AskGrandpa

@RepDanGoldman -- I hate to be the first one to tell you this. I genuinely do. But the FACT that I am the first one? That probably tells you everything you need to know about the failure of our public school system right there. We are NOT a democracy. We have NEVER been a democracy. Not for one day. Not one hour. I teach science and I also teach my students to CHECK what "everybody knows" -- because half of it is wrong. Everybody "knows" that blood is blue until it hits air. False. Everybody "knows" Einstein failed math as a kid. False. Everybody "knows" you only use 10% of your brain. Also false. And everybody "knows" we live in a democracy. Also. FALSE. You cannot have a public referendum that violates the Constitution, Congressman. Full stop. Not here. Not in a CONSTITUTIONAL REPUBLIC -- which is what we are, and which is what you apparently missed while apparently donating your brain to science before you were done with it. Now let me walk you through the answer choices, because I know public school did not cover this: "We are a representative democracy." -- Wrong. "We are a democratic republic." -- Closest wrong answer. Still wrong. "We are a constitutional republic." -- CORRECT. Congratulations, you have now learned more civics in thirty seconds than in your entire career in Congress. Madison spelled it out in Federalist No. 10. Distinguished a "pure democracy" -- where citizens govern directly -- from a "republic" -- where representatives operate WITHIN a governing document. He said pure democracies have "ever been spectacles of turbulence and contention" and are "as short in their lives as they have been violent in their deaths." That is not my opinion. That is the guy who WROTE the thing. Article IV, Section 4 guarantees every state "a Republican Form of Government." Not democratic. REPUBLICAN. The word "democracy" does not appear in the Constitution one single time. Zero. And yet here you are -- with your hand on that document, sworn to that document -- throwing a tantrum because a court would not let a referendum override it. Keep talking. I am diagnosing your condition. Here is what I love, though. I genuinely love it. You have accidentally PROVED the point for the entire class. The Virginia Supreme Court just demonstrated the machine working exactly as designed. The mob does not get to vote away constitutional protections. That is not a bug. That is THE FEATURE. You walked in here to make an argument against Republicans and instead delivered the clearest civics demonstration I have seen all year. If ignorance is bliss, Congressman, you must be the happiest person on this entire platform. Now. The Jim Crow part. Oh, this part. "Republicans have become the party of Jim Crow." I have heard more coherent arguments from a drunk parrot. Let us check the actual receipts because apparently no one handed those to you either. Which party CREATED Jim Crow laws? Democrats. Which party used the KKK as its street-level enforcement arm through Reconstruction and well into the 20th century? Democrats. Which party filibustered the Civil Rights Act of 1964 for SEVENTY-FIVE CONSECUTIVE CALENDAR DAYS? Democrats -- led by Senator Robert Byrd, a documented, on-record KKK RECRUITER, who held the floor for fourteen hours. That same Senator Byrd remained a Democrat until his death in 2010. Did not switch. Was honored at his funeral by a Democratic president. The "conscience of the Senate," they called him. The Republican Party was FOUNDED in 1854 for one reason: to oppose the expansion of slavery. Sixteen Black Republicans served in Congress during Reconstruction. First Black United States Senator? Hiram Rhodes Revels. Republican. First Black member of the House? Joseph H. Rainey. Republican. Your party has delusions of adequacy on a HISTORIC scale. And let us talk about Steve Cohen -- your colleague. White Democrat from Tennessee, representing a district that is 60% Black in Memphis. Cohen asked to join the Congressional Black Caucus to better serve his constituents. CBC leadership -- YOUR people -- told him the group was "exclusively African-American" and he was not permitted. Let me make sure I am reading that correctly: the caucus supposedly dedicated to Black representation PUNISHED a majority-Black district by refusing to let their own elected representative speak for them in that room -- because he was the wrong color. That is not advocacy. That is segregation with better branding. The lights are on in that caucus but the power bill is clearly way overdue. And while we are on Virginia -- you are upset about redistricting? Your party just tried to redraw Virginia's map from 6-5 in your favor to 10-TO-1. TEN TO ONE. In a state that is roughly fifty-fifty. That is not representation. That is a heist with a graphic designer. But Republicans are Jim Crow. Sure, Dan. Sure. Now. The SAVE Act. And this is where I need you to answer honestly, because there are only three possibilities and one of them has to be true. Either you did not read the bill and are just running the party script. You read it and could not understand it. Or you understood it just fine and chose to lie to your constituents anyway. PICK ONE. Because your claim that the SAVE Act forces people to show "a passport or birth certificate" is not a misread. It is a fabrication. H.R. 22, Section 3(b). I will go slowly. The bill accepts: a REAL ID -- which most Americans already carry. A valid U.S. passport. A military ID plus service record. OR a birth certificate WITH a standard photo ID. MULTIPLE options. The bill also contains a specific provision -- Section 2(f) -- for married women whose names have changed. The exact group you claimed to be protecting. Already covered. In the bill. That you did not read. You said on March 19, 2026 -- I am quoting you directly -- "there is no evidence of widespread voter fraud." Interesting. Explain the 19,000-plus counterfeit U.S. driver's licenses seized in ONE Chicago shipment in 2020, with working barcodes that were tested in Michigan. Explain TIME Magazine's own February 2021 story where your side BRAGGED about the "shadow campaign" that changed state election laws, poured $400 million in private money into election administration, and pre-conditioned Americans to accept a days-long count. YOUR team. In PRINT. Bragging. You said no evidence. I said: read your own party's magazine. You are as useful as a solar-powered night light on this topic. Now -- since you love referendums so much today -- let us talk about a different one. Polls consistently show 76% of Black Americans support voter ID requirements. SEVENTY-SIX PERCENT. That is a supermajority. That is a landslide by any definition. More decisive than anything your party tried to ram through in Virginia. And you ignore it completely. You fight against it. You actually tell Black Americans they are wrong about their own so-called suppression -- that you, a congressman from a Manhattan district, know better than they do what oppresses them. That is not civil rights. That is the soft bigotry of low expectations wearing a "Voting Rights" lanyard. You cannot pour respect for the Black community out of a boot if the instructions are on the heel and there is a labeled diagram on the sole. Quinn's Law Number Twenty-Two: liberals love democracy unless it does not go their way. There it is. In living color, no editing required. Quinn's Law Number Two: if you want to know what liberals are up to, watch what they accuse conservatives of doing. You are calling Republicans Jim Crow while your party draws a 10-to-1 map in a 50/50 state, blocks a white congressman from advocating for his Black district, and fights a voter ID policy that 76% of Black Americans WANT. You are not the hood ornament on the clown car, Congressman. You ARE the engine. Brain cells? Down to his last two and they are arguing over which one gets to retire first. But what do I know -- I am only a published science teacher who reads the actual bills, checks the actual history, and reminds actual students every single day that a constitutional republic is not a mob with an opinion -- and that the difference between those two things is the entire reason this country has survived 250 years. What have YOU done for the people you represent -- besides misquoting bills you clearly did not read? @JoJoFromJerz @GuntherEagleman @catturd2 IF you agree: LIKE this post so the algorithm shows it to people who need to read it. SHARE this -- someone on your timeline needs this history lesson. COMMENT below -- which lie bothered you the most? Tell me. And if you want MORE of this -- the history, the receipts, the science, the stories -- JOIN Bski's Classroom community on X or YouTube. #MAGA #Veterans #Trump

