When public employees act badly

Public sector unions bring out the worse behavior in "public servants." Why should New Jersey taxpayers - a state with severe financial problems - have to put up with this taxpayer abuse and with a sheriff under the color of authority who bullies a professor to keep quite in his classroom regarding the sheriff's rich contract:

PolitckerNJ and Mercer County College's College Voice newspaper have reported that elected county Sheriff Kevin C. Larkin entered Prof. Michael Glass's West Windsor campus classroom during a lecture, called him by his first name, took him out in the hall, had a little chit-chat with him, marched him back in, and got the good professor to apologize for talking about Larkin, who stood real close to him the whole time. Even then, he left saying "this isn't over."

So what was Glass talking about? A public report in the Trenton Times that Sheriff Larkin is getting a salary and a pension for the same job, to the tune of nearly $215,000 a year. Of course, it is important to keep public information like that suppressed. It's bad enough when journalists tell everyone that you are legally double-billing the public. It's completely unacceptable when a professor mentions it in a political science class on the state budget. Golly, that requires some serious action, like putting a jackboot through nine-hundred years of academic freedom.

A few more Poor Choice Awards can be passed out in this incident. First, it was reported that the huffy Sheriff Larkin was alerted to Prof. Glass's words by a texting student. A very bright student, indeed. Congrats, you just got your professor publicly shaken down.

Public employee unions and the politicians who enrich public servants at taxpayers' expense are an albatross around our necks. These bloated salaries and pensions are a risk to governments' financial health across our nation. The beneficiaries will not take scrutiny lightly.


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