Photo Credit: CNSNews.com/Ali Meyer
In January 1980, when BLS started tracking the average price of 100-percent beef ground chuck, a pound cost $1.82. By this November, the same pound of ground beef cost $3.61 per pound. That was up from $3.49 per pound in October.
A decade ago, in November 2003, a pound of ground chuck cost $2.49. Since then, the price has gone up 45 percent.
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Photo Credit: JTF Guantanamo
The two-year budget agreement, which cleared a key test vote earlier in the day, was expected to get a final vote no later than Wednesday.
Ahead of the final vote, Sen. Jeff Sessions, R-Ala., tried unsuccessfully to use a parliamentary tactic to force a vote on the amendment, which he wrote to undo the cuts for military retirees.
A provision in the already House-passed bill would cut retirement benefits for military retirees by $6 billion over 10 years.
Sessions wanted to instead eliminate an estimated $4.2 billion in annual spending by reining in an IRS credit that illegal immigrants have claimed.
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Photo Credit: Daily Caller
“What’s floating is so dangerous, we’d be behind for twenty years in terms of access (if it were to be leaked),” a ranking Department of Defense official told the Daily Caller.
“He stole everything — literally everything,” the official said.
Last month British and U.S. intelligence officials speculated Snowden had in his possession a “doomsday cache” of intelligence information, including the names of undercover intelligence personnel stationed around the world.
“Sources briefed on the matter” told Reuters that such a cache could be used as an insurance policy in the event Snowden was captured, and that, “the worst was yet to come.”
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Photo Credit: AP Photo/Carolyn Kaster
The Department of Justice has argued that the Presidential Policy Directive on Global Development was covered by executive privilege, even though the information is “non-classified” and sends directives to agencies not to the president of the United States.
“Acting on a Freedom of Information Act lawsuit brought by the Center for Effective Government, U.S. District Court Judge Ellen Huvelle concluded that the presidential order is not properly within the bounds of the so-called ‘presidential communications privilege,’” Politico’s Josh Gerstein reports.
In her opinion, Huvelle wrote there is “no evidence that the [directive] was intended to be, or has been treated as, a confidential presidential communication.”
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The German chancellor also told the US president that America’s National Security Agency cannot be trusted because of the volume of material it had allowed to leak to the whistleblower Edward Snowden, according to the New York Times.
Livid after learning from Der Spiegel magazine that the Americans were listening in to her personal mobile phone, Merkel confronted Obama with the accusation: “This is like the Stasi.”
The newspaper also reported that Merkel was particularly angry that, based on the disclosures, “the NSA clearly couldn’t be trusted with private information, because they let Snowden clean them out.”
Snowden is to testify on the NSA scandal to a European parliament inquiry next month, to the anger of Washington which is pressuring the EU to stop the testimony.
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Belief in miracles, heaven and other religious teachings also declined in the latest poll, as follows:
–72 percent believe in miracles, down from 79 percent in 2005;
–68 percent believe in heaven, down from 75 percent;
–68 percent believe that Jesus is God or the Son of God, down from 72 percent…
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Mark Levin said Monday on his syndicated radio program Monday that the United States Chamber of Commerce is “not about capitalism, they’re about cronyism,” continuing with the theme of the divide between “establishment Republicans” and “conservatives.”
Levin discussed an Opensecrets.org report showing that, in the 2012 election cycle, the Chamber gave $6,275,199 in campaign contributions to candidates, Leadership Political Action Committees (PACs), parties, and 527 committees.
The top individual recipients were Mitt Romney, Senate Candidate Laura Lingle (R-Hawaii), Senate Candidate George Allen (R-Va.), Senate Candidate Heather Wilson (R-NM), and Sen. Jeff Flake (R-Ariz.). The Republican Governors Association (RGA) received $1.25 million, while the Democratic Governors Association (DGA) and the Democratic Attorneys General Association (DAGA) received a combined $130,000 from the Chamber.
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Duck Dynasty star Phil Robertson skipped out of Barbara Walters’ “Most Fascinating People Interview.” While the rest of the famed Louisiana natives — and A&E ratings powerhouses — showed up to last month’s taping, the 67-year-old founder of Duck Commander opted to go hunting instead, much to the veteran journalist’s chagrin.
For the first time in the annual show’s history, we can reveal, 84-year-old Walters will joke on-air that she’d “never been superseded by a duck before.”
The ABC newswoman even confronted Phil’s wife, Miss Kay, who admitted her husband would rather shoot ducks than do the interview!
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Photo Credit: Facebook
The $111.05 New York restaurant receipt includes a $1,000 tip and the words “god bless!” scrawled across it.
The handle @tipsforjesus is stamped next to an illegible signature.
In recent weeks, similar tabs have popped up in restaurants from coast to coast and even in Mexico, with tips of as much as $10,000 — all charged to American Express.
On Sunday just after midnight, the mysterious man surfaced again — this time in Fairfield, Conn. He left a $5,000 gratuity on a $112 bill at the Seagrape, an eatery where college kids drop by for cheap beers by the beach.
Tips for Jesus — an Instagram account filled with photos documenting the tips — has more than 54,000 followers. The account displays photos of smiling servers holding receipts with outlandish gratuities on bills also tallied in Los Angeles, San Francisco, Chicago, Phoenix and Ann Arbor, Mich. On Twitter, Tips for Jesus has nearly 3,000 followers but no tweets.
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Report: “Tips for Jesus” tipper is former PayPal exec
By Kim Peterson.
Has the mysterious benefactor behind “Tips for Jesus” finally been outed?
Restaurants around the country have been receiving shockingly large tips to the tune of $5,000, $7,000 and even $10,000. The person giving the tips never gives away his or her identity; instead, the large tip is added to the bill right before the party of diners leaves.
The only clue left behind is the phrase @TipsforJesus written on the signature line of the bill. A “Tips for Jesus” Instagram page publishes photos of the dining checks but doesn’t say who is paying the amounts.
Silicon Valley gossip site ValleyWag reported last week that the person behind “Tips for Jesus” is Jack Selby, a former PayPal executive with “more money than the real son of God.”
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Generous Mystery Tipper Leaving ‘TipsforJesus’
By CBN.
An anonymous diner has been leaving generous tips at restaurants across the country.
The mystery tipper has been taking a picture of each receipt and posting it on his Instagram account @TipsforJesus.
According to Instagram account, he’s “Doing the Lord’s work, one tip at a time.” One of his latest stops, Moondogs bar in Port Orchard, Wash.
“It’s very unique, it’s like a lightening strike,” bar owner Darryl Baldwin said.
The staff of Moondogs said the mystery diner rang up a $576 check after buying everyone a round. Then he left a $5,000 tip.
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Photo Credit: Reuters/Jason Reed
Obama’s approval rating in the poll stands at 43%. By comparison, President George W. Bush had a 47% approval rating at the end of the fifth year of his presidency. And all other Post-World War II presidents had approval ratings above 50% — with the exception of Nixon, who, amid the Watergate scandal, had a dreadful 29% approval rating.
The brutal numbers underscore what has been something of a lost year for the President. His approval ratings have been plunging recently as a result of the botched implementation of the Affordable Care Act. In the Washington Post/ABC poll, only 34% approve of how Obama is handling his signature health law’s implementation.
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