StupidiNews Weekend Update

Couple of big stories developing this weekend:

Cleveland police officer Michael Brelo was acquitted of charges by a judge in the involuntary manslaughter charges against a black couple when officers fired 138 bullets into the car that killed Timothy Russell and Malissa Williams.

A white Cleveland police officer who stood on a car and shot the vehicle's two unarmed black occupants after colleagues already riddled the car with bullets in 2012 was found not guilty Saturday in their deaths -- with a judge ruling his actions were constitutionally justified.

Cuyahoga County Judge John P. O'Donnell, who reached the verdicts after a several-week trial, declared Officer Michael Brelo not guilty of voluntary manslaughter and felonious assault in the deaths of Timothy Russell and Malissa Williams following a 20-minute car chase.

Brelo's actions -- jumping onto the stopped car and firing 15 shots into the vehicle after he and his colleagues fired more than 100 times -- were constitutionally justifiable because it wasn't yet clear that any perceived threat to the officers was over, O'Donnell ruled.

It looks like same-sex marriage will win and win big in Ireland as exit polls for Friday's referendum indicate the Yes vote leading.

Early results suggest the Republic of Ireland has voted to legalise same-sex marriage in a historic referendum.

More than 3.2m people were asked whether they wanted to amend the country's constitution to allow gay and lesbian couples to marry.

Government ministers have said they believe it will pass, while prominent "no" campaigners have conceded defeat.

Counting started at 09:00 BST on Saturday morning. An "unusually high" turnout has been reported.

A final result is expected late afternoon on Saturday.

The Senate has blocked reauthorization of the USA PATRIOT Act, and rejected a bill that would continue the bulk collection of metadata on US citizens.

Unable to end a struggle over how to deal with government surveillance programs, Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell scheduled a last-minute session to consider retaining the National Security Agency’s bulk collection of domestic phone records.

McConnell, R-Ky., warned against allowing the controversial NSA program and other key surveillance activities under the USA Patriot Act to expire at midnight May 31. He said he would call the Senate into session that day, a Sunday, and seek action before the deadline.

Sen. Rand Paul, Kentucky’s other senator and a Republican presidential candidate, called the Senate’s failure to allow an extension of the surveillance programs during a late-night session Friday into Saturday a victory for privacy rights.

“We should never give up our rights for a false sense of security,” Paul said in a statement. “This is only the beginning — the first step of many. I will continue to do all I can until this illegal government spying program is put to an end, once and for all.”

By the time senators broke for the holiday, they had blocked a House-passed bill and several short-term extensions of the key provisions in the Patriot Act.

More on this as it develops.

The Kroog Versus The TPP

When you've lost Paul Krugman on an Obama administration policy as important as the Trans-Pacific Partnership trade deal, there's usually something wrong to the point of me reevaluating the policy. I'm at that point now.

I don’t know why the president has chosen to make the proposed Trans-Pacific Partnership such a policy priority. Still, there is an argument to be made for such a deal, and some reasonable, well-intentioned people are supporting the initiative.

But other reasonable, well-intentioned people have serious questions about what’s going on. And I would have expected a good-faith effort to answer those questions. Unfortunately, that’s not at all what has been happening. Instead, the selling of the 12-nation Pacific Rim pact has the feel of a snow job. Officials have evaded the main concerns about the content of a potential deal; they’ve belittled and dismissed the critics; and they’ve made blithe assurances that turn out not to be true. 

The administration’s main analytical defense of the trade deal came earlier this month, in a report from the Council of Economic Advisers. Strangely, however, the report didn’t actually analyze the Pacific trade pact. Instead, it was a paean to the virtues of free trade, which was irrelevant to the question at hand. 

First of all, whatever you may say about the benefits of free trade, most of those benefits have already been realized. A series of past trade agreements, going back almost 70 years, has brought tariffs and other barriers to trade very low to the point where any effect they may have on U.S. trade is swamped by other factors, like changes in currency values. 

In any case, the Pacific trade deal isn’t really about trade. Some already low tariffs would come down, but the main thrust of the proposed deal involves strengthening intellectual property rights — things like drug patents and movie copyrights — and changing the way companies and countries settle disputes. And it’s by no means clear that either of those changes is good for America.

