Lynne Terry, Oregon Captial Chronicle

Anyone who’s read George Orwell’s “1984,” the dystopian novel about life in the U.S. under an authoritarian regime, knows that to survive, one had to accept whatever Big Brother said no matter how big the lie. Proof you’d come to fully embrace the all-controlling Party was to believe without question that two plus two never equaled four but always the number five. Anyone who claimed otherwise was considered a traitor and treated as such.

I think of that now knowing that despite the hours of testimony and truckloads of evidence of President Donald Trump’s attempt to overthrow the election, much of it coming from Trump loyalists, the majority of House and Senate Republicans and many Republican voters, including 50% of them here in Oregon, still swallow and spew Trump’s lie, and consider those who do not parrot his prattle like Republican Reps. Liz Cheney and Adam Kinzinger, traitors. Both of these conservatives are central to the committee’s investigation and both were censured by Republican party brass for having the temerity to doubt Trump’s math.

Yet doubt is exactly what most Americans have. ...

Oregon’s senior U.S. senator, Democrat Ron Wyden, lashed out at U.S. Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas on Friday, insinuating that he is “corrupt.”

“In light of new reporting from numerous outlets, Justice Thomas’ conduct on the Supreme Court looks increasingly corrupt,” Wyden said in a statement. He called on Thomas, one of the most conservative justices on the Supreme Court, to recuse himself from any cases related to the Jan. 6 investigation of the insurrection against the U.S. Capitol. He also said Thomas should not be involved in any cases related to the 2024 election if former President Donald Trump runs again.

“Extraordinary conflicts of interest on the nation’s highest court regarding domestic terrorists attacking democracy and people scheming to overturn an election demand a clear response from anybody who’s taken an oath to uphold the rule of law,” Wyden said in a statement to the Capital Chronicle....

A bipartisan group of six U.S. lawmakers, including one from Oregon, have called on the federal Drug Enforcement Administration to allow terminal patients to use psilocybin to ease anxieties or depression.

U.S. Rep. Earl Blumenauer, Democrat of Portland, a longtime advocate of decriminalizing drugs, spearheaded the letter sent this week to the agency’s administrator, Anne Milgram.

“Research demonstrates that psilocybin provides immediate, substantial and sustained relief from debilitating anxiety and depression in individuals with terminal illnesses,” the lawmakers wrote on Tuesday. “Individuals with advanced cancer that are also suffering from treatment-resistant anxiety and/or depression have been found to experience significant reductions in both anxiety and depression, and improvements in mood, following a single guided session of psilocybin-assisted therapy, with no safety concerns or clinically significant adverse effects.”...

“Our hospitals are under extreme pressure,” Brown said in a tweet on Wednesday. “Fueled by the omicron variant, current hospitalizations are over 700 and daily Covid-19 case counts are alarmingly high.”

She said in the tweet she was adding 700 National Guard members to the 500 mobilized last Friday.

Brown decided to increase the deployment following an update from the Oregon Health Authority and the Oregon Military Department, Elizabeth Merah, Brown’s press secretary, said in an email.
...

An overwhelming majority of nurses, physician assistants, lab specialists and others have voted to strike at Kaiser Permanente.

Nine out of 10 Oregon Federation of Nurses and Health Professionals participated in the days-long vote, with 96% endorsing a walkout.

Shane Burley, spokesman for the union, called the endorsement unprecedented....