Rolling Stone glamorizes Boston Marathon jihad murderer

From Jihad Watch / Posted by Robert Spencer

True to the Leftist fascination for jihadis, the cover of the latest Rolling Stone depicts jihad murderer Dzhokhar Tsarnaev looking as glamorous as any rock star ever has. The story inside, however, seems to betray a bit of the truth in spite of itself, letting slip that Dzhokhar took Islam very seriously (how could he have, if he thought it required the mass murder of Infidels?), and justified the 9/11 jihad attacks. Even in the desert of the Rolling Stone, sometimes a small sprout of the truth can spring up in spite of the editors' best efforts.

"Five Revelations From Rolling Stone's Boston Bomber Cover Story," from Rolling Stone, July 16 (thanks to Tarn):

In the new issue of Rolling Stone, contributing editor Janet Reitman delivers a deeply reported account of the life and times of Boston bomber Jahar Tsarnaev. 

Reitman spent the last two months interviewing dozens of sources – childhood and high school friends, teachers, neighbors and law enforcement agents, many of whom spoke for the first time about the case – to deliver a riveting and heartbreaking account of how a charming kid with a bright future became a monster. Here are five revelations about Tsarnaev from our latest cover story, "Jahar's World"... 

• Around 2008, Jahar’s older brother Tamerlan confided to his mother that he felt like "two people" were inside him. She confided this to a close friend who felt he might need a psychiatrist, but Zubeidat believed that religion would be the cure for her son’s inner demons and growing mental instability, and pushed him deeper into Islam.

• Jahar's high school, Cambridge Rindge and Latin, is famously diverse, but Jahar played down the fact that he was a Muslim. As his brother and mother became more religious, he did, however, attend a small Friday prayer group that met at lunchtime, and once got quite upset when a friend who'd converted to Islam talked about it in a casual way. "Islam wasn't casual to Jahar," says one friend. "He took his religion seriously."

• Jahar shared few details of his troubled home life with even his closest friends. In the months leading up to the bombing, his family had disintegrated. His parents were both living in Russia. His two older sisters were estranged. Only Tamerlan, who was becoming increasingly devout and judgmental of all non-Muslims, was still in Boston. When one of Jahar’s friends asked to meet Tamerlan, Jahar said, "No, you don't want to meet him."

• Jahar never spoke about 9/11. Once, though, he let slip to a high school friend that he thought the terrorist attacks could be justified, and pointed to US policies towards Muslim countries and US drone strikes and other attacks as his rationale.

Op-ed:

Heroes, villains, and protest events 

By: Diane Sori

What is a hero…a hero is a person of distinguished courage or ability admired for their brave deeds and noble qualities. A hero is a role model of all that is good; someone worthy of being emulating and respecting.

What a hero is NOT is a thug…nor is a hero those who revere and applaud thugs and their actions. A hero is NOT our biased media as the push forward a narrative of racial bias by twisting and distorting facts and events to fit the divisive agenda of our race-baiting president and his cronies, the likes of Jesse Jackson, Al Sharpton, Eric Holder, Louis Farrakhan, and others.

A hero is NOT lawyers who hide the truth about a supposed ‘sweet child’ who was anything but as they tried to railroad an innocent man to appease a ‘small but vocal militant black minority’…as they tried to appease those having a mob mentality who wait salivating in the wings to wreck havoc and violence anytime something does NOT go their perceived way.

But above all else heroes are NOT those like racist Reverend Al Sharpton who organize days of nationwide protest to counter with volatile atomicity the NOT guilty verdict reached according to our laws by a jury of the accused’s peers.

So what is a hero…our brave troops are heroes for they put their lives on the line every day to keep us safe and free here at home.

Heroes are also the likes of Ambassador Christopher Stevens, Information Officer Sean Smith, and ex-Navy SEALS Tyrone Woods and Glen Dougherty…all who gave their lives in service to our beloved America.

