Just a Closer Walk with Thee - Ken Middleton and Kimo Hussey

I love that we can find people reaffirming their faith in God through music just about everywhere on the planet.

Here, two ukulele masters (who just met) jam in a Holiday Inn lobby during the 2010 Lone Star Uke Festival.

Prepare to hear something really special:

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Obama Takes it to the American People, 80% of Whom Want to Pay More Taxes. Snort.

Two days ago:

With Republicans refusing once again to accept any new revenue [tax increases] as part of a deficit reduction deal and House Majority Leader Eric Cantor (according to some sources) interrupting the president to propose, for the third time, passing only a stopgap increase in the debt ceiling, Obama reportedly told Cantor that he’d veto such a bill – and that he was prepared to “take it to the American people.” 

Via multiple media accounts, Obama went on to lecture Cantor about Republican intransigence [response to their constituencies], suggesting that a president like Ronald Reagan would never have put up with such treatment. “I’ve reached my limit,” Obama reportedly said. “This may bring my presidency down, but I will not yield on this.” At that point Obama pushed back from the table, angrily in some accounts, saying “I’ll see you tomorrow.” 

This morning:

During his press conference today on the debt ceiling debate, President Obama dropped a whopper. According to him, 80 percent of American’s are “sold” on his debt deal:

“The bottom line is that this is not an issue of salesmanship to the American people, the American people are sold. The American people are sold, I just want to repeat this. … You have 80% of the American people who support a balanced approach. 80% of the American people support an approach that includes revenues [tax increases] and includes cuts. So, the notion that somehow the American people aren’t sold is not the problem. The problem is members of Congress are dug in ideologically into various positions because they boxed themselves in with previous statements. And, so this is not a matter of the American people knowing what the right thing to do is,  it’s a matter of Congress doing the right thing and reflecting the will of the American people. And if we do that, we will have solved this problem.”

According to the president, the American people are "sold" on his plan. Unless Obama's plan brings his presidency "down."

One or the other.

Can this president truly bring himself to believe that the cheering celebrants of his "hope and change" electoral victory in 2008, many of whom have since run out of unemployment insurance benefits for jobs they lost under his watch, still think of him unequivocally as the new Messiah, or at least a guy they can trust with their money?

Does this president truly live in a world in which people like the Obamatons of Brooklyn, NY, who gave Barack Obama more votes than any other county in the state, will overlook the meteoric rise in their unemployment under his presidency?

Ecstatic Obama supporters in Brooklyn, NY, celebrating Barack Obama’s 2008 election. Brooklyn gave Obama more votes than any other county in New York State. Brooklyn's unemployment rate back then was 4.7 percent. By January of 2011, Brooklyn's unemployment rate was 10.1, "making it one of the hardest hit counties in New York State." (The Brooklyn Ink)

The man is really stuck on the horns of a dilemma. He may have to choose between fact and delusion.

Just like Brooklyn.


Linked at And So It Goes in Shreveport. Thanks, Pat!
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"When the going gets tough, the tough threaten defenseless little old people."*

*Thus observed Stilton Jarlsberg at Hope n' Change Cartoons. Also:

. . . Barack Obama has announced that he may choose to not send out Social Security checks to senior citizens on August 3rd, sneering "there may simply not be the money in the coffers to do it."

Which strikes us as a little odd. After all, if no debt ceiling agreement is reached, the government's bills will be paid in the order that Obama decrees. And money is flowing in to Social Security every day, meaning that its "coffers" should be full-to-bustin' with cash which has allegedly been accumulating for decades...suggesting that it should be other programs that bring in no money which should be the first to go unfunded.

But nooOOOooo, the president would prefer to inflict the greatest and most visible pain that he possibly can... essentially making his elderly hostages shriek in terror in hopes of getting the Republicans to pay a $2 trillion ransom.

Either that, or the coffers are empty because YOU didn't have any FICA payments withdrawn from your paycheck.

You must be a Republican.
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Hey Dems, Want Some "Revenue"? How About Issuing Oil Leases?

Increasing oil production in the U.S. by only 4 or 5 days' needs could raise enough money to pay our current debt interest.

