GREETINGS FELLOW DEMOCRATS!





We need a favor...

Don’t laugh. We need you and your vacuum cleaner before Thursday. Maggie doesn’t have time to go buy one (we have one but it is broken) and her car is still full of election stuff. Call before you come, but please come. It has gotten bad and we have an Executive Meeting on Thursday to canvass the vote and other stuff.





Runoff Election for Railroad Commissioner on April 8

Dale Henry and Mark Thompson. You must have voted Democrat or not voted in the primary in order to be eligible to vote. This is an important position as it deals with oil and gas leasing and water. Please show up. There will be limited polling places available. Watch this space and watch the newspaper and our website.





Caucus (as in raucous) and it was wondrous

By CELE KEEPER

Were you as excited as I was to see the Democrats' response to the call to caucus on the evening of Election Day?

I know, there have been a lot of moans and groans about how poorly organized the sign-in procedure was, that nobody appeared to be in charge and that those who were in charge were ill-informed and unprepared for the sheer numbers of folks trying to get in and express their preference for either Hillary Clinton or Barack Obama.

Well, at the risk of sounding harsh, I urge you to get over it. This was grass-roots action at its absolute finest: messy, annoying, interminable — and beautiful to behold.

We Democrats are pros at complaining about our nation being run by the corporate elite and how the middle- and lower-income range of our society has little voice in governance and even less influence. Well, we were all out there waiting to speak our minds and be counted for the first time in a very, very long time.

I just hit 81 years, and I have never seen the likes of this. My husband, Sam, and I began going to precinct conventions (OK, so the Yankees call them caucuses) in Precinct 215 in Bellaire, Texas, in the 1950s. We were thrilled if 30 people showed up.

And those were the days before the Republican Party had an identity eruption in Texas. So, our meeting was a tussle between the liberal (referred to as "pinkos") Democrats and the conservative (no government, no taxes and whatever happened to the plantation culture?) Dixiecrats.

Blessedly, all that got sorted out and the South settled into a pattern which became familiar, if somewhat troubling.

Fast-forward to March 4, 2008. Behold, we have a white woman and a black man contending to be the Democratic nominee for president. I, who never thought I would live to see this, am so excited it is difficult for me not to shout from the nearest tree top.

I now invite you to take a virtual trip with me back to 1994, when apartheid ended in South Africa. Watching the TV, I saw those long, snaking lines of people in their tribal garb, some who had walked as far as 10 miles in the broiling sun, to cast their first vote.

But my goose bumps of admiration soon turned into anger tinged with sadness. I found myself thinking about how we spoiled, complacent Americans, assume that our freedom (read: comfort) just "is" and "will always be" and therefore, we need expend no vigilance or work to maintain it.

Even in presidential elections, as a nation we rarely vote more than in the 50 percent range. To me this feels neglectful, unconscionable and shameful. I am such a weirdo about this: I see voting as a privilege our framers bestowed upon us.

So, let's cut all these new folks attending their first caucus some slack. And, while we're at it, save some tolerance for the befuddled precinct election officials (remember, they are all volunteers) muddling their way through a process of historical proportions.

Make no mistake, this is history and Texas has been part of it. Now, I think I'll go find a treetop to holler from.

March 8, 2008, 4:03PM
Keeper is a Houston writer.
Copyright 2008 Houston Chronicle





From a reader:

I try not to be a conspiracy theorist but I don't feel it's an accident that the IRS is currently overseen by a Republican Administration and they are choosing to investigate a Democrat's denomination (see below) but they allow Mike Huckabee to speak at Jerry Falwell's church: http://politicalticker.blogs.cnn.com/2008/02/09/huckabee-to-speak-at-falwells-church/

This isn't about Obama or in favor of him...it is about the fact that the religious right has been using their churches to campaign for Republicans for years without investigation but when Democrats are responsible and follow the rules with their candidates speaking in THEIR OWN religious context, these are the tactics we are up against:





Obama's General Synod speech prompts IRS to investigate UCC's tax-exempt status

[From United Church News Service]

Written by J. Bennett Guess
February 26, 2008

The Internal Revenue Service has notified the United Church of Christ's national offices in Cleveland, Ohio, that the IRS has opened an investigation into U.S. Sen. Barack Obama's address at the UCC's 2007 General Synod as the church engaging in "political activities."

In the IRS letter dated Feb. 20, the IRS said it was initiating a church tax inquiry "because reasonable belief exists that the United Church of Christ has engaged in political activities that could jeopardize its tax-exempt status."