This Saturday, July 20th, using the George Zimmerman NOT guilty verdict to further his all consuming cause of racial divisiveness, Reverend Al Sharpton has organized protest rallies in 100 major cities across America to spew hatred and contempt NOT only for George Zimmerman, the man found innocent of murder, but also to vilify the jury who reached this verdict, and even worse...to deify a thug in the name of hate and ‘supposed’ racial disparity.

A 17-year old young adult but a thug NO matter how anyone tries to twist it…and while the loss of any life is sad…especially when it did NOT have to be…organizing protests which will probably result in violence to some degree is NOT the answer to a verdict some did NOT like nor is it right to turn the guilty into heroes.

And so with that Andrea Plescia and I, Diane Sori, created a peaceful event, Justice for Christopher, to counter Saturday’s protests to show what a true miscarriage of justice looks like…one that should be protested every day until the truth is given to questions deliberately NOT answered.

Remember, Trayvon Martin had a choice…he could have simply turned and walked away. He didn’t. Ambassador Christopher Stevens, Information Officer Sean Smith, Ex-Navy Seals Tyrone Woods and Glen Dougherty were NEVER given the choice of walking away as they were deliberately and with malice left behind to be murdered by muslim terrorists.

Deliberately, willfully, and with malice left behind by our traitor of a president…Barack HUSSEIN Obama…and that is a crime truly worthy of protesting.

So on Saturday, July 20, 2013, the same day protests are going on across the country to honor a thug and spread hate and retaliation against a man found NOT guilty, we ask that everyone change their profile pictures both on Facebook and the alternative venues for that one day to this picture to protest a real crime…the Obama administration’s willful decision to leave our Ambassador and the others behind.

And if enough people do this we will send a powerful but peaceful message that NO matter what diversions are used by this administration to keep our focus off Benghazi ‘We the People’ will NOT allow that to happen for Benghazi is ground zero for what is truly a crime of treason.

Please click on the below link for more information about this event, Justice for Christopher, on July 20th 10am to July 21st 12:01am, and I truly hope that all will join in to say, ‘We will NOT forget the Benghazi Four'.

Justice for Christopher 

https://www.facebook.com/events/1374729896080953/

Justice for Christopher

Andrea Plescia and I, Diane Sori, created this event to show what really should be protested. Trayvon Martin had a choice...he could have simply turned and walked away. Ambassador Christopher Stevens, Information Officer Sean Smith, Ex-Navy Seals Tyrone Woods and Glen Dougherty had NO choice as they were deliberately and with malice left behind to be murdered by muslim terrorists.

On Saturday, July 20, 2013, the same day race-baiter Al Sharpton has called for protests across the country to honor a thug and spread hate and retaliation against George Zimmerman, a man found NOT guilty by a jury of his peers, we ask that everyone change their profile pics for that one day to protest a real crime...the Obama administration's decision to leave our Ambassador and the others behind.

https://www.facebook.com/events/1374729896080953/

 

Common Core Won't Make Kids Smarter

By: Phyllis Schlafly / Townhall Columnist 

 

 

The new education standards called Common Core won't make U.S. kids any smarter. The Thomas B. Fordham Institute studied them and concluded that they are inferior to existing standards in 12 states, superior in only 16 states and the standards of 22 states are too close to call. It would be better if states used their own revised and improved version of standards already successfully piloted in 12 states. 

The overall Common Core strategy is to raise the scores of average students by a point or two but do nothing to motivate or help the smarter kids or the dumber kids. CC's goal is to achieve a result like Lake Wobegon, the fictional Minnesota town where "all kids are above average."

Professor Sandra Stotsky, a member of the CC validation committee, refused to approve the standards finally published and explained: "Common Core has carefully disguised its road to equally low outcomes for all demographic groups, and many state boards of education may quickly follow up their unexamined adoption of Common Core's K-12 standards ... by lowering their high school graduation requirements in the name of alignment."