I have to admit, a month ago I would have said "I trust the President to get a good enough deal on this."  But a lot of people are now flat out saying that there's no good deal to be had here, unlike Iran or Cuba or Obamacare or a host of other real accomplishments President Obama has made.

If this is the least awful option, then that's what we need to hear, not that this is going to be a great thing.

I'm going to try to find more information on the TPP this weekend.

Last Call For The End Of The Center Right Country Myth

Gallup's latest poll of where Americans stand on the liberal/conservative question finds that for the first time in 16 years of the poll, the percentage of Americans calling themselves liberal now equals the percentage of Americans calling themselves conservative.

Thirty-one percent of Americans describe their views on social issues as generally liberal, matching the percentage who identify as social conservatives for the first time in Gallup records dating back to 1999. 

 

Gallup first asked Americans to describe their views on social issues in 1999, and has repeated the question at least annually since 2001. The broad trend has been toward a shrinking conservative advantage, although that was temporarily interrupted during the first two years of Barack Obama's presidency. Since then, the conservative advantage continued to diminish until it was wiped out this year.

Can we finally put to bed the idiotic "America is a center-right country" myth?  Because America has grown increasingly more liberal over the last 16 years, and we're seeing that today with the question of same-sex marriage before the Supreme Court, a black president now, and a woman the top candidate for the Dems in 2016.

Hopefully we can get things done more in the future.

The Kentucky Job Miracle(!)

Joe Sonka reminds us that in addition to bringing health insurance to 450,000 through the creation of Kynect here in Kentucky, Gov. Steve Beshear has presided over impressive job creation numbers to boot.

The Beshear administration announced this morning that Kentucky’s seasonally adjusted preliminary unemployment rate fell to 5.1 percent in March — a drop of over 2 percent in the past year and the lowest rate since the summer of 2001. 

The federal survey of 60,000 households shows that employment increased by 7,353 in March, while the number of unemployed decreased by 2,310. This marks the 23rd straight month in which the ranks of the unemployed has decreased in Kentucky, and the seventh consecutive month where employment has increased. 

The number of unemployed has fallen by more than 120,000 in Kentucky since the height of the Great Recession in 2009. While employment fell steadily in 2014, that number has jolted upward by over 35,000 in the last three months alone.

Kentucky's unemployed has fallen from 225,000 to 100,000, and while the labor force fell by 75,000, it has rebounded in 2015 and has clawed back nearly a third of that number.  All of this is a big deal as the campaign to succeed Beshear gets underway.

The question of whether Kentucky is facing dramatic job growth or job loss has been a major topic of discussion in this year’s gubernatorial campaign. Republican Hal Heiner began running a TV ad last month claiming Kentucky had lost 20,000 jobs over the last two years. His primary opponent James Comer went a step further, claiming Kentucky lost “nearly 50,000 jobs” over that same time period, though his campaign subsequently stopped stating that figure.

As Insider Louisville noted last month, while Heiner’s ad was correct if you only count the number of employed, it neglected to mention the full context of the falling number of unemployed and total labor force. Additionally — using Heiner’s preferred statistics for the “20,000 lost jobs” figure — if you update those figures for the last two years from this March, Kentucky has actually gained 7,671 jobs.

So Kentucky has a lower unemployment rate now than when Beshear took office, and there are fewer unemployed Kentuckians now too. The recovery is real in the Bluegrass State.  Both Matt Bevin and Jim Comer will destroy that recovery if elected, guaranteed.

Jack Conway needs to win in November, period.

Last Call For Detroit Rock (Bottom Housing) City

White people are moving back to, of all cities, Detroit.  The city that became synonymous with "white flight" is now the new hot urban center for white Millennials and Gen Xers, while black families are moving out to the suburbs.

Simple math convinced music producer Mike Seger to move from adjacent Oakland County into a rented two-story house on Detroit's east side that also houses his Get Fresh Studio. Seger, 27, pays $750 per month in rent, and said he wouldn't have been able to find anything comparable in the suburbs for that price. The average monthly rental rate of a three-bedroom single-family home in Detroit is about $800, as opposed to $1,100 to $1,400 in the suburbs, according to RentRange.com, which collects rental market information. 

