David Crowley Is Confused About His Endorsements

David Crowley, who is running against State Senator Chris Larson to be the next Milwaukee County Executive, is apparently more than a bit confused about who is endorsing him.

Crowley's campaign has been sending out text messages like this one, bragging about being the only candidate to receive endorsements from Republican legislators:

This would fit in with his Abele-esque talking point about being able to work across the aisle so well.

Why he would think that this is a good selling point, I don't understand, especially given the way that the Republicans have been treating Milwaukee for the past ten years.

However, there is a problem with Crowley's talking point.  If one checks his list of endorsements on his website, he doesn't list one Republican. Not one.

It is my understanding that Crowley has been endorsed by Deanna Alexander, who is definitely a Republican, but is not and never has been a state legislator.  She is a Milwaukee County Supervisor who is mercifully not running for reelection this year.

So what gives? If he has indeed been endorsed by Republican legislators, why are they not included on his website.  Or is he simply lying about it to appeal the right wing base that supported his dark money benefactor, Boss Abele?

ADDENDUM: It has come to my attention that the website and the text were not technically Crowley's but that of the practical campaign run by Abele's PAC.

Larson Still More Of A Leader Than Abele Ever Will Be

State Senator Chris Larson again has shown why Milwaukee County made a mistake when they did not elect him to be county executive.

On Friday morning, he sent out a gracious, uplifting and empowering thank  you note to his supporters, showing what we, as a grassroots movement, have already done:

I’m writing to say thank you for everything you did to help make this campaign so great.  I appreciate all you did to get the truth out to voters and carry our message of hope.

We may have lost this battle, but it’s clear to me that we have the power and potential to shape the landscape of our county.

I am glad that I ran for county executive. And when I stood up to run, I’m glad you stood up with me. Together, we worked harder than any campaign I have ever been a part of. I didn’t take a day off in over three months and neither did many on our team. We hoped for a better result but, in the end, the inherited wealth of our opponent carried the day.

I’ll be honest, the last couple days have been rough. I worry about the direction things will head in our county without a leader who listens.

But compared to not running for this seat, I’m proud of where we are today. You should be, too.

Together, we pushed a message of hope and change. We talked of our vision where government functions more like a community than one of a profit-motivated business. We stood strong in our commitment to a community where every neighbor has a voice and together, we would invest in a greater good that we wouldn’t be able to achieve on our own. We reminded our neighbors that parks have value in themselves because of the quality of life that can’t be measured in terms of dollars and cents.

Here's what I know: we shifted the conversation about our community. The Chris Abele who won on Tuesday was a very different Chris Abele than the one we started running against six months ago. Because of our campaign, he backed away from every major thing we pointed to as evidence that he was out of touch.

• Right after we started running, he turned on the voicemail at his office so people could leave a message.
• He stopped using taxpayer funds to cover his lavish security costs while slashing general public safety.
• He kept more funding in his budget for homeless shelters.
• He backed away from the Takeover of our public schools and even went so far as to completely adopt our vision of providing wraparound services in our schools. This isn’t at all what the Takeover language was and he could have done this anytime in the last 5 years. But it didn’t happen until we stepped forward and put pressure on him.
• After vetoing an earlier version put forth by supervisors and cutting investment, he adopted as his own the Ready to Work legislation that helps bring new workers into the workforce.
• When pressed at a forum, he made a commitment to find dedicated funding for transit.
• He held a public hearing after we pointed out his insistence on avoiding the public.
• He made a commitment to getting workers to a living wage. This, after he vetoed the Living Wage Ordinance in Milwaukee County and even went to Madison to try and preempt it.
• He vowed not to sell parks, the zoo, the airport, or the museum. This, after he got special authority in secret legislation slipped into the Republican budget that allowed him to do those very things.
• He backed away from the power grab of getting unilateral policy making authority without the public at the table.
• He backed away from a bill that would have given him unilateral budgeting authority without the public at the table.

Now that the election is over, it’s up to us to make sure Chris Abele follows through on those promises he made. And while he shifted on just about every major issue we pointed out, I remain steadfast in my commitment to my progressive ideals and standing up for our community.

In the end, his camp couldn’t find much to attack us on so they had to make things up. They ran against a position I held on the Estabrook dam from seven years ago and were even called out by the media for lying in their ad. They made up a banking connection by attacking an LGBT activist and then claimed a bipartisan bill that helped local retailers and had no one against it (including Abele) was suddenly a giveaway to Wall Street. They even attacked us for proposing to carry out a tax plan that passed by public referendum eight years ago and would lower property taxes by making a slight shift to a sales tax.

You know who I am.  Even after a multi-million dollar attack campaign, I’m still the same man you trusted with your support.

I’m proud of the campaign we ran. I’m proud of each of you stepping up with me. We were outspent but not outworked. Together, we changed the conversation in our community. The establishment in town knows we're watching and our movement will only grow from here.

I have a newfound respect for you for standing strong with us against the odds. On election night, we had a room full of friends who knew the playing field was tilted against us by a 20-to-1 imbalance in spending, but who jumped into the fight anyway because it was the right thing to do.

We’re still just getting started. Together, we will stay energized and mobilized to keep the pressure on whenever there is an undemocratic grab for power.

Your Neighbor,

Chris Larson

P.S. To each of you who has called, emailed, texted, or spoken to me with well wishes and offered your thoughts on the race, I appreciate it. I'm soaking it all in and will get back to you soon.

On the other hand, Boss Abele waited until Sunday evening to send out his thank you email. As the gentle reader could imagine, it was rather self-congratulatory and self=serving. Oh, he promised to listen to the people, but that was at the end of the people he listed, meaning don't hold your breath for that to happen.

It also sounded rather Walkeresque, which in itself isn't too surprising, when he put this line in the note:

...Transforming our community to one in which every person is empowered and has the opportunity to thrive isn't someone one person can achieve alone. Every resident, business, faith group and community leader must work together.

