Officials were trying to determine Tuesday what caused thousands of sardines to turn up dead in Ventura Harbor, another puzzling case of fish that died off after apparently using up all their oxygen.

              Map

The Oregon Chapter of Physicians for a National Health Program (PNHP) and Mad As Hell Doctors (MAHD) will follow up on their landmark 2009 national tour and 2010 California tour with spirited rallies in western Oregon counties during February and March.  Their program will feature music by local musicians and the audience (singing); documentary videos by Paul Hochfeld M.D.; testimony by physicians and nurses; and “Mad As Heck Minutes” by audience members on screen.

Salem              Mar. 17       6:30—8:00 p.m.
The Grand Theatre  191 High Street  Salem, OR 97301  Map Contact: Cindy Kimball  whiteoakridge@juno.com

Grants Pass      Saturday    Mar. 26       6:00-8:00 p.m. Anne Basker Auditorium 604 NW 6th   Grants Pass, OR 97526  Map Contact:  Jim Woods at 541-956-5287 or  Jerry Reed at 541-474-6847. 

Medford   Sunday       Mar. 27      7:00—9:00 p.m. Medford Public Library 205 South Central Ave Medford, OR 97501-7223  Map Contact:  Wes Brain 541-482-6988   Brain@mind.net

Selma   Monday   Mar 28    Noon     Selma Center  18255 Redwood Hwy   Selma, OR Contact:  Mary Dodd 541-956-1513 email patrickdodd@patrickdodd.com

Brookings   Monday  Mar. 28       7:00—9:00 p.m. Chetco Community Library 405 Alder Street  Brookings, OR  97415-9014 Map Contact: Linda Bozack  541-469-1970  Lbozack@gmail.com

Bandon  Tuesday  Mar. 29  6:30(potluck)-8:30 p.m. Bandon Public Library  Sprague Room  1204 11th St  Bandon, OR  97411  Map
Contact:  Bob Fischer   bobfi1@frontier.com

Coos Bay  Wednesday  Mar. 30    7-9 p.m.    The Green Spot, 181 Anderson Ave Coos Bay, OR 97420  Map Contact: Curt Clay  curtclay@gmail.com,     Rick Staggenborg  stagmd@hotmail.com,

Roseburg  Thursday  Mar 31     7-9 p.m.   Douglas County Library, Ford Room 1409 Northeast Diamond Lake Boulevard  Roseburg, OR 97470-3361 Map Contact: Sharon Rice (541) 672-7900

Pendleton   Monday Apr 25 TBA  Contact: Frank Erickson MD   dr_erickson@mac.com

La Grande   Tuesday Apr 26 TBA  Contact: Bill Whitaker   Cell  541-805-5681  wwhitak@boisestate.edu

Baker City  Wednesday Apr 27  TBA  Contact: Marilyn Dudek  clm_marilyn@yahoo.com 541-523-4421

Bend  Thursday Apr 28 TBA  Contact: David Stranahan   david.stranahan@q.com

Madras   Friday Apr 29 TBA  Contact:Beth Ann Beamer  BBeamer@mvhd.org

The Dalles   Saturday Apr 30 TBA  Contact: Jesse Papac  jpapac@gmail.com

Hood River  Sunday May 1 TBA  Contact: Jesse Papac  jpapac@gmail.com

PNHP is a group of physicians, nurses, ancillary health providers, and other concerned citizens advocating for an improved and expanded Medicare program to provide financially sustainable universal health coverage for all Americans. In September 2009, PNHP doctors traveled 6,000 miles through America’s heartland from Portland, OR, to Washington, D.C., stopping at over 40 venues in 17 states. After appearances on the Ed Schultz Show (MSNBC), Keith Olberman (MSNBC), Democracy Now! and interviews on dozens of other media outlets, the group is continuing its unique approach and activist flair to advocate for Single Risk Pool, Improved Medicare-for-All.

PNHP contends that the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (P-PACA) does too little to protect the health and livelihood of patients and their families. P-PACA serves to further entrench the current medical-industrial complex with an unsustainable cost spiral within our health care system. PNHP further contends that while the Oregon Health Policy Board, a result of House Bill 2009, has proposed critical improvements in Oregon’s health care system, these improvements will be affordable only under a Single Risk Pool, Improved Medicare-for-All plan.

More information is available at http://www.pnhp.org/states/oregon and www.madashelldoctors.com.  You can also interact with 12,000 friends on www.facebook.com/MadDrs.

