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Sean Morrison just can’t stop himself from lying
When you don’t have any real achievements or issues to advocate for, public officials like Cook County Board Commissioner Sean Morrison turn to the lies. They want to distract voters from the ugly truth of their failure with their Big Lies. Morrison is so afraid of Liz Gorman he can’t come up with one good idea, or explain his failings, like when it came to dealing with sexual predator and his company’s Senior Vice President, Anthony Martin. I think most voters are smart enough to see through Morrison’s lies about Liz Gorman, one of the most effective Republicans Cook County has seen in along time.
By Ray Hanania
I have never met a bigger liar in politics than Sean Morrison, the beleaguered Cook County Board commissioner who barely hung on to his seat in the Nov. 2018 election against Democrat Abdelnasser Rashid.
In a first time bid for office, Rashid nearly unseated Morrison, one of the weakest Republicans to hold countywide offices in decades. Rashid came within some 1,377 votes out of more than 121,000 cast. Had I not in my columns supported Morrison — who whined so frequently about us being “friends” — Rashid would have won the seat ending the Republican presence on the board.
Morrison had the backing of Liz Gorman, who held the seat for four terms until she stepped down and backed Morrison as her successor, so she could take a job in the private sector with Price Waterhouse Cooper, one of the nation’s top financial accounting firms. Republican Gov. Bruce Rauner saw that and asked her to head the Tollway as Executive Director. But Rauner was a weak governor and couldn’t work with anyone. Rauner got nothing done and basically decided to get out of politics.. He was easily ousted by J.B. Pritzker and as soon as Pritzker took office, he fired Gorman.
Gorman is a strong Republican. During her four terms on the Cook County Board, Gorman fought stubbornly against every tax hike that was proposed by the Democrats, including opposing the Stroger sales tax hike. When the Stroger Sales Tax Hike passed the county board, Gorman worked diligently to repeal the tax.
You have to remember that the county is controlled by the Democrats who have a veto proof Democratic block vote. But instead of surrendering, the way Morrison did when he whined about how he’s a lonely, useless Republican on the County Board to explain his ineffectiveness — he actually said that several times as his excuse for getting nothing done — Gorman was tough and stood up to the Democratic majority and she literally convinced the Democrats to reverse their vote and support her legislation to repeal Stroger’s tax.
She was persuasive and the Democrats joined her effort and repealed the sales tax hike that would have cost county taxpayers millions more in retail sales costs.
Morrison is afraid he will be defeated again so he made a critical mistake and decided to join the fake Republicans led by Orland Park’s far right wing Mayor Keith Pekau. He turned his back on Gorman who backed him at every turn and helped him build his career.
Gorman decided to run for her office again and now she has Morrison scared. But what issues does he have? He wasn’t betrayed by Gorman, a staunch Republican who he often praised highly. She stood by him until Morrison joined with Pekau who has had a vendetta against Gorman because she is a better Republican than Pekau could ever be.
Pekau hates Gorman because she reminds everyone what a successful Republican can be like. And, Gorman is a woman. Pekau demanded that Gorman step aside as Orland Township GOP Committeewoman so he could take control. She refused and Pekau launched his anti-Gorman war, believing Morrison who reportedly told people the job is “CommitteeMAN” not “CommitteeWOMAN.”
Pekau has achieved nothing but has launched a campaign to attack almost every single politician. That’s what loser politicians do when they can’t get anything done. They throw mud, make up lies and attack others personally to distract from their own failures.
So when Gorman announced she would run against Morrison to take back the seat and save the Republican Party — Gorman is the Committeewoman of Orland Township — Morrison was in shock. He didn’t know what to do. So he and Pekau came up with a plan. Lie. Lie. And lie more.
They said because Gorman succeeded in convincing Democrats to change their vote and repeal the Stroger Sales Tax, saving taxpayers millions, she is a “RINO” — a Republican in Name Only.
