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The Obama administration plans to spend $263 million for police body cameras and training in the wake of the shooting death of unarmed 18-year-old Michael Brown.  The program would offer a total of $75 million over three years to match state funding for the cameras by 50 percent, helping to pay for more than 50,000 of the devices.

The president says the funding would to help improve relations between police departments and minority communities, saying there is a “simmering distrust” between the two groups that extends well beyond the unrest in Ferguson, Missouri.

Shortly after Michael Brown was shot and killed, New Orleans Police Officer Lisa Lewis got into a fight with a man during a traffic stop. During the fight, she shot Armand Bennet in the forehead.

According to Lewis’ attorney, she was going off-shift when she pulled Bennet over and had already turned her body camera. Bennet survived, only to be  booked on five outstanding warrants including possession of marijuana, illegal possession of a weapon, resisting an officer, resisting an officer and criminal damage to property.

It was during a July 17 confrontation that Eric Garner died following what was called a ‘chokehold,’ performed by Daniel Pantaleo, one of the arresting New York Police officers attempting to arrest Garner. The entire event was video taped from start to finish and still a grand jury chose not to indict the Pantaleo.

On April 21 cops in Albuquerque shot and killed Mary Hawkes, who was suspected of auto theft.  The officer who shot and killed Hawkes did not have his lapel camera turned on. He insists he turned it on ahead of the encounter but it was off and the manufacturer said they couldn’t decide if the officer was being truthful.

That officer, Jeremy Dear, has since been fired.

In 2013, a Chicago police officer wasn’t even charged for fatally shooting an unarmed man, despite video footage showing the officer standing over the victim’s body. Earlier this year, a jury acquitted two former police officers caught on tape beating a schizophrenic homeless man to death in 2012.

Ever since the beating of Rodney King was caught on tape in 1991, police have been aware that their actions may be recorded and used against them – and still we see rioting in the streets. And I don’t even want to get going on the possible abuse of civil liberties these body cameras can lead too.

So as you can see, such “21st century policing,” will not work.

Here We Go Again.

A Staten Island grand jury cleared an NYPD cop in the chokehold death of Eric Garner during his caught-on-video arrest for peddling loose cigarettes. The panel voted a “no-bill” and dismissed all charges against Officer Daniel Pantaleo, capping weeks of investigation by the special grand jury, set up in September specifically to review evidence in Garner’s racially charged death.

City Council Speaker Melissa Mark-Viverito called the ruling “a terribly disappointing outcome” that ran counter to “the events that led to Eric Garner’s death.”

“What makes this even more infuriating is the frequent lack of accountability, which is why I urge the U.S. Department of Justice to launch its own investigation,” she added.

Meanwhile – back in the “Show Me” state…

Members of the New Black Panther Party plotted to bomb St. Louis’ Gateway Arch and assassinate local police in the wake of the original Ferguson riots, but the Justice Department hasn’t issued terrorism charges – only hitting them with minor possession gun charges.

Brandon Orlando Baldwin and Olajuwon Ali Davis of the New Black Panther Party discussed using bombs to blow up the Gateway Arch and the murder of Ferguson Police Chief Tom Jackson and St. Louis County prosecutor Robert McCulloch.

Evidently, U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder has a “go soft” order on the racist group – but watch how hard he comes down on the NYPD.

It reminds me of when Olympic sprinters Tommie Smith and John Carlos stood atop the medal podium at the 1968 Summer Games in Mexico City, bowed their heads and raised black-gloved fists during the playing of the national anthem.  They ended up being kicked off the U.S. Track Team for their actions.

It was neither the time nor place for such a protest – and most Americans knew it.

Forty-six years later, the St. Louis Police Officers Association wants a public apology from the St. Louis Rams and the NFL after five Rams players walked out on to the field on Sunday with their hands raised similar to those used by Ferguson protestors. SLPOA Business Manager Jeff Roorda points out the hypocrisy.

“All week long, the Rams and the NFL were on the phone with the St. Louis Police Department asking for assurances that the players and the fans would be kept safe from the violent protesters who had rioted, looted, and burned buildings in Ferguson.”

Where and how these five players decided to express their opinions was wrong, since there were more than 50 business owners and clean-up-crew workers in the stands. Basically, the players slapped those people in the face by supporting the rioters and looters with their ‘hands up, don’t shoot’ gesture.

The Rams should support their community, not add to the problem – and most Americans know it.

There was a time when the Democratic Party was respectable. But on Monday, four members of the Congressional Black Caucus did the “Hands Up, Don’t Shoot” gesture during remarks from the House Floor, to show solidarity with protesters in Ferguson, Missouri.

Congressional folks Hakeem Jeffries (D-NY), Yvette Clarke (D-NY), Sheila Jackson Lee (D-Tex.) and Al Green (D-Tex.), referred to the gesture that has come to symbolize the outrage over the death of Brown, the Black man shot dead by White police officer Darren Wilson in August. Lee and Green, also offered their praise for the five St. Louis Rams who gave the “Hands Up, Don’t Shoot” signal on the field during a game.

