U.S. Politics

[Rick Plant]

Infrastructure bill: Here's how California, LA benefit

LOS ANGELES (KABC) -- President Joe Biden signed a $1.2 trillion federal infrastructure bill into law, bringing billions of dollars to California for public transit projects, wildfire preparation, bridge and road repair, broadband internet and more.

"No parent should have to sit in the parking lot at a fast food restaurant again just so their child can use the Internet to do their homework. That's over," Biden said.

Members of the California State Legislature and local representatives were in attendance, including Fontana Mayor Acquanetta Warren and Los Angeles Mayor Eric Garcetti.

"This bill will invest millions and produce countless jobs for cities such as Fontana. It will improve roadways, transit systems, our access to clean water," Warren said.

Funding will go out over the next five years, but it could take months or longer for the major projects to begin.

"The infrastructure deal means funding for megaprojects like (Metro's) Sepulveda Transit Corridor, which will revolutionize the way Angelenos get around. With more investment in (Metro's) bus lanes and the (Los Angeles Department of Transportation's) NextGen Bus Plan network, we can speed up our transit system and reduce congestion,'' Garcetti said on Twitter after the bill's signing.

Here's how Los Angeles benefits

Garcetti also said Los Angeles will receive funding for:

-- electrifying Metro's bus fleet by 2030;
-- Metrolink projects, including the Link Union Station project;
-- ecosystem restoration projects, including the restoration of Los Angeles River habitat;
-- Los Angeles International Airport modernization efforts;
-- projects to improve the flow of goods at the Port of Los Angeles;
-- the expansion of the city's electric vehicle charging network;
-- climate resilience and extreme heat mitigation efforts, including through cool pavements and tree canopies;
-- water recycling and reuse projects; and
-- the city's transition by 2035 to 100% renewable energy.

"This once in a generation deal will transform our nation's infrastructure and L.A. for the better,'' Garcetti said.

Here's how California benefits

Gov. Gavin Newsom praised the bill after it passed Congress on Nov. 6 as a "historic infrastructure package (that) stands to accelerate investments in our clean transportation infrastructure, help mitigate some of the worst impacts of climate change and accelerate new projects that will create thousands of jobs.''

The state is expected to receive:

-- $25.3 billion for federal-aid highway apportioned programs;
-- $4.2 billion for bridge replacement and repairs over five years;
-- $9.45 billion over five years to improve public transportation options across the state;
-- $384 million over five years to support the expansion of an electric vehicle charging network, with the opportunity to apply for the $2.5 billion in grant funding dedicated to electric vehicle charging;
-- at least $100 million to help provide broadband coverage across the state;
-- $84 million over five years to protect against wildfires;
-- $40 million to protect against cyberattacks;
-- $3.5 billion over five years to improve California's water infrastructure and ensure clean, safe drinking water; and
-- $1.5 billion for infrastructure development for airports over five years.

The bill includes legislation introduced by Sen. Alex Padilla, D-CA, to improve tribal health infrastructure, strengthen electrical grids, improve water resiliency, help ensure clean drinking water and electrify school bus fleets.

https://abc7.com/infrastructure-bill-california-roads-federal-dollars-biden/11240429/

[Rick Plant]

President Biden’s infrastructure bill: How will Michigan use the money?
Bill will send billions to state
https://www.clickondetroit.com/news/politics/2021/11/17/president-bidens-infrastructure-bill-how-will-michigan-use-the-money/

[Rick Plant]

So once again the GOP makes it official thst they condone violence against Democrats.

House censures Paul Gosar for video depicting murder of AOC — and only two Republicans vote yes
https://www.rawstory.com/paul-gosar-censured/

[Rick Plant]

EXCLUSIVE Rating agencies say Biden's spending plans will not add to inflationary pressure
https://www.reuters.com/world/us/exclusive-rating-agencies-say-bidens-spending-plans-will-not-add-inflationary-2021-11-17/

[Rick Plant]

So, it turns out that President Biden's record job creation is better than we thought, but it does come at a price. The BLS has severely undercounted Biden's job numbers which totals 626,000 jobs. That's almost 1 million jobs that were left off the books in June, July, August, and September. That led to negative news cycles against the President for no reason at all. The right wing media hammered away at Biden and accused him of being incompetent and trashed him all over social media. The main stream media also took part in continuous negative news cycles attacking the President for a lack of job creation. Even though the job numbers in those 4 months were significantly lower than expected, it was still more jobs created than Trump who was losing 1 million jobs per month. But as it turns out, the job numbers were not significantly lower at all as the BLS had to readjust the job numbers for June-September. The job numbers were actually higher than expected with an additional 626,000 jobs created for those 3 months. But people wouldn't know it, as the President was trashed by the media and these re-adjustment totals barely has received any press at all. So much for a "liberal media bias" that right wingers want to claim.   