But voters love politicians who fight rising taxes, whether they are Democrats or Republicans so a they knew that Gorman would be a popular Republican in Democratic dominated and controlled Cook County. She could get things done in ways that Morrison and Pekau could not.
The next lie from Morrison and Pekau is the false claim that Gorman voted to allow Toni Preckwinkle to increase the Cook County Sales Tax.
That is about as big of a lie as you can possibly tell.
Then they falsely claimed that Gorman voted for more taxes on tobacco and alcohol. Another big lie.
Taxes were increased by the Democratic controlled county board, and they continue to increase even under Preckwinkle with Sean Morrison doing nothing. But Gorman fought against those tax hikes before turning the seat over to the whiny little Sean Morrison who, like Pekau, can’t get along with anyone.
Morrison lied that Gorman was “fired” from her job at the Tollway because of some made-up scandal involving cronyism. No. Gorman was fired by Democrat J.B. Pritzker who wanted to remove real Republicans from the state’s agencies.
Morrison published all of that in a flyer that he has been texting, emailing and mailing out to voters. You probably got one.
Ironically, Morrison claims he fought the soda tax, but that is another one of Morrison’s lies. The Soda Tax was blocked by the Democrats who control the board’s vote. All Morrison could do was vote with little influence on the outcome.
I don’t know about you, but I don’t want an official who only knows how to lie to represent us on the Democratic controlled Cook County Board. What I want is someone who makes the priority the taxpayers and fights for their rights, not a beleaguered whiner like Sean Morrison who has to run to the skirts of his benefactor, Keith Pekau, the master liar.
Morrison is motivated to lie because in this election, he has to answer for what he did to help Anthony Martin, the sexual predator who preyed on a 14-year-old girl at a pool party held at Morrison’s home. Martin was Morrison’s Senior Vice President for Morrison Security, and the woman whose daughter was targeted by Martin was the friend brought to the party by another Morrison employee who is out there lying about everyone, too.
If you want to read the truth about Morrison and Pekau, all you have to do is go to my website at www.Hanania.com where documents detailing what Martin did are there for everyone to read. It’s all a sordid, ugly tale that makes Morrison look even worse than a liar.
Morrison says I “work” for Gorman because I support her so much. I do support her, just like I support many other politicians I like who fight for the rights of the taxpayers. I skewer whiners like Morrison all the time, politicians who lie to try to stay in offices that they don’t deserve.
I also put my name on every opinion column I write, unlike many of Morrison’s and Pekau’s pals who don’t, and send things out anonymously. (Like the fake “Report” that they tried to get published on the Orland Patch defaming Gorman that the Patch removed several times forcing Morrison to send it out in an email blast. Lie after lie after lie.)
But in political journalism and opinion writing, you get used to the mud and the lies. Most important though is for the voters who deserve better from people like Morrison and Pekau.
Gorman is running for the 17th Cook County District seat and she is also running for re-election as Orland Park’s and Cook County’s most effective Republican Committeewoman in the June 28 Republican Primary.
You need to vote for her if you care about your property taxes or believe that you deserve services for the taxes you pay. Or that you believe that a Republican fighter on the Cook County Board can keep the Democrats from raising even more taxes.
(Ray Hanania is an award winning former Chicago City Hall reporter. A political analyst and CEO of Urban Strategies Group, Hanania’s opinion columns on mainstream issues are published in the Southwest News Newspaper Group in the Des Plaines Valley News, Southwest News-Herald, The Regional News, The Reporter Newspapers. His Middle East columns are published in the Arab News. For more information on Ray Hanania visit www.Hanania.com or email him at [email protected].)
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Hanania also writes about Middle East issues for the Arab News, and The Arab Daily News criticizing government policies in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.
Hanania was named "Best Ethnic American Columnist" by the New America Media in November 2007, and is the 2009 recipient of the SPJ National Sigma Delta Chi Award for column writing.
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