I honestly think it's great, and I love taking trains in Europe, for example. But this seems like an even better opportunity to revisit the Houston city rail wars from earlier BBS days. @MadMax , @Trader_Jorge , et al. -- we want both sides of the issue discussed pls. Should the US be investing in passenger rail? CHOO CHOO.
I've wanted it for years. Light rail is fine for people who commute around downtown but passenger rail from Galveston to Houston, and beyond linking all the booming cities like Conroe, Pearland, etc.. would make living outside town such an easier commute. It would be great to have multiple connections to to cities like Austin, Dallas, and San Antonio for concerts, sporting events, and weekend getaways. It would also help get a bunch of drunk drivers off the roads going to or from events they normally have to commute to.
in a camapign event in 2016, Cancun Cruz said that said that if John F. Kennedy were alive today, he would be a Republican. This prompted an immediate reponse from JFK's grandson, Caroline Kennedy's son, Jack Kennedy Schlossberg. He wrote this essay for Politico. Ted Cruz Is No Jack Kennedy The Senator from Texas, a presidential candidate, invoked President John F. Kennedy's name and legacy in a campaign appearance the other day, arguing that if he were alive today, Kennedy would be a Republican. Specifically, he said Kennedy “would be tarred and feathered by the modern Democratic Party.” As Kennedy’s grandson, and as a student of his life, legacy and administration, I find this notion—and the suggestion that Ted Cruz is somehow taking up his mantle—absurd. Were my grandfather alive today, he’d be excited about how far we have come as a nation since 1963, he would feel a sense of urgency about the challenges that lie ahead and he most certainly would not be a Republican. The contrast is stark. Kennedy gave science and technology the highest national priority with his expansion of the space program. Most of the Republican Party denies climate change and has fought all efforts to address it. Kennedy believed in religious liberty and the separation of church and state. He did not believe in the right of elected officials to impose their religious views on others. JFK was the first Catholic ever elected president, and he spent much of the 1960 campaign defending his religion and assuring voters he would not take orders from the Vatican. As someone whose faith was seen as a “hazardous risk” to his campaign, he would be horrified by the attacks made against Muslim-Americans by leading Republican candidates for president. He championed legislation to ensure that all Americans could exercise their right to vote. He did not spend his time devising ways to disenfranchise certain segments of the population. As a senator and president he supported immigration reform that would welcome more hopeful men and women to America’s shores. He did not try to close our borders, demonize foreign nationals or separate families by deporting parents with American children.
Kennedy believed government could help organize the best of America's energies and skills. He created new federal programs with ambitious goals, such as the Peace Corps. He did not spend his years in the House and Senate devoted to obstructing the opposition. He certainly did not lead an effort, as Cruz did, to shut down the federal government to score political points and deny health insurance to millions. Cruz described the Kennedy campaign as one for tax cuts, limited government and tough talk against the Soviets. And yet, accepting the nomination of the Democratic Party in 1960, Kennedy said this: “There may be those who wish to hear more—more promises to this group or that—more harsh rhetoric about the men in the Kremlin— more assurances of a golden future, where taxes are always low and subsidies ever high.” But he admitted he wasn’t that candidate. He outlined his vision for a New Frontier—a platform of challenges rather than promises, an appeal to public interest over private comfort. Clearly, Cruz hasn’t read that speech.