As a result, President Biden was unfairly attacked in the media for a lack of job creation which is clearly not the case. People listened to this negative press and it could have caused voters to form a negative opinion of the President when this never should have happened in the first place. One has to wonder if someone is purposely trying to sabotage President Biden, perhaps a Trump holdover because never in our history of the BLS reporting job numbers have they ever missed close to 1 million jobs off 4 job reports for 4 consecutive months. Something has to give and it smells rotten in Denmark.

Biden Dogged By Unprecedented Revisions That Have Undercounted Almost a Million New Jobs in 2021

The Department of Labor has undercounted new jobs at record rates under President Joe Biden, leading to several negative news cycles that turned out to be wrong.

Every month, the Bureau of Labor Statistics releases its Employment Situation Report, which generates the headlines based on the number of jobs created the prior month.

But each report also includes revisions to prior months’ totals that don’t get nearly as much attention, if any. As The Washington Post’s Andrew Van Dam pointed out Wednesday, BLS has undercounted the most recent four months by a whopping — and unprecedented — total: 626,000 jobs.

But a review of BLS revisions for the entire year shows eight months in which jobs were undercounted by a whopping 1,022,000 jobs, and one month in which the total was revised downward by 131,000 — a net of 891,000 jobs undercounted.

https://www.mediaite.com/news/biden-dogged-by-unprecedented-revisions-that-have-undercounted-almost-a-million-new-jobs-in-2021/

[Rick Plant]

House could vote Thursday on Biden's Build Back Better legislation, Pelosi says

Pelosi said she's waiting for more Congressional Budget Office cost estimates on the bill, which the agency said it would release later Thursday
https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/congress/house-could-vote-thursday-biden-s-build-back-better-legislation-n1284112

[Rick Plant]

So, it turns out that President Biden's record job creation is better than we thought, but it does come at a price. The BLS has severely undercounted Biden's job numbers which totals 626,000 jobs. That's almost 1 million jobs that were left off the books in June, July, August, and September. That led to negative news cycles against the President for no reason at all. The right wing media hammered away at Biden and accused him of being incompetent and trashed him all over social media. The main stream media also took part in continuous negative news cycles attacking the President for a lack of job creation. Even though the job numbers in those 4 months were significantly lower than expected, it was still more jobs created than Trump who was losing 1 million jobs per month. But as it turns out, the job numbers were not significantly lower at all as the BLS had to readjust the job numbers for June-September. The job numbers were actually higher than expected with an additional 626,000 jobs created for those 3 months. But people wouldn't know it, as the President was trashed by the media and these re-adjustment totals barely has received any press at all. So much for a "liberal media bias" that right wingers want to claim.   

As a result, President Biden was unfairly attacked in the media for a lack of job creation which is clearly not the case. People listened to this negative press and it could have caused voters to form a negative opinion of the President when this never should have happened in the first place. One has to wonder if someone is purposely trying to sabotage President Biden, perhaps a Trump holdover because never in our history of the BLS reporting job numbers have they ever missed close to 1 million jobs off 4 job reports for 4 consecutive months. Something has to give and it smells rotten in Denmark.

Did I not call this out correctly?

The BLS never makes severe errors like this undercounting job numbers on offical job reports. Especially for 4 consecutive job reports in a row when the numbers were slated to be high. So when the job report numbers from June-September were released and they were reported as underwhelming, the right wing media immediately went to work hammering President Biden. The Main Stream Media also took part in negative press against the President in continuous newscycles and headlines in newspapers and online articles. As it turned out, the job numbers weren't low at all, and 626,000 jobs were taken off those June-September job reports. That led me to believe something was extremely wrong and I suspected sabotage by a Trump holdover trying to destroy President Biden. My suspicion turned out to be 100% correct as news broke today that a Trump holdover was responsible for purposely removing job number totals from 4 consecutive job reports from June-September. This is criminal and because our country relies on these reports for our economy. We now have a right wing Trump stooge sabotaging President Biden trying to make him look bad so his poll numbers will drop. And even more information came out that, this same Trump stooge was purposely inflating Trump's job numbers to make him look good when in reality 922,000 jobs were lost. Trump is cheater, a pathological, liar, and a fraud, and he had a his own handpicked stooge at the BLS illegally inflating jobs that was never even created. This all has to be coordinated with the GOP because they all had their talking points ready to go all over social media and on tv. Never in the history of America have we had an Anti American party like the GOP trying to destroy our country so they can seize power and replace democracy with fascism and autocracy government.