CC advocates continue to say that CC standards are not a curriculum but are merely standards. But it's clear that the curriculum must be aligned with the CC tests so teachers will be compelled to teach to the test.

A report by the UCLA-based National Center for Research on Evaluation, Standards and Student Testing concluded that "educators will align curriculum and teaching to what is tested, and what is not assessed largely will be ignored." Bill Gates, the largest individual financial contributor to Common Core, told the National Conference of State Legislators, "We'll know we've succeeded when the curriculum and the tests are aligned to these standards."

The CC English standards replace about half of the readings in literature classics with "informational" materials, which CC advocates say are supposed to promote analytical thinking by students. In a report released by the Pioneer Institute, Stotsky gave an example of her grandson's experience.

The students were assigned to read selections on the fate of the Taino Indians and from a diary supposedly written by Christopher Columbus' cabin boy, and then were told to write to a state official opining on whether Columbus should be honored by a state holiday. Every student's letter said Columbus should not be so honored. That's how "informational" reading morphs into liberal propaganda.

Common Core gives leftist educators a backdoor for bringing leftwing activism into the classroom. NPR reported that one veteran teacher, Melinda Bundy, replaced her popular unit about King Arthur and his Knights of the Round Table with one about President John F. Kennedy and the 1960s because, she said, she "adored JFK."

Comic books and graphic novels were formerly considered useful primarily for underachieving students and poor readers as a means to get them interested in books. But now Common Core is bringing picture books into the mainstream of education.

At a National Council of Teachers of English conference, the teachers of a senior Advanced Placement honors course presented an argument against having students read "Beowulf" and substituting a comic book based on "Beowulf." No doubt parents will be told that CC includes classic literature such as "Beowulf."

The outgoing president of the Missouri branch of the NEA said CC will "prepare our kids for a global community, a global society. These are going to exactly take us there."

The new science standards, called "Next Generation Science Standards," were examined by nine scientists and mathematicians for content, rigor and clarity, after which the Fordham Institute gave them a grade of "C." They criticized the "ceiling on the content and skills that will be measured at each grade," the excluding of content that more advanced students can learn, the failure "to include essential math content that is critical to science learning" in physics and chemistry, and the "confusing" wording of the standards.

Proponents of evolution and manmade climate change are ecstatic about the new Common Core science standards. Education Week reports: "The standards make clear that evolution is fundamental to understanding the life sciences."

Common Core does not prepare students to major in the STEM subjects at a university. CC prepares students only to enroll in courses at two-year community colleges.

Always a friend of parents' rights, Sen. Chuck Grassley, R-Iowa, is leading an effort to persuade Senate appropriators to restore state-level decision-making about academic content in public schools in order to counter the way federal incentives have forced states to adopt the Common Core standards. He wants the Senate "to restore state decision-making and accountability with respect to state academic content standards" because "parents ought to have a straight line of accountability to those who are making such decisions."

Obama Finds Foreign Affairs Do Not Bend to His Whims

By: Michael Barone / Townhall Columnist 

Foreign policy is hard. That's a lesson Barack Obama has been learning throughout his presidency. The world is not responding as he expected.
It looks simpler from the outside. Promise to get out of Iraq and Afghanistan, proclaim yourself the tribune of hope and change, receive the adulation of giant crowds in Europe and accept the Nobel Peace Prize.

Obama entered office, as many presidents have, with the assumption that his predecessor's policies were wrongheaded and could readily be reversed.

Because he didn't look like other presidents, in his phrase, he believed he could change the attitudes unfriendly leaders had towards America and have special appeal to Muslims.

This has proved to be naive. Many, if not most Americans, including those who didn't vote for Obama, believe that the election of a black president was a step forward in American history.

But it doesn't have that resonance in much of the rest of the world. Obama went to Cairo in early June 2009 to deliver a speech proclaiming a "new beginning" of the relationship between America and the Arab and Muslim worlds.

