Bogus Jobs Saved In A Town Near You

Hats off to the Washington Examiner.  They created a map looking into claims of jobs created or saved by the billions spent in the stimulus package to determine the validity of the claim.  You can find the map in full HERE.

While they do not have any jobs listed from NH here is what is said about the several jobs created or saved in MA.

Boston, MA

60 property companies in Massachusetts claimed to have “saved” stimulus jobs when in fact, all of their jobs had been previously covered by federal rent-subsidy contracts. “There were no jobs created,” one such company's spokesman said. “It was just shuffling around of the funds.”

Source: Recovery.gov and Boston Globe

Bridgewater, MA

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Bridgewater State College claimed to have created 160 jobs with a $77,000 grant. College officials have admitted this was a mistake.

Source: Recovery.gov and Boston Globe

Greenfield, MA

The local Head Start program created no new jobs, but used its $245,000 grant to give pay raises.
Source: Recovery.gov and Boston Globe

From the Examiner's article found HERE:

More than ten percent of the jobs the Obama administration has claimed were "created or saved" by the $787 billion stimulus package are doubtful or imaginary, according to reports compiled from eleven major newspapers and the Associated Press.

The Obama administration has claimed that the $787 billion economic stimulus package "saved or created" some 650,000 jobs. But almost as soon as the White House trotted out this figure, news organizations found huge exaggerations in the reported data. Many of the jobs reportedly created do not exist or cannot be accounted for.

UPDATE: Today's report from ABC News tells us that prior to releasing its jobs report, the administration cut out 60,000 additional jobs from unreliable reports, none of which appear to overlap with the ones we've highlighted here. Had those jobs been included in the original count, the number of jobs "created or saved" by the stimulus would have exceeded 700,000, and the number of imaginary or doubtful jobs would have approached 20 percent.

Quick Everyone Focus on Grok

Doug Lambert said something stupid, he in turn apologized for it, but yet NH Democrats will not let it drop.  Even after he stepped down from writing for the Grok website he continues to remain the focus of NH Democrats.  What makes this mostly insignificant man writing for a site that the vast majority of people in NH most likely never heard of the focus of so much attention?

I can think of only one reason... distraction!

Democrats control all branches of NH government, they control all branches of the federal government and they have nothing to brag about.  The economy is in the toilet and blaming Bush only goes so far before people expect results.  The president has fumbled in every which way possible such as in Japan where even some of their own papers refused to print pictures showing him bowing because it was viewed as an embarrassment.  The health care plan is growing less and less popular the more people learn about it.  Huge tea parties are popping up around the country in protest to the record level spending.  Even here at the state level the democrats find themselves deeper and deeper in the hole of out of control spending.  And then there's the wars, Democrats blasted Bush for the past few years over the unpopular war in Iraq and claimed they would be the answer to getting us out.  Since controlling senate and congress since 2006 nothing has changed and Obama's support of his handling of the wars sinks lower and lower with every poll taken.

The Democrats are by all means failing.

They won elections by blasting Bush and running against Bush and everything he did but now they have nothing to offer.  Controlling everything leaves them with nothing to run against, they have to run on their own and show what they've accomplished which is nothing, in fact it's less then nothing because everything they've touched so far has gotten worse.

This leaves them having to invent something to run against.  They attempted to cry racist at every turn but found that true independents who are growing more and more upset do not like to be referred to as racist, especially when some of them voted for Obama in the first place.  Then they tried claiming scare tactics at every turn claiming republicans were trying to scare people.  That didn't hold up when republicans were able to point to specific pages in the health care bill and actual facts backing up their claims.

So along comes Doug.  He said something stupid and did so in the right place at the right time and can be linked even if in minor ways to some of the people who currently pose the biggest threats to NH Democrats.

He's all they have right now and as long as they can keep the focus on him for his boneheaded statement they keep the focus off their own failures and unpopular actions.

Christmas Time Is Nearly Here

I was listening today about stories already surfacing about schools seeking to ban any mention of the word Christmas.  One school plans to open a special gift store where students can buy gifts for people in the month of December but they are forbidden from having any Christmas items in the store or mention Christmas in any way.  The profits of this non Christmas Christmas store of course goes to the school.  But that's just one of the many stories already surfacing this year.

My question is this, with the economy in the toilet and Christmas being the time when people typically buy gifts for one another, the exact thing the economy needs right now, shouldn't we all embrace the spirit of Christmas and the spirit of giving in order to give our country's economy the boost it needs?  Shouldn't we actively strive to put Christmas first and formost on everyone's mind considering it is celebrated in some way by 95% of Americans?

Heck, I think not only should we all wish each other a Merry Christmas every chance we get but we should encourage people to give gifts not only to their own families but to those in need.  Everyone reading this, here's my challenge to you, find a shelter, food bank or just a family in need and buy them something for Christmas.  It could be something small or something large.  Go to the Salvation Army's website found HERE and adopt an angel and give to a child in need.  Or here's an idea, find the family of veterans currently deployed overseas and get them something, anything however small or large, as a way of saying thank you for your families sacrifice.

Maybe by putting each other in our thoughts and efforts we can begin to turn this country around.

National Novel Writing Month

November is national novel writing month.  To celebrate the website www.nanowrimo.org offers a challenge asking people to attempt to write a 50,000 word novel in just 30 days.  Over the past years several of the novels written this way have even gone on to be published with one even making the best seller list.

I am attempting to take up the challenge so I must apologize to my readers here because my entries for NH Insider will be sparse for the month while I focus on my own NaNo challenge.  I'm proud to say that as of the end of the day on the 4th (aside from my baseball distraction) I was able to pass the 10,000 word mark so I'm already one fifth of the way there.

At the time of this article there are currently 399 people signed up on the NaNo website from NH with 42% of them like myself, new to this style of writing.  They have submitted an average word count of 4,730 each.

Best of luck to my fellow NaNo writers and again my up front apology to my readers here on NH Insider for my short hiatus.

Congratulations to the NY Yankees

Congratulations to the New York Yankees on their 27th World Series Victory!