† Obama Creating Green Jobs That Americans Won’t Do: A new report by the Investigative Reporting Workshop at the American University's School of Communication in Washington, D.C. finds that 80 percent of the $2 billion spent to build wind farms under the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act has gone to foreign manufacturers of wind turbines, reports ABC News:

"Most of the jobs are going overseas," said Russ Choma, [who] analyzed which foreign firms had accepted the most stimulus money. "According to our estimates, about 6,000 jobs have been created overseas, and maybe a couple hundred have been created in the U.S."

Even with the infusion of so much stimulus money, a recent report by American Wind Energy Association showed a drop in U.S. wind manufacturing jobs last year.

Sen. Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., called the flow of money to foreign companies an outrage, because the stimulus, he said, was intended to create jobs inside the United States. …

Several of the large European turbine manufacturers had limited manufacturing facilities in the United States, but there was nothing in the stimulus plan that required that the turbines, or any other equipment needed for the wind farms, be made here. …

Schumer said the way to revitalize the domestic wind power industry and to create green jobs is to require that at least some of the turbine equipment to be made in the United States.

Editorial Note: An op-ed in The San Diego Union-Tribune offers additional details on which foreign firms got taxpayer funding, and how much.

† Living In These Mad, Mad, Madoff Times: Consumers are cutting back non-essential purchases and trading down to lower-priced alternatives to premium brands – not just for themselves, but for their pets as well, reports MarketingDaily:

We're not talking pet food or prescription and other vet-sold-only treatments here - just supplies, including … cat litter; cat/dog chews, toys, grooming products, bedding, collars and flea/tick control and supplement products; and maintenance items and treats for other small pets like birds, fish and herptiles (a/k/a reptiles and amphibians).

Still, sales of these supplies grew by a relatively modest 2.5%, to $10.7 billion, last year - compared to a cumulative sales gain of 17.6% between 2005 and 2009 (or a CAGR of 4.1%), according to the new edition of "Pet Supplies and Pet Care Products in the U.S." from Packaged Facts.

† Updates To Previous Posts (sixth item, Is Obama Already A Lame Duck?: While incumbent Congressmen who are more popular in their home districts than President Barack Hussein Obama are distancing themselves from him, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-NV) and  Sen. Michael Bennet (D-CO) who are less popular figure they have nothing to lose by asking Obama to stump and fund-raise for them. The Washington Times reports:

Local Republicans are salivating at the prospect of Mr. Obama dropping into town to campaign for their opponents. …

Even Democratic strategists say a visit by the president - whose poll numbers have plummeted since taking office - carries risks for his fellow Democrats.

"It's definitely a gamble," said Democratic strategist Liz Chadderdon. "A handshake that raises $1 million now could cost them the election later." …

Still, Democratic strategist Bud Jackson said calling in the president - even if his poll numbers are falling - still can be fruitful.

"Obama won't be able to save senators by visiting their states, but he can help them with fundraising, rallying the base and putting Democrats on the same stage as the president of the United States, which lends credibility," Mr. Jackson said.

A recent Gallup Poll finds Obama’s approval rating in NV at 55.9 percent, and at 52.3 percent in CO.

Reid’s unfavorable rating in a new poll commissioned by the Las Vegas Review-Journal is his worst yet:

Reid's numbers are pretty ugly, according to the latest survey by Mason-Dixon Polling & Research, which interviewed 625 registered Nevada voters by telephone Jan. 5-7. The margin of error on the poll is plus or minus 4 percentage points.

According to the survey: 52 percent had an unfavorable opinion of Reid, 33 percent had a favorable view and another 15 percent said they're neutral. In early December, a Mason-Dixon poll put his unfavorable-favorable rating at 49-38. …

Brad Coker, the managing partner of Mason-Dixon, said the Republican primary race is wide open and ''any one of those three could come back on top.'' …

As for Reid's chances of re-election, Coker said the senator's negatives are so bad that he will have a tough time making a comeback and earning more than 40 percent of the vote come November.

According to the latest Rasmussen Reports telephone survey of likely voters in NV, Reid is hovering between 39 percent to 41 percent against any of four GOP challengers:

Businessman Danny Tarkanian now leads Reid 47% to 39%. Sue Lowden, ex-chairman of the Nevada Republican Party, holds a 45% to 39% lead on the Senate majority leader, while former Assemblywoman Sharron Angle earns 44% of the vote to Reid’s 40%.

In the most current Rasmussen survey of likely CO voters, Lt. Gov. Jane Norton (R) has a 14-point lead over Bennett (51 percent to 37 percent), a two-point gain for her from last month; she is also ahead of former state House Speaker Andrew Romanoff, Bennet’s Dem rival for the Senate nomination, 45 percent to 38 percent.

An editorial in The Gazette (Colorado Springs) urges Obama to “butt out of this race” because his visit “is almost certain to backfire”:

As much as Coloradans may personally like President Obama, a majority here, and nationwide, don’t like his vision of health care reform. Bennet not only supports the president’s health care vision, but he told Coloradans he was willing to lose his Senate seat in order to support an unpopular health care bill. That means Bennet has gone on record telling voters he doesn’t really care what they want.

