Burnt Orange Report

Because picking on Oklahoma is too hard to resist...

By Byron LaMasters

If I weren't from Texas, I'd probably be a little bit more judgemental about Oklahoma, but Texas politics is sufficiently screwed up, that I can't really get on their case.

Seriously, though, from almost electing right-wing nut Steve Largent as governor, to the horny judge to the U.S. Senate candidate Tom Coburn (R-OK) who believes that abortion doctors should be executed after having performed two abortions himself - Oklahoma has its share of craziness. Well, thank god Brad Carson is in the race, because the Independent candidate for the U.S. Senate seat almost makes Tom this-senate-race-is-about-good-versus-evil Coburn look sane. The Oklahoman reports:

Independent U.S. Senate candidate Sheila Bilyeu claims the federal government implanted a device inside her head in the 1970s and has sent messages for years to annoy her.

[...]

"Mean politicians ... have been after me for years and years and years," she said last week. "I know it sounds nuts, but it's true."

[...]

Bilyeu, 60, has repeatedly sued the U.S. government in federal courts in Florida, Virginia, California and Washington, D.C.

Most of those lawsuits also named former President Clinton and other politicians as defendants.

"It's like a little radio," she said of the supposed device in her head. "They can transmit in stuff and talk to me. It sounds like I'm a schizophrenic, but I'm not. Anyway, it has caused me a lot of trouble and pretty much ruined my life and so I've filed these lawsuits about that."

You can read the rest in the extended entry. It gets better. I swear!

Bilyeu was born in Oklahoma in 1944 and graduated in 1966 from Oklahoma State University with a home economics degree.

Bilyeu filed for the Senate seat from Virginia. She has since returned to Oklahoma and said she is looking for inexpensive housing.

She said she "has been sleeping in my car for much of the last 10 years and living below the poverty line because of politics and greed."

She also ran for U.S. president this year as a Green Party candidate and for governor of Texas in 1986 as a Democrat.

She calls herself an educator and political activist. She said she has campaigned for independent presidential candidate Ralph Nader.

She said she last worked an education job as a school counselor in Ponca City in the 1992-1993 school year. She moved from there to Florida and later to Virginia.

Judges dismissed all her lawsuits against the federal government. Judges wrote they were hard to understand.

In her D.C. lawsuit, U.S. District Judge Richard W. Roberts wrote in 2001: "Plaintiff has filed a narrative, stream-of-consciousness complaint that, as best as I can tell, revolves around the plaintiff's belief that a conspiracy led by President Clinton has implanted a transmission device in her head, 'gassed' her and stolen her dog."

In California, a U.S. magistrate last year said Bilyeu's allegations of "a vast conspiracy of powerful people" were far-fetched and vague.

The magistrate, Carla Woehrle, noted that Bilyeu asked in the lawsuit "that the 'device' be removed by doctors who are not part of the conspiracy, that she be protected by 'good authorities,' that she receive damages of $50 million or whatever is fair, and that her dog be found and returned to her."

In the 1990s, Bilyeu unsuccessfully sued Ponca City schools, game show host Alex Trebek, CBS anchor Dan Rather and others.

She would not discuss her lawsuit against Trebek. She said Rather did not use her name on the news, but "was making insinuations about me -- that I was a whore or something."

Her lawsuit against Ponca City schools alleged educators there were part of the "evil political conspiracy" against her.

She has appealed some cases to the U.S. Supreme Court.

"I found that there are a lot of corrupt judges that don't really care about justice. And justice is one of my really big issues. I think there are a lot of those judges that need to be weeded out," she said.

She claims she has been targeted by conspirators because she was born with a "V" mark on her head and was known as the "victory baby." She said politicians have tried to stop her from running for office because they fear she will "mess up their ... power and their money."

She said the device was stuck in her head during an operation in the late 1970s at a military base in Arizona.

She said things got worse while Clinton was president because she spoke out against him. She said she was gassed in her apartment and in her car.

"You can't even believe all the equipment they can use on somebody that they don't like," she said.

She said she has never been in a mental hospital. But she would not say if she has ever been under a psychiatrist's or psychologist's care.

She said the CIA or a rogue unit use satellites to transmit the messages -- mostly "put downs" -- inside her head. Asked during an interview the time of the last transmission, she said, "Today."

"I really think it's political," she said. "I think the Clintons are out to get me. ... Somebody still is. Somebody is still funding the unit that is transmitting."

She said she is running for Senate largely because she is against the war in Iraq.

"We've wasted a lot of young people's lives and billions ... of dollars that should have been used back here on health care and all kinds of things that we needed," she said.

"I really do care about this country and want it to get back on track like it's supposed to be."

She admits she was thrown in jail in 2000 for sleeping in her car in a church parking lot in Virginia. "That whole deal was part of the conspiracy," she said.