Abele's Campaign Strategy Relies On Buy-Partisanship

Chris Abele has a lifelong pattern of using his daddy's checkbook to buy influence, gain the illusion of being a leader and cope with his daddy issues.

This behavior continued in his five years as Milwaukee County Emperor.  He used his daddy's money to buy off Republicans in the state legislature to pass bills he wanted whenever he didn't get his way.  Such bills include the power usurping bill, the creation of the non-elected taxing authority puppet Mental Health Board and the attempt to eliminate living wage laws across the state.

Likewise, he used his vast wealth as leverage with the Democrats, getting them to go along or, at the very least, keep quiet about his maleficent actions against Milwaukee and against other Democrats.

When Chris Larson announced his candidacy against Abele, I pointed out that Abele was very vulnerable because he had alienated large groups of people in the community.

Abele is already working hard to overcome his unpopularity by - you guessed it - buying people off.

For example, Abele angered a lot of people at MATC (Milwaukee Area Technical College) when he bypassed appointing a Milwaukeean to their board in favor for a conservative manufacturer from Mequon.  Abele has now cut a huge check to the MATC Promise program in an effort to help people forget how he screwed them over.

Abele is well known for his attacks on Labor, not just the public sector unions but also the private sector ones.  To overcome this, Abele has decided to try to buy off the trades unions by cutting them a quarter million dollar check for their training program.  Abele's goal is obviously to split the unions that have expressed support for Larson.  Apparently Abele has forgotten the strength of solidarity.

One of Abele's most egregious acts was his deal with the Republicans to take over Milwaukee Public Schools.  Despite his protestations to the contrary, Abele has been a longtime advocate for privatizing schools.  He even stood with Sheldon Lubar when they announced that MPS was their next target.

Now Abele is trying to calm the teachers union and the angry parents by exceeding his authority even further by proposing a "high-quality early childhood program."  In English, he wants to take over the preschools as well.  What better way to brainwash the kiddies early on?

There is little doubt that more of these stories will surface in the coming months as Abele becomes more desperate to buy his reelection.  After all, if he loses this election, it would make it much more difficult for him to run for governor in 2018.

'No one gives a blank about low-wage workers.'

Supervisor Theo Lipscomb (Left) and
former Supervisor Eyon Biddle

On September 25, 2014, the Milwaukee County Board held a regularly scheduled meeting. It was the day that Boss Abele was supposed to present his 2015 recommended budget.  However, showing his incompetence and/or disdain for the people of Milwaukee County, Abele didn't bother to show up.

So the Board went on with their other scheduled business.

One of the agenda items being addressed was the proposed sale of part of the Park East area to a local
plutocrat, Jon Hammes.

As Dan Bice of the corporate media giant Milwaukee Journal Sentinel breathlessly and recklessly reports, Milwaukee County Supervisor Theo Lipscomb brought up an issue of concern regarding the sale:

At the County Board meeting on Sept. 25, Milwaukee County Supervisor Theo
Lipscomb relayed a damaging story, based entirely on hearsay, about businessman Jon Hammes — the man behind the project — shortly before a vote on the proposal.

The 8-year-old rumor, Lipscomb said, had come from former Supervisor Eyon Biddle.

"In 2006, as a young organizer, working on behalf of janitors trying to get downtown property owners to pay a reasonable wage, Eyon was down with other janitors protesting outside of a meeting," Lipscomb said during the board meeting.

"They were being escorted out, and Mr. Hammes personally walks Eyon out, puts his hand on his shoulder and whispers in his ear, 'No one gives a blank about low-wage workers.' I felt he could say that to a young black man because he was wealthy and entitled. And who was this kid anyway?"

It was an incredibly rash and harmful charge against one of the Milwaukee area's most powerful and community-minded businessmen. The County Board eventually voted to send the proposal back to committee.

Needless to say, Hammes and his friend, Abele, were outraged about this story getting out:

"There is no truth to those allegations," said Hammes' attorney, Marc Marotta.

On the day that Lipscomb made his remarks, Hammes was named to the Marquette University Board of Trustees. He also sits on the boards of the Medical College of Wisconsin, the University of Wisconsin Foundation, the YMCA of Metropolitan Milwaukee, the United Way of Greater Milwaukee and Teach for America.

Marotta added, "It's a real embarrassment to the county and to the area that someone in Theo's position would make such an irresponsible statement based on hearsay about someone who has done so much for our community."

Equally upset was Milwaukee County Executive Chris Abele, who backed the deal. Abele said he has worked hard with other officials to turn the largely empty and ignored Park East corridor into an attractive location for businesses.

"However, when developers see personal attacks like this from elected officials, it makes it hard to convince them to work with us and even harder to get them to invest in Milwaukee County," Abele said via email.

Except that what Lipscomb said was absolutely true.

Unlike Bice, I had no problems contacting Biddle, who attested that the story is accurate. Biddle also told me that he tried to call Bice twice, but Bice never got back to him before running the story.

Biddle also commented about the story on his Facebook page:

This story is absolutely true. Dan Bice and I played phone tag so I was unable to reach him to provide further context. Jon Hammes telling me that he didn't give a shit about low wage workers pretty much made me who I am today.

I applaud Supervisor Theodore Lipscomb and his leadership on this issue. He is looking out for working class people.

"They were being escorted out, and Mr. Hammes personally walks Eyon out, puts his hand on his shoulder and whispers in his ear, 'No one gives a blank about low-wage workers.' I felt he could say that to a young black man because he was wealthy and entitled. And who was this kid anyway?"

Contrary to Bice's allegations, the story is not hearsay. It is factual.  (Ironically, at the bottom of the same article, Bice is forced to correct something else he inaccurately reported. And that's not the first time either.)

Boss Abele trying
to buy his way out of
another mess.

Another thing Bice failed on is reporting that Hammes is one of the people that received WEDC money and then turned around and  held a fundraiser for Scott Walker.  Apparently, Hammes isn't quite the upstanding pillar of the community that Bice and Abele are trying to pretend he is.

But it does help explain why Boss Abele was so willing to stand up for his fellow plutocrat and friend of Walker's instead of the working people and taxpayers of Milwaukee County.

It is disappointing, but not surprising, that Abele would again take the pro-plutocrat, pro-poverty, anti-worker position again.  He has done it repeatedly in the past four years, most notably with Palermo's Pizza.

It is outrageous that Abele and his friends are not just trying to ram their plantation economics down our collective throats, but that they are doing it so blatantly and arrogantly.

Needless to say, Hammes, Abele and Bice all owe Lipscomb an apology.  And since they lied about Lipscomb publicly,  the need to apologize to him publicly.

Then the Board should take a long hard look to see if Hammes is really someone they want to do business with.

Finally, the voters and taxpayers of Milwaukee County should take a long hard look at Abele and his long string of unacceptable behaviors and wonder if we really need an elected county executive that is unaccountable to the people.  Then they should vote yes to restoring democracy to Milwaukee County.

Why The Abele Party Failed

In last week's primary election, all four of the candidates that Boss Abele had supported - including the two he hand-picked to represent the Abele Party (Motto: For a more perfect plutocracy) -   ended up losing.  In the most egregious loss, in which Chris Moews lost to David Clarke, I had attributed the outcome to Abele getting the right wing fired up enough to come out in droves to cross vote.


