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April 03, 2006

Poor Billy Sizemore and his Poor Friends

Bill Sizemore’s latest editorial, decrying the use of racketeering statutes to pursue political criminal activity, is a real piece of work. His never-ending bullshit-shoveling and selective disclosure in an attempt to make people feel sorry for him is just too much to not check it out.

Bill begins with a sob story about three of his friends who, like him, have been prosecuted under civil racketeering statutes, and who now - snif! - are buried under a mountain of debt so high they’ll likely go to their graves owing millions.

Here is their crime: These three men protested at an abortion clinic in Portland, Oregon and were sued by the clinic under the corrupt practices act. Now they owe millions of dollars they can never pay. None of them can ever own a home or a car or have money in a bank account without risking having it seized by the clinic, which holds the judgments against them.

Waaah!

Billy, it’s time for your first reality check of the day. Your friends actually did engage in organized crime and people died because of it. Their conviction had nothing to do with protesting outside an abortion clinic. They posted a now infamous website called the Nuremburg Files, with photographs of “Wanted” abortion doctors that listed their “crimes against humanity.” The posters included personal information about them and their coworkers. Their Website appeared less than three years after a murdered abortion doctor’s photo had appeared on a similar “Wanted” poster. Your friends then signed a petition saying the murder was justifiable and calling for an acquittal. One year after that murder, another doctor (who had been featured on an “unWanted” poster for his “crimes against humanity”) and his escort were murdered by a man whom your friends had recently visited. Again, Billy, your friends signed a petition calling the murder justifiable and requesting acquittal for the murderer. After the Nuremburg Files Web site had been up for some time, an abortion doctor listed on the site was murdered by a sniper. Subsequently, the site displayed his name crossed out. Billy, I know it is hard for you to admit it, but a series of criminal activities occurred here and your friends were a part of it.

Yes, I know your friends received a very harsh punishment, but really it was better than being locked up for life, don't you think? I guess you don't:

They could have burglarized 50 houses and been penalized less that these men have been penalized for protesting at an abortion clinic.

If they had merely engaged in “protesting at an abortion clinic” you might have a point, Billy. But four murders and public calls for more are a bit over the line. Whether you are just misled or you are misleading (my bet is it's the latter), I will concede you throw a good pity party:

I know whereof I speak. I personally owe two teachers union in Oregon somewhere in the neighborhood of Four Million Dollars. In my case, I never even got a trial, something I used to believe was guaranteed by the U.S. Constitution. My crime? I placed measures on the ballot that would have required labor unions to obtain an employee’s written consent before taking money out of his or her paycheck for political purposes.

Billy, again you need a reality check. You, with the assistance of your trusting staff (I know because I was one of them, as I'm sure you remember), on multiple occasions cheated on taxes, knowingly filed false campaign finance reports, knowingly submitted forged signatures on petitions, and repeatedly laundered money – and nearly all of it was at your direction and with your knowledge. And you delighted in the fact that you cost the unions millions of dollars that prevented them from pursuing other issues on their agenda. I won't bring up the lengthy list of other bad behavior on your part, but I must point out one more pertinent fact. I think if you look through your checkbooks from 1998 to 2001 and whip out your handy calculator you will find, as I did, that you managed to pilfer hundreds of thousands of dollars out of the organization for your own personal use. Yes, I know you claimed it was legal - just like getting four abortion doctors killed is merely an "abortion protest" and committing a series of financial and campaign finance reporting crimes is merely "putting a measure on the ballot."

Poor embezzling, lying, cheating Billy. All that hard work to get all that money and now you don’t get to keep it:

Last summer, my wife and I sold a rental property, the only one we owned, and the unions used their judgment to seize all of the equity proceeds I had coming from the sale. Ouch!

Ouch, indeed.

Posted by Becky at April 3, 2006 04:18 PM