BY DANIEL WALLIS AND EDWARD MCALLISTER

Protesters hold their hands up while marching down Market Street during a demonstration against the grand jury decision in the Ferguson, Missouri shooting of Michael Brown in San Francisco, California November 28, 2014.

CREDIT: REUTERS/ELIJAH NOUVELAGE

(Reuters) - Activists in Ferguson, Missouri, on Saturday began a 120-mile march to the state capital to protest the killing of an unarmed black teen by a white police officer, a case that has rekindled a national debate over U.S. race relations.

The seven-day march to Jefferson City, organized by the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People, began with more than 150 people setting out from the Canfield Green Apartments, where 18-year-old Michael Brown was shot and killed on Aug. 9 by Officer Darren Wilson.

The NAACP is calling for a reform of police practices, a new police chief in Ferguson and a national law to prevent racial profiling by police.

The "Journey for Justice," which is reminiscent of the civil rights marches of the 1960s, began with some people singing the decades-old protest song "We Shall Overcome." Participants carried signs proclaiming "Black Lives Matter" and "Equality Now!"

A grand jury's decision on Monday not to charge Wilson ignited protests in Ferguson and a riot that left buildings torched and stores looted. Wilson has said he acted in self-defense.

Since the announcement on Monday, demonstrations have spread to major cities across the United States, resulting in hundreds of arrests during the week, including at least 16 arrests overnight in Ferguson, police said.

Sandra Henry, 53, a registered nurse from St. Louis, came to the Canfield Green Apartments to join the march and said she would like to see a change in how police operate.

"This isn't just about St. Louis. We are speaking for other cities, other countries too," Henry said.

All told, about 100 marchers were expected to make the entire journey, with more joining segments of the long walk, said NAACP staff member Jamiah Adams.

The NAACP expects about 1,000 people to be part of the final leg of the march, said Adams, who will participate along with other NAACP staff members and the organization's president, Cornell William Brooks.

Marchers will be able to shuttle back and forth between the walk and their residences in the St. Louis area by taking a bus back to a staging area, Adams said.

Missouri Governor Jay Nixon has called for the state assembly to convene for a special session in the state capital to approve more funds for the Missouri Highway Patrol and the National Guard, after months of protests over Brown's death.

In New York, activists planned to rally in Harlem on Saturday to draw parallels between Brown's death and what they see as other cases of unjustified police violence.

(Additional reporting by Colleen Jenkins in Winston-Salem, N.C., Writing by Alex Dobuzinskis; Editing by Frank McGurty, Clelia Oziel and Dan Grebler)

WASHINGTON (AP) — Anthony Elonis claimed he was just kidding when he posted a series of graphically violent rap lyrics on Facebook about killing his estranged wife, shooting up a kindergarten class and attacking an FBI agent.

But his wife didn't see it that way. Neither did a federal jury.

Elonis, who's from Bethlehem, Pennsylvania, was convicted of violating a federal law that makes it a crime to threaten another person.

In a far-reaching case that probes the limits of free speech over the Internet, the Supreme Court on Monday was to consider whether Elonis' Facebook posts, and others like it, deserve protection under the First Amendment.

Elonis argues that his lyrics were simply a crude and spontaneous form of expression that should not be considered threatening if he did not really mean it. The government says it does not matter what Elonis intended, and that the true test of a threat is whether his words make a reasonable person feel threatened.

One post about his wife said, "There's one way to love you but a thousand ways to kill you. I'm not going to rest until your body is a mess, soaked in blood and dying from all the little cuts."

The case has drawn widespread attention from free-speech advocates who say comments on Facebook, Twitter and other social media can be hasty, impulsive and easily misinterpreted. They point out that a message on Facebook intended for a small group could be taken out of context when viewed by a wider audience.

"A statute that proscribes speech without regard to the speaker's intended meaning runs the risk of punishing protected First Amendment expression simply because it is crudely or zealously expressed," said a brief from the American Liberties Union and other groups.

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FILE - This Nov. 18, 2014, file photo shows the U.S. Supreme Court in Washington, as seen from the r …

But so far, most lower courts have rejected that view, ruling that a "true threat" depends on how an objective person perceives the message.

For more than four decades, the Supreme Court has said that "true threats" to harm another person are not protected speech under the First Amendment. But the court has been careful to distinguish threats from protected speech such as "political hyperbole" or "unpleasantly sharp attacks."

Elonis claims he was depressed and that his online posts under the pseudonym "Tone Dougie" were a way to vent his frustration after his wife left him and he lost his job working at an amusement park. His lawyers say the posts were heavily influenced by rap star Eminem, who has also fantasized in songs about killing his ex-wife.

