Anyone who thinks Salem lawmakers are "clean" has not been to one of their swinging orgies of beer, booze and "the ladies" at the cozy $750,000 condo high atop the KOIN Tower... owned by the... Oregon Liquor Industry!

On a clear night, you can see... things you do NOT want to see.

Reason No. 247 to take on Karen Minnis. Run Rob, run.

As hard as I was and can be on Wirth, I have to confess to my jaw dropping visibly on the MAX ride to work this morning as I read Duin's column. If true, that's a hell of thing.

In any case, when someone's in crisis, you don't "help" them by giving them more crap with which to cope.

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Yes, of course, Meanness DID 'take advantage' of Worthless, just like I 'took advantage' of 'my' dog tossing him out a second-floor window last night because I had a bad day at work.

But THAT's Animal Cruelty! Whereas what Meanness did is 'taking advantage' in ONLY psychological or poison-information cruelty -- deforming and bruising someone's brain does not leave visible injury.

Pills and substances put in our mouths is not the only way brains are damaged -- bad information determined to be substantive and so put in our ears is another way brains are damaged. Bad, wrong, lying information we 'hear' can damage the brain. By 'damage the brain,' I mean a brain scan image (MRI, PET), can show physical, (or anatomical, physiological) deformed brain structures. That means a neurosurgeon can look at such a brain scan and diagnose that there are abnormalities in the shape and size of the brain, and the 'doctor' (brain expert) can determine such diagnosis WITHOUT having met the 'patient' or knowing what drugs or bad information the patient has taken in. The 'proof' is in the gray-matter 'pudding,' so to speak.

Generally, people do not believe or understand or know that information a person takes in -- whether by listening to talk, watching movies, reading text -- changes the shape of the brain. Shapes of brain structures can grow enlarged, (think: pimple on the skin), grow shrunken, (skin analogy: too tight wedding ring), grow more or less neuron connections, called synapses, (analogy for the body's 'visible' surface: skin tag is 'more' growth, balding hair is 'less' growth). People don't generally know or understand that brain growths are like skin growths because the brain is out of sight, inside, (only in the last ten years have we had scan pictures of the brain as it is growing). And, people don't know what 'mass media' never tells us.

In (sort of) summary, brain scans show proof, ('proof' as in photography),of many 'known things' (facts) in folklore and idioms and figures of speech we have long talked with and conversed about. On the generic topic of 'mental illness.' (Many brain deformations are no more 'illness' than a skin wound is 'illness.' 'Mental injury,' like 'skin injury,' better denotes what I am talking about. Vaccines and medicines are NOT remedies for these brain 'injuries,' cell growth and time to 'heal' and repair are -- in the usual case.)

The language has the idiom "grief-stricken." In fact, a piece of the brain shrivels and becomes inactive from intense grief, affecting the mind in its thinking and therefrom the behavior in actions. The piece appears shriveled in a scan 'photograph' of it. Do note that the grief shriveling does not require the stricken one to be present to witness the deceased; they could be on the other side of the world and only get the news, the "information" that so-and-so has died, and the pining and keening and wailing and uncontrollable sobbing and shriveling can occur.

'Big news' might be that having 'big' effect on brain growth, 'little news' having lesser effect. However, information can change brain growth. (And, everyone would say "obviously," so can ingested drugs and toxic substances change brain growth.)

Now shifting to an informal terminology, albeit still 'true,' habituated or repetitive information makes denser, solid-er brain; information withheld or censored makes no-connection (fluffy?) brain.

To the point: Kicking my dog out the window IS animal cruelty, and popular (consensus) wisdom says that animal-abusing children grow up to be people-abusing adults -- because it is behavior from a brain deformity, there in youth, still there in adulthood. Like a birthmark.

Extreme rightwing information can build a brain deformed, the longer it is heard and the more it is the limited (from all counter-balancing) information. It is the same case with extreme leftwing information, but there is not such an epidemic of that, however there are instances.) Minnis 'took advantage' (abuse of power) against brain-injured Wirth, because Minnis 'doesn't think right.' Minnis believes religious dogma, has heard it for a long time, limits herself from any info contrary -- Minnis has a brain injury 'knot,' cannot think 'straight,' cannot acknowledge gay truth or atheist truth. (Similar deformity, more engrained, is seen in DeLay, Cheney, Dubya and added to his drug damage -- keep mindful of the fact that 'legal' prescription drugs also effect damage.)

