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bazkie 👩🏼‍💻 bitplanes 🎵 reshared this.


Nothing makes you hate cars more than living on a busy street, forced to listen to their din day in and day out. >:(

Cities Aren't Loud: Cars Are Loud — Not Just Bikes

Urban noise is a common problem, and the vast majority of it is created by motor vehicles. Noise is far too often dismissed as a minor nuisance, rather than the legitimate health issue that it is.

The book "Curbing Traffic" has a chapter about the health impacts of noise pollution. I explore the research in the book, and visit Delft, the city that is highlighted in the book as being a shining example of what can happen when noise pollution is taken seriously.

This video explores the problem that farting cars, farting motorcycles, and farting mopeds create in our cities.

#FuckCars #urbanism

in reply to Neil E. Hodges

every time I contemplate "upgrading" the stock exhaust on my bike, I remember it's already louder than a car exhaust.

Most car exhausts, anyway. Not the M3 that my neighbour across the road drives.

in reply to Neil E. Hodges

The last place I lived was originally on a country road and was generally pretty quiet. But growing up population of the nearby city meant more and more traffic, and subdivisions (one was which ended up against my back property line). By the time I moved, the area had become solidly suburbia and the road became a major secondary road and quite noisy

bazkie 👩🏼‍💻 bitplanes 🎵 reshared this.


From here:

There is no 'free' market, and there never has been. The 'free' market is predicated on the belief that all players will act honestly, and make informed choices based on available information. This is a completely false assumption, and has been proven so time after time.

It completely ignores human nature whereby someone will always lie, cheat, and steal to achieve their own ends -- this is what we see here.

Industry players will always form cartels and collude in anti-consumer behavior -- price fixing being the prime example.

Without someone to keep corporations in line, the market would steadily skew to all of the power being in the hands of a few.

There is no such thing as a 'free' market, and there simply never has been. It's a utopian myth which can never be true.

People who go around spouting about the 'free' market are either naive, self deluded, or actively lying.

#capitalism

in reply to Neil E. Hodges

damn, so we've had 11 years of this very thing getting worse.

when will people get it?! people keep voting for these pro corporate parties and it's depressing

in reply to bazkie 👩🏼‍💻 bitplanes 🎵

Said parties have both rigged it to be this way and have convinced the people that this is the only way it can ever be. :(
in reply to Neil E. Hodges

well, the same is happening here in the Netherlands. people have been voting the neoliberals into power for decades, despite things going to shit, and other parties being available here.

it's the propaganda that's working; most people still believe that free market capitalism is great, and it will take a lot more downfall before they understand it's shit.

Neil E. Hodges reshared this.

in reply to bazkie 👩🏼‍💻 bitplanes 🎵

@bazkie same in UK, but I think its also because neoliberalism provided short term gains - a young adult working in the skilled trades or the remaining middle level office jobs which exist and haven't been outsourced/replaced by AI can afford to get a used Audi on finance and just about run it - they get scared of green/left parties as they think "tax will go up and petrol will be £2/2€ a litre again" and that's a powerful paranoia (especially if they are in a long term relationship and have now got kids to feed/fund through school)
in reply to bazkie 👩🏼‍💻 bitplanes 🎵

@bazkie about 10 years ago when I had learned just enough Dutch to read sites where younger folk hung out (and chat to them) I learned a fair few thought all the bicycles, good public transport (which folk in UK often envy!) and the high cost of learning to drive (which is same as UK) was imposed by "big government/EU" and they wanted to have cars just like young people in UK, enjoyed watching Top Gear and thought folk in UK and USA had more "freedom" (and those youths would be 30-40+ by now, many with families of their own)

At least you are highly unlikely to get Nexit as everyone can see the mess the UK is now in 5 years later..

in reply to Alex@rtnVFRmedia Suffolk UK

@vfrmedia UK has been a lovely warning sign for us indeed!

..tho people have been voting far right the past few years despite Trump, so maybe most people don't really understand warning signs 😅

and about that dutch youth; keep in mind we've had neoliberal rule for decades now, so the whole "free market good, nationalization bad" has been really hammered in.

not sure if we'll get rid of it in my lifetime tbh. but most of the lovely social policies we have left stem from the more progressive governing we had before I was born 😅

btw why did you learn dutch? (maybe I asked before)

in reply to bazkie 👩🏼‍💻 bitplanes 🎵

@bazkie I moved to Suffolk, which is not /that/ far from the Netherlands (especially at the point of Lowestoft which is the furthest Eastern part of England) and has many cultural and trade links with NL, also I am a former radio pirate and was always curious about the pirate radio scene there and started listening to the stations and wanted to learn the language (piratenzenders are quite surreal, with 3 different languages of music and songs which are a mix of synthpop/disco, country and western and seashanties 😁 )
in reply to Alex@rtnVFRmedia Suffolk UK

@vfrmedia ohh right I think you mentioned that before! those piratenzenders sure are something else :D it's funny how it combines, eh, "rural culture" with everything else!
in reply to Alex@rtnVFRmedia Suffolk UK

I love pirate radio!

