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CLINTON
COUNTY
DEMOCRATIC PARTY NEWSLETTER
“We have the opportunity
to look towards a continuation of the work we started last January: ending the Iraq
War, restoring the Constitution, and putting a Democrat in the White House. Many of you share the desire to return our nation to one
that respects the rule of law, and I want to make one thing clear to all of
you: The fight to restore the
Constitution and stop retroactive immunity does not end with my Presidential
campaign. The Federal Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) will come back
in a few weeks and my pledge to filibuster ANY bill that includes retroactive
immunity remains operative.” (Senator
Chris Dodd)
January 7,
2008
COMING DEMOCRATIC EVENTS
Wednesday, January 9 –
4:30 – 7:00 P.M. -- Lyons Depot
POLLY'S ANNUAL PRE-SESSION CHILI SUPPER
FUND RAISER
Suggested Donation $10.00
State Representative and House Speaker
pro-tempore Polly Bukta’s annual chili supper,
pre-legislative session review and fund raiser will have all the chili you care to eat plus many
toppings, corn bread,
dessert, coffee, milk, beer etc.
Polly will give her assessment of the 2008 Iowa Legislative session
which starts Monday, January 14.
Monday, January 7 --
11:00 A.M. – 2:00 P.M.
HELP!
Anyone who is available please stop by Democratic
Headquarters to help sort and organize caucus materials. Your help would be
greatly appreciated. We hope to obtain many new names for our email and
quarterly print newsletters for the expansion of our party.
Monday, January 7 --
4:30 – 5:30 P.M.
Clinton Community College Graphic Arts Center
1951 Manufacturing Drive, Clinton,
Iowa
CLINTON
BUSINESS AND ECONOMIC CONDITIONS FORUM
You are cordially invited to join Congressman Bruce Braley to discuss the important issues facing businesses in
Iowa.
Saturday, January 12 --
10:00 A.M.
CLINTON COUNTY
CONVENTION COMMITTEES
The county convention platform and committee on
committees will meet at Clinton County Democratic Headquarters, 224
19th Place just north of Chancy
Park.
Tuesday, January 15 -- 7:30 P.M. The Central
Committee will meet at Democratic Headquarters.
Tuesday, February 19 -- 7:30 P.M. Central Committee organizational meeting and election of officers.
DEMOCRATIC
CONVENTIONS
Saturday, March 15, 2008 Clinton
County Convention
Saturday, April 26, 2008 First
Congressional District Convention
Saturday, June 14, 2008 Iowa
State Convention
Monday, August 25 - 28, 2008 Democratic
National Convention in Denver
Visitors
are welcome at all Democratic events.
WOW!!
Our caucus
turnout in Clinton
County and the whole State
was a blow out! It was double or triple the 2004
caucus numbers of attendees. We thought our caucuses were large last
time, but Iowa Democrats really came forward this year. The caucus chairs
did a wonderful job managing the program they were trained to follow and the
large crowds, too. I was very proud of how seriously caucus chairs were
about studying the rules and making space arrangements at their sites, along
with considering how to plan the lay out to work the best for everyone.
The excitement, interest, and great attitudes of those who attended the
Democratic caucuses were positive, promising signs for us. Not only do we
look forward to all the new people who hopefully will stay involved through the
November election, but fresh energetic people with ideas to do more outreach
can help us build our Democratic Party. We extend our sincere thanks to
all those who came to the history making caucuses. (Jean
Pardee-Clinton County
Democratic Chair)
THE TRUTH ABOUT AL
GORE’S HOME
Republicans who rarely
check their facts have criticized Al Gore's $2.3 million, 10,000-square-foot
home in the Belle Meade section of Nashville.
That's the mansion -- to Gore's critics it's always a
mansion -- that tagged the former Vice President as an energy hog. He's quick
to point out that the house generates electricity from more than 30 solar
photovoltaic panels on the roof as well as seven 300-foot geothermal wells in
the ground, and that it has been certified as an energy-efficient home by the
U.S. Green Building Council. (Fortune
Magazine – November 26, 2007)
ANNOY A CONSERVATIVE: THINK FOR YOURSELF!
HOW CAN ANYONE BE PROUD TO BE A
CONSERVATIVE?
Last year the conservative
obstructionists in the United State Congress blocked progress on the following
programs:
Ø Ending the disastrous occupation of Iraq.
Ø Providing health insurance to millions more kids.
Ø Empowering Medicare to negotiate for lower prescription drug prices.
Ø
Taking away handouts to Big Oil so we can invest in renewable energy.
Ø
Repealing the effective ban on embryonic stem cell research.
Ø
Investing more in health research.
Ø
Making it easier for workers to join unions.
Ø
Investing more in fighting poverty and training workers.
CLINTON
COUNTY DEMOCRATIC PARTY
NEWSLETTER
“President
Bush does not have a strategy for victory in Iraq.
His strategy is to prevent defeat and to hand the problem off to his successor.
