Carla, Why don't you quit posting about this guy? Ignore him. Make him the inconsequential zero that he is. You are just feeding his egomania.

Actually, Measure 5 was necessary. And it wasn't from Sizemore, it was from Don McIntire. Sizemore followed up with Measure 50 which was the measure that screwed the pooch.

People were being taxed out of their homes before Measure 5, particularly retired people.

I can understand that if you see a case of secondary syphilis, it's hard not to say, "oooh, what a horrid mass of syphilitic sores", but the cause is more relevant.

How about some meat, as to the causes, like evangelicals getting knee jerk support from a $ vocal minority, or the initiative process, or, like anything that would be more than, "oooh, Sizemore; isn't he gross"!

Yes, he is. If I were a 19th century psychologist I'd do a lecture on how he is the physical template for a certain kind of sociopath.

Wonder how the public employes forced him to cheat on his taxes?

If they didn't force him then he should have no problem being acquitted, Right?

"People were being taxed out of their homes before Measure 5, particularly retired people."

A great myth. No one was being taxed out of their homes.

Mrs. Sizemore needs to hire a firm of attorneys with expertise in both divorce and innocent spouse tax law.

So that P.O.S. "feels bad" that his wife was sucked into this by those mean people at the DOJ and the unions? B.S. He's been putting his wife at risk for a long time with his self-centered behavior. I disagree that we should ignore him because people forget far too easily what it was that he did in the past. He is a silver-tongued devil, and if you forget what he's already done, he will find a way to do it to you again.

Anyone have any statistics on how many criminal indictments ODOJ brings annually for tax evasion?

OK, I get the point that Sizemore is dead. Yes, he didn't file a tax return for 3 years, but we need to have an AG to grab headlines with this? I'd love to know how many other times Kroger (or Myers) went after individuals for not filing tax returns.

We've learned two lessons (actually 3):

1)For Sizmore - Do not take on the public employee unions or their lifeblood, higher taxes. 2)For any AG looking to get elected to a higher office - Do anything you can to get the pub employee unions favor. 3) Who calls the shots in this state. Here I thought they only had Teddy K sacred.

Instead of burning Sizemore in effigy why not use some sort of logical argument to show voters why they shoudl go for higher taxes?

So Steve Marx wants to let Bill Sizemore get away with breaking the law. I thought that republicans like Steve were all about locking up criminals and throwing away the key.

Poor ol' Bill Sizemore. After being a major public figure in Oregon in the 1990s, the voters turned down all of his 2000 ballot measures (maybe because there were so many of them on the ballot?) and then he ran into legal problems.

Oregon's AG has not lived in Oregon for a long time---that was an issue in the primary. As I understand it, he was prosecuting ENRON from 2002-2003. He first ran for office in 2008. Not exactly part of the Oregon political establishment.

I am getting really tired of hearing that public employee unions are evil and the rules that apply to everyone else don't apply to anti-taxers like Sizemore.

What brought Sizemore down was that ordinary folks (not just low level frontline workers like retail clerks who got tired of voting on all the ballot measures ("he should go out in the real world and get a real job like the rest of us"), but even some people who voted for a few of the measures and then wondered why this guy thought himself entitled to run ballot measures for a living and force the rest of us to vote on them began asking why there was one set of rules for everyone else and another set for Sizemore. ("I've decided Sizemore is only in it for himself, what is the best way to figure out which are Sizemore's measures so I can vote against them?" said one friend who has a small business.)

Just because he sees himself as powerful (it wasn't a union person who came up with the crack "he thinks he is king of Sizemoregon", it was an ordinary retail worker talking to friends) doesn't mean the rest of us are required to bow down and serve Sizemore because he says so.

The comment has been made that ordinary customer service workers would get in real trouble if they didn't answer any customer question (no matter how stupid) with courtesy and details, but Sizemore doesn't have to live up to that standard because he is Sizemore?

Steve Marx, what do you do for a living? Political operative? Being paid to write sarcastic things on blogs? Sales person? Business owner or manager? Or someone who wants the whole world to believe that unions are evil and Sizemore is infallible? And all good red-blooded Americans think Grover Norquist has done good things for this country?

While searching for something else on my computer, I found a story I had saved from 2002. Steve, if you want to, you can say the Oregonian is a lefty newspaper in the pocket of unions. But this appears to be a straight news.

Here are some excerpts, FWIW. Sizemore didn't take advantage of the tax amnesty, but that is the union's fault? Or someone gave Sizemore a dispensation which says he doesn't have to follow the rules everyone else follows?

News from the Oregonian

Improper Sizemore funding is alleged 12/08/02

DAVE HOGAN and JEFF MANNING

.............. Canceled checks and other records obtained by The Oregonian show how, since mid-1996, significant Oregon donors sent money to Americans for Tax Reform, which then contributed nearly $1 million to Sizemore and his Oregon Taxpayers United political action committee -- more than any other contributor.

As a result, only Americans for Tax Reform was named as a donor, and the original contributors were never revealed publicly. State attorneys say this violates Oregon's full disclosure law. An Oregon Department of Justice brief describes the arrangement as "a laundering scheme" to conceal the identity of donors supporting Sizemore's organization. .......... "Oregonians expect the campaign finance process to be transparent," said Victoria Cox, spokeswoman for the Justice Department. "The evidence in the trial seems to indicate this may not have been the case in the exchanges between Americans for Tax Reform and Oregon Taxpayers United."

Norquist has declined to comment on the case. Sizemore insists there was never a direct guarantee that Oregonians' money given to Americans for Tax Reform would be funneled to Oregon Taxpayers United. As for the donors, several who responded to The Oregonian said their contributions were meant for Norquist's group and not intended for Sizemore.