People show brain injury when our intentional behaviors are mean and abusive to other people. Lars Larson is a high-profile example -- his brain is damaged. Additional, balancing information, and the time necessary for healing growth of brain connections, is the remedy. In some cases, palliative 'maintenance' drugs or behavior routines are useful, not to heal brain damage, rather, to mitigate the behavioral expression of brain deformations.

Each of us is not normal. Each of us is grown different and unique in some way. The brain does not stop growing, grows and changes throughout our life; the brain has the most plasticity of any part of the body.

In most careers and endeavors of our lives, small and subtle brain differences do not amount to much. Large psychopathic differences are more problematic in society or in private life. Any 'thought' difference is magnified in its affect when it is applied in politics and makes laws upon everyone else.

Lawmaking is a special career. Not all people grow severely unbalanced brains during their lives; a 'lucky' few lead uninjured lives rich and abundant in experience and variety of experience. Such rare cases, in maturity, make refined statesmen and righteous judges, and are properly encouraged in it or called to it. Not Wirth. Not Minnis. Not Larson. Not Cheney. Not not not ... because that's the usual cases, your case and my case; the 'yes' case for politicians, statecrafters, diplomats and justices -- some say 'tribal elders' or 'old and wise' -- is, as I said, 'rare,' quite rare, it is the unusual case.

All of this informs and connects with this thought: Duin's column included these various phrases and ideas -- "incapable of fulfilling her legislative duties;" "divorce and death ... drained, detached and depressed;" "'closing off the points of contact';" "legislators ... reluctant to confront the failings of their peers, even when those failings threaten the integrity and stability of Capitol politics." These refer to drug- (divorce- and death-) damaged Wirth. The point here is they also refer to experience- and information-damaged Minnis. Equally visible, equally real. Political extremism is thought uncomprehending of human nature, humankind.

We have brought ourselves wonderful opportunity to discuss brain injury and brain-behavior relationships, increasing information among ourselves and through mass media, in the legislature's enactment of 'equal treatment' for 'mental illness' in Workers' Comp and Oregon Health Plan insurances. For starters: What IS mental illness? Malific abuse 'taking advantage' of political power is mental illness, isn't it?

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Maybe they hoped Kelly would rise to the occasion?

Really this shocked tone is downright comical. Sure go after Minnis because she allowed a meth addicted Democrat to serve on some committees.

She'll just keep reminding district that it was a meth-addict DEMOCRAT that they are complaining about.

And really, if the situations were reversed can you say a democrat house leader would have acted differently?

That's why it sucks to be in the minority.

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Malefic. Shit, damn brain damage.

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Sid Leader says

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Anyone who thinks Salem lawmakers are "clean" has not been to one of their swinging orgies of beer, booze and "the ladies" at the cozy $750,000 condo high atop the KOIN Tower... owned by the... Oregon Liquor Industry!

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True, ...but just out of curiosity, since when have Oregon's progressive Democrats ever had anything against booze-fueled swinging sex orgies in high dollar condos? Did I miss something? Was an official memo sent out or something? Just checking.

Did Minnis take advantage of Wirth?

Kelly Wirth is only a victim to herself.

Representative Wirth's constituents are the real victims.
Wirth took advantage of all of Oregon and worst of all failed to represent the voters who sent her to Salem.

Furthermore, Rep. Wirth could have turned the position down if she wasn't up to the task. Don't balme Minnis for the addicts crime.

Hey, Kari, can you put a word limit on these posts, so we don't have to scroll through dozens of paragraphs of incoherent babble? There's at least one post above that looks like one of my college term papers after a night cranked up on crystal (which, thankfully, I only did a couple of times).

Foxtrot, on the other hand, must be taking some kind of heart medication that reduces it to the size of a grain of sand.

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The corruption is bipartisan but with different stylings. Which may be interesting to compare, except that that runaway black locomotive -- oil depletion, ergo: war, famine, pestilence, disease -- at high speed bearing down on us means our death while we stand staring down between and comparing the two political rails guiding it at us.

[Gibberish about the U.N., Bill O'Reilly, and Spiro Agnew deleted. -Editor.]

