Twitter will arrest you for speaking up your mind and showing emotions.
A Charlotte man is behind bars after investigators say he threatened to kill President Obama during the Democratic National Convention.
Investigators told WBTV that Donte Jarmar Sims, 21, was arrested on Wednesday, charged in a felony criminal complaint accusing him of threatening the president’s life.
Friday, WBTV learned Sims is scheduled to be in federal magistrate’s court in Charlotte Tuesday morning.
The threats were done via Sims’ Twitter account on Monday morning.
The first tweet was sent out at 10:06 a.m. on Monday when Sims tweeted, “Well Ima Assassinate president Obama this evening !… Gotta get this monkey off my chest while he’s in town.”
“Ima hit president Obama with that Lee Harvey Oswald swagg,” he tweeted just two minutes later.
WBTV took at look at Sims’ Twitter account, which is still active, and saw that he sent out five threatening messages within a 14-minute span.
“The Secret Service is gonna be defenseless once I aim the Assault Rifle at Barack’s Forehead … F* the #DNC,” he continued.
NASA says they want to get the younger generation involved in space by naming a dangerous asteroid who is heading toward Earth
NASA Is Asking Kids To Name A Potentially Killer Asteroid
There’s a potentially dangerous asteroid headed toward Earth and NASA wants students to name it. If it seems like there is no pressing concern about the whole potential collision course thing, it’s because there really isn’t. The asteroid won’t swing close to our world for another 170 years, when we will all be long dead, unless some crazy technology out of science fiction gets implemented pretty soon. Beyond that, the asteroid only has a 1 in 1,000 chance of hitting the Earth, so no biggie. The survival of future generations is clearly no pressing concern.
To study the asteroid, NASA has an extremely expensive mission planned that is going to cost around $800 million (shell out ye taxpayers!). According to Space.com the Osiris-Rex mission could unlock some of the mysteries of the origins of the universe, which is probably worth a few hundred million, right?
So, where does this student asteroid naming thing come in? NASA says they want to get the younger generation involved in space exploration and other aspects of science that NASA is caught up in. It’s actually a pretty cool idea. All students have to do is write up a 16 character or under name for the asteroid and fill out the reason they think the name would be spectacular. Oh yeah, and students must be 18 or under. Plus, the students must find an adult to submit the name (Probably to weed out the idiot teens that would try to get the terms “pussy” or “penis” somewhere into the title).Applications are due by December 2. If I were under 18, I’d vote for R2Detour.
Is Mexico Becoming the New Iraq for American Agents?
By Sylvia Longmire, Special to CNN
The news emerging from Mexico on August 24, 2012, sounded more like a spy thriller than the usual reports of shootings, body dumps, and decapitations. Initial reports were foggy, but it was sounding more and more like two Americans assigned to the US Embassy had been ambushed by criminals while on their way to a Mexican naval training base. As more details started trickling in, the scenario became more and more disturbing; the two wounded Embassy employees, according to published reports in Mexico, may have been CIA agents on a joint counterdrug mission, and their attackers were Mexican federal police officers. The CIA has not commented on the matter.
Making matters worse is the fact that the agents, along with a Mexican naval officer, were unarmed and traveling in a heavily armored SUV clearly bearing diplomatic license plates—something that was impossible for the attackers to miss. Mexican government officials claim it was “an accident” and a “case of mistaken identity,” as the 12 officers involved were supposedly in the area hunting down kidnappers. Yet, they were all wearing civilian clothes, according to a Mexican military official’s accounts to CNN, and traveling in different unmarked cars. They were also likely not carrying their standard-issue weapons; some Mexican media outlets indicated AK-47 shell casings were found at the scene of the shooting.
Several journalists from both Mexican and American news outlets have interviewed witnesses and residents in the small town where this occurred just north of Cuernavaca, and they all said the same thing: alleging that federal police in that area are working with the cartels. Some witnesses also said that the CIA agents traveled that road frequently, and people had become used to seeing armored vehicles with the diplomatic plates, making the case of mistaken identity harder to swallow.
It’s becoming harder and harder to argue that the agents weren’t specifically targeted by a criminal group in the area, perhaps not to kill them outright, but to send a very strong message. But why would Mexican drug traffickers violate an old unspoken rule about avoiding confrontations with US agents because of the negative consequences they tend to bring? History tells us this wouldn’t be the first time this has happened, or even the second.
Mexico makes arrest in killing that sparked ‘Fast and Furious’ probe
Obama Spoke About “Fast & Furious” Before Holder Claimed He Knew
Mexican authorities say they arrested a man wanted in the killing of U.S. Border Patrol agent Brian Terry, whose death led to the public disclosure of the botched “Fast and Furious” gun-smuggling sting.
