Guess Where the Most Heavily Armed County is Located . . .

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Maybe Texans don’t like guns as much as stereotypes have led us to believe.

A map, posted Saturday by Reddit user Ramesses_Deux, purports to show the 30 U.S. counties with the highest rates of gun-owning residents.

The state with the most gun-having counties appears to be a state that doesn’t have counties at all: Louisiana.

Six Louisiana parishes rank in the top 30, with Idaho, Utah and Vermont also boasting healthy figures.

The list, per Ramesses_Deux:

Fairbanks borough, AK – 59.1%

Tooele County, UT – 59.1%

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Military Experts: With ISIS in El Paso, Ft. Bliss in Danger of Terrorist Attack

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Photo Credit: Marines / Creative CommonsThe recent increase in security at a key Army base near a Mexican border city where Islamic terrorists are confirmed to be operating and planning an attack on the United States indicates that the facility is a target, according to senior military experts contacted by Judicial Watch.

Last week JW reported that the militant group Islamic State of Iraq and Greater Syria (ISIS) is working in the Mexican border city of Ciudad Juarez and planning to attack the United States with car bombs or other vehicle borne improvised explosive devices (VBIED). High-level federal law enforcement, intelligence and other sources confirmed to JW that a warning bulletin for an imminent terrorist attack on the border has been issued. Agents across a number of Homeland Security, Justice and Defense agencies have all been placed on alert and instructed to aggressively work all possible leads and sources concerning this imminent terrorist threat.

Juarez is a famously crime-infested narcotics hotbed situated across from El Paso, Texas. Ft. Bliss is the Army’s second-largest installation, spanning more than 1 million acres with an active duty force of 34,411 and headquartered in El Paso. Two days after JW broke the story on ISIS operating in Juarez, Ft. Bliss announced it was increasing security measures. A statement that went out to the media was rather vague, attributing the move to several recent security assessments and the constant concern for the safety of military members, families, employees and civilians.

But senior military officials contacted by JW this week reveal that military installations in the U.S. only make changes to security measures when there are clear and present threats. “It’s a significant issue when this is done,” says retired Army Lt. Gen. Jerry Boykin, former commander of the Army’s elite Delta Force who also served four years as Deputy Undersecretary of Defense for Intelligence. “That means they’re getting a threat stream. Ft. Bliss had to have a clear and present threat.”

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Obama, Outed: If Only

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Photo Credit: National Review Just resign already. Go. Be gone. Vamoose. Get out of our lives. More important: Stop endangering all of us with your self-indulgent vacations and self-absorbed dithering, along with unconstitutional domestic power plays while the whole world burns.

Barack Obama already is derelict in his duties as commander in chief. He ought to abdicate and just step off his self-made throne.

Knowledgeable people were calling for Obama to begin air strikes against the Islamic State barbarians months before Obama could rouse himself to admit that the brutes were something other than “jayvee” terrorists. Because he didn’t, thousands of innocents died, villages were razed, churches were destroyed, thousands more were left homeless, and vast swaths of territory were lost to purveyors of pure, unadulterated evil.

And now, after several years of the Islamic State rising, after half a year of its being obvious that the Islamic State is a new sort of threat, after a couple of months of vicious terror of a sort even this troubled modern world has rarely seen, and after the Islamic State beheaded an American journalist on camera, we have a man pretending to be president who tells the world that the leaders of the globe’s most powerful nation still “don’t have a strategy yet” for the situation.

Words fail.

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U.S. Government 'Breeding Terrorists' – in Minnesota (+video)

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Photo Credit: WNDEven as President Obama launched air strikes Tuesday against the al-Shabab terrorist group in Somalia, a pipeline for potential new Somali terrorists continues to fester right here in the United States.

It’s called the Refugee Resettlement Program, and it continues unabated under the leadership of the U.S. State Department and with the help of several Christian charities.

Minneapolis, Minnesota, sits at the heart of the controversial program. Known as “Little Mogadishu” to some critics, the city has since 1983 welcomed thousands of Somali refugees, most of whom are practicing Muslims and attend a local mosque or Islamic center.

While the Minneapolis-St. Paul area plays host to the largest Somali refugee population, it’s not the only American city that is taking in refugees from the war-torn African nation. Columbus, Ohio, and San Diego, California, have also served as refugee resettlement hot spots.

The State Department, working with the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, chooses the communities largely because they are viewed as welcoming of foreign refugees and also because they have well-developed social welfare programs.

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WATCH: Sheriff Predicts Civil War if Feds Attempt to Take Guns from Citizens in his County

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Photo Credit: YouTube Still CodeIn light of recent mass shootings – primarily in so-called ‘gun-free zones’ – that have left dozens dead and even more injured, Americans have become increasingly divided regarding how such tragedies might be avoided in the future.

While some have concluded that stricter gun control laws would keep citizens safe by limiting legal access to firearms, plenty of others recognize that a well-armed populace can act as a deterrent to would-be violent criminals.

As federal authorities consider imposing legislation that would make the ownership of certain weapons illegal, local law enforcement officials are speaking out against such proposals. One such voice is Mike Lewis, who serves as sheriff of Wicomico County, Md.

During a recent interview, he firmly denounced the federal government’s intrusion into his constituents’ ability to own and carry legally owned weapons.

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New ISIS Threat: America's Electric Grid; Blackout Could Kill 9 of 10

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Photo Credit: APBy Paul Bedard.

Former top government officials who have been warning Washington about the vulnerability of the nation’s largely unprotected electric grid are raising new fears that troops from the jihadist Islamic State are poised to attack the system, leading to a power crisis that could kill millions.

