Daniel Bledsoe

@CNN @FoxNews @NBCNews @wis10 @60Minutes @WCBD @CBSNews @ABC @ChrisCuomo @seanhannity @Johnny_Joey @RCPolitics @washingtonpost @NewsNation @NewsHour All Concerned: There is a discharge petition in the House of Representatives concerning The Major Richard Star Act. It has had more co-sponsors than almost any piece of legislation. Currently, there are ONLY 157 signatures on the petition-ALL Democrats! This is Memorial Day weekend. How is your organization not covering this? The way the math will be done concerning longevity, it probably won’t help me, but witnessing how the MSM could care less is what is astounding to me. At least show some coverage!

@SecVetAffairs Retired S.C. State Trooper here Sir!

My dad wore the badge as a Georgia State Trooper for 32 years.  Long before I entered public service, he showed me what service looked like - do your job, keep your word and put others first. Those lessons have stayed with me my entire life.  Happy Father’s Day.

If you are in Missouri, you need to read this!

Congress wants to gut sleep apnea and tinnitus ratings to catch a handful of malingerers. I watched the Army already solve that exact problem — with zero benefit cuts to combat vets. Full story in Article 👇

The Major Richard Star Act could be funded with the funds currently allocated for Combat Related Special Compensation not a full offset but enough to make a difference. The worst part is that Republicans are standing against it. Ridiculous

The funds are alredy there. Literly every NDAA that gets passed yearly by congress has a chunk of $$$ set aside into a quazi "DoD 401k" where they have a ton of bean counters in the Pentagon looking at all the stats from how many people are projected to make it to 20 years, past 20 years, get injured... All the way down to based on factors like race/sex. It's like a giant algorithm that they track so that they can provide a proper funding request year to year to congress. So every year a service member stays in service, $$$ basically is put into the DoD retirement pot with the members name on it. So if let's say that member does 19 years and 3 months... "OOOOPS SORRY YOU DIDN'T DO YOUR FULL 20 NO $$$ FOR YOU"... followed up by a "we need to raise more $$$ to pay you"... Is utterly nonsense made up to distract from the fact that the funds are alredy there. Theve been there since 2004 for everyone... Now ask yourself this: if the funds were alredy there, why do more funds need to be raised? Sounds like between 2004-2018 (when the DoD got ordered to start conducting financial audits, of which Theve failed all 8)... It seems like some of the top brass "leaders" saw a ever growing pot of $$$ and decided that "noone would miss it" then basically took it out of our retirement accounts and used it to fund their own special interests. So now we have roughly 55,000 CH61 retirees that we're robed from. And if you do the rough calculations another 35,000 that have died since 2004. Tell me what would happen if it was found out that the CEO/Executive level leaders decided to walk away with the 401ks of 80,000 people who worked for them? It's also not a ton of people who have the power and authority to dip their hands into the retirement pot. But then again like classic fashion they'll try to place the blame on some poor E3 and not the group of circle jerking blue falcon skeeze balls who think it's cool to steal from Combat Wounded Veterans so they can have luxurious comforts. 🤟

Why not the Discharge Petition?

Your family looks beautiful sir. I hope we can go ahead and work together to get Richards bill passed through the house in such a manner that it will actually pass to Senate. We're going to need to do the hard thing and we're going to have to have some payfors that will need to come from DOD/ Dow funding.. national defense comm pro provided of possible options that will not take away from jobs in any local districts. Again. Beautiful family. Your grandbabies and father look great.

A huge difference exists between a 20/25/30 yr retiree “medically able to complete “ and a Ch61 (15,16,17,18 yrs) 70-75%“combat”’DoD disability member who was medically retired due to significant injuries.. what some overlook is the significance of the above.. if our “elected officials” can’t comprehend the difference, then they are worthless and don’t understand the price we pay for freedom.. HOWEVER, they will not properly compensate us for horrific injuries… it seems we will be stuck with again being left by the wayside.. I’m tired, really mentally exhausted wondering since 2010 why the fuck do we flood billions of $ to every other shitty country, fund every welfare program, allow our tax dollars to be funneled to fake daycares, and watch congress & senate line their pockets.. pushing the defense industrial base (DIB) .. allowed to participate in insider trading… just to name a few.. while I sit here, broken, in constant pain, can’t walk unaided, and fight for $1k or so a month to make me financially whole.. it’s more than that, but I would settle for $1k.. i just want to be able to take a trip to see my daughter once in a while, fish, and relax pain free.. thank you for the opportunity to vent, it just amazes me sometimes how people think..