When you put that through the conservative -> English translator, it reads "Expect more service cuts and tax hikes to pay for my plutocratic playground."

It is also rather frightening. He would refer to the county board as "his partners," but then cut them at the knees and took away their authority and is trying to grab even more for himself.

But that isn't the only bit of hypocrisy that Abele shared. I almost did a spit take when I read this:

I want to congratulate Senator Larson on his campaign. Running for office is a tough business, and anyone who puts themselves out there deserves nothing less than our respect and gratitude.

Now think back to all the mailers filling up your recycling bin and the endless commercials smearing Larson with flat out lies. Abele doesn't have any respect for himself much less anyone else.

I agree with Larson that I am very apprehensive about Milwaukee County's future.  I sincerely hope that Larson considers another run in 2020 but I hope even more that there's still something to run for.

Abele's Endorsements

During every election cycle, politicians and candidates scramble to get endorsements from various groups and individuals even though the importance of these endorsements to the voters is debatable.

Sometimes these endorsements can tell the voter very little.  After all, Democrats are going to endorse Democrats, Republicans are going to endorse Republicans.

Other times, they can tell the voter quite a bit.  They can sometimes confirm or deny allegations being leveled at the candidate.  They can also tell the voter if the candidate is being up front and honest about who they really are.

For example, look at the race for Milwaukee County Executive.

Milwaukee County Emperor Chris Abele has been trying to smear his opponent, State Senator Chris Larson, by implying that Larson was racist because he didn't pander to the sellout senator, Lena Taylor.  Abele also laughably tried to claim that Larson was in cahoots with the Big Banks and other special interest groups and not did not stand up for the people.

But when you look at Larson's endorsements, it tells a very different tale.

As the gentle reader can see for themselves, Larson is being endorsed by such prominent African American leaders such as Congresswoman Gwen Moore, the Honorable Vel Phillips, State Senator Nikiya Dodd, and State Representatives Mandela Barnes, David Bowen, LaTonya Johnson and Leon Young.

And those special interest groups?  Yeah, they include things like the Sierra Club, Wisconsin Jobs Now, Voces de la Frontera, several Grassroots groups and most of the major unions, including AFSCME, the Steelworkers, MTEA, AFT, ATU and the Milwaukee Area Labor Council.

Abele's endorsements, on the other hand, also are rather telling.

First of all, it should be noted that all of these endorsements are rather late coming in.  And when the gentle reader casts an eye at them, a pattern can be seen:

• Former US Senator Herb Kohl - who made a profit of hundreds of millions of dollars with the sale of the Milwaukee Bucks, a deal that went though with the help of Abele promising over a hundred million dollars from Milwaukee taxpayers.
• State Representative Peter Barca - why a state rep from Kenosha is endorsing in a Milwaukee County race is one thing, but records show that Abele gave not only Barca but his caucus group a lot of money.
• Former Governor Jim Doyle - yup, a lot of donations from Abele again.
• Mary Burke - not only do multimillionaires have to stick together, but Abele put a lot of money into her failed gubernatorial bid.

Yup, in other words, one could honestly say that it sure seems like Abele bought these endorsements, just like he's trying to buy the election.

Interestingly, Abele does not have one endorsement for a Milwaukee representative or senator.  He does, however, have a number of local municipal mayors endorsing him.  This isn't surprising, since Abele has been in deals with them to take over things like county parks.  As a bonus, these municipalities would also be given great chunks of county taxpayer money to run them.   It's also worth noting that most of these mayors are Republicans or Corporate Democrats.  

What is really striking about these endorsements is not who is on the list, but who is not on it.  Milwaukee Mayor Tom Barrett is not endorsing his long time friend, even though just four years ago, they announced their bids for reelection together.  Not only does Barrett disagree with Abele robbing the poor to pay for the Bucks arena, but he recognizes that Abele has become so toxic that it could sink his own reelection bid.

I would be remiss not to mention that the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, which had once said that they would no longer make any endorsements, has endorsed Abele for some unfathomable reason not based on reality.  Then again, this is the same paper that repeatedly endorsed Scott Walker.

The gentle reader would be hard pressed to find someone supporting Abele who hasn't received something from him or was promised something from him.

Another interesting aspect besides the endorsements are the donations.  Not counting Abele's loan of millions of dollars to his own campaign, Larson is far surpassing Abele in donations.  For every person who donated money to Abele, 118 people donated to Larson.

Now which one of these two candidates is the one that is one of us working for us?  (Hint: It's not Boss Abele!)

Elect Chris Larson on April 5!

Abele Trying To Disenfranchise Black Voters

Last fall, Milwaukee County Executive Emperor Chris Abele presented his proposed budget to the county board.  It was then when he first uttered the words that he was helping the African American community in Milwaukee by improving the House of Correction, increasing child support enforcement, social services and mental health programming. Since then, he's repeated the same thing in other settings and to other audiences.

Thus it was no surprise to anyone, but Abele, when he lost the City of Milwaukee, which has the state's largest African American community, to his opponent, State Senator Chris Larson, by ten percentage points.

This was not Abele's first time for making a race relationship blunder. Most notably, in 2012, Abele sent Patrick Farley, his then Director of Department of Administrative Services to make a fraudulent criminal complaint against Johnny Thomas, an African American county board supervisor.

Since making his infamous comments last fall, two other major incidents of racial discrimination by Abele has come out.

The first is when Abele defied a forty year old federal consent decree that dealt with racial discrimination practices the county did in the 1970s. Abele refused to offer a first shift position to Doris Ellison, an African American certified nursing assistant at the Behavioral Health Division who had been laid off by Abele.

The second incident involves Jonette Arms, the interim director of the Milwaukee County Department of Aging.  Even though Arms, who is African American, has held that position since June 6, 2015, when the previous director, Stephanie Sue Stein, had retired, Abele has refused to nominate her to become the full time director.