For counter-arguments to critics please go to Tool Kit

Michael Huntington MD      Physicians for a National Health Program
mchuntington@comcast P.O. Box 1824, Corvallis, OR 97339

Katie Ottaway in Chico

California Road Trip, Home in Oregon

On the “long march” through California this fall (and across the country last fall), with surprising consistency, the size of our audience was inversely proportional to the size of the community.  Indeed, almost three hundred people greeted us for our last event in Chico, far surpassing any of our audiences in L.A.  Perhaps people in smaller towns feel more empowered.  Perhaps webs of relationships are more interconnected.  Who really knows?

During our long drive up I-5 to green Oregon, we pondered another question.  “Was the California Road Trip worth all the effort that went into it?”  The denominator is measurable in money, time, and a substantial carbon footprint.  Measuring the numerator is more elusive.   By most accounts, the MAHD Road Show was entertaining and many people deepened their understanding of why our sick care non-system remains profoundly broken.  We made new friends in every community.   We gained greater clarity.  We had fun and we consumed our share of margaritas.  But what energy did we leave in our wake as we moved to from town to town?  Is anybody we touched even reading this?   If so, please respond.  Your perspective is valuable.

I know it feels better to toil in futility than wallow in defeat.  I’d like to think we are tilting at windmills.  More accurately, we are storming the Bastille with rubber spears.   We aren’t going to make real progress until there are masses of people who understand the health care conundrum as we do.  How do we create a wider and wider web of relationships to make this happen?  How do we get the right kind of media attention, long enough, to explain the flavor and texture of the real health care debate that needs to progress beyond the sound bites that feed people’s fears?   Lots of questions.  Not many good answers.

In any case, it’s nice to be home with the family.

–paul hochfeld

Daily updates on Facebook, Twitter, and Youtube!

Get Mad.  Stay Mad.  Make History.

We hope to share with you our passion that America must achieve sustainable high quality health care for all as soon as possible.

The American Legislative Executive Council works behind the scenes, using state-legislative stooges to implement the agenda of giant corporations and the super-rich.

Here's a run-down on events and key analysis on the fast-moving events in Wisconsin's state capitol -- and nationwide.

Obama should be punishing the banks that sabotaged the American dream of home ownership -- instead he's giving them the whole enchilada.

Nedra Pickler / Associated Press

Washington— The former head of a whistle-blower protection office under President George W. Bush must spend at least a month in jail, according to a ruling by a federal judge that could threaten to derail the ex-official's plea deal. Scott Bloch, who headed the Office of Special Counsel, pleaded to a misdemeanor charge of criminal contempt of Congress in April 2010. That plea, U.S. Magistrate Judge Deborah Robinson said in an opinion late Wednesday, requires a sentence of "imprisonment in a common jail for not less than one month."

She rejected arguments from prosecutors and defense lawyers that she has the discretion to impose a lower sentence and that other defendants who have pleaded guilty to the charge got probation, including baseball star Miguel Tejada last year.

Bloch admitted withholding information from House investigators about having private technicians "scrub" computer files used by political appointees at the Office of Special Counsel in December 2006.

Bloch was to be sentenced today, but Robinson postponed that until Monday because of her ruling. It's one of many delays in sentencing since Bloch's plea because of the jail time issue.

"The court finds that no authority supports the requests of counsel that the court either interpret the sentencing provision as discretionary, or, alternatively, disregard the provision," Robinson wrote. "The court therefore declines the invitation to do so."

Watchdog groups had criticized the plan for probation, writing to Robinson to argue that Bloch serve jail time.

The U.S. attorney's office declined to comment on the ruling, and Bloch's lawyer did not immediately respond to messages for comment.

EFF has uncovered widespread violations stemming from FBI intelligence investigations from 2001 - 2008. In a report released today, EFF documents alarming trends in the Bureau’s intelligence investigation practices, suggesting that FBI intelligence investigations have compromised the civil liberties of American citizens far more frequently, and to a greater extent, than was previously assumed.

Using documents obtained through EFF's Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) litigation, the report finds:

• Evidence of delays of 2.5 years, on average, between the occurrence of a violation and its eventual reporting to the Intelligence Oversight Board

• Reports of serious misconduct by FBI agents including lying in declarations to courts, using improper evidence to obtain grand jury subpoenas, and accessing password-protected files without a warrant

• Indications that the FBI may have committed upwards of 40,000 possible intelligence violations in the 9 years since 9/11

EFF's report stems from analysis of nearly 2,500 pages of FBI documents, consisting of reports of FBI intelligence violations made to the Intelligence Oversight Board — an independent, civilian intelligence-monitoring board that reports to the President on the legality of foreign and domestic intelligence operations. The documents constitute the most complete picture of post-9/11 FBI intelligence abuses available to the public. Our earlier analysis of the documents showed the FBI's arbitrary disclosure practices.