But Elonis' wife testified that the comments made her fear for her life.

After she obtained a protective order against him, Elonis wrote a lengthy post mocking court proceedings: "Did you know that it's illegal for me to say I want to kill my wife?"

A female FBI agent later visited Elonis at home to ask him about the postings. Elonis took to Facebook again: "Little agent lady stood so close, took all the strength I had not to turn the ***** ghost. Pull my knife, flick my wrist and slit her throat."

Elonis was convicted of making threats of violence and sentenced to nearly four years in federal prison. A federal appeals court rejected his claim that his comments were protected by the First Amendment.

The Obama administration says requiring proof that a speaker intended to be threatening would undermine the law's protective purpose. In its brief to the court, the Justice Department argued that no matter what someone believes about his comments, it does not lessen the fear and anxiety they might cause for other people.

"The First Amendment does not require that a person be permitted to inflict those harms based on an unreasonable subjective belief that his words do not mean what they say," government lawyers said.

The National Center for Victims of Crime, which submitted a brief supporting the government, said judging threats based on the speaker's intent would make stalking crimes even more difficult to prosecute.

"Victims of stalking are financially, emotionally and socially burdened by the crime regardless of the subjective intent of the speaker," the organization said.

The case is Elonis v. United States, 13-983.

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Follow Sam Hananel on Twitter at http://twitter.com/SamHananelAP

Officer Darren Wilson is pictured in this undated handout evidence photo from the August 9 Ferguson Police shooting of Michael Brown in Ferguson, Missouri, released by the St. Louis County Prosecutor's Office on November 24, 2014. REUTERS/St. Louis County Prosecutor's Office/Handout via Reuters

By Daniel Wallis and Edward McAllister

FERGUSON, Missouri (Reuters) - The white police officer who shot an unarmed black teenager to death this summer in a St. Louis suburb decided to resign from the force because of threats against fellow officers after a grand jury decided not to indict him, his lawyer said on Sunday.

Darren Wilson's resignation, announced on Saturday, came nearly four months after the officer shot and killed 18-year-old Michael Brown in Ferguson, Missouri, on Aug. 9.

Wilson, who said he was acting in self-defense and that his conscience is clear, had been on administrative leave and in seclusion.

The incident has galvanized critics of the way police and the U.S. criminal justice system treat African-Americans and other minority groups, and led to months of sometimes violent protests in Ferguson and major cities around the country.

Wilson's attorney Neil Bruntrager said Ferguson's police chief had told Wilson on Saturday that he had information suggesting other members of the department would be harmed if Wilson stayed on the force.

"When Darren was told that, he simply said, 'That's enough,' and it was time to resign," Bruntrager said.

In a letter published by the St. Louis Post-Dispatch, Wilson said he had wanted to wait until after the grand jury's decision before deciding whether to quit.

Even so, his departure was long anticipated because of the potential risks to his own safety and the deep rifts that have surfaced between Ferguson's police and the African-American community since the shooting.

Some critics now want Tom Jackson, Ferguson's police chief, to resign as well, to promote reconciliation in the St. Louis suburb, where most residents are black and the police force are mostly white.

"I think it’s impossible for this community to move forward with him still in that role," said St. Louis Alderman Antonio French on ABC's "This Week."

Jackson and Ferguson police could not be reached immediately for comment.

The Rev. Al Sharpton, a prominent African-American civil rights activist, was likely to speak about the case in a sermon on Sunday at the church in Ferguson where Michael Brown's funeral was held. Brown's parents were expected to attend.

Brown family attorney Benjamin Crump said they would pursue all legal avenues, including a potential wrongful death lawsuit and pushing for a "Michael Brown law" requiring police to wear body cameras to record incidents such as the Ferguson shooting.

"We want police officers who do have a conscience in our community, and not police officers who are cold as ice and see our children as demons and criminals," Crump said on "Face the Nation" on CBS.

(Additional reporting By Doina Chiacu and Lisa Lampert in Washington; Writing by Frank McGurty; Editing by Kevin Liffey)

Russian humanitarian trucks are seen in Donetsk, eastern Ukraine, November 30, 2014. REUTERS/Antonio Bronic

KIEV (Reuters) - Ukraine said on Sunday that a convoy of 106 vehicles had entered its eastern territory from Russia without Kiev's permission and accused Moscow of once again using humanitarian aid shipments to send weapons and ammunition to separatist rebels.

In the separatist-held city of Donetsk, fighting intensified at the local airport, a Reuters witness said. There has been continued shelling from both government forces and the rebels, even after a peace deal signed on Sept. 5.