Such theatrical activities evoke an emotional reaction and have nothing to do with facts or laws.

There is a meme making the rounds on Facebook about a young man named DeAndre Joshua, the only person killed during the riots, looting and arson-fires in Ferguson, Missouri. His death has become fodder for online speculation, as people continue to claim Joshua was one of the unnamed witnesses, who testified before the Michael Brown grand jury.

However, he had nothing to do with the grand jury as he was in St. Louis at the time of Brown’s fatal shooting, though he was a childhood friend of the man who was walking in the street with Brown when Brown attacked Officer Darren Wilson. Furthermore, Joshua completed his sentence of ‘community service,’ for ‘resisting arrest’ in 2013.

So far there have been no rallies or news cameras, no signs or ribbons to mark the spot where someone shot Joshua once in the head, then set him on fire inside his car. His death appears to be nothing more than a footnote in the events of that ugly night.

After the president’s meeting with leaders on race, the Congressional Black Caucus took to the House floor to discuss the events in Ferguson, Missouri.

“The Ferguson grand jury’s decision not to indict former officer Darren Wilson was yet another slap in our face,” said Representative Marcia Fudge of Ohio. “It was another painful reminder that just like with Trayvon Martin, and Tamir Rice, and so many others, that law enforcement officers kill our black and brown boys without repercussions.”

Then Congressman Hakeem Jeffries brought the “hands up, don’t shoot” pose to the House floor.

“’Hands up, don’t shoot’ — it’s a rallying cry of people all across America who are fed up with police violence in community after community after community…in Ferguson, in Brooklyn, in Cleveland, in Oakland,” Jeffries said.

So much for the rule of law.

There hasn’t been a day since October 9th, that I haven’t failed to think of my dog, Harley. In fact, I have time and again embarrassingly called each of the other three dogs by his name.

So it was a pleasant surprise when this arrived:

Thank you to both Baring Boulevard Veterinary Hospital and to Furry Friends Assistance Fund for remembering Harley with this gesture. It does my heart good.

An off-duty Akron, Ohio White police officer was fatally shot while confronting an armed Black man November 16th.

Justin Winebrenner and several friends were at a pub when a man became disorderly and kicked out of the pub. The man returned a short time later and brandished a handgun.

A staff member, who was aware Winebrenner was a police officer, alerted him to the situation.  Winebrenner and another off-duty officer confronted the man, who then opened fire.

One shot struck Winebrenner in the chest, killing him. The alleged gunman, Kenan Ivery, pleaded not guilty to charges of aggravated murder and five counts of felonious assault.

Winebrenner served with the department for seven years and the Medina County Juvenile Detention Center for two years. He’s survived by a four-year-old daughter and fiancée.

And where is Winebrenner’s 15 minutes in the media-spotlight? Nowhere, as the story doesn’t fit the media’s ‘White cop kills Black kid’ template.

President Obama evoked Martin Luther King Jr., ghost on Black Entertainment Television claiming his daughters could someday face dangers from racism like those the civil rights legend battled a half-century ago: “I want my children to be seen as the individuals that they are, and I want them to be judged based on the content of their character and their behavior and their talents and their gifts.”

He might fear this – but he has no heart to actually do anything about it – which was evident when he refused defend his daughters after they we ‘bullied’ by a GOP congressman’s spokes woman. I wonder how emotionally damaged his daughters will be by the time he leaves office.

At first I was angry about MIT Professor Jonathon Gruber’s comment about the American people: “It’s a very clever, you know, basic exploitation of the lack of economic understanding of the American voter,” Gruber said at the Honors Colloquium 2012 at the University of Rhode Island.

Later while visiting Washington University at St. Louis in 2013 he said, “They proposed it (Obamacare) and that passed, because the American people are too stupid to understand the difference.”

But the more I thought about it – he’s correct – we American’s are stupid. There is plenty of proof online showing people (especially recent high school graduates and current college students)  can’t even answer the most basic of history, political or science questions:

• Who won the Civil War?
• Who did the U.S. gain its independence from?
• What year was the Declaration of Independence signed?
• Who is our Vice President?
• Is President Obama a lame duck?
• What is the largest state in the Union?
• How many hydrogen molecules in water?
• What is the name of the closest star to the earth?
• Pure water has a pH level of about?

Time and again we’ve watched late-night segments on the ‘Tonight Show’ with Jay Leno, ‘The Jimmy Kimmel Show’ or maybe Fox News’ ‘Watter’s World,’ with Jesse Watters, laughing at the answers people give to the simplest of questions. But if you think about it – while it  ‘makes’ for ‘good TV’ – it isn’t funny at all.

ANSWERS: The North, Great Britain, 1776, Joe Biden, yes, Alaska, two, the Sun, seven.