EFF's report underscores the need for greater transparency and oversight in the intelligence community. As part of our ongoing effort to inform the public and elected officials about abusive intelligence investigations, we are distributing copies of the report to members of Congress.

A pdf copy of the report can be downloaded here.

SIDNEY, Ohio -- The Shelby County Sheriff has prepared a criminal complaint against a newspaper reporter for asking him questions.

MORE

Anderson. Karr outlines how communications was shut down in Egypt and discusses the Protecting Cyberspace as a National Asset Act, a proposed Senate bill that could lay the foundation for blocking communications in the United States in the case of a "national threat."

MORE

There should be no presumption of privacy when performing a public duty (funded by tax payers).  The police should not enjoy such rights when on duty.

An artist who used a video camera to record being arrested by police is facing up to 15 years in prison.

Chris Drew has been charged with Class 1 felony under the Eavesdropping Act in Chicago, Illinois.

The bemused activist said he did not know anything about the law when he was protesting about restrictions on where artists can sell their work.

Now scroll down to see the video

Activist: Chris Drew was protesting about restrictions on selling art

What are you doing? He is confronted by a police officer

He has resorted to civil disobedience in his fight against rules he regards as draconian – and got a friend to record his arrest on an Olympus camera.

Mr Drew expected police to take him into custody before releasing him over the misdemeanour – but now he’s facing up to 15 years in jail.

He will go on trial on April 4 charged with using a digital recorder to capture his arrest on December 2, 2009.

He was selling silk-screened patches for $1 when he was stopped by police.

Footage of the incident has been posted on YouTube.

Surrounded: Three police officers gather round while the incident is filmed on a Olympus camera

Three officers surround him in the tape before he is led away across the road and put into a vehicle.

The suspect told the Chicago News Cooperative: ‘I expected to be charged with a misdemeanour.

‘I didn’t know about the eavesdropping law. But when you fight for your rights, you have to expect anything. I have a ’60s bent to me. I won’t back down. I won’t be intimidated.

Breaking the law: Activist had set out to get in trouble

‘From the moment I comprehended these charges, I knew we had to change this law.’

Mr Drew, the founder of the Uptown Multi-Cultural Art Center, had set out to get himself arrested for selling items in the street three times before he was finally stopped by police.

Under the Eavesdropping Act, which applies in 12 states, all parties must consent to a recording being made.

Maryland, Illinois and Massachusetts are the only states where it is illegal to record conversations with the police.

In Illinois police are currently prosecuting nine people for alleged breaches of the law.

The maximum penalty is only three years behind bars for the first time the law is broken and five years if it is done again,

But anyone recording a judge, attorney general, state attorney or police officer can be sent to jail for up to 15 years.

By Greg Gordon | McClatchy Newspapers

WASHINGTON — Goldman Sachs, Morgan Stanley and other Wall Street giants that played roles in the subprime mortgage debacle are reporting huge profits and awarding hefty bonuses again even as the government remains on the hook for tens of billions of dollars of their debt.

Banking behemoths are among the scores of lenders and insurers that floated as much as $345.8 billion in federally guaranteed bonds under a program that's widely credited with helping to keep money flowing at the height of the financial crisis, when businesses had nowhere to turn for capital.

Now, with the crisis in the rearview mirror, banks that escaped tough federal pay restrictions by retiring more than $200 billion in direct loans from the Treasury Department are still benefiting from the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp.'s less-conspicuous debt guarantee program, which has no such strings attached.

Some of the Wall Street firms that are getting the guarantees are expected to draw criticism from the congressionally appointed Financial Crisis Inquiry Commission this week when the panel issues its final report on the root causes of the subprime mortgage meltdown, which crashed the global economy.

Under the FDIC program, federal guarantees ensured that bonds that dozens of lenders, investment banks and insurers issued — including Goldman, JPMorgan Chase, Bank of America, Morgan Stanley, Citigroup and General Electric — got gold-plated ratings that drew investors and drove down the cost of financing the debt.

The FDIC's bank insurance fund, which backs the bonds, has reaped more than $10 billion in fees from firms using the guarantees, while the outstanding debt declined to $267 billion as of Dec. 31.

The program doesn't expire until the end of 2012, and the agency says that most of the bonds don't expire until next year.

Robert Pozen, the chairman of Boston-based MFS Investment Management, argues that the government shouldn't have released firms from executive pay restrictions until they'd paid off the Treasury Department's Troubled Asset Relief Program and the FDIC program.