"A young person can move here with $10,000 and start up a small flex space for artists or artists' studios," Seger said. "It's the uprising of the youth being able to have the opportunities to make a future for themselves." 

Eugene Gualtieri, a 41-year-old lab technician at the Detroit Medical Center, took advantage of an incentive program. Live Midtown, offered by his employer and several others in the Midtown neighborhood, allowed him to take out a $20,000 home loan that he won't have to repay if he stays in his condo for five years. The program is aimed at getting workers to live closer to their jobs, which can benefit employers and employees. 

"The condo is eight minutes from work ... super close, nice neighborhood and really reasonably priced," Gualtieri said. "Like any part of any city, I'm sure there are good parts and bad parts. You just make sure you don't end up in the areas you are not supposed to be in." 

Live Downtown is a similar incentive program offered by employers located in downtown Detroit, which is home to General Motors, Quicken Loans and Blue Cross Blue Shield of Michigan. Three professional sports teams and stadiums, three casinos, restaurants and bars are entertainment anchors.

That's one side of Detroit.  But for the people already living in mostly black neighborhoods, the talk of incentives and urban renewal is still just that, words.

Blacks appear to be weary of waiting for Detroit to turn things around and have been migrating to nearby suburbs in search of comfort, better schools and lower crime. 

The city's black population was nearly 776,000 in 1990. By 2013 it had dipped to an estimated 554,000. 

Elizabeth St. Clair, 27, and her family may count themselves among black former Detroiters. 

St. Clair and her boyfriend are searching for rental homes in Detroit and several inner-ring suburbs. She has two school-aged children. 

She acknowledges things are getting better — pointing out Detroit's current campaign to tear down vacant houses and eradicate blight. But the high cost of car insurance, underperforming schools and the condition of many neighborhoods are obstacles. 

"As I see a resurgence of Detroit, I really want to stay here," St. Clair said. "I feel there are two Detroits. There's a Detroit where you are able to go downtown and enjoy, and then in our neighborhoods there's not much change."

So the hip downtown entertainment district is getting a facelift, and attracting white people.  But the black folks that already live in Detroit aren't seeing any improvement at all, and they're leaving.

If this seems like this is all being done on purpose, and for a specific reason, you're not alone.

StupidiNews!

• Voters in Ireland take to the polls today to determine whether or not to change the country's constitution to allow same-sex marriage, in what is expected to be a close vote.
• Washington DC police have arrested 34-year-old Daron Dylon Wint in connection with the death of construction company owner Savvas Savopoulos and three others, found after a suspicious arson.
• A Maryland grand jury has returned indictments against all six police officers involved in the death of Freddie Gray last month, with arraignment set for July 2.
• Puerto Rico's House has passed a bill raising the island's sales tax from 7% to 11.5% in an effort to balance the US protectorate's nearly $10 billion budget shortfall.
• House Republicans are cutting National Science Foundation research funding by as much as 50%, and barring all federal agencies from using DoE research on fossil fuels to set regulations.

Black, White And Grayson Areas

National Journal conservative pundit Josh Kraushaar is convinced that Alan Grayson will cost the Dems taking back the Senate the way Republican Todd Akin did for the GOP in 2010: by opening his mouth one too many times and becoming a national sound bite punch line.

The list of Grayson's greatest hits is long—and contains equal-opportunity vitriol against Republicans, Democrats, and reporters alike. He reportedly called Murphy a "piece of shit" when recently meeting with DSCC Chairman Jon Tester. In the run-up to a 2010 landslide loss against GOP Rep. Daniel Webster, he aired an ad labeling his opponent as "Taliban Dan" and, without basis, accused him of wanting to outlaw divorce for abused women. Grayson called a Federal Reserve adviser a "K Street whore" and told MSNBC's Chris Matthews that Dick Cheney has blood "dripping from his teeth" when talking. He threatened a conservative constituent with five years of prison time for launching a website titled mycongressmanisnuts.com. Most recently, he asked Tampa Bay Times political reporter Adam Smith whether he was some kind of "shitting robot" when confronted with questions surrounding his offshore investments. 

