Why is John Minnis trying to suppress Rob Brading's free speech rights!?

The Minnis' focus on the technicality of whether or not they had a legal duty to report - when clearly they had a moral and an ethcial duty to report it! Yep, ok, weasel out on a technicality - if they are even correct in their assertion.

I'm not buying that John Minnis verbally reported it. BS. How many times have you reported something to the police and it generated zero paper trail? Not one form? Nothing? No records whatsoever? Come on! Certainly they don't expect us to buy that.

I am afraid this ad is overreaching. Do we really have to accuse Karen Minnis on the basis of how, presumably, her husband settled a disputed claim involving the actions of the manager of their pizza place..whom they demoted even though he was a relative. This sounds like a Republican ad...This is from the same campaign that did the "faith-based" ad. Cant we be different...and not a mirror image of the religious right that bashes and smears ? I am getting soooo turned off and I am a good Democrat.

The most important defense to an action for defamation is "truth", which is an absolute defense to an action for defamation. ...

Under the First Amendment of the United States Constitution, as set forth by the U.S. Supreme Court in the 1964 Case, New York Times v Sullivan, where a public figure attempts to bring an action for defamation, the public figure must prove an additional element: That the statement was made with "actual malice". In translation, that means that the person making the statement knew the statement to be false, or issued the statement with reckless disregard as to its truth.

The paragraphs above are from this link.

John Minnis and Karen Minnis are public figures. And it looks like the facts are agains them - according to public records.

Also, the damages would be damages to the reputation - usually nil.

Sounds like John Minnis is going to sue for libel. Sounds like we will find out if the ad is accurate or not. Whether Rob wins or loses the campaign John Minnis is a private citizen and has a legal right to defend himself against these attacks if they are untrue and slanderous as he says.

Rob may win but this lawsuit could cost him his reputation and lots of money to boot.

Sounds like John Minnis is going to sue for libel.

But does he fall under the definition of "public figure" as a former legislator?

Some lawsuits like this at the end of campaigns have discovered that question is relevant, and all the pretrial investigations can turn up things previously not known about either side.

Do we really have to accuse Karen Minnis on the basis of how, presumably, her husband settled a disputed claim involving the actions of the manager of their pizza place..whom they demoted even though he was a relative.

Lets be clear. Karen Minnis is specifically named in the suit and the "relative" was her brother-in-law who was living with them at the time and for several months thereafter. At least if the information provided is correct.

Minnis was not required to report it to the police, he was supposed to report it to the state. There is a hotline for doing that. What she is alleging is an attempted forcible rape against a minor. It is actually pretty inconceivable that if Minnis did inform them that there wouldn't have been a follow-up.

My bet is that whatever suit is filed is dropped after the election. Minnis will be very hard pressed to prove that there was malicious disregard of the truth here. The only fact in dispute is whether Minnis reported it as legally required.

Could cost Brading his reputation? Such as it is, after Minnis' paid consultant Chuck Admas spent the last 3 months accusing Brading of being a child pornographer? Ok. Right. You weren't so worried about his reputation then, were you. Thanks for your phony concern, but save it.

Also, you've been watching too much Boston Legal. These plaintiffs are public figures - and public figures almost never win defamation cases. See NY Times v. Sullivan, above. This is just more intimidation and bullying by the Minnis', who have it down to an art form.

The article in the Oregonian says that John Minnis investigated the attempted rape allegations against his brother, and chose to believe this brother over the victim. Does anyone see anything very, very wrong with that?

This is a very sad commentary. Attacking people with these kinds of last minute ads just because we don't agree with their politics. The ad says he didn't report it at all. We find out he did report it orally. Now we say thats the same as not at all. What other facts didn't we have before we did this. What will we do if we find out the new Brading spot is not accurate. Deceiving ourselves won't change the truth. We are just as bad as the R's. Very, very, very sad. Post a comment

SAVE DEMOCRACY, VOTE FOR A DEMOCRAT!!

I dare say a $20,000.00 settlement for a grab ass seems excessive??

I dare say a police officer copping to a out of court settlement for something as serious as a sexual assault attempted on their business premise is a issue of character that is perfectly legitimate for a political campaign, and certainly with the santimonious Minnis.

I don't give much time to Republicans calling foul about campaign ads, when they place Karl Rove on a hollowed place in their party as this kind of ad, and worse is his bread, and butter.

This is the party that "Swift Boated." Swift Boat duty was among the most dangerous duty in Vietnam, John Kerry volunteered for this duty instead of being rotated to a peacetime duty station in a time of war. They lied about his valor in combat in the uniform of the USN in a time of war for their political gain. I don't think the Republicans have any voice or standing to decide what is appropriate.