Not only has Abele refused to nominate Arms - treating her differently than any other director - he has further disrespected her by:

• Undermining her authority in her own department
• Forbidding her from representing her own department at various meetings, including before the county board
• Forbidding her from having any communication with the press
• Smearing Arms in front of the Commission of Aging

Abele recognized that he had damaged himself badly with the African American community, enough so that it could cost him the election next week. And since he was not invested enough to do the work needed to repair his race relations, Abele has decided to go on a full smear attack of his opponent in order to turn off African American voters to both candidates.

To do so, Abele has sent out endless mailers, claiming that Larson is the racist in this race. He has also enlisted the aid of his favorite sellout state senator, Lena Taylor, to express faux outrage over an alleged insult by Larson. It only took her a week to figure out she was offended. And even though she accepted Larson's apology, she continues to try to milk the attention for what it's worth.

Abele has also called on the aid of a corporate African American radio squawker, Sherwin Hughes, as well as a African American "journalist" at the Milwaukee Courier to run nonstop smear attacks on Larson.

The allegations and innuendos leveled by Abele and his camp are utterly ridiculous. If Larson was such a raging racist, as they try to infer he is, Larson would never have been endorsed by such prominent African American leaders such as Congresswoman Gwen Moore, State Senator Nikiya Dodd, State Representative David Bowen and the Honorable Vel Phillips, a pioneer for African American women in Milwaukee and Wisconsin government.

In fact, Abele's allegations have gone so far as to accuse Larson of disrespecting Dodd. Dodd addressed the ridiculousness of such allegations on her Facebook page:

Over the six years I have known Chris Larson, we have had a respectful, professional relationship. Never has he used derogatory language to distort my character, or used demeaning language towards me as a Black woman, as it was claimed on the radio today.
I am deeply concerned that certain individuals have used my name to create a narrative of false accusations, engaged in political mudslinging, and have been spreading rumors without verifying or fact-checking.

If I ever have issues or concerns about any person with whom I have developed a professional working relationship, my practice and my reputation is to address issues or concerns directly with that person.

Anyone who knows me, knows that I stand for respectful professional relationships, and for not tolerating any disrespectful behavior towards me.

I have never had to address these types of concerns with Chris Larson because we have always treated each other with dignity, respect, and professionalism.

We don’t agree on everything, but we’ve never crossed a line where Chris tried to tear me down as a Black woman. That’s not a bridge we’ve ever had to cross.

It’s unfortunate that in this political landscape some people have stooped so low as to abandon all integrity rather than stand up for the truth.

Abele might have a lot of money thanks to his daddy, but all the money in the world won't by Abele a drop of integrity or class.

Abele's Motivation

In an introductory video, Chris Larson explained why he was running for the office of Milwaukee County Executive.  In said video, Larson said that he was very concerned about not only the damage that Abele was causing to Milwaukee County but to democracy as well.

When Larson won the primary election, the incumbent, Chris Abele, said that he was willing to spend $5 million on his campaign.  That's a helluva lot of money for a job that only pays a little over $129,000.

So what would motivate someone to spend such an extravagant amount of money for a county executive position?

Abele, who is a multimillionaire - thanks to his father, John Abele - surely doesn't need the money.

It could be Abele's need for affirmation due to unresolved daddy issues:

That was exactly what Abele needed to do, too. Like the nonprofits he advised, he wanted to win the approval of a major philanthropist – in Abele’s case, his father. “Chris always said his father felt he was never successful at anything,” says friend Benson. “I think that explains Chris’ workaholic desire to do well.”

Abele’s inability to distinguish himself in his father’s eyes may have fueled his constant need for approval, which he sought in other places, including Milwaukee’s limelight. But he also found the perfect proving ground for another chance. “In Boston, he’d always be the son of John Abele,” says Theoharis Constantine Theoharis, Abele’s former Harvard instructor. “He had to strike out on his own, away from the inevitable comparisons to his father. And he had a certain excitement about what he could do in Milwaukee.”

It could be that Abele was looking to leverage his money. Look at the fact that he owns $2 million worth of condos right next to the future Bucks arena. That property is guaranteed to spike dramatically in value. But then again, as I pointed out above, Abele doesn't really need the money.

Abele is also known for not following through on things when they prove to be difficult.  For an example, just look at the fact that he didn't bother to complete his education.

So what is motivating Abele to drop so much money on this race? What is his agenda?

The answer is a combination of the above.

In 2010, the Greater Milwaukee Committee, of which Abele was on the board at the time, commissioned the Public Policy Forum to do a study on the best way to completely do away with Milwaukee County government or at least shrink it down enough to drown it in a bathtub.

To summarize their findings, it boiled down to four basic things:

• Spin off things like the transit and parks systems into their own entitites;
• Cut into the pension and healthcare costs;
• Inventory and consolidate county assets;
• Pass off county responsibilities to the state and/or municipalities.

Sheldon Lubar, another GMC member and a mentor of Abele's, had broadcasted this agenda years ago, when he said that they wanted to "blow up" county government:

Lubar offered mostly a broad-strokes recipe for reform: a gradual "devolution" of county government in which duties such as social services, the county jail and House of Correction and the courts are turned over to the state. Parks could revert to municipalities or a regional parks district, if voters want that, he said. Transit, airports and cultural institutions could be turned over to new regional authorities. All would be overseen by a fiscal oversight board.

If one looks at the damage done by Abele over the last five years, you can see that they have been working hard on this agenda:

• Abele got his Republican friends in the state legislature to spin off the mental health system into its own entity, answerable to no one but Abele himself;
• Abele has put such severe pay cuts on county workers, with the help of Scott Walker and Act 10, that Abele had actually exceeded what Walker was doing to state workers;
• Abele had, again with the help of his Republican allies in Madison, made it so he could unilaterally sell off county assets without any input or approval by the county board and without having to tell the public.  He has already sold a number of county-owned property for pennies to the dollars, such as the land for the Couture or the Bucks Arena;
• Abele has repeatedly tried to foist the responsibilities for law enforcement, especially in the parks, to the local police, all the while dangerously cutting deputies, endangering public safety for all.