It appears that was only part of the reason.  Another huge issue that affected all of the races was Abele himself, per the Shepherd Express:

An informal exit poll in both districts found that Abele’s strong and visible support was one of the main reasons why many voters rejected each of these candidates. Had these individuals run without Abele’s support and all of his resources, we are not saying that they would have won, because no one can know what would have happened. But according to the sample exit polling, these candidates would definitely have done much better. These two individuals are good people, but they just violated one of the tenets that most mothers tell their children: Be careful who you associate with because there are some people out there who will definitely end up getting you in trouble. 

What makes this really bad news for Abele is that he is up for reelection in a year and a half.  If people are already rejecting him through his candidates, it does not bode well for him.

Sadly, judging by his upcoming 2015 county budget, he hasn't learned the lesson yet and is continuing with his very unpopular agenda of ripping off taxpayers and county workers alike.

Tuesday's Biggest Loser Wasn't Even A Candidate

Tuesday's primary is finally over and the people have chosen their champions that they want to represent them in November's general election.  Some of the primary races ended up in routs while others were painfully close.

But the biggest loser on Tuesday wasn't even a candidate.

Milwaukee County Emperor Chris "Boss" Abele wanted to expand his "sphere of influence" by running a couple of hand-picked candidates and investing heavily into another.  But instead of gaining more power like he wanted, Abele went 0 for 3.

In Assembly District 19, Abele chose Dan Adams to be his representative of the Abele Party.  For whatever reason, Abele and Adams thought it would be a good idea to run an anti-union, pro-poverty campaign in a very progressive district.  To make matters worse, they also thought it would be a good idea to launch a series of highly negative and immature attacks against the two favored candidates, Marina Dimitrijevic and Jonathan Brostoff.

Brostoff managed to eke a victory over Dimitrijevic, winning by a couple of hundred votes.  Adams came in a distant third.

Likewise, in Assembly District 10, Abele chose to run his own staffer turned campaign manager, Tia Torhorst against Milwaukee County Supervisor David Bowen.  Torhorst wasn't much better than Adams, getting caught in lies and boasting of her support for her support for Act 14, which reduced the amount of representative government in Milwaukee County.

Torhorst came in second in this race, but got less than half the votes that Bowen did.

As bad as it was that Abele tried to buy these two elections - and failing miserably - that wasn't the worst of it.

Abele, who has had a longstanding feud with Milwaukee County Sheriff David Clarke, decided to intervene in this race by dumping hundreds of thousands of dollars in support of Clarke's opponent, Chris Moews.  Abele had the local airwaves flooded with ads filled with flimsy talking points and misleading attacks.

Instead of helping Moews, all he did was rile up Clarke's base so much that numerous Republicans chose to cross over and vote on the Democratic side in order to support Clarke.

Moews ended up losing by about 4,000 votes, sticking Milwaukee County with another four years of a loud-mouthed, ineffective and incompetent fool for a sheriff.

Abele's problems don't end with losing three races that he had invested in so heavily..

In his power grab attempt, Abele has burned a lot of bridges behind him.

Not only has Abele attacked fellow Democrats, but he has gone as far as supporting some of the most rabid Teapublicans over good Democrats, just in an effort to get his way.  As one might expect, this has made a lot of people angry and leery of him.  And this doesn't mention the other groups that he has alienated over the course of the last year or two, including veterans, park lovers, art lovers and the unions, to name just a few.

Abele has painted himself into a corner that he doesn't want to be in with his own reelection coming up in a year and a half.

That said, it's nice to see Abele screwing himself instead of everyone else for a change.  And he's doing it like a boss.

The Abele Party: For A More Perfect Plutocracy

Milwaukee County Emperor Chris Abele has often bragged about being willing to work with anyone, regardless of political party, in order to get things done.

This is both a true and false statement.

Chris Abele - as he sees himself

He is not willing to work with just anyone.  He only wants to work with people that will be "yes men" to his ideas, no matter how bad they are.  This is why you see him donating to rabid Teapublicans like Joe Sanfelippo and Dale Kooyenga.  And in an area where there isn't a politician he can buy, he puts in his own people, like he has done with Dan Adams and Tia Torhorst, both of whom are running as Democrats.

So, in Abele's view from atop his ivory tower, it doesn't matter what party the person belongs to as long as they are willing to do his bidding.  That is the only requirement to belong to the Abele Party.

But if someone stands in his way of creating his plutocratic paradise - or even tells him "no" - he is more than willing to use his money as a weapon.  Just ask the county board about that.  Or the unions.  If people would even say they didn't support one of Abele's goals, he would use his money to have that person blackballed until they backed down.

Without doubt, Abele has done a lot of good with his money, supporting such noble goals as marriage equality.

Sadly, Abele's involvement in any agenda isn't about being progressive or even just doing the right thing.  In fact, most of the objectives he has done or is trying to do are anything but progressive or the right thing to do.  Based on Abele's own statements and deeds, the platform of the Abele Party include:

• Taking away representative government
• Taking away local control of such things such as the mental health system
• Taking money away from workers
• Taking money away from retirees
• Taking public assets - like parks - and selling them off for a song to other wealthy, elitist plutocrats, even if it requires a law changing geographic history to do so
• Taking public assets that he can't sell - like the transit system - and privatizing them out to other wealthy, elitist plutocrats, even if it hurts the citizens and taxpayers

As the gentle reader can see, the Abele Party's platform is all take and no give.

One might say that this is no different that the platform of any other plutocrat and oligarch, but there is a distinct difference.  While most plutocrats and oligarchs has greed as their motivator, Abele's motivation is different.

Milwaukee Magazine once ran a story about Abele, identifying him as "The Billionaire's Son."  The story appears to be scrubbed from their site, but it can still be found here.  The article describes an insecure and undisciplined man that uses his money to gain affirmation.  He does so by buying influence with an agency and then, once ensconced, uses his money to mold the agency to fit his visions, whether they are good or bad.

This blurb from the article shows just how insecure Abele is and how he uses his father's money to cover up that insecurity:

But many individuals active in the nonprofit sector agree with one foundation head that “a great percent of Chris Abele’s -giving is in the category of the vanity giver.” A major corporate CEO is harsher: “When he does [participate], he grandstands.… The Kellners, Uihleins and Lubars all give away a great deal of money every year, and they don’t have to get their picture in the paper. Maybe it’s just immaturity with Chris.”

They and others cite a litany of examples. One involves two $100,000 Argosy Foundation gifts Chris arranged. Rather than the normal protocol, which would be to recognize the foundation as the donor, Chris took credit, too. The 2003 Milwaukee Art Museum annual report lists “Christopher Abele on behalf of the Argosy Foundation” (even though he gave his own smaller gift); the 2003 Boys and Girls Clubs annual report reads similarly. Seeing Abele’s name alongside Argosy’s looked like a quest for attention or at least a need for approval, especially when two larger gifts, $25 million each, remained anonymous.