"Bandaid Purple Hearts" displayed with purverse glee on the RNC National Convention floor during primetime national television coverage while men&women were dying in their war for political advantage. The Republican Party.

Happy Thoughts

Dan Grady

Joseph, its even worse. We're attacking Karen Minnis because she married a guy with a scumbag brother. Way to go, Blue Oregon. America is BEGGING for the Dems to provide an alternative. We respond with, "Sorry, guys... the best we've got is a weak possible technicality that isn't even against our opponent."

SAVE DEMOCRACY, VOTE FOR A DEMOCRAT!!

To those whom are to squeemish for this kind of fight, fine, don't. I would only ask that you stand aside for those who will, and keep you indignation to yourself unless there should be lies or distortions, then scream away.

Those who will fight, will fight the way they know, those who won't fight should have at least the stomach to stand aside, and stay out of the way.

Happy Thoughts;

Dan Grady

the anonymous authors, above, are clearly not lawyers. i am. any lawyer reviewing this ad before hand would have screamed "NO-GO". no weasel words save this one. we tried to out-republican the republicans, and have again done so to our own peril. this is an outstanding case for trial, so it would ordinarily be settled before hand. however, as political actors, no actual case will go forward. though the minnis's are public figures, the use of the accusation against karen as a peripheral actor was well outside the bounds of law and she may seek redress in a stronger position than john, though john does, under the know fact pattern, have ample grounds himself. the one sticky bit, is nobody had a duty to report if they just plain didn't believe it happened. there is an 800 number, but all that is required for a peace officer is to "kick it upstairs" to a higher pay grade, which an oral report is just find for. sticky, in that if he did report (even orally) he had to have some inkling that a duty existed, while belief in an obvious fiction would have produce no duty. interesting, but i think more of a dance due to subject matter than substance.

short story: we shot ourselves in the foot/face with this ad

personally and politically stupid

Can we all please stop being such pansies? Do you think for one second Rs would cut any of our guys any slack over something like this? Go on over to the NW Republican blog and have yourself a read. A recent commenter wrote "the only good democract is a dead democrat." I don't know about you but I don't think they would be worried about it. I say it's time we all grow some ball and expose Minnis for the horrible person that she is.

Re the libel lawsuit - BRING IT ON, John. Remember, the standard of proof of libel for a public figure is very high (NY Times v. Sullivan, as stated above), and truth is an absolute defense.

Why are you so squeamish about attacking that homophobic scumbag who gut-and-stuffed SB 1000 to pacify the Christofascist fundamentalists, and whose hitman Chuck Adams has hurled tons of Christofascist sleaze at Brading?

She deserves anything we throw at her. If she helped cover up her brother-in-law's pedophilia, slam her with it, and slam her HARD.

Any Republican should be portrayed with Mark Foley, as a matter of fact. Think about it - Karl Rove always trots out Osama bin Laden to use against Democrats, so we should trot out Foley to say that the Republican party protects pedophiles.

We need to be like Sean Connery's character in the Untouchables, rather than the milquetoasts the Dems have been in the past.

Adam- it looks like Brading did pay for the ad. And the MinnisFile Website looks like it was paid for by FuturePAC (the House Ds Caucus PAC). So, presumably both FuturePAC and Brading have made these allegations and could be included in a (unsuccessful) lawsuit. Though, I'd be surprised if Minnis sued. Notice how nothing in the Oregonian article said that they were going to ask the FEC/TV stations to take it down because it wasn't true...It's admission by omission.

How low will Brading go? Pretty sleazy stuff. This must be desperation time. Will backfire big time.

1) Negative ads, if the campaign is smart, are directed at the opponents supporters. The idea is for them to just not bother. Hopefully this ad was targeted at Republican fundamentalist women.

2) There is nothing wrong with this ad. The Minnises had a duty to report. John had a legal duty, any employer in that position had a moral duty. Given that it was John's brother, neither of them was in a position to evaluate the allegations themselves.

3) Karen Minnis has used her above average character as a reason for getting elected. This seems to hit right at that image she has tried to create for herself. She stood by while her husband covered up allegations of rape against his brother. It doesn't matter whether they were true or not.

I really don't think there's enough to this story to substantiate the tactic. And I fear voters are going to see that. Unfortunately. They've voted Minnis into office so many times, I think it'll take a lot more than this to bring her down.

I say it's time to get tough. I say whatever it takes to bring her down.

The Minnis' endangered other women and children by not reporting this.

If you had a 17 year old daughter and Tuck Minnis was your neighbor - and he had this history, which was deliberately covered up - you would have every right to be angry.