@Johnjvdx @54KVeterans @HouseDemocrats @HouseGOP @ColonelTowner @SecWar @starsandstripes @HouseVetAffairs @HouseAppropsGOP @PressSec @WWP_DC @VFWHQ @DAVHQ @RepGusBilirakis We need the discharge petition. Thank you. Following you!

@54KVeterans @HouseDemocrats @HouseGOP @ColonelTowner @BskiMike22802 @SecWar @starsandstripes @HouseVetAffairs @HouseAppropsGOP @PressSec @WWP_DC @VFWHQ @DAVHQ @RepGusBilirakis Can Amendment 947's cleaner Major Richard Star Act language be used as leverage to strengthen Section 101 of TCAVA? Let's get the strongest bill possible before it's signed into law. Combat-wounded vets deserve full concurrent receipt. #MajorRichardStarAct

What the VA ratings system REALLY needs: "A mandatory, funded, force-wide SWEAT program shrinks the population that ever reaches a Warrior Transition Unit referral or a disability claim for reasons that have nothing to do with actual combat injury. That protects the integrity of the entire VA rating system, because the easiest way to stop a benefit category from being gamed is to remove the incentive to game it in the first place, not to punish every legitimately injured veteran standing in the same line."

NO, IT SHOULDN'T, UNTIL IT'S FIXED. How is @HouseVetAffairs so damn tone deaf on this? Fix the issues with ratings and capping ratings at 50% for #MajorRichardStarAct, among other things, THEN pass it. QUIT SCREWING VETERANS. Numerous offsets have been provided. Not a good look for Republicans up for reelection in November.... @VFWHQ @DAVHQ @WWP_DC @passmajstaract @StarActEnemies @MajorStarAct @MajStarAct @AmericanLegion

@HouseVetAffairs TCAVA does not contain the original HR2102 text. Call it minor star act or something.. because it's not the Major.

@HouseVetAffairs When @HouseVetAffairs is having to post on a Sunday morning like they are in defense court, it's time to face reality. Sign the discharge petition H Res 1247.

BREAKING VETERANS POLICY WATCH: A third path has emerged to fix the concurrent receipt penalty for combat-wounded medical retirees. NDAA Amendment 947, filed by Rep. Bilirakis, would allow eligible Chapter 61 disability retirees with combat-related disabilities to receive both VA disability compensation and military retired pay. It also creates a retired-pay floor of no less than 50% of retired pay base. This matters because the Major Richard Star Act discharge petition is stalled short of 218 signatures, while the Take Care of America’s Veterans Act is caught in controversy over offsets. Amendment 947 is the clean NDAA route. The next question: will House Rules make Amendment 947 “in order” for a floor vote? Combat-wounded veterans should not lose their earned military retirement because they were medically forced out before 20 years.

@ChillyPooch @BskiMike22802 @realphilhendrie @TJH314 I agree! He gets into the weeds, but he knows his material!

@BskiMike22802 @realphilhendrie @TJH314 Your articles are some of the most informative and often entertaining reading on X. I am surprised at how often I have discovered either new information or a deeper understanding of topics I thought I was pretty clear on.

