Wednesday, July 30, 2014

Abele Takes A (Web)Page From Walker's Play Book

Milwaukee County Emperor Chris Abele wants to expand his "sphere of influence." To do so, he has been buying off what politicians he can and if one is not for sale, he is running his own hand-picked candidates like Dan Abele Adams,  

However, Abele wants Adams to win not just to gain another sockpuppet in Madison but also to keep Milwaukee County Chairwoman Marina Dimitrijevic out (but remember, it's not personal).  Unfortunately for the Abele Party, Adams isn't doing very well.  He isn't performing well in the debates.  To add to their woes, polling done by the conservative/Greater Milwaukee Committee/Abele Party front group, Forward Milwaukee County, must not have produced the numbers they were looking for.

Abele, realizing just how bad his numbers are, and with two years to go before he is up for reelection, has taken a page out of Scott Walker's playbook - namely, using county property for political purposes.

Abele recently had his county emperor web page updated.  The new web page doesn't have a simple mission statement or helpful information like most county executive web pages do.  Instead, Abele's county web page reads more like the bio page of a political campaign site.

Not only is Abele's web page highly politicized, it is chock full of factual errors and a few grammatical mistakes as well.

As an example of how politicized the page is, looked at this line:
As a lifelong Democrat, Abele is proud to support Democrats across the state and country, but he is also proud to reach beyond political labels and across the aisle to achieve the outcomes that serve the people of Milwaukee County. As County Executive, he’s used his platform to try and bring civility back to politics by asking decision makers to set their differences aside and focus on getting things done.
Also note the irony of that paragraph.  Apparently, he considers trying to frame county supervisors and running smear attacks against the board in general and some members in specific as being "civil."

Abele then uses his county campaign page to promote what he considers to be his two greatest "accomplishments."

One is the privatization of the mental health system.  He boasts that he has taken politics out of the system while omitting the fact that the board consists of his own political appointees who were fired from the county in disgrace.

What Abele did take out of the mental health system is the public.  Although the newly created board of political appointees overseeing the privatization of the system has public meetings, the public is not allowed to have any input into it. 

We'll see how long that lasts.

The other thing that Abele thinks is a great selling point for himself is Act 14, the law he had drafted by a silk stocking law firm and rammed through by State Representative Joe Sanfelippo, in order to eviscerate the county board and concentrate power in Abele's hands.  This way, he didn't have to worry about the will of the people getting in the way because of the quaint idea of representative government.

It must have been a shock to his system when he finally realized that the people weren't welcoming as Dear Leader and were willing to give up to their independence to his obvious superiority.  Obviously he was the Wise One because he had all that money that his daddy gave him.  Even if Abele didn't live up to his father's expectations, he was still better than a mere lay person.

Perhaps if Abele corrected the errata in this piece and put it on his campaign page where it belongs, he might be able to convince one or two people that he is a good guy.  But as it is, it is only a confusing and misleading bit of propaganda at a place it does not belong and not helpful to anyone, even himself.

5 comments:

  1. If you don't know how to embed videos -- you just shouldn't do it!

    I can't keep visiting this site with the stoooopid gun video constantly playing when the page loads -- you should be setting that so it doesn't automatically play.

    And if you don't know how to (you also have it sized too big for your column width so that it doesn't all show), then you have no business doing it.

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    1. Did you really have to be such a snark about it? Civility has really taken a hit since one no longer has to look the other person in the eye when they talk in such a mean-spirited way.

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  2. Yes, your comments on Abele and using his county executive website for political promotion and self-aggrandizement are for real. Abele seems to think he can have it all ways, although he will never mention that he is part of or partner with moneyed Milwaukee's oligarch overlords. He, claiming bona fides as a "Democrat," although having signed on to the same agenda that Scott Walker did.
    He is a "special" Democrat, though: one that is all "bipartisan," and can reach across the aisle to "get things done."
    At what point, though, does your willingness to compromise yourself become a detriment to the party you claim to represent?
    How ridiculous can Abele be when he claims getting rid of the county board is a "success"? Abele lives in a Disney Land dreamworld--unlike what the public has to live through everyday--that only a rich oligarch could pretend to understand.


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  3. I could definitely do without the cruel manner you present this in. You could have criticized him without going after his family and a bunch of other personal attacks.

    /your credibility.

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    1. His family? Pray tell, where did I do that?

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