What’s interesting out there today?

The 3 women rescued from captivity in Cleveland continues to be the headline. On the good side of this story the women have been reunited with family. What a joyous occasion that must have been. After it seemed all hope was lost, the families finally get to be together. And Cleveland dishwasher Chuck Ramsey is being hailed as a hero.

But on the bad side of the story, the details can be hard to read, so a CONTENT WARNING!!!

This is a pretty good summary of the details so far, with numerous links to different sources. From WeaselZippers

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If you’re interested, here’s a link for the live stream of the Benghazi Hearings from the House Oversight Committee It starts at 11:30AM EST

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Mark Sanford has defeated Elizabeth Colbert Busch in the S.C. special election for a House seat. From NBCNews

“Once the disgraced and tearful figure at the epicenter of an embarrassing scandal, former South Carolina Gov. Mark Sanford will return to public life as a U.S. congressman.

The Associated Press has projected Sanford to be the winner of Tuesday’s special election in South Carolina’s 1st Congressional District race.

Sanford, a Republican, defeated Democrat Elizabeth Colbert Busch after a race that captivated national media attention despite the district’s solidly Republican record. The win caps an unlikely ascent to political redemption after Sanford’s extramarital affair and subsequent divorce made him fodder for national headlines and late-might comedy sketches.”

The comment section is full of upset Dems, so be warned.

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These next 2 are on the danger, hostility, and difficulties facing brothers and sisters in the Mid East and Africa. From FoxNews

“A mass exodus of Christians is currently underway.  Millions of  Christians are being displaced from one end of the Islamic world to the  other.

We are reliving the true history of how the Islamic world, much of which  prior to the Islamic conquests was almost entirely Christian, came into  being.

The U.S. Commission on International  Religious Freedom  recently said: “The flight of Christians out of the region is unprecedented and  it’s increasing year by year.”  In our lifetime alone “Christians might  disappear altogether from Iraq, Afghanistan, and Egypt.””

The next one is from CBN

“Last year more Christians were killed in Nigeria than any other country. The onslaught of bombings gave Nigeria the sad distinction of being the nation with the highest Christian death toll.

More than 900 Christians reportedly were killed in Nigeria in 2012, all victims of the Boko Haram group and other Islamic militants.

“They are so radical they don’t even spare Muslims. If Muslims are sympathetic to any cause at all…if they are sympathetic to the Christians cause, or the minorities cause, they are also termed as infidels,” Mark Lipdo, program coordinator for the Stefanos Foundation, said.

In 2013, radicals have killed more than 120 Nigerians, most of them Christians.”

And yet in many instances in the Mid East and Libya, our govt. supports those perpetrating the violence against them.

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Next we have Biden and Democrats attempting to use churches to push their agenda. He’d like churches to make a gun control, and immigration argument for them from the pulpit. No mention of separation of church and state here though. From CNSNews

“Vice President Joe Biden wants pastors, rabbis and nuns to tell their flocks that enacting gun control is the moral thing to do. But another vote may have to wait until Congress wraps up work on an immigration overhaul.

Biden met for two-and-a-half hours Monday with more than a dozen leaders from various faith communities — Christian, Jewish, Muslim and Sikh, to name a few. Both Biden and the faith leaders encouraged each other not to give up on what has been an arduous and thus far fruitless effort by Biden and President Barack Obama to pass new gun laws in the wake of December’s schoolhouse shooting in Connecticut.

Around a large, circular table in a conference room on the White House grounds, Biden waxed optimistic about prospects for passing a bill, according to four participants who spoke to The Associated Press after the meeting. Biden’s chief of staff, Bruce Reed, joined the group, as did a handful of Obama aides who work on faith-based outreach. The meeting closed with a meditation and a prayer for action.”

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And I wonder if that has anything to do with this, or if it’s just a coincidence? Either way, it’s good news. From HotAir

“Obama administration retreating from contraception mandate?”

“At least in one instance, and it’s an important one.  Last November, Tyndale House Publishers won a third injunction against the Department of Health and Human Services to block enforcement of the HHS mandate, while the Obama administration took the absurd position that a publisher of Bibles didn’t qualify for a religious exemption.  Yesterday, HHS threw in the towel, at least for now:

In a huge victory for pro-life advocates taking on the controversial HHS mandate, the Obama administration is giving up its effort to force a Bible publisher to obey it.”

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And this last one, he’s still one of the few good men willing to stand on, and up for, his beliefs. From CNSNews

“Amid increased reports of a policy for courts martial over so-called proselytizing in the military, Coast Guard Rear Admiral William D. Lee recalled giving a Bible to a distressed serviceman who had previously tried to kill himself.

“Yet, if I do something, such as I did several weeks ago when I was looking into the face of a young man, 20-something years old, who had 18 months before put a gun to his head and pulled the trigger and survived, when I looked at that young man and I heard his story, the rules say send him to the chaplain. My heart said, give this man a Bible,” Lee said last week during a speech on the National Day of Prayer on Capitol Hill.”

““The higher you are, the more vulnerable you are to being taken down,” Lee continued. “You get in the cross hairs of those people who lay and wait outside the gate, waiting to take us to task for expressing our faith for so much as whispering to a young man who is on his last hope that ‘there is hope. Take it home. We can talk about it if you want.’ The lawyers tell me that if I do that, I’m crossing the line. I’m so glad I have crossed that line so many times.””

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