Beltway Insider: Biden/Infrastructure, Pegasus, Immigration, COVID/Vaccine Totals, China, Colin Powell

Details: Category: Beltway Insider; Published on Sunday, 07 November 2021 13:01; Written by Janet Walker

President Biden received a long-awaited victory as his $1.2 trillion Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act was passed, heralding a once in a lifetime investment, modernizing the nation's infrastructure, new energy sources, and investing in nationwide broadband access.

The President's job approval rating, according to the website fivethirtyeight.com, for the period ending November 7, 2021, decreased by 0.1% to 42.9% of those polled who approve of his effectiveness as President and those who disapprove of his effectiveness decreased by 0.8% percentage points to 50.4%, Marking the first time in the Biden presidency that his disapproval rating has been higher than his approval rating. A slight 3% of the population polled have no opinion. Ratings are calculated weekly.

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Build Back Better

The Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act, the $1.2 trillion dollar bill, which has been compared to Franklin D. Roosevelt's Works Project Administration, will overhaul the nation's critical infrastructure, and provide much needed modernizing from coast to coast.

"The final vote was 228-206. Thirteen Republicans voted with the majority of Democrats in support of the bill, though six Democrats voted against it," CNN reported.

The investment will do more than simply repair the century old crumbling water-main systems, roads, and bridges. In thousands of cities, the infrastructure bill will create strong middle-class employment for millions of workers needed for construction, civil engineers and industry leaders who see this moment as a defining moment in history to assist the president implement his vision of a 21^st century United States.

President Biden stated, "It's going to create more jobs –- good-paying jobs, union jobs that can't be outsourced –- and they're going to transform our transportation system with the most significant investments in passenger rail — the most significant investment in 50 years; in roads and bridges — the most significant investment in 70 years; and more investment in public transit than we've ever, ever made."

As the needs of a 21 century America have changed, the Infrastructure Act will include charging stations across America's highways for hybrid and electronic vehicles to accommodate the pledge made by America automakers to ramp up the production of electric vehicles, by 2030, to 50% of all vehicles manufactured.

With the advent of telehealth, online learning, and other online/digital services which increased exponentially due to the coronavirus, the infrastructure Act will provide broadband access to areas around the country which still have limited access to internet. Broadband service will be soon available in rural committees which will allows those communities to participate in many services that are now unavailable.

"The legislation that passed Friday night will deliver $550 billion of new federal investments in America's infrastructure over five years, including money for roads, bridges, mass transit, rail, airports, ports and waterways. The package includes a $65 billion investment in improving the nation's broadband infrastructure and invests tens of billions of dollars in improving the electric grid and water systems. Another $7.5 billion would go to building a nationwide network of plug-in electric vehicle chargers, according to the bill text," CNN reported.

Pegasus Fallout Continues

Fallout from the recent exposure of the Israeli based NSO Group, by the Pegasus Consortium, a group of 16 global news organizations who united to investigate and confirm the evidence presented by the Paris based Freedom Papers and Amnesty International, continued this week as the company was added to the federal blacklist.

"The United States on Wednesday added the Israeli spyware company NSO Group to its "entity list," a federal blacklist prohibiting the company from receiving American technologies, after determining that its phone-hacking tools had been used by foreign governments to "maliciously target" government officials, activists, journalists, academics and embassy workers around the world," reported The Washington Post.

The exposure of the NSO Group, which began during the summer of 2020 exposed the organization for targeting the smart phones of more than 50,000 private citizens including two women with close ties to former Washington Post journalist Jamal Khashoggi, who was subsequently murder inside the Saudi consulate in Istanbul, Turkey, as well as global business leaders, and prime ministers.

The exposure of the Pegasus Project has continued to reverberate as the Commerce Department announced the Wassenaar rule, which would stop the export or resale of hacking tool and would include the military grade Pegasus spyware.

As Pegasus was used to track journalist, and dissidents, and send the information to the highest bidder, to potentially use the information for nefarious plans, the NSO group's use of intrusion software is not the first use by governments, law enforcement or private entities, to track journalists and others who are critical of a leader's practice, rule, or policy.

"The push for a control on hacking tools began about a decade ago in the wake of reports about firms whose wares were used to target dissidents. They were made by a French company, Amesys, according to the Wall Street Journal. In the ensuing years, other companies that produced spyware made headlines: The Italian company Hacking Team. The European firm Gamma. The Israeli NSO Group," reported The Washington Post.

The ban of the Israeli software, which must be approved by the Israeli Department of Defense before sale or license, is likely to strain the relationship between the United States and the newly elected Prime Minister Naftali Bennett.

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Biden's Immigration Payout Plan

Rumors of the Biden Administration secretly pressing forward on compensating detained immigrant families separated at the border under former President Donald Trump have been squashed by the administration, but the ACLU has confirmed the talks are very much moving forward.

"President Biden says his administration will not financially compensate families who were separated at the border with up to $450,000 in damages, rejecting reports about the hundreds of thousands of dollars in payments as "garbage,"' reported The Washington Post.

President Biden, stated, during a press conference, "Four hundred and fifty — four hundred and fifty dollars per person. Is that what you're saying? That's not going to happen."

After the president's comments, especially after the unexpected strong showing of Republican candidates in key elections, new agencies reported the non-existent "talks" have been pushed back.

