Graphic courtesy of Gateway Pundit.

So what the hell was the Stimulus Package for anyway, besides wasting taxpayer money?

Where are the jobs, Mr. President?

UPDATE: From The Heritage Foundation:

The unemployment rate is already one-fifth higher than the Administration predicted. It is now expected that the peak of unemployment rate will be one-fourth higher than their predictions. Even worse, the promised job creation that was expected to lower the unemployment rate in the upcoming months has not materialized.

-Bruce (GayPatriot)

Great Steve Crowder stuff!  It is a classic.

He’s hilarious.  Not much I can add. 

-Bruce (GayPatriot)

Welcome Instapundit Readers!!

PatriotPartner has been trying to call Sen. Kay Hagan’s office today to express outrage over the radical “green jobs czar”, Van Jones.

However, while most of us are still working today — it appears our Senator from North Carolina has vanished.  All of her phone numbers are going unanswered, and the voicemail is full.  That says to me: “I don’t want to hear from my constituents.”

Congress has been out for a month and the President has been on vaca for 2 weeks.  The rest of America (well, those of us who still have jobs) are working our asses off.

Can’t we expect the same (or better) of our elected officials.

Don’t believe me?  Call Senator Hagan’s offices and see for yourself:

SENATOR KAY HAGAN

DC OFFICE: 202-224-6342

GREENSBORO, NC OFFICE: 336-333-5311

RALEIGH, NC OFFICE: 919-856-4630

Can someone please find my Senator? I hope she isn’t in Argentina.

-Bruce (GayPatriot)

UPDATE (from Dan): Seems my Senator, Ma’am Barbara Boxer, is also on the missing persons list, though they do answer the phone at her LA office.

UPDATE (from JohnAGJ): My Senators in Virginia at least have been found. Jim Webb (D) refuses to hold town hall meetings, believing them to be unnecessary, while Mark Warner (D) seems to be trying to please everybody: giving Democrat talking points on the one hand, while claiming to oppose the House bill with the other.

Dan Riehl offers an interesting insight into the hullabaloo over the President’s address to schoolchildren and I highly recommend you read the whole thing.  Noting that it is “a fascinating time to be both a close observer of politics and politically involved, he concludes with an observation that helps explain a number of recent phenomena:

People are watching in ways they might not have been for years. I doubt very much if they are going to like what they see, no matter what the short-term results happen to be.

Could it be the President proposing vast increases in the size and scope of the federal government that accounts for their greater interest in politics–and their discontent with the state of things?

Anyway, Dan has written an interesting post and I encourage you to read it and ponder his ideas and use the comments section either here or there to address the question I pose in the title to this post.

(H/t Glenn).

In an ideal world, we should not rush to criticize the head of state of a country asking to address the nation’s schoolchildren.  So, to a certain extent, I agree with the folks as Founding Bloggers who offered that they saw

. . . nothing wrong with a presidential address to students. Context is everything though, and the Department of Education’s suggested activities and exercises provide an abundant supply of context.

But, when you look at the initial talking points offered by the Administration, you see a highly troubling context. And the changes they offer make the initial intent more manifest–to enlist children in promoting the president’s agenda

The White House has re-written its activist talking points for teachers/administrators disseminated by the US Department of Education and removed the language about “helping the president.”

Until the public outcry, we saw the President of the United States using his office to enlist American schoolchildren in helping him.

Still, even with the more “anodyne” talking points, this represents using school time for a project of questionable academic merit.  Following this controversy online while staying at my brother’s house, I have gotten an earful from my sister-in-law (who is also mother to a smart young blogger):

If you want children to watch this, encourage them to do this at home where they can watch with their parents.  And if there’s any issue of discussion, do it at home.  But, don’t take up academic time . . . . Too much of our education is taken up with social causes.  We need to educate our children.

She distinguishes the President’s planned talk next week from 9/11 when she thought it appropriate to take time out from class for students to watch TV news coverage given that “we were all so shocked.”  This, however, is “not an issue of singular national importance.” (more…)