Burt Solomons

Husband & Father. 18-yr veteran of the TX House of Representatives, real estate attorney & former municipal judge. Independent voter.

[Burt Solomons @burtrsolomons]

A DEVIOUS @GOP PLAN TO RIG THE KANAS COURTS FOR ITS EXTREMIST ANTI-ABORTION AGENDA — Kansans Will Vote on an Elected Supreme Court. The Target: Abortion. https://t.co/uS35UqX5qO via @NYTimes

[Rick Wilson @TheRickWilson]

America's Secret Police in action. Time to ID that guy who let his mask slip.

[Burt Solomons @burtrsolomons]

No one can now believe a word ICE or DHS says about what happened. Both agencies have lied to the American & World public over & over. AGENTS ARE INTENTIONALLY & KILLING PEOPLE ON AMERICAN STREETS.

[Texas Tribune @TexasTribune]

Breaking: Witnesses of the Houston ICE shooting claim Lorenzo Salgado Araujo didn’t try to ram agents.

The three men in the van with him told their lawyer agents fired into the vehicle unprovoked, according to the Washington Post. https://t.co/mbbwwzmQ0M

[James Talarico @jamestalarico]

Ken Paxton just denied our public information request for the Hoffman Files.

Adam Hoffman — an admitted child molester — should be in prison, but Ken Paxton let him off the hook. Texans deserve to know why. 

We don’t need any more pedophile protectors in our government.

[Burt Solomons @burtrsolomons]

So true. Texas will never really improve public education for the benefit of our children & grandchildren so long as @GregAbbott_TX is governor & @DanPatrick are in office. It’s an unfortunate fact of life of where we are politically in Texas right now.

[Glenn Rogers @RogersForTexas]

The most ANTI-PUBLIC EDUCATION GOVERNOR in Texas history wants you to believe he cares about public schools, at least until NOVEMBER 3rd.
What a JOKE!

[Burt Solomons @burtrsolomons]

Texans can only hope, pray & VOTE that @jamestalarico wins the seat!! @KenPaxtonTX would be an awful & grifter US Senator to enrich himself. Just my opinion.

[Scott Braddock @scottbraddock]

"I do think he has a real chance" - Sen @tedcruz tells @GregAbbott_TX that @jamestalarico has a shot at beating @KenPaxtonTX this fall.

[Bud Kennedy / #ReadLocal @BudKennedy]

Wait a minute. GOP #HD94 nominee @CherylBeanTX used a public school superintendent to speak for her political campaign page? That is exactly the electioneering that Texas has laws against and what @KenPaxtonTX investigates at public schools #txed #txlege https://t.co/iD2KtlFXmk

[Jesus Freakin Congress @TheJFreakinC]

🚨BREAKING: (Chicago suburb, St. Charles) ICE agents smashed a handcuffed man’s face into a stone wall, then assaulted a U.S. citizen, multiple times, once they realized they were filming.

In the video, multiple ICE agents have a man in handcuffs. While he is completely under their control, and not resisting, they smash his face into a stone wall.

A U.S. citizen begins asking for the man’s name, while filming... note that he is not interfering, blocking the agents, or preventing the arrest in any way…. But that doesn’t stop the ICE agent from chases after him, while another agent threatens him with a taser.

As the citizen is actively backing away, the agent continues walking toward him, and aggressively shoves him backwards.

Even after the detained man is being escorted to the vehicle… and the legal observer is nowhere near the agents, or their cars… that same ICE agent continues shoving the U.S. citizen for no apparent reason.

And while he is standing on the public sidewalk, another agent walks over and points a taser inches from him, and then turns around and points his taser at other innocent people, who are just standing and watching.

Americans have a First Amendment right to record government officials performing their duties in public. Threatening, intimidating, or assaulting someone because they are documenting law enforcement, violates that right.

And slamming a person face, who is handcuffed and not resisting, into a stone wall is excessive force.

This is exactly why it’s important to always record anytime you see ICE agents.

Because when there isn’t video evidence, we’re told to trust the government’s version of events. And more often than not, their version is filled with lies.