I don't know if it's actually a pirate station, here's an FM broadcaster near Quinault Lake here that plays all kinds of odds and ends with weird stuff in between. It might fall under LPFM, but I doubt the FCC would hassle them anyway since it's in the middle of nowhere and low power.

in reply to Neil E. Hodges

@vfrmedia what's LPFM?

I wonder if maybe the FCC is a bit more relaxed these days since people listen to FM radio less (or well, I imagine that they do)

in reply to Neil E. Hodges Neil E. Hodges reshared this.

the "free market" is to economics what the frictionless spherical cow is to high school physics.

The very existence of corporations means there is no free market. Corporations are a legal construct of governments that grants a business (and later even a mere collection of assets) status as a district entity separated to some degree from the owners and workers within.

As such, there is no choice between "government vs corporations" because they are *two sides of the same coin*...it is all one big hegemony.

We have all been thoroughly conditioned to think otherwise for a couple of centuries now. It is thoroughly ingrained the minds of everyone in the "free world" that corporations are the capitalist free market and government is the socialist planned economy but that is pure BS.

The biggest economies in the world have arrived in the same place from two different directions...the US being a corporatocratic regime and China practising state capitalism.

As such deregulation just means re-regulation.


in reply to Neil E. Hodges

≠ PHYSICAL REMOVAL WILL BE REQUIRED ≠ is ignored

Neil E. Hodges doesn't like this.


Neil E. Hodges reshared this.


[1/2] https://stallman.org/glossary.html#thug
https://stallman.org/glossary.html#thug
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2025/dec/08/ice-family-college-student-deported-honduras

When deportation thugs grabbed Any Lucia López Belloza as she was boarding a flight to see her family in Texas, other thugs went to her family home and sought to bluff their way into it without saying why. Whether the López family should have residency in the US is a complex question which I can't judge. I don't

Neil E. Hodges reshared this.


Neil E. Hodges reshared this.


Hmm... Sounds like they want to go OTC with both testosterone and estrogen. That could be convenient.

FDA commissioner talks push to loosen testosterone restrictions : NPR

https://www.npr.org/2025/12/12/nx-s1-5639883/fda-testosterone-treatment-martin-makary

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https://www.europesays.com/2630383/ Amazon to cut 370 staff in Luxembourg as social plan signed #Lëtzebuerg #luxembourg #Luxemburg

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Neil E. Hodges reshared this.


Could you imagine a whole society filled with people like this? What a fucking nightmare.

Grant Cardone Says Escaping The Middle Class Means Quitting Savings, Skipping Homeownership, And Avoiding College Debt And Do This Instead https://finance.yahoo.com/news/grant-cardone-says-escaping-middle-154606702.html



Neil E. Hodges reshared this.


Landslides on both sides of Skykomish. What a mess.

#WAwx #PNW #Seattle #PineappleExpress

https://www.instagram.com/reel/DSLAjBWCSm-/?igsh=M3BtZWszbGhpd3B1

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Neil E. Hodges reshared this.


"According to the Johns Hopkins Measles Tracker, by the 48th week of the year in 2023, there had been 41 cases of measles in the country. In 2024, there were 284 cases. In 2025, there were 1837 cases.

All this from just a kid with a dream, that one day people would die by the millions from preventable diseases."

Paul Waldman

#Trump #RFKJr #Republicans #vaccines #measles #disinformation #SouthCarolina #Utah #EconomicElites #SocialDarwinism
/1

https://paulwaldman.substack.com/p/the-rfk-jr-catastrophe-holds-an-important

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in reply to William Lindsey :toad: Solarbird :flag_cascadia: reshared this.

"Campaigning in 2024, Trump said about Kennedy, 'I’m gonna let him go wild on health. I’m gonna let him go wild on the food. I’m gonna let him go wild on medicines.'”

#Trump #RFKJr #Republicans #vaccines #measles #disinformation #SouthCarolina #Utah #EconomicElites #SocialDarwinism
/2


Neil E. Hodges reshared this.


when the server delivers breadsticks to the table

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Neil E. Hodges reshared this.


the fall of the american empire was remarkably quick by empire standards

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Neil E. Hodges reshared this.


bill gates is literally in the epstein files, here is a photo of him from the epstein files. and is techrights posting about it? not yet…

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Neil E. Hodges reshared this.


