Afghanistan, U.S. Reach Draft Security Agreement

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Photo Credit: REUTERS/OMAR SOBHANIThe United States and Afghanistan reached a draft agreement on Wednesday laying out the terms under which U.S. troops may stay beyond 2014, one day before Afghan elders are to debate the issue.

A draft accord released by the Afghan government appears to meet U.S. demands on such controversial issues as whether U.S. troops would unilaterally conduct counterterrorism operations, enter Afghan homes or protect the country from outside attack.

Without the accord, Washington has warned it could withdraw its troops by the end of next year and leave Afghan forces to fight a Taliban-led insurgency without their help.

Thousands of Afghan dignitaries and elders are due to convene in a giant tent in the capital Kabul on Thursday to debate the fate of U.S. forces after a 2014 drawdown of a multinational NATO force.

“We have reached an agreement as to the final language of the bilateral security agreement that will be placed before the Loya Jirga tomorrow,” U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry told reporters in the U.S. capital, referring to the gathering.

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Senator Takes Aim at Sick Video Game Based on Sandy Hook Massacre

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Photo Credit: FOXNEWS.COMA sick online video game that has players re-enacting last year’s horrific murders of school children in Sandy Hook, Conn., has an outraged Sen. Richard Blumenthal calling for a ban.

“The Slaying of Sandy Hook Elementary,” allows a player to simulate the massacre that left 20 first-graders and seven adults dead. Purportedly created by Ryan Jake Lambournan, an American-born gaming geek who lives in Australia, the crude game allows a player to collect a loaded gun and shoot his mother before going on a rampage at a school. Several websites have taken the game down, but Blumenthal, the Democratic senator who was previously Connecticut’s attorney general, wants it off the web altogether.

“This abhorrent video game should be taken down from all websites immediately. This vile video game shocks our conscience and mocks common decency,” Blumenthal said in a statement. “Shamefully, as we approach the one-year anniversary of the Sandy Hook shooting, some still exploit this horrific tragedy. It’s appalling and salacious, and it must stop.”

Incredibly, a “message from the creator” embedded in the video tries to rationalize the game as a commentary on American gun culture.

“Back in 2007 I created a game called ‘Vtech Rampage’ about the Virginia Tech shootings. In the years since, I’ve been routinely asked by fans of ‘Vtech’ to make more games of just about every mass shooting that’s gotten media coverage,” a voice says.

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Candidate Divulges ‘Secret’ for Avoiding D.C. Corruption

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Photo Credit: WND As a member of the elite Presidential Protective Division of the Secret Service, Dan Bongino says he found President Obama surrounded by “acolytes” who rarely gave the nation’s chief executive an accurate picture of himself or the problems he faced.

That “bubble,” he said, helps breed corruption, and now that he’s running as a Republican for a seat in Congress, he’s determined not to fall under the spell that seems to afflict nearly everyone who enters the Beltway, to one degree or another.

But there’s a major problem, he believes, that is rooted in human nature. No one on Earth, he contends, is immune to corruption.

“The first step to corruption is assuming you’re incorruptible,” Bongino told WND in an interview.

Bongino, whose new book “Life Inside the Bubble” was released this week, said his view of human nature is rooted in his Christian faith and informed by seeing the inside of a system he says is “more corrupt that the American people can even imagine.”

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FBI Video Shows Al Qaeda in Kentucky Handling Heavy Weapons (+video)

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Photo Credit: WNDAn al Qaeda-linked terrorist, who was resettled in the U.S. as an Iraq War refugee after allegedly killing American soldiers, was caught on camera in Kentucky handling heavy weapons that the FBI said he believed would be sent to insurgents back in Iraq.

The 2010 video, obtained exclusively by ABC News, was part of a broader ABC News investigation into the flawed refugee vetting program, which officials said may have let “dozens” of terrorists into the country.

In the video, Waad Ramadan Alwan is seen expertly field stripping what the FBI identified as a Russian PKM machine gun. Other still images provided by the FBI from hours-worth of surveillance footage show Alwan and an accomplice, Mohanad Shareef Hammadi, handling a Stinger missile launcher and a rocket-propelled grenade (RPG) launcher.

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Socialist Seattle City Councilmember-Elect Shares Radical Idea with Boeing Workers

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Photo Credit: kirotvSeattle City Councilmember-elect Kshama Sawant told Boeing machinists her idea of a radical option, should their jobs be moved out of state.

“The workers should take over the factories, and shut down Boeing’s profit-making machine,” Sawant announced to a cheering crowd of union supporters in Seattle’s Westlake Park Monday night.

This week, Sawant became Seattle’s first elected Socialist council member. She ran on a platform of anti-capitalism, workers’ rights, and a $15 per-hour minimum wage for Seattle workers.