You know what TA Barnfart? You sure have a lot of judgemental attitude for a sexually-repressed self-loathing homosexual that doesn't even have the balls to come out of the closet somewhere as liberal and gay-friendly as Oregon.

"Did Minnis Take Advantage of Kelley Wirth?"

I don't get it? Isn't that what she is supposed to do to the other side?

And isn't the other side supposed to see the problem and fix it? Of course the other side has not been fixing problems (including Goldshit) for years in Oregon.

Thanks JK

I think Jeff Alworth, TA Barnfart and TenSkwat should all get together and have a giant Crisco party. They'd have a better time than posting their gibberish here, and we'd all be spared their cyber pollution.

I'm a bit surprised at the shock about what Minnis did, and really hope it is merely feigned. It's called playing hardball, and it is routine among people who want to win. That's the way it works in the big world of politics, just like the big world of business. The Rs do it, the Ds do it, and even the Libertarians do it. I'm not saying I like that, but that's just the way it is. I saw the teachers' unions do it to Sizemore - and probably the same people dropping jaws over Karen Minnis were cheering the AFT and OEA. In a competitive world, life is tough, and often it is the most clever and ruthless who win. It will never change, so if it's too tough for you to handle, then you ought to get out of politics and into something a bit softer.

I'm not heartless but have had experience with addicts. As a friend and as an employer i have had to experience these same issues as the legislature and Kelly's family is now facing.

The stories about Rep Wirth's track records are classic meth addiction stories. What this world seriously needs is more emphasis on personal responsiblity. The worst thing you can do with an addict is allow them to play the victim, because they will.

I have also considered that she might not be a user and this is just a huge misunderstanding. The only problem with that is why aren't more people defending her. I also was disappointed to hear the governor only being conscerned with whether Rep Wirth was found guilty not whether she actually had a problem.

We are facing a meth epidemic; Gov Ted could have shown real leadership on this issue given the circumstances. He could have outlined how this issue is effecting every level of our society and how he's addressing this plague. Rep Wirth can still lead on this issue as well. If she is an addict, she can become an advocate for recovery, for what its taken from her, and that there is hope after addiction.

How EVIL is Minnis?

She put a well-known METH TWEAKER on three IMPORTANT committees knowing the poor gal was too busy scoring in the back of her pickup truck with the custodian to show up for work!

Minnis will pay the consequences, fer sure.

How EVIL is Minnis?

She put a well-known METH TWEAKER on three IMPORTANT committees knowing the poor gal was too busy scoring in the back of her pickup truck with the custodian to show up for work!

Minnis will pay the consequences, fer sure.

A sidenote:

Foxtrot13 said, "I also was disappointed to hear the governor only being conscerned with whether Rep Wirth was found guilty not whether she actually had a problem."

Hmmm... sounds a lot like the President's attitude about the Rove-Libby leak of an undercover CIA agent's identity.

From a recent Helen Thomas column: "Bush had indicated previously that anyone involved in leaking information about the identity of the undercover CIA officer would be terminated. After it was revealed that Rove and Libby were involved, Bush changed the rule for unacceptable conduct. The new rule is that anyone who 'committed a crime' would get pink-slipped." Read the whole column here.

Regarding the question of whether or not the shock at this is feigned, this boils down to something fairly simple. The question isn't whether such things happen, and on both sides of the aisle. The question is do we want this to happen. I don't give a flying f#@% who does what and from which party: crap behavior is crap behavior and crooked is crooked. If the end-goal of politics is "winning," it's a small frickin' wonder we've got a crooked system. If Wirth was clearly screwed up, it's shouldn't be OK to foist additional responsibilities on her. That's just a no-brainer.

T.A. and Jeff - I agree with both of you. It shouldn't be OK. But it happens every day and I sure don't know how to stop it. I made a stand and it changed nothing at all. I debate this matter with myself all the time - is it better to be straight-forward and lose, being perceived as naive, or is it better to roll up your sleeves, get in the game, and leave your heart at the door? With a choice like that, is it any wonder most people opt out of political service and we get the kind of leadership we have? It's a self-perpetuating problem and because of human nature, I think it will continue as long as the human race exists.