With citizens in every corner of the United States, still recovering from the devastation of the coronavirus, some orphaned, missing one or both parents, the student loan debt crisis, and high numbers of poverty, the payout to illegal immigrant families, who were separated while trying to enter the United States illegally, especially when Border Control night vision picks up coyotes dropping toddlers over the fence with not a parent in sight, is abhorrent. Children are expendable in the effort to breach the border, get past and get lost.

"In a statement on Thursday, ACLU Executive Director Anthony Romero said, "The president's comments and congressional pushback do appear to have affected settlement negotiations, which were admittedly in flux,"' NBCnews.com reported.

The notion of a payout is a slap in the face to America citizens and evidence of the liberal free spending democrats, who see every cause as one they must address. Essentially, they are buying the immigrant vote and at this point with the 2022 mid-term elections looming and a stronger Republican showing in Tuesday's election, a payout will put the democratic majority in both houses in jeopardy.

China Build ICBM Arsenal

The Pentagon issued a report this week, revising the estimates issued only last year on the speed in which China is building their ICBM, InterContinental Ballistic Missile silos, from 200 to upwards of 1000.

"The accelerating pace of the PRC's nuclear expansion may enable the PRC to have up to 700 deliverable nuclear warheads by 2027. The PRC likely intends to have at least 1,000 warheads by 2030, exceeding the pace and size the DoD projected in 2020," FOXnews.com reported.

Additionally, China is advancing it military even beyond the scope of what the United States had anticipated with "hypersonic" mid-range ballistic missiles which travel at five times the speed of sound and do not follow a trajectory pattern, making it nearly impossible to be destroyed mid-flight.

Vaccine Totals

Bloomberg.com has built a vaccine tracker which can be seen here. "In the U.S., 428 million doses have been given so far. An average 1.83 million doses per day were administered over the last week," Bloomberg.com reported.

Coronavirus Totals

While the infection rates of the coronavirus have continued to decline around the world. A new strain, a mutation, has created global concern for leaders around the world are determining the best direction for the protection of the population. The importance of maintaining personal protective practices is imperative to controlling the spread.

For the one-week period ending November 07, 2021, coronavirus cases globally increased by 3,060,727 new confirmed cases, bringing the total of confirmed cases worldwide to 249,452,687 people with a total worldwide death toll of 5,042,905 deaths, and a 7-day death rate increase of 47,686. (Data from The New York Times).

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COVID US Totals

Infections rates in the United States are also on the rise. For the two-week ending November 07, 2021, the total confirmed cases rose to 46,427,230 people with new confirmed cases increasing by 512,018 with a 7-day average of 73,145 cases per day. The coronavirus has claimed 753,919 total deaths, adding 8,541 more deaths over the two-week period. (Data from The New York Times).

Coronavirus Deaths Top 750,000

Time ticks on as do the deaths from the Coronavirus. November 3, 2021, the United States reached the grim milestone of 750,000 dead. In the four days since, another 3,919 have passed away. The death toll continues to rise, many say, unabated, even with the vaccination mandates and push from the Biden Administration, the effort is largely along party lines, with states like Texas and Republican Governor, Greg Abbott who recently "issued an executive order stating that no entity in Texas can compel receipt of a COVID-19 vaccination by any individual, including an employee or consumer, who objects to such vaccination for any reason of personal conscience, based on a religious belief, or for medical reasons, including prior recovery from COVID-19," the governor's website reported.

Abbott, who contracted and recovered from the virus, also said, "The COVID-19 vaccine is safe, effective, and our best defense against the virus, but should remain voluntary and never forced."

The mixed messaging from elected leaders, and Texas Governor Greg Abbott is not alone, is sending a belief to constituents that their personal health, and the health of any person they come in contact with is expendable and the masses are following party leaders, mixed messaging or not.

"Benjamin Warner, a University of Missouri communications professor who has studied how political disagreements within families undermine relationships "It's not surprising that the pandemic would get sorted along these same lines as political differences. It feels like the stakes are life or death. Because they are," The Washington Post reported.

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Vaccine Mandates

The Biden Administration has set January 4, 2022, as the official deadline for companies with more than 100 employees to require coronavirus vaccinations for their employees.

"Companies that don't comply could face the potential of $13,000 fines per violation, or $136,000 per willful violation, potentially adding hundreds of thousands of dollars or more in fines for companies that are found to be well outside of the rules," The Washington Post reported.

Pentagon's Diary Gets Personal

Protecting for gain of function knowledge only aides those who initiated the constitutional violations. It does nothing to combat the homegrown terrorism or the narcissist above the law belief.

Election 2021 – GOP Upsets Send Shockwaves Through Washington

With Tuesday's election in the record books, the fall out continues to send shockwaves through Washington and beyond as leaders gear up for key mid-term senate and house races in 2022 and the possibility of a flipping the balance of the senate from its current democratic control to the republican.

A total of 34 Senate seats, 14 democrats and 20 republicans, are up for reelection in 2022. Key seats include New York Senate Majority Leader Charles Schumer (D) who will be seeking a fifth term and

The sting of Tuesday's election in key races, has the democrats rethinking the liberal spending and freewheeling party politics, with control up for grabs.

Colin Powell Remembered

A remembrance ceremony for former Secretary of State Colin Powell was held this week at the National Cathedral in Washington, DC. The service noted for its celebration of a life well lived, a man of honor, faith and principal, Powell who lived his life serving his country in many capacities died recently due to Covid-19 complications.

For more information on President Joe Biden w ww.whitehouse.gov.