More Examples Of “We Can’t Be This Stupid, Can We?” Or…The more we don’t use qualifications and merit, the worse off we will be.
Last week I published an article on how “The Best and the Brightest” don’t always work out that way. Here are additional examples of how hiring, promotion, planning, etc., based not on merit but “other areas” causes problems and will weaken an organization.
In the late 60s and early 70s, the federal government required universities and businesses taking federal money put underqualified minorities applicants into positions. They were openly called “quotas” and “affirmative action” to remedy past discrimination. Starting with Regents v Bakke (1978), multiple SCOTUS rulings have limited the use of racial/sex set asides, but the process still exist, especially in blue states. Case in point, from the former Golden State, now the People’s Democratic Republic of Kalifornia.
The city of Los Angeles, the second largest city in the country, is critically short on cops. So how will the mayor handle this demanding issue:
Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass called to remove “obstacles” for new police recruits and pledged to root out officers with ties to “right-wing domestic extremist organizations.”
Sounds contradictory, you are going to move out officers for being “right wing extremist,” but you don’t define extremist. Likely you’re a right wing extremist if you were seen at a Chick-fil-a, worked for Republican candidate, attended Catholic mass, or mentored a Boy Scout troop (satire). Not to mention, police showing the Thin Blue Line flag or showing up at their kid’s school board meetings. That is not satire.
The department is hoping to rehire 200 recently retired officers. To call this a stopgap measure is giving it too much credit. It was only ten years ago LAPD had 10,000 officers. A recent academy class had only 23 cadets in it. LAPD now has 9, 200 officers, with the attrition hitting 600 a year. Good luck keeping staff at 9, 200, or growing back to 10, 000.
You would think this was an issue where the city needs to look at recruiting and retaining high quality cops, insure they understand the city supports them, and will not throw them under the bus. That is a very poor assumption. The new mayor of our second largest city sees the biggest issue in policing to be removing right wing cops and bringing in weaker candidates.
Bass is looking to remove “obstacles” for police recruits who fail to initially qualify for training as a means of further diversifying the LAPD….
Bass’ summary of goals for police reform includes a list of provisions as well as dates by which the department must report back regarding progress. One provision says a deputy mayor will work in conjunction with a “third party” to “evaluate the personnel process and identify obstacles to entry for recruits who fail to qualify for training.”
“We think that particular provision or that goal or that idea is dangerous,” Tom Saggau, Los Angeles Police Protective League (LAPPL) spokesperson, told Fox News Digital.
“If you have police officers that can’t make minimum qualifications or attained minimum standards, for instance, there are recruits that have been in the academy that just can’t score the minimum requirements for a physical fitness test,” he added. “One hundred is the maximum score, 50 is acceptable. There are folks that are scoring under 10. That’s just dangerous…”
OK. Ms. Bass, you have standards there for a reason. To see if your candidate can handle the basics of being a cop, much less higher standards for specialty branches (e.g., SWAT).
Me thinks quotas are making their way back in. Guess what will happen when you lower the standards to bring more people into law enforcement. People get killed. See officers Arthur Carbonneau in Houston or Antonette Frank in New Orleans
Don’t worry, more incompetence is on the way. Joe Biden read his Teleprompter about the “Chips Act,” and the effort to bring microchip manufacturing back to the US. He will let these businesses apply for grants to get started, but you must meet critical qualifications that are strongly linked to manufacturing of hi-tech parts. You must provide “free” childcare to employees.
Chip makers must provide childcare plan for fund access
Chip makers who want access to billions of dollars in new federal funding will first have to figure out how workers will access affordable childcare, per a new requirement from the Commerce Department.
Why it matters: Parents, particularly women, can’t go to work if they can’t find childcare — a problem that’s only grown more acute, first in the pandemic and now in the tight labor market.
Driving the news: The move is a clear acknowledgement from the administration that child care issues are intertwined with the economy and employment.