Grayson also is enmeshed in an ugly divorce battle with his wife of 24 years, who has accused him of domestic abuse. He's vigorously denied the allegations, and has accused her ofengaging in bigamy and being a "gold digger."

"On a professional level, before he went to Congress he was a wealthy trial lawyer looking for fights to make a living. That's what he had to do. In 2010 [when he lost his first reelection], Alan Grayson proved to me that when the going got tough, he completely lost control," said Florida-based Democratic strategist Steve Schale, who led President Obama's campaigns in the state. "My gut says Grayson's looking for a fight. This is a guy whose entire career has been based on looking for a bully to hit. If he says he's probably going to run for the Senate, he's probably going to run for the Senate."
The tricky calculus for the DSCC, which endorsed Murphy early in a bid to dissuade Grayson from running, is that Grayson is so unpredictable that it's hard to plot a strategy designed to limit his destructiveness. Most Senate candidates wouldn't want to give up a cushy lifetime Congressional job to make a long-shot bid at higher office. But Grayson is independently wealthy—the 17th-richest member of Congress, with assets of around $25 million—and derives his prestige through provocation. 

Democrats normally have many tools to marginalize a weak candidate, but few of the traditional rules apply to Grayson. He's unlikely to be swayed by promises of subcommittee chairmanships or increased funding in his Orlando-area district. Attacking him as unelectable will only raise his profile further, and amp up the already-explosive rhetoric between the two sides. Schale argued that the DSCC's move endorsing Murphy to unify the party against Grayson is likely to backfire, and raise the odds he jumps in the race. 

Making the strategy even more complicated is that Murphy is vulnerable to a challenge on his left. Representing a swing district that voted for Mitt Romney, Murphy has voting record that is one of the most conservative in his caucus. He boasts an 86 percent lifetime vote score with the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, a better tally than many House Republicans. He's still unknown to most Florida Democrats, given that he represents only a small slice of the expansive state. In fact, Quinnipiac's April survey found Grayson somewhat better-known than Murphy, and despite the controversies, holding a net positive favorability rating.

Kraushaar's obvious concern trolling aside, Alan Grayson vs Patrick Murphy really is the perfect microcosm of the "more Democrats versus better Democrats" debate.  Murphy is a safe candidate, but absolutely a Southern Blue Dog, where a loss of Blue Dogs in the South and retirements in the Mountain West cost Dems the Senate big time last year.

Having said that, anything that would piss Josh Kraushaar off is usually a good idea worth doing, and Alan Grayson running for Senate would certainly qualify.  There's no question that Patrick Murphy represents the corporate wing of the Dems, but then again, Kirsten Gillibrand was notoriously conservative in her upstate New York House district before becoming a very liberal Senator, so it's not like Murphy can't start leaning more to the left in a statewide race.

We'll see.  My gut says that betting on Grayson is risky, but would pay out big time if successful.

The Hollywood Fifteen

In a huge, huge move, the Los Angeles city council voted to raise the city's minimum wage to $15 an hour.

The increase — which the Los Angeles City Council passed in a 14-1 vote — comes as workers across the country are rallying for higher wages, and several large companies, including Facebook and Walmart, have moved to raise their lowest wages. Several other cities, including San Francisco, Seattle and Oakland, Calif., have already approved increases, and dozens more are considering doing the same. In 2014, a number of Republican-leaning states like Alaska and South Dakota also raised their state-level minimum wage by referendum.

The impact is likely to be particularly strong in Los Angeles, where, according to some estimates, more than 40 percent of the city’s work force earns less than $15 an hour.

“The effects here will be the biggest by far,” said Michael Reich, an economist at the University of California, Berkeley, who was commissioned by city leaders here to conduct several studies on the potential effects of a minimum-wage increase. “The proposal will bring wages up in a way we haven’t seen since the 1960s. There’s a sense spreading that this is the new norm, especially in areas that have high costs of housing.”

Tuesday’s vote could set off a wave of minimum wage increases across Southern California, and the groups pressing for the increases say the new pay scales would change the way of life for the region’s vast low-wage work force.