Later that month he showed icy indifference to the Green Movement protestors in Iran, presumably hoping that he could still change the attitude of the mullah regime toward America by his willingness to engage in direct negotiations. His expectations were in vain. The mullahs showed they were interested not in talking but in getting nuclear weapons.

And polls show that attitudes in many Arab and Muslim countries are now more negative to America than they were when George W. Bush was president.

Obama's multiple responses to the Arab Spring uprisings and their aftermath have been part of the problem.

Tunisia, the first, presented few problems. In Libya he was content to, as one aide put it, "lead from behind."

This has resulted in the chaos and disorder that resulted in the deaths of Ambassador Chris Stevens and three other Americans in Benghazi. Obama retired to the White House family quarters while the attack was going on and jetted off the next day to a campaign event in Las Vegas.

Egypt is the largest Arab nation by far and one critical to U.S. interests. Under Hosni Mubarak, it remained at peace -- though it was a cold peace -- with Israel. It controls traffic and therefore the flow of oil through the Suez Canal.

When protests broke out against Mubarak in January 2011, Obama originally said Mubarak's time had not passed, then a month later said he must leave. When he did, Obama urged Egyptian military leaders, with whom the U.S. military has close ties, to push toward elections.

Those resulted in a narrow victory in June 2012 for the one organized political force in Egypt, the Muslim Brotherhood. President Mohammed Morsi then put in a new constitution and put the military on a short leash.

When vast numbers started protesting against Morsi last month, U.S. Ambassador Anne Patterson supported him. But Obama acquiesced in his ouster and called for elections soon.

The result is that Obama, as Kori Schake wrote in foreignpolicy.com, "has achieved the hat trick of alienating all the factions in Egypt."

He has probably done so in Syria as well. There, he predicted that Bashir Assad would be quickly ousted, and when he wasn't, said he must go. But he denied the Syrian rebels military aid until last month.

Unfortunately, the rebels seem weaker and more dominated by jihadists than they were two years ago.

Now it must be said that it is hard to anticipate how these protests and rebellions would turn out.

Most outside observers probably expected Assad to be ousted quickly, as other leaders believed.

But it can also be said that Obama entered office with misperceptions that proved damaging. His assumption that he would be hailed in Cairo in 2009 as he had been in Berlin in 2008 was always unrealistic.

As is his apparent assumption that everything will be fine if the United States just withdrew, as our military did in Iraq when Obama failed to negotiate a status of forces agreement in Iraq.

Things have not turned out fine there, or in Libya, Egypt, and Syria. And Iran gets closer to having nuclear weapons every day.

Military intervention can be costly. But so can withdrawing and leading, hesitantly, from behind.

The Low Cost Of Freedom

By: Ben Crystal / Personal Liberty Digest

PHOTOS.COM

$5,320.88. On paper, it really doesn’t look all that impressive. To be sure, that many dollars would look lovely in my bank account. But weighed against the bank accounts of President Barack Obama and the multimillionaires who back and control him, $5,320.88 is pocket change, chicken scratch, couch cushion money. Stacked against the behemoth Federal budget, $5,320.88 is a particularly paltry sum. The Federal budget weighs in at about $3.8 trillion per annum. That’s 714,285 times the taxpayer funds dispensed by the Department of Justice’s little-known Community Relations Service to agitate against the now-acquitted George Zimmerman. According to documents obtained by Judicial Watch under the Freedom of Information Act, $5,320.88 is all the President of the United States spent on organizing the racists, the low-information “loafers,” the lapdog media parasites and other human detritus who comprise the rank and file of the criminal enterprise masquerading as the Democratic Party.