Let me ruin your June for a second. Every year when National Gun Violence Awareness Month rolls around, the same people who have not read a single page of John Lott's 13,312-regression peer-reviewed study start posting pictures of children and demanding you feel responsible for deaths you did not cause and had nothing to do with. So. Let us talk about children. Since they brought it up. In 2006, the CDC recorded 642 accidental firearm deaths in the entire United States. For children under the age of ten — the number was 31. Thirteen under age five. Eighteen between five and nine. Tragic? Absolutely. Every single one. But here is the number that will not appear on a single "Orange Friday" awareness post: 80. Eighty children under the age of five drown in bathtubs every year. Every. Single. Year. ALMOST THREE TIMES as many children drown in bathtubs annually as die from ALL firearm accidents combined — including adults. And forty more drown in five-gallon water buckets. The kind you buy at Home Depot for $4.99. I have given this information at talks and watched jaws drop, because people genuinely believe the number is in the thousands. They have been so thoroughly marinated in "gun violence awareness" content that their perception of actual risk is completely detached from reality. That is not an accident. That is the point of the campaign. Where is Bathtub Awareness Month? Where is the congressional hearing on five-gallon bucket control? Where is the hashtag? Where are the orange ribbons for the children who drowned while their parents were in the next room? There are none. Because the campaign was never about children. It was never about safety. If it were about safety, they would be equally outraged about cars — which killed 1,305 children that same year. Or fire. Or drowning. But they are not. The selective fury lands exclusively on firearms. And if you are a scientist, which I happen to be, you do not get to cherry-pick your data based on which conclusion you prefer. Quinn's Law Number Six: facts are the enemy of liberalism. Now let us talk about what the actual data says about guns and safety, because John Lott ran 13,000-plus statistical regressions across every county in America and the results are not ambiguous. Fifty-six percent of convicted felons surveyed in a ten-state study said they would NOT attack a target they believed was armed. Fifty-six percent. The deterrence is real, it is documented, and it functions whether or not a shot is ever fired. The firearm you carry protects your neighbor whether your neighbor knows it or not. When states passed right-to-carry laws, multiple-victim public shootings — what the media insists on calling "mass shootings" to maximize terror — dropped by 67 percent. Deaths in those events dropped by 75 percent. Injuries by 81 percent. States that adopted these laws virtually ELIMINATED mass public shootings within four to five years. The remaining events? They happened almost exclusively in the specific locations where guns remained banned. The gun-free zones. The places we hang the sign that only the law-abiding ever read. There were between 760,000 and 3.6 million defensive gun uses in the United States last year alone, depending on which of fifteen national polls you consult. A JAMA Network Open study from March 2025 estimated 489,000 DGUs in which a firearm was actually discharged. The Department of Justice's own National Crime Victimization Survey puts the conservative floor at 65,000 defensive uses per year against assaults, robberies, and home invasions. No dead body. No coverage. No awareness month. Here is one more number for you: 74. Seventy-four percent of convicted felons in a National Institute of Justice survey said they actively avoided homes they believed were occupied by armed residents. Criminals respond to incentives. That is not ideology — that is basic deterrence theory, and it is confirmed by the people who actually commit the crimes. I also want you to think carefully about something the Supreme Court already settled. DeShaney v. Winnebago County (1989). Town of Castle Rock v. Gonzales (2005). Two separate rulings establishing that the government has NO legal obligation to protect you as an individual. None. You are your own first responder. That is not my opinion — that is settled constitutional law from the highest court in this country. So the political class that just told you the government is not required to protect you... is also the one demanding you surrender the tool you use to protect yourself. I want fewer people dead. That is why I know the data. That is why I read the book. That is why I am furious every June when emotion and fundraising replace science and evidence in a "debate" that has actual life-or-death consequences for real people. You want to honor the children? Honor ALL of them. The ones who drowned. The ones who died in car crashes. And the ones who will never be born because a woman alone in her house at 2 a.m. had no way to stop what was coming through her door. But what do I know — I am only a published textbook author, a science teacher, a father of four, and a combat medic who spent his career reducing human suffering and who actually read the peer-reviewed data before forming an opinion. IF you agree: LIKE this post so the algorithm shows it to people who need to read it. SHARE this. COMMENT below — did you know the bathtub number? Or did the narrative keep that from you? 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. #MAGA #Veterans #Trump @JoJoFromJerz @GuntherEagleman @catturd2

@DavidWarrenVet I owe you an apology. I publicly thanked several others the other day because of their knowledge of TCAVA and actual Major Richard Star Act. I failed to mention you and I sincerely apologize. Thank you for your knowledge, input and posts!

@majorStarActNow I trust US Army Corps of Engineers, St. Louis District Website over Congress intern staffers. Do your own research... Please. I tell my students not to trust anyone... including me. Verify it yourself.