ISIS Member: We’re Planning A ‘Brilliant Attack’ On New York (+video)

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Photo Credit: Daily CallerBy Scott Greer.

A Canadian member of the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria issued a grim warning for the United States that his group is planning a “brilliant attack” on New York City, and claimed that they have thousands of Western prisoners they are willing to behead.

In a video conference interview with Vice News, Farah Shirdon (also known as Abu Usamah Somali) announced the plot while discussing the current operations of the terrorist group.

“We’ll sure be making attacks in New York soon [with Allah’s permission]. A lot of brothers there are mobilizing right now [thanks to Allah],” Shirdon told Vice’s Shane Smith.

“What are they mobilizing for?” Smith asked.

Shirdon laughed and responded, “Mobilizing for a brilliant attack, my friend.”

Read more from this story HERE.

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ISIS threat: Expect terror group to attack Baghdad next

By USMC Lt. Col. Bill Cowan.

In the many months since the U.S. military left Iraq, and despite Iraqi security forces’ best efforts, deadly bombings have wracked Baghdad and Iraq’s other major cities. Most recently, as reported by FirstPost.com “A car bomb exploded near a market in the Shiite neighborhood of Sadr City in Baghdad on Tuesday, killing at least 14 people.”

In some months, the bombings have claimed more than 1,000 lives, and in all cases the bombings have pitted Shiites against Sunnis and vice-versa.

Most of the targets have been civilian in nature, taking place on busy streets, in market places, mosques, and the like.

While America or Europe might be a preferred target, Baghdad is an easier one. ISIS is on the doorstep. Now all they need to do is step in.

Read more from this story HERE.

40,000 Obama Migrants Evade Immigration Law

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Photo Credit: Daily CallerBy Neil Munro.

More than 40,000 unskilled Central American migrants who were allowed to cross the border by President Barack Obama’s deputies have refused to appear for scheduled meetings with immigration officials.

The estimate was revealed to Latino lobbies in a meeting with an official at the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, according to the Associated Press.

The official said that 70 percent of the 66,000 people in so-called “family units” that crossed the border didn’t turn up for the appointments, according to an audio recording of the official’s briefing.

The missing migrants crossed into the country alongside the much-publicized arrival of 65,000 “unaccompanied alien children” since October.

The “children” were highlighted by the administration to reduce the public’s hostile reaction to Obama’s lax border policies.

Read more from this story HERE.

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Photo Credit: APReport: Immigrant Population in U.S. Reaches Record 41.3M; Middle East, Asia, Africa Lead Growth

By Penny Starr.

A new report from the Center for Immigration Studies (CIS) released on Thursday shows that the number of immigrants living in the United States – legal and illegal — reached a record 41.3 million as of July 2013, and the fasting growing immigrant population are from the Middle East, Asia and Africa.

According to the report, the regions with the largest increases of immigrants to the U.S. from 2010 to 2013 were South Asia (up 373,000, 16 percent growth); East Asia (up 365,000, 5 percent growth); the Caribbean (up 223,000, 6 percent growth), the Middle East (up 208,000, 13 percent growth); and sub-Saharan Africa (up 177,000, 13 percent growth).

“The new data makes clear that while Latin America and the Caribbean are still a significant source of immigration, the growth is being driven in large part by immigration from Asia, the Middle East, and Africa,” Steven Camarota, director of research at CIS and lead author of the report, said.

The report, using newly released data from the U.S. Census Bureau, reveals the nation’s immigrant population (legal and illegal) grew by 1.4 million from July 2010 to July 2013. The immigrant population, referred to as the foreign-born by the Census Bureau, includes all those who were not U.S. citizens at birth, including illegal immigrants.

Read more from this story HERE.

Upcoming Anniversary: October 1st Will Mark 18 Years of No Global Warming

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Photo Credit: CATOAccording to the datasets used last year, October 1st will mark the 18th year of “no significant warming trend in surface average temperature,” says Patrick Michaels, director of the Cato Institute’s Center for the Study of Science.

And even if the current 18-year trend were to end, it would still take nearly 25 years for average global temperature figures to reflect the change, said Michaels, who has a Ph.D. in ecological climatology and spent three decades as a research professor of environmental sciences at the University of Virginia.

