Illegal Immigrants Eligible for Social Security, Medicare Under Obama's New Plan

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Photo Credit: Examiner

Photo Credit: Examiner

Many immigrants in the United States illegally who apply for work permits under President Barack Obama’s new executive actions would be eligible for Social Security and Medicare benefits upon reaching retirement age, according to the White House.

Under Obama’s actions, immigrants who are spared deportation could obtain work permits and a Social Security number. As a result, they would pay into the Social Security system through payroll taxes.

No such “lawfully present” immigrant, however, would be immediately entitled to the benefits because like all Social Security and Medicare recipients they would have to work 10 years to become eligible for retirement payments and health care. To remain qualified, either Congress or future administrations would have to extend Obama’s actions so that those immigrants would still be considered lawfully present in the country.

None of the immigrants who would be spared deportation under Obama’s executive actions would be able to receive federal assistance such as welfare or food stamps, or other income-based aid. They also would not be eligible to purchase health insurance in federal exchanges set up by the new health care law and they would not be able to apply for tax credits that would lower the cost of their health insurance.

The issue of benefits for immigrants who are illegally in the United States is a particularly sensitive one for the Obama administration. As a result, the White House has made it clear that none of the nearly 5 million immigrants affected by Obama’s actions would be eligible for federal assistance. The Obama administration first denied younger immigrants who entered the U.S. illegally as children access to health care exchanges and tax credits in 2012, especially disappointing immigrant advocates.

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Actually, Republicans Can Cut The Funding For Obama’s Amnesty

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Photo Credit: Getty

Photo Credit: Getty

Congress has the power to defund President Barack Obama’s executive amnesty order, the Congressional Research Service announced Wednesday. This, after a week of bipartisan declarations that Congress was powerless to stop the order.

“In light of Congress’s constitutional power over the purse, the Supreme Court has recognized that ‘Congress may always circumscribe agency discretion to allocate resources by putting restrictions in the operative statutes,’” reads a report from the Congressional Research Service. The report was sent to Republican Sen. Jeff Sessions’ office, first reported by Breitbart News, and has since been obtained by The Daily Caller.

The Congressional Research Service (CRS) is an “authoritative, confidential, objective and nonpartisan” congressional analysis outfit that operates out of the Library of Congress.

The analysis stands in stark contrast with a previous analysis by the Republican-dominated House Appropriations Committee, which issued a Thursday statement saying that the agency tasked with executing the order, the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services, ”is entirely self-funded through the fees it collects on various immigration applications. Congress does not appropriate funds for any of its operations, including the issuance of immigration status or work permits, with the exception of the ‘E-Verify’ program. Therefore, the appropriations process cannot be used to ‘defund’ the agency.”

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ISIS Fighters Reach out to Ferguson Protesters, Offer Help In Exchange for Oath of Allegiance to Baghdadi

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Photo Credit: TownHall

Photo Credit: TownHall

Protesters in Ferguson have been offered some help from none other than the Islamic State. In a clear attempt to take advantage of the growing unrest and ‘anti-authoritarian feelings,’ British jihadis have offered to send fighters to take on the police in the riot-plagued city. There is one condition, however: they must embrace Islam and pledge their allegiance to the group’s leader, Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi.

The Daily Mail has the details:

Using the slogan ‘From #IS 2 Ferguson’, Birmingham-born jihadi Junaid Hussain, 20 – who has adopted the nom de guerre Abu Hussain al-Britani – this morning tweeted a photograph of a hand-written letter urging the Ferguson rioters to ‘reject corrupt man-made laws like democracy’ and declare their allegiance to ISIS’ leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi.

The note Hussain posted on Twitter today is titled ‘From #IS 2 Ferguson’ and contains a promise to send militants to the Missouri city if protesters pledge allegiance to ISIS.

It reads: ‘We hear you and we will help you if you accept Islam and reject corrupt man-made laws like democracy and pledge your allegiance to Caliph Abu Bakr and then we will shed our blood for you and send our soldiers that don’t sleep, whose drink is blood, and their play is carnage.’

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Nearly 1 in 5 Households Will Celebrate Thanksgiving on Food Stamps

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Nearly one in five U.S. households will celebrate Thanksgiving on food stamps this year, according to the latest data from the U.S. Department of Agriculture on participation in the Supplemental Nutrition and Assistance Program.

Back in fiscal 2000, there were 106,061,000 households in the United States and, according to a USDA report published in November 2012, there was a monthly average of 7,335,000 households—or 6.9 percent—getting food stamps that year.

SNAP PARTICIPATION IN HOUSEHOLD-PERCENTAGE-CHART

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'They Even Cut the Throats of the Babies': Yazidi Survivors Share How they Lost their Families to ISIS

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Photo Credit: AP

Photo Credit: AP

In Kurdish-protected and internationally-organized refugee camps throughout Iraq and Syria, Christians, Yazidis, and Muslim Kurds live a tentative life in which many have lost their entire families and have no sense of when they will be able to return to a life of normalcy.

Speaking to the UK’s Daily Mail, a number of refugees living in various centers across Iraq told stories and shared photos of the family they had either never seen again or watched die before their eyes. “My older brother, my father, my mother, my wife and even my two kids were killed. All I have left of them is just one picture on my mobile phone,” says one man, Tahysn, whose two sons were aged three and four when killed.

