Last Call For The Speed Of Derangement

President Obama got his own Twitter account Monday (@POTUS) and as Jonathan Capehart notes, it took all of ten minutes for Post-Racial America to show up with the virtual white hoods and the crosses to burn.

The first racist tweet appears to have come in at 11:48 a.m. from a particularly nasty fellow who addresses the president as the N-word and advises him to “get cancer.” The racist affront is the equivalent of being called the N-word by a coward in a passing car as you’re walking down the street. 

If you follow me on the beast that is Twitter, you have seen me do battle with racists, homophobes and the willfully uninformed and ignorant. I strongly believe those folks need to be exposed for sunlight is the best disinfectant, as the saying goes. And I strongly believe those folks need to endure the public censure and ridicule that comes with being revealed as a hate-filled bigot. It is then that whatever sliver of hope I have in humanity is restored. 

No doubt, Obama was neither shocked nor surprised by the racist reception he received. After all, this is a man who has endured six years of gasp-worthy sleights. But I wonder whether deep down on some level the president wasn’t disappointed. It wouldn’t make him naive. It would make him human.

I'm black and I still don't know how President Obama puts up with it without drone striking half of Alabama and Oklahoma in a fit of rage.  He's a better man than I will ever dream of becoming.

Ready, Fire Your Mouth Off, Aim!

The nation's largest police union isn't anywhere close to happy with President Obama taking away their military-grade toys, claiming the president is making scapegoats of them, and that keeping M-16 rifles and armored APCs away from local police puts them at risk against the heavily armed insurgents citizens of the United States.

James Pasco, executive director of the Fraternal Order of Police, told POLITICO on Monday that he hopes to have a White House meeting as soon as Tuesday to discuss his concerns about how the plans could put cops at risk. 

“The FOP is the most aggressive law enforcement advocacy group in Washington, and we will be at our most aggressive in asserting the need for officer safety and officer rights in any police changes that are to be effected,” Pasco said. 

He said in particular he objects to a measure that would require police departments to get permission from city governments to acquire certain equipment, including riot batons, helmets and shields, through federal programs. 

“We need to only look back to Baltimore to see what happens when officers are sent out ill-equipped in a disturbance situation,” he said. “Because you don’t like the optics, you can’t send police officers out to be hurt or killed.”

To recap, local governments that have a problem deploying military-grade equipment against their own citizens are only worried about "optics" and not, you know, deploying military-grade equipment against their own citizens.  Interesting premise.  Luckily, cooler heads are prevailing.

Under the new standards, local police departments have to get sign-off from a civilian governing body, like a city council, and provide a “clear and persuasive explanation” for why the controlled equipment is necessary. They also have to commit to training officers on community and constitutional policing approaches, as well as collect data on when the equipment is used for a “significant incident.” 

Data collection is a major element of broader administration recommendations on 21st-century policing, also released Monday. 

A dozen cities have agreed to share data with academic-data scientists to help develop a sort of early warning system that would “[home] in on problems before they manifest themselves in the community,” Muñoz said. During his visit on Monday, Obama plans to visit Camden’s Real-Time Tactical Operational Intelligence Center and greet a group of volunteer tech experts who’ll spend a few days helping Camden shore up its internal data system. 

The administration is also planning “hackathons” and other efforts to help agencies make the data accessible to their communities through visualizations and mappings.

The task force’s report centers on six broad areas—or “pillars”—for improvement: building trust and legitimacy, policy and oversight, technology and social media, community policing and crime reduction, training and education, and officer wellness and safety.

Both Cincinnati and Lexington are two of those twelve cities cooperating on this venture, and that's good news locally at least.  Attorney General Loretta Lynch will kick off her tour of these cities here in Cincinnati today.

The U.S. attorney general is looking to Cincinnati as a model for how police departments should operate. 

Attorney General Loretta E. Lynch is traveling around the country, highlighting "collaborative programs and innovative policing practices." 