I love when people appoint themselves to speak for their entire generation.

Such a weird stance. Like we don't all know other people their age.

Neil E. Hodges reshared this.


Neil E. Hodges reshared this.


it's a great time to not buy anything.

I mean, most times are... but this is, too.

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Neil E. Hodges reshared this.


https://www.europesays.com/2630152/ I (32M) would really like a chatty Norwegian friend, a native speaker to help me learn the wonderful language 😆 #norway

Neil E. Hodges reshared this.



Neil E. Hodges reshared this.


No one owns ProPublica. That’s why it can serve everyone.

Support investigative journalism today: https://propub.li/3XDluGg

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Neil E. Hodges reshared this.


About a month ago i had a crash on my bicycle, resulting in a hospital visit.

- Emergency room visit

- Seven sutures, local anaesthsia, and irrigation of a head wound. No attention given to various abrasions and cuts on hands, arms, and face.

- one night in PCU, two torso xrays and three head CT scans.

- one meal.

- IV saline

- anti-seizure medication (5 days)

I am fortunate and have pretty good HMO insurance that costs something like $1500/mo for whole family. Got a bill today for $200. Thats my ER copay.

The hospital charges were over $65k. Something is very wrong with healthcare.

$65,000

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in reply to nolan . Becca reshared this.

Yep. :/

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in reply to Neil E. Hodges

@tk isn't it fun living in a failed state?

i think we need to redefine what counts as "middle" for US life expectancy

@h2onolan


Neil E. Hodges reshared this.


Holy sh!t

"Portion of rural Oregon highway disappears under massive slide"

#Oregon

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=4t6sVICNFyM

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Neil E. Hodges reshared this.


"China gets another cool new electric vehicle that the US will miss out on."

https://electrek.co/2025/12/12/ford-bronco-ev-is-real-but-dont-get-too-excited/

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in reply to Jason Lefkowitz FINAL (2).DOCX

China gets all of the best cars now. The US is an afterthought, even to American automakers.

Neil E. Hodges reshared this.


#Via Hamed Aleaziz / haleaziz
4:26 PM · Dec 12, 2025

"The Trump administration is providing the names of all travelers passing through U.S. airports to immigration officials in search of people with deportation orders, a substantial expansion of government efforts to draw on data to hunt down immigrants."

https://www.nytimes.com/2025/12/12/us/politics/immigration-tsa-passenger-data.html?unlocked_article_code=1.8E8.Vlpa.HprxDAEzs6QT&smid=url-share

#via
in reply to Mother Bones Becca reshared this.

@walterolson *This* guy has a 4A case- would not free him without a search of his devices
in reply to DB

there can't be any barring of entry by delay, burdensome demands, or false charges against a US citizen. that right is fundamentally untouchable if there's to be ANY legitimacy to the US government.

@_L1vY_ @walterolson

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Becca reshared this.

in reply to Becca Becca reshared this.

@bweller @lawyersgunsnmoney @walterolson

This administration really doesn't care much about legitimacy

in reply to Becca Becca reshared this.

@bweller @walterolson I think you’re right. There are a lot of “law enforcement” loopholes in some of these statutes that are being exploited because the regime knows they can largely get away with it. To your original point, there is no legitimacy, there is no rule of law, the US Government as we knew it is *gone* We are in a post-democratic era.

Neil E. Hodges reshared this.


#Seattle is looking for #Comics artists in #Oregon and #WashingtonState to do stories about transit! $54,000 each!!!

A cohort of six artists will be commissioned to create two original short-form graphic novels each, illustrating stories from communities along Metro’s twelve existing and planned RapidRide bus lines (A–K and R).

https://www.4culture.org/grants/moving-stories/

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Neil E. Hodges reshared this.


https://www.europesays.com/2630047/ FBI Leader Crumbles During Basic Questions About Threat of “Antifa” #america #UnitedStates #UnitedStatesOfAmerica #US #USNews #USA #USANews #WeThePeople

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Warnings: Climate is breaking, weather is breaking. Life giving rain, is turning into life taking "rain rivers" soil washed away, farms washed away, livestock killed.

They aren't saying how many farms and livestock have been lost, "because chicken farmers are in trauma"

It is MADNESS to ignore these devastating warnings and expand oil, MADNESS to build pipelines.

MADNESS.

#cdnpoli #canada #carney #flood #fire #storm #drought #madness #cbc

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in reply to Kevin Russell Aaron reshared this.

