Tommy

[Tommy @thomasj216]

another Mitchell trash game.

[Tommy @thomasj216]

@egoldie80 he gave them the momentum and they haven’t missed a shot since.

[Tommy @thomasj216]

we’re getting swept.

[mike bski @BskiMike22802]

You know what a burn pit smells like.

If you were there -- if you served in Iraq or Afghanistan -- you already know. That thick, chemical, wrong smell that never fully left the back of your throat. Plastics. Chemicals. Medical waste. Ordnance. Burning. All day. Every day. Right next to where you slept, where you ate, where you ran PT in the morning.

Nobody told you what it would do to your lungs.

His name was Richard Star. Army combat engineer from Ohio -- right near Cleveland. He cleared IED-laden roads so other soldiers could drive on them without dying. Desert Shield. Desert Storm. Iraq. Afghanistan. Kuwait. He went back. He kept raising his hand. He breathed those burn pits for years -- the same smoke, the same chemical air, the same carcinogens that had no business being in a human lung.

In 2018, that smoke caught up with him. Stage 4 metastatic lung cancer. The VA rated it 100% service-connected. His own government certified in writing that the United States of America's burn pits gave Richard Star terminal cancer.

He was medically retired before hitting 20 years. Not because he quit. Because there was nothing left to give.

And then the Army sent him a letter.

The letter showed two numbers. The first number was what Richard Star had EARNED in military retirement -- what the United States government had promised him when he raised his right hand and swore an oath and then spent decades keeping it. The second number -- what he would ACTUALLY receive -- was zero.

Zero dollars. Zero cents.

His 100% VA disability rating for the cancer eating his lungs wiped out his entire retirement check through the concurrent receipt offset. Dollar for dollar. Every single penny of retirement pay he had earned, gone. A man dying of cancer he got in uniform, holding a piece of paper from his own government that said his retirement was worth nothing.

If you have buried someone from burn pit exposure, I need you to sit with that image.

Your brother. Your battle buddy. Your soldier. Sitting at a kitchen table. Oxygen tank next to the chair. Chemo running through his veins. Holding a government letter that says zero.

That is what happened to Richard Star.

His wife Tonya quit her career to become his full-time caregiver. While she sat next to him through every treatment, while their household ran on whatever the VA disability check provided, while the retirement check the Army told him he'd earned sat at zero -- Tonya was also fighting. Calling. Writing. Testifying. Standing in congressional hearing rooms telling her husband's story to the people who had the power to fix it.

Richard never stopped either. He traveled on oxygen tanks to advocate for this bill. He could barely stand. He fought for the 50,000 veterans behind him who were carrying the same injustice, because that is what that kind of man does -- he thinks about the ones behind him even when he is the one dying.

He died February 13, 2021. He was 51 years old.

Tonya kept going. She kept his name alive in every room she could reach, because she loved him and because she refused to let what happened to Richard happen to the next family.

Tonya passed away on August 12, 2024. She was also 51 years old.

Both of them gone at 51. Both of them fighting until they could not.

The bill still not law.

Right now -- today, this month, this year -- there are 50,000 veterans receiving that same letter Richard received. Two numbers. What they earned. What they actually get. And for too many of them, the second number is devastating. Some of them are already sick. Some of them already have the diagnosis. Some of them are sitting at kitchen tables with oxygen tanks next to the chair, opening mail from the government that sent them to those burn pits, wondering if this country is going to keep its promise before they run out of time.

Sgt. Lyle Allen. 14 years. Multiple deployments to Iraq. His vehicle hit an IED. He does not remember much after that -- just the medics' faces above him. The VA certified his TBI as 100% permanently and totally disabling -- it will never improve. The offset wiped out his retirement. He calls himself "retired without retirement." He says the country is "turning their backs" on him.

A Marine. 17 years. Three combat tours. An IED in Afghanistan took both of his legs. THREE YEARS from the 20-year mark. Three years. The government took his legs in the service of this nation and then took his retirement check on top of it because of a calendar.

These are not abstractions. These are the men who were standing next to you downrange. The ones who smelled what you smelled. The ones who drove those roads.