Listening to Obama and his Obamatons, you'd never know that other sources of potential revenue besides taxes are available. And some of the most promising sources of non-tax revenue are begging to pay: U.S. companies that want to drill for oil here at home.

According to this nation's very own Department of the Interior, one of the biggest sources of non-tax income we already have are the royalties collected by the federal government from companies paying for federal onshore and offshore mineral leases. The size of the royalty payments is based on the value of the oil and gas actually produced. For onshore wells, the royalty payment equals 1/8 of the value of the oil or gas produced. For example, for each barrel of crude oil selling for $95 (today's price as I write), the royalty due would be close to $12.

For companies leasing offshore wells, the royalty is considerably higher: 1/6 of the value of the oil or gas. For an offshore well, the royalty due would be $15 per barrel of crude oil selling for $95.

That money doesn't get collected at some pie-in-the-sky future date, either. It's due within 30 days of production.

Half of that money goes directly into the U.S. Treasury, so Timothy Geithner may have heard of it, though you never hear him mention the possibility of issuing more oil leases to "increase revenue" or help America's struggling economy.

Environmentalists take note: the next biggest chunk of that money--$900 million per year--goes to the Land and Water Conservation Fund to maintain park lands.

States get a piece of the action too.

Right now, most of these royalty revenues come from natural gas production. That's not surprising since Obama has spent much of his apparently limited energy putting the kibosh on as much oil exploration and drilling as possibly, most notably with his official and de facto moratoriums on offshore drilling. On the Gulf coast, Obama's moratoriums cost 19,000 good-paying oil jobs and $1.1. billion in wages (and counting), not to mention the indirect losses of jobs and income. At least one Gulf of Mexico drilling company, Seahawk, was forced into bankruptcy by what even Democrat Senator Mary Landrieu of Louisiana called
"the administration's excruciatingly slow release of oil and gas permits."

Obama doesn't just hate drilling in the Gulf. He's also placed "a full-scale, seven-year moratorium on drilling along the East and West Coasts" and has refused to permit drilling on even a tiny wasteland patch of the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge.

As of May, Obama's revenue collectors had seen fit to issue only 10 drilling permits in over a year. At least 270 shallow and 52 deepwater drilling permits are gathering dust in "bureaucratic limbo."

In 2010, Americans consumed 6.99 billion barrels of crude oil, 19.15 million barrels per day. If the U.S. increased our production by only a single day's consumption at today's crude oil price, the royalty revenue would be about $230 - $287 million. That's about a billion every four days, and it equals about 1/4 of our current debt interest.  Interestingly, if we increased our current U.S. oil production by a 4 or 5 day consumption supply at today's crude prices, the royalties earned would about equal the current interest on the national debt.

So, come on Dems, let's solve some of our fiscal woes with a little drill, baby, drill.

Forget about lower energy bills and improved national security. Just think of it as sticking it to rich oil companies.


Linked at Shout First, Ask Questions Later. Thanks!
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Congress! Let there be Edison light! BULB Act Hits House Today

Contact Congress! Tell them you want your light bulbs back!

I bought a 60 watt CFL [compact fluorescent light] bulb last night at Giant for $6 and I bought four 60-watt incandescents for 37.5 cents a piece, four for a buck and a half. It takes a long time to make up efficiency when it's an 18 to 1 outlay up front.

~Rep. Joe Barton (R-TX), Sponsor of the Better Use of Light Bulbs Act

That's nothing. Wait till Barton has to drive to a toxic waste depot to dispose of his 60 watt curlyque because it contains toxic mercury.

Or he finds out that halogen bulbs burn so much hotter than Edison bulbs that they present a significant fire and burn risk.

Or he discovers that the cost of installing LED fixtures and bulbs is exorbitant, the resulting light is unpleasant (unless the LED bulb is coated with rare earth compounds from China), and a large number of the population would not outlive the payback period of many LED fixture installations.

I'm one of the millions of American hoarders of the good old-fashioned, time-tested for safety and comfort, tungsten-filament Edison light bulbs.

In 2007, in a fit of politically motivated, lobbyist-bootlicking greenmania, Congress decided to deprive us of our ability to purchase our favorite 60-watt light bulbs.