Abele is like “a moth to the flame,” says a friend who warned him that -“publicity can be a double-edged sword.” When the friend advised Abele to back off a bit, Abele protested that he could “leverage” his celebrity status to advance causes he supports. But it’s hard to see what leverage Abele gets from saying that the one thing he really likes about Milwaukee is that it’s not pretentious, then drops names relentlessly himself. Talk to Abele for a while and pretty soon he’s recounting how he went to Cuba and met with Castro, how he’s importing the entire Yale Drama School faculty as directors for the Milwaukee Shakespeare Company he co-founded or how he talked Tom Barrett into running for mayor. (“Yeah, maybe him and 300 other people,” says a Barrett adviser.)

“He’ll say, ‘George and I did this,’ ” says the friend, “and he’s talking about George Soros [the investor-philanthropist-Democratic activist and 28th richest man in the world]. Well, it was a ‘meet and greet.’ Nobody cares. He doesn’t need to do that. But he wants to be considered important.”

The article also goes on to give us some insight to the source of Abele's insecurity:

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.”

In other words, Abele has some unresolved daddy issues and has decided to take it out on Milwaukee County. Isn't that just lovely?

The worst part is that Abele is not going to be satisfied with proving himself to his father with just Milwaukee County.  There has been repeated rumors that Abele is considering higher office - either taking on fellow wealthy elitist Ron Johnson or running for governor if Mary Burke doesn't make it this year.  That would explain why he is already gearing up his campaign machine for 2016.

I certainly hope that is not true.  For all the good things that Abele has done for the community, they cannot even begin to touch all the damage he has done in the past three years, not to mention all the damage he yet wants to do.

Chris Abele: Democracy Is Too Expensive

Earlier this month, the Milwaukee County Board's Judiciary Committee met and approved to put three non-binding referendums on the November Ballot.  The three were whether the state should raise the minimum wage to $10.10 per hour, whether the state should accept federal funding to expand Badger Care and whether the state should change state statutes in order to allow the county to go from a county executive to county administrator style government.

These three referendum questions would be in addition to the Move to Amend referendum.  The Board had introduced this last year, but Abele vetoed it at such a late date that the Board was unable to override it in time to get it on the ballot.  When the board brought it up again, Abele was unable to manipulate the timing of his veto and the board easily overrode it.

Predictably, Abele has come out against all three of the referendum.  His irrational rational for his opposition can be summarized as "Democracy costs too much money":

With the $120,000 spent on the three non-binding referendums the county could serve 13,800 more home meals to seniors, process 4,500 more child support cases a year or expand the re-entry program for female inmates at the House of Corrections, he said.

While Abele said he supports a raise in the minimum wage, and expanding BadgerCare, he said that could be done with a resolution signed by the board and him.

"I am worried that we are spending much needed tax dollars on a question that we already know the outcome," he said. A resolution would "make as a compelling statement" without costing taxpayers, he said.

Abele's sudden concern about cost is laughable.

In a $1.3 billion budget, $120,000 is a misplaced decimal point.  But there are plenty of ways that Abele could find the money if he wanted to.

If he cut the salaries of his two top aides, his Chief of Staff and Director of Administration, to the level that Scott Walker pays his same staff, Abele could easily pay for two of the referendum. If one goes by his logic that the county board needed to be pared down to be like all the other counties, and did the same to his two aides' salaries, he could pay for all four referendums and have some left over.

Abele had no problems paying for the red herring referendum to cut the pay of supervisors, but I guess it's only OK when a plutocrat does it.

If he hired a budgeteer that didn't make $3.5 million dollar mistakes, he could pay for all those referendums and still have $3.38 million for services.

If Abele had made the necessary repairs to the courthouse's electrical system when it was brought to his attention, and not caused a massive fire that shut the courthouse down for weeks, he could have paid for all for referendum questions and still had $1.88 million to pay for all these services.

If Abele took a sheriff's deputy for his personal security, he could have used $300,000 out of his request for a private security firm to pay for the referendums and still had money left over for services.

If he didn't have top heavy departments with so many management personnel that no one is even sure what some of them do, he'd have enough money for the referendums and for the services he cited.

Abele could argue that a sales tax could be used to support county services, as the voters called for six years ago.  Instead, Abele would rather see that tax money go to support his fellow wealthy elite and build new arenas and convention center.

Abele could have used the money he spent lobbying to have the state legislature pass a law to redefine geographic history so he could sell off county assets to benefit his fellow wealthy elite and paid for hundreds of referendum questions and paid for tons of services to boot.

But Abele's hypocrisy doesn't end there.  As with all things Abele, there is more, there is always more.

Abele said that he supports the minimum wage hike.  He used the same argument when he tried to block the living wage law.  Heck, he even said that he would be glad to lobby the state for an increase in the minimum wage as opposed to the living wage.  But now that he has a chance to back up his own words, he refuses to.

The real reason Abele is so vehemently opposed is the last referendum - the one he so conveniently left out of his letter - which would allow voters to choose between a county executive and a county administrator.  He doesn't want to the people to have a voice in how their government is run, because he knows that they would reject his power-grabbing, money-grubbing plutocratic ways in a heartbeat.

It's the same reason he was so opposed to the Move to Amend referendum.  He is Citizens United personified - a person who thinks he should be in charge because he is rich and thus better than anyone else, especially mere commoners.  His arrogance and egomania are stunning in their enormity.

They're also proof that Abele can't see past the silver spoon that's been in his mouth since birth.

Milwaukee County Supervisors Earn Their Pay

Even as Chris Abele and his plutocratic pals at the Greater Milwaukee Committee spend hundreds of thousands of dollars urging people to give up their right to representative government, the truth is coming out in force.

Larry Hoffman recently had an op-ed piece appear in the local paper that spells out very clearly many of the great things that the Milwaukee County Board has done for the community, usually in the face of opposition from the county executive/emperor, whether it be Scott Walker or Chris Abele:

Being a county supervisor is a rigorous, multifaceted, full-time job. Serving nearly a million people, they oversee some 25 departments, including those that run our bus system, airports and zoo; care for our elders, our disabled and addicted; maintain roads and parks; and more. Each month, supervisors analyze dozens of issues and make difficult decisions involving millions of dollars. We the people can speak our minds to them and testify at committee meetings.

Supervisors reflect the values of the community — people affluent and poor, of color and otherwise. The board fights to protect workers and assist the weakest among us.

Residents and businesses ignored by the wealthy power structure are helped by supervisors to build alliances. Should supervisors have to juggle additional jobs at the same time they're fighting to give constituents the tools to make a decent living?

With diminished funding and staff, supervisors are already hard-pressed to carry out crucial tasks: communicating with constituents; analyzing the multitude of materials required for decision-making; overseeing the executive and departments; and developing ideas into complex proposals.

Representing 53,000 citizens and paid $51,000, a supervisor gets about $1 a year per constituent. Isn't an open, vibrant democracy worth $1 a year? Or should we vote "yes" for a 50-cent discount model?

From thousands of board actions since 2003, here are some of the board's excellent accomplishments, mostly over opposition from Abele or Scott Walker:

■Contributed $10 million to save the War Memorial and the Milwaukee Art Museum's collection.

■Prohibited parking meters along the lakefront.

■Prevented shutdown of Pulaski and Noyes indoor pools for seniors.