That does not include Abele undermining the county board, concentrating an unprecedented amount of power in his hands.  But even that is not enough for Abele, who tried to get his Republican friends to take the county board out of even the budgeting process, making him for all practical purposes, the Fiscal Emergency Manager.  We all have seen how well that worked out in Detroit and Flint, Michigan.

In summary, Abele's agenda is to con the people into reelecting him so he can continue working towards his, and GMC's, ultimate goal of a more perfect plutocracy.

Meanwhile, Chris Larson wants to restore democracy and give the people their voice back in how their government is run.

Did Abele Pull A Security Scam On Taxpayers?

As I noted in the previous post, there was a debate between Milwaukee County Emperor Chris Abele and his opponent, State Senator Chris Larson.  One of the issues that were raised in the debate was Abele's Hollywood bodyguards.

If the gentle reader might remember, three years ago Boss Abele asked for $400,000 from the county budget so that he could have a private security force.  Abele claimed at the time that there had been credible threats to his personal safety. Abele needed a private security firm because he refused to work with Milwaukee County Sheriff David Clarke in making arrangements for deputies to provide security like every other county executive had done.

Fortunately, the county board had the foresight to cut his request to $100,000.  Abele still went with his elite Imperial Guard but paid the remainder of the cost out of pocket.  In the 2016 budget, the county board went further to say he would get no taxpayer dollars unless he used deputies for his security.  He still refused to do so.

In Monday's debate, Abele shared the story for the first time on why he wanted the elite security force:

Abele became animated when recounting the story. He said he was out to dinner, and a babysitter was at home with his children when a man came to the door.

"(The sitter) starts to open the door. It gets kicked open. The sitter gets knocked off her feet. Papers fly out of this guy`s hands that have all sorts of crazy threats. And he starts saying, 'are you Mrs. Abele? Are you Mrs. Abele?'" Chris Abele said.

I'm sure that the incident was very frightening for the babysitter.  However, it should be noted that the alleged assailant had never been arrested, much less charged.

But there are a couple of questions that rises from the story.

One is if it was such a horrible and immediate threat that he needed a premium security force, why did it take him over a year to hire them?

Secondly, how would the bodyguards have helped in this situation if they were with him and not at the home?

Abele's words and his actions just don't add up.

On the bright side, Milwaukeeans do have a better option.

Chris Larson said that he would work with the Sheriff's Office to use deputies for his security.  And if that didn't work out because of Clarke's idiocy, he would use one of the municipality police forces:

Larson said "I think people know" that he and Clarke wouldn't get along either, but said he had a different plan if he couldn't use a Milwaukee County deputy.

"If that`s the case, we`ll go to another law enforcement (agency)," Larson said. "We have 19 municipalities (in the county), and they have police officers. We would have a public safety official when we have that need."

Like I said, we have a better option.

Larson is more frugal, more honest and a helluva lot more likable.

Get To Know Chris Larson

I have had the pleasure and the privilege of knowing and sometimes working with State Senator Chris Larson for the better part of a decade.

As he is about to repeat history by taking on a well-moneyed incumbent that has failed to do his job, it is important that all Milwaukeeans get to know him better.  For that reason, I am very happy to share this video:



Don't expect anything like this from his opponent who loves no one and nothing but himself and his money.

And make sure you support and vote for Chris Larson.

Act 10 And The Milwaukee County Executive Race

The right wing is celebrating the five-year anniversary of Scott Walker dropping the Act 10 bomb on Wisconsin and try to delude themselves into believing it was actually a good thing.  Given the timing of this date that will live in Wisconsin infamy, it also shows a glaring example of the differences between the two top candidates in the race for Milwaukee County Executive.

Both State Senator Chris Larson and Milwaukee County Emperor Chris Abele claim to support workers' rights, including the right to collectively bargain.  But only one of them has the history to support their claims.

Larson, recognizing the disaster that Act 10 would pose for Milwaukee and the rest of the state, led his fellow Democratic state senators to leave the state and stay away for weeks in order to give the people a chance to organize and fight back. For the last five years, Larson has worked tirelessly to restore workers' rights.

Abele, who likes to refer to himself as "Boss Abele," took a whole different approach.  In an interview he did with the bloviating James "Snickers Bar" Wigderson, Abele praised Act 10:

In an interview, Abele agreed with the report. "Absolutely Act 10 gives more flexibility."

Abele said the best defense of Act 10 is the effect it has. "Your taxes didn't go up and your services didn't get cut. That is the best refutation to anything the unions would say."

Before Act 10, the Milwaukee County Executive could propose savings in employee benefits in the budget, but they would have to be negotiated. Now employee benefits are no longer part of the collective bargaining process.

Indeed, Abele embraced Act 10 so tightly that the pay cuts he imposed on Milwaukee County workers was more than double those that Scott Walker had put on state employees.  Abele has gone on to try to steal the pensions from county retirees, remove civil service protections and deny county workers due process by refusing to put in a grievance process (even though that is required by Act 10).

The differences couldn't be more obvious.  Larson's record clearly shows that he is a champion of workers' rights and protecting the taxpayers.  Abele, on the other hand, has a long history of wanting to stick it to the workers and to the taxpayers alike as he continues with his plutocratic agenda.

While both men might say that they support workers and workers' rights, only one them really means it.

It is imperative that we support and vote for Chris Larson.

Larson Earns Labor Council Endorsement

In the interest of full disclosure, the gentle reader should be aware that I am a member of the Executive Board of the Milwaukee Area Labor Council.

On Monday and Tuesday, the Milwaukee Area Labor Council's COPE Committee interviewed nearly 60 candidates running for office in the 2016 spring elections. We even had candidates that didn't believe that unions are good things for the community.  It also flies in the face of the anti-union factions that keep trying to claim that unions aren't important anymore or don't have any power. 