Indeed, much of the debate here has centered on the potential regional impact. Many of the low-wage workers who form the backbone of Southern California’s economy live in the suburban cities of Los Angeles. Proponents of the wage increase say they expect that several nearby cities, including Santa Monica, West Hollywood and Pasadena, would follow Los Angeles’ lead and pass ordinances for higher wages in the coming months.

LA joins Seattle and San Francisco with $15 an hour, and Chicago's $13 an hour, and similar proposals are on the docket for NYC, DC, and Kansas City.  By my ballpark figures, this means as many as 2 million or so workers are going to get a raise, and that's massive.

However, keep in mind that the movement for $15 a hour also involves unionized employees, and that's going to be a far tougher component to sell around the country.

Still, it's a start, and a much needed one.

StupidiNews!

• ISIS forces have captured the Syrian city of Palmyra, containing ancient ruins of arches and temples that are thousands of years old.
• Dave Letterman got an all-star sendoff as he aired his final Late Night show Wednesday, with stars ranging from Bill Murray to Chris Rock to President Obama.
• The US is concerned that China is provoking tensions by reclaiming land around reefs in the South China Sea, 90% of which China claims over its Asian coastal neighbors.
• Drugstore chain CVS Health is looking to acquire nursing-home pharmacy Omnicare in a deal that would make the company one of the nation's largest players in Medicare Part D.
• European Union appear to be wanting to scrap existing net neutrality rules entirely in order to get a larger deal from carriers on mobile roaming charges in Europe.

Last Call For Maximum Godwin

What happens when Daily Caller founder and bowtie enthusiast Tucker Carlson gets together with America's favorite conspiracy theorist, Infowars radio host Alex Jones? Obama the eugenics loving Nazi, that's what!

During a bizarre appearance on The Alex Jones Show, Fox News host Tucker Carlson suggested the Obama administration is engaging in "Nazi stuff" by using ethnic politics, and wants to confiscate all the country's firearms and put people "in jail for even having them." 

Jones, America's leading conspiracy theorist, believes the government perpetrated mass catastrophes like the September 11 attacks, the Oklahoma City bombing, the Space Shuttle Columbia disaster, the Boston Marathon bombing, and several mass shootings. Jones has recently been pushing the conspiracy theory that a military training exercise, Jade Helm, is an attempt to create martial law in the United States (it isn't). Jones is an ally of Republican presidential candidate Rand Paul and helped launch his political career. 

Fox News executive vice president Bill Shine has dismissed Jones, saying he "wishes he had a platform on Fox News ... That's not going to happen, so he should stick with trying to locate the black helicopters." Some of Carlson's colleagues have dismissed Jones as a "nut job radio guy" who owns a "radical far-right Web site." 

Despite Fox's disapproval of Jones, Carlson appeared on his May 19 program to commiserate about the downfall of America under President Obama. (Carlson has previously appeared on the program.)

Carlson, who is also the founder and editor in chief of The Daily Caller, claimed during the appearance that progressives use ethnic politics and identity politics to divert attention from their "policy failures." He said the strategy is "really dangerous," comparing it to countries where there is a violent ethnic divide. He said of the Obama administration: "They categorize people by race in a way that, you know, you can't even imagine -- 30 years ago you would have said, 'Wait a second, that's like Nazi stuff.'"

Of course we go from zero to genocide in under 60 seconds here, which is a painful reminder that is there is anything that unites the lunatic fringe of the left with the most odious operatives of the right, it's comparing President Obama to Hitler.

It's amazing stuff.  These guys are insane, but they're both laughing all the way to the bank.

Grifters Are Indeed Going To Grift

320 million Americans or so, and yes, some of them are horrible, horrible people.

A Tennessee man and his family used much of the $187 million it collected for cancer patients to buy themselves cars, gym memberships and take luxury cruise vacations, pay for college tuition and employ family members with six-figure salaries, federal officials alleged Tuesday in one of the largest charity fraud cases ever, involving all 50 states. 

The joint action by the Federal Trade Commission and the states says James T. Reynolds Sr., his ex-wife and son raised the money through their various charities: The Cancer Fund of America in Knoxville, Tennessee, and its affiliated Cancer Support Services; The Breast Cancer Society in Mesa, Arizona; and the Children's Cancer Fund of America in Powell, Tennessee. 

