Your safe haven from "Deadeye" Dick Cheney.

[February 15th, 2006] * Sen. Charles Grassley (R-Iowa), chairman of the Senate Finance Committee, is demanding a federal investigation into Northeast Portland's Physicians' Hospital (see "Doctors Inc.," WW, Oct. 19, 2005). "I learned about Physicians' Hospital after an article in Willamette Week," Grassley said in a separate statement. "While any death is tragic, a hospital calling 911 for assistance because there's no doctor on duty is disturbing." Grassley's Feb. 14 letter to Bush administration officials questioned how Physicians' could have opened during a federal moratorium on new physician-owned, specialty hospitals. Grassley, whose committee oversees Medicare and Medicaid, asked Department of Health and Human Services Secretary Mike Leavitt for responses to several issues involving Physicians' by March. (To read Grassley's letter, go to www.wweek.com/media/7245.pdf.)

* There are red faces in Mayor Tom Potter's office after staff made a tactical error that led to the rest of us learning how lousy the polls were about a new schools tax. Late last week, Kate Raphael , a longtime K-12 funding advocate working temporarily for Potter, briefed City Hall staffers on the numbers. But using city-owned hardware to print the privately paid-for poll results made the documents a public record. And The Oregonian pounced, producing a story showing about a third of Portlanders would back a new tax.

* Fresh off winning a $10 million refund last month for Multnomah County customers from Portland General Electric, utility watchdog lawyers Dan Meek and Linda Williams were poised to press a similar case against PacifiCorp last week in Multnomah County Circuit Court. Then PacifiCorp attorney Jeremy Sacks asked Judge John Wittmayer to recuse himself even though Wittmayer heard the Utility Reform Project's case against PGE and thus understood the issue better than any other local judge. So why the request? Sacks argued that Wittmayer, a PacifiCorp customer, had a conflict of interest —the $10 or $20 refund the judge could receive if URP prevails. Wittmayer complied, putting the case on hold pending assignment of a new judge.

* The feds' investigation into a decade-old series of arsons in Oregon and four other states by a so-called "family" of eco-saboteurs is spawning online chatter (portland.indymedia.org/en/topic/prisonissues/) about who may turn on their brethren. On the list of material witnesses expected to be subpoenaed: Portland veggie restaurateur Craig Rosebraugh , who has acted as an unofficial spokesman for the Earth Liberation Front . So do online scribes think Rosebraugh will flip into a star prosecution witness? Nope. Their conclusion is that he's kept his lips sealed before and can be trusted to do so again.

* Human trafficking takes center stage at the City Club on Friday, Feb. 17, when the group's weekly forum focuses on local examples of an international problem most often mentioned in the same breath with prostitution and the abuse of women and children. These pages reported on another aspect of the in-human trade with a cover story on the rising number of young Hondurans who are forced to sell drugs along Portland's public transportation routes ("Esclavitud en Portland," WW, Dec. 7, 2005). The forum at the Governor Hotel (614 SW 11th Ave.) begins at 12:15 pm. Luncheon tickets for club members are $16, $20 for non-members.

^WEB-ONLY MURMURS!

State immunization officials' investigation into potentially ineffective vaccinations in Multnomah County ("The Cold Hard Facts," WW, Feb. 1, 2006) won't wrap up for at least another week. They've asked some of the seven county health clinics for additional vaccine temperature logs but still don't know how many shots must be redone. More than 7,600 vaccinations may have been rendered ineffective because they were stored at temperatures that were too high or too low.

Voters tired of political candidates who do little beyond filling their mailboxes and making empty promises can break that cycle of nullity this Saturday. From 10 am to 2 pm, Multnomah County commissioner candidate Jeff Cogen will be washing dogs in exchange for campaign contributions. Cogen's campaign HQ at 2307 NE Broadway is a former vet clinic and so is well-suited for cleansing mutts. Suggested donation: $25.

Former Portland Mayor Vera Katz will be among the Oregonians making a reunion "Flight for Freedom" trip to New York City this October. Organizers of the reunion trip announced Tuesday that they'll be traveling back to New York at Mayor Michael Bloomberg's request to mark the fifth anniversary of the first Flight for Freedom. The original trip, one month after the World Trade Center attacks, drew nearly 1,000 Oregonians and was designed to show solidarity with New Yorkers.