■Saved vital bus routes targeted by Walker.

■Provided training and competition for hundreds of kids through Youth Sports Authority.

■Removed the House of Correction from Sheriff David A. Clarke Jr.; refocused on rehabilitation.

■Switched county employees' health insurance plan, saving $37 million.

■Instituted $11.32 an hour living wage for county workers.

■Rejected Walker's 25-year, $400 million lease of St. Michael Hospital.

■Trained and employed 500 workers, averaging $18 an hour, through WRTP/Big Step.

Members of the state Assembly receive $50,000 a year. Milwaukee aldermen make $78,000. County supervisors do comparable work.

After five years as a board aide, I made $24,000 a year. It's hard to imagine an elected official, responsible to the people 24/7, overseeing professionals making six figures, who gets no insurance or pension and the salary of an aide. If anyone in your family would ever feel called to run for office, would you be encouraged or discouraged?

Poorly paid elected positions won't attract good candidates, particularly minorities, who aren't wealthy. But they'll attract candidates who don't need the money — candidates oriented toward wealthier constituents.

They say this vote will let us take full-time salaries away from part-time workers. In reality, it would do the opposite, relegating full-time workers to part-time pay. If we pay them less, we'll be less able to hold the executive accountable. It would be an affront to democracy. Our vote Tuesday should be "no."

A lot of people think that by voting to cut the salaries, they'll finally be "sticking it to the man." The sad truth is that the only people they'll be sticking it to is themselves. They aren't really going to be voting to cut the supervisors' salary as much as voting to cut their own voice and authority.

Necessities Before Niceties, People Before Plutocrats

Chris Abele and the rest of the plutocracy are amping up their big push to get public funding to build a new arena for the Milwaukee Bucks.  The latest of this comes in the form of a "study" done by the Public Policy Forum, which is an elitist version of the MacIver Institute.    The study comes up with a number or "hypothetical scenarios:" in which the plutocrats can tap into public funding for the arena.

The plutocrats are so desperate to have more taxpayer money being funneled into their pockets that they are trying to hold Milwaukee's cultural assets as ransom to get at the money for the arena.

Of course, Abele is all in favor of using taxpayer money for the arena. Then if there is any money left over, he might let some go to our cultural assets.  Although he's made it pretty clear that he thinks that buildings like the Veterans War Memorial Center should be razed so that the lakefront can be enjoyed by the ultra rich and only the ultra rich.

The fact that Abele is putting plutocrats over people is not new.  I reported fifteen months ago that Abele was following Tommy Thompson's "stick it to them" routine by supporting a sales tax to build a new arena.  To show what a freaking hypocrite Abele is, even as he was pushing for a sales tax for the arena, he said that a sales tax that served a necessity such as the transit system was too regressive and would let the state off the hook for their responsibility.

Apparently, sales taxes are only regressive when the majority of the community benefits as opposed to the elite few.  And speaking of them, I'm sure that Abele would testify that each and every member of his millionaire's club known as the Greater Milwaukee Committee is suffering inconsolably, and needs the help to build their new playground.

But the plutocrats have some issues to overcome if they want to get this tax rammed through.

Their first problem is that there is very little support for this.  At their first "listening session," only six people showed up.  At their next one, there was only about 50 people.  Out of all the people in the region, that's a negligible amount.

Furthermore, Racine County, Waukesha County and Ozaukee County have all come out against being part of any type of regional funding source for this playground.

If Milwaukee County Supervisor John Weishan gets his resolution approved, Milwaukee County could have a referendum this fall on whether they want their tax dollars go to this plutocratic welfare.

Any approval for further supporting the plutocrats seems unlikely, especially since they have just announced that the Miller Park sales tax will be extended again and will likely last until at least 2020.

The plutocrats will also have a hard time persuading people to jump on their bandwagon since their arguments are nothing more than empty rhetoric.

They say we need the new arena to be a big league city. But when they built the current arena in the late 1980s, that didn't affect our standing at all.  Whey they built Miller Park in 2001, we got no gain from it.  They need to explain how this new arena would suddenly make us more prominent on the map.

The plutocrats have tried to point to Oklahoma City as a guide on why we need to build the new arena.  But as Brewtown Gumshoe points out, Oklahoma City has a lot of things we don't, like warmer weather and Big Oil to help fund things.  He also points out that they also have a much lower quality of life.  (It is a right to work state, so it's expected that they have lower salaries and higher levels of poverty.)

On top of it all, the plutocrats will need to show what benefit there is to building an arena.  In short, arenas are money losers for the community:

Dennis Coates and Brad Humphreys found, "The multiplier for spending on sports in a city may be substantially smaller than the multiplier on other forms of entertainment spending, perhaps the most plausible explanation. The majority of the revenues from professional sports go into salaries for players, managers, coaches, trainers, scouts and to income for the ownership. Most of these individuals, especially the more highly paid ones, do not live full time in the city where the games take place. Unlike the wages and salaries paid to employees of local restaurants, movie theaters, car dealerships, department stores, etc., the large salaries earned by players and coaches leak out of the local economy."

This whole discussion is a fine example of what it wrong with the county, the state and even the nation.

Milwaukee County has many needs that are not being addressed:

• The transit system needs dedicated funding before it collapses
• The mental health system is about to collapse while Abele abandons the chronically mentally ill without leaving them a safety net
• There are hundreds of thousands of dollars of deferred maintenance left from Walker and further neglected by Abele

Yet despite all of these immediate needs, the elite plutocrats are trying to take more money out of the system so that they can have a new play thing, regardless of how many people might be further hurt by the continued neglect of society.

It's obvious that Abele doesn't even have a clue of what is happening in his own county.  The view from his ivory tower apparently has some significant blind spots.  Which is all the more reason we nee to get rid of him as soon as possible.  Despite all of his money, most people who don't have an umbilical cord attached to his checkbook are ready for a change and see his vulnerability.

Plutocrat Compares "War On The Rich" To The Holocaust

Just when you thought you heard it all, venture capitalist Tom Perkins fires off a letter to the Wall Street Journal in which he puts himself and the other one percenters as martyrs and compares their "persecution" to that of Kristallnacht:

Regarding your editorial "Censors on Campus" (Jan. 18): Writing from the epicenter of progressive thought, San Francisco, I would call attention to the parallels of fascist Nazi Germany to its war on its "one percent," namely its Jews, to the progressive war on the American one percent, namely the "rich."

From the Occupy movement to the demonization of the rich embedded in virtually every word of our local newspaper, the San Francisco Chronicle, I perceive a rising tide of hatred of the successful one percent. There is outraged public reaction to the Google buses carrying technology workers from the city to the peninsula high-tech companies which employ them. We have outrage over the rising real-estate prices which these "techno geeks" can pay. We have, for example, libelous and cruel attacks in the Chronicle on our number-one celebrity, the author Danielle Steel, alleging that she is a "snob" despite the millions she has spent on our city's homeless and mentally ill over the past decades.

This is a very dangerous drift in our American thinking. Kristallnacht was unthinkable in 1930; is its descendent "progressive" radicalism unthinkable now?