A Yazidi grandmother identified as Rezal, who escaped Mount Sinjar, managed to escape the wrath of the Islamic State, but watched children die on the mountain of thirst and heat. “When we left Sinjar, the kids suffered a lot… Many men from our village died, many women have been captured. I saw some kids dying because of the heat,” she said. “Daesh [the local name for ISIS based on their Arabic acronym]… even cut the throats of the babies,” she said.

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Scientists Discover Earth’s ‘Star Trek’-Style Invisible Shield

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Photo Credit: Copyright Regents of the University of Colorado

Photo Credit: Copyright Regents of the University of Colorado

A team of scientists led by the University of Colorado Boulder has discovered an invisible “Star Trek”-style shield that blocks so-called “killer electrons” 7,200 miles above Earth.

The electrons, which travel at near light-speed, are capable of damaging space electronics and can put astronauts in danger.

The shield, which forms a barrier to particle motion, was found in the Van Allen radiation belts, according to Distinguished Professor Daniel Baker, director of CU-Boulder’s Laboratory for Atmospheric and Space Physics, who led the study. The radiation belts, which are held in place by Earth’s magnetic field, are two doughnut-shaped rings that are packed with high-energy electrons and protons.

“It’s almost like these electrons are running into a glass wall in space,” said Baker, in a statement. “Somewhat like the shields created by force fields on Star Trek that were used to repel alien weapons, we are seeing an invisible shield blocking these electrons. It’s an extremely puzzling phenomenon.”

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Just Three Cups of Coffee a Day Could Slash Risk of Alzheimer's

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Photo Credit: Express.co.uk

Photo Credit: Express.co.uk

Scientists have discovered a link between regular daily intake of the hot drink and a reduction of up to 20 per cent of the chances of developing dementia.

The report released today (thurs) from the Institute for Scientific Information on Coffee highlights the role nutrition can play in preserving cognitive function, especially during the preclinical phase of Alzheimer’s before full-blown symptoms of dementia occur.

It notes that a Mediterranean diet, consisting of fish, fresh fruit and vegetables, olive oil and red wine, has already been associated with a reduced risk for development of Alzheimer’s Disease.

But it adds that the latest research now suggests that compounds called polyphenols and caffeine can also be responsible for this protective effect – and these exact compounds are also found in high quantities in coffee.

It shows that regular, life-long moderate coffee consumption was associated with a reduced risk of developing Alzheimer’s Disease with the body of evidence suggesting that coffee drinkers can reduce their risk of developing the disease.

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Near-Collisions Between Drones, Airliners Surge

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Photo Credit: AP

Photo Credit: AP

Pilots around the United States have reported a surge in near-collisions and other dangerous encounters with small drones in the past six months at a time when the Federal Aviation Administration is gradually opening the nation’s skies to remotely controlled aircraft, according to FAA records.

Since June 1, commercial airlines, private pilots and air-traffic controllers have alerted the FAA to 25 episodes in which small drones came within a few seconds or a few feet of crashing into much larger aircraft, the records show. Many of the close calls occurred during takeoffs and landings at the nation’s busiest airports, presenting a new threat to aviation safety after decades of steady improvement in air travel.

Many of the previously unreported incident reports — released Wednesday by the FAA in response to long-standing public-records requests from The Washington Post and other news organizations — occurred near New York and Washington.

The FAA data indicates that drones are posing a much greater hazard to air traffic than previously recognized. Until Wednesday, the FAA had publicly disclosed only one other near-collision between a drone and a passenger aircraft: a March 22 incident involving a US Airways regional airliner near Tallahassee, Fla.

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Space Station Astronauts Make First 3D Printed Spare Part in Space

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Photo Credit: NASA

Photo Credit: NASA

According to a Tuesday story in Cnet, the astronauts on the International Space Station have manufactured a spare part using a 3D printer. The feat has profound implications not only for space exploration, but also for the eventual settlement of the high frontier. The part in question was for the printer itself, “a faceplate for the extruder printhead, emblazoned with the logo for Made In Space, the company that designed and built the 3D printer for NASA, and the NASA logo.“

One of the limiting factors in space travel from the very first missions in the 1960s to the current era is that everything astronauts need have to be taken with them, including air, water, food, and spare parts. But, the new technology of 3D printing, or as some call it additive manufacturing, could change all of that. Now astronauts on deep space voyages or in future space settlements will be able to make their spare parts and tools to order.

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FDA’s Menu Labeling: Going Way Beyond What’s Required Under Obamacare

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Photo Credit: TownHall

Photo Credit: TownHall

Thanks to the FDA’s calorie labeling regulations announced Tuesday, major changes will soon be coming to the food and restaurant industries.

The regulation itself is nothing new; it became law in 2010 as a provision attached to the Affordable Care Act, but final rules were delayed for the past few years, thanks in large part to heavy opposition from grocery stores, pizza chains, vending machines, convenience stores, and movie theaters. Although some concessions were made, none of these industries were fully spared. By November 2015, these establishments will be forced to post calorie information on menus and menu boards, which opponents have argued is costly (representatives from the grocery store industry, for example, have said it will exceed $1 billion) and will have job-killing effects.

The FDA’s press release has the details:

The menu labeling final rule applies to restaurants and similar retail food establishments if they are part of a chain of 20 or more locations, doing business under the same name and offering for sale substantially the same menu items. Covered food establishments will be required to clearly and conspicuously display calorie information for standard items on menus and menu boards, next to the name or price of the item. […]

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