Sooner or later, even Al Gore and the numerous scientists, academics and politicians who agree with him that “Earth has a fever” will have to admit that their climate models predicting catastrophic global warming were off by a long shot, said Michaels, who was also a contributing editor to the United Nations’ second Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) report.

“It has to be admitted eventually that too much warming was forecast too fast. That just has to happen. You can’t go on and on and on,” he told CNSNews.com.

“If the surface temperature resumed the warming rate that we observed from, say 1977 through 1998, we would still go close to a quarter of a century without significant net warming because there’s such a long flat period built into the record now. “

Read more from this story HERE.

Strong Earthquake Rattles Large Swath of Alaska

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Photo Credit: Arthur ChapmanA powerful earthquake shook a large swath of Alaska on Thursday morning, knocking things off shelves and causing people to take cover but bringing no immediate reports of major damage.

The quake had a preliminary magnitude of 6.2, and hit at 9:51 a.m. The epicenter was about 80 miles northwest of the state’s largest city, where it was strongly felt and lingered for at least a minute, the Alaska Earthquake Center said.

Staffers at the Nesbett Courthouse in downtown Anchorage felt the shaking in their office on the top floor of the six-story building.

“My computer tower fell off my desk,” said judicial assistant Ellen Bozzini. Everyone stood in doorways until an evacuation was ordered, then they took the stairs outside where they waited for about 20 minutes before being allowed back in.

Read more from this story HERE.

Iran’s President: Calling Islamic State Islamic is Part of Western ‘Islamophobic Project’

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Photo Credit: AP / Jason DeCrowIranian President Hasan Rouhani accused Western media Thursday of deliberately trying to vilify Islam by identifying Islamic State in Iraq and Syria (ISIS/ISIL) terrorists as Muslims.

“I am astonished that these murderous groups call themselves Islamic,” he said in a speech at the U.N. General Assembly devoted largely to terrorism and extremism. “What is more astonishing is that the Western media, in line with them, repeats this false claim, which provokes the hatred of all Muslims.”

Muslims, he added, “see this defamation as a part of an Islamophobic project.”

While rejecting any link between his religion and terrorism, Rouhani instead blamed factors like foreign conspiracies, poverty and injustice.

Read more from this story HERE.

Retiring Senator Tom Coburn: Congress Lied To America About Spending

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Photo Credit: Daily CallerOklahoma Republican Sen. Tom Coburn said Thursday that Congress lied to the American people about the amount of spending placed in the recent continuing resolution passed by Congress and signed by President Obama last week.

Coburn said that lawmakers from both parties, including Republican House Speaker John Boehner, lied about the amount of spending in the resolution because it far exceeds the amount promised in the two-year federal budget bill passed at the end of 2013.

Coburn, who is retiring when his term is up after the 2016 elections, cut loose in an interview with conservative radio host Laura Ingraham.

“The reason Americans have such poor view of Washington is because we’re dishonest with the American public in what we do,” Coburn told Ingraham. “In the continuing resolution […] we’re $47 billion above what we said we would be [in the Ryan-Murray bill].”

Read more from this story HERE.

Harvard Gives Student Full Ride After He Tells Them He's Illegal Immigrant

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Photo Credit: Reuters When Dario Guerrero, an illegal immigrant who found out about his status in high school, told Harvard that he was in the country illegally, the school encouraged him to apply–and gave him a full scholarship after he was accepted.

Writing in the Washington Post, Guerrero, who is currently a junior at the university, said after an MIT official recommended that he not apply to the school during a trip to visit college, he “left the office in a daze” because MIT had been his dream school. He started walking down Massachusetts Avenue” and, “without really planning it, I found myself in the middle of Harvard.” A Harvard admissions officer told him, “If you are admitted to Harvard College, we will meet your full financial need without regard to your legal status.”

He eventually got in, and “they gave me a full ride. This meant I wouldn’t have to worry about student loans or quarterly tuition payments; that I always had a place to stay away from home; that I could travel every semester, on Harvard’s dime, back to California; that my parents would never have to worry whether I’d finish school. Those are luxuries few people, documented or not, ever have.”

Read more from this story HERE.

ISIS Plotting Subway Attacks in New York City and Paris, Iraqi PM Says

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Photo Credit: Peter Foley—Bloomberg / Getty By Sam Frizell.