Its not so clear that Wirth had a problem with meth. Salem is in a fishbowl and rumors fly pretty rapidly. If she had a publicly exposed drug problem more of us would have heard (journalists fall all over themselves to point out they already knew once a scandal erupts). Also, the democratic leadership would be just as much to fault as Minnis for letting her stay in the game.

And Wirth's scandal is nothing like Rove's scandal, though neither are excusable. Personal problems are different than political hardball though sometimes they intersect.

I read through all these posts (except for Tenskawata's, whose post I truly attempted to read but found it too peripatetic to follow) with an eye out for whether any of you blame Wirth for the fix she is in.

Nope. (Other than the rightie posters) You all think she is the victim and Minnis is the evil one for assigning her to some conference committees. That is pretty funny.

So you know for a fact that Minnis knew Wirth had a meth problem? Yeah right. I suppose Minnis knew and the D leadership didn't, right? Or you think the D leadership knew and they didn't intervene in any way?

Makes no sense. What Minnis no doubt knew was that Wirth had a crappy attendance record, and she could exploit that by putting her on these committees. Anybody think there is anything wrong with that? Then you are very naive.

What is wrong with exploiting the weaknesses of the other team? You all sit there and feign shock, and give Wirth a complete pass as if she is a victim. What a crock.

Hey - I know you all hate Minnis. But don't whip yourself into a frenzy over this one because all it will do is remind everyone that Kelly Wirth, Democrat legislator, was probably ramped up on meth for the good part of the 2005 legislative session while she skipped out on her job, pursued a love tryst with a capitol janitor (no doubt with many Clintonesque creative-cigar-uses sessions in her legislative office) ending in a tragic love triangle that resulted in her being run down by another probable meth-head in the capitol basement.

All this while the Democrat leadership sat idly by.

Go ahead and make an issue of it. The Republicans will thank you.

"Weaknesses of the other team"? So we shouldn't vote for individuals for legislature, only for members of the R team or the D team? What happens if someone gets elected as an independent?

You all think she is the victim

Let me be very clear. Doyle has been convicted and now the process is in the sentencing phase. Anyone who had contact with the legislature could see Wirth was having problems. Neither enhanced the reputation of the House.

A friend and I were talking last night about how in the 1980s members stood up to remedy a situation if there was a problem. But the Steve Duin column yesterday basically portrays a dysfunctional House.

As a prosecutor's granddaughter, I know anyone is innocent until proven guilty. Wirth had lots of problems but saying meth was found in her car while she was in the hospital is not the same thing as a jury verdict. It is clear that anyone walking with a walker has mobility problems. Last I heard there has not yet been an indictment for drug possession. I do think it is wise that someone who has mobility problems along with many other problems shouldn't be serving in the legislature --they should be solving their own problems.

Do we pay legislators to solve problems for the state, or are we paying them to play team sports like hardball?

But I do think any Speaker should assign fully functioning members to conference committees, not people whose lives are obviously falling apart.

And I do think Bev Clarno and Vera Katz were higher quality Speakers than Snodgrass or Minnis could ever hope to be. So what "team" does that put me on--the team which looks for quality ?

Just in case anyone was interested in the facts (unlike Mr. Duin), of the three conference committees that Rep. Wirth was appointed to last session, one committee never met (this requires the consent of the appointed co-chairs; if they can't agree, they don't meet), the other two did. Rep. Wirth was in attendance for all of those meetings.

Becky writes:

I saw the teachers' unions do it [play hardball] to Sizemore ...

Details, please? Specifically, how did this action compare to Minnis' "load to failure" tactic?

Can we please get away from the idea that all politics in this state consists of 2 teams and spectators?

I wonder how much experience Becky has around the sort of ordinary folks who work in retail or other service industries. The sort of people who are required to answer every question with a smile on their face and always know the details.

I worked at such a job for over a decade and knew people really hostile to those like Sizemore who badmouthed everyone who disagreed with them (parents in a march for school funding were "dupes of the teachers union" for instance)and never seemed able to answer detailed questions. And make no mistake about it, retail is "the private sector" although the paychecks contain the name of the company, not "the private sector".

There was a comment earlier that implied Republicans are a team and Democrats are a team and thus Wirth was a member of the D team. That is as silly as Becky's claim:

"Becky writes:

I saw the teachers' unions do it [play hardball] to Sizemore ... ".