The recommendations from this committee were presented before the delegates of MALC, who voted to endorse the following candidates for the following races:

Milwaukee County Circuit Court 31 - Paul Rifelj

Milwaukee County Circuit Court 44 - Gwen Connolly

Milwaukee County Circuit Court 45 - Jean Kies

Milwaukee County Executive - Chris Larson

Milwaukee County Supervisor  District 4 - Marina Dimitrijevic

Milwaukee County Supervisor District 5 - Marcelia Nicholson

Milwaukee County Supervisor District 7 - Michael Mayo

Milwaukee County Supervisor District 11 - Dual endorsement of Patricia Najera and Yaghnam Yaghnam

Milwaukee County Supervisor District 12 - Peggy Romo-West

Milwaukee County Supervisor District 14 - Jason Haas

Milwaukee County Supervisor District 16 - John Weishan

Milwaukee County Supervisor District 17 - Tony Staskunas

Milwaukee County Supervisor District 18 - Martha De La Rosa

City of Milwaukee Mayor - Tom Barrett

City of Milwaukee Treasurer - Spencer Coggs

City of Milwaukee Comptroller - Martin Matson

City of Milwaukee Aldermanic District 2 - Chevy Johnson

City of Milwaukee Aldermanic District 4 - Bob Bauman

City of Milwaukee Aldermanic District 6 - Milele Coggs

City of Milwaukee Aldermanic District 7 - Khalif Rainey

City of Milwaukee Aldermanic District 8 - Josh Zepnick

City of Milwaukee Aldermanic District 10 - Michael Murphy

City of Milwaukee Aldermanic District 11 - Tim Kenney

City of Milwaukee Aldermanic District 12 - Jose Perez

City of Milwaukee Aldermanic District 13 - Terry Witkowski

City of Milwaukee Aldermanic District 14 - Tony Zielinski

Congratulations to all the candidates who have earned these endorsements.  A formal press release will be issued later today.

I plan on writing on some of these candidates as time allows.

For now, I just want to comment on the Milwaukee County Executive Race.  

As I have written before, Chris Abele tried to pull his buy-partisanship routine to divide and conquer the unions and the Labor Council.  This made for a very contentious week, with the building trades and the laborers unions coming out early in favor of Abele.

Fortunately, there are some things that all of the money in Abele's daddy's checkbook can't buy.  

One of those things is solidarity.

At the meeting, there was a strong show of solidarity between many of the unions - including AFSCME, ATU (the bus drivers), AFT (MATC teachers), the Steelworkers, the Ironworkers, and many others to say that we stand united against the tyranny of Chris Abele and in support of State Senator Chris Larson.  We recognized that harm to one is harm to all, and in Abele's case, it was harm to most anyway.

I want to make special mention of gratitude and solidarity with the Ironworkers, who put themselves out there by making a stand with Larson.  Being part of the building trades, they normally would have stood with Abele, but they recognized the harm that Abele has done to the other unions and that they could not trust Abele not to do the same to them if he were to be elected again.  It was an courageous and difficult decision for them to make, and I want them to know I appreciate them for it.

The decision was made easier by looking at the track records of the two.

When Act 10 was being revealed, Larson led his fellow state senators on a weeks-long self-exile to give Labor the chance to organize and start fighting back.  Abele, on the other hand, praised Act 10.

When it came to living wages, Larson has always been a strong advocate of it.  Abele vetoed the bill when it came across his desk. Even worse, he spent lots of money to lobby for living wage laws across the state to be wiped out.

Larson has stood with the teachers against Abele's takeover with MPS.  Likewise, Larson stood with the bus drivers and mechanics even has Abele tried to bust their union and refused to bargain in good faith with them.

The list goes on and on.

I don't always agree with Larson's decisions, but that is part of life.  

What I can agree on is that Larson would make an exponentially better than the Scott Walker doppleganger Abele.  You can support Larson via his campaign website.

Milwaukee Must Vote Yes To Restore Democracy And Accountability

Milwaukee County voters will see four local referendum questions on the ballot in November.

Three of them are fairly self-explanatory and no brainers.

One is the Move to Amend question, which is whether the US government should take money out of politics.  It's not failed anywhere it's been held and I don't expect that Milwaukee County will be an exception.

The second one is whether the state should accept federal funding to expand BadgerCare.  Considering that Walker's decision not to do so has cost the state tens of millions of dollars and put tens of thousands of people out in the cold without any affordable health care coverage, a yes vote is all but mandated.

The third question is whether the state should raise the minimum wage should be raised to $10.10 per hour. Again, Walker's refusal to do so is dragging the state's economy down and putting people in real danger.  There is no reasonable defense for voting no on this common sense question.

The fourth question is whether state statutes should be amended so that Milwaukee County could switch to a county administrator instead of a county executive form of governance.  After speaking about it twice, I have found that many people don't understand what the question is nor do they know the history behind it.

The local paper has purposely avoided to provide any information on the question except for a small editorial blurb claiming that it is "payback" of some sort.  The only other time I've heard of democracy being a payback is when the colonists told King George to shove it and declared independence.

Here's some factual background to help the gentle reader make an informed decision.

Before 1960, there was no such thing as a county executive in Wisconsin.  The county boards performed both the legislative and executive functions of county government.

In 1960, the state legislature decided that they would create the position of county executive, but it only applied to counties with a population of 500,000 or more.  At that time, as it is now, the only county that met that parameter was Milwaukee County.

In 1969, the state legislature passed the law that other counties could have a county executive, if they so desired.  However, Milwaukee County was still mandated to have one, whether we wanted it or not.

In the 1985-87 budget, the state wrote in the position of county administrator.  Again, this was up to the county's choosing, except for Milwaukee, which was still stuck with a county executive.

Then in 2013, the state legislature passed legislation at the request of their paying customer, Chris Abele, to redefine the position of county executive. Despite the assertions by Abele and his apologists that this was to "restore" the definition of county executive, it concentrated power in Abele's hands in an unprecedented way.  

