Hillary Email Cartoon

Bill giving Congress say on Iran deal delayed by Senate Dems

Senate Democrats have delayed Republican efforts to fast-track a bill giving Congress a vote on any nuclear agreement with Iran.
With diplomatic talks still underway, Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., had wanted to tee up a procedural vote next week on the legislation giving Congress a say.
"Congress must be involved in reviewing and voting on an agreement reached between this White House and Iran," McConnell said on Tuesday -- the same day Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu warned the pending deal "paves Iran's path to the bomb" and urged the U.S. not to accept it.
But several Democratic senators, including Senate Foreign Relations Committee ranking member Sen. Robert Menendez, D-N.J., wanted McConnell to wait. Though they support the legislation, they don't want him bringing the bill directly to the floor without first going through committee.
In a letter to McConnell, they said the move suggests "the goal ... is to score partisan political points, rather than pursue a substantive strategy to counter Iran's nuclear ambitions."
Further, the senators argued there is "no immediate" need to do this since the initial deadline for a deal framework is March 24, and a final deal is not expected until June. "We will only vote for this bill after it has gone through the regular [process] ... and after the March 24th deadline for the political framework agreement," they wrote.
McConnell appears to be relenting, signaling he will take up a different bill next week -- and give lawmakers more time to consider the Iran legislation.
While Republicans hold the majority in the Senate, they need at least six Democrats to advance the measure.  
Senate Democratic Leader Harry Reid, of Nevada, had also objected, telling The Associated Press he wants the Senate to wait. He accused McConnell of "hijacking" the legislation, which was written by Menendez and Senate Foreign Relations Committee Chairman Sen. Bob Corker, R-Tenn.
Republicans continue to tout the bill, and say it ultimately will be approved.
Corker suggested Thursday the delay could be a good thing, and help the Senate build a "veto-proof majority."
Sen. Lindsey Graham earlier predicted the same. "I'm highly confident that a bipartisan supermajority in the Congress will insist that any deal with Iran come before the Congress to be debated and voted on," Graham, R-S.C., told Fox News. "I don't trust Barack Obama or John Kerry to do a good deal. I want to look at it."
The legislation specifically would require the president to submit the text of a deal to Congress and refrain from suspending congressional sanctions for two months; Congress could then approve or disapprove of the deal.
Obama has threatened to veto the legislation, and has urged all sides to wait until a deal actually has been produced.
Tensions are running high on Capitol Hill over the issue, in the wake of Netanyahu's impassioned address on Tuesday to Congress. He called the agreement in the works a "very bad deal," claiming it would only restrict Iran's nuclear program for a decade and would not adequately dismantle nuclear facilities.
Obama criticized Netanyahu after the speech, saying he didn't offer any "viable alternatives" to curb Iran's nuclear program.

7 injured, including 6 female soliders, in Jerusalem car-ramming attack, police say

A Palestinian motorist rammed his car into a group of people waiting for a train in east Jerusalem Friday morning injuring seven people, including six Israeli soldiers, before being shot and wounded by guards, police said.
Police spokeswoman Luba Samri described the assault as a “terror attack.”
The motorist plowed his car into the curb after running over the group of people. Police said the man then got out of his car with a knife and stabbed a pedestrian before he was shot.
The injured and the motorist were taken to the hospital.
Samri said initial reports suggested the man was a Palestinian from east Jerusalem. However, police are still trying to identify the attacker.
"The swift and determined response stopped the attack as it was beginning and prevented more innocents from being injured," said Moshe Edri, regional police commander. 
The attack mirrored a spate of similar assaults on Israelis late last year amid heightened tensions over the most sensitive holy site in Jerusalem, revered by Muslims as Noble Sanctuary and by Jews as the Temple Mount.

Majority of House members sign letter blasting Obama bullet ban proposal

Opposition to the Obama administration's proposal to ban a popular bullet is gaining steam in the House of Representatives, where more than half of the lawmakers have signed a letter opposing the move.
The Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives says it wants to ban popular .223 M855 “green tip” ammunition because the bullets can pierce bulletproof vests used by law enforcement. Although the ATF previously approved it in 1986, the agency now says that because handguns have now been designed that can also fire the bullets, police officers are now more likely to encounter them.Some 239 members of the House have now put their names to the letter opposing the ban, which they say would interfere with Americans’ Constitutional rights.
“This attack on the Second Amendment is wrong and should be overturned,” Rep. Bob Goodlatte, (R-Va.), who started the petition, said in a statement to FoxNews.com. "A clear, sizeable majority of the House agree,” he noted.
White House Press Secretary Josh Earnest backed up the agency’s proposal at a press conference on Monday.

