Behind the Cornucopia of Higher Food Prices

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Photo Credit: CNBC

Photo Credit: CNBC

Alert shoppers are accustomed to watching food prices go up and down. But a string of forces—from droughts to diseases—is raising the cost of a trip to the grocery store at a rapid clip.

And it looks like it will be a while before the price pressure eases.

Some of that pressure is coming from California—the source of roughly half the nation’s fruits and vegetables—where a long-running drought is forcing farmers and ranchers to cut production. After the driest year on record, large sections of farmland are expected to lay fallow this year as the Golden State copes with an ongoing water crisis

That could have “large and lasting effects on fruit, vegetable, dairy and egg prices,” according to a recent USDA report, which said the full impact has yet to be felt.

Smaller cattle herds have forced meat prices higher in March—up more than 5 percent from a year ago, as demand remained strong despite tightener supplies. Ranchers are getting higher prices for cattle and food companies are able to pass them along.

Read more from this story HERE.

16-Year-Old California Runaway Survives Flight to Hawaii in Plane’s Wheel Well

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Photo Credit: The Maui News / CHRIS SUGIDONO

Photo Credit: The Maui News / CHRIS SUGIDONO

A 16-year-old boy stowed away in the wheel well of a flight from California to Hawaii on Sunday, surviving the trip halfway across the Pacific Ocean unharmed despite frigid temperatures at 38,000 feet and a lack of oxygen, FBI and airline officials said.

FBI spokesman Tom Simon in Honolulu told The Associated Press on Sunday night that the boy was questioned by the FBI after being discovered on the tarmac at the Maui airport with no identification.

“Kid’s lucky to be alive,” Simon said.

Simon said security footage from the San Jose airport verified that the boy from Santa Clara, Calif., hopped a fence to get to Hawaiian Airlines Flight 45 on Sunday morning. The child had run away from his family after an argument, Simon said. Simon said when the flight landed in Maui, the boy hopped down from the wheel well and started wandering around the airport grounds.

Read more from this story HERE.

Franklin Graham: Muslims Who ‘Want to Practice Sharia Law’ Should ‘Go Back Where You Came From’

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Photo Credit: AP

Photo Credit: AP

“We should be afraid of sharia law” in America, and Muslims here who want to practice sharia should go back to where they came from, “to those nations that recognize sharia law,” said Rev. Franklin Graham, head of the Billy Graham Evangelistic Association.

In a recent interview with the Charlotte Observer, Graham was asked, “Some say you demonize Islam, and Christians in this country have opposed building a mosque or are worried about Sharia law. Isn’t it –”

Graham, who oversees the international Christian aid group Samaritan’s Purse, said, “We should be afraid of Sharia law. We should be absolutely afraid of it. No question about it, because there’s no tolerance in Sharia law. It persecutes those that do not believe in Islam.”

“And I would say to Muslims in this country, if they want to practice Sharia law, go back to where you came from, to those nations that recognize sharia law,” said Graham. “But we have our own laws here.”

Sharia law is the law of Islam, governing public life as well as private life. “Also meaning ‘path’ in Arabic, sharia guides all aspects of Muslim life, including daily routines, familial and religious obligations, and financial dealings,” states a backgrounder on sharia published by the Council on Foreign Relations (CFR). “Marriage and divorce are the most significant aspects of sharia, but criminal law is the most controversial.”

Read more from this story HERE.

Bible Critic Says Jesus Isn’t God, Stephen Colbert Leaves Him Speechless – You’ll Be Cheering at the End

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As we mentioned, Stephen Colbert, heir to David Letterman’s chair on “The Late Show,” openly talks about his Catholic faith. It’s a surprise to those who know the comedian only as the satirical conservative host of “The Colbert Report.”

Read more from this story HERE.

Miller Slams ‘Reckless and Irresponsible’ BLM

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Photo Credit: Natural News

Photo Credit: Natural News

Joe Miller today spoke out on the recent standoff between Bureau of Land Management officials and ranchers over disputed land in Nevada.

“The Bureau’s actions were reckless and irresponsible,” Miller said. “Lives could have been lost. There is a right way and a wrong way to do things, and federal agents “gunning up” against otherwise law-abiding citizens and depriving them of their First Amendment Rights isn’t just wrong, it’s unAmerican.”

Miller further pointed out that the Bundy case raises deeper concerns about the 10th Amendment and State jurisdiction. He has long been an advocate of Constitutional limits on the federal government, and of returning power to the states. He believes the best future for our state is Alaskan control of Alaska’s land and resources.

“What we saw in Nevada was the ugly underbelly of a federal government that has gone too far. It’s time for Alaska to assert its prerogatives under the 10th Amendment,” Miller said. “What I don’t understand is the deafening silence from our Congressional delegation on this case, especially in light of the BLM’s role in overseeing 87 million acres in Alaska and the recent federal raids on gold miners near Chicken.”

Joe Miller is a husband, father, combat veteran, and advocate of Constitutional liberty who believes in individual rights, private property, free markets and the sanctity of human life.

Here’s the Message Obama Offered This Week to Those Celebrating Passover, Easter

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Photo Credit: SAUL LOEB / AFP / Getty

Photo Credit: SAUL LOEB / AFP / Getty

President Barack Obama used his weekly address to offer his warm greetings to the millions celebrating Easter this Sunday, while also recounting the Passover Seder he hosted at the White House earlier in the week.

“For millions of Americans, this time of year holds great meaning,” Obama said.

“Earlier this week, we hosted a Passover Seder at the White House, and joined Jewish families around the world in their retellings of the story of the Exodus and the victory of faith over oppression,” he continued.

The president then focused on his message to Christians celebrating Easter this weekend.