Abele and his apologists also tried to claim that this was to make Milwaukee like any other county in the state, which again was a flat out lie.  The changes that Abele bought only applied to counties with a population of 750,000 or more.  The only county meeting that parameter is Milwaukee County.

In short, Milwaukee County went from no county executive to a mandated county executive to a tyrannical plutocracy in just 50 years.

As the following chart shows, there are few distinctions between a county executive and a county administrator:

click on image to embiggen

The biggest differences include:

• The county executive is elected and the county administrator is appointed by the county board.
• The county executive only has to be 18 years old, a county resident and US citizen.  The county administrator has to be qualified through training, education and experience.
• The county executive has veto powers, the administrator does not.
• The county executive can only be removed by recall or by the governor.  The county administrator can be removed by the board.

Outside of these four differences, the positions are almost identical.  

It is important to remember - and this cannot be emphasized enough - the referendum does not ask that Milwaukee County switch from a county executive to a county administrator.  Rather, it asks that Milwaukee County be allowed the same option that each and every of the other 71 one counties have, which is to self-determine what type of county government we would have.

So, if the county executive and county administrator are so close, why even consider switching?

That can be explained in three words: Democracy, Accountability, Efficiency.

As I have explained before, the last three county executives have been real pips. We have had Tom Ament and his pension scandal.  We have had Scott Walker who used the executive's office as his campaign headquarters for his run for governor.  We currently have Chris Abele who is using the office to further enrich himself and his plutocratic pals at the taxpayer expense.

Not one of these three were representing the people of Milwaukee County.  They were only in it for their own personal gain.  With a county administrator, we would be able to restore a representative form of government, with county supervisors who would represent the people of their districts and keep each other in check.  

Furthermore, with a county administrator, there would be accountability.  If Ament, Walker or Abele had been county administrators and did what they had done as county executives, the board could have acted swiftly to remove them and save taxpayers hundreds of millions of dollars.

With Walker, and even more so with Abele, there has been a lot of contention between the county executive's office - while they were advancing their own self-serving agendas - and the county board, who were there to do the county's business.  A lot of time and a lot of money has been wasted with this fighting when both could have been spent taking care of the county's business.

The experiment of a county executive has been given more than enough time to show that it isn't the best form of government we could have.  We deserve and need a better way - a way that will restore democracy and accountability and integrity to our government.

Maybe then, the people's work will finally get done.

It's Time To Really Reform Milwaukee County Government

For decades, Milwaukee County government has been in disarray.

The mess started over 50 years ago when the state introduced the idea of elected county executives.  When the first Milwaukee County Executive was first sworn in 1960, it's been downhill since then, due to a series of mismanagement blunders, unethical actions and scandals, and an ongoing power struggle between the county executive and county board.

In recent history, one of the most glaring examples was then county executive Tom Ament and his pension scandal, in which he and his cronies devised a scheme that would pad their pensions by hundreds of thousands of dollars. The people took the only recourse open to them and started a recall against Ament, which led to his resignation.

Unfortunately, Ament's scandal opened the door to Scott Walker becoming county executive.  This led to a whole slew of unimaginable horrors. Walker willfully failed to maintain county facilities, leading to the death of a teenage boy.  He neglected our most vulnerable citizens, allowing them to be physically beaten, raped and sometimes die from the poor care stemming from insufficient staffing levels.  There was also that thing called Walkergate, where Walker was using the Milwaukee County Courthouse as his campaign headquarters.

After Chris Abele was elected to be county executive, he decided to "fix" the Milwaukee County government.  And by fix, he meant that he was going to hamstring the county board and consolidate all of the usurped power into his hands.

But Abele has proven to be a failure as well.  Since becoming Emperor, he has completely abandoned the mentally ill, neglected maintenance and repairs to the point that there was a $17 million fire in the courthouse, used his staff as political hit men, attacked our representative government and has treated the unions so poorly that he makes Walker look like an unionista.

Abele's most recent stunt was to try to rob county retirees, taking back years of pension payments and cutting future ones.  Hey, grandma doesn't need her house anymore anyway, right?  (Look for more on this next Friday, when the retirees get to finally speak their piece at a meeting of a county board committee. Abele refused to meet with them and has gone out of his way to avoid them.)

As I have repeatedly pointed out, if we are serious about fixing - really fixing - Milwaukee County government, we need to eliminate the county executive's position.

The problem with that is that when the state introduced the county executive position fifty plus years ago, the powers that be at the time made it mandatory for Milwaukee County.  Only Milwaukee County has to have one. The other 71 counties can have a county executive, a  type of county administrator or just have a county board, depending on what the people of that county want.

In other words, it would require a change in state statutes for Milwaukee County to have the same self-determination of what their county government should look like.

Fortunately, there are many people who agree with me.

There is a resolution in the works that might be introduced as soon as this week, which will call for a referendum calling on the state to change the statutes so that Milwaukee County could have the same rights as the other counties and have real government reform as opposed to Abele's plutocratic power grab.  A draft of the  resolution reads:

"Should Wisconsin Statutes be amended to allow Milwaukee County to transition its management and administrative functions from an elected County Executive to a professional County Administrator?"

This is an idea long in coming and cannot get here soon enough.

There is a lot of positives if Milwaukee County were to move to a county administrator model of government.  It would eliminate so much time, energy and money being wasted on power struggles.  And if the administrator turns out to be as incompetent and/or corrupt as Walker and Abele, there can be immediate action taken, as was done a couple of years ago in Door County, when there was an ethics probe done on their county administrator.

Many of our neighboring counties use the county administrator position, including Dodge County and Washington County, who recently transitioned to this style of government.  If a county administrator style of government can work in those counties, it can work anywhere.

A couple of months ago, Milwaukee Magazine ran an article written by Larry Sandler, which gave a very good history of the struggles Milwaukee County has gone through since a county executive was forced upon us.  In Sandler's article, he touched on the subject of eliminating the county executive position:

Eliminating the executive: During his 2002 campaign, Walker won Assembly approval of a bill to let the county abolish the executive office, but it died in the Senate. When Lee Holloway, then the County Board chairman, brought up the idea again seven years later, Walker belittled it and the board shelved it.