As the article notes, Kristallnacht was the riots that spread through Nazi Germany and surrounding countries which targeted the Jews and led to the Holocaust.

Perkins' comments are offensive enough when one considers how many poor people have suffered and died due to the measures of austerity that people like Perkins embrace.

But it's even more offensive due to the fact that he made such selfish comments barely days before the International Holocaust Remembrance Day, which is Monday, January 27.

It's not bad enough he insults 99% of the people today, he also has to insult the memory of all the people that suffered and died during the Holocaust.  And then he wonders why people are indeed so angry.

Stamper Calls It Correctly

Long story short: In Milwaukee, the plutocrats and oligarchs are desperately trying to figure out a way to blackmail taxpayers to build them a new arena and support their downtown businesses, even while they feel that the same taxpayers shouldn't be allowed to get a living wage or basic governmental services.

Fortunately, there are still some civic-minded leaders willing to take a stand.

One such leader is Milwaukee County Supervisor Russell Stamper II. From my inbox is a press release he issued pointing out that instead of just worrying about their playgrounds, they should focus on the needs of the people, such a viable and stable mass transit system:

SUPERVISOR RUSSELL STAMPER II CALLS FOR TRANSIT

TO BE PART OF CAPITAL NEEDS DISCUSSION

Says Arena and Cultural Amenities Should Not Be Only Focus of Discussion

Supervisor Russell Stamper II said today that the Metropolitan Milwaukee Association of Commerce’s Task Force on Cultural and Entertainment Capital Needs should consider transit as part of its charge to protect and improve the region’s economy.

“Transit remains an important economic issue not only for Milwaukee County, but for the entire region,” Stamper said. “We need to get people to where the jobs are, and federal funding cuts have hurt our existing transit system.

“I urge the Task Force to consider improvements to transit as it deliberates over the region’s cultural and capital needs. While I believe the Task Force has an important job in identifying and addressing the needs of amenities such as parks, museums, performing arts and a new arena, we should not forget that transit improvements are crucial to the economic health not only of Milwaukee County but the entire region.”

Stamper said his district, which stretches from Fond du Lac Avenue and Townsend Street to downtown, the Milwaukee Art Museum and the Third Ward, is one of the most diverse districts in Milwaukee County.

“I understand the need to protect our valuable cultural amenities, and I support construction of a new downtown arena, but there are residents of my district who have never been to the BMO Harris Bradley Center, the Milwaukee Art Museum or even the lakefront. Many of them do not own automobiles. Their concerns are not for a new arena, it is for getting to their jobs, the grocery store and the doctor.

“We cannot be successful as a community if people cannot find a way to get to where the jobs are located. This is a regional issue. Without effective transit, we could be sentencing those who cannot get to jobs to lives of poverty and despair. It is absolutely critical that the Task Force consider transit improvements as part of the discussion.

“Yes, it’s important that we keep the Milwaukee Bucks here in Milwaukee, and if a new arena is needed I am in support of finding a funding mechanism to build it. But it is just as important that we have a transit system that serves the people who are most in need.”

The 48-member committee met in December and is scheduled to meet again in February. It is charged with making its recommendations by the fourth quarter of 2014.

I will write about this in more detail in due time, but this is a perfect example of what's wrong with our society. It's bad enough that the wealthy want to get even wealthier but to do so while denying basic needs to so many is unconscionable.

Public Service Preempts Petty Politics and Plutocratic Plundering

The latest chapter in the ongoing saga of the Battle of the 2014 Milwaukee County Budget has drawn to a close.

It started when Milwaukee County Emperor Chris Abele - Mr. Accountability himself - presented an unbalanced budget that attacked vulnerable citizens, taxpayers and workers.  Not only was the budget more than $3 million off at the get go and cut a services across the county.

The Milwaukee County Board took that stinking pile of offal and tried their best to make a responsible budget out of it, without raising taxes and restoring the services that Abele had cut.

Among the more major issues were two pools; Abele's security; the transit system; the privatization of mental health services and the closing of parts of the mental health complex; the salaries of some of Abele's staff; worker's benefits and Abele's plan to downsize the Sheriff's Office again.

Two Pools

Just as his predecessor, Scott Walker, tried to do for years, Abele wanted to close the deep well pools at Noyes and Pulaski Park.  He said that they weren't making enough money.  He wanted to replace them with a skateboard park and a splash pad.

But the pools are mainly used by senior citizens and disabled adults who use them year round for exercise, aqua therapy and socialization opportunities in a safe setting.  I don't see much therapy coming from a splash pad or a lot of elderly people wanting to go skateboarding, especially in winter.

The Board listened to the overwhelming demand of the people and restored the pools.

Abele's Security

Abele had added $400,000 to the county budget to pay for a personal security detail for himself.  Not only that, but the county's own sheriff deputies weren't good enough for him and he wanted to contract for his security.  Some speculated that he wanted to hire City of Milwaukee police officers in an effort to further tweak Sheriff David "Looney Toons" Clarke's nose.

The Board noted that Abele's request was five times the cost if security was provided by the Sheriff and felt that Abele's personal beef with the sheriff wasn't worth that much money.  They cut his request back but still left him with the generous amount of $100,000 for his security detail.

The Transit System

Part of Abele's budget scheme included contracting out the oversight of the transit system to a Texas-based for-profit company named MV Transportation, which has ties to major Republican operations and campaigns.  But because of Abele's sketchy backdoor dealings this has now ended up in court.

The Board did a surprisingly logical move of putting in the consideration of bringing the whole system back in house.  The end result is that the Board gave Abele until April to clean up his contract mess or it comes in house.

Mental Health Services

Abele's budget called for the closing of one of the long term care units at the mental health complex.  His plan was to integrate all of the patients into the community by November 2014, even though there aren't the resources available to take care of them and that most of the placements already attempted have been unsuccessful.  On top of that, Abele also wanted to lay off all of the county's community support workers, which would have furthered the likelihood of the placements being unsuccessful.

The Board went along with the closing, but took out the timeline.  In it's place, they wanted an accountable system that ensured there were resources in place.  They also called for a semiannual report on the tracking of the patients to make sure things were working as they were supposed to and that these vulnerable citizens weren't ending up in the streets, in state hospitals, in jail or in the morgue.

The Board also restored all of the community support positions so that the patient who are moved out will have someone to help them succeed.

I still believe this to be a big mistake.  No matter how well meaning the idea is, the fact is that there will also be some patients that would be best served in a long term care facility.  By denying them this, the county is putting them in harm's way and could be violating their civil rights, especially if they end up being incarcerated.

Wages and Benefits

Abele's budget called for gouging county workers - who are already paying the most in the state for their health care benefits - to unconscionable levels.  His moves would have bankrupted some employees and made several more eligible for food stamps and other financial aids.  It would have meant up to $3,500 taken out of workers' paychecks, on top of the more than $10,000 Abele is already taking out.

The Board lessened the hit the workers have to take but given how much more they are already paying, what they did was not nearly enough.  However, to be fair, the Board was already hindered by the fact that Abele failed to produce a balanced budget so they had to also come up with an extra $3 million.

To help make up for some of Abele's short fall, the Board capped the pay for some of Abele's department heads at $120,000.  Unbelievably, Abele started to mewl that his staff couldn't work for such a piddly amount.  It was like listening to Sean Duffy all over again.

