Stephen J Ruston

Happily married with two kids. UTSA C/O ‘03 #BirdsUp

[Gina Hinojosa @GinaHinojosaTX]

It takes under a minute minute to check your voter registration status.

The deadline to register in Texas is October 5th. Go to https://t.co/PK43H75pb7 today!

[Jacob Long @jacobwlong87]

America got to see the real @GregAbbott_TX on full display on @60Minutes last night.

Taking $20 million from data center special interests, announcing Texas as the new AI epicenter last year, then quickly backpedaling after it’s no longer politically convenient.

Watch 🔊

[Julie Johnson for Texas @juliejohnsonTX]

Last year, Abbott said TX would be the “centerpiece” for AI data centers in the entire world. Now Texans are fighting back over water, power & rising costs — and Abbott is scrambling to clean up the mess he helped create. He can change his talking points. He can’t change his record.

[Gina Hinojosa @GinaHinojosaTX]

Under Greg Abbott, our property taxes have gone up 85% while he took millions in donations from billionaires and corporations.

If he wanted to lower taxes, he had plenty of chances to do so in the last 12 years he's been governor.

[Sara Spector @Miriam2626]

Why does the next Governor of Texas only have 46 thousand followers? Give her a follow!

[Aaron Rupar @atrupar]

Gina Hinojosa: "The fight of 2026 is to decide is this going to be a Texas and America that is by and for the people, or is this the billionaires' world and we just live here. That's the fight."

[Texas Rangers @Rangers]

Whole lotta fight in this team. #AllForTX

[Team Talarico @TeamTalaricoHQ]

.@JamesTalarico drops new ad:

“Billionaires are spending millions attacking me. Here's why.

I don't take corporate PAC money. I'm running to ban dark money so billionaires can't buy our elections. Ban members of Congress from trading stocks and enriching themselves. Ban gerrymandering in every state. And establish term limits so we can show career politicians the door.

I’m James Talarico and I approve this message — because if the billionaires are coming after us, we must be doing something right.”

[Brian Tyler Cohen @briantylercohen]

Texas Republicans are now trashing teenagers for the crime of not being white.

[(((Charles Fishman))) 💧 @cfishman]

Joseph Pfeifer was the first NYC fire chief on scene at the World Trade Centers on 9/11.

On CNN two days ago, he made a point I'd never heard or read anyone make about 9/11:

The Towers had ~20,000 people in them when the planes hit.

'We lost 3,000 people at Ground Zero that day,' Pfeifer said.

'But we rescued something like 17,000 people before the Towers came down,' he said.

That's so amazing. Amid the confusion, the chaos, first responders and workers inside the World Trade Center got 85% of people to safety.

That's a fact worth knowing, too.

[James Talarico @jamestalarico]

Thank you @JohnCornyn for your leadership.

Racism has no place in Texas.

@KenPaxtonTX: will you condemn this blatant racism or will you cower to extremists?

[fivepointsvids @FivePointsVids]

You hear the worst news of your life and your first priority is not to scare the children. None of us know how we will handle a crisis. Perhaps the answer is - look in front of you and see who is watching.

[Barstool Baseball @StoolBaseball]

“Don’t bounce it, they’ll boo ya”

Derek Jeter to President Bush before he delivered the perfect strike

[BaseballHistoryNut @nut_history]

President Bush throws the first pitch of Game 3 of the 2001 World Series after 9/11

As silly as it sounds, it was important for him to throw a strike. No matter what you think of him, that was clutch/badass. Used the regulation rubber as well. Big time...

25 years later and I still think this is the greatest ceremonial first pitch ever

[Mike Coté @ratlpolicy]

This is, by far, the greatest moment of presidential oratory that has ever happened in my lifetime. The fact that it was largely off-the-cuff is incredible.

Still gives me chills & brings a tear to my eye 25 years later. God bless America.

[Stephen J Ruston @StephenJRuston]

This is the way it should be.

[Meidas_Charise Lee @charise_lee]

Kudos to Curtis for so much authenticity and class here. #respect

[Barnaby Breaks History 🇺🇸 @BarnabyHistory]

🇺🇸 The Stairwell That Should Not Have Been There

Ladder 6 left Chinatown that morning. The Pride of Chinatown. Captain Jay Jonas and five men: Sal D’Agostino, Matt Komorowski, Mike Meldrum, Bill Butler, Tommy Falco.

They went up the North Tower in Stairwell B. Gear on their backs. Twenty-seventh floor when the South Tower came down.

The order came. Get out.

On the way down they found a woman who could not take another step.

Josephine Harris. Fifty-nine. Bookkeeper for the Port Authority on the 73rd floor. A widow. She had already walked fifty-three flights on a bad leg. At twenty she stopped.

Tommy Falco looked at his captain.
“Cap, what do you want to do with her?”

They were running for their lives. They took her anyway. One step. Both feet. One step. Both feet. People behind them and had to squeeze past.

At the fourth floor her legs gave out. She told them to leave her.

They did not.

Jonas went looking for a chair. He was a few feet from the stairwell door when the North Tower started to come down.

It took thirteen seconds.

Jonas said the building peeled away around them like a banana. Above them, no one in that stairwell lived. Below them, in the lobby, almost no one lived. They were sitting in the only piece that held. Fourth floor to first.

Fourteen people were in that stretch of stairs. The six from Ladder 6. Josephine. A battalion chief. A Port Authority K-9 officer whose dog did not make it.

Jonas later said if she had been faster, they would have been in the lobby. If they had left her, they would have been lower, or gone.

They called her their guardian angel.

Josephine died in 2011. She was sixty-nine. The six men from Ladder 6 were her pallbearers. They lifted her one more time.

[Stephen J Ruston @StephenJRuston]

Jimmy Kimmel’s Interview with James Talarico That the FCC Doesn’t Want Y... https://t.co/xpq5h01DcG via @YouTube

[Barack Obama @BarackObama]

If you were young in 2001, or weren’t even born yet, it can be hard to imagine what 9/11 felt like. The shock of that beautiful, cloudless morning. The heartbreak of the families whose loved ones were taken with such swiftness and cruelty. The realization that the forces of malevolence and violence were closer, and the future less certain, than we knew.

But in the days that followed, we felt something else, too. Pride in the rescue workers who had rushed to the scene, and the passengers who had stormed the cockpit. Admiration for the men and women who left behind lives of comfort to serve their country. A deep resolve that nothing would break the will of a truly United States of America.

Today Michelle and I are remembering those we lost that day, and those who made the ultimate sacrifice in the wars that followed. We pray for their families. And we hope Americans everywhere remember the true lesson of 9/11: that we can survive even our darkest days as long as we move forward as one nation and one people.

[MeidasTouch @MeidasTouch]

BREAKING: Jimmy Kimmel announces his interview with Texas Democratic Senate candidate James Talarico will NOT air on ABC tomorrow, saying Trump’s FCC has threatened him, his show, ABC, its affiliates, and local stations over “simple traditional editorial decisions” and guest bookings.

Kimmel says the full interview will instead be posted to YouTube: “In the America we live in right now, that is the best that we can do until November.”