The charities hired telemarketers to collect $20 donations from people across the country, telling consumers that they provided financial aid and other support to cancer patients, including pain medication, transportation to chemotherapy visits and hospice care. 

But little money made it to cancer patients, as the groups "operated as personal fiefdoms characterized by rampant nepotism, flagrant conflicts of interest, and excessive insider compensation" with none of the controls used by bona fide charities, the FTC said Tuesday. 

Anyone who donated money to these groups shouldn't expect a refund anytime soon. While litigation against Reynolds Sr. and the Cancer Fund of America is ongoing, the settlement agreements with Reynolds' son, ex-wife and a long-time associate of the family — Kyle Effler — notes that much of the money has already been spent. The agreement bans the three from fundraising and shuttered their organizations. 

"The money is mostly gone," said Jessica Rich, director of the FTC Bureau of Consumer Protection. Rich declined to say whether a separate criminal investigation might be underway, noting only that the regulatory agency doesn't have that authority.

$187 million bucks worth of fraud.  Why, those are almost Bank of America numbers if you add a couple of zeroes or so.

Seriously, you scammed people for cancer patients, twenty bucks at a time, and made that much off of it. Amazing stuff, frankly. And of course, the money's all but gone.  Oh well.

Perhaps we should cut the FTC's budget.  I'm sure that would solve the problem, right Republicans?

Thanks, O-Bee-Ma!

The White House has released a strategy this week to help the country's honeybee supply, which has seen sharp drops every winter for the last ten years or so. For now, the nation's beekeepers have been able to breed enough honeybees to cover losses, but that's not a sustainable practice.  It's good to see some help coming for them.

The White House strategy lays out a goal to reduce winter losses of managed honeybees to no more than 15 percent in the next 10 years. Winter losses of managed honeybees for the 2014-2015 season topped 23.1 percent, according to a survey released last week. Beekeepers say that the maximum level of losses they can experience and still remain economically viable is 18.7 percent. Part of the White House’s strategy to reduce bee losses will be ramping up research and surveying efforts on honeybees, in an attempt to determine what stressors are most dangerous to bees and what are the best ways to manage bees’ habitat. 

The strategy, which grew out of a pollinator task force created by executive order last year, doesn’t just tackle managed honeybees — bees that are kept by beekeepers to pollinate crops around the country. It also singles out monarch butterflies, another pollinator that has been facing serious declines over the last several years. 

Over the last two decades, monarch populations have declined by 90 percent, a drop that has been precipitated in part by removal of milkweed — a key food source for monarch larvae — along with changing weather patterns, and deforestation. The White House wants to increase the eastern monarch butterfly population to 225 million butterflies by 2020, a goal it aims to accomplish through public-private partnerships and actions in both the U.S. and Mexico, where the butterflies spend the winter. 

The strategy also spells out a goal to “restore or enhance” seven million acres of pollinator-friendly habitat over the next five years. That goal will help native pollinators, such as wild bees and butterflies, as well as managed honeybees. Last year, summer losses for managed honeybees exceeded winter losses for the first time, and Dennis VanEngelsdorp, assistant professor of entomology at the University of Maryland, told ThinkProgress that poor bee nutrition due to meadows being plowed under for crops might have contributed to the summer losses.

Not only is this good for the environment and the ecosystem, but it's good business too. Pollinated crops are worth billions of dollars every year, from blueberries to okra to watermelon to sunflowers to cabbage and a whole range more. We'd be in a hell of a fix without honeybees, and it's excellent that the White House is taking this seriously.

StupidiNews!

• While Democratic AG Jack Conway won his primary easily, Kentucky's Republican gubernatorial primary is headed for a recount, with Matt Bevin ahead of James Comer by just 83 votes.
• A federal judge has ordered the State Department to release thousands of e-mails from then Secretary of State Hillary Clinton's tenure.
• Japanese airbag maker Takata has now doubled its recall of airbags to include 34 million US vehicles, making it the largest safety recall in US history.
• A new survey finds 32 states face budget shortfalls in fiscal 2015 and or 2016, many of them led by Republican governors.
• Tech companies are telling the White House that requiring government policies to create "back doors"in products will mean these doors will be exploited by repressive foreign regimes.

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.