What’s interesting in the news today?

1. What about Huma’s emails?

From TheWeeklyStandard  “Senator Chuck Grassley has sent two letters to the State Department to ask about Huma Abedin’s special government status when she was a government employee–and for information on Abedin’s email use while working for the government. Abedin is a close aide to Hillary Clinton, and worked for the consulting firm Teneo (under a special government employee status) while working for Clinton.

“I am writing to follow up on inquiries I have been making since June 13, 2013 and August 15, 2013 regarding the State Department’s use of Special Government Employee (SGE) designations, and in particular, what steps the Department took to ensure that Ms. Huma Abedin’s outside employment with a political intelligence and corporate advisory firm did not conflict with her simultaneous employment at the State Department. I thank the Department for its responses to my inquiries made June 13, 2013 and August 15, 2013. However, to date, the Department’s answers have been largely unresponsive,” writes Grassley to Secretary of State John Kerry.

By way of example, I have still not received the records relating to communications between the State Department and Ms. Abedin’s other employer, Teneo. Nor has the Department provided records of communications between the State Department and any clients or entities represented by Teneo. The Department has also failed to provide any email communications between Ms. Abedin and Teneo or Teneo’s clients. The State Department’s November 14, 2014 response to my inquiries, stated, “Based on an internal review, the Department has never had any contracts with Teneo.” But that is not responsive to my request, and it does not mean that communications between full-time Department employees, or SGEs, and Teneo, or clients of Teneo, do not exist.”

Make sure you get any emails to her friends and family in the MB as well.

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2. Kerry claims progress in the nuke deal, the Iranians make threats. Somebody’s missing the obvious here. And just a reminder, any treaty they sign is useless and they’re not to be trusted. Everyone seems to know this, except Obama.

From TheTimesofIsrael  “Iran’s Supreme leader Ali Khamenei called for “Death to America” on Saturday, a day after President Barack Obama appealed to Iran to seize a “historic opportunity” for a nuclear deal and a better future, and as US Secretary of State John Kerry claimed substantial progress toward an accord.

Khamenei told a crowd in Tehran that Iran would not capitulate to Western demands. When the crowd started shouting, “Death to America,” the ayatollah responded: “Of course yes, death to America, because America is the original source of this pressure.

“They insist on putting pressure on our dear people’s economy,” he said, referring to economic sanctions aimed at halting Iran’s nuclear program. “What is their goal? Their goal is to put the people against the system,” he said. “The politics of America is to create insecurity,” he added, referring both to US pressure on Iran and elsewhere in the region.

Khamenei’s comments contrasted with those of Iranian President Hassan Rohani, who said “achieving a deal is possible” by the March 31 target date for a preliminary accord.”

Meanwhile…..

From FoxNews  “John Bolton, former U.S. ambassador to the U.N., sounded off tonight on the news that Iran and Hezbollah were omitted from the latest U.S. terror threat list.

This year’s Worldwide Threat Assessment of the U.S. Intelligence Communities doesn’t include Iran or Hezbollah in the terrorism section. Catherine Herridge reports that the office of National Intelligence Director James Clapper cites a change in formatting as a reason for this removal.

“It’s a flat lie […] the people who would say this is a format change are weasels,” Bolton said.

Bolton said he thinks Iranian negotiators told American negotiators to “go easy on us on this terrorism stuff.” Bolton explained that Iran wants to be free of sanctions imposed because of its state sponsorship of terrorism.

The omission of Iran and Hezbollah from the report was likely a concession by the administration in nuclear weapons negotiations, Bolton said. He wondered: How many other concessions has this administration made in an effort to get a deal done?”

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3. Islam and Christianity: Not comparable.

From USAToday  “”Christians Have Waged Their Own Holy Wars” was yet another annoying headline, this one in the Miami Herald. It seems that every time someone is beheaded, shot (by children, no less), or burned alive by ISIL, there is this inevitable handwringing over the violent history of —

Christianity.

Confused? So am I. Precisely what the Crusades or the Inquisition have to do with events in the Middle East is not clear. One suspects that attacking Christianity fits neatly into a domestic agenda. Yes, Christianity is not only Islam’s chief global rival, it is a barrier to the American Cultural Left’s social vision (think abortion and gay marriage). Whatever the motivation, this ignores a serious (and growing) foreign threat.

For their part, Christians, in spite of their supposedly violent natures, have accepted all of this rather passively. Indeed, to be a Christian apologist these days seems to involve a lot of apologizing for being a Christian at all. This alone should be sufficient evidence of Christianity’s peaceful nature. I mean, I don’t hear many Muslims apologizing for the Muslim invasion of Europe (which preceded the Crusades by almost 400 years), for the recent scandal of some 1,400 children systematically raped by Muslim men in Rotherham, England, or for the oppression of women and religious minorities in Islamic states.”

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4. Iowa is considering a ban on Planned Parenthood’s “webcam abortions.” Others states should follow suit.

From CNSNews  “The Iowa Supreme Court is currently deciding whether to uphold a ban on Planned Parenthood of the Heartland’s (PPH) “webcam abortions” in which off-site physicians remotely dispense two abortion-inducing drugs to patients they have not examined.

“This is a national test case,” said Matthew Heffron, an attorney for the Thomas More Society, after the high court heard oral arguments in the case on March 11.

PPH “is trying the procedure here. If they’re successful, they will probably attempt to spread the practice to other states,” Heffron predicted.”

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5. Why a change in fetal homicide laws is needed in some states.

From MSN/AP  “The gruesome case of a Colorado woman accused of cutting open the belly of a pregnant woman and removing her unborn baby girl is reviving the highly charged debate over when a fetus can legally be considered a human being.

In the past two years, Colorado twice rejected efforts to make the death of a fetus a homicide. The Democratic-led Legislature voted down a bill in 2013, and 65 percent of voters rejected a ballot measure last year that would have granted legal rights to unborn fetuses, the third rejection of a “personhood measure.”

That leaves the state as one of 12 without a law allowing homicide charges in the violent deaths of fetuses — and the fate of Dynel Lane up in the air. Authorities say Lane lured a woman who was nearly eight months pregnant to her home this week by advertising baby clothes on Craigslist. Lane is accused of stabbing the stranger in the belly and removing the fetus.

Stan Garnett, the district attorney of liberal Boulder County, said during a news conference Thursday that Colorado law makes it challenging to file homicide charges when fetuses are killed.

“Under Colorado law, essentially no murder charges can be brought if the child did not live outside of the mother,” Garnett said.”

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6. The making of the myth.

And the debunking of that same myth.

From TheWashingtonPost  “Hands Up. Don’t Shoot!

This phrase became a rallying cry for Ferguson residents, who took to the streets to protest the fatal shooting of a black 18-year-old by a white police officer, Darren Wilson. Witness accounts spread after the shooting that Brown had his hands raised in surrender, mouthing the words “Don’t shoot” as his last words before being shot execution-style. The gesture of raised hands became a symbol of outrage over mistreatment of unarmed black youth by police.

That narrative was called into question when a St. Louis County grand jury could not confirm those testimonies. And a recently released Department of Justice investigative report concluded the same.

Yet the gesture continues to be used today. So we wanted to set the record straight on the DOJ’s findings, especially after The Washington Post’s opinion writer Jonathan Capehart wrote that it was “built on a lie.” “

It gets 4 Pinocchios. 

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