We can only hope that Sizemore will get community service in excess when he is serving his prison sentence for his crimes. It would take him a very long time to clean up the damage he has done to this state, I look forward to seeing him in prison. They can let him join work crews to clean up litter on the state's highways.

He will have a long time to think about what he has done. If he is so smart he would have stayed out of prison, stayed out of trouble, and been more effective at his deceptions. Fortunately Oregon is smarter then Bill Sizemore and his criminal enterprise.

"So Steve Marx wants to let Bill Sizemore get away with breaking the law."

Nice try - I don't think I said anything of the kind. My point was how many times has the AG initiated an action against an individual for ailing to file tax returns? I would have thought the Dept of Rev would treat this as any other peron who violates the law otherwise.

By all means if Sizemore broke the law, then Sizemore must pay. However, realize this is the same AG who could find nothing wrong with Sam Adams who basically suborned an election by lying.

"force the rest of us to vote on them"

I don't think anyone is forced to use their privilege of voting.

"this appears to be a straight news. "

Again, tellme how many times the AG goes after individuals who fail to file. There is the news story.

"Steve Marx, what do you do for a living?"

Self-employed. Pay 15% FICA, 24% Fed and 9% Oregon tax. See schools getting worse even after we give them 20% more in 2007.

"who wants the whole world to believe that unions are evil"

I didn't say that. What I am implying is that while they are not a majority of the popualtion (at least not yet), they pretty much have carte blanche with elected officials.

Unless you can tell me when they've ever done a perm give-back while most private-sector employees are getting hit with lower wages, benefits and now more taxes (since they will be the ones paying an increase in corporate taxes.)

While I abhor most of everything Sizemore has worked to achieve, he's obviously a gutsy guy, and I always stop and pay attention to what he's got on the burner. Now he seems to have been caught dead to rights, not only with his hand in the cookie jar, but this time even worse. But wait, he has an explanation. Just like all humans when we're caught misbehaving, he finds a way to explain things, this time claiming persecution by opposing political forces, so I think about this as it's possible. But to buy this you have to believe that such forces could overwhelm repeated judicial processes concluding his culpability. Still remotely possible these were all corrupt and flawed, but all in all, if anyone has been, this guy seems guilty as charged, and repeatedly so. Dick McQueen

MP--unless you buy into the idea that unions control school boards (if they actually did, wouldn't they insist on more accountability for central office district administrators with pay packages over $100,000?) your charge against Kroger sounds like either an ideologue or a clueless person.

Perhaps you should read Convictions: A Prosecutor's Battles against Mafia Killers, Drug Kingpins, and Enron Thieves by John Kroger

from your local library (unless you just think libraries are another of those wasteful government entities) or order it from a local business such as http://www.powells.com/biblio?isbn=9780374100155

A little earlier I wrote:

I disagree that we should ignore him because people forget far too easily what it was that he did in the past. He is a silver-tongued devil, and if you forget what he's already done, he will find a way to do it to you again.

And today Hasso Herring proves me right:

The persecution of Bill Sizemore has reached a new and odious stage with the indictment of him and his wife for tax evasion.

I guarantee you Sizemore has been talking with Hasso, and the man has forgotten all and succombed to Sizemore's charm. I wish he would go to Preemptive Karma where I used to write and search for articles on Sizemore. Maybe then he would realize what a gullible fool he is with this editorial.

Maurer & LT

The two of you are f'n idiots. I simply asked if this type of action was common because someone on another blog who was a lawyer with ODOR said they rarely brought indictments in these cases and you infer some attack on Kroger.

Try pulling your heads out of your arses for a minute and stop pretending to possess the ability to read peoples minds. You are failing miserably at it.

"we should definitely blame it on the proposed increse in the Oregon corporate minimum"

Instead of trying to re-frame, you should respond more directly. What I am saying is that there is a cumulatvie effective so when this tax comes along which consumers will pay, it becomes cut 945 out of 1000.

Implying that just one more little tax increase won't hurt since we're bleeding already isn't accurate either. You should don your critical thinking hat and read "Tipping Point" by Malcolm Gladwell.

In other words, it doesn't help the ordinary person since almost any upside in revenue is going to benefits just like the stimulus (remember that and how fast the B vanished?).

realize what a gullible fool he is with this editorial.

That presupposes that it's a question for him. This has a set, settled, done air to it.

"You should don your critical thinking hat and read "Tipping Point" by Malcolm Gladwell."

I think that the tipping point has been reached. The momentum since the eighties has been toward lower taxes, not higher. This momentum is playing out as demand for essential services rise. People wonder why corporations, which enjoy the benefits of educated healthy workers and safe communities, are only paying $10 a year. They don't like being blackmailed into a race to the bottom. They want their kids educated, they want their streets safe, they want they're parents to have the help they need to stay in their homes rather than sent to institutions. They see the Bankers Association dumping 100K into the fear campaign and wonder if they're using bail out money they got from out taxes. They feel a tipping point alright...

"The momentum since the eighties has been toward lower taxes, not higher."

I'd be willing to take the other side of that argument. I believe state revenues for Oregon have been going up way faster than inflation times population in the past 20 years or so.

<h2>I have yet to see comments to the effect that the tax evasion indictment is connected to his contempt charge last year. Filing was part of that and apparently he did not do it. (Paying estimated taxes doesn't count! If that was the case, anyone who had withholding wouldn't have to file...)I believe the court just followed up to make sure it was done. I don't believe there is any political vendetta. To think there is some large scale, left wing conspiracy to get him is laughable. That would mean a large number in collusion across agency lines. Not possible...And there are people indicted for tax fraud. Sometimes it says IRS is behind it, sometimes other agencies. Since they aren't running for governor or filing frivoulous ballot measures, they aren't newsworthy. But it does happen...</h2>