Americans Paid All-Time Highs In State and Local Taxes in 2nd Quarter

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Photo Credit: AP

Photo Credit: AP

Revenues from state and local individual income taxes, general sales and gross receipt taxes, motor fuel taxes, motor vehicle taxes and taxes on alcoholic beverages each hit all-time highs in the second quarter of this year, according to data released today by the Census Bureau.

That means that in no quarter of any year since the Census Bureau first started tracking state and local tax revenues in 1962 have Americans paid more in each of these categories of state and local taxes then they did in the quarter that ran from April through June of 2013.

Americans paid a record of $114.032 billion in state and local individual income taxes in the second quarter of this year, according to the Census Bureau. That was up $7.787 billion—or 7.3 percent—from the previous all-time record of $106.245 billion in state and local individual income taxes that Americans paid in the second quarter of 2008.

Americans also paid a record of $82.212 billion in state and local general sales and gross receipts taxes in the second quarter of this year. That was up $1.85 billion—or 2.3 percent—from the previous record of $80.362 billion in general sales and gross receipts taxes American paid in the second quarter of 2008.

Americans paid a record of $11.254 billion in state and local motor fuels taxes in the second quarter of 2013. That was up $135 million—or 1.2 percent—from the previous record of $11.119 billion paid in the second quarter of 2012.

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U.S. Military’s Battlefield Network Vulnerable to Hackers

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Photo Credit: Musadeq Sadeq

Photo Credit: Musadeq Sadeq

The Pentagon’s main battlefield intelligence network in Afghanistan is vulnerable to hackers — both the enemy or a leaker — and the U.S. command in Kabul will cut off from the military’s classified data files unless the Army fixes the defects in 60 days, according to an official memo obtained by The Washington Times.

The memo says the Army’s Distributed Common Ground System (DCGS) flunked a readiness test and does not confirm the source of outside Internet addresses entering the classified database.

The Sept. 5 warning notice from the U.S. command in Kabul is another blow to the intelligence network, commonly called “D-Sigs.” It already had suffered a wave of bad news, such as soldiers panning its performance as unreliable and the Pentagon’s top tester judging it as not operationally effective.

The warning comes as the U.S. military is on heightened alert against unlawful entry into classified computer networks, not only by the enemy but also by “friendlies” such as Army Pvt. Bradley Manning and former National Security Agency contractor Edward J. Snowden. Both illegally downloaded reams of classified data that got widespread dissemination in the news media and, officials say, greatly damaged America’s security.

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EPA Seeks Definition of ‘Bodies of Water’ for Clean Water Act

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Photo Credit: Getty Images

Photo Credit: Getty Images

The EPA took a giant step toward finally defining which bodies of water are subject to regulation under the Clean Water Act last week, when it filed a draft rule with the White House regulatory czar designed to settle the confusion created in recent years by a series of court decisions.

The legal battles have centered on the definition and scope of a seemingly innocuous phrase — what exactly are “waters of the United States”?

Judges and regulators have wrestled over how to interpret the term in the absence of legislative action to clarify it. Now, the EPA is not only proposing a regulatory solution — which is not yet publicly available — but is also conducting a scientific review to accumulate evidence to back up the penultimate rule.

That approach to implementing the Clean Water Act (PL 95-217) is the latest example of the Obama administration’s philosophy on environmental policymaking: Act when Congress doesn’t and take steps to shore up the approach against future legal challenges.

“We’re not likely to get that clarity from Congress anytime soon,” said Bruce Myers Jr. of the Environmental Law Institute. “Further clarity from the agencies is beneficial.”

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10 Commandments Monument Toppled, Reagan Statue Torched

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Photo Credit: Breitbart

Photo Credit: Breitbart

10 Commandments monument toppled in Washington

By Jessica Gresko.

A stone monument of the Ten Commandments that sits on a street behind the U.S. Supreme Court in Washington and was the subject of controversy in the past has been toppled by vandals.

The 3-foot-by-3-foot granite monument weighs 850 pounds and sits out front of the headquarters of Faith and Action, a Christian outreach ministry. The group installed the tablets in a garden outside its offices in 2006, and the group’s president said the tablets were angled so that justices arriving at the high court would see them.

The Rev. Robert Schenck, who heads the organization, said the damage to the monument happened sometime between Friday night and Saturday night. A minister who works in the area alerted the group to the damage around 9 p.m. Saturday.

The monument had been pushed over so that the words of the Ten Commandments are now face down. Vandals bent a steel rod that secures the monument to a thick concrete base to an almost 90 degree angle. The monument itself is not damaged, Schenck said.

“Whoever did this was determined to get it done because it’s not something you could easily do,” Schenck said, adding that the vandals also installed a “For Rent” yard sign by the monument and that the vandalism was reported to police.

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Photo Credit: Ronald Reagan Library

Photo Credit: Ronald Reagan Library

Vandals torch Ronald Reagan statue at California park

By Cheryl K. Chumley.

Vandals set fire to a life-size statue of Ronald Reagan at a Southern California sports park that bears the name of the 40th president, authorities reported Monday.

The bronze statue stands at the Ronald Reagan Sports Park in Temecula, Calif., the very same site praised by Reagan in the 1980s as a solid example of what volunteerism and fundraising can accomplish — rather than government regulation and taxpayer dollars.