Some of you might read the preceding paragraph and think: “If the Feds spent so little, what’s the big deal?” My response: “The President of the United States used your money to try to influence the verdict of a non-Federal criminal jury — an outrage no matter what the amount. Moreover, the souls of those who participated in Obama’s anti-Zimmerman wannabe lynch mob came awfully cheap. And to put a cherry on top of the completely crummy cupcake: The ‘creepy-ass cracker’ walked.”

However, rather than focus on Obama’s appalling attempt to subvert the legal process, let’s focus on a few items for which that money could have been used.

According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics’ “Consumer Expenditure Survey, 3rd quarter 2011 through 2nd quarter 2012” as well as publicly available sources, $5,320.88 could cover:

• More than 80 percent of the average American’s annual food budget — including meals outside the home or just more than a pound of the Beluga caviar served at a Malibu millionaire’s fundraiser for Obama.
• The average American’s rent for nearly two years or just less than 10 square feet in the Chicago condo Oprah Winfrey recently sold (despite having never actually lived in it).
• The average American’s annual utilities budget — including water, electricity, gas, telephone and cable or about 1/47,000^th of the next big blockbuster one of Obama’s Hollywood cronies throws onto the big screen.
• Three-fourths of the annual clothing budget for a family of four or about three-fourths of the price of that drop-dead dazzling J. Mendel jacket the first lady wore to a Buckingham Palace reception last summer.
• The annual vehicle fuel costs for nearly two whole average American families or the cost of just less than two minutes of the first family’s flight to Aspen, Colo., aboard Air Force One.

Of course, the $5,320.88 figure is about to skyrocket, given that Obama is almost sure to re-engage Zimmerman at a Federal level. But for now, the number is just $5,320.88. To a President and his coterie of crooks and cronies, it’s nothing. To the average American family, it could be everything. To those who realize that Obama invested America’s money in an effort to further divide us along racial lines — and will likely walk away without a scrape — again, it could very much be the cost of freedom.

Op-ed: 
'Stand Your Ground', racism, and Eric Holder 
By: Diane Sori

George Zimmerman has been found NOT guilty in the self-defense shooting of Trayvon Martin yet two very important ramifications have occurred because off this verdict.

First, while this case was NEVER about 'Stand Your Ground'...it was always a case about self-defense...Barack HUSSEIN Obama and crew tried to make it just that so they could use the tie-in to work towards getting Florida’s ‘Stand Your Ground’ law repealed…which is something Obama desperately wants as doing so would accomplish what his failed gun control law couldn’t…that is disarm ‘We the the People’ because if Florida’s ‘Stand Your Ground’ law is repealed the other 30 states that have a form of this law will also most likely face repeal.

Passed by the Florida legislature in 2005, ‘Stand Your Ground’ allows Floridians to use, if necessary, deadly force in cases of self-defense when they believe their lives are at risk or their person is at risk of severe bodily harm. But the main difference between ‘Stand Your Ground’ and what’s known as ‘common-law self-defense’ is the matter of ‘retreat’. While ‘Stand Your Ground’ removed the necessity to ‘retreat’ (pull back), ‘common-law self-defense’ does require an individual to ‘retreat’ if it’s safe to do so to avoid violence, especially to avoid the need to use deadly force.

So simply, ‘Stand Your Ground’ means that a person may justifiably use deadly force in self-defense if there’s a reasonable belief of a threat being made against their life or person without having to pull back first, and ‘common-law self-defense means you must pull back if you can.

Thirty states besides Florida have some form of ‘Stand Your Ground’ laws, including those that have adopted the so-called companion Castle Doctrine statutes (a legal doctrine that states a person’s home is where the use of force, including deadly force to defend against an intruder is allowed, and where one is free from legal responsibility or prosecution for the consequences of any force used), and three other states are considering either ‘Stand Your Ground’ or Castle Doctrine laws of their own.

So take away the right to defend yourself or your home from 34 states and ‘We the People’ are in deep trouble.

