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November 2015

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From Rags to Rubio The GOP candidate says many Americans identify with his past financial challenges.By Kimberley A. Strassel

By on November 6th, 2015

The swirl this week over Marco Rubio’s personal finances brings to mind that popular children’s word game, “Would You Rather.” Cut through the hype and the question Mr. Rubio presents to the electorate is this: “Would you rather a president who is above it all, or who has lived it all?”

Only the voters can answer that question—if they have the chance. The press for its part is more interested in presenting Mr. Rubio’s financial history as some evidence of scandal. The New York Times has devoted near novel-length inches to the non-news (this was all covered in Mr. Rubio’s Senate race in 2010) that as a Florida legislator he used a Republican Party charge card for personal purchases.

And? The card was used primarily for political expenses—which were covered by the party. Mr. Rubio occasionally used it for a personal expense, which he then paid for each month by writing a check to the card company. No one is suggesting that the party paid a dime toward Mr. Rubio’s expenses, or that the candidate was a dime short in promptly paying back his personal charges. If this is a scandal, we’ve found a cure for insomnia.

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Jeb Bush Ups Stakes In Attacks on His GOP Rival Marco Rubio Former Florida governor continues to hammer away at missed Senate votes by his one-time protégé By Beth Reinhard and Patrick O’Connor

By on November 6th, 2015

PORTSMOUTH, N. H.—In a Republican primary filled with intense rivalries, none is more personal than the one between Jeb Bush and his one-time lieutenant Marco Rubio.

Mr. Rubio got the better of his former governor in the last GOP presidential debate, undermining Mr. Bush’s standing in the primary and thrusting the Florida senator to the head of the pack of candidates with elected experience.

That raises the stakes heading into a critical week in which they will appear at the next GOP debate in Milwaukee Tuesday and a forum in Florida on Friday before a hometown audience both will eventually need to keep their presidential hopes alive.

“You have two people from the same state, the same county, literally neighbors who have spent so much time together and been on the same page politically, and when one of them starts attacking the other, it becomes personal,” said former state Rep. Gaston Cantens, who served with both men in Tallahassee and is backing Mr. Rubio. “It is the ugly side of politics.”

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Turkey Still Besieges Its Kurds by Uzay Bulut

By on November 6th, 2015

“They attacked even the wounded. Many people throughout Kurdistan have been arrested wholesale lately. Some of them participated in the election campaigns for our party. Many Turkish mainstream media outlets distort the facts and put the blame of the conflicts on Kurds. But it was the police that started the violence and conflicts. This much is clear: they murdered civilians knowingly and intentionally” — Ferhat Encu, Kurdish member of parliament for the Peoples’ Democratic Party (HDP)

“The police broke F.A.’s teeth, tortured him, beat him and inserted a gun in his anus. He fainted during the torture. Then he was taken to hospital. When we saw him, there were bruises and marks of torture all over his body.” — Zozan Acar, his lawyer.

“We sent ambulances, but the police opened fire even at the ambulances. They open fire at anyone who go outside.” — Seyfettin Aydemir, the co-mayor of Silopi, to newspaper Evrensel

Even though the AKP won the majority of votes this week, on November 3 a new curfew was imposed on the Kurdish town of Silvan —for the sixth time since August 17. Just before the curfew, Muslum Tayar, 22, was killed by the police. They shot him from their armored vehicle.

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Could the destroyed Russian plane be jihadi payback? By Shoshana Bryen

By on November 6th, 2015

It could have been a coincidence. A Russian airbus with 224 people – mainly tourists – flying from Sharm el-Sheikh, Egypt to St. Petersburg, Russia could simply have come apart in midair, killing all aboard. It would have been one heck of a coincidence, though, considering the players who would have wanted it to disintegrate and the constellation of agendas that would be advanced by a well-placed bomb.

It is almost impossible that the plane was hit from the ground. It was flying too high for a shoulder-fired missile. Although it isn’t clear whether there are mobile missile launchers in Sinai, assume for a moment that one or more exist. The missile would have to have been programmed – it needs radar and target designation – and therefore it needs a) to know the flight path of a particular plane if it plans to hit a particular plane and b) an operator with the right skills. (The list of requirements for a successful takedown of an airliner is what leads some to believe that it was a Russian operator in Ukraine who fired on Malaysian Air Flight 17 a year ago.)

A bomb inside the plane, however, would account for the widespread wreckage.