The legislators who passed the bill couldn't have cared less about the number of people and animals exposed to toxic mercury as a result of their decision, nor about the health of the unknown percentage of the population for whom use of fluorescents pose vision and other health risks, and they seemingly never gave a thought to the number of Americans whose light-bulb manufacturing jobs have been transferred to China.

Today, Rep. Joe Barton of Texas is trying to repeal the sections of the 2007 energy bill requiring light bulbs to be 30% more efficient by 2012, no matter how inefficient that efficiency is.

I sure hope he succeeds.


Linked by Pundette. Thanks!
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Onward Christian Soldiers -- Libera

As you probably have heard, abuses at the Veteran's Administration's Houston (Texas) National Cemetery have highlighted an apparent national policy to restrict and even outright censor use of the words God and Jesus Christ in military memorial services and burial rituals. Earlier this year, for example, a VFW chaplain was told by a government official at the National Cemetery that the word God was forbidden, and a VFW honor guard junior vice commander was informed that he could not comfort grieving families with the words, "May God grant you grace, mercy and peace." The cemetery's former chapel has been redesignated "a meeting facility" that is now routinely kept locked, with pews used to store boxes.

A number of Texas patriots are preparing a court battle with the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs to preserve the religious freedom of veterans, chaplains, and mourners at the National Cemetery. These patriots are the legal staff of Liberty Institute, a non-profit legal organization; Rev. Scott Rainey, a Nazarene pastor; members of American Legion Post 586; members of Veterans of Foreign Wars District 4; and the National Memorial Ladies, a volunteer group that attends funerals of fallen service members.

Washington National Cathedral

In solidarity with these patriots, Bread upon the Waters offers the following hymn, Onward Christian Soldiers, which was sung at the fun­er­al of President and Commander-in-Chief Dwight David Ei­sen­how­er at the Na­tion­al Ca­thed­ral, Wash­ing­ton, DC, March 1969. As president, Eisenhower had established Veterans Day as a national holiday. The president's funeral incorporated his wishes and those of his immediate family.

That was then. 

Eisenhower knew a little something about military funerals. During World War II, he had served as Commanding General of the European Theater, Commander-in-Chief of the Allied Forces in North Africa, Commander of the Allied invasions of Sicily and Italy, Supreme Commander of the Allied Expeditionary Forces,and General of the Army (5 stars). After the war, he served as Military Governor of the US Occupied Zone, Chief of Staff of the US Army, and Supreme Allied Commander of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization.

Today, by comparison, as Maggie of Maggie's Notebook points out, "the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs is under the direct command of Attorney General Eric Holder’s Department of Justice. . . ."

U.S. Attorneys will be going to court to forbid Christian soldiers being buried as the names of God or Jesus are invoked. 

Why would Eric Holder and his boss, Barack Obama, stand between a bereaved person's grief and the solace of a prayer? Maggie continues:

This DOJ is as anti-Christian as it is possible to be, working under the might and power of the U.S. government, and our taxpayer dollars support their salaries.

To take such action, this administration must feel deeply threatened by the dignifying power of faith in God. Sabine Baring-Gould (1834-1934), the author of Onward Christian Soldiers, saw it this way:

Hell's foundations quiver
At the sound of praise.

On then, Christian Soldiers, on to victory.

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New Jobs Figure: 4/10 of One Job Added Per Zip Code

At that figure, the Bronx (pop. 1.4 million) would have gained almost 11 jobs in June.

On average.

That will be a big help to the one out of every eleven Americans who are out of work.










Linked by Politicaljunkie Mom and Pundette. Thank you!
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MI Woman Faces Jury Trial for Growing Organic Vegetables

Julie Bass lives in Oak Park, MI, which is about a 25-minute drive north of Dearborn, where you could face a jury trial for attempting to hand a Christian pamphlet to a Muslim, even if you are an Arab, or videotaping a friend distributing Christian pamphlets, even if the pamphlets are printed in Arabic.

Ms. Bass's "crime" is not nearly so un-PC, but she did plant an unauthorized organic vegetable garden in her own front yard, offending some anonymous person in the neighborhood. (Hat tip: theblogprof)

My advice to Julie: plant tons of marigolds on the parameters of those beautiful, weed-free beds to keep out the bugs and color-coordinate with the effusively showy squash blossoms you'll be having soon. Toss in some seeds of beautiful, colorful, edible nasturtium flowers and maybe some bright and cheerful--and also edible--calendula flowers. Lovely in a salad.