Ditto NV. Coker told the Las Vegas Review-Journal that "You've got a three-headed Democratic monster between (House Speaker Nancy) Pelosi, Reid and Obama,” adding that Reid has ''caught Daschle disease." He explains: “"Now that he's taken over as Senate majority leader, he has to be the spokesman for the (Democratic) cause, and that's a little left of where Nevadans are. If anything, he's gone further to the left rather than pull Democrats to the center.''

† Updates To Previous Posts Allegation That There Are Jobs “Americans Won’t Do” Being Examined: The Center For Immigration Studies (CIS) released a new report, “Dirty Work: In-Sourcing American Jobs with H-2B Guestworkers,” that details how the H-2B visa program has ballooned over the past five years, resulting in more half a million jobs being filled by foreign guestworkers instead of Americans and legal immigrants already in the U.S.:

The goal of this report is to shed light on the poor conditions that H-2B guestworkers often toil in; to expose the damage that this program does to the most vulnerable sector of American workers: the poorly educated, students, minorities, and legal immigrants; to examine the recruiters who find workers and the employers who hire them; and to scrutinize the government’s role in sanctioning and managing the H-2B bureaucracy.

Highlights of the findings include:

‡ Despite the global economic crisis, demand for H-2B guestworkers remains strong, even in areas with high unemployment rates. American companies filed petitions to request nearly 300,000 H-2B workers in FY 2008.1

‡ The majority of the program’s current users are neither small nor seasonal employers, but rather mid- to large-sized companies and recruiters that petition for H-2Bs to work for 10 months out of the year, year after year.

‡ Despite credible allegations and even convictions for fraud and abuse of both H-2B workers and the program in general, neither the Department of Labor (DOL) nor the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) has ever barred a U.S. company from filing H-2B petitions. Some repeat offenders continue to have their petitions approved to this day.

‡ Employers value H-2B workers because their legal status in the United States is tied to their employment and because they often have extended families in their home countries depending on their wages, making them loyal and motivated workers. Racial discrimination may also induce U.S. employers to petition for H-2B workers rather than employ black American workers.

‡ Hourly compensation for U.S. workers has stagnated since the H-2B program began to expand in 2002, and economists have found no evidence of a labor shortage in the occupational groups that constitute the bulk of H-2B employment.2

‡ H-2B employers are required to advertise job vacancies prior to opening them up to H-2B guestworkers, but the ads more frequently resemble legal notices than real enticements and are often specifically designed to attract as little attention as possible.

Noting that, “While President Obama and nearly every other American politician is quick to denounce companies that outsource American jobs, few politicians are willing to denounce companies that in-source American jobs here at home with foreign labor,” CIS recommends “replac[ing] the current system with one that benefits truly seasonal employers, and does a much better job of ensuring that unemployed American workers don’t lose out on jobs they would take and employed Americans do not have their wages depressed by guestworkers.”

† Updates To Previous Posts (third item, Obama – Not McCain - Will Be Bush III): GA education officials have asked districts to investigate irregularities standardized test answer sheets submitted by 191 schools, suspecting that teachers or administrators corrected answers to avoid sanctions for underperforming schools required by the federal No Child Left Behind law, reports the Los Angeles Times:

In one extreme case, an Atlanta middle school was flagged for abnormally high incidents of changed answers in 89.5% of its classes.

State officials emphasized that no one had been accused of cheating. The investigation was conducted by CTB/McGraw-Hill, the state's testing vendor, and released Feb. 10.

A similar though less extensive investigation last year found that a small number of educators in four districts changed test scores, apparently to meet mandated yearly progress goals.

Gov. Sonny Perdue, in a statement to the state board Thursday, said he was "very concerned" about the results of the current investigation and asserted that it was unlikely they were caused by a freak of math. …

The analysis looked at scan sheets for students in first through eighth grades. It flagged classrooms in which the number of answers marked incorrectly - then erased and marked correctly - was notably higher than the state average. …

Robert Schaeffer of the National Center for Fair and Open Testing - a group critical of reliance on standardized tests - said the Georgia affair appeared to be part of a growing trend, based on anecdotes from around the country. …

"When test scores are all that matters, school personnel will feel forced to get them by hook or by crook," Schaeffer said.

Apparently, neither hook nor crook includes being competent and caring enough a teacher to ensure that each student in your class learns the skills and information needed to pass the test with flying colors on his or her own.

† Updates To Previous Posts (second item, Al Sharpton: Freedom Fighter or Terrorist?): After a "careful and thorough" review, the Department of Justice has declined to bring federal civil rights charges against New York Police Department detectives involved in the 2006 shooting death of 23-year-old Sean Bell hours before he was to be married because there isn’t enough evidence that they "acted willfully" to deprive the victims of their Constitutional rights, reports CNN:

Detectives Gescard Isnora, Marc Cooper, and Michael Oliver - who fired his gun 31 times that night, pausing to reload his weapon - were acquitted of all [criminal] charges in April 2008

A large protest of the verdict was led by the Rev. Al Sharpton in May 2008. Sharpton, Bell's fiancée and his parents were among more than 200 people arrested. …

"Neither accident, mistake, fear, negligence nor bad judgment is sufficient to establish a federal criminal civil rights violation," the statement says.

Sharpton released a statement expressing his "extreme disappointment in the decision" and saying he may join with the Bell family in a civil lawsuit "to try and bring some justice."

"Fifty shots on an unarmed man who engaged in no crime is intolerable," he wrote.