Failure and Fear

"Failure is an option, but fear is not." -- James Cameron, film director, 2010.

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Letter to Rep Poe regarding Debt Reduction

The rich must be taxed for a healthy economy. It is completely illogical to think that a percentage-based equality is good for the middle class. To use percentages to equate tax obligations makes no sense as disposable income is used in greater amounts for the lower and middle class than for the upper class. We know, after 30 years of Reagan's trickle-down economics, that it doesn't work. The American middle class has shrunk by 30% since Reagan's tax code. The discussions this week MUST include revenue increases. That is the only thing that can possibly reinvigorate the economy. Yes, I agree that "entitlements" must be addressed, but the budget discussions must include increased taxes on the super rich if there is any hope of long-term recovery, because the corporations and the banks obviously are not interested in investing in the middle class any more.
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Letter to Rep Riddle: Judicial Influence

Dear Ms. Riddle, Recently New York’s top court officials decided to bar the state’s hundreds of elected judges from hearing cases involving lawyers and others who make significant contributions to their campaigns, a move that will change the political culture of courts and transform judicial elections by removing an important incentive lawyers have for contributing. This move bluntly tackles an important issue in our state — money in judicial politics — that deserves more legislative attention. Similar measures have been adopted recently in Washington, Oklahoma, Michigan and other states, and would take the question of disqualification entirely out of judges’ hands. Texas, too, should flatly state that “no case shall be assigned” by court administrators to a judge when the lawyers or any of the participants involved donated money in the preceding two years. The reasons should be obvious. Daniel Schuman has written about the growing problem of money in judicial elections across...
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Failure in Veracruz

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10 August 2014, 7:50 a.m. Veracruz Gus, I was never complaining about the lack of A/C, really.  I know that A/C is not used everywhere. No complaints. I just had lots of time to think yesterday and last night. It was wrong for me to think that we are close friends when we haven't even spoken on the phone in five years. Even when you were in Houston, we were never really close, though I perhaps wanted so. And yet I presumed to stay with you after five years when we don't really know each other. I had to answer about five times yesterday why I was here. Each time I said that you were my friend, people got a blank stare. It's not the languages or the different countries. I just really don't have the right to think that we're good enough friends for me to stay at your house, talk with your friends, take up your time. I'm 15 years older than you and that's getting to be the time when I got to get real. You did nothing wrong, nor your great family or fr...
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