Don't kid yourself, Becky. The people I knew worked with in a retail setting were thrilled by the following: 1)court ruling that private businesses could shoo petitioners off their property, esp. if they were bothering the customers. 2)unions going after Sizemore in court. As in, "At Last SOMEONE had the resources to take on that guy!".

Sizemore was making his living on ballot measures and doing all sorts of strange things with money and people who worked in stores and sometimes had to deal with nasty customers were supposed to believe that Sizemore shouldn't have to "go out in the real world and get a real job like the rest of us"? It wasn't unionized public employees who came up with the nicknames like Buffalo Bill Seizemore or cracks that he thought he was king of Sizemoregon.

LT - I actually couldn't agree with you more on the "teams" issue. I've said the same thing myself so many times.

I will assume that you didn't realize my relationship with Sizemore. I'm very jaded at the moment and terribly disappointed, as a former Republican, seeing everything I believed in my whole life made a mockery of by the likes of Dan Doyle, Karl Rove, Tom Delay, and all the rest of the Rs whose lying and manipulating are finally being exposed.

By the way, I actually have a lot of experience with the ordinary working folks. I've been one my whole life. I'm fortunate to work with groups like the US Small Business Administration on educational programs that help small businesses stay competitive against corporate giants and franchises. My heart is with these everyday people and I'm really proud of my work.

I've been on both sides of the Sizemore issue, so I can tell you that just as you heard a lot of working people badmouthing him, I've also heard a lot of them singing his praises. He was very good at saying what people wanted to hear. Just like Rush Limbaugh, Sizemore gave people a snapshot of the issues that reinforced (and capitalized on) what they already believed - and earned him a nice living (as well as access to easily pilfered funds). Public figures OUGHT to work to educate people rather than to reinforce uneducated points of view, but that isn't usually what happens.

I will not get into a laundry list of the ways the unions played hardball with Sizemore. I did not see lawbreaking, but they pushed the lines, played it smart and devious, and took advantage of his weaknesses to win. I know this to be true. You can believe it or not. You and the "ordinary folks" will no doubt say it was for the greater good and you might be right. I think a lot of people who truly believe God will punish America if we condone gay marriage also believe that what Karen Minnis did was for the greater good. In fact, I've heard a lot of people defend Sizemore because they believe what he did was for the greater good. For my part, I don't like that kind of behavior no matter who does it, but I'm willing to accept that it's part of reality until the law is broken. That's why I came to the point where I had to speak out about OTU. It finally broke through my thick skull that things had gone beyond playing hardball. Sometimes I can be a little slow.

Kari, thank you. It's just that when I see that the same thing is continuing with the same kind of dirty hardball politics and lawbreaking going on I wonder sometimes what the point of it was. But after thinking on it I realize we're each like a rock in a dam - alone, we can achieve nothing, but if we all do our part we can stop the flood.

I will assume that you didn't realize my relationship with Sizemore. I'm very jaded at the moment and terribly disappointed, as a former Republican, seeing everything I believed in my whole life made a mockery of by the likes of Dan Doyle, Karl Rove, Tom Delay, and all the rest of the Rs whose lying and manipulating are finally being exposed.

Yes Becky, I know who you are. And I am someone who was an active Democrat who registered NAV for 6 years in disgust of "how the game is played" politics, have worked with indep. candidates in the past and might well do so again.

My grandfather was a crusading anti-machine Republican (a cross between McCain, Hagel, Jim Jeffords). It is time to demand all politicians show us their vision and their reform proposals because the system needs reform.

A friend and I were talking last night about politicians who engage in exchanges with ordinary voters and who show civility and common sense. Too few of those.

The facts are (1) no one ever has to serve on a conference committee if they don't want to, and (2) as a Democrat Wirth's vote was meaningless. House Conference committeees are 2 Republican and 1 Democrat, just like in the Senate they are 2 Democrat and 1 Republican. She didn't need to be on the conf committee if she didn't want to, and no pressure on the vote.

Kelly had some awful problems, but they were her own, not from Minnis. Steve is helping the cause, but not being a journalist.

Has everyone forgotten that there has been no statement from Rep Kelley Wirth and that a women tried to murder her? I thought that in American we were innocent until proven guilt. You critics are so hasty to come to a conculsion - I suggest we that we no longer cast any more stones, but watch the story unfold.