“Inadequate grid security, a porous U.S.-Mexico border, and fragile transmission systems make the electric grid a target for ISIS,” said Peter Pry, one of the nation’s leading experts on the grid.

Others joining Pry at a press conference later Wednesday to draw attention to the potential threat said that if just a handful of the nation’s high voltage transformers were knocked out, blackouts would occur across the country.

“By one estimate, should the power go out and stay out for over a year, nine out of 10 Americans would likely perish,” said Frank Gaffney, founder and president of the Center for Security Policy in Washington.

At the afternoon press conference, Gaffney dubbed the potential crisis the “grid jihad.”

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Photo Credit: TownHallScary: Deceased, American-born ISIS Terrorist Used to Work at Midwestern Airport

By Daniel Doherty.

No, he didn’t just work there. More precisely, he had a security clearance and “unfettered access” to airplanes at the Minneapolis-St. Paul International Airport, according to Fox News’ local affiliate KMSP-TV.

For obvious reasons, this should concern all of us:

He was the second known American killed while fighting for ISIS in Syria, and the second from Minnesota — and a Fox 9 exclusive uncovering his employment history is raising a few eyebrows.

An airport is probably the last place anyone would want a suspected terrorist to work, but before he died overseas, that’s exactly what Abdirahmaan Muhumed did in the Twin Cities. In fact, he may have cleaned your plane at the Minneapolis-St. Paul International Airport.

Read more from this story HERE.

Rev. Graham: ‘As I Read the News, I Can’t Help But Wonder if We're in Last Hours’

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Photo Credit: APRev. Franklin Graham, head of the international Christian aid group Samaritan’s Purse and son of world-renowned preacher Billy Graham, said that given all the “bad news” about the killing of Christians by Muslims in some countries, and attacks on Christians by the media and the government even in America, he cannot “help but wonder if we are in the last hours before our Lord Jesus Christ returns.”

“As I read the news, I can’t help but wonder if we are in the last hours before our Lord Jesus Christ returns to rescue His church and God pours out His wrath on the world for the rejection of His Son,” said Rev. Graham in a post on the Billy Graham Evangelistic Association (BGEA) website.

“I don’t know if we have hours, days, months, or years—but as Christians, God calls us to take the truth of the Gospel to the ends of the earth,” said Graham. “Our job is to warn sinners of the consequences of sin and show them that God is loving and gracious, willing to forgive if we come to Him in repentance and faith.”

The BGEA was founded in 1950 by Rev. Billy Graham, and Franklin Graham is vice chairman and CEO of the evangelical organization.

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U.S. Releases Anti-ISIS Video: ‘Welcome to the Islamic State Land’

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By Q13 Fox News Staff.

The graphic mock ISIS recruitment video starts with a simple phrase: Run. Do not walk to ISIS land.

Then a body is thrown off a cliff.

Later a mosque is blown up, followed by a photo of a body with a severed head.

Complete with crucifixions, Muslims being whipped, shot in the head at point-blank range and thrown into ditches, the grisly video is the latest State Department effort to push back against ISIS recruiting efforts by highlighting the group’s barbaric nature.

The video, which uses the group’s own propaganda footage posted online, illustrates ISIS actions by advertising so-called “useful skills” ISIS sympathizers can learn if they join the group: blowing up mosques with Muslims inside, crucifying and executing Muslims and plundering public resources.

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Fiery Social Media Campaign Takes Off That is Sure To ‘Burn’ the ISIS Terrorist State

By Justen Charters.

In response to the extreme brutality of the Islamic State, a group of Lebanese teens has created a social media campaign called the #BurnISISFlagChallenge.

The challenge started with a YouTube video of one of the teens boldly displaying a piece of paper with the ISIS flag on it and then setting it aflame.

Read more from this story HERE.

Health Insurance Rates to Dramatically Increase in 2015

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Photo Credit: REUTERSNew Yorkers will have to dig a little deeper into their wallets for health insurance in 2015, state officials announced Thursday.

Rates for individual insurance plans – including those offered on New York’s Obamacare exchange – will rise on average 5.7% in the coming year, the state’s Department of the Financial Services reported. The increases, however, are only about half the amount sought by those insurers in their initial rate requests submitted this summer.

“We closely scrutinized the proposed rate increases insurers requested and reduced them significantly where appropriate,” said Financial Services Superintendent Benjamin Lawsky. “While we have made substantial progress in reforming our health care market and holding down costs, there is much more work ahead. We will continue to engage with consumer groups, insurers, providers, and other stakeholders as we move forward with that effort.”

Lawsky said the new rates are sill, on average, about 50% lower than those charged before New York rolled out its Obamacare health exchange last year. The state held the line on increases despite a projected 8% increase in overall health care costs.

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EPA Fakes Regulatory Cost-Benefit Calculations

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Photo Credit: NewscomWhen pressed about the staggering increases in regulatory burden under his administration, President Obama says not to worry because the benefits exceed the costs. But a new and revealing set of charts from the U.S. Chamber of Commerce highlights the shameless deception used to calculate the bulk of these purported benefits.

In Charting Federal Costs and Benefits, Chamber researchers analyzed the benefits calculations of the Environmental Protection Agency, which is responsible for the largest portion of the most costly regulations in recent years. What they found obliterates the president’s claims that sky-high regulatory costs are justified.

Specifically, the researchers reviewed the 45 rules for which the agency calculated benefits between 2000 and 2013. (The fact that the EPA failed to calculate benefits for any of the other 7,570 rules imposed by the agency in that period is another serious problem.) Although the regulations were crafted to address a variety of emissions, including carbon dioxide, lead, mercury and sulfur dioxide, a whopping 97 percent of the benefits actually were derived from the reduction of a single element—fine particulate matter—that was incidental to the pollutant targeted by the regulation.

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