Her visit later today comes as some American cities grapple with distrust between their residents and police forces. The distrust and anger have boiled over in some places , in light of several recent police-related deaths of black men. 

Cincinnati's Collaborative Agreement is often looked to as a model for how police departments should work with the communities they serve. It was forged in the wake of the police shooting death of Timothy Thomas in spring 2001. His death sparked riots in Cincinnati's historic Over-the-Rhine neighborhood, where Thomas was shot and killed; the community's reaction was a flashpoint that uncovered long-simmering tensions and frustrations between residents and police, and eventually led to reforms in the city's police department. 

Lynch is looking to Cincinnati for ways to "advance public safety, strengthen police-community relations and foster mutual trust and respect."

Well before Ferguson, South Charleston, and Cleveland made news, the shooting death of Timothy Thomas and the resulting days of protest in Cincinnati made national headlines.  The country's focus changed sharply just a few months later on September 11th, but people here haven't forgotten. While the city still has a long way to go, things are markedly different now.

Obvious HINT from Notorious RBG

Irin Carmon is one of several people to make this catch as Justice Ginsburg may have let the country see a card or two hidden in her jabot for June as she officiated at a same-sex marriage over the weekend.

Over the weekend, less than a month after the Supreme Court heard arguments on the constitutionality of same-sex marriage bans, Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg presided over the wedding of Shakespeare Theatre artistic director Michael Kahn and interior designer Charles Mitchem. According to New York Times columnist Maureen Dowd, a guest at the wedding, Ginsburg delivered her portion, including saying she was officiating by the power vested in her by the United States Constitution, “with a sly look and special emphasis on the word ‘Constitution.’“

Dowd wrote that guests applauded, though “no one was sure if she was emphasizing her own beliefs or giving a hint to the outcome of the case the Supreme Court is considering whether to decide if same-sex marriage is constitutional.” A decision in that case, which will determine whether same-sex marriage is recognized throughout the country, is expected at the end of the term, usually late June.

No one seriously believes that Ginsburg, a liberal stalwart on the court, will be the swing vote in the decision in the case, Obergefell v. Hodges – that would be Justice Anthony Kennedy. The justices generally meet a few days after a case is argued for a closed door conference to take an initial vote tally and assign opinions, so under normal circumstances, Ginsburg would already know the case’s outcome. But more likely, the often-careful Ginsburg was emphasizing “constitution” at that moment to underscore her own vision of that document, which she has long held can expand to embrace people who were left out at the founding – including gays and lesbians.

So more likely she's making her own legal views (as well as her own personal ones) clear, which is nothing that should surprise anyone paying attention.

As for the constitutional language, it’s part of Ginsburg’s standard wedding terminology, according to this reporter’s forthcoming biography of Ginsburg, much to the awe of one of her clerks. In 2000, Ginsburg presided over the wedding of her former clerk, Paul Berman, to a former clerk for Justice Harry Blackmun. “I’ll never forget the end,” Berman, now a law professor at George Washington University, recalled. “Instead of ‘by the power invested in me, by whatever’ she said, ‘by the power vested in me by the United States Constitution.’ My wife always jokes that if we got divorced it would be unconstitutional.”

Or maybe it's a wink and a nod.  Who knows?  We have about a month and change to find out for sure.

StupidiNews!

• President Obama is issuing new guidelines that will restrict the heaviest military equipment being donated to police departments as part of an effort to restore trust among communities and police.
• Geologists at the US Geological Survey say multiple signs show the odds of a major eruption of Hawaii's Mt. Kilauea volcano has increased significantly over the month of May.
• The US State Department says it will finish its review of former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton's e-mails in mid-January, just before next year's earliest presidential primaries.
• Alaska independent Gov. Bill Walker has vetoed $3 billion in spending in the state's budget and is warning of thousands of state government furloughs as tax revenues plummet along with oil prices.
• AT&T CEO Randall Stephenson is predicting FCC net neutrality rules regulating broadband internet as a public utility will eventually be killed by the Supreme Court or a Republican Congress.