The bill to fix this is the MAJOR RICHARD STAR ACT. Current 119th Congress: H.R. 2102 in the House, sponsored by Rep. Gus Bilirakis (R-FL) with Rep. Raul Ruiz (D-CA), introduced March 14, 2025. S. 1032 in the Senate, sponsored by Sen. Richard Blumenthal (D-CT) with bipartisan co-sponsors including Mike Crapo, Elizabeth Warren, and Rick Scott. Previous Congress: H.R. 1282 in the House and S. 344 in the Senate -- died without a floor vote.

Current co-sponsors: 322+ in the House. Nearly 80 in the Senate. The Wounded Warrior Project, MOAA, VFW, IAVA -- virtually every major veterans organization in this country -- stands behind this bill. The votes exist. The will to schedule them does not.

On March 3, 2026, Senator Ron Johnson of Wisconsin blocked this bill on the Senate floor. Twice. Once on unanimous consent. Then again when a compromise was offered for a simple recorded roll call. He did not want the bill to pass. He did not want to go on record opposing it either.

His reason: cost.

Richard Star got a letter that said zero. Senator Johnson found that affordable.

I need you to make a phone call. Right now. While this is still in your chest where it belongs.

SENATE SWITCHBOARD: [phone].

Tell them: "I am calling to demand my senator support S. 1032, the Major Richard Star Act, and force a floor vote. Combat-wounded veterans are dying while this sits in committee."

HOUSE SWITCHBOARD: [phone].

Tell them: "I am calling to ask my representative to co-sponsor H.R. 2102 and demand leadership schedule a floor vote."

Then share this post. Every share puts Richard Star's name in front of someone who has not heard it yet. Every share might reach a veteran who does not know they are owed this money right now. Every share might reach the family member who makes the call that changes the vote.

Richard Star traveled on oxygen tanks to fight for veterans he would never meet.

The least we can do is make a phone call.

@MajorStarAct @StarActEnemies @SenRonJohnson @SenatorWicker

IF you agree: LIKE this post so the algorithm shows it to the people who need to read it. SHARE this -- for Richard. For Tonya. For the veteran you know who is sick right now and does not know this fight exists. COMMENT below -- have you called yet? Tell me right here. Hold yourself accountable out loud.

And if you want MORE of this -- the data, the history, the science, the stories -- JOIN Bski's Classroom community on X or YouTube.

But what do I know -- I am only a medically retired Army combat medic who breathed that same air, who served alongside men who came home carrying things that would kill them slowly, and who has spent years watching a government that sends people to war find every possible excuse not to keep its promises when they come back broken.

#MAGA #Veterans #Trump #majorstaract

[Tommy @thomasj216]

gotta sit harden. he’s washed

[Tommy @thomasj216]

@TaylorLewan77 just wait until the next episode. for sure the 2 best back to back episodes of all time.

[Tommy @thomasj216]

raptors by a million. cavs suck. embarrassing team and coaching

[mike bski @BskiMike22802]

Dear Senator Sanders,

Oh, this is RICH. This is so perfectly, exquisitely, weapons-grade rich that I had to put down my anatomy exams and just... appreciate it for a moment.

The man who got thrown out of a SOCIALIST HIPPIE COMMUNE in Vermont in 1971 — after THREE DAYS — for refusing to do any actual work while everyone else planted, harvested, and hauled water, is out here telling me the OLIGARCHS want to control everything.

Three. Days. The communists gave you a longer trial period than most employers give to someone who steals from the register.

Here is what Jim Quinn's Law Number Two says, and I want every single person reading this to tattoo it somewhere useful: "If you want to know what liberals are up to, pay attention to what they accuse conservatives of doing."

Senator, you OWN THREE HOMES. A Burlington residence. A D.C. townhouse. A $575,000 vacation lake house in North Hero, Vermont — purchased in 2016, the same year you were touring the country telling college students the system is rigged. Your net worth sits somewhere between $2.5 and $3 million. You have pocketed over $2.5 MILLION in book royalties since 2011. That elevator is clearly not stuck between floors for you, is it.

