On Thursday, Milwaukee County Emperor Chris Abele woke up with a smile on his face. He just knew that this was going to be a great day.
He was scheduled to meet his good friend, President Barack Obama. Abele had been telling people for days how Obama has been consulting with him on how to raise the minimum wage and it would be good to get some national attention in case he decided to run against Russ Feingold to take on Senator Ron Johnson.
Then, after meeting with his good chum he would return to the Milwaukee County Courthouse to watch his lackeys work the County Board's Finance, Personnel and Audit Committee so that he could get several million dollars to his corporate pals and then really stick it to both the low wage workers in the county as well as those pesky county workers themselves.
Yes, it would be a grand day indeed, and well worth giving up his usual routine of spending the morning at Collectivo and the afternoon at the University Club with his fellow plutocrats of the Greater Milwaukee Committee, toasting each other and congratulating themselves for being masters of the universe.
Still smiling in anticipation, Abele stretched and got out of bed. He decided not to show up his BFF Obama and so when he slipped out of his silk pajamas, he decided to put on a suit instead of his usual ermine robe.
Little did he know just how wrong he was.
When he got to the airport to wait for good old Barry, he was glad to see the snow had not started falling yet. At the expected time, Air Force One landed and the President disembarked with US Congresswoman Gwen Moore.
But as his good friend Barry Obama was acknowledging the various local dignitaries, he got to the Emperor and called him County Executive Chris Abila. Not only did the President screw up his name he got the title wrong. Even worse, it showed everyone that he was lying about his closeness with Obama.
The last part was the worst. He was counting on using that charade to keep the Board from passing that horrible resolution that would require county employees and anyone working for a company that contracts with the county or gets money from the county to get paid a living wage. Well, not quite a living wage, since it was only 100% of the poverty level.
Regardless, he was hoping to distract the supervisors with this fake out, hoping they would settle for the sub-poverty rate of $10.10 per hour, even though he secretly knew that even that small increase was not likely to happen.
After doing his stint with Obama and still trying to keep a positive outlook, he had his chauffeur drive him to the courthouse so that he could listen in on the committee meeting as they stuck it to the little people and help his corporate pals out.
But even that went wrong.
He quickly learned that a large number of the unwashed masses of common workers were crowding the committee room to push for the living wage. He felt anger and dread wash over his body as the committee foolishly listened to those commoners and voted for the living wage, 7-2.
What was wrong with these supervisors?! Didn't they know that might cut into the many millions of dollars his friends stood to gain as he privatized and/or sold off every part of the county he could?!
Abele's - or rather - Abila's day just kept getting worse.
He had sent his top man in to get the committee to approve a pay out worth several millions of dollars to give to the companies that were still cleaning up the mess left from Abele's fire last summer. He was hoping that the supervisors would be gullible enough to believe him when he said that the check from the insurance companies would be in the mail. In a few months. Maybe.
To Abila's disbelief, those rubes called supervisors balked at giving the insurance companies free loans - or maybe even gifts - by holding it over until next weeks meeting of the whole board.
Oh, well. Abila consoled himself with the thought that he would soon have his Crosswalk plan in place. He was very proud of his Crosswalk plan. Not only did he take $5 million from the county workers to help increase the surplus to $14 million, but now he was going to take away their rights like seniority, grievances, vacations and fair work conditions.
But Abila's jaw fell to the floor as that uppity Supervisor Dave Cullen immediately moved to have the issue tabled until the call of the chair (that's legalese for putting his scheme in indefinite resolution purgatory) and called for the vote. Those rotten upstarts then proceeded to vote it into limbo unanimously.
How dare they! Abila was so upset that he stomped around his throne room for a whole two minutes, until he got too tired and had to sit down.
Don't they know who he is? He's Emperor Abila, er, Abele. How dare these fools stand up for the commoners and the little people!
Sighing, Abila regained his composure somewhat and vowed to take his revenge on those uppity supervisors, especially that rotten chairwoman, Marina Dimitrijevic. And then he would be able to do what he wanted with those miserable serfs.
Abila let out another deep sigh.
Some days, an emperor just can't get any respect.
Author's note: To make it satire, some fiction was added - Abele's robe is really sable, not ermine.
Saturday, February 1, 2014
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Love it! It would be hysterical if it wasn't so true.
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