As a result, more and more Americans understandably want a rapid withdrawal,
even at the risk of trading a dictator for chaos and a civil war that could
become a regional war. Both are bad alternatives. The course we're on leads to a terrible civil
war and possibly a regional war. Joe Biden's plan is
designed to head that off. The best
solution is to bring our troops home, protect our fundamental security
interests, and preserve Iraq
as a unified country.”
(Senator Joe Biden, Chairman of the Senate Foreign
Relations Committee)
“I
just want you to know that, when we talk about war, we’re
really talking about peace.”
(President
George W. Bush)
January
14, 2008
JIMMY
CARTER’S AMAZING POST-PRESIDENCY
Jimmy
Carter’s post-presidency is remarkable for his energy
and compassion. He’s spanned war zones, the inner
sanctums of despots, and remote, disease-ridden lands as he’s
worked for peace, health, and democracy in over 70 nations. Now, drawing on
personal diaries and in his own words, the Nobel Prize
winner and #1 bestselling author takes us inside his extraordinary experiences
around the world during the last 25 years.
Carter brings to life all the
excitement, challenge, unpredictability, adventure, and gratification. He travels to North
Korea to try to defuse a nuclear crisis and assembles a
team that averts a military invasion of Haiti.
He defies intimidation and other obstacles to protect fair elections in Africa,
China, Palestine,
and elsewhere. And he marshals forces through his foundation, the Carter
Center, to cure horrible,
neglected diseases and change millions of lives.
This gripping, inspiring memoir
provides “a ground-level view of the action, much of it edge-of-the-seat” (Kirkus Reviews). Beyond the White House is a singular look back at Carter’s recent quarter century of public service.
IRAQ:
A WAY FORWARD – A REAL PLAN FOR IRAQ
There
is a way that we can achieve the objectives most Americans share about the war
in Iraq:
to bring our troops home without leaving chaos behind. The idea is to maintain
a unified Iraq
by federalizing it and giving Kurds, Shiites and Sunnis breathing room in their
own regions. The central government would be responsible for common interests,
like border security and the distribution of oil revenues. The plan would bind
the Sunnis - who have no oil -- by guaranteeing them a proportionate share of
oil revenues. The plan would convene an international conference to secure
support for the power sharing arrangement and produce a regional nonaggression
pact, overseen by a contact group of major powers. The plan would call on the U.S.
military to withdraw most U.S.
troops from Iraq
by the summer of 2008, with a residual force to keep Iraqis and their neighbors
honest. It would increase economic aid but tie it to the protection of minority
rights and the creation of a jobs program and seek funding from the oil-rich
Gulf Arab states. Sectarian violence
between the Shiites and Sunnis is growing.
Ethnic
militias have infiltrated the official security forces. Massive unemployment is
feeding the sectarian militia. Sectarian cleansing has forced at least 250,000
Iraqis to flee their homes in recent months. At the same time, Al Qaeda is now
so firmly entrenched in Western Iraq that it
has morphed into an indigenous jihadist threat. As a result, Iraq risks becoming what it was
not before the war: a haven for radical fundamentalists.
There is no purely military solution to the sectarian civil war. The
only way to break the vicious cycle of violence - and to create the conditions
for our armed forces to responsibly withdraw -- is to give Shiites, Sunnis and
Kurds incentives to pursue their interests peacefully. That requires an
equitable and viable power sharing arrangement. That's where Joe Biden's plan comes in. This plan is not partition - in
fact, it may be the only way to prevent violent partition and preserve a
unified Iraq.
This plan is consistent with Iraq's
constitution, which provides for Iraq's
18 provinces to join together in regions, with their own security forces, and
control over most day-to-day issues. This plan is the only idea on the table
for dealing with the militia, which are likely to retreat to their respective
regions. This plan is consistent with a strong central government, with clearly
defined responsibilities. Indeed, it provides an agenda for that government,
whose mere existence will not end sectarian violence.
SENATOR
BIDEN’S FIVE POINT PLAN FOR IRAQ
1. Establish one Iraq
with three regions.
2. Share oil revenue.
3. Convene an international conference and
enforce a regional non-aggression pact.
4. Responsibly draw down U.S.
troops.
5. Increase reconstruction assistance and create
a jobs program.
(You
may obtain more information by going to www.joebiden.com)
THE
DIFFERENCES BETWEEN DEMOCRATS AND REPUBLICANS
ON
ABORTION
Republicans
want to get tough and pass a
constitutional amendment that will criminalize abortion so that they can send
women and their doctors to prison.
Democrats want to reduce the number of abortions by providing help for
expectant mothers that will make abortions unnecessary and undesirable.
ON
IMMIGRATION
Republicans
want to get tough with Mexican
families who are working in this country by treating all of them as terrorists,
arresting them, breaking up their families, denying them medical care and
education for their children and sending them all back to Mexico. Democrats recognize that most Mexican
families are hard working, just want a better life for their families and
deserve to be treated like humans.
Democrats want a more comprehensive and humanitarian approach to the
problem.
