Crook County: Anti-free speech Toni Taxwinkle suing anti-tax group for $17 million

I live in Illinois' Cook County whose board president, Toni "Taxwinkle" Preckwinkle, is suing a group that is opposed to the latest of her tax schemes.

Preckwinkle, a former Chicago alderman, is a leftist Democrat who has entertained running for mayor.

From Crain's Chicago Business--paid subscription required:

In an action a judge said could have "a chilling effect" on government and citizens' rights, county attorneys are seeking $17 million in damages from the Illinois Retail Merchants Association, the group that, with a couple of co-plaintiffs, won a temporary restraining order delaying the levy by about a month.

Preckwinkle spokesman Frank Shuftan says seeking damages is appropriate: "Actions have consequences."

He added in an email: "The financial damage to the county as a result of this delay is projected at more than $20 million. . . .The county has every right to be made whole as a result of the judge's ruling upholding the ordinance and removing the TRO."

But Tanya Triche Dawood, general counsel for IRMA, said the group is not backing off and will pursue an appeal to reinstate the ban on the levy, which imposes a penny-an-ounce tax on soda pop and most other sweetened drinks.

Taxwinkle is a monster. This lawsuit is something you'd expect in Venezuela. Crook County residents are possibly finally waking up to the perils of one-party Democratic rule. Preckwinkle unseated unpopular incumbent Todd Stroger in 2010 in that year's Democratic primary--she ran on repealing a one-percent income tax hike Stroger and the Board of Supervisors put in place in 2008. The tax was phased out, but Preckwinkle and her Democratic lackeys on that board brought it back in 2015. That tax, as with the soda tax, is to pay for lavish but underfunded county employee pensions and to fund county-run Stroger Hospital, widely known as Cook County Hospital. That 464-bed facility, named after Todd Stroger's father, is popular among the county's large population of illegal aliens.

Cook County is a sanctuary county.

In 2014 Taxwinkle ran unopposed in the general election. Cook County hasn't had a Republican as board president in nearly 50 years.

Liberalism is very expensive.

As for myself, I'm often in Lake County. When I'm there I top off my gas tank and buy groceries.

Last month Illinoisans were clobbered with a huge income tax hike. Chicagoans pay the nation's highest sales tax rate.

Yet Crook County, Chicago, and Illinois are broke.