Note that US owned Vancouver Sun does not say climate destruction, does not connect to pipelines, does not connect to droughts or massive forest eating wildfires.

Vancouver Sun, like 95% of English newspapers across Canada is owned by an American Republican activist billionaire. He owns the Province too, and the Calgary Herald, and Edmonton Journal, and National Post etc etc

He prevents climate news. Across all 🇨🇦 papers.

#climate #invasion #bc

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Neil E. Hodges reshared this.


uh wtf flickr‽ going the route of Instagram/Facebook? seriously?

I don’t pay you to make my photos visible only for people with accounts!

Neil E. Hodges reshared this.

in reply to Thomas Sibley

wait what? are paid account photos not universally available now?

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The "bad thoughts" are just sleeper agents given to you by Big Trauma trying to perpetuate itself

Dont let them win.

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Neil E. Hodges reshared this.


This podcast is a really good listen. It discusses how the US is now a #CompetitiveAuthoritarian regime.

[The Political Scene | The New Yorker] How Bad Is It?: Three Political Scientists Say America Is No Longer a Democracy #thePoliticalSceneTheNewYorker

https://podcastaddict.com/the-political-scene-the-new-yorker/episode/212603695

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Neil E. Hodges reshared this.


What's this?? A new instance named after the enzyme that traps glucose inside cells?

boost for federation, it's definitely not a trap

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Neil E. Hodges reshared this.


Epstein photos just dropped, like a few minutes ago, and some of the people are not surprising. Woody Allen, etc. But there is a photo of Noam Chomsky with Steve Bannon in the Epstein building/house/whatever.

Don’t have heroes.

(I’m not saying Chomsky was with the girls but this is gross)

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Neil E. Hodges reshared this.


Autism itself is one of my long-running special interests, so I read a lot of news, articles, and research on the topic. There were quite a few headlines in my news feed on the topic today, and after once again shaking my head in disgust at the pathologizing language of the researchers -- injection of value judgments and assumptions of superiority or "correct" ways of functioning -- it struck me:

>>> I don't remember the last time I made it through an entire article or paper on autism that *didn't* pathologize us, outside of articles actually written by openly neurodivergent authors. <<<

It's like the horrific racist tropes from 150 years ago. They just *assume* superiority, and everything else is built on that. It's absolutely disgusting, but nobody hears us when we tell them. I regularly email the authors and ask them to reconsider the impact of their words and assumptions, but I never get a response. The scientific community is every bit as intransigent as everyone else.

#ActuallyAutistic
@autistics

Neil E. Hodges reshared this.

in reply to Aaron

There are quite a few neurodivergent writers on Medium writing about autism and ADHD. They have shown me that the characteristics of neurodivergence are quite wide. Kind of hard to pinhole.
in reply to Aaron Aaron reshared this.

To my mind, there are three aspects of this that aggravate and perpetuate it. The main one is that modern understanding of autism and indeed most of neurodivergence began as a medical pathology. As a description of something that was a deficit and not a difference and therefore needed to be understood in order to be treated and overcome. The way that this is where the money largely still is, does not help this.
The idea of neurodivergence itself, is still relatively new and largely misunderstood, especially in the context of the genetic timeframe and the importance to the development of the species as a whole. And finally, and connected, there is a reluctance to see this and autism in particular as something that is both necessary and natural. This is especially true in terms of seeing the neurotypical as being merely a part of the story and not the main and obviously only important, and therefore, valid thread.
These all lead to members of the scientific and medical communities particularly to be set in their ways of viewing us and the ablest and deficit driven conclusions and emphasis that always seemed to be the inevitable result of their work. Often even despite the results of their work


Neil E. Hodges reshared this.


Two Foothills Trail bridges closed pending additional inspection for flood damage

#SEAbikes

https://www.seattlebikeblog.com/2025/12/12/two-foothills-trail-bridges-closed-pending-additional-inspection-for-flood-damage/

Neil E. Hodges reshared this.


Neil E. Hodges reshared this.


RE: https://mastodon.social/@NouranKhaledGh/115705880602251851

Are you still thinking of us?

Please donate to help my family overcome this tough time

https://chuffed.org/project/121561-urgent-help-for-ahmads-family


RE: mastodon.social/@NouranKhaledG…

Hello my friends 👋

We lived one of the most difficult nights ever. We didn't sleep. We find the rain entering from the roof and walls. All of our things we flooded. We didn't find a place to sleep.

We urgently need your help. Please donate and share with friends

chuffed.org/project/121561-urg…

@NouranKhaledGh@mastodon.social:

This is an urgent plea for help that cannot be delayed.
Sadly, the rain came inside and flooded all our thing..

The broken roof and walls couldn’t handle the heavy rain.