Head of federal agency responsible for wildly inaccurate jobs numbers is Trump holdover

Some areas of the U.S. federal government are sacrosanct.

The CDC doesn't screw around with reporting COVID information, because millions of people, including scientists, make life or death decisions based on those data.

The Labor Dept. doesn't tweak jobs numbers for political purposes, or to make a president look good or bad, because to report inaccurate results leads to tremendous distrust of the government, messes up markets, and plans of major corporations.

And yet under President Donald Trump the Health and Human Services Dept. altered CDC documents – once considered sacrosanct documents – for political purposes, CNN reported last year.

"Amid tension between the administration and the CDC, former Trump campaign official turned chief HHS spokesman Michael Caputo and his team had demanded to see reports out of the CDC before they are released, a senior administration official said. Officials within HHS had defended the demand, saying the CDC fell under the agency's umbrella and that all communications and public documents needed to be cleared at the top."

A federal official told CNN that in addition to reviewing reports, HHS political appointee Paul Alexander has regularly added his input -- often interpreted by CDC officials as political in nature -- to weekly scientific reports intended to track the ongoing coronavirus pandemic response. The development marks the latest example of political interference by administration appointees at the nation's health agencies.

So when The Washington Post reported Tuesday that the federal government "sharply underestimated job gains for most of 2021, including four months this summer in which it missed more job growth than at any other time on record," some expressed concern.

"In the most recent four months with revisions, June through September, the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) reported it underestimated job growth by a cumulative 626,000 jobs — that's the largest underestimate of any other comparable period, going back to 1979. If those revisions were themselves a jobs report, they'd be an absolute blockbuster," the Post noted.

They add, "recent revisions have been big enough to turn a substantial slump into a surprising surge."

Americans, in other words, have been living under the false belief that the labor market wasn't exactly hopping, thanks to wildly inaccurate numbers out of the Bureau of Labor Statistics, the agency under the Dept. of Labor that collects, tracks, and analyzes these critical numbers.

Yes, under President Joe Biden the labor market has been surging, we now know, contrary to the information that's been coming out of the BLS.

Curiously, as the Post also noted, the exact opposite happened last year, when Donald Trump was president.

"Revisions in the already calamitous months of March and April 2020," under Trump, "found the economy had lost 922,000 more jobs than initially reported."

Oops.

Given what we know happened at CDC, you'd think some might be wondering what's going on.

Well, we are.

As it turns out, William Beach – the head of the Bureau of Labor Statistics, the agency that since the start of the pandemic has been churning out wildly inaccurate (but very pro-Trump) numbers – was appointed by Donald Trump, used to work for a very pro-Trump think tank known as the Heritage Foundation, worked for a university research center that is funded by the very pro-Trump Charles Koch (as in the Koch Bros.), and also used to work for the Republicans on the the Senate Budget Committee.

(And while it's unclear when Beach left Heritage, it's important to know that right wing think tank is a purveyor of climate change denialism, fake critical race theory and voter fraud claims, and voter suppression legislation.)

So, who cares if the labor numbers are wrong?

Well, everyone, when they read headlines calling Biden's jobs numbers a “colossal miss," “ugly," “dismal" and “disappointing," as The Post noted. Companies make major decisions based on these numbers, which everyone realizes are just estimates, but up until last year were good indicators of what is going on.

Under Beach, the Biden administration has been slammed, giving Republicans a false tool to attack. And like bad newspaper articles that appear on page one and linger in Americans' minds for days, corrections only appear on the back pages, invisible to the vast majority of people who only remember what was false.

An important side note: the Bureau of Labor Statistics is also responsible for reporting out the Consumer Price Index, which in recent days has claimed massive price increases.

NCRM emailed Commissioner Beach on Wednesday, asking if he intended to resign, and asking him to explain what caused these massive errors and if that has been fixed.

We also asked if he maintains any professional, personal, or financial ties to The Heritage Foundation, Senate Republicans or any of his previous right wing employers.

Commissioner Beach did not respond, but Bureau of Labor Statistics Deputy Commissioner William J. Wiatrowski did – with a boilerplate explanation of revisions, and a statement assuring us that the "integrity of BLS data collection and reporting is paramount. The BLS commissioner, as has always been the case, does not see data until they are finalized. Civil servant economists and statisticians tabulate and analyze the data."

No word on any resignation – or if this massive problem has been fixed.

There's no evidence to say these massive screw ups are intentional – or worse, politically motivated – but the American public and American businesses deserve better, they deserve factual data they can count on, and they deserve to know what's actually happening on their President's watch – any president.

If that cannot happen under this commissioner, it's time for a new one.

https://www.rawstory.com/head-of-federal-agency-responsible-for-wildly-inaccurate-jobs-numbers-is-trump-holdover/