Da Techguy's (no longer backup) Blog

By Christopher Harper

In a perfect storm of protests over police reform and the deadly use of force, Philadelphia cops are leaving in droves, and few recruits are available to replace them.

These trends exist in other Pennsylvania locales, where crime has increased significantly over the past two years, creating a growing crisis in law enforcement. 

“We are anticipating that the department is going to be understaffed by several hundred members because hundreds of guys are either retiring or taking other jobs and leaving the department,” said Mike Neilon, spokesperson for the Philadelphia Fraternal Order of Police, Lodge No. 5, the union that represents city police officers.

The pandemic has also hampered recruiting efforts, as has the relatively new requirement that police applicants live in the city, Neilon told the Philadelphia Inquirer. “All of that coming together is creating some issues with finding the best and brightest to sign up to be Philadelphia police officers.” 

In the past month, 79 Philadelphia officers have been accepted into the city’s Deferred Retirement Option Program, meaning they intend to retire within four years. That’s six times the number from last year.

The Philadelphia Police Department is budgeted to have 6,380 officers but has just 6,112, leaving 268 vacancies.

“Every action has a reaction. When you vilify every police officer for every bad police officer’s decision, [people] don’t want to take this job anymore,” said Pat Colligan, president of the New Jersey State Policemen’s Benevolent Association, the state’s largest police union

“It’s been a very trying and difficult time to put on the badge every day,” he told the Inquirer. “There’s a recruiting crisis.”

Many departments face the same problems in older cops retiring early and younger people not wanting to join the ranks. 

“There’s no doubt in my mind that what’s transpiring in our nation today is contributing to the lack of retention and the difficulty in hiring new officers. A lot of cops right now, in view of the environment, are saying, ‘Hey, I’ve gone 20, 30 years without being sued, shot, or divorced. I’m going to get out while I have an opportunity,’” Jack Rinchich, president of the 4,000-member National Association of Chiefs of Police, said recently.

Officers also are upset, he said, by decisions to eliminate specialized units, such as SWAT and K-9 teams, and from local officials freezing and cutting police budgets and debating whether to strip officers of qualified immunity, which shields them from being sued in most cases.

Haverford Township Police Chief John Viola, president of the Delaware County Police Chiefs Association, told the Inquirer that larger departments that regularly fill recruit classes are trying to pump up falling numbers by making the application process more accessible.

“People don’t want to be police anymore. It’s a good job, and good-paying job, but when you look at national news every day, people just don’t want to be officers,” he added.

His department used to get applicant pools of 200 or 300. Only 72 people have applied so far this year, he said.

Elsewhere in the Pennsylvania suburbs, departments looking to fill vacancies of retiring veterans are struggling. For example, Hatfield Township had 100 applicants during a recent call for new officers. Of that group, only 47 showed up to take the exam. Those who did apply were from a mix of backgrounds: Some were college graduates struggling to find work in their fields, others had a lifelong interest in policing, and another group applied out of curiosity about the field.

In New Jersey, Col. Patrick Callahan, the acting superintendent of the New Jersey State Police, said the state’s largest police agency is facing a historically low applicant pool this year. So far, the agency has received 2,670 qualified applicants, which compares with 5,000 in 2020 and 15,000 in 1993. 

The message seems clear. We all should get ready for a bumpy road ahead when cops leave the beat.

By Christopher Harper

After a year in office, Brandon has some embarrassing numbers.

14. That’s the percentage of voters who have changed from Democrat to Republican, according to a Gallup poll. When Brandon took over last January, 49% of those polled supported Democrats to 40% who supported the GOP. A year later, 47% supported Republicans, while 42% favored Democrats. Such a huge swing hasn’t occurred since 1991.

7. That’s the massive percentage increase in inflation, a 40-year high. Gasoline and groceries cost more, and most economists said higher prices were a sign that Brandon’s relief package was too large.

13. That’s the number of American troops who died in a bombing at Kabul’s airport during the U.S. evacuation of more than 100,000 people from Afghanistan. At least 169 Afghans were killed, with the evacuations leaving behind scores of Americans.

1.78 million. That’s the number of border crossings in the Southwest. Illegal immigrants began streaming across the U.S.-Mexico border once Brandon became president. That’s four times the number under Donald Trump.

9. Brandon has been remarkably press-shy. He has held nine news conferences (six solo and three joint) and 22 media interviews during his first year. That’s fewer news conferences than any of his five immediate predecessors at the same point in their presidencies and fewer media interviews than any of his recent predecessors.

32. “Not a joke” is one of Brandon’s favorite speech lines. Among the things he said were “not a joke”: Civil rights icons, labor unions that built the middle class, air pollution from Delaware chemical plants, climate change as a national security risk, and California voters.

78. That’s Brandon’s age upon becoming president, making him the oldest ever.

2024. Hopefully, the year Democrat control of the White House ends.

Kinda H/T to the Associated Press

By Christopher Harper

Going green may end up making many of us see red, particularly since the Brandon administration plans to force automakers to make 50% of all automobiles electric by 2030.

All you have to do is look at the issue with one important mineral in developing a “green” car: lithium.

First, the cars will be significantly more expensive. The cost of lithium has increased geometrically as governments push for so-called “green” technology. Lithium, a mineral that is key for electric car batteries, has skyrocketed more than 250% over the last 12 months, hitting its highest level ever, according to an industry index from Benchmark Mineral Intelligence

The average cost of an electric-vehicle battery ran $157 per kilowatt hour, a measure of energy capacity, in 2021, the Department of Energy said in October. That means a typical EV battery is between $6,000 and $7,000, a Bloomberg analysis showed.

Battery costs would need to come down to $100 per kilowatt hour for overall EV prices to compete with traditional internal combustion engine cars, according to Bloomberg. The price of lithium will play a large role in achieving that goal.

Second, the United States has limited lithium resources, while China and Russia have vast amounts of the mineral. China dominates the battery processing market, and it is responsible for about 80% of global battery chemical refining capacity.

Depending on China and Russia for such minerals is a bad option in anyone’s book. Just think about how the U.S. dependence on foreign oil dominated American economic and foreign policy for decades.

Third, a big surprise: environmentalists, who say they want “green” energy, don’t want the mining industry to provide it from the United States.

Lithium Americas proposed to mine lithium on a dormant volcano in Nevada. However, the firm has yet to mine any lithium due to pushback from environmentalists and ongoing lawsuits related to allegations that the federal government approved the company’s mining permit too quickly.

But there’s more. Lithium isn’t technically what’s known as a “rare-earth mineral” because there’s supposedly enough to go around. We’ll see once the developed countries force most people to buy an electric vehicle.

China mines over 70% of the world’s rare earths and is responsible for 90% of the complex process of turning them into magnets used in electric vehicles and other “green” technologies, such as windmills.

Not surprisingly, environmentalists are also holding up permissions to mine rare earths in the United States.

Isn’t it time to realize that the movement toward “green” energy needs to pause to determine what economic and political costs are associated with such a radical change in the energy needs of the United States?

Do we really want to be dependent on China for our energy?

The answers seem pretty obvious to me.