"Any bank that gets out of TARP, it's basically saying that it's now 'good to go' in the private market," said Pozen, the author of the 2010 book "Too Big to Save?" "They shouldn't be continuing to have this big guaranteed subsidy."

However, the agency put tight restrictions on banks' ability to refinance the bonds. Further hampering refinancing is the fact that the market for unsecured bank debt is just beginning to thaw. Morgan Stanley only recently completed a $5.25 billion bond offering, the largest by a U.S. bank in 20 months.

Banking industry consultant Bert Ely said that the adequacy of the fees in the FDIC program, known as the Temporary Liquidity Guarantee Program, was "the kind of thing that will be debated for years."

"If you don't charge enough, then that's what creates moral hazard" and the presumption that risky behavior won't be penalized, he said. "If you charge too much, you may end up sinking institutions that you need."

On Monday, the FDIC, which hadn't identified the participants in its program, gave McClatchy a list of the institutions involved.

Three of the nation's biggest banks — Citigroup, JPMorgan Chase and Charlotte-based Bank of America — account for more than a third of the outstanding debt. Citigroup owes $58.2 billion, JPMorgan $36.1 billion and Bank of America $27.4 billion.

The biggest initial issuer, however, was GE Capital Corp., General Electric's financing arm, which reported nearly $74 billion in FDIC-backed debt as of March 2009, a figure that's since declined to $53.4 billion. Ally Financial, formerly the financing arm for General Motors, has $7.4 billion in guaranteed debt outstanding.

Ely said the banks "are clearly profiting by virtue of having this relatively low-cost funding in place, even though it's in this runoff mode. The question is, to the extent they're making money, how much of that is going into the bonuses? ... There's no way to figure that out."

Goldman, which is doling out $15 billion in employee bonuses for 2010, borrowed as much as $29.8 billion under the FDIC program. It still owes $18.8 billion.

Goldman became something of a pariah in Washington before it settled an SEC civil fraud suit last summer for $550 million that stemmed from its controversial sales of subprime mortgage securities. It's sought to restore its image by announcing an array of internal revisions.

Last week, perhaps symbolizing a return to normalcy, Goldman CEO Lloyd Blankfein was among U.S. corporate chiefs invited to attend a White House luncheon with President Barack Obama and Chinese President Hu Jintao, followed by a state dinner.

Some skeptics have suggested that firms such as Goldman and Morgan Stanley could easily have used the proceeds of the guaranteed bond sales to pay off their TARP loans.

A spokesman for Goldman, which repaid a $10 billion TARP loan in the summer of 2009, declined comment on its government-backed debt.

Spokeswoman Sandra Hernandez of Morgan Stanley, which also repaid a $10 billion TARP tab from Treasury, said the money didn't come from the proceeds of its government-backed bonds, on which it still owes $21.3 billion.

Interesting story, This is an important issue and one should know the facts:

1.  big pharma does not tend to discover ground breaking new treatments; they tend to spend money trying to prove their old treatments or modifications thereof are effective, often when they are not.

2.  big pharma has controlled allopathic  medicine through the A.M.A. from it's inception. 

3.  research into diet and herbal treatments have been virtually ignored by big pharma financed research

4.  We need government funded research.  We just do not need big pharma, the A.M.A., insurance companies in our medical care.

5.  The issue is not government funding of health care or research; but who controls such research and who must answer to whom.  So, long as our government is controlled by corporations rather than the people, then government/corporate control is the same thing. 

6.  Our rights are already undermined as hospitals the A.M.A. and big pharma has undermined patents rights to informed consent in practice when not in law.

WASHINGTON — A man who served at Marine Corps Base Camp Lejeune for nearly two years in the 1950s has sued the federal government for $16 million, saying poisonous water at the base caused his cancer.

New research confirms findings of previous evidence first published in 1998 that the controversial MMR vaccine is linked to autism and bowel disease in children.

By Daniel Tencer
Sunday, January 23rd, 2011 -- 12:44 pm

The American Civil Liberties Union has said it identified 25 to 30 cases of "unjustified homicide" in US-run prisons in Iraq, Afghanistan and Guantanamo Bay.

After filing a Freedom of Information request in 2009, the civil rights group last week obtained 2,624 pages of documents from the US military detailing investigations into 190 deaths in custody at prisons in Afghanistan and Iraq, as well as the detention center in Guantanamo Bay.

The Defense Department says many of those deaths were due to illness, natural causes or inmate-on-inmate violence, but the ACLU alleges it has identified more than two dozen deaths it sees as being unjustified.