Voila! "Suitable" plant material that garden designers tell you will make the color of your "ornamental" peppers "pop."

My special favorites are the sky-blue, cucumber-scented flowers of super-easy-to-grow borage, an herb that the ancient Greeks thought "maketh a person merry and joyful."

I can't disagree.

I freeze them in ice cubes to float in cool summer drinks just for fun, but Julie might offer nibbles of borage to Oak Park officials when they come to ticket her, summon her to court, fine her, haul her off to jail, or whatever the government officials of Oak Park consider a "suitable" punishment for growing vegetables in one's front yard. After all, Dioscorides, the first century Greek physician, recommended borage to "quiet the lunatic person."



Linked by Zilla of the Resistance & Fleece Me. Thank you!
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Rubio's Rant: "I want to know how many jobs these tax increases will create."

Today, Rush ran clips from this rant by Marco Rubio (R-FL) during his Senate Floor colloquially with Kelly Ayotte (R-NH). When I heard them, my heart sang. Later, I was thrilled to find a video of the event at The Right Scoop:

Give a listen. The juicy parts start at around 7:55 and then again around 9:45:

A taste: 

We don't need new taxes. We need new taxpayers, people that are gainfully employed, making money and paying into the tax system.

And then we need a government that has the discipline to take that additional revenue and use it to pay down the debt and never grow it again.

So you look at all the new taxes that are being proposed and here's what I say:  I say we should analyze every single one of them through the lens of job creation, Issue #1 in America.

I want to know which one of these taxes that they're proposing will create jobs.

I want to know how many jobs will be created by the plane tax.

How many jobs are gonna be created by the oil company tax that I heard so much about?

How many jobs are created by going after the millionaires and billionaires that the president talks about?

I want to know, "How many jobs do they create?"

Linked by Pat @ And so it Goes in Shreveport. Thanks! 
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New York State Buys the Big Apple a New Bridge--From China

"In tough economic times, it is important to invest in infrastructure."

~ Denise Richardson, Managing Director, General Contractors Association of New York.

While nowhere near the size of the San Francisco-Oakland Bay Bridge being built by China,  the Alexander Hamilton Bridge spanning the Harlem River just south of the George Washington Bridge is, nonetheless, the largest-ever project of the New York State Department of Transportation.

Sort of.

That is, if the reconstruction and expansion of the Alexander Hamilton Bridge by a Chinese construction company can be correctly termed a New York State project.

On the other hand, if U.S taxpayers pay for the thing, (it's funded by federal $$$), I guess it might not be too much of a stretch to call it an American project.

The Alexander Hamilton Bridge

At the groundbreaking ceremony on July 15, 2009, "officials emphasized two benefits of the project: better infrastructure and new jobs."

Denise Richardson of the General Contractors Association of New York estimated that the project would create 200 to 300 jobs for hirees from "union halls."

She didn't mention how many jobs for the Chinese construction company, appropriately called China Construction America, have been created by the project. I count two new jobs for Chinese construction execs in the photo below.

Chinese construction execs demonstrate that they are willing to do jobs American execs aren't willing to do.

Maj. Gen. Alexander Hamilton

The project is scheduled to take 57 months all told, with completion in the fall of 2013. No doubt, China Construction America managed to place a few more Chinese on the $407 million payroll. 

That means a large number of portraits of this nation's first secretary of the Treasury are being deposited in Chinese coffers.

Alexander Hamilton must be spinning in his grave. As he is said to have observed, "Those who stand for nothing fall for anything." 

Apparently, New York is in free fall. 
 

Linked by Zilla of the Resistance. Thank you!
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California Buys San Francisco a New Bridge--from China

Photo by Jim Wilson/The New York Times.

“They’ve produced a pretty impressive bridge for us.” 

~Tony Anziano, California Department of Transportation

Yikes!

The bridge that U.S. taxpayer dollars are buying from China is the new eastern span of the San Francisco-Oakland Bay Bridge, shown on the right of the photo. (That's San Francisco in the background.)