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Stabbing spree suspect at California college Identified as Muslim (Includes video) Jim Kouri

By on November 6th, 2015

Five people were stabbed at the University of California, Merced, on Wednesday morning by an assailant who was shot and killed by police. Merced County Sheriff Vern Warnke identified the suspect in Wednesday’s stabbings at UC Merced as Faisal Mohammad, an 18-year-old from Santa Clara. He was a first-year student majoring in computer science major.
The five victims were all attacked in front of an office building on campus according to a school official, according to a campus public safety officer who requested anonymity. “I was suspicious of the authorities who controlled the flow of information about the incident. They really hesitated to identify the perp since he was a Middle Easterner. But how can they cover up the identity a person with the name Faisal Mohammad as anything but a Muslim attacker,” said the campus cop.
The attacker originally was identified in reports as being a student in his early 20s and that was all. “Since Mohammad was killed by police, the Obama administration, the equally leftist California Jerry Brown and others are free to say the motive is unknown. That means they probably won’t call it Islamic terrorism related,” said former police officer and undercover detective Iris Aquino.
The university closed the campus and canceled Wednesday’s classes for the day and night in response to the attack, but the administration noted that everything is under control. “Campus is locked down. Do not come to campus. If you’re on campus, stay where you are,” read a school announcement. “Though there is no active danger, getting on and off campus is difficult.”
Mohammad shared a dormitory room with Andrew Velasquez who told KFSN TV News that Mohammad was “antisocial” and didn’t talk much. “I never saw him with anybody. Walking to class, I never saw him walk with anybody,” Velasquez said. “Every time I would try and say something, he would just ignore it.”

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BOOKS Comments turned off

No Holds Barred: Roger Waters’ unnatural preoccupation with Jews

By on November 6th, 2015

http://www.jpost.com/Opinion/No-Holds-Barred-Roger-Waters-unnatural-preoccupation-with-Jews-432204
The essence of anti-Semitism is the attempt to defame the Jewish people as a murderous, bloodthirsty nation that is deeply immoral. :by Shmuely Boteach.

“Waters would accuse the Jews, who give complete control of their holiest site in Jerusalem to the Muslim Wakf, of being like the Germans who snuffed out six million Jewish lives.Only a wretched, pitiless, cold-blooded ignoramus could make such a fraudulent allegation. Only a man whose breast swells with hatred of Jews could fabricate so sinister a blood libel. And only a first-class fraud like Roger Waters would believe that he could lie so viciously to an educated public and get away with it.”

“In a lengthy interview with Rolling Stone magazine this week, former Pink Floyd front man and Israel-hating obsessive Roger Waters demonstrated his all-consuming preoccupation with the Jews.

He speaks about watching Jewish Life Television late at night and reading about “old local Jewish ladies” who organize protests against him. Like most anti-Semites, he peddles central Jewish coordination theories, asserting that pro-Israel efforts, such as this very column, are organized by the prime minister of Israel’s office. “Hasbara, the arm of the Prime Minister’s Office that we all know starts with Netanyahu in Tel Aviv. It’s very organized, and I see it all over my Facebook page all the time. It’s this hugely organized thing.”

But for all his loathing of Israel, including flying pigs with Mogen Dovids on them as his concerts, comparing Israel to Nazi Germany and Israel’s policies to the Holocaust, and publicly condemning far more successful performers such as Jon Bon Jovi for performing in Israel, Rogers insists he is not a Jew-hater. “It’s not the Israeli people, not Jews, not Judaism. I would never dream of attacking them.”

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Jerusalem Post Editorial: Immoral labels

By on November 6th, 2015

For three years now the European Union has been threatening to publicize guidelines on the consumer labeling of Israeli products produced over the pre-1967 lines in parts of Jerusalem, Judea and Samaria, and the Golan Heights.

This week sources in Jerusalem said they had received signals the Europeans would soon make good on this threat – possibly within days.

The Europeans for their part have in the past attempted to play down the issue, claiming that labeling does not constitute a boycott. As EU spokesman in Israel David Kriss told Bloomberg in June, “The main principle here is simply that consumers in Europe should not be misled about the origin of products.”

Kriss and other European officials would like us to believe that labeling is just a way of providing European consumers with information and has nothing whatsoever to do with nasty boycotts.

Such attempts to dissemble are hardly convincing. After all, what precisely will be written on the labels? “Made by Israeli settlers in Occupied Palestinian Territory”? Even the more innocuous “Produce of the West Bank (Israeli settlement produce)” that already appears on products in some British supermarkets is enough to deter European consumers already prejudiced by slanted news media.

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A LETTER FROM DAYNA MESERVE…..SEE NOTE PLEASE

By on November 6th, 2015

Dayna is a passionate Christian Zionist who yearned to go to Israel “someday,” but real life kept getting in her way.Well, last month she finally got her wish…and she sent me this remarkable, passionate and encouraging letter which I am urging you to send out to as wide an audience as possible……Joan Swirsky (Author of “The Cargiver Survivors Guide”)

Dear Joan,

As I sit, safe and sound, on my living room sofa in my condo in Naples, FL, it’s been less than two weeks since I toured Israel and walked the streets in the Old City of Jerusalem. I’m thankful that, as a tourist, I was not personally confronted with the deadly violence that Israelis are experiencing these days, in a Palestinian “knife intifada.”

We spent a day at a ministry center in Haifa. I met Russian Jews who came to the center to receive practical goods that were being gifted to them by The Joshua Fund. The grateful looks on their faces were priceless. There were incredulous tears of joy as they received a decorative canvas wheeled cart, kitchen knives, a wireless electric tea pot, laundry detergent, dish towels, a cutting board, a vegetable peeler, a can opener, a pot with a lid, a glass bowl, a ladle, a decorative mug, and a pillow––items that you and I take for granted.