Everyone in my family is now looking for a dry corner to sleep in even though we know we won’t be able to sleep tonight.

Please donate to help my family fix whatever we can fix in our shelter

chuffed.org/project/121561-urg…

#gaza #palestine



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Neil E. Hodges reshared this.


Here! Finally! I have my sample. The "Live laugh federate" enamel pin.

https://shop.joinmastodon.org/products/live-laugh-federate-soft-enamel-pin

#Merchtodon

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Neil E. Hodges reshared this.


📩 Read in our weekly newsletter (and subscribe):

- Stop the gatekeeping. The First Amendment is for all of us
- Administration is trolling America with its FOIA responses
- Don’t weaken Puerto Rico’s public records law
- Plus, what we're reading...

https://freedom.press/issues/stop-the-gatekeeping-the-first-amendment-is-for-all-of-us/

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Neil E. Hodges reshared this.


Sad news,

The last of the Western Electric No. 4 Electronic Switching Systems in Michigan has been decommissioned. LNNGMIMN50T, date of original service May of 1987, trailer code 044T. It felt wrong for it to happen with no fanfare, and no sendoff.

#4ESS #Telephones #BellSystem

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Neil E. Hodges reshared this.


The new party The Left by Jeremy Corbyn and Zarah Sultana, despite not even having an official name yet, is currently polling at 15%, and hence even with Labour.

This is an incredible feat and I wish best of luck to the party and its success!

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in reply to Erik Uden 🍑

This is my POV of the man himself speaking after the results of all the elections on the motions were read.
This entry was edited (1 week ago)
in reply to Erik Uden 🍑

I'm up after the speaker Jeremy Corbyn is currently announcing, so give it 15 minutes. What an honor.
in reply to Erik Uden 🍑

Giving the speech was the most intense thing I had done for long. Jeremy Corbyn came to me afterwards and we had, relatively for such a busy conference, a long talk of 15 minutes.

He said he was impressed by my speech and wishes to support me in case I get any stress for it in Germany.

This entry was edited (1 week ago)
in reply to Erik Uden 🍑

“I've met a Palestinian woman who was a third time refugee. She spoke to me and she said, with tears in her eyes, 'the world has forgotten us'. I reflected, I thought back to all of the marches back at home and I thought: No. We haven't forgotten you, we have failed you.”


— Shockat Adam, at the #YourParty Founding Conference

in reply to Erik Uden 🍑

Zarah Sultana and James Giles have entered the conference and sat down next to me. Unity is here.
This entry was edited (1 week ago)
in reply to Erik Uden 🍑

Zarah delivered the same speech as on the Eve of Conference Rally, but it was a lovely speech anyway.
in reply to Erik Uden 🍑

I'm with my two autistic friends and we're all annoyed at the fact that some people don't adhere to the agreed upon process at #YourParty. Very funny
in reply to Erik Uden 🍑

Huge praise to the convention chair people who are running this show ❤️
in reply to Erik Uden 🍑

Your Party will continue to be named Your Party the people decided.
This entry was edited (1 week ago)
in reply to Erik Uden 🍑

“It was nice at your party, Your Party” he said, calmly, to Jeremy Corbyn.
in reply to Erik Uden 🍑

Es haben nach meiner Rede viele Menschen hier meine neue Redewendung benutzt „Ladies and Gentlemen and everyone inbetween and outside those social categories”, übersetzt von @janboehm's Anrede.

Diese neue Partei mit so viel Hoffnung startet gleich auf dem richtigen Weg, mal schauen ob es sich langfristig etabliert ;)

in reply to Erik Uden 🍑

​If your only tool is a hammer, every issue looks like a nail. If you only think of politics through the lense of electoralism, you'll believe such ridiculous things like a need to back the greens because anything else splits the vote.

Which historic changes have been achieved in parliament? None. They were enacted by a parliament, but fought for by mass organizing and in protest on the streets. The best long term alternative I see to the Tories, Labour, and even Reform, is grassroots community organizing, which is the goal of Your Party.

Emancipating people, showing them how they can fight for themselves, instead of carrying the faulty belief that we need representatives to fight for us.

in reply to Erik Uden 🍑 oldfartjmb says FREE PALESTINE reshared this.

My speech at the Your Party Founding Conference:

https://youtu.be/kTRaJTG2bfs

If it can be summarized in one word: hope! Feel free to give it a watch.

This entry was edited (20 hours ago)

Neil E. Hodges reshared this.


Listen, all I’m saying is that I’ve seen more pictures of Donald Trump partying with Jeffrey Epstein than I have of Donald Trump playing with his son Barron.

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