CLINTON COUNTY
DEMOCRATIC PARTY NEWSLETTER
"If you will protest
courageously, and yet with dignity and Christian love, when the history
books are written in future generations, the historians will have to pause
and say, "There lived a great people - a black people - who injected new
meaning and dignity into the veins of civilization." --Martin Luther King, Jr.--
January
21, 2008 is
MARTIN
LUTHER KING, JR. DAY
FOOD
DONATIONS NEEDED FOR CONVENTION LUNCH
If
you would like to donate food for the convention lunch, call Charlie Smith,
chair of the arrangements committee. We
will need meat for sloppy joes, chips, mustard, buns,
potato salads, coleslaw, desserts, donuts etc.
We are expecting about 200 people.
Call
Charlie at 243-3031 or email him at charliesbluff@iowatelecom.net
CLINTON
COUNTY DEMOCRATS’
CONVENTION
The
Clinton County Convention attendees include delegates and/or alternates elected
at the caucuses on January 3 from the thirty precincts in Clinton
County. It gives us the opportunity to make a
contribution to the health and strength of the Democratic Party and to improve
conditions in Clinton County,
the State of Iowa and the United
States of America.
Visitors
are always welcome at all Democratic events.
Developing
the Clinton County
Democrats’ Platform
The
platform committee met on January 12 and found itself buried in proposals for
planks that came from the various caucuses. These included many
duplicates and near duplicates as well as a few that are somewhat in
conflict. It seems that the Democrats in Clinton
County frequently
agree but have a few independent thoughts as well. By the time we
reach the county convention, the committee will have it all organized
into a set of simple, coherent statements (planks) covering what we believe as
a party. Of course, the members of the convention will have the final say
on what goes into this platform. At our first meeting, we managed
to separate the caucus-generated proposals into groups by subject
and nearly completed the final organizing and writing work on just the
Agriculture and Environment Section. It looks as if we still have
plenty of work ahead of us. (Tom
Gibbons)
REPUBLICAN
COALITION HAS LITTLE COMPREHENSION OF CHRISTIAN VALUES
“I
am astonished by all the Republican aspirants to the presidency of the United
States going around proclaiming their Christianity and seeing who can out do
who in dealing with these damnable, welfare sopping, criminal, law-breaking
illegal aliens. All I hear is: throw them out; no amnesty, build a USA
version of the Berlin
wall.
“So let’s appeal to the New Testament. Matthew 2:
19-23, the flight into Egypt. Pharaoh says, ‘We gotta
stop these illegal Jewish immigrants, no amnesty for them, build a fence
instead of a pyramid. No,
that won’t work. Let’s try
another. Matthew 5:1-12: Blessed are the
poor . . . Blessed are the meek, for they shall possess the earth. No, not that one. Matthew
11: 2-11? “Report to John what you see . . . the poor have the good news preached
to them.’
“I see in the New Testament a lot about the greedy and the needy and the need
to repent. But I cannot for the life of me vision a Jesus advocating no amnesty
for illegal aliens; breaking up families; getting rid of the poor.
“If we allow the corporations to push our government into making trade
agreements that cause poverty and suffering elsewhere, then why should we
resent it because they come here? Doesn’t the ‘right to
life’ include the right to eat? And where is the Christianity in the solutions
proposed by the Republican candidates?”
(The above letter written by Arthur C. Donart of Thomson,
Illinois appeared in the Clinton
Herald on Monday, December 24, 2007.)
MONDAY
IS A NATIONAL HOLIDAY TO HONOR THE REV. DR.
MARTIN LUTHER KING, JR.
“Dr.
King was a man of peace, a man of principle and a man of profound conscience.
Our country is forever changed thanks to Dr. King's work and the work of so
many other Americans who were determined to restore the promise of America.
The fight for civil rights and equal rights and economic and social justice is
still going on across our country. Today, we still live in two different Americas
– one America
for those who are doing extraordinarily well and one for everybody else.
We still have two school systems, two health care systems, two systems of
justice and two economies. Today, let's commit ourselves to igniting the
revolution of values that Dr. King dreamed about, to speaking out against
unfairness and injustice, to making sure the voice of every American is heard
and to building One America." (Senator John Edwards)
CLINTON
COUNTY DEMOCRATIC PARTY
NEWSLETTER
“The attitudes behind Anglo-Saxon power are so ingrained in
the Anglo-Saxon mind that it is worth detaching oneself from them and reviewing
their global political effects. George
W. Bush’s grandiose and stumbling delusions of a ‘freedom agenda’
in a 400-year context may not be as asinine as they appear at first blush. They are wholly in keeping
with the finger-wagging, profit-seeking Puritanism that drove first the British
and now the Americans to thrust their ideas and institutions on a
not-always-appreciative world. Liberal
capitalism, free markets, and moral faith deluded first the British and now the
Americans into believing that they could ‘end history’ by making even benighted parts of the
world accept their creed.” (Walter Russell Mead, senior
fellow for U.S.
foreign policy at the Council on Foreign Relations in his book ‘God and Gold’)
January 28, 2008