on Markup of the Pass ID Bill by the Senate Homeland Security and Government Affairs Committee Release Date: July 29, 2009 For Immediate Release “On the same day that Secretary Napolitano highlighted the Department’s efforts to combat terrorism and keep our country safe during a speech in New York City, Congress took a major step forward on the PASS ID secure identification legislation. PASS ID is critical national security legislation that will break a long-standing stalemate with state governments that has prevented the implementation of a...

On his second day in office, President Obama issued an executive order to shutter the Guantanamo Bay detention camp within one year--without any plan for how to dispose of the 241 detainees held there. With the clock ticking, the president is discovering that closing Guantanamo is more easily said than done, especially now that his own party in Congress has deserted him. Recently, the Senate, including the Democratic leadership and nearly all of its members, refused to grant the president the $80 million he asked for to close the facility, voting 90 to 6 to strip the requested funds from...

Wouldn't allow DHS to single-handedly override federal laws A bill introduced in Congress would overturn the ability of the Department of Homeland Security to override as many as 35 federal laws to allow the agency to build fences and physical barriers along the United States-Mexico border. A similar bill was introduced in 2007 by U.S. Rep. Raul Grijalva, D-Ariz., who along with nine co-sponsors introduced the latest proposed legislation. The purpose of the Border Security and Responsibility Act of 2009 is to provide “the highest protection possible from the effects of unauthorized immigration, human and drug smuggling, and border enforcement...

The dilemma has taken on new urgency because the plan to close the prison depends on other countries’ accepting some of the remaining 241 detainees Diplomats say that with President Obama embarking on Tuesday on a European trip, the effort could falter unless this country signals it is willing to take some of the Guantánamo prisoners. At home, though, Mr. Obama faces the prospect of a storm of protest from some quarters if he admits detainees the Bush administration labeled terrorists and barred from this country. Already, word of the men’s possible release has brought denunciations and anxiety from military...

Militants who have had terrorist training or are affiliated with terrorist organizations are supposed to be excluded from entering our country — even when we are not in a state of war against them — under U.S. statutory law. As NR's editors observed in October: In the 2005 REAL ID Act, Congress explicitly provided for the exclusion from the U.S. of any alien who has received terrorist training or has belonged to an organization that promotes terrorism — against anyone. The Uighurs are ineligible on both grounds: Even if one accepts, for argument’s sake, the contention that their dispute is...

If you haven’t gotten it by now, here’s some grim news: Obama and his appointees are trying to destroy everything they don’t like about our America and that’s almost everything. On May 11, 2005, George Bush signed the REAL ID Act of 2005. It was supposed to control the flow of illegal aliens and terrorists pouring over our borders. Its main feature was tamper proof state driver’s licenses which could only be obtained by American citizens and legal aliens. Obama is trying to kill REAL ID. His new Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano is absolutely opposed to REAL ID. Only...

RICHMOND Some legislators want Virginia to join the growing chorus of states that have defied the federal government by refusing to participate in a national identification program billed as a way to fight terrorism and identity theft. Two pieces of legislation for consideration when lawmakers return to Richmond on Jan. 14 call for Virginia to ignore the federal mandate to come into compliance with the Real ID Act by the beginning of next year. Similar bills went nowhere last year, but supporters say the looming deadline gives the issue new urgency. "Basically, this statute that I put in is one...

Columbia (WLTX) -- Governor Mark Sanford says South Carolina will not comply with the federally mandated Real ID. Sanford's Response This is a requirement that would make the state issue new driver's licenses that would meet federal security demands. Sanford shared an open letter to Michael Chertoff, asking the U.S. Homeland Security Secretary to give South Carolina the same treatment as other states, who are asking for a Real ID extension. Sanford says he's not opting for an extension, because South Carolina laws passed last year prohibit it. The letter also says that South Carolina drivers licence requirements already meet...

The argument was so obvious it hardly needed repeating: We would all be safer if we had a better ID card. A good, hard-to-forge national ID is a no-brainer (or so the argument goes), and it's ridiculous that a modern country such as the United States doesn't have one. One result of this line of thinking is the planned Real ID Act, which forces all states to conform to common and more stringent rules for issuing driver's licenses. But security is always a tradeoff; it must be balanced with the cost. We all do this intuitively. Few of us walk...

Editor's note: A May deadline looms as just one flash point in a political showdown between Homeland Security and states that oppose Real ID demands. This is the third in a four-part series examining the confrontation. No television, no wedding or family photographs, and definitely no image of herself on her driver's license: That was the devout Christian life that Nebraska resident Frances Quaring was trying to lead. Which is why, after the state of Nebraska rejected her request for a license-without-a-photograph in the mid-1980s, Quaring sued the state in a landmark case that ended up at the U.S. Supreme...

Gov. Martin O'Malley's decision to cooperate with the Bush administration on Real ID is a mistake. The decision turns clerks at Maryland's Motor Vehicle Administration into immigration officers, forcing them to ask prospective drivers about their immigration status and then assess the validity of documents - a troublesome chore even for well-trained immigration officers. Moreover, Real ID will push illegal immigrants further into the shadows, where they will be deterred from reporting crimes to police or using emergency rooms. Because those who drive will not have a license or liability insurance, the risk for all drivers will likely increase. Although...

WASHINGTON -- The Bush administration hit the brakes Friday on a controversial law requiring Americans to carry tamper-proof driver's licenses, delaying its final implementation by five years, until 2017. A number of states have balked at the law, objecting to it largely over cost and privacy concerns. But under the administration's new edict, states that continue to fight compliance with the law face a penalty: Their residents will be forbidden from using driver's licenses to board airplanes or enter federal buildings as of May 11 of this year.

Millions of air travelers may find going through airport security much more complicated this spring, as the Bush administration heads toward a showdown with state governments over post-Sept. 11 rules for new driver's licenses. By May, the dispute could leave millions of people unable to use their licenses to board planes, but privacy advocates called that a hollow threat by federal officials. Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff, who was unveiling final details of the REAL ID Act's rules on Friday, said that if states want their licenses to remain valid for air travel after May 2008, those states must seek...