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Reid on Defunding Obamacare: “We’re Not Going to Bow to Tea Party Anarchists who Deny that Obamacare is the Law”

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Photo Credit: Getty Images

Photo Credit: Getty Images

Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid declared the House version of the bill that funds the government and defunds Obamacare “dead on arrival” in the Senate, accusing Republicans of trying to hold the country “ransom.”

On Friday, the House passed a bill that funds the government through December 15, while defunding Obamacare. Reid moved to begin consideration of the bill when the Senate returned to session Monday afternoon, but made clear that it would be sent back to the House without that provision…

“We’re not going to bow to tea party anarchists who deny that Obamacare is the law,” Reid said.

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Source: McConnell, Cornyn Whipping Votes Against Ted Cruz

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picture - mcconnell-cornynA source in Congress tells Breitbart News that Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell and Senate Minority Whip John Cornyn are using their leadership positions to pressure other Republicans to oppose Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX) in his campaign to defund Obamacare.

“Right now in the Senate, Mitch McConnell and John Cornyn are actively whipping Senators to shut down debate on the House continuing resolution so that Harry Reid can gut it with just 51 votes,” a senior congressional staffer with intimate knowledge of the situation said in an email to Breitbart News. “Unbelievably, they actually are leading the fight to fully fund Obamacare.”

McConnell and Cornyn stated earlier Monday that they oppose a possible filibuster from Cruz to keep Reid from adding language funding the Affordable Care Act to the continuing resolution passed by the House of Representatives.

As Breitbart News reported on Saturday, McConnell and Cornyn could help Cruz win:

First, when Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid brings the House continuing resolution (CR) to the floor next week, Minority Leader Mitch McConnell needs to deliver 41 Republican votes to filibuster it until Senator Reid agrees not to try and restore funding for Obamacare. McConnell has the power to ensure that Reid cannot get an amendment onto the bill that strips the Obamacare defunding language with a simple majority vote.

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Facing Threats of Termination, Official at Heart Of IRS Scandal “Retiring”

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Photo Credit: Getty/AFP

Photo Credit: Getty/AFP

Facing a possible firing, the Internal Revenue Service official at the center of the agency’s tea party scandal retired Monday, ending one chapter in a ruckus that has engulfed the tax-collection agency since spring.

Lois Lerner headed the IRS division that handles applications for tax-exempt status when she was placed on paid leave in May. While she was in charge, the agency acknowledged that agents improperly targeted tea party groups for extra scrutiny when they applied for tax-exempt status during the 2010 and 2012 elections.

Lerner first disclosed the targeting at a law conference in May, when she was asked a planted question about IRS treatment of political groups. Less than two weeks later, she refused to answer questions at a congressional hearing, citing her constitutional right not to incriminate herself.

A day after the hearing she was placed on paid leave at the age of 62.

Lerner’s retirement came as a review board was set to propose that she be fired, said a statement by Rep. Sander Levin of Michigan, the top Democrat on the tax-writing House Ways and Means Committee.

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Facebook Blocks Founders of Patriot Trucker Group for Saying ‘God Bless America’

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Photo Credit: ridefortheconstitution.org

Photo Credit: ridefortheconstitution.org

The administrators of the group “Truckers To Shut Down America” were temporarily booted from posting in Facebook for saying “God Bless America.” On Sunday afternoon, they were finally back up and posting on their Facebook page, which has gone viral.

Today, the Examiner spoke with the group’s founder, Zeeda Andrews. A former trucker herself, Andrews has tapped a nerve by calling for a “General Strike” to protest “the corruption that is destroying America.” Americans who believe that the Government is trampling on the Constitution are welcome to join, regardless of party.

Today, the patriot group “Overpasses for Obama’s Impeachment” offered to be out in full force, calling the effort one of their “patriot waves” to support the truckers making the trek across the nation to Washington, D.C. on the weekend of October 11-13, 2013, as reported today by the Examiner.

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A Somali Terror Group Recruited 21 Minnesota Men To Fight Their Cause

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Photo Credit: Business Insider

Photo Credit: Business Insider

A Somalian terror group, with ties to Al Qaeda, allegedly recruited 21 young Minnesota men to fight and become suicide bombers.

The Associated Press details how the Islamist cell raised cash, made fake documents, and held clandestine meetings in their effort to recruit Americans. All of this in preparation for their arrival in Somalian safe-houses where the men received AK-47s, weapons training and thorough brain-washing, and according to family members.

Scores of Minnesota’s young Somalian men began to disappear in 2007.

One of them was 17-year old Burham Hassan, a senior at Roosevelt High School in Minneapolis, who disappeared in early 2009. A straight A student who’d been in America since he was a toddler, Hassan studied Islam at the Abubar As-Sassique mosque and joined its youth group.

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California City Flies Flag of China

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Photo Credit: AP

Photo Credit: AP

Over the objections of residents and human rights groups, the city will raise the flag of the People’s Republic of China on Oct. 1, a day that honors the formation of the sovereign state in 1949 by communist leader Mao Zedong.

The City Council voted 4-3 Monday to approve the request by Councilman Benny Lee, a Chinese-American who said he intended the move as a sign of support for the city’s growing Chinese population and a sign the city is open for Chinese business and investment…

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