AUGUSTA – Scripted chants filled the air Wednesday as activists from the Maine State Employees Association (MSEA) and the Maine People’s Alliance (MPA) arrived at the State House on school buses to voice religious objections to Gov. Paul LePage’s biennial budget.
“Hey, hey, ho, ho, this budget’s got to go,” they chanted, referring to the budget proposal the governor introduced in January.
Hallowell Mayor and Associate Director of the Maine Women’s Lobby Charlotte Warren served as the master of sessions for the state workers’ union ceremony, which featured Leslie A. Manning, a former state worker and current board director for the Maine Council of Churches. Citing the Old Testament prophet Isaiah, Manning told the crowd of activists that LePage’s proposed budget does not square with biblical morality.
“Woe to those who make unjust laws, to those who issue oppressive decrees to deprive the poor of their rights and withhold justice from the oppressed of my people, making widows their prey and robbing the fatherless,” said Manning, quoting from Isaiah chapter 10.
“What will you do on the day of reckoning when disaster comes from afar?” she asked. “Could it be any clearer?”
Said Manning, “The very basis of our community is the compact that we have made since our beginning – since our founding as a nation – to assure each other’s well-being and welfare.”
Manning has firsthand experience serving Maine communities. She was Deputy Director of the Maine Department of Labor’s Bureau of Labor Standards from 2004 until 2010, when LePage was elected. In 2009, her last full year of civil service, Manning received a taxpayer funded compensation package worth nearly $90,000.
At the same time current and former state workers and liberal activists were voicing objections to LePage’s budget, the non-partisan Informed Women’s Network (IWN) hailed it as an act of fiscal responsibility.
Anne-Marie Grenier, an IWN member, said she took the day off from work to attend today’s rally in order to support a balanced budget.
“It’s time to be fiscally responsible,” said Grenier. “The governor is not a bully,” she said. “He’s a man who understands the need to operate within a budget.”
Watch a video of the rally below:
Shame that the “nonpartisan” women heckling from the back of the crowd weren’t informed or responsible enough to show their support by organizing their own events, rather than fighting for attention & validation from those they claim to oppose.
School buses? Who gave permission for them to be used and who paid for them? It is strange how they only use religion when it fits their agenda other wise they say religion has no place in the public square!
A sparse crowd of obese amazons and wimpy men. Hope this is not representative of their movement. Will they be arrested for hijacking government buses (probably buss drivers as well) free and for radical political purposes. How dare the government interfere with their “gravy train”. By their physical sizes it is too obviously that taxpayer funded paychecks pays off big time. Obviously past time to re-valuate those bloated unjustified benefits. End taxpayer abuse NOW.
Thanks for the two comments on the School Buses. It is apparent that the “Coalition for Maine’s Death Spiral” has connections everywhere…..especially in taxpayer funded “public service” outposts. All those union activists riding around Augusta without seatbelts on….a train wreck of huge proportions waiting to happen.
As to the Maine Council of Churches, it and its higher order superiors are the epitome of the “fusion of church and state.” Read this prior article: http://www.themainewire.com/2012/01/op-ed-stolen-identity-maine-council-churches-political-voice-approval/.
They are an embarrassment to the churches they claim to represent. A movement should be organized to have member ‘communions’ leave the organization.
These maroons come out of the wood work and make complete ASSES of themselves. These are the people who scream “separation of church and state”, even though there is NO SUCH THING, but will come out and use RELIGION to more there agenda along even though they can’t see the forest for the trees. Why and who gave them permission to use school busses as a propaganda tool anyway? these people are sanctimonious and will stop at nothing to finish off the state for their communist buddy in the White House!
These buses were very clearly being used for a field trip by local students to visit the State House and Museum. I mean, they pulled up, opened there doors and a couple hundred kids got out and headed to the museum. To pretend that they had anything to do with a rally is just a bald faced lie.
That was my chief complaint …
The funny part is the Wire photographer must have literally stood there and waited for the kids to get out of his shot before taking pictures of the buses and then accusing state workers of hijacking them.
I think the buses were on a field trip.. A little strange to pretend they were part of the protest.
Oh my god! That’s just soooo wrong.
I get so annoyed that people actually take this stuff seriously.
The funny part is the Wire photographer must have literally stood there and waited for the kids to get out of his shot before taking pictures of the buses and then accusing state workers of hijacking them…actually if you look close you can see kids, not burly protesters, in the bus windows.
The Onion is a better news source than the maine wire…
How credulous can you be? My wife, who organized the rally and made the signs, was there, the buses brought the whiners not students.
so why are the buses in the picture filled with middle schools kids?
The Maine council of churches is not representative of any Christian church. For those who questioned the school buses, did you watch the end of the video where the protestors boarded the buses? Please make sure of your comments before making them.
try watching the video. they boarded after the rally
Funny, at the end of the video it looks like the over the hill gang getting on those buses. And a lot of purple.
you dems are all alike. lie lie lie the sons of the devil
If you can’t see that those are rally participants, clearly adults, boarding the buses at the end of the rally, there is no hope for you.
John Adams walked Battle Road the day after Lexington and Concord. After viewing he carnage, he wrote to Abigail:
“Posterity! you will never know how much it cost the present generation to preserve your freedom! I hope you will make a good use of it. If you do not, I shall repent in Heaven that I ever took half the pains to preserve it.”
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