But when there is video, the people filming often become the next target… just for documenting what is happening.

And that’s what makes this so alarming.

This is happening across the country, almost every single day. Americans are watching videos of people being thrown to the ground, beaten, threatened, shoved, tased, and intimidated by federal agents… while never seeing anyone held accountable.

When a government refuses to investigate or discipline agents who violate people’s constitutional rights, it sends a message that they can keep doing it.

And that’s exactly what we’re seeing.

The Constitution means nothing if the people sworn to uphold it can violate it without consequence.

And as long as this administration refuses to hold ICE agents accountable, Americans should expect to keep seeing videos like this… because impunity breeds abuse.

[Burt Solomons @burtrsolomons]

@KenPaxtonTX —

[Lucas Sanders 👊🏽🔥🇺🇸 @LucasSa56947288]

Former Speaker Kevin McCarthy on the Graham Platner Allegations: That one thing I know about Republicans is when we had a very bad candidate, we didn't vote for that person. We walked away.

[Frank Lloyd Wrong 🇺🇸 @FrankLloydWron]

@atrupar @realDonaldTrump Trump calls FIFA, “We just need to find 4 more goals, which is one more than we need. We already know we won by a landslide.”

[Bill Clinton @BillClinton]

Happy 80th birthday to my friend George W. Bush!

Your friendship—and that of your father and your entire family—has been one of the great gifts of my life. It has always reminded me that long before we’re politicians, we’re fellow Americans and, above all, human beings.

And for the next month, I’m especially grateful to finally have someone older than me! Wishing you many more years of good health, happiness, and friendship.

Our country is stronger when we remember that what unites us is greater than what divides us.

[Burt Solomons @burtrsolomons]

SOOOOO, IS THIS WHAT AMERICANS REALLY WANT & EXPECT FROM THEIR GOVERNMENT; NOT BE ABLE TO SEND AN EMAIL CRITICIZING A GOVERNMENT OFFICIAL?? — NY man files First Amendment lawsuit against DHS : NPR https://t.co/ekh5bEOLzB

[Brian Krassenstein @krassenstein]

MUST WATCH:

Clip from Larry David's new show "Life, Larry, and the Pursuit of Unhappiness"

Rob Reiner (before his death) as George Washington.

Trump is going to hate this.

[Burt Solomons @burtrsolomons]

HaHa - Larry David

[Dr. Eli David @DrEliDavid]

Happy Birthday America 🎂

[Crazy Vibes @CrazyVibes_1]

"He was a Rhodes Scholar. An Army Ranger. A helicopter pilot. A janitor. And then, one afternoon in 1969, he landed a helicopter in Johnny Cash's backyard with a demo tape in his hand and changed country music forever. This is the life of Kris Kristofferson.

Kristoffer Kristofferson was born on June 22, 1936, in Brownsville, Texas a border town where, he would later say, he learned to speak Spanish before English. His father was an Air Force major general. His grandfather had been an officer in the Royal Swedish Army. His brother became a naval aviator. The expectation in the Kristofferson household was never a question. You served. You sacrificed. You followed the line.

Kris followed it and then blew it up entirely.

At Pomona College in California, he was a Golden Gloves boxer, a rugby standout, and a straight-A student of creative literature. In 1958, at age 22, he won a Rhodes Scholarship to Oxford University in England, where he studied the works of William Blake and wrote fiction seriously enough to publish short stories while still a student. He graduated in 1960 with a master's degree in English literature.

He came home, married his sweetheart, joined the Army, and trained as a Ranger. He became a helicopter pilot. He served in West Germany. He volunteered for Vietnam. The Army said no — and instead offered him something that sounded like a dream: a professorship teaching English literature at West Point.

He said no thank you.

1965. He is 29 years old. He resigns his Army commission 2 weeks before he is supposed to report to West Point. His parents are furious. His marriage begins to crack. He packs up and drives to Nashville, Tennessee, with nothing but songs in his head and a name nobody there has heard.

Here is what most people don't know: for more than 4 years, Kris Kristofferson is invisible.