Second, isn’t it odd that suddenly ‘Stand Your Ground’ is in the forefront since the ‘small but vocal, militant black minority’ didn’t get the verdict they wanted against George Zimmerman. And isn’t it odd that those peacefully protesting and even those NOT so peacefully protesting are overlooking that the media willfully turned what should have been a simple self-defense case into OJ revisited.

And isn’t it quite hypocritical that those who are using this case for race-baiting...those like Barack HUSSEIN Obama, Jesse Jackson, Al Sharpton, Louis Farrakhan, and their ilk…happily looked away when a totally guilty black man accused of killing two white people walked with a verdict of NOT guilty. Where was the outrage for everyone knew OJ was guilty, the evidence was there ten-fold, yet through legal wrangling he was found NOT guilty simply because the media turned the case into an issue of race and racial inequality.

And ‘supposed’ racial inequality is the calling card of vile men like Jesse Jackson who said on FOX News right before the verdict was read that he would only accept a verdict of second-degree murder or manslaughter. Guess what Jesse, we don’t give a damn what you will or won’t accept.

And yesterday one of the biggest racists of them all, Attorney General Eric Holder, calling the shooting death of black teenager Trayvon Martin “tragic and unnecessary,” had the audacity to say on national television that since the trial in Florida failed to serve justice, he and the DOJ would continue to investigate the evidence in this case as a civil rights case of racial hatred NO matter that the jury verdict was already adjudicated…as in George Zimmerman according to our rules of law was found NOT guilty of all charges by a jury of his peers, but the jury verdict be damned as this was NOT the verdict he and his racist ilk wanted.

Placating Obama’s allies and echoing the NAACP accusations that the verdict was an “outrage,” Holder will cater to the ‘small but very vocal militant black minority’…the very ones who if any verdict comes down against any black person…even if they are guilty…yells racism. Claiming George Zimmerman ‘supposedly’ criminally violated the civil rights of Trayvon Martin, Holder could care less that right after the shooting the FBI investigated and found NO evidence of racial bias or that a hate crime of any kind had been committed.

And by his saying that ‘justice for Trayvon may still be possible’ Holder is deliberately and with malice saying the jury reached the wrong verdict and he will make sure the right verdict, according to him and his racist ilk, is handed down…and this makes a mockery of our judicial system for Eric Holder has now crossed the line and is overstepping his bounds by violating the civil rights of George Zimmerman.

Thankfully, winning a federal criminal civil rights case is NOT easy for two reasons…first, the DOJ will have to prove that Zimmerman acted out of hatred for Trayvon Martin, someone he didn’t know, strictly because of Trayvon’s race. and two, by finding George Zimmerman NOT guilty of second-degree murder, the jury rejected the charge that Zimmerman acted with ill will, spite, or hatred...the very charges Holder wants to bring against Zimmerman.

Add in that the DOJ itself has stated many times that “negligence, recklessness, mistakes, and accidents are not prosecutable under the federal criminal civil rights laws” and the bottom line becomes that Eric Holder wants more than anything for the killing of Trayvon Martin to somehow be labeled a ‘hate crime’ so he can scream racism and divide our country even more…as per the agenda of his buddy Barack HUSSEIN Obama.

Sadly, in today’s America civil rights, included due process, civil liberties, and the right of being innocent until proven guilty, have now become whatever the racist ilk like Barack HUSSEIN Obama, Eric Holder, Jesse Jackson, and Al Sharpton want them to be.

And while Obama publicly says he won’t involve himself in the DOJ’s decision on whether to bring criminal civil rights charges against George Zimmerman, if you believe that I’ve got some swap land to sell you for Barack HUSSEIN Obama will indeed be the one telling Holder what to do after he sees how this plays out over the next few weeks and months…we know it, he knows we know it, and guess what…he could care less that we do.

And so we all need to stand strong with George Zimmerman for this man will be looking over his shoulder for the rest of his life, and all because he was found NOT guilty of killing a thug in self-defense...and notice NO mention of race is included in what I said.