Sheriff's Office

Abele's budget called for the laying off of 25 deputies, handing the park patrols to the municipalities and giving the City of Milwaukee money to pay for a ShotSpotter system, to help police find where shots were coming from.  Abele also called for taking the dispatch center, the emergency preparedness center and the enforcement of arresting escaped work release inmates.

Abele did this in part to retaliate against Sheriff David Clarke.  This is understandable since Clarke is a disgrace to his uniform and to his office.  He is grossly incompetent, has utterly politicized his office and has embarrassed the county with his inane antics.

Abele also did this to further his agenda of dismantling the county and abdicating his responsibilities and duties to the public.

The Board eliminated all of Abele's cuts and subsidies to the municipalities except for the ShotSpotter funding.

The saddest part of this is that Abele and his supporters started to attack the Board, stating that they were in cahoots with Clarke and that they supported his poor behavior.  What the Board did do was save the jobs of 15 deputies, preserved public safety and kept from shifting the tax burden on to the taxpayers of the City of Milwaukee.  It also kept the majority of the force intact for Chris Moews when he becomes the new sheriff next year.

In other words, they kept Abele from cutting off his nose to spite his face.

Yet to some of Abele's supporters, this was tantamount to funding al Qaeda, of all things.  Talk about losing all perspective.

As one might have expected, Abele griped about the repairs done to his faulty budget and took things beyond the pale with this:

"I wish our disagreements weren't rather self-evident in their wrongness," Abele said. He singled out the board's vote to cut the pay of six of his top aides as particularly unwise.

Abele said those cuts seemed to be motivated by anger by supervisors over the new state law that curtails County Board power. Abele was a prime backer of the legislation.

"If the board is angry about something, well they can take it up with the state (officials) who changed the law," Abele said.

Hmmm, Abele must have so much money that he forgot he was the one who paid the state legislators to ram this poorly thought out law through the process.

The budget now goes to Abele for him to veto the parts he doesn't like.  It will be interesting to see what he does do, since most of the amendments and the budget itself passed with veto proof majorities.

Is Burke Another Abele?

Even before Mary Burke announced her desire to buy the governorship, I had questions about her stance towards labor.

We already knew that she spent $120,000 on a school board seat - ten times that of her opponent, a good

Image via Madison Times

union man.  That seemed and still seems rather excessive, such as that she wanted to buy the seat because she couldn't win it.

Then, while on said school board, she was the only one to vote against the teachers.  It was only later that she came out with such a lame excuse - that she was upset more of the tax levee wasn't going for teachers' pay - that no one believes her.

We also knew that while the employees of Trek, Burke's company, were generally happy, many of them had been laid off as she sent their jobs overseas to China.

When she finally got around to announcing her candidacy, people were so tired of the hype that they started questioning her openly.  Democratic officers and operatives swore up and down that Labor would support her.

Side note: My favorite moment from that day is when a noted Democratic fundraiser responded to my pointing out her failure to support the teachers, was that it was "just one union."  I reminded him of the union credo of "An injury to one is and injury to all." I'm still waiting for his response a month later.

Recently, she was in Sheboygan where she used her strongest language yet regarding Act 10:

Burke said she’s refusing to make promises on any issue during her campaign in order to win votes from special interest groups, but she did say she would “absolutely” work with state legislators to once again allow public employees to collectively bargain on their wages.

Burke never mentioned Walker by name but said Act 10, which effectively ended collective bargaining for most public workers, has left the state’s economy weakened, its people divided and went far beyond what was needed to balance the budget.

“I think it’s one of the reasons why our economy hasn’t rebounded,” she said.

Unfortunately, Burke has also said that she feels something had to be done, but that Act 10 wasn't the way to go. I say unfortunately because a report from EIP shows that the public sector workers' benefits had nothing - I repeat, nothing - to do with the financial crisis. So even though she would have negotiated the big pay cuts, they would still have had the negative impact on the community.

It sounds like Milwaukee County Emperor Chris Abele's faulty logic he uses to put draconian cuts to county workers.

But for me, what was even more alarming was this comment from Burke:

“I don’t look at options as necessarily being Republican or Democrat,” Burke said. “Let’s choose the ones that are best for the people of Wisconsin.”

That is the exact same language that Abele likes to use when trying to justify his acts of austerity and attacks on Milwaukee's vulnerable citizens or its workers.

If Burke wants to gain the support of the state's progressives (if she is even still able to), she needs to stop sounding and acting like a plutocrat and distance herself from the elitist ways of Abele.

I, for one, despite my desperate desire to rid us of Scott Walker once and for all, will not support someone who will not make things better, or, like Abele, actually make things worse.  I also know many other who feel the same way.  And that won't change no matter how much she spends or how fancy (or corrupt) her campaign workers are.

The Tears Of A Clown

Last week, the Finance, Personnel and Audit Committee of the Milwaukee County Board, in the course of their duties in trying to bring some sense of sanity to Chris Abele's unbalanced and illegal budget, had to trim the overly generous salaries of some of Abele's department heads.

To hear Abele tell it, one would think they killed his favorite kitten.  He first went mewling to Bruce Murphy of the blog Urban Milwaukee, knowing he would get a sympathetic ear, but only barely:

Abele is outraged. This is going to “a massively detrimental impact,” he fumed to the newspaper. He also called me to complain: “To make these radical changes without consulting anyone in these departments is not the way to run a government,” he said.

The 8-0 vote strongly suggests the full board will pass this by a veto-proof majority. The cuts will at the very least dismay staff and in the long term might make it harder for Milwaukee County to recruit and retain administrative staff. But I doubt whether voters will care. Politically speaking, once you make the argument that taxpayers are paying too much for the county board, you open the door for a similar argument about executive staff.

What's would be funny about this if it weren't true is that Abele already never consults with people in the county, but rather passes on orders from the Greater Milwaukee Committee or their subsidiary, the Public Policy Forum.

Murphy also brings up the specter of Kimberly Walker, the former head of Corp Counsel. He cites her of an example of how "mean" the County Board can be because they fired her. He forgets to mention she was failing at her duties, giving bad advice and was actually encouraging the commission of a crime by advising Abele on how to avoid open records requests. He also fails to mention that Bill Domina, the head of Corp Counsel under Scott Walker's term as county executive, did just fine in that job. The only thing that changed is the administrative side of the equation. Gee, could it really be that Abele who is the problem? Who'da thunk that?

Not getting enough traction from Murphy's column, Abele then went weeping to Steve Schultze at the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel.  Schultze didn't pull any punches and actually reported the comparison of the salaries of Abele's cronies to the salaries of Scott Walker's cronies at the state level.  The findings make it even harder to feel sympathetic towards Abele:

Cullen used salary comparisons between pay of three of the county administrators facing cuts with state officials holding similar job titles to justify the reductions. For example, Tyler's $142,100 pay exceeds state Administration Secretary Mike Huebsch's by more than $15,000, yet Huebsch oversees more than seven times as many employees and presides over a budget that dwarfs Tyler's.