California officials are saying that they saved $400 million by buying the San Francisco Bay bridge decks from China.

I wonder how many U.S. jobs were "saved" for Chinese workers?

According to The New York Times, the answer is "hundreds."

Of course, that doesn't count the additional hundreds of Chinese involved in loading the massive bridge decks onto Chinese ships and transporting them to the U.S. 

Why is China taking such a big roll in building one of America's iconic landmarks? According to the project director:

Most U.S. companies don’t have these types of warehouses, equipment or the cash flow.

Nor do they have the support of President Barack Hussein Obama, the Democrat Party, or the entire green movement.

I'll bet all the smoke from this iron and steel factory in Chongqing meets California's stringent clean air standards, don't you?

And they probably are powered by Chinese windmills . . . .


Linked by new friend Tina @ Pecan Corners. Thanks!
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God Bless America Again - Loretta Lynn & Bobby Bare

Country singer Bobby Bare wrote this patriotic hymn and released it in 1969.

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Obama: Fed Gov't Should Stop "Poking Its Nose Into What States Are Doing"

Suddenly, the President is a states' rights kind of guy. Sort of.

At his news conference yesterday, the president said this:

"And so we’ve said we cannot defend the federal government poking its nose into what states are doing. . .

Of course, that wasn't the end of the sentence. Here it is:

". . . and putting the thumb on the scale against same-sex couples."

Funny how that works.

What states do concerning illegal alien problems, health insurance, industrial activity, Muslim demands for "accommodation," and even what kind of light bulbs state residents can use--well, that's another story.

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No More No Sheeples Here

Alas. With great regret I have removed from Today's Potluck Servings the now-defunct link to one of the Conservative Blogosphere's great lights, No Sheeples Here.

Carol @ No Sheeples Here, one stand-up lady with a BIG heart, has been providing us with her characteristically unstinting supply of on-the-money observations of American political life via her blog posts and original posters, cartoons, videos, and banners.

We laughed, we cried, we seethed, we applauded. We never failed to be amazed.

Now Carol has furled the ever-morphing No Sheeples banner and is taking a break.

We're gonna miss you, girl.

A lot.

A view of cyclists at No Sheeples Here.

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Panis Angelicus (Bread of Angels) - Oksana Lepska

This hymn was written in the mid-13th century by St. Thomas Aquinas for the Feast of Corpus Christi. Cesar Franck's 1872 arrangement is here sung by Oksana Lepska, who was only 14 years of age in 2009 when this video was recorded for Latvian Radio.

Latin: 

Panis angelicus
Fit panis hominum;
Dat panis coelicus
Figuris terminum;
O res mirabilis!
Manducat dominum
Pauper, pauper
Servus et humilis.

English:

Bread of Angels
That becomes the bread for all mankind;
Heavenly Bread
That is the end of all imaginings.
Oh, miraculous thing!
This Body of God will nourish
Even the poorest,
The most humble of servants.

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Ready to Return to a Strong America? John Bolton for President

How about a genuinely intelligent, vastly knowledgeable, truly experienced in foreign-relations, America-first patriot as president? John R. Bolton, a former U.S. ambassador to the United Nations and a senior fellow at the American Enterprise Institute, is considering a run for the presidency, and he says he'll make up his mind by Labor Day.  I hope he throws his hat into the ring.

A few Bolton quotes from the National Review Online:

“It is important that we are prepared to defend [Rep. Paul Ryan’s budget], even if that is not ultimately the adopted plan."

“We should not be seduced by momentary swings in public opinion. It has been a rock of conservative policy that we protect the national interest, whether it’s popular or unpopular. If we deviate from that, just because it’s politically opportune to do so, we are really making a mistake.”

“What I am in favor of is destroying the Taliban and al-Qaeda’s capability to wage war. Doing that does not require creating a Jeffersonian, democratic regime in Kabul and eliminating corruption countrywide, because we are not going to do either of those two things. It means defeating the enemy.”

“I think that Ronald Reagan had it right, being against abortion except in certain limited, defined circumstances.”