The Rev. John H. Thomas, the UCC's general minister and president, called the investigation "disturbing" but said the investigation would reveal that the church did nothing improper or illegal.

Obama, an active member of the United Church of Christ for more than 20 years, addressed the UCC's 50th anniversary General Synod in Hartford, Conn., on June 23, 2007, as one of 60 diverse speakers representing the arts, media, academia, science, technology, business and government. Each was asked to reflect on the intersection of their faith and their respective vocations or fields of expertise. The invitation to Obama was extended a year before he became a Democratic presidential candidate.

"The United Church of Christ took great care to ensure that Senator Obama's appearance before the 50th anniversary General Synod met appropriate legal and moral standards," Thomas told United Church News. "We are confident that the IRS investigation will confirm that no laws were violated."

Before Obama spoke to the national gathering of 10,000 UCC members, Associate General Minister Edith A. Guffey, who serves as administrator of the biennial General Synod, admonished the crowd that Obama's appearance was not to be a campaign-related event and that electioneering would not be tolerated. No political leaflets, signs or placards were allowed, and activity by the Obama campaign was barred from inside the Hartford Civic Center venue.

In an introduction before Obama's speech, Thomas said Obama was invited as "one of ours" to provide reflections on "how personal faith can be lived out in the public square, how personal faith and piety is reflected in the life of public service."

Thomas said the IRS's investigation implies that Obama, a UCC member, is not free to speak openly to fellow UCC members about his faith.

"The very fact of an IRS investigation, however, is disturbing," Thomas said. "When the invitation to an elected public official to speak to the national meeting of his own church family is called into question, it has a chilling effect on every religious community that seeks to encourage politicians and church members to thoughtfully relate their personal faith to their public responsibilities."

Don Clark, a Chicago attorney who serves as the UCC's national special counsel, said the IRS investigation will afford the UCC the opportunity to correct "inaccuracies and misperceptions."

"It's disconcerting, since the IRS did not communicate with us, or seek any facts from us, in advance of their coming to this understanding," Clark said. "But we feel confident that once they are made aware of the facts that they'll draw a different conclusion.

"This inquiry will provide an opportunity for the United Church of Christ to correct any factual inaccuracies and misperceptions that may have prompted the underlying concern, and to reaffirm the importance of the constitutional rights of free speech and association that have been implicated," Clark said.

Sitting presidents and presidential candidates have a long history of speaking before non-profit, faith-based bodies.

In January of this year, both Obama and Sen. Hillary Clinton spoke separately to the national gathering of the National Baptist Convention of America. In April 1996, when her husband, Bill Clinton, was seeking re-election, then-First Lady Hillary Clinton, who is United Methodist, spoke before her denomination's quadrennial General Conference.

In March 1983, President Ronald Reagan gave his famous "Evil Empire" speech before the National Association of Evangelicals.

In September 1960, then-candidate John F. Kennedy, a Roman Catholic, appeared before the Greater Houston Ministerial Association to explain the "so-called religious issue" and "to emphasize from the outset that we have far more critical issues to face in the 1960 election."

Read the IRS letter to the UCC.





Subject: George W Library

The George W Bush Presidential Library is now in the planning stages. You'll want to be the first at your corporation to make a contribution to this great man's legacy.

The Library will include:

The Hurricane Katrina Room, which is still under construction.

The Alberto Gonzales Room, where you can't remember anything.

The Texas Air National Guard Room, where you don't have to even show up.

The Walter Reed Hospital Room, where they don't let you in.

The Guantanamo Bay Room, where they don't let you out.

The Weapons of Mass Destruction Room (which no one has been able to find).

The Iraq War Room. After you complete your first tour, they make you to go back for a second, third, fourth, and sometimes fifth tour.

T he Dick Cheney Room, in the famous undisclose d location, complete with shooting gallery.

Plans also include: The K-Street Project Gift Shop - where you can buy (or just steal) an election.

The Airport Men's Room, where you can meet some of your favorite Republican Senators.

Last, but not least, there will be an entire floor devoted to a 7/8 scale model of the President's ego.

To highlight the President's accomplishments, the museum will have an electron microscope to help you locate them.

When asked, President Bush said that he didn't care so much about the individual exhibits as long as his museum was better than his father's.





McCain Sees Pork Where Scientists See Success

Candidate Criticizes Ambitious Bear Study

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/03/09/AR2008030902152.html?wpisrc=newsletter&wpisrc=newsletter





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