About time the Dems took the gloves off and slammed Minnis! Geez, the right would be going nuts with this, I cannot believe the pansy respones some of you have posted. Great ad, time to get tough and let the voters decide if it is appropriate.

If you have not gone to www.theminnisfile.com and read the documentation behind the ad you really should.

What blows me away is that Tuck the molester lived with them for the next year and re-offended, decking some guy and exposing his genitals. He was sentenced to 18 months of probation and then skipped out of state violating his parole. I stopped reading at this point but the tail goes on. The information provided are all court records and public documents.

They should have made the ad stronger by explaining that by covering up the crime they allowed other innocent people to be victimized.

This is more than a legitimate issue. When a politician harbors a sexual predator in her home and her husband pays hush money to cover up his crimes allowing others to be victimized it becomes a clear question of character and moral integrity.

If all we have is allegations that aren't substantiated, I'm afraid all we have is innuendo. And I think voters want more than that. I wish we had some hard evidence. I don't think we have any at this point.

What's the Tuckster up to these days? Anyone know? These guys don't usually do this kind of thing just once or twice.

The accusations are substantiated. Sorry.

Bloggy,

The issue here is not Tuck's behavior, but what John and Karen did in response to the 17 year old victim's complaint.

Forget Foley. The situation with Minnis resembles that of Heather Wilson, the temporary Congressperson from New Mexico (about to be dispatched by Patricia Madrid). Before she was elected to Congress, Wilson lifted a file relating to her husband, and then lost it. The incident was reported at the time by a TV news operation in New Mexico. Here's a link to the account on DailyKos: Heather Wilson covering up for husband .

Sea-Lawyering aside, Karen Minnis represents the tide at it's height of hypocracy, and the lies of "we need to put money where it will do the most good, the classroom" shell game that has been flogged since the tax-revolution, or middle-class genocide begun with Ronnie-The-Chimpman.

If you have children in schools in this state you must face the reality of our under-paid teachers paying for those school supplies the Republican said would be paid for with better spent tax dollars. The "we need to put money where it will do the most good, the classroom" is newspeak for privatization which has nothing more to do with other than paying off political allies with tax dollars.The eratication of public services with tax dollars is just another strategy to dissolve public schools ending the ideal of educating American children with the tax payers money.

They see education expenditures as a path for a resurgance of the middle class, and thus responsible taxation that would re-apportion opportunity from top to bottom, instead of a upper class tax relief, unfettered corporate profits, and governance that is little more than a tool for corporate interest.

We had acheived a tax policy, and spending equation that would have sustained public education, college pell grants, social security, medicare, and defense when Clinton left office, now we have a bankrupted economy, budget, and social security borrowed against to pay the rich, a medicare program doled out to the pharma lobby.

Karen Minnis is our version of this perverted governance, and she must go!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Happy Thoughts;

Dan Grady

Steven M., actual lawyers don't cite to the law/case law/codes of ethical behavior on blogs, unless they have far too much time on their hands. It's lost on most readers. The perspective is legit. It's from a public policy attorney, with whom you should be well aquainted. Cheerio ! -KN

One of the main things that Rob had going for him was that he, unlike Karen, was taking the high road. That was actually one of his campaign's big selling points and those of us out in the field canvassing and working precincts saw the result--lots of folks were planning to vote for Rob BECAUSE he was taking the high road. Sure, Karen and her ilk got sleazy (they're Republicans, what did you expect?), but Rob would just defend himself and then turn back to the issues--in person and in his campaign lit. He did attack Karen on the issues and her record and that, again, was part of the high road--no personal attacks. Then, 10 days before the election, this ad hits--and it takes away one of Rob's maining selling points--"hey, I'm different. I care about the issues and how they affect you, not about slinging mud". That edge was blown entirely. I've had 17 people contact me since the ad came out. These are not political junkies (and yes, if you are reading this, you are a political junkie), just folks in my precinct that I had been canvassing for Rob prior to the ad's release. Each expressed great disappointment that Rob had stooped to Karen's level. None had yet voted and despite my best efforts to convince them that Rob was still the best person for the office and reminding them of all the legislative errors Karen had made, only 3 committed to voting for Rob--2 said they wouldn't vote in the race any more at all--and 12 said they were voting for Karen. These were folks that I had spent six months convincing that Rob was the candidate who would make a difference by bringing a better, more civil tone to the state legislature. And it was all blown by one ad.

Regardless of my opinion of the ad itself, there is one over-riding opinion about the timing of this ad---it was politically stupid. I do not believe that Rob will gain votes cause of it and I know he's lost votes. Just stupid.