It’s also a way for the administration to make progress on expanding child care access after its efforts to pass any nationwide policy fell short…
...How it works: Companies who want to tap a slice of the $39 billion in funding set aside to build chip manufacturing plants will be required to submit a plan explaining how facility workers, as well as construction workers, will access child care, according to a presentation from the Commerce Department shared with Axios.
The agency is agnostic on how companies get this done. They could build company-run onsite facilities, or outsource to a vendor. Companies could sponsor care directly or provide vouchers, discounts or cash…
And if no one will come out and play, i.e., ACME Chips simply says, “No, I can make more money with less aggravation by keeping my production facilities in China, or Indonesia, or Vietnam…” what will Dementia Joe read off his Teleprompter next? Don’t know, but it can’t be that bad, right? I mean, we’re not stupid enough to follow the NAZIs or Soviets with a multiyear planned industrial policy, right?
Opinion Gina Raimondo launches a new U.S. ‘industrial policy.’ But can it fly?
David Ignatius
The United States is about to embark on a bold economic experiment — a bipartisan plan to bolster the semiconductor industry and other high-tech sectors with $52 billion in government “investment” (scare quotes mine). It’s a big idea, but it’s not well understood outside Washington, and without broad support it won’t succeed.
The centerpiece is called the Chips and Science Act. I sat down this week with Commerce Secretary Gina Raimondo…
Raimondo says she hopes the Chips program will spur a “national mobilization” on technology, like the “moonshot” passion of the 1960s. She argues that the United States was able to put a man on the moon within a decade of President John F. Kennedy’s pledge to do so not just by channeling federal dollars but, even more, public enthusiasm…
…Raimondo launched Chips implementation with a speech on Thursday describing the broad arc of the program, and on Tuesday, she will issue formal rules for applying for $39 billion in chipmaking grants. She’ll be discussing, too, an $11 billion program to build a National Semiconductor Technology Center and a network of federally funded innovation hubs that she likens to the old “Bell Labs” that did pathbreaking research a half-century ago.
“This is more than just an investment to subsidize a few new chip factories,” Raimondo told me. “We need to unite America around a common goal of enhancing America’s global competitiveness and leading in this incredibly crucial technology. … Money isn’t enough. We all need to get in the same boat as a nation.” That’s a laudable sentiment, but not an easy goal for a country that operates more like the bumper cars in an amusement park than a single vessel…
I can’t take this anymore; my aneurysm is getting worse. A lawyer and politician, who’s only experience in the private sector is being a hedge fund manager, and who’s only experience in hi-tech is using her smart phone, is going to direct advanced manufacturing on how to conduct business in the 21st Century. I mean Joe Biden has done this already so well, right? Solyndra anyone?
As head of our new Gosplan, she has already directed how money most pay for “childcare,” and if you don’t think quotas on race and sex are coming down the line, you need to stop sniffing glue. Every time a level of government funds something, it will control it. It will demand hiring not based on merit, but on selected areas not likely linked to performance (e.g., “How many transgender bathrooms do you have in your headquarters?” And this will do nothing to help bring hi-tech manufacturing back to the US.
If you want that, correct the issues the sent these businesses overseas in the first place (e.g., reform excessive regulation and taxation that hinder plant establishment and manufacturing, focusing education from “college for all” to a more vo-tech training for technical skills to staff these factories, etc.). But until you have people in the White House who have actually worked in the private sector, who understand the best effort of the government is to stay out of the way, I don’t see that happening. China, et all are looking at the Chip Act and laughing all the way to the bank, then waving, “Thanks Joe!”
Michael A. Thiac is a retired Army intelligence officer, with over 23 years experience, including serving in the Republic of Korea, Japan, and the Middle East. He is also a retired police patrol sergeant, with over 22 years’ service, and over ten year’s experience in field training of newly assigned officers. He has been published at The American Thinker, PoliceOne.com, and on his personal blog, A Cop’s Watch.
Opinions expressed are his alone and do not necessarily reflect the opinions of current or former employers.
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