However, Ozaukee County Administrator Tom Meaux says, “I question the need for a county executive in any county.” Meaux, a former Milwaukee County supervisor and treasurer, was appointed by the Ozaukee County Board, a structure used in most Wisconsin counties. Since most county duties are set by the state, Meaux says the legislative branch and the administration “need to be aligned,” and that’s often not possible if the chief executive is separately elected.

And in a recent panel hosted by Marquette University and moderated by Mike Gousha, even Abele said he would not stand in the way of this happening (although he did not sound all too sincere about it). (The comments about this come near the end of the discussion, at about the 4:30:00 mark.)

I would imagine that this idea would receive a lot of support from both sides of the political spectrum.  The right will like it because it will actually save money instead of the Walker/Abele pretending of being fiscally conservative.  The left will like it because it will minimize the problems that have been plaguing Milwaukee County for decades and allow services to actually be provided to those who need them.

Can you even imagine it?

Instead of the Walker/Abele type of reform - which ends up being nothing more than driving us more into a corporate run government - we could end up with real reform for a truly more efficient government that actually provides the services it is supposed to provide.

Now who could argue with that?

We're Reforming What Now Why?

In 2002, it was learned that then Milwaukee County Executive Tom Ament and his staff crafted a plan that would greatly enrich their own pensions, which would cost taxpayers tens of millions of dollars.   As a result, Ament was forced out of office and on of his aides, Gary Dobbert, was convicted and sentenced to jail.

Ament was succeeded by Scott Walker as Milwaukee County Executive.  It was

learned that during his tenure in that office, Walker was running a caucus-styled operation out of the the county executive's suite.

This scandal launched a three year John Doe investigation, commonly referred to as Walkergate.  Stemming from Walkergate were a number of arrests and convictions.

Walker's Director of Constituent Affairs, Darlene Wink, was convicted of illegal politicking during work hours and using county equipment.

One of Walker's Deputy Chief of Staffs, Kelly Rindfleisch, was also found guilty of illegal politicking from the county executive's office.

Tim Russell, a long time special friend of Walker's who served in numerous positions in Walker's administration, was found guilty of stealing from a veterans fund which wasn't even supposed to be under the control of Walker's office.  It was noted that Russell had also committed numerous crimes of illegal politicking, ranging from installing a secret router to directing Wink's fundraising work to doing campaign work during work hours and using county property.

Walker himself, although never charged, was found to be intrinsically involved with the caucus-styled operations, as evidenced by numerous emails.

After Walker left Milwaukee to corrupt the entire state government, Chris Abele was elected into office.  In the two short years of Abele's reign, there already have been questionable activities.

One such scandal was Abele using his Director of Administration, Patrick Farley, to try to frame then County Supervisor Johnny Thomas.  Abele has also tried to use taxpayer money to illegally reward his cronies.

Sadly, despite over a decade of corruption and fraud coming out of the county executives' office, the plutocrats and oligarchs have been able to convince too many people that the County Board of Supervisors is to blame for all our problems.

No real reform will happen unless we start by cleaning up the county executive's office.

I wonder who they are going to blame when things keep getting worse.

Walkergate: Russell's Restitution Day

Tim Russell, the former aide to then Milwaukee County Executive Scott Walker, will be back in court today to find out how much of the money he stole from the veterans fund he will have to pay back.

What a timely reminder of the corruption that happens in the county executive's office and how that office needs to reformed.

The Costly County Executives

One of the straw men that the plutocrats and their sycophants are using to try to con people in supporting their take over of Milwaukee County is that the county supervisors pay is too damn high.  

Never mind that the supervisors pay is on par with every other county in the state - about $1 per person represented.  And never mind that Milwaukee County is the only county in the state with a Class A city, an international airport, a world-renowned zoo, the beautiful art museum, the mental health complex and the House of Correction.  And never mind that other states, like Minnesota, have supervisors getting paid nearly twice as much for doing less.

It's the Milwaukee County Board that has to be punished.  It's the Milwaukee County Board that's too damn expensive.

Funny thing is, if the plutocrats get their way, they'll be saving about $5 million dollars.  That's a little less than what the county is going to be paying out for just one of Scott Walker's political stunts.

As I have repeatedly written about, Walker was gearing up for his gubernatorial campaign by showing he was being tough on the workers, especially us AFSCME thugs.  So he set up an artificially constructed deficit in his 2010 budget, and went through a phony dog and pony show claiming that the unions wouldn't offer concessions to balance the budget problem he created.  

Since the unions couldn't make the concessions even if they wanted to, Walker forced county workers to take mandatory furlough days.  Some, like the deputy sheriffs, got eight days of furloughs.  They were the lucky ones.

Others, including yours truly, had to take 26 days of furlough.  

In 2011, we had to take another 13 days.

Long story short, the furloughs were not only excessive, but they were illegal.

Last August, the county paid out the 2010 furloughs to a tune of $4.5 million.  

I have learned that in three weeks, the county will be paying out the rest of the furlough days, the overtime pay that was lost and adjusting the pensions of the retirees.

The total for this new payout will be in the area of $1.5 million.

That's $6 million for just one of Walker's stunts.  

Of course, it could have been a lot less if current county executive, Chris Abele, and Joe Sanfelippo, who is the sockpuppet for the GMC takeover, had not refused to negotiate with the unions, who were willing to give up part of the payouts as well as make other concessions.

This also does not include the myriad of lawsuits that have been filed against the county for things like wrongful deaths at the mental health complex, the collapse of the O'Donnell Park garage's facade and at the House of Correction.

It should be pointed out that Walker isn't the only expensive county executive Milwaukee County has ever had.

Abele, who is pushing for the takeover in the name of "efficiency," had wanted to give his aides and cabinet members half a million dollars in "merit bonuses."  Abele also wanted to pay someone more than a $100,000 for a position of "initiative policy specialist."  If that's not a made up job, I don't know what is.