And then — THEN — during your "Fighting Oligarchy Tour" with AOC, you spent over $550,000 in CAMPAIGN FUNDS on PRIVATE JET TRAVEL. Half a million dollars on luxury jets to lecture working Americans about the dangers of wealth.

When Fox News caught you boarding a Bombardier Challenger 604 — a jet that runs up to $15,000 PER HOUR — you did not apologize. You did not even blink. You looked directly into the camera and said, and I am quoting this verbatim because it is the most accidentally honest thing you have ever said: "You think I'm gonna be sitting on a waiting line at United?"

Senator. THAT IS OLIGARCHIC THINKING. That is TEXTBOOK "the rules apply to you people, not to me." That is the elevator music of every single billionaire you have spent 35 years pretending to oppose. In a battle of wits with your own stated beliefs, you showed up completely unarmed.

Thirty-five years in Congress. You know what your personal legislative output looks like? Eight bills passed. EIGHT. In three and a half DECADES. That works out to 0.23 bills per year. I have produced more graded anatomy exams in a single semester. Your two greatest solo legislative achievements — the ones with your name on top, the thing YOU actually DID — are the naming of a post office in Danville, Vermont, and the naming of a post office in Fair Haven, Vermont.

You named. Two. Post offices.

You are as useful as a screen door on a submarine when it comes to actually passing legislation, but you want me to believe you are the vanguard of the working class. That sounds like a YOU problem.

Quinn's Law #25: "Liberals are great at giving away other people's money." You have been living PROOF of that law for 35 years. You give away everyone else's money — from a vacation home on a lake — while spending half a million on jets because you are far too important to wait in line with the taxpayers funding your lifestyle.

You want to talk about oligarchs controlling the media? You have been IN the media for four decades. You just finished a $75 million documentary. You have a book deal. You have a podcast. You HAVE the megaphone and you are using it to tell people that other people have the megaphone. The gene pool really needed a lifeguard for THAT particular reasoning.

I am a high school science teacher in Northeast Ohio. I support a family of six on a teacher's salary. I am not particularly impressed by a man with three houses, $550,000 in jet receipts, and 0.23 bills per year telling me he stands with the working class. More famous than wise, Senator. More famous than wise.

The hippie commune knew it in 72 hours. How long is it going to take everyone else?

IF you agree: LIKE this post so the algorithm shows it to people who need to read it. SHARE this.

COMMENT below — do YOU think a man with three homes and a half-million dollar private jet habit speaks for working Americans? Tell me.

And if you want MORE of this — the data, the history, the science, the stories — JOIN Bski's Classroom community on X or YouTube.

But what do I know — I am only a science teacher who can actually do math, a retired Army combat medic who knows what genuine sacrifice looks like, and apparently one of the few people left who finds it suspicious that the most vocal enemy of oligarchy just cannot bring himself to wait in line at the airport with the rest of us.

@JoJoFromJerz @GuntherEagleman @catturd2

#MAGA #Veterans #Trump

[Tommy @thomasj216]

@ESPNCleveland

[Tommy @thomasj216]

@HawkEmDownChris Omar Vizquel

[Tommy @thomasj216]

@notthefakeSVP @_willcompton hot as a pistol. this one always stuck with me over the years.

[Tommy @thomasj216]

Fears from MSU. piece of shit

[Tommy @thomasj216]

@egoldie80 @JRCherry3 @NickPaulus i have a subscription and go at least once a week. i think the most i’ve gone in one week was like 4x during the summer.

[Tommy @thomasj216]

@stoolgambling that’s a catch.

[Tommy @thomasj216]

@stoolpresidente gutsy performance running though the pain. #winnerswin

[Tommy @thomasj216]

@ESPNCleveland

[Scott Hanson @ScottHanson]

This will likely get a few views 😳

[Tommy @thomasj216]

@TheTrueVanguard ABACABB

[Tommy @thomasj216]

@ForePlayPod @Internetinvite @chevrolet Chazzy, Paige, Gabby, Roger, and more collabs with the Bob Does Sports crew. anything with FP and Trent together would be great.

[Tommy @thomasj216]

@DoubleVodkaDon when was the last time you’ve been physically able to bend down and tie your shoes?