GREETINGS FELLOW DEMOCRATS!





Inter-Religious Dialogue: Perspectives on Peace Workshop

February 3, 2008
12:00 noon -- Light lunch
12:30 pm to approximately 1:45 pm -- Workshop
Friends Congregational Church
2200 Southwood Drive (on the southwest corner of FM 2818 and Southwood Drive -- College Station, TX)

Though the great religions of the world each have foundations in peace, conflicts between the faith traditions have too often resulted in misunderstanding and conflict.

A representative of the Baha'i, Christian, Hindu, Jewish, and Muslim faiths will each present their perspective on peace from their own religious experience.

Please mark your calendars to attend this informative workshop and great fellowship. Members of congregations from within and out of these faith traditions are invited and encouraged to participate.





Delegate Training for the Democratic National Convention

February 16
9 a.m - ??
Brazos County Democratic Party Office
307 S. Main St. #102 Bryan

To be a delegate you must attend your precinct caucus on March 4 at your local polling place. You must be voted as a delegate to the county Convention on March 29, and attend the Texas State Democratic Convention in Austin on June 5-7. There is a lot of interest in this.





Screening: For The Bible Tells Me So

TONIGHT_THURSDAY JAN. 31, 2008

We look forward to seeing those of you able to come at 6:30 p.m. to Friends Congregational Church for the FTBTMS screening. Seating will be limited and we do expect a crowd. Please plan to arrive early to guarantee a good seat.

We also hope you will stay after the movie to view a 5 minute film by a Texas A&M student on "Being a Gay Aggie" and a very brief panel discussion led by Equality Texas.

To reply to this message, follow this link: http://tamu.facebook.com/p.php?i=8322822&k=Y3E3P6PS43ZMYJ1FP1VTS





No back-door promises in Iraq

Editorial
The Boston Globe

ON THE last day of this year, the United Nations Security Council resolution authorizing US troops in Iraq will expire. Before then, the United States and Iraq will have to agree on new terms for the US engagement there if it is to continue legally. Under no circumstances should the Bush administration make a commitment to a continuing US role in Iraq's defense without getting the two-thirds approval from the Senate that a treaty requires.

Members of Congress are concerned that the administration might make an open-ended pledge of US military support for Iraq without Senate approval, not least because of statements the two governments made in November about the accord that would govern their relations after the UN mandate expires. At that time, the administration promised to support Iraq "against internal and external threats." But the administration's deputy national security adviser for Iraq and Afghanistan, General Douglas Lute, said he did not think the compact between the United States and Iraq would need congressional input.

Since November, US officials have been working on the US negotiating position. According to recent leaked accounts, the proposal calls for continuing the immunity from Iraqi laws that is now afforded to civilian contractors, such as the Blackwater security guards, who have been working with United States and other foreign forces. This provision will face opposition in Iraq, where there has been criticism of the guards for excessive use of force.

What the proposal says about any US security guarantee for Iraq is unclear. This week, Representative William Delahunt held a hearing to learn more about the direction of the negotiations, but all four top administration officials he had invited, including Lute, declined to attend. In the past, the United States has concluded, without Senate approval, numerous "status of force" agreements with other countries - agreements that, as the name suggests, govern the legal status of US forces serving in those countries. But US security guarantees for countries ranging from South Korea to the Philippines have gone before the Senate for ratification.

The reason for getting that approval is clear: a commitment with only the president's signature will not have the weight of one endorsed by a super-majority of the Senate.

Critics of an administration commitment to Iraq without congressional approval fear that such a compact, while lacking the force of a treaty, would still limit the options of a future president and Congress. Any attempt to withdraw US forces and leave Iraqi security in that country's hands could prompt accusations, both in Baghdad and in Washington, that the United States was abandoning an ally whose security it had formally guaranteed. If the administration wants its compact with Iraq to do anything more than state the legal status of US forces there, it should count on seeking Senate ratification.

© Copyright 2008 Globe Newspaper Company.





Welfare Reform in Texas Has Not Worked, According to University of Texas at Austin Researchers

AUSTIN, Texas — Most Texas families who leave welfare remain in or near poverty and many are likely to return to the welfare rolls in the future, say University of Texas at Austin researchers.

For a new book, "Life After Welfare: Reform and the Persistence of Poverty," Laura Lein and Deanna Schexnayder followed 179 families who left welfare after the welfare reform act of 1996 was signed into law.

"We examine the ways in which the effort to 'end welfare as we know it' has played out in the lives of impoverished families in Texas who draw on welfare support," said Lein, a professor in the School of Social Work and Department of Anthropology. President Bill Clinton signed a welfare law in 1996, and President George W. Bush reauthorized the bill with more stringent requirements for welfare recipients in 2006.

Lein and Schexnayder, a research scientist and associate director of the Ray Marshall Center in the Lyndon B. Johnson School of Public Affairs, found the families experienced barriers to employment, confronted poverty even when employed and faced a failing safety net of basic human services as they attempted to sustain low-wage jobs.