State Transportation Secretary Mark Gottlieb earns about $2,000 less than county Transportation Director Brian Dranzik, but commands a budget 17 times greater than Dranzik's.

And State Health and Human Services Secretary Kitty Rhoades is paid about $5,000 more than county Health and Human Services Director Hector Colon, but oversees a budget 30 times greater than Colon's.

That shows the county employees are overpaid, said Cullen.

It should also be noted that Supervisor Cullen also noted that the front line county workers have also taken draconian cuts int he past three years, with some workers having more than 20% of their take home pay cut because of Abele's austerity.

But to give Abele a fair shake, let's look at a couple of things.

Abele boasts that they are "turning the county around" and "We're doing more, better, for less."

So far Abele's claims to fame is a downsizing at the airport, the privatization of mental health services (which already as reduced public safety and left at least one person permanently injured), bogging down the transit system in a number of lawsuits stemming from his sketchy backroom dealings and setting the courthouse on fire.

Yet taxes have not gone down one penny.  So what he is doing more or better for less can only be found in his own delusional thoughts.

The other thing to consider his Abele's own record regarding his staff.  In the couple years that Abele has been at the helm, he has fired a number of people, including:

• Cindy van Pelt - Director of Risk Management
• Jim Burton - Director of Facilities Management
• Sue Black - Director of Parks
• Frank Busalacchi - Director of Transportation and Public Works
• Paula Lucey - Director of Mental Health Services
• Patrick Farely - Director of Administration
• Nelson Soler - Director of Minority Contracting

And that is just the top names. It should also be noted that Abele has yet to offer a reason for any of the firings, making one wonder if they were for cause or just because he was having another snit fit.

It would take no great leap of logic to deduce that it is probably Abele's poor (if not completely missing) management and people skills that has led to such a high turnover in his office and the difficulties he is having in hiring new people unless he gives them such outrageously generous compensation.

Given his difficulty in working with anyone and everyone and his dismal track record in just a couple of years, it might behoove Mr. Abele to take a good long hard look at himself - maybe even get some counseling or interpersonal skills coaching - and stop beclowning himself.  We'd all be better off for it.

Could Chris Abele Buy Another Election?

In 2011, when Scott Walker had the governor's seat bought for him, it opened up a special election in Milwaukee County to replace him as county executive..  There were three primary opponents.  On the left were Chris Abele and Jim Sullivan.  Coming in from right field was Jeff Stone, Walker Clone.

Even after spending truckloads of his own cash, Abele barely eked past Sullivan in the primary.  In the
general election, Abele was able to ably defeat Stone by promising not to be another Walker.  If only we knew then what we know now.

I bring this bit of history up because of an article by Jack Carver, writing for the Cap Times, who pondered if Abele would have had a shot at being the Democratic gubernatorial candidate.  What he found was not promising for the Milwaukee County Emperor:

But to many Democrats, toning down the criticism of Abele would be tantamount to betraying
the party. The contempt many activists hold for Abele oozed in responses to a question I asked about Abele's political future on Facebook.

“Chris Abele might be the biggest phony in the history of Democratic politics,” responded Joe Wineke, former chairman of the Democratic Party of Wisconsin, who is similarly unimpressed with the County Board’s behavior.

Brennan Balestrieri, a Milwaukee progressive activist who managed Democratic Senate Minority Leader Chris Larson’s first campaign for office in 2010, not only called Abele’s Democratic credentials a joke, but said Abele is doing everything in his power to prevent other Democrats from making an impact on the state.

“Democrats use the Milwaukee County Board as a farm league to get passionate public servants like Sen. Nikiya Harris and Sen. Chris Larson experience and poised for higher office,” he explained. “Abele answered the prayer of ALEC, Wisconsin Manufacturers & Commerce, the Metropolitan Milwaukee Association of Commerce and the GOP by removing one of the few, scant pulpits progressives enjoy.” 

By supporting the GOP on the County Board downsizing bill, Abele likely knew he was kissing certain political alliances goodbye. That’s presumably why the Wisconsin Democracy Campaign campaign finance database shows that after giving gobs of money to Democratic candidates over the past decade, Abele finally wrote his first checks to two GOP candidates last year — $500 to state Reps. Joe Sanfelippo of West Allis and Dale Kooyenga of Brookfield.

Carver also cited Louis Weisberg of the Wisconsin Gazette, who wrote an article gushing in favor of Abele, mostly because he had given tens of thousands of dollars to LGBT causes.

There is no denying that Abele has given a lot of money to the LGBT cause and has promoted marriage equality.  Abele's most progressive feat was to open the door for domestic partners of Milwaukee County employees to get health care benefits.

But even his stalwart support for the LGBT community doesn't come without some caveats.  As noted in Carver's article, Abele gave money to Sanfelippo and Kooyenga, two of the most rabid anti-gay politicians in the state legislature. We also must not forget that Abele was one of the cosponsors for a fundraiser for his wholly-owned supervisor, Deanna "Purple Unicorn" Alexander.  Alexander is strongly homophobic and even drove to Racine to show off her bigotry.

Abele supporters have argued that the little bit of money given to the anti-gay law makers is nothing compared to what he has done for the cause, which is true to a point. But one must keep in mind that the money he gave the pro-equality groups is the equivalent of one of us giving away five or ten dollars.  Secondly, these were legislators, who pass the hate-filled laws of the land, that he was giving money too, thereby defeating the purpose of giving money to the LGBT groups.

And it's not just the LGBT community that Abele has betrayed in just the past two years.

He had promised his friendship to the veterans in Milwaukee County.  But he then disregarded their requests when it came to the War Memorial Center.  He also cut off many of the supports, like mental health and substance abuse counseling, on which may vets are reliant.

Abele alienated the African American and Hispanic groups when he took away their voice by gutting the County Board and all but eliminating representative government.

Abele has also angered many women with his misogynistic attack - one in a series of many - against Chairwoman Marina Dimitrijevic on Pay Equality Day of all days.

Heck, Abele has even stiffed the art crowd, yanking funding from under them without warning or thought.

Workers of both the public and private sectors have tasted bitter betrayal from Abele as well.

In March of 2011, the Labor Press quoted Abele as saying:

"The crisper Chris Abele, who seems to have gained a directness of words from the rigors of campaigning, was on view at the South Shore Forum on Economic Development March 16, when he was asked from the audience to name several ways he differed from Scott Walker.

“First, I believe in collective bargaining for all workers,” Abele said forcefully – and the South Side crowd jumped with thunderous applause, to the chagrin of the waiting Jeff Stone, also at the forum.

Abele explained how he knew “from personal experience as a manager” the truth that cooperation in bargaining was better. He recalled when he was on the Milwaukee Symphony board years ago during a major economic crisis. The organization got through and emerged stronger because many savings along with good ideas came from the musicians – and Abele and the board made sure they were given credit for the solutions. This was across the bargaining table because the musicians are a hard-nosed American Federation of Musicians local.

Eighteen months later after, Abele won reelection, he was singing the praise of Act 10, which ended the collective bargaining he praised while first running for the seat. It should also be noted that one of the reasons Abele and the GMC gave for their power grab is that they felt county workers weren't being punished enough. This is in spite of the fact that county workers have had pay cuts more than twice that state workers were getting.  There are Milwaukee County employees who are already eligible for public assistance, along with their publicly funded paychecks.  How's that for efficiency?