Militants from the Islamic State of Iraq and Greater Syria (ISIS) plan to attack the subway systems in New York and Paris, Iraq’s prime minister said Thursday, but U.S. security officials said they had no evidence to back up the claim.

Haider al-Abadi told reporters at the United Nations General Assembly that information obtained from militants captured in Iraq yielded “credible” intelligence that the Islamist group is plotting attacks in New York and Paris, Reuters reports. “They plan to have attacks in the metros of Paris and the U.S.,” Abadi said. “I asked for more credible information. I asked for names. I asked for details, for cities, you know, dates. And from the details I have received, yes, it looks credible.”

Read more from this story HERE.

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As U.S. takes on the Islamic State, al-Qaeda remains degraded but not defeated

By Greg Miller and Kevin Sieff.

As the United States mobilized against new Islamist enemies this month, the voice of an aging adversary echoed in the distance.

Ayman al-Zawahiri, one of al-Qaeda’s founders and its leader for the past three years, released a video announcing the formation of a new affiliate in India and lamenting the turmoil being caused by the rival Islamic State in Syria.

“Oh mujahideen, unite and reject differences and discord,” he said in a pleading tone that seemed to underscore the declining relevance of al-Qaeda’s core, the Pakistan-based group that orchestrated the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks.

But Zawahiri was silent on a far more sensitive project — the creation of a cell in Syria dedicated to plots against the United States — that once again made predictions of the demise of al-Qaeda’s core seem premature.

Read more from this story HERE.

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Photo Credit: EPAFBI says it has identified ‘Jihadi John’ seen in ISIS execution videos but will not reveal his identity or nationality

By JILL REILLY FOR MAILONLINE.

The FBI has identified the ISIS executioner who appears in the beheading videos of US journalists James Foley and Steven Sotloff, and British aid worker John Haines.

Agency director James Comey told reporters today that he knew who the militant was but would not be releasing his identity or nationality to the media.

The executioner, who has a British accent and has been dubbed Jihadi John, is one of four British jihadis known as the ‘Beatles’ holding hostages in Syria.

He appears in the group’s execution videos wielding a knife – and taunts President Obama before carrying out the killings

Today British officials would not say if the identity had been shared with the authorities on London, and would not be drawn on whether any arrests are imminent.

Read more from this story HERE.

HealthCare.gov Actually Cost Over $2.1 Billion — And Counting (+video)

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HealthCare.gov alone has cost federal taxpayers $2.1 billion so far, according to a Bloomberg Government analysis — and the feds still aren’t finished building it.

The Obama administration’s most recent estimate on spending related to HealthCare.gov was just $834 million through February 2014. Health and Human Services secretary Sylvia Burwell projected in May that through fiscal year 2015, additional costs would bring HealthCare.gov’s grand total to just above $1 billion. (RELATED: HealthCare.gov Will Cost OVer $1 Billion To Build)

“The way in which Obamacare has been rolled out has been very messy,” Peter Gosselin, the study author, told Bloomberg News. “One of the reasons it has been implemented in the way it has been, financially, is precisely to deny opponents of the law a clear target.”

Federal officials intentionally spread out HealthCare.gov spending across “dozens of contracts,” according to the report, in a concerted effort to prevent transparency on the health-care website’s true cost.

Read more from this story HERE.

Baby Dies Whose Parents Wanted to Stop Life Support Just Because He Was Disabled

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Photo Credit: LifeNewsA disabled baby has died after a major battle in France pitted the parents of a disabled prematurely-born baby against doctors — as the parents wanted doctors to stop life support for their son because he is severely disabled.

The baby boy, named Titouan was born on August 31, four months before he was slated to be born. The baby weighed two pounds at birth and suffered from an intracerebral haemorrhage. Doctors at University Hospital Center of Poitiers said he has brain damage and they were unable to determine the extent of it. The baby’s parents, Mélanie and Aurélien, said doctors had informed them that their son will be severely disabled and paralyzed on one side of his body.

Doctors were asking the parents to hold off on taking their son off life support so they can more thoroughly evaluate his medical condition.

Now, Titouan has passed away — dying late Friday.

Before he passed away, doctors said his parents should not rush to take him off life support.

Read more from this story HERE.