“This attack on the Second Amendment is wrong and should be overturned.”- Rep. Bob Goodlatte, R-Va.

“We are looking at additional ways to protect our brave men and women in law enforcement… This seems to be an area where everyone should agree that if there are armor-piercing bullets available that can fit into easily concealed weapons, that it puts our law enforcement at considerably more risk,” Earnest said.
But gun-rights groups such as the National Rifle Association note that almost all rifle bullets can pierce armor, and say that this is just an excuse for limiting civilian gun use.
“The claim that this is done out of a concern for law enforcement safety is a lie. The director of the Fraternal Order of Police has said this is not an issue of concern. And according to the FBI, not one single law enforcement officer has been killed with M855 ammunition fired from a handgun," Chris Cox, executive director of the NRA Institute for Legislative Action, told FoxNews.com.
Some law enforcement groups reached by FoxNews.com also say that they no need for the regulation.
“The notion that all of a sudden a new pistol requires banning what had long been perfectly legal ammunition doesn’t seem to make a lot of sense to many officers,” William Johnson, executive director of the National Association of Police Organizations, told FoxNews.com.
NAPO represents over 1,000 police units and associations and 241,000 law enforcement officers around the country.
But some law enforcement experts support the ban.
“I am definitely for the banning of these rounds… officers worry about them all the time,” former NYPD detective Harry Houck told FoxNews.com, though he added that a ban might not actually keep criminals from getting the ammunition.
Gun control groups support the ban.
"We understand why law enforcement has always been concerned about the threat of armor-piercing bullets," Dan Gross, president of the Brady Campaign to Prevent Gun Violence, told FoxNews.com.
Lawmakers warn that the regulation – especially as it follows on the heels of attempts to restrict lead bullets -- will “result in drastically reduced options for lawful ammunition users.” Already, the ammunition has been cleared from many store shelves by gun owners looking to stock up in anticipation of the ban. The proposed regulation would not prohibit owning the bullets, but it would stop anyone from manufacturing or importing them.
Gun-rights groups also worry that the ban – if allowed to stand – won’t stop with this type of bullet.
“Almost any hunting rifle bullet will go through body armor, so you could prohibit almost any rifle bullet with this. This is the administration redefining the law on its own,” Alan Gottlieb, of the Second Amendment Foundation, told FoxNews.com.
The lawmakers also dispute the ATF’s legal authority to ban the bullets, saying that the proposed ban “does not comport with the letter or spirit of the law.”
The law, which was passed in 1986, gives the agency authority to ban bullets that are “constructed entirely (excluding the presence of traces of other substances) from one or a combination of tungsten alloys, steel, iron, brass, bronze, beryllium copper or depleted uranium.”
However, the lawmakers say that the core of these bullets “contains a substantial amount of lead, raising questions about its classification as ‘armor piercing’ in the first place.”
The House members also allege that the ATF violated government transparency requirements.
“The Administrative Procedures Act… requires that ‘general notice of proposed rulemaking shall be published in the Federal Register…’ To date, [the proposed ban] has not been published in the Federal Register.”
The ATF has announced that it is currently taking public comments on the regulation until March 16, when it will prepare to issue a final regulation. Comments can be sent to APAComments@atf.gov.
An ATF spokesman emphasized that no final decision has been made yet.
“No final determinations have been made and we won’t make any determinations until we’ve reviewed the comments submitted by industry, law enforcement and the public at large,” ATF spokesman Corey Ray told FoxNews.com.
“The framework is… intended to protect law enforcement while respecting the interests of sportsmen and the industry,” he also noted.