And in less than two years, Abele has squandered millions of dollars in an effort to earn his teahadist credentials with illegal maneuvers in the budget.  Each time he touches employee benefits that are property assets, like the pension, it costs half a million dollars to change it, untold thousands to fight it out in court and another half a million to change it back.

And since I mentioned the pension, who could forget that the biggest cost of them all, the pension scandal, rests firmly at the feet of former county executive Tom Ament.

If these plutocrats were really concerned about saving taxpayer money, they would be going after the real cost makers, the county executive's office.  Since they're not only not going after the executive, but are trying to fool people that he will save them money, it's obvious that cost control is nothing but a straw man in expensive clothing.

An early look at the Milwaukee County Executive Race

As Scott Walker prepares to formally leave his current post* as Milwaukee County Executive for Madison, names of potential successors are coming out of the woodwork. Names are being added and dropped faster than those on Rush Limbaugh's marriage license. So much so that this post might be obsolete by the time I finish writing it.

Whoever does take over will have a miserable job of it, having to clean up not one, but two deficit-ridden, illegal budgets, hundreds of millions of dollars worth of repairs and maintenance, a mental health complex in disarray, and lawsuits up to their necks. And that's just skimming the surface.

Because of the relative short amount of time before they can announce and the February primary, a candidate is ideally going to need two, preferably three things:

1. Money, lots of money.
2. Name recognition: They don't have much time to get all over the county. The candidates who already have higher profiles will do that much better. Otherwise, they'll need even more money to get their name out their.
3. A good candidate would preferably have an understanding of the county's problems and have a solid idea of how to address them. I listed this one as being preferred since Walker's last three elections (four if you count the gubernatorial one from three weeks ago) show that people don't necessarily think being qualified is a requirement anymore.

As one might expect when one starts with a long list of candidates of various levels of interest in running, some names have already dropped out including State Representative Jon Richards and Sheriff David Clarke.

The following is what I am sure an incomplete list of the names politicians that have expressed interest or that I have heard their names being mentioned as possibilities, along with a brief synopses of who they are and what their chances might be.

Sheldon Wasserman: The most recent to announce an interest in the position. He has the money and the name recognition, that's for sure. The concern is whether is heart would be into it, since many have said his main interest is to get back into Madison. We're just getting rid of an executive that treated us as a stepping stone, do we want another one? Furthermore, even Wasserman himself has said his interest is more in his medical practice right now.

Tom Ament: Wait, what? Him again? No way! Not only did he foist the pension scandal on us, but opened the door for the last eight years of Walker's abuse, misuse and neglect. Just for the latter, he should be eligible for a life sentence in prison.

Jeff Stone: State Representative from Greendale. Two words to describe him: Walker Lite. He doesn't have much name recognition outside of his area and has the negative of trying to do a backdoor privatization of the airport. That upset a lot of people, especially those that live near the airport and have had their homes threatened so they could expand.

Josh Zepnick: State Representative. Like Stone, not much name recognition outside of his district. It's unknown how much he knows of or understands the county's issues.

John Hiller: Who? Walker's campaign treasurer. Enough said. Plus he is now part of Walker's transition team, so he might have bigger fish to fry.

Dan Devine: West Allis Mayor and former County Executive. I don't know if what his war chest looks like and he has made little splash beyond West Allis, but he would have the knowledge of the county's story and the leadership experience. It is also unknown how serious he is thinking of running. This morning's paper reports that he is not considering a run for the county executive's position.

Jill Didier: Mayor of Wauwatosa. Not much name recognition beyond Tosa. Just stuck her constituents with an unnecessary $12 million tax bill in order to give support to a rich group of developers so that they can tear up the county grounds and the Monarch Trail.

Tom Taylor: Mayor of Franklin. Ask him about his role in the county pension scandal.

Lee Holloway: Well, he's got the name recognition, that's for sure. I would suspect he has a nice bankroll as well. But he is vastly unpopular among the suburbs and other conservative strongholds. He may be able to carry a part of the north side, but not enough to win the race.

Dan Diliberti: County Treasurer. He has the knowledge of the county's issues, but not a lot of name recognition since his office is one of those automatic check types.

Joseph Czarnezki: County Clerk. See Diliberti.

John Weishan: County Supervisor. Extremely knowledgeable about County issues. Weishan does have the down side of carrying baggage from the pension scandal. He also strong ideas of how to fix some of the county's woes, but many might consider his ideas to be too extreme, such as funding buses and parks for only three months and trying to force the state into passing the sales tax.

Johnny Thomas: County Supervisor. He's been working at getting his name out there, taking credit for the benefits part of the recently passed budget (which is still illegal). He also was active in the past year raising many of the county issues. One thing that might work for or against him is that he has gained a certain level of animosity from the unions for flipping his vote regarding a Tentative Agreement from last year.

Marina Dimitrijevic: County Supervisor. One of the strongest candidates I've heard so far, as evidence by the fear she sparked in the special interest-funded group, CRG. She has good name recognition, at least on the south side of the county. She is fluently bilingual. She has a strong knowledge in County issues and has already gotten some of her ideas implemented, saving tax payers hundreds of thousands, if not millions, of dollars. She has won her district easily, has earned a number of rewards, and is often voted "Best Supervisor" in many polls.

Joe Sanfelippo: Walker the Second, but with even less personality or understanding. Even though on the personnel committee and part of the oversight committee for the mental health complex, and even though it has been going on for more than three years, Sanfelippo announced surprise that the staff at the complex were getting paid a lot of overtime.

Sue Black: Parks Director. She has done a lot with a little, but that doesn't mean she is fit to be executive. Plus, if rumor is true, she has some other things she needs to deal with

As I stated above, I am sure this list will be changing almost daily for a while. This was meant to be only the briefest of introductions and assessments.


*If Walker were to just leave in the middle of the night, would anyone notice? It's not like he's been around much for the past several years anyway.