Read more from this story HERE.

Thomas Jefferson Was Right

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Picture - Thomas JeffersonI was honored to receive the endorsement of Alaska Right to Life this past week.

Government has been given a sacred trust to protect life, especially the lives of the innocent and most vulnerable among us. This trust is recognized in both the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution.

In announcing the group’s endorsement, Alaska Right to Life stated, “The pro-life position Joe Miller takes isn’t merely a common political platitude, but is centered in the core of who he is. Joe will be a champion for the pro-life cause in Washington and is exactly the caliber of man we need representing Alaska in the US Senate.”

This much I pledge to you, on the first day that I am sworn in as Alaska’s next senator, I will co-sponsor Senator Rand Paul’s Life at Conception Act. Science now matches what faith has taught us for thousands of years: life begins when we are knit together in the womb.

Alaska is long overdue for representation in the United States Senate that respects life. Mark Begich has been a rubber stamp for Barack Obama’s radical judicial nominees and voted with Harry Reid for the so-called “nuclear option,” which allows the most anti-life President in American history to continue to pack the federal bench with judges who have no regard for the life of the unborn.

One of Begich’s first “yes” votes following the nuclear option last fall was to confirm Nina Pillard to the DC Circuit Court in a 51-44 middle of the night disgrace. Pillard wrote concerning abortion, “Casting reproductive rights in terms of equality holds promise to re-center the debate…away from the deceptive images of fetus-as-autonomous-being that the anti-choice movement has popularized…”

Begich also voted for New Hampshire Democrat Jeanne Shaheen’s amendment last year upholding the ObamaCare HHS contraception mandate. This onerous regulation requires businesses to provide coverage that includes abortion inducing drugs, regardless of deeply held religious convictions.

Over 56 million babies have been aborted since the Supreme Court’s decision in Roe vs. Wade in 1973. Last year in Alaska alone, approximately fourteen hundred were denied the opportunity to take their first breath and become the people they were created to be. This national tragedy must end.

The words of Thomas Jefferson ring through time: “the God who gave us life gave us liberty. Can the liberties of a nation be secure when we have removed a conviction that these liberties are the gift of God? Indeed I tremble for my country when I reflect that God is just, that his justice cannot sleep forever.”

On this special weekend, when we remember the life, death and resurrection of Jesus of Nazareth, may we all be renewed to do our part to allow His will to be done on earth as it is in heaven.

God bless you and yours this Easter!

Harry Reid’s View on Terrorists Explained in One Cartoon

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TP-terrorist-590-CI
Photo Credit: Political cartoonist A.F. Branco

As an American who believes vehemently in our Constitution, free speech and free political discourse I find Reid’s comments both ridiculous and hurtful.

Read more from this story HERE.

Barack Obama and the Politics of Lies

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Photo Credit: AP

Photo Credit: AP

By Washington Examiner Editorial.

That was quite a victory dance President Obama did Thursday while claiming Obamacare is “working” because eight million people have now supposedly signed up for the health care program. He even indulged in some less-than-subtle mockery of Republicans – and by extension the majority of Americans who have disapproved of Obamacare since before it became law. “The repeal debate is and should be over,” Obama said, taking a dig at Republicans who are “going through, you know, the stages of grief … anger and denial and all that stuff …”

But a president who is viewed by most Americans as less than honest has no business crowing about a victory that remains anything but obvious. And he certainly should not heap insults on people who for four years have profoundly disagreed with him on the wisdom of Obamacare. To put this as “less than honest” is to be charitable. What Fox News found in its most recent public opinion survey was that 61 percent of Americans believe Obama “lies” about important public issues either “most of the time” or “some of the time.” No other president in living memory has conducted himself in a manner that warranted even asking if such a description was appropriate.

It comes as no surprise today that Obama’s defenders are sparing no invective for Fox News in the wake of that survey. But it was the president, not Fox News, who repeatedly and knowingly misled the American people with two infamous Obamacare lies: “You can keep your health insurance if you like it. Period. You can keep your doctor. Period.” For better or worse, Obama will forever be known as the president who chose repeatedly to propagate two falsehoods. Those two lies were profoundly significant because they were designed to hide the truth about how Obamacare would affect the daily lives and health of hundreds of millions of Americans.

Read more from this story HERE.

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Photo Credit: AP

Photo Credit: AP

Dems’ 2014 challenge: How to win when Americans see a liar in the White House

By Mark Tapscott.

Timing is everything in politics and the latest Fox News poll suggests the timing of the 2014 midterm election could not be worse for President Obama and his fellow Democrats.

With public approval of Congress in the single digits, senators and representatives in both parties may face the most challenging political environment of their careers.

But the Fox survey makes clear that things aren’t breaking well for Obama, either, and his popularity rating may be the most important factor in determining how Democrats fare in November.

Liar, liar, pants on fire

Presidents have been unpopular before. Harry Truman’s approval rating sank to 23 percent at one point and Richard Nixon was so unpopular that he became the first chief executive ever to resign.

Read more from this story HERE.

Drunk With Power? New FDA Proposal Set to Hit Beer Brewers, Dairy Farmers (+video)

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Photo Credit: Fox News

Photo Credit: Fox News

For many years, beer breweries and farmers have used spent grains to help each other save money. After the grains are used in the brewing process the brewers pass them along to cattle farmers, who then use it as feed.

It’s a relationship that saves both sides hundred of thousands of dollars a year. Enter: the federal government.

A new FDA proposal, which is included in the 2011 Food Modernization Safety Act, stipulates that spent grains be treated the same as pet food. That means the grains would have to be dried out and packaged at a huge cost.

Read more from this story HERE.