Clinton created multiple email addresses on private server, data show

Hillary Clinton appears to have established multiple email addresses for her private use, and possibly the use of her aides, under the domain of “clintonemail.com,” according to a prominent member of the hacking community who supplied independent research data, conducted with high-tech tools, to Fox News.
The hacker used an open-source tool, publicly available, called “The Harvester” to search a variety of data sources – including well-known platforms such as Google, Bing, LinkedIn, Twitter and others – for any stored references to email addresses seen using a particular domain, in this case clintonemail.com. Hackers working under contract for private firms, also known as “White Hat hackers,” routinely use The Harvester during so-called “penetration testing,” or “pen testing,” on behalf of clients trying to ensure that their internal systems are secure.
The application of The Harvester to clintonemail.com revealed additional email addresses besides the one that Clinton aides have insisted publicly that she used, and have said was the only one that she used, when she served as Secretary of State: namely, hdr22@clintonemail.com.
A screen grab of The Harvester’s findings provided to Fox News by the source in the hacker community – whose professional resume also boasts extensive experience in the U.S. intelligence community – lists rather similar, but nonetheless different, email addresses, including hdr@clintonemail.com, hdr18@clintonemail.com, hdr19@clintonemail.com, hdr20@clintonemail.com, and hdr21@clintonemail.com.
Also unearthed by the hacking tool were email addresses of a slightly varied structure, including h.clinton@clintonemail.com, Hillary@clintonemail.com, contact@clintonemail.com, and mau_suit@clintonemail.com.
It’s not known how many of these multiple addresses the secretary herself may have used, nor whether some may have been assigned to close aides entrusted to communicate with her on the clintonemail.com domain.

More on this...

• Clinton blasted Bush admin's 'secret email accounts' in 2007

“Given the sequential similarities to hdr22@ I suspect some others found by my search may also have been used by HRC,” the hacker told Fox News. “I suspect hdr18 -hdr21 may have been used by HRC as well as h@clintonemail.com and hillary@clintonemail.com....I’d also be interested to learn if there were ever hdr1@ thru hdr17@.”
Clinton spokesman Nick Merrill told POLITICO on March 4: “Secretary Clinton used one email account when corresponding with anyone, from Department officials to friends to family.”
However, Rep. Trey Gowdy, R-S.C., chairman of the House select committee investigating the Benghazi terrorist attacks, has issued a statement saying the panel “is in possession of records with two separate and distinct email addresses used by former Secretary Clinton and dated during the time she was secretary of state.”
Contacted by Fox News, neither Merrill nor Philippe Reines, another longtime aide to Clinton who is believed to remain in close contact with her, responded to messages left via telephone and email. Nor did Eric Hothem, the mysterious former Clinton aide who has been identified as having registered the internet server in Chappaqua, New York – the Clintons’ hometown in upstate New York – that hosted the clintonemail.com domain.
“I'm in the process of determining if any of those accounts have been compromised by hackers in the past,” the source told Fox News. “We know that hdr22 has been.”

ISIS militants 'bulldozed' ancient archaeological site, Iraqi ministry says

The Iraqi government claimed Thursday that ISIS militants had "bulldozed" the renowned Nimrud archaeological site in the north of the country.
The country's Ministry of Tourism and Antiquities said in a statement posted on its Facebook page that the terror group continues to "defy the will of the world and the feelings of humanity". The statement did not elaborate on the extent of the damage to the site.
Axel Plathe, the director of UNESCO's Iraq office, tweeted that the attack was an "appalling attack on Iraq's heritage", while Iraqi archaeologist Lamia al-Gailani told the BBC that ISIS was "erasing our history."
The government's claim came days after a video released by ISIS showed militants using sledgehammers to smash ancient artifacts kept in a museum in Iraq's northern city of Mosul. Statements made by men in the video described the treasures as symbols of idolatry that should be destroyed.
Experts said the reported destruction of the ancient Assyrian archaeological site located just south of Mosul recalled the Taliban's annihilation of large Buddha statues in Afghanistan in 2001, experts said.
Nimrud was the second capital of Assyria, an ancient kingdom that began in about 900 B.C., partially in present-day Iraq, and became a great regional power. The city, which was destroyed in 612 B.C., is located on the Tigris River just south of Iraq's second largest city, Mosul, which was captured by the Islamic State group in June.
The late 1980s discovery of treasures in Nimrud's royal tombs was one of the 20th century's most significant archaeological finds. After Iraq was invaded in 2003, archaeologists were relieved when they were found hidden in the country's central Bank — in a secret vault-inside-a-vault submerged in sewage water.
Last year, the militants destroyed the Mosque of the Prophet Younis — or Jonah — and the Mosque of the Prophet Jirjis, two revered ancient shrines in Mosul. They also threatened to destroy Mosul's 850-year old Crooked Minaret, but residents surrounded the structure, preventing the militants from approaching.
Suzanne Bott, the heritage conservation project director for Iraq and Afghanistan in the University of Arizona's College of Architecture, Planning and Archaeology, worked at Nimrud on and off for two years between 2008 and 2010. She helped stabilize structures and survey Nimrud for the U.S. State Department as part of a joint U.S. military and civilian unit.
She described Nimrud as one of four main Assyrian capital cities that practiced medicine, astrology, agriculture, trade and commerce, and had some of the earliest writings.
"It's really called the cradle of Western civilization, that's why this particular loss is so devastating," Bott said. "What was left on site was stunning in the information it was able to convey about ancient life.
"People have compared it to King Tut's tomb," she said.
Iraq's national museum in Baghdad opened its doors to the public last week for the first time in 12 years in a move Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi said was to defy efforts "to destroy the heritage of mankind and Iraq's civilization."
ISIS has imposed a harsh and violent version of Islamic law in the territories it controls and has terrorized religious minorities. It has released gruesome videos online showing the beheading of captives, including captured Western journalists and aid workers.
A U.S.-led coalition has been striking the group since August, and Iraqi forces launched an offensive this week to try to retake the militant-held city of Tikrit, on the main road linking Baghdad to Mosul.
Jack Green, chief curator of the Oriental Institute Museum at the University of Chicago and expert on Iraqi art, said Thursday that ISIS seems bent on destroying objects they view as idols representing religions and cultures that don't conform to their beliefs.
"It's the deliberate destruction of a heritage and its images, intended to erase history and the identity of the people of Iraq, whether in the past or the present," Green said. "And it has a major impact on the heritage of the region."
Green noted that in many of these attacks on art, pieces that can be carried away are then sold to fund the IS group, while the larger artifacts and sculptures are destroyed at the site.