Bolton, who entitled his 2007 book Surrender Is Not an Option: Defending America at the United Nations and Abroad (a bargain for $10.80 @ amazon.com), has been a severe critic of what he termed the "failed approach to national security issues characterizing [Obama's] administration from the outset." Not surprisingly, Bolton is no fan of "Mr. Obama’s aversion to U.S. leadership and his decision to retreat behind the facade of NATO and the U.N. Security Council." About Libya, Bolton wrote in The Washington Times:

No one was fooled about America’s continuing central role militarily, but the charade has impeded finishing the job. Mr. Obama’s weakness and indecisiveness continue to risk having Libya descend into anarchy or split into two states and undercut our credibility and commitment elsewhere. 

The son of a fireman who eventually earned a doctorate in law from Yale, Bolton has proved throughout his long career that he predictably can be called on to favor the creation of unambiguous, no-nonsense objectives.

The ability to get people moving to fulfill unambiguous, no-nonsense objectives is called leadership.

After decades of pouring American dignity and treasure down the tubes in pursuit of will-o'-the-wisp, la-la-land, hopey-changey impossible-to-achieve progressive objectives, the people of this country desperately need to be brought together by a principled leader to work toward a few unambiguous, no-nonsense objectives.

It's what we do best.
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My Heavenly Father Watches Over Me - Adam Forsythe & Southern Sound

Happy Father's Day!
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Anthony "The Package" Weiner Drives an Uninspected, Unregistered Vehicle . . .

with plates switched out from another car. Those plates didn't expire in the last month or so -- they expired with the ringing in of the year 2006.

The discovery was made when the NY Daily News photographed Anthony Weiner "fleeing the Capitol in his Nissan Pathfinder," exposing the vehicle's expired registration sticker, expired plates, and lack of inspection sticker.

Anthony Weiner, who hopes to continue passing laws for the rest of us to follow and taxes for the rest of us to pay, maintained that Pathfinder was registered in New York State, however:

Driving a car with expired plates, let alone those pulled off another vehicle, meant Weiner's Pathfinder was unregistered, according to the DMV.

"Switching around license plates is what criminals do," noted a retired Brooklyn accident investigator. . . .

Details, details.

H/t: theblogprof
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On Flag Day: Red Skelton's Pledge of Allegiance

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News Flash: NY Public Employee Union Prez Notices That "Government Has Failed"!

At least that's the stated view of the president of the Civil Service Employees Union (CSEU), Danny Donahue.

Talk about coming late to the party. Nearly half of Americans already have concluded that the U.S. is likely to experience another Great Depression in the next year, about the same number of Americans who live in households where someone has lost a job or fears they soon will lose a job.

Now New York's Democrat Governor, Andrew Cuomo, is threatening to lay off nearly 10,000 state workers starting on July 15 unless their unions agree to a list of painful demands, including no across-the-board raises for four years; a 25%-35% raise in costs for health insurance coverage for dependents; huge increases in co-pays for medical treatments and prescription drugs; and even a $25-per-month charge to each public worker who smokes ($50 if the worker's spouse/domestic partner also smokes). All that plus a revised, more expensive pension plan for new hires who will retire at age 65 instead of age 62 or (in the case of teachers) age 57.

Ouch!

Cuomo looks like he is playing hardball, even with the Public Employees Federation (PEF) that endorsed him. (The CSEU remained neutral prior to the gubernatorial election.) The heads of New York's state agencies have been given until today to prepare for the threatened layoffs by providing lists of specific jobs to be eliminated.

Cuomo's rationale for the cuts is that "annual pension costs have ballooned over the last decade from $368 million to $6.6 billion outside New York City, and from $1.1 billion to $8.4 billion in the city."

Danny Donahue had a few choice words in reply:

"This is obscene. It's an attempt by the governor to make people frightened. Well, you've done that. You've gotten people frightened, but you've also identified yourself as the biggest bully on the block. . . . In my humble opinion, layoffs mean the government has failed. Layoffs mean the governor has failed because there has to be a better way."

A union president is calling a Democrat the "biggest bully on the block?" That's news.

"When," asked Donahue, "did a cafeteria worker, or a school bus driver, or someone cleaning the street become the enemy?"

Let me venture an answer to your question, Mr. Donahue. About the same time that a plumber did.

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