Today, America celebrates 243 years since the Continental Congress declared the 13 colonies a free and independent nation from the British crown. The Declaration of Independence is one of the most cherished documents in American history.

THE MASK MATTERS: Last night, one of my staffers lost a close family friend who died alone in ICU on a ventilator, suffering from COVID-19. He had a family. He had people who cared about him. He had a future. Now it's gone. We can't lose track of each human story in the mountain of statistics this pandemic has become, even as Trump and Cornyn act like COVID-19 doesn't exist. From the national and state level, we get no clear guidance. The result is chaos.

I hear the dog whistle again. This time against Hispanic Texans. When will @JohnCornyn learn? I encourage every Democrat to join me in condemning John Cornyn’s race baiting. (1/?)... Using @BetoORourke and @JulianCastro and @JoaquinCastrotx in this way is just a dog-whistle to the farthest of the right, the the racists and the segregationists within his own party and within America.

One hundred and fifty five years ago today, on June 19, 1865, General Gordon Granger stood on a balcony in Galveston, and proclaimed the slaves in Texas now and forevermore free. Today that day is commemorated as #Juneteenth While General Order Number 3 freed black slaves in Texas from their physical chains, It did not remove the collective bondage of the black people in this state.

Sen. .@JohnCornyn refuses to support renaming military bases named after Confederate officers. This is the kind of logic you would expect from someone whose first foray into the political world was as a vocal supporter of George Wallace for President. (1/7) Around the same time I was helping integrate my high school, .@JohnCornyn Cornyn was supporting the man who famously said, ‘Segregation Now, Segregation Forever.’ It doesn't seem Senator Cornyn's views have changed much since 1968. (See: bit.ly/3fswnmj) (2/7)