For the rest of the story, go to: http://www.utexas.edu/news/2008/01/29/social_work_welfare





The State of the Union

Editorial: The New York Times
January 29, 2008

Six years ago, President Bush began his State of the Union address with two powerful sentences: “As we gather tonight, our nation is at war, our economy is in recession, and the civilized world faces unprecedented dangers. Yet the state of our union has never been stronger.”

Monday night, after six years of promises unkept or insincerely made and blunders of historic proportions, the United States is now fighting two wars, the economy is veering toward recession and the civilized world still faces horrifying dangers — and it has far less sympathy and respect for the United States.

The nation is splintered over the war in Iraq, cleaved by ruthless partisan politics, bubbling with economic fear and mired in debate over virtually all of the issues Mr. Bush faced in 2002. And the best Mr. Bush could offer was a call to individual empowerment — a noble idea, but in Mr. Bush’s hands just another excuse to abdicate government responsibility.

Monday night’s address made us think what a different speech it might have been if Mr. Bush had capitalized on the unity that followed the 9/11 attacks to draw the nation together, rather than to arrogate ever more power and launch his misadventure in Iraq. How different it might have been if Mr. Bush meant what he said about compassionate conservatism or even followed the fiscal discipline of old-fashioned conservatism. How different if he had made a real effort to reach for the bipartisanship he promised in 2002 and so many times since.

Then he could have used last night’s speech to celebrate a balanced budget, one in which taxes produce enough money to pay for the nation’s genuine needs, including health care for poor children and a rebuilt New Orleans. Instead, Mr. Bush called — again — for his tax cuts to be permanent and threatened to veto bills that contained excessive pork-barrel spending, an idea absent from his agenda when Republicans held Congress.

Had Mr. Bush been doing his job right just in the last few weeks, he could have used this speech to celebrate a genuinely bipartisan agreement on a sound economic stimulus plan. In addition to the tax rebates agreed on already between the White House and the House, Mr. Bush could have announced sensible proposals for extending unemployment benefits and a temporary increase in food stamps for the most vulnerable citizens.

Those aren’t just Democratic ideas. The independent Congressional Budget Office ranks those stimulus policies as far more effective than rebates.

If Mr. Bush had let compassion and good sense trump ideology, he would have been able to use last night’s speech to celebrate the expansion of health insurance to tens of millions of children with working parents. Mr. Bush vetoed an expansion of the S-chip program, and he did not even agree to pay for all of the existing coverage because he thought a relative handful of parents might switch from private to public insurance if they were offered government assistance to buy it.

In 2003, the president proposed the Medicare prescription drug benefit, his signature achievement in health insurance reform. It barely squeaked past conservative Republicans in Congress, and Mr. Bush’s appetite for making health care accessible and affordable for all Americans vanished.

Mr. Bush has included a call for immigration reform in all of his previous State of the Union addresses. But he has never matched that rhetoric with strong ideas or political passion. A push last year for comprehensive reform was defeated by his party’s right wing, which continues to spread hatred on the campaign trail. His insight last night: “Illegal immigration is complicated.”

In 2002, Mr. Bush spoke about the international coalition that invaded Afghanistan, about the consensus among civilized nations of the need to combat terrorism, about the way the 9/11 attacks had rallied nations behind America’s leadership. Afghanistan’s good war was quickly overshadowed — and shortchanged — by Mr. Bush’s Iraq folly. Six years later, the United States and its allies are still fighting and dying in Afghanistan and the Taliban is back in force.

He was not even able to assure Americans that there is an end in sight to the Iraq war. Instead, he made the same empty promise he has made every year: When Iraq can defend itself, American troops will come home. Iraq’s defense minister told The Times recently that his forces would not be able to fully keep the peace and defend their country until 2018.

Mr. Bush’s troop escalation has succeeded in stabilizing parts of Baghdad and lowering casualties. But 2007 was still the most violent year in Iraq since the 2003 invasion and — more important — Mr. Bush has little to show in the way of political reconciliation, the only guarantor of a lasting peace. Mr. Bush has made no real effort to seek the help of Iraq’s neighbors to help stabilize the country.

In the end, when it comes to Iraq, Mr. Bush’s annual addresses will be remembered most for his false claims — the fictitious “axis of evil,” nonexistent aluminum tubes and African uranium, dangerous weapons that did not exist. No president can want that as his legacy.

Mr. Bush still has a year left — and many serious problems to address. It is time, finally, for him to put aside the partisanship, the bluster and the empty rhetoric. The state of the union is troubled. The nation yearns for leadership.

Copyright 2008 The New York Times Company





Brazos County Democratic Party
P.O. Box 4568
Bryan Texas 77805
979-779-5600 Fax 979-779-5601

America was not built on fear. America was built on courage, on imagination and an unbeatable determination to do the job at hand.
Harry S. Truman, Democrat, President of the United States of America