Months of fighting in Ukraine's separatist regions have left many without sufficient food and medical supplies. Russia has regularly dispatched shipments of aid, a move which the pro-Western Kiev government has denounced as cynical.

"The lion's share of humanitarian supplies find their way to the rebels partly in the form of food, but mostly it is ammunition, equipment and other things for combat operations," Ukrainian military spokesman Andriy Lysenko said in a televised briefing.

The latest delivery of Russian supplies is the eighth since mid-August, Russian news agency RIA cited Russia's emergency ministry as saying, adding that a total of 9,500 tonnes of mainly food, building materials and medicine had been delivered by the first seven convoys.

A Reuters witness in Donetsk said repeated volleys of artillery fire could be heard from the direction of the local airport, a strategic point that both Ukrainian troops and rebels lay claim to.

Both sides have accused each other of violating the terms of the truce, raising fears it could collapse entirely.

Lysenko said three Ukrainian servicemen and an 82-year-old civilian had been killed in the past 24 hours.

He also said Ukrainian positions in Mariupol, a strategic city on the Sea of Azov, were once again coming under attack from rebel shelling.

(Reporting by Natalia Zinets in Kiev, Maria Tsvetkova in Donetsk; Additional reporting by Alexander Winning in Moscow; Writing by Alessandra Prentice; Editing by Raissa Kasolowsky)

I saw this earlier and was going to wait to post it, but then Roberto emailed the link to me and that, I felt, was my signal to put it up here. The significance of all this is that for once a former general has said that public hearings should be held about 9/11.

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‘US legitimacy waning over 9/11 hoax’

A retired US Army general says America should hold public hearings to investigate 9/11 and the wars it triggered.

Gen. Daniel P. Bolger, a leader of the US campaigns in Iraq and Afghanistan, made the comments during an exclusive interview with Truth Jihad Radio. Gen. Bolger is the author of the explosive new book Why We Lost: A General’s Inside Account of the Iraq and Afghanistan Wars.

Asked about worldwide skepticism concerning the official account of 9/11, including the 80% of Muslims worldwide who believe the attacks were a false flag deception, Gen. Bolger said: “We need to have public hearings sort of like the 9/11 Commission, for our own people first, for Americans! I mean, you’re American. Wouldn’t you like to know – wouldn’t you like to see not just me, but other people like me, come into a public forum and answer the kind of questions you’re asking me today?”

Gen. Bolger’s remarks add further impetus to the accelerating campaign, led by the 9/11 family members, to declassify the top secret 28 pages of the 2002 Joint Congressional Inquiry into 9/11. Those pages, according to numerous Congressional Representatives and Senators who have read them, completely overturn the official account and show that “one or more governments” were behind the 9/11 attacks. The governments in question appear to have been Saudi Arabia and Israel, not Iraq or Afghanistan, raising questions about the real motive of the 9/11 wars.

Meanwhile, CNN has reported that convicted “19th hijacker” Zacarias Moussaoui has charged that the Saudi royal family paid for his flying lessons when he was training as a suicide pilot (or, more likely, being framed as a patsy). Moussaoui makes the allegations against the Saudis in two handwritten letters to federal courts in New York and Oklahoma. He also claims that Saudi Royals plotted to assassinate President Bill Clinton by shooting down Air Force One.

The Saudi government hotly denies these charges, and has even called for the top secret 28 pages to be declassified so it can defend itself. So far, Obama has refused to declassify the 28 pages – which were sealed by then-President George W. Bush – and Congress has not yet voted to force the issue. So it is not the Saudi government but the American government that is covering up the truth. Why would the US government want to hide the truth about the worst catastrophe in its history?

The probable answer is that 9/11 was carried out not only with the help of the Saudi and Israeli governments, but corrupt, treasonous members of the US government as well. Declassifying the 28 pages would reveal that 9/11 was a government-sponsored deception, not an independent “al-Qaeda” operation. This would force the kind of new 9/11 investigation that Gen. Bolger advocates. And such an investigation might lead to some very uncomfortable places.

A real 9/11 investigation would very likely reveal treasonous criminal complicity in the attacks on the part of former officials President George W. Bush, Vice President Dick Cheney, Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld, Undersecretary of Defense Paul Wolfowitz, and at least some members of the upper echelons of the Secret Service and the Armed Forces. Let’s review just some of the abundant evidence pointing in that direction, much of which was already well-known in 2004 thanks to Dr. David Ray Griffin’s book The New Pearl Harbor.