He works as a bartender. A construction worker. A railroad hand. He gets a job sweeping floors and emptying ashtrays at Columbia Recording Studios — the same building where Bob Dylan is cutting Blonde on Blonde just down the hall. He sees Johnny Cash in the corridors. Cash nods at him the way you nod at a janitor. He tries to slip Cash his demo tapes. Cash brings them home to his property on Old Hickory Lake in Hendersonville, Tennessee — and, according to Cash himself, throws most of them into the lake.

For extra income, Kristofferson takes a weekend job with the Tennessee National Guard, flying helicopters. During the week, he works oil rigs in the Gulf of Mexico for Petroleum Helicopters International in Lafayette, Louisiana — flying workers out to the platforms, writing songs on top of the rig at night, then driving back to Nashville on weekends to pitch them around town.

Nothing sticks. He enters his 30s. His parents consider him a failure. His marriage ends in 1969.

And then, sometime in 1969, Kris Kristofferson makes a decision that only a man with nothing left to lose could make.

He deviates from his National Guard flight plan, points the helicopter toward Hendersonville, and sets it down in Johnny Cash's backyard.

Cash later told the story this way: June Carter looked out the window and said, ""Some fool has landed a helicopter in our yard. They used to come from the road. Now they're coming from the sky."" Kristofferson himself said it differently — he remembers Cash wasn't even home when he landed. Either way, the stunt works. Cash finally pays attention.

1970. Cash records ""Sunday Morning Coming Down."" A song about waking up after a hard night with nothing and no one. It goes to number 1 on the Billboard Country chart. When Cash performs it on his ABC television show that June, network executives demand he change the word ""stoned"" in the lyric ""wishing, Lord, that I was stoned."" Cash refuses. He performs it exactly as Kristofferson wrote it.

In October 1970, the Country Music Association names ""Sunday Morning Coming Down"" Song of the Year. Kristofferson accepts the award in jeans — at a ceremony where everyone else is in formal wear. A Rhodes Scholar and Army Ranger, standing at the podium in denim, winning country music's highest songwriting honor for a song about wishing you were stoned on a Sunday morning.

In 1971, Janis Joplin's recording of his ""Me and Bobby McGee"" — a song he had written while flying above oil rigs in the Gulf — hits number 1 on the pop charts. Posthumously. She had died of a heroin overdose in October 1970, just before it was released. Kristofferson and Joplin had been close. He would say later that when he first heard her version of the song, he could not even listen all the way through.

That same year, Sammi Smith's recording of his ""Help Me Make It Through the Night"" wins a Grammy. He is named Songwriter of the Year. He had written 3 of the biggest songs in America — while working a helicopter gig to pay his rent.

He goes on to act in more than 50 films. He wins a Golden Globe for A Star Is Born alongside Barbra Streisand in 1976. He forms the Highwaymen supergroup in 1985 with Cash, Willie Nelson, and Waylon Jennings. He is inducted into the Songwriters Hall of Fame in 1985. The Country Music Hall of Fame in 2004.

Kris Kristofferson died peacefully at home on September 28, 2024, at age 88. His family signed their statement: ""When you see a rainbow, know he's smiling down on us all."""

[Burt Solomons @burtrsolomons]

@CityOfDallas should NOT provide municipal services for the @GOP @TexasGOP midterm convention at the AA Center unless PAID IN ADVANCE. @realDonaldTrump is well known for NOT repaying cities that provide such municipal services for his rallies. @dallasnews

[Burt Solomons @burtrsolomons]

W/ the appointment of Rep Schatzline as @GregAbbott_TX election integrity advisor to steer election policy & to close state primaries, he now has gone full MAGA @GOP moron status for his own national ambitions in 2028. #sad #shameful HAPPY 4th

[Burt Solomons @burtrsolomons]

@realDonaldTrump IS PUTIN’S BEST FRIEND TO TAKE ON NATO — Russia planning attack on Poland to test Nato resolve, US warns https://t.co/THYtc75Gj8

[Bill Kristol @BillKristol]

Impeach and convict.