The next time I'm in Eugene I plan on changing my party affiliation to the Oregon Progressive Party. I've had it with the Democrats- once and for all. The increase troop mobilization that Obama will announce shortly was the straw that broke the camel's back. Some might say, "Well, you're certainly going to continue voting for DeFazio, aren't you?" No, no, no. Anyone who has any connection with that party I can no longer give support to. The smell. The taint. I must make a clean break. The chains of our country's two-party addiction have to be broken!
Bob Berman
Cheshire, Oregon

There is much talk about the sanity of Sen. **joe lieberman; I’ve wondered about this ever since he campaigned for Sen. john mccain and that other lunatic from Alaska. I agree joe has some serious mental issues to deal with, but my concerns are how does one senator stop the work of the Senate repeatedly? Where is **harry reid in all of this chaos?

harry reid must be replaced as majority leader, democratic senators keep coming to his aid as the Senate comes to a complete halt, nothing is getting through that the republicans don’t want and they only have 40 votes. What we need is someone to say to joe, you’re fired----no more Chairmanship, no more big office, and that parking space you used to have---gone!

When a new Senator, Al Franken refused to give little joe more time on the senate floor we all cheered, we called people up, we told strangers, “Did you see what Al did to little joe?” Senator reid was given the credit for this move, I don’t care whose idea it was, it was a moment. We need a leader in the senate who will tell the democrats who are blocking the health care bill, you vote with the republicans against letting this bill come up for a vote, you are out of the democratic caucus, if you have a chairmanship say bye, bye.

harry reid and obama’s chief of staff, rahm emanuel must be removed from power, joe lieberman must be shunned and put in a position that his staff won’t talk to him, he must be stripped of every perk he has gained in the last few years. Hardball? No this is survival time for the democratic party.

Will the democrats do any of these things? Hell no and it is not because they don’t have a spine. The democrats will not act because in the past it has served them well to let the republicans look like the party of corruption, and by putting little joe out there to take the heat, well, it does work for them. We get screwed but it works for Chucky and his buddies.

I would like to see every politician who appears on TV to talk about his/her position on any issue that they wear a sign saying how much money they have taken from an interested party. Something like this:

** chuck shummer, I took $2,000,000.00 from the financial sector.” As we watch this guy try to sell us on how hard he is working to control the abuses of the financial sector, his sign would wave just a little back and forth; that would be good. (chucky boy is #1 out of 100 senators to receive money from the banks etc.)

The new year is coming and new opportunities will present themselves to us all. Will we see the light or continue thinking we have representatives that care about us? See you in the streets!

“To the Bastille?”

**refuse to capitalize due to disrespect and/or digust

And on the health-care front:

The Operation

The body was rushed to the hospital,
The surgeons were all about,
Nurses ready to assist,
All through the place,
The pace was in panic.

Just before the cut,
Dr. lieberman and Dr. obama,
Called for a nurse to read,
“We need the manual,
From start to finish be read.”

The patient is dying a young doc said,
The patient must have the operation,
The patient must be attended to now.

No, no no no no said lieberman
No and no again said obama.

The nurse began to read,
The patient began to cry,
The doctors began to yell,
lieberman and obama began to laugh.

The patient is dead said a nurse,
The manual is silent said another,
What was the patient’s name?
Ms Body Politics said the youngest,
And she has many children.

Dr. lieberman and Dr. obama looked,
And ask that their tee time be booked,
As they departed they did say,
Peace on Earth and good health to all.

Joe Walsh-Lone Vet, December 2008

Thank God that a Progressive Party has finally been formed in Oregon whose history includes the Oregon Civil Rights Act of 1957 (authored by Mark O. Hatfield, the prominent Republican "maverick") and its commitment to preserving our fragile environment! For 28 years following (my return from the Vietnam War -where my back was permanently injured during a "siege" and I was left behind in a Monsoon water filled ditch by 200 men fleeing to a bunker- "Let's leave that one man behind," and to resume an active campaign AGAINST the very war in which I was drafted to serve and to march for Civil
Rights and to this day, Equal Rights for ALL People) I was a loyal and enthusiastic member -and a county candidate- of the Democratic Party. But, the Democrats LOST their way and abandoned their core (FDR, Truman and JFK) values; pro-environment, pro-Labor, pro-Equal Rights and Justice for ALL People; by the people, of the people and for the people and I have since January 1999 with occasional lapses in good and wise judgement, been an INDEPENDENT NON-PARTISAN.
As a member of the Oregon Progressive Party, I now feel re-enfranchised (having been disenfranchised by a former chairperson Pat Ackley of the Deschutes County Democratic Party as "too radical for the Democratic Party; based upon my insistence that Democratic Party candidates publicly repudiate the Oregon "at will" (clearly, anti-Labor) employment status, stipulate that they will protect and preserve our Natural Resources, commit themselves development a job based sound and stable economy and to exploring and developing new, fairer and more lucrative sources of revenue to fund education for an enlightened and career oriented electorate. WOW...Sounds just like the old Democratic Party.

I will pledge myself to working hard for the election of truly PROGRESSIVE CANDIDATES FOR PUBLIC OFFICE from the local level to the State and Federal level.

In solidarity, earnestness and eagerness,

Bill Hause, MPA
disabled Veteran
and Patriot.