Events at the Emma E. Booker School in Florida on the morning of 9/11 prove that Bush and the Secret Service must have had foreknowledge of the attacks. When Andrew Card spent less than two seconds whispering something in Bush’s ear at 9:03 a.m. supposedly informing the president that a second plane had hit the World Trade Center proving that America was under attack, neither Bush nor the Secret Service responded according to protocol. If it had been a real surprise attack, the Secret Service would have whisked Bush away to safety at maximum speed. Instead, they allowed Bush to spend eight more minutes in a pre-announced location practicing reading with schoolchildren. (The words they chanted, oddly enough, were “kite-plane-must-hit-steel.”)

Bush posed for photo ops for another fifteen minutes, and did not leave the school (where the whole world including potential attackers knew he was) until almost 9:30! Then the presidential limousine followed the pre-announced route, at a leisurely pace, to the airport, where Air Force One did not take off until almost 10 a.m. Obviously, this was no surprise attack! Later, Bush would repeatedly claim that he actually saw the first attack plane hit the North Tower before he entered the classroom – an impossibility unless he saw a live feed in the presidential limousine, set up by 9/11-complicit officials, as alleged by national security sources to former NSA officer-turned-journalist Wayne Madsen.

As for Dick Cheney and Donald Rumsfeld, both have incriminated themselves by telling conflicting, implausible stories about where they were and what they were doing on the morning of 9/11. The 9/11 Commission, trying to cover up Cheney’s conflicting statements, has also been caught in absurdly obvious lies. Secretary of Transportation Norman Mineta’s sworn account of Cheney issuing a stand-down order to allow the attack on the Pentagon to proceed unmolested is just the most obvious of the multiple smoking guns incriminating Cheney and Rumsfeld.

YouTube – Veterans Today -

Indeed, the attack on the Pentagon, which occurred almost 90 minutes after the Secret Service, the FAA and the military high command had established phone bridges to deal with the reports of hijackings, could never have happened if it were an actual attack by a hijacked plane and if normal air defense protocols had been followed.

Top US military leaders, trying in vain to follow a hopelessly muddled script, repeatedly perjured themselves before the 9/11 Commission as they offered wildly-conflicting accounts of why US air defenses had not stopped the “hijackings.” 9/11 Commission co-chairs Kean and Hamilton have stated that they considered prosecuting those military leaders for perjury. Then-US Senator Mark Dayton (D-MN) nearly broke down crying on the Senate floor as he railed against the grotesque lies told by his own military leadership.

YouTube – Veterans Today -

Shortly thereafter Senator Dayton was forced to flee Washington DC, along with his entire staff, and return to Minnesota due to “terrorist threats” and announce his retirement. His fellow Minnesota Senator and 9/11 skeptic, Paul Wellstone, didn’t get the message, and was murdered, along with his wife, daughter, and staffers, in a rigged plane crash less than a week after he was issued an apparent death threat by Dick Cheney.

YouTube – Veterans Today -

Circumstantial evidence points toward Paul Wolfowitz being a 9/11 mastermind. Stanley Hilton and University of Illinois law professor Francis Boyle, both classmates of Wolfowitz at the University of Chicago in the 1960s, have stated that Wolfowitz and other pet students of neocon guru Leo Strauss were even then plotting the coup d’état in America that eventually came to fruition as the 9/11-anthrax attack. The general script for the 9/11-anthrax coup was published in 1968 under the name Coup d’Etat: A Practical Handbook by top neocon strategist Edward Luttwak. (Zionist neocons like Wolfowitz, Luttwak, Dov Zakheim, Richard Perle, Scooter Libby, Elliot Abrams and most of the signatories of PNAC’s September 2000 call for a “New Pearl Harbor” are suspected of designing 9/11 to trick the US into a long-term fight against Israel’s enemies.)

YouTube – Veterans Today -

The participation of high-level Americans in the 9/11 deception explains the US government’s reluctance to release the explosive 28 pages and risk igniting the greatest scandal in world history. Such a scandal would destabilize the American political system by annihilating the government’s legitimacy in the eyes of the people. It is easy to see why even non-9/11-complicit officials don’t want to go there.

Yet, that 9/11 scandal already exists, unofficially. Most of the world knows or suspects the truth. America’s legitimacy, in the eyes of the world and its own people, is being terminally sapped by the festering boil of the 9/11 big lie.

The only way to cure this potentially terminal illness is by lancing that boil with the sharp needle of truth. The pain will be temporary; healing will commence quickly. By forthrightly facing and accepting the consequences of such a momentous scandal, the US will be able to re-establish its legitimacy and good name – and perhaps even end its experimental status as Orwellian-Straussian empire, and return to its roots as a Constitutional democratic republic.