"So far, the documents released by the government raise more questions than they answer, but they do confirm one troubling fact: that no senior officials have been held to account for the widespread abuse of detainees," the ACLU said in a statement, as quoted at CNN. "Without real accountability for these abuses, we risk inviting more abuse in the future."

The ACLU noted that heart problems accounted for more than 25 percent of deaths, an unusually high number that "could potentially raise serious questions about the conditions of confinement or interrogation of the detainees."

The civil rights group says that while many of the deaths were previously known, some had never been revealed publicly. CNN reports:

In one such case, a detainee was killed by an unnamed sergeant who walked into a room where the detainee was lying wounded "and assaulted him ... then shot him twice thus killing him," one of the investigating documents says. The sergeant than instructed the other soldiers present to lie about the incident. Later, the document says an unnamed corporal then shot the deceased detainee in the head after finding his corpse.

In another example, documents note a soldier "committed the offense of murder when he shot and killed an unarmed Afghan male." But, according to the ACLU, the individual was found not guilty of murder by general court-martial.

The Defense Department defended its record, saying that the very existence of the thousands of pages of documents shows it takes in-custody deaths seriously. Army spokesman Lt. Col. David H. Patterson said that of the 190 deaths, 43 had US soldiers or personnel as suspects, resulting in 13 findings of probable cause for murder, and 19 separate convictions.

The ACLU's document release came the same week as the Obama administration let it be known it plans to resume the use of military commissions to try terrorism suspects at Guantanamo Bay, a move the ACLU described "strik[ing] a major blow to any efforts to restore the rule of law."

"The decision to proceed with commissions ... raises serious questions about whether commissions are being used as a forum to hide the use of torture and base convictions on evidence that would be too untrustworthy to be admitted in any real court," said Hina Shamsi, director of the ACLU's National Security Project.

"Unlike federal courts, which have well-established rules of procedure and evidence, the military commissions rules do not comply with US and international law," Shamsi added.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2011/01/22/AR2011012204111.html?nav=hcmodule

http://english.aljazeera.net/indepth/features/2011/01/20111207625905959.html

Virginia Thomas earned over $680,000 from conservative think tank the Heritage Foundation over five years, a group says. But Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas did not include it on financial disclosure forms.

Tragedy leads to new protections for LGBT families

People on the north coast of Labrador say scores of dead seals have been washing ashore since early December.

Thousands of dead octopuses have washed up on a beach in northern Portugal, in what is being called an environmental disaster.

They cover a 5-mile stretch of Vila Nova de Gaia beach - no reason has yet been found for their appearance.

The authorities have warned the public not to eat them.

© unknown
Cancer survivor Elizabeth Strecker says she was humiliated by security workers at the Calgary airport on Jan. 13, 2011.

An 82-year-old woman says she was humiliated by airport security who forced her to reveal her gel prosthesis during a recent public pat-down at Calgary's airport.

Elizabeth Strecker, who was flying to British Columbia after visiting her children last week, says that she will never fly again following the incident.

"It was terribly humiliating and embarrassing for me," she told CTV British Columbia in an interview.

Her ordeal began as Strecker was going through security checks at Calgary's airport.

But when a pin in her leg set off a metal detector, she was directed to a body scanner.

Next, she was asked if she was carrying any liquids or gels, which are barred from flights unless they are in small amounts.
When asked, Strecker demurred: "I didn't think I had to tell the whole world I had a mastectomy."

Strecker lost a breast to cancer, and now wears a gel prosthesis instead of an implant. However, the body scanner picked up the prosthesis, which created a problem with security, said Strecker.

"I heard someone say 'whatever she said isn't true,'" Strecker recalled. Shortly after that claim from security, Strecker said she was then subjected to a thorough body search.

"Then she started to touch me everywhere."

While Strecker said the pat-down was intrusive, she is especially concerned over the accusation that she would lie to security.

"They make an 82-year-old woman cry like a baby," she said, noting that being described as "a liar or something" was unsettling.

"I came home looked in the mirror and said, "do I really look like a terrorist?'"

Transport Minister Chuck Strahl said this week that the scenario "sounds completely unacceptable."

Despite increasingly stringent security at Canada's airports, Strahl stressed that airport security have a legal obligation to treat travellers with respect.

He also added that any traveller who feels they have been treated poorly should report any wrongdoing.

"When that sort of thing happens, they should file a complaint. We should know about it and there should be action taken."

Strecker said she will report the incident officially. She is also seeking an apology.

Al-Jazeera files complaint over what it calls humiliating and lengthy security check at an event in Jerusalem.