Leonel Sanchez Jesus Meza was arrested in Puerto Penasco, about 60 miles south of the Arizona border, the Ministry of Public Security said in a statement Friday.
The investigation into Terry’s killing revealed the existence of Operation Fast and Furious, which sought to build arms trafficking cases against drug cartels and smuggling networks.
The “Fast and Furious” fallout led to a congressional investigation that culminated with the U.S. House of Representatives finding Attorney General Eric Holder in contempt of Congress.
Meza, who was arrested Thursday, is being held with an international extradition request by the United States, the ministry said.
‘Fast and Furious’ report expected soon
Mexican authorities say he goes by the alias Lionel Portillo-Meza. He is the second person arrested in the case; three others are wanted and believed to be at large in Mexico.
The five were indicted by a federal grand jury in Arizona on a myriad of charges, including first-degree murder, in connection with Terry’s death.
The indictment, handed down last year in a federal court in Arizona, accuses the men of entering the United States illegally from Mexico intent on robbing drug traffickers of marijuana.
Terry was killed during a firefight on December 14, 2010, between Border Patrol agents and the men in rural Rio Rico, Arizona, near the border of Mexico, according to the indictment.
Two guns found at the scene of the firefight were linked to Operation Fast and Furious.
American soldiers are slowly waking up!
Navy Seals: A battle for the conscience
Deep inside the military’s special operations forces there is a crisis of conscience unfolding. The publication of “No Easy Day,” a former Navy SEAL’s account of the raid that killed Osama bin Laden, is forcing many to rethink a fundamental point of military honor. How much should America’s commandostalk about what they do?
It’s a debate that goes beyond disclosure of classified information, which is a crime. The discussion now centers on honor, ethics and cultural values inside the ranks.
“This is a battle for the conscience of the SEALs,” a recently retired senior SEAL told me.
He served for decades in operational positions in the force, and has never told me any of the details of his missions. For years he did what every SEAL has done: Go on raids, find targets and, if necessary, kill them. It’s what the nation asks of them.
Buzz ramps up over SEAL’s bin Laden book
The question now: Is the SEAL community taking that Tom Clancy superman image and turning it into celebrity? “Was No Easy Day” indeed that last straw?
“It’s a generational thing that is happening to some extent,” the retired SEAL said. Some younger SEALs who have grown up in the age of the Internet and instant online communications simply feel it’s their right to talk about their work, as long as they can claim it’s not classified, he said.
This senior SEAL said he and his peers grew up in a generation where “we don’t talk about what we do,” and he feels it should be kept that way.
In fact, the chief Navy SEAL wrote a scathing e-mail to his 2,500 troops, which began with the fundamental SEAL ethos.
“We do NOT advertise the nature of our work, NOR do we seek recognition for our actions,” said Rear Adm. Sean Pybus.
Pybus told the men he is “disappointed, embarrassed and concerned” that troops are now openly speaking and writing about what they do.
“Most of us have always thought that the privilege of working with some of our nation’s toughest warriors on challenging missions would be enough to be proud of, with no further compensation or celebrity required.
“Today, we find former SEALs headlining positions in a presidential campaign; hawking details about a mission against Enemy Number 1; and generally selling other aspects of NSW training and operations.”
Pybus continued: “For an Elite Force that should be humble and disciplined for life, we are certainly not appearing to be so. We owe our chain of command much better than this.”
Every SEAL, indeed everyone in U.S. military special operations units, knows exactly what Pybus is saying. He’s warning that fundamental trust is at risk. And the risk is on many levels, from the campfire to the Oval Office.
President George W. Bush and his administration claims that only three terror suspects, none of whom were Libyan, were waterboarded during interrogations.
Libyans claim water boarding and other CIA abuses
An alleged new case of waterboarding emerged in a massive report Thursday detailing brutal CIA interrogations of Libyan detainees last decade before they were handed over to Moammar Gadhafi’s regime.
Mohammed al-Shoroeiya “provided detailed and credible testimony that he was waterboarded on repeated occasions during U.S. interrogations in Afghanistan,” Human Rights Watch said in a 200-plus page report.
The allegations directly challenge long-standing claims by President George W. Bush and his administration that only three terror suspects, none of whom were Libyan, were waterboarded during interrogations.
Human rights groups consider waterboarding — in which a prisoner is restrained and water poured over his mouth and nose to produce the sensation of drowning — a form of torture.
