VIDEO: Bill Schmalfeldt’s Dishonesty About His Parkinson’s

This is the latest post in what I half-jokingly call The Kimberlin Saga^®.  If you are new to the story, that’s okay! Not everyone reads my blog.  The short version is that Kimberlin has been harassing me for over a year, his worst conduct being when he attempted to frame me for a crime.  I recognize that this might sound like an incredible claim, but I provide video and documentary evidence of that fact; in other words, you don’t have to believe my word.  You only have to believe your eyes.  So, if you are new to the story, go to this page and you’ll be able to catch up on what has been happening.

So Bill Schmalfeldt is will have some charges dropped (more on that next week, but Mr. Hoge's charges remain in place), but he is still facing a final peace order hearing  related to his harassing conduct and I wanted to share with you a quick vignette about just how dishonest he is about his Parkinson’s.

Now let me start by clarifying.  I do not doubt that he has Parkinson’s.  I have seen him using his walker first hand and I don't entertain for a moment the idea that he is faking that.  But what I object to is his using the disease falsely to excuse his criminal conduct.

He has declared, for instance, on the radio that because he has Parkinson’s that these charges against him represent an effort to literally kill him.  There are of course several things wrong with that.  First, it assumes that I, Lee Stranahan or John Hoge knew for a fact that stress can harm the health of a person who suffers from Parkinson’s.  There is a wide gulf between knowing a person has a disease and becoming an expert on it.  I can’t speak for them, but truthfully I don’t know a whole lot about the condition, except that it can be significantly debilitating.  Second, since he has actually engaged in the conduct complained of, if he has stress endangering his life, there is no one to blame for it but himself.  Seriously, if you have a condition that makes it dangerous to experience stress—including the stress of being charged with a crime—why on earth would you crawl in bed with a convicted terrorist and then issue threats against his enemies and harass them in general?  Is that a route to a stress-free life?  Next I suppose he will join the Columbia Cartel, for relaxation purposes.

But lying about his condition is simply despicable and that is apparently exactly what he did in this clip from his show.  In it he is discussing how he managed to set up an “email intereview” with Lee Stranahan, before Lee apparently caught on to his dishonesty.  So Lee suggests a phone call and that is where we pick up on his story on his radio program:

And as you can hear, Schmalfeldt explains that his Parkinson’s makes it very difficult to use the phone... as he explains, on his radio show.

That is right, he is claiming that the Parkinson’s makes it very difficult to use a phone while talking on a radio show.  I mean, sometimes disability accommodation requests are quite counter-intuitive but really?  He can talk on his show for well over an hour at a time with no trouble.  So what is the difficulty in calling Lee?  Indeed most cell phones have the ability to speak on speaker phone built right in if holding it to his ear is an issue, and a simple headphone and microphone set costs only a few bucks at Target.  And voice dialing is available if he has trouble dialing it by hand.  Or he could just ask Lee to call him, and then pick up the phone.  No, try as I might, I can’t see how it could possibly be the case that a radio talk show host should be unable to do a phone call.  Especially given that he often has guests on the show, by phone.

No, folks, Schmalfeldt was lying to Lee, and I suspect his real purpose was to allow someone else to feed the questions directly to him in their emailed “interview.”

As a person who suffers from my own disabilities, there is nothing lower, in my opinion, than a disabled person who improperly invokes his or her disability to gain favors they are not entitled to.  Indeed, when I was first dealing with my attorney, Reginald Bours, when Brett Kimberlin attempted to frame mefor a crime and before I knew there was video exonerating me, I said to him that I did not want him to make any argument of diminished capacity based on my disabilities.  “I don’t want you to argue that somehow my disabilities make me less culpable or less mentally capable or anything like that.  They don’t have that effect and I will not slander the millions of people with my disabilities by having you suggest they do.  I would rather be falsely convicted than acquitted based on my disabilities.”  Bours hadn’t even suggested that argument, but I wanted to be clear in case it occurred to him.

Mind you, every time Mr. Schmalfeldt comes to court, I would hope that authorities will ensure that he is accommodated as he will need to be.  If he goes to prison, I hope they would accommodate him there, too.  But to pretend to Lee that he can’t talk on the phone, when plainly he can is simply dishonest.  And to come to court and pretend he shouldn’t be held accountable for his harassment of others just because he is disabled, is nothing less than despicable.

And the reason why it is despicable is that it harms every other person with the same disabilities.  Over the last few years, for instance, the race card has been falsely used so many times that it has become a punch line among conservatives to say something is racist.  Or “raaaaacist” as the joke goes.  And while that is understandable, and indeed I have made that joke myself, what we risk forgetting is that racism really does exist.  My wife has at times been the victim of racism.  Heck, I have been the victim of anti-Semitism despite not being Jewish, which is not the same as racism, but it is nearly as dumb.

Likewise, disability prejudice really does exist, and institutions really do fail to accommodate.  I have written about that here myself.  I would go as far as to say that Mr. Schmalfeldt has probably faced the sting of discrimination based on his disability, if not in terms of ordinary discrimination, then in a form of a failure to accommodate his disabilities.  It seems like a good bet judging by what I know.  And every time he falsely invokes his disabilities, he sets back the cause of the entire disability movement.

And that is despicable.

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Disclaimer:

I have accused some people, particularly Brett Kimberlin, of reprehensible conduct.  In some cases, the conduct is even criminal.  In all cases, the only justice I want is through the appropriate legal process—such as the criminal justice system.  I do not want to see vigilante violence against any person or any threat of such violence.  This kind of conduct is not only morally wrong, but it is counter-productive.

In the particular case of Brett Kimberlin, I do not want you to even contact him.  Do not call him.  Do not write him a letter.  Do not write him an email.  Do not text-message him.  Do not engage in any kind of directed communication.  I say this in part because under Maryland law, that can quickly become harassment and I don’t want that to happen to him.

And for that matter, don’t go on his property.  Don’t sneak around and try to photograph him.  Frankly try not to even be within his field of vision.  Your behavior could quickly cross the line into harassment in that way too (not to mention trespass and other concerns).

And do not contact his organizations, either.  And most of all, leave his family alone.

The only exception to all that is that if you are reporting on this, there is of course nothing wrong with contacting him for things like his official response to any stories you might report.  And even then if he tells you to stop contacting him, obey that request.  That this is a key element in making out a harassment claim under Maryland law—that a person asks you to stop and you refuse.

And let me say something else.  In my heart of hearts, I don’t believe that any person supporting me has done any of the above.  But if any of you have, stop it, and if you haven’t don’t start.