Likewise, Abele has come out against the workers at Palermo's, saying that they should be thankful for their minimum wage jobs, which come complete with major job safety violations.  More recently, he's also come out against low wage workers like hotel maids and in favor of the people that would exploit them to enhance their own riches.

After alienating all these groups, Abele would be hard pressed to win a position of dog catcher in the next election, despite all of his wealth.  In fact, it is his wealth that is the only thing allowing him to stay in office this far.  Between pandering to some groups with is checkbook while attempting to punish others by putting financial pressures on those who would oppose him, Abele has done his own version of "divide and conquer."

There is a saying that when fascism comes to America, it will be wrapped in a flag and carrying a Bible.

Apparently we can now say that when plutocracy comes to Milwaukee County, it will be wrapped in a rainbow flag and brandishing a platinum card.

Statement From Emperor Abele On The Plutocracy Bill

The following is the statement from Emperor Chris Abele regarding the signing of the Plutocracy Bill, which gives Abele unprecedented power over Milwaukee County:

He actually kept saying that for the next six hours straight.

Lena Taylor Does Two-Faced Two-Step On Usurpation Law

After the signing of the Plutocracy Law, giving Milwaukee County Executive Emperor Chris Walker Romney Abele unprecedented power, State Senator Lena Taylor (DINO-Milwaukee) tried to put some distance between her and herself.  From her press release:

Senator Lena Taylor (D-Milwaukee) issued the following statement following Governor Walker’s signature today on AB 85, the Milwaukee County Board Bill.

“Today marks the end of a long process by which AB 85 became law. This bill, as it is now signed, is better than the original bill proposed by the majority party. Milwaukee citizens should take note of serious changes that were made to better protect the balance of power in our county. Some of these changes include:

• The Supervisors salary will be set at the per capita income (approx. $24,000) rather than $15,000, IF the referendum in adopted.
• An independent research office created in the Comptroller’s office to protect independent analysis of issues.
• Restrictions on the ability of the county executive to compel a special meeting of the board.
• Added language protecting the ability of supervisors to interact and communicate with departments. 
• Statutory regulation requiring the purchase and sale of assets comply with county policy, as set by supervisors.
• An exemption of fixed costs, such as rent and legacy costs from the county board’s budget cap.
• Both the county executive and county board will have at least one lobbyist reporting to each.”

“This is not a perfect law and there are provisions that I believe need to be addressed in follow-up legislation. However, this bill is a better product, because in this time of great partisan divide, we negotiated and accomplished changes in law rather than just firing press releases back and forth at each other.”

Have you ever seen anyone work so hard to polish a turd?

No matter what she says, the facts are the same.  She has helped remove democracy and representative government from her own constituents as well as everyone else in Milwaukee County.  She helped put a plutocratic tyranny in place.    

What Taylor is doing is trying to have her cake and eat it too.

One one hand, she is claiming that she made the law better, but wouldn't show up for the photo ops and says it needs fixing.  But then again, she had no problem partying it up with her new fascist friends.

On the other hand, she says the laws is bad and needs fixing, but had sponsored it and voted for it.

She can't have it both ways. She made her bed and now she can lie in it. Besides, she'll need a place once the voters remove her from office, as she so richly deserves.

Abele Is Paying New Parks Director $140,000 To Spin Off, Privatize Parks

On Thursday, Milwaukee County Executive Emperor Chris Walker Romney Abele  announced that he was hiring John Dargle to be the new Parks Director.

At the time, I noted something that was conspicuous by its absence - no one was talking about how much Dargle was getting paid.  I felt it important to know, since Abele is getting the county sued for paying women less for doing the same job as their male predecessors.

So I sent a Open Records Request to Abele's office asking for Dargle's salary.

Abele's passive aggressive spokesman, failed TV reporter Brendan Conway, sent back the following email on Friday:

In case the gentle reader has difficulty making it out, here it is again:

Charles,*

In response to your request, Mr. Dargle will be paid $140,000.

Brendan Conway
Communications Director
Office of County Executive Chris Abele
Phone:  414.278.5281
Cell: 414.394.7710

According to the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel's Data on Demand, Sue Black, Dargle's predecessor, made $126,990 in 2011:

Click to embiggen

Dargle is getting paid more than $13,000 more than Black did doing the same job and having the same credentials.  The only difference is that Dargle is a man and Black is a woman.

Update: Per this MJS article, Abele gave Black another raise just before he fired her, putting her salary after many years of service at about the same level as Dargle's starting pay.

I don't know about you, gentle reader, but I am starting to see a real pattern here.

Then again, it might not be just gender involved with the fact that Abele is paying Dargle so much money.  It could be that Dargle comes from a Parks Authority, meaning that they had spun the parks off into a quasi-privatized agency already.  And spinning off the parks into such an entity has long been one of Abele's and GMC's many goals.

If your thinking that this might be no big deal, look at how well it worked out for New York City:

When New York began relying on public-private parks partnerships following the fiscal crisis of the seventies, the idea was that private philanthropic groups would pick up the slack. And they did. Groups like the Central Park Conservancy, the Prospect Park Alliance, and the Bryant Park Corporation rose to respond to that crisis. But the city’s newest parks, paid for and operated largely by nonpublic dollars, are girded tightly by their private patrons.

The High Line was invented as a park by Friends of the High Line, which raised $44 million in donations and helped select the design. Celebrity endorsements (Edward Norton, Diane Von Furstenberg), caps on visitor attendance, adjacent real-estate development, and a dense police presence compared to other parks have all contributed to the appearance of something less than fully public. Elsewhere, the Parks Department has met with a local interest group called Coalition for a Better Washington Square Park, which offered to hire its own security and maintenance forces for the newly renovated green. Parks turned them down but did “discuss the designs of the next phase of renovation.” And in order to build the $350 million Brooklyn Bridge Park, the Brooklyn Bridge Park Development Corporation, a public agency, is using the private developers of luxury condos like One Brooklyn Bridge Park to pay for the maintenance of its public front yard (never mind what’ll happen if the condos don’t sell).

Expect more of the same. “What’s happening on a basic level is that the city does not feel that parks are its responsibility anymore,” says Geoffrey Croft, president of NYC Park Advocates. “But every community deserves to have healthy parks, not just ones that have wealthy benefactors.”

[...]

But more and more private control — you can purchase time in a “public” basketball court for a fashion show, as happened in May with designer Joseph Abboud in Greenwich Village, or pay to park a branded exhibition in Central Park, as Chanel did last fall — has become the norm. The question is how much more that means. “While privatization has brought some very good management techniques, like at Bryant Park, the nice thing about it so far is that we don’t have ‘Exxon Bryant Park,’ ” says Christian DiPalermo, the executive director of New Yorkers for Parks. Well, not yet.

So yes, it's very conceivable that we will be paying for the parks twice - once through our taxes and again as a user's fee.

That's how Abele defines efficiency.

*Do you suppose he calls Abele Charles or just Chuck? Oh, and this immaturity is what is passing for leadership in Abele's administration. Explains a lot, doesn't it?