Hillary Cartoon

DOJ will not prosecute former Ferguson police officer Darren Wilson

The Justice Department announced Wednesday that it will not prosecute former Ferguson, Mo., police officer Darren Wilson in the shooting death of an unarmed black 18-year-old, while also releasing a report faulting the city and its law enforcement for racial bias.
In the criminal investigation, federal officials concluded Wilson's actions "do not constitute prosecutable violations under the applicable federal criminal rights statute."
Specifically, the DOJ said there was "no evidence" to disprove Wilson's testimony that he feared for his safety, nor was there reliable evidence that Michael Brown had his hands up when he was shot.
The report said: "Although there are several individuals who have stated that Brown held his hands up in an unambiguous sign of surrender prior to Wilson shooting him dead, their accounts do not support a prosecution of Wilson.‎ As detailed throughout this report, some of those accounts are inaccurate because they are inconsistent with the physical and forensic evidence; some of those accounts are materially inconsistent with that witness's own prior statements with no explanation, credible or otherwise, as to why those accounts changed over time."
The decision in the Aug. 9 shooting had been expected, in part because of the high legal standard needed for a federal civil rights prosecution. Wilson, who has said Brown struck him in the face and reached for his gun during a tussle, also had been cleared by a Missouri grand jury in November and later resigned from the department.
But the DOJ, in its evaluation of the police department itself, said blacks in Ferguson are disproportionately subject to excessive police force, baseless traffic stops and citations for infractions as petty as walking down the middle of the street.
The report also cited "evidence of racial bias" in emails by Ferguson officials. They included one April 2011 email that "depicted President Barack Obama as a chimpanzee"
Attention now turns to Ferguson as the city confronts how to fix racial biases that the federal government says are deeply rooted in the police department, court and jail.
"Now that our investigation has reached its conclusion, it is time for Ferguson’s leaders to take immediate, wholesale and structural corrective action," Attorney General Eric Holder said Wednesday.
Holder said the Justice Department had two sets of immediate recommendations: increased civilian involvement in police decision-making and police misconduct allegations, and changes to the municipal court system, including modifications to bond amounts and detention procedures, an end to the use of arrest warrants as a means of collecting owed fines and fees, and compliance with due process requirements.
Similar federal investigations of troubled police departments have led to the appointment of independent monitors and mandated overhauls in the most fundamental of police practices. The Justice Department maintains the right to sue a police department if officials balk at making changes, though many investigations resolve the issue with both sides negotiating a blueprint for change known as a consent decree.
"It's quite evident that change is coming down the pike. This is encouraging," said John Gaskin III, a St. Louis community activist. "It's so unfortunate that Michael Brown had to be killed. But in spite of that, I feel justice is coming."
Others said the federal government's findings confirmed what they had long known and should lead to change in the police department leadership.
Brown's killing set off weeks of protests and initiated a national dialogue about police use of force and their relations with minority communities.
The findings of the investigation, which began weeks after Brown's killing last August, were released as Holder prepares to leave his job following a six-year tenure that focused largely on civil rights. The report is based on interviews with police leaders and residents, a review of more than 35,000 pages of police records and analysis of data on stops, searches and arrests.