On Monday night, she spoke to supporters of Boeing Machinists, six days after they rejected a contract guaranteeing jobs in Everett building the new 777X airliner for eight years, in exchange for new workers giving up their guaranteed company pensions.

Now Boeing is threatening to take those jobs to other states. “That will be nothing short of economic terrorism because it’s going to devastate the state’s economy,” she said.

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Woman in Late 60s Shoots and Kills Man Who Broke Into Her Home and Sexually Assaulted Her

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Photo Credit: Opposing Views A woman in Kansas City, Missouri shot and killed a man after he forced his way into her home and sexually assaulted her.

Reports show that the woman, who is in her late 60s, answered a knock at the door from 24-year-old Paul J. Williams. Williams reportedly asked for someone who didn’t live at the woman’s residence and then pushed his way inside. He then forced the woman into a bedroom and sexually assaulted her.

After the sexual assault, the man left the bedroom to head for the kitchen…

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Obama Blames Republicans for ObamaCare’s Rollout Woes

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President Obama on Tuesday sought to redirect some of the political blame for the botched rollout of the federal health insurance exchange to Republicans, characterizing GOP lawmakers as rooting for the law’s failure.

Addressing a gathering of business executives, Obama acknowledged that the health-care rollout “has been rough, to say the least,” and he lamented the government’s archaic information-technology procurement system.

Obama said that fixes to the HealthCare.gov Web portal are underway and that the exchange will function for a majority of people by the end of November. But the president said staunch opposition from congressional Republicans is inhibiting the law’s implementation.

“One of the problems we’ve had is one side of Capitol Hill is invested in failure,” Obama said at the Wall Street Journal’s CEO Council meeting in Washington. “We obviously are going to have to remarket and rebrand, and that will be challenging in this political environment.”

The president also voiced frustration with the toxic political atmosphere endangering his signature legislative achievement. He said Washington needs to “break through the stubborn cycle of crisis politics and start working together.”

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Jordan on Obama’s Promises: ‘Every time, It’s Been Proven Wrong’

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Photo Credit: CNSNews.com/Penny StarrRep. Jim Jordan (R-Ohio) said on Tuesday at The Heritage Foundation that the promises President Obama made about the Affordable Care Act have “been proven wrong.”

“Every single line they made – if you like your plan you can keep it, if you like your doctor you can keep it, your premiums are going to go down – they’re going to go down $2,500, the website’s going to work Oct. 1; now it’s going to work Nov. 30,” Jordan said. “Every time, it’s been proven wrong.”

Jordan made his remarks at the Conversations with Conservatives event in response to CNSNews.com asking if Obama made a true or false statement when he said: “If you like your insurance plan, you will keep it. No one will be able to take that away from you.”

“They promised that your premiums were going to go down to the tune of $2,500, and they promised the website would work on Oct. 1, and now they’re promising that it’s going to work by Nov. 30, and they’re backing away from that,” Jordan said.

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Benghazi Staffers Told: ‘You are on Your Own’

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Photo Credit: WND A congressman has revealed a new detail about the 2012 Benghazi attack, disclosing that staff members at the besieged U.S. special mission were told in a directive, “You are on your own.”

In an interview with CNN yesterday, Rep. Lynn Westmoreland, R-Ga., chairman of the House Intelligence Subcommittee, charged the State Department, then run by Hillary Clinton, was culpable in the attack and ensuing cover-up.

While CNN.com focused on a different aspect of Westmoreland’s interview, running the headline “GOP Rep: Benghazi Not A ‘Complete Cover-Up,’” other statements made in the nine-minute sit-down may be more significant.

Westmoreland’s committee recently questioned CIA agents and contractors who were on the ground during the attack.

The lawmaker told CNN his committee learned a directive was issued Aug. 11 – one month before the attack – telling Benghazi staff they were on their own.

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U.S. Supreme Court Declines to Block Texas Abortion Law

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Photo Credit: APA split U.S. Supreme Court declined on Tuesday to block implementation of a new abortion law in Texas that already has prompted a dozen clinics in the state to stop performing the procedure.

The provision requires doctors who perform abortions to have admitting privileges at a hospital within 30 miles of the facility in case women have complications.

The court was split 5-4, with the conservative wing of the court in the majority. The four liberal justices said they would have overturned the 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals October 31 ruling that allowed the law to take effect.

Justice Antonin Scalia, joined by two of his conservative colleagues, wrote an opinion explaining the rationale in favor of leaving the appeals court decision intact.

Scalia criticized the four dissenters, saying that their suggested outcome would “flout core principles of federalism by mandating postponement of a state law without asserting that the law is even probably unconstitutional.”

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