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Dear @SenMarkey, So the Pentagon reviews wind turbines near military installations and you call that "inventing legal hurdles." Senator, that's not obstruction. That is the DEPARTMENT OF DEFENSE doing its actual job. Wind turbines create radar clutter. They scatter and absorb radar returns in ways that degrade air defense detection. They interfere with low-frequency communication systems used by the very military you claim to care about. This is documented. It is physics. The review requirements predate this administration. But sure -- spin that Politico headline, chief. The hamster fell off the wheel a while back, I'm guessing. Now. Since we're talking about your environmental record. You co-authored the Green New Deal. You voted for the Inflation Reduction Act. You have been a prominent name in climate policy for going on FIVE DECADES. So I have a few questions. Where's your bill for solar canopies over parking lots? Every square mile of exposed dark asphalt in this country is a solar heat collector -- high absorption, near-zero albedo, radiating thermal energy back into the lower atmosphere all day long. Put a panel roof over it. You shade the surface, you generate electricity, you reduce the urban heat island effect. The technology is commercial. Israel does it. Germany does it. You've been in Congress since 1976 and have produced exactly zero legislation on this. Where's your push for TIDAL ENERGY off New England's own coastline -- the coastline in YOUR STATE -- where tidal cycles are predictable to the MINUTE by gravitational mechanics for the next thousand years? No intermittency problems. No cloudy days. No calm-wind days. Scotland runs commercial tidal turbines in the Pentland Firth right now. You've had fifty years and a Senate seat. Nothing. And then there's NUCLEAR. France generates roughly 70% of its electricity from nuclear power and has some of the lowest per-capita carbon emissions in the industrialized world. Zero CO2 during operation. Runs 24 hours a day. Proven safety record. You -- and your party -- spent decades blocking it, opposing Yucca Mountain storage, and demonizing the one technology that could actually deliver reliable zero-emissions baseload power at scale. The wheels are spinning but the hamster is long gone on that one. Quinn's Law Number One: liberalism always produces the EXACT OPPOSITE of its stated intent. You say you want clean energy and then you block the cleanest option. You say you want lower bills and then you mandate the most expensive and least reliable sources. Every time a liberal tries to fix something -- Quinn's Law Number Twenty-Four -- someone loses their job. In this case, apparently 160 wind projects' worth of workers are now your proof text. The Waxman-Markey climate bill you're so proud of? It passed the House in 2009. Democrats had the Senate too. It DIED there. Not because of Republicans. Because your own party couldn't move it across the finish line when you had every tool in the shed. That speech had more flip-flops than a beach in July. You want to talk about who's "worsening the energy price crisis"? Let's talk about the party that mandated grid transitions to intermittent sources without building the storage or backup capacity to support them. Let's talk about California -- your ideological model -- having major grid failures during heat events while sitting on some of the best tidal and geothermal resources in the hemisphere, untouched. The Pentagon reviewing wind projects for national security impacts is not a crisis. The elevator-doesn't-quite-reach-the-top-floor energy policy your party has run for five decades -- THAT is the crisis. But what do I know -- I am only a Physics teacher who actually wrote the textbook, still assigns the homework, and runs the numbers even when the results embarrass people who don't. IF you agree: LIKE this post so the algorithm shows it to people who need to read it. SHARE this. COMMENT below with your take. What REAL clean energy solution has Markey championed that isn't solar or wind? 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. @JoJoFromJerz @GuntherEagleman @catturd2 #MAGA #Veterans #Trump

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

🚨#BREAKING: The United States Senate has unanimously voted to ban its members and staff from trading on prediction markets.

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