“While never using the phrase ‘waterboarding,’ he said that after his captors put a hood over his head and strapped him onto a wooden board, ‘then they start with the water pouring. … They start to pour water to the point where you feel like you are suffocating.’ He added that ‘they wouldn’t stop until they got some kind of answer from me,’” the report said.
Laura Pitter, a counterterrorism adviser for Human Rights Watch and the author of the report, said abuses occurred in U.S.-run facilities in Afghanistan between April 2003 and April 2005. She said waterboarding occurred in 2003 but it is not clear if it occurred afterward.
The rights group’s accusations come a week after the U.S. Justice Department closed a criminal investigation without charges into the deaths of two terror suspects in CIA custody.
Justice Department won’t prosecute CIA interrogators in two prisoner deaths
CIA spokeswoman Jennifer Youngblood said she couldn’t comment on the report’s “specific allegations” but said the CIA has been on record about “three substantiated cases in which detainees were subjected to the waterboarding technique.”
“The Department of Justice has exhaustively reviewed the treatment of more than 100 detainees in the post-9/11 period — including allegations involving unauthorized interrogation techniques — and it declined prosecution in every case,” she said.
“No Easy Day”, another cover up….or the truth?
FIRST ON CNN: Pentagon double checked actions of SEALs during bin Laden raid
By Barbara Starr, CNN Pentagon Correspondent
The head of U.S. special operations has contacted members of the covert Navy SEAL team that killed Osama bin Laden to reconfirm some details of the al Qaeda leader’s last moments conveyed in a new book, and military officials have concluded the author’s account was not accurate, CNN has learned.
Adm. William McRaven took the extraordinary action more than a year after the May 2011 raid in Pakistan in response to “No Easy Day,” authored by former SEAL Matt Bissonnette, who tells about his participation in the operation.
In a dramatic passage, Bissonnette said that bin Laden was on the floor when he and other SEALs entered his room in the safe house in Abbottabad, having been shot by another SEAL when he had peeked his head into the hall as the team approached.
Bin Laden’s body lay at the foot of the bed, twitching and convulsing, the book said, adding that the SEALs, including the author, shot him again until he was motionless.
That account differs from what U.S. officials have said publicly since the raid.
McRaven, the head of U.S. Special Operations Command, went back to the team – including the lead SEAL, or “point man” – in recent days to make sure Bissonnette did not have any information they did not know about.
Senior Pentagon officials, who declined to speak for attribution because of the sensitivity of the matter, told CNN they have now concluded Bissonnette was wrong.
Bin Laden, they said, was standing in the room when the SEALs entered and they shot him, believing he posed a direct threat, given there were weapons in the room.
Although bin Laden was unarmed, the SEALs had encountered hostile fire in the house before entering his room and he showed no signs of surrendering.
The officials CNN spoke with said it was possible Bissonnette, who was a few seconds behind the lead SEAL, never saw bin Laden standing.
It is not clear from accounts already made public if the initial shots fired by the lead SEAL – when bin Laden looked out of the room – actually hit him. One Navy official told CNN the belief is those shots missed.
Another passage causing concern in the Pentagon has been the fate of the only U.S. soldier from the war in Afghanistan currently held captive.
The parents of Army Sgt. Bowe Bergdahl were briefed on Thursday by the military about the book’s contents because it contains several pages in which the author says he was on a secret mission to rescue their son.
US Army Col. Timothy Marsano, the military liaison to the family, confirmed to CNN that the Bergdahls know about the passages and are declining to comment publicly.
Don’t be fooled by this article…the elderly aren’t saying that they wan to sit down and wait from death, they are saying that the are afraid of being killed by denying their medicament.
HILVERSUM (The Netherlands)- A large group of elderly people find that there must be a stop on very expensive care in the last phase of life. This is evident from an examination of the TV program debate in collaboration with senior citizens ANBO and Union KBO. The research results were announced Saturday.
39 percent of the 6544 surveyed elderly (55 +) is for limiting very expensive care in the last phase. Nearly a third of the respondents is against it, according to the study.
The limitation, as the elderly are concerned, only in the event of an approaching end of life.
A large majority (61 percent) say that they want the doctors to cure their sickness and don’t want to stop the treatments and medications, according to the survey.
An equally large number of elderly people fear that they can’t pay their own care in a few years. Over three quarters is afraid for the future that they won’t get the necessary care.
The researchers have approached a representative group of 9,427 elderly with the question to fill in the online questionnaire. Over 6,500 of them responded. Of the respondents, 81 percent is retired and earns less than half of the average.