One sweet, gray-haired lady whom I greeted and assisted, really touched my heart. I couldn’t hug her or help her enough! I got choked up just wondering how she happened to be there at that time in her life.

Two hundred people (men, women and their children) had been selected to participate in this event. Fortunately, not everything that’s going on in Israel is violent or deadly!

Joan, everywhere we went, there were tour groups of Christians and Jews from all over the world in Israel! Not even the threat of Palestinian Islamic terrorism kept us away from our quest to experience Israel!

I felt safe from the moment I arrived at Ben Gurion Air Port in Tel Aviv. As a visitor in Israel, when I was standing on the Golan Heights hearing gunfire fire coming from Syria, that’s when I was confronted with the reality of war. It was surreal.

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ANTI-SEMITISM Comments turned off

A Bill of Divorcement There are a number of ways to divorce oneself from an unwanted spouse.Edward Cline

By on November 5th, 2015

Britain should divorce the EU with extreme prejudice and reclaim its sovereignty in full. Then it might have a brighter future.

There are a number of ways to divorce oneself from an unwanted spouse.

The Muslim way is for a man to say three times to the wife, “I divorce thee.” Or words to that effect.

The Jewish way is for the man to write it out. According to the Torah, divorce is accomplished simply by writing a bill of divorce, handing it to the wife, and sending her away.

There were three films of the same title, A Bill of Divorcement, in 1922, in 1932, and 1940, dealing with the problems of a woman whose husband was declared incurably insane and institutionalized. She obtains a divorce from him, with the understanding that she will never see him again and is free to remarry. In all three films it doesn’t work out well for all the concerned parties.

Britain is about to embark on a bill of divorcement of sorts from the European Union, in which a referendum on EU membership will be held. The EU lately has embarked on a political and economic course that is utterly insane, if not suicidal, especially in regards to the massive immigrant invasion of the Continent. The referendum couldn’t have been better timed. Even though Britain is not a part of the Shengen borderless system on the Continent system, many Britons could not have but noticed the continued efforts of especially Muslims trying to enter Britain for its benefits. Presumably they’re better than Germany’s, but I wouldn’t know. They try to enter Britain by truck-and-train-hopping and rushing en masse into the Chunnel and have set up a tent-and-shack slum in Calais near the entrance to the tunnel to Dover. It’s probably less sanitary than the Normans’ camp before they invaded Britain in 1066.

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BOOKS Comments turned off

OPEN YOUR EYES! OPEN THE BOOKS!

By on November 5th, 2015

http://www.openthebooks.com/

Why Did EPA Spend Millions of Dollars on Military-style Weaponry?

Guns and ammunition up to 300MM, offensive/defensive Radiated Electromagnetic systems, Infrared Security Systems,
Body Armor, Personal Armor…

Full Measure with Sharyl Attkisson – 5-time Emmy award winning investigative journalist – airs our EPA military-style weapons discoveries this Sunday on 162 local ABC, CBS, NBC, and FOX stations across America.
Check Your Local Listings, click here.
CLICK HERE – DOWNLOAD OUR
OPENTHEBOOKS OVERSIGHT REPORT – U.S. EPA
THE ENVIRONMENTAL PROTECTION ARMY?
FOX AND FRIENDS | Sunday, November 1, 2015

Click here to Watch the Program
VS.
MEDIA MATTERS | Monday, November 2, 2015

Click here to read the Media Matters Response to FOX News

Two weeks ago, our national news coverage on EPA military spending was kicked-off by Stephen Moore writing in Investor’s Business Daily .

Last week, the founder of the Heritage Foundation, Ed Feulner, showcased our EPA report in an editorial at Washington Times and syndicated to 80 newspapers across America, The EPA Army – The EPA Doesn’t Need to be Armed to the Teeth.
Last Sunday, Feulner’s editorial was discussed on FOX and Friends. Host Tucker Carlson and Erick Erickson (RedState) disputed the need to arm EPA agents with military-style weapons.

Then, Media Matters challenged the FOX conclusion. Read the Media Matters argument here.

Thankfully, arming the EPA is now a national debate.

Last week in a column at Human Events, Rep. Lamar Smith (R-TX), Chairman of House Committee on Science, Space and Technology, promised to hold hearings on our exposure of EPA waste.

IT’S YOUR TURN — TOGETHER, LET’S DO EVEN MORE:

Our new video describes how our data and technology can help you stop government waste! Watch it here.

Help fund our movement with a special Crowdfunding donation of $1, $50, $100, or more, please click here.
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JOIN THE TRANSPARENCY REVOLUTION. IT’S YOUR MONEY!
Adam Andrzejewski (say: Angie-f-ski)

Founder, OpenTheBooks.com

Matthew Tyrmand
Deputy Director

Matthew Tyrmand

Deputy Director, American Transparency

www.OpenTheBooks.com

matthew.tyrmand@openthebooks.com

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