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Peri Pakroo

@peripak.bsky.social
625 followers 644 following 260 posts

Author, communications strategist, and sustainability researcher at ISEG, University of Lisboa. Human-centered entrepreneurship, inclusive governance and democratic digital futures. Songstress with Peri & the FAQs. peripakroo.com

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Reposted by Peri Pakroo
Brent Toderian @brenttoderian.bsky.social · 11h
“EU drops sponsorship of disinformation conference at Trump officials’ request. Lithuania/Canada were also pressured to withdraw…days before #Disinfo2026, logos were wiped off website.” So the US used disinformation to undermine a disinformation conference telling the truth about US disinformation.
theguardian.com
EU drops sponsorship of disinformation conference at Trump officials’ request
Lithuania and Canada were also pressured to withdraw, and days before #Disinfo2026, logos were wiped off website
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Oliver Willis @owillis.bsky.social · 09/10/2026
a big part of ossoff's rhetorical success is it doesnt contain the compromise and caveats that are a baked-in part of democratic party rhetoric. theres no pretending that his opponent is just misguided or will be pulled back from the edge by "the good republicans." ossoff is saying "fuck this guy"
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Peri Pakroo @peripak.bsky.social · 22h
Sigh the truth of this 😶
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Aaron Reichlin-Melnick @reichlinmelnick.bsky.social · 09/10/2026
This thing has made me go do a lot of reading tonight, and the Wikipedia page about the last public execution in the United States is well-written. It was Rainey Bethea, a Black man hanged in front of a crowd of 20,000 in 1936, a spectacle which embarrassed Kentucky enough that they ended hangings.
Hanna placed the noose around Bethea's neck, adjusted it, and then signaled to Hash to pull the trigger. Instead, Hash, who was drunk, did nothing. Hanna shouted at Hash, "Do it!" A deputy then leaned onto the trigger, which sprang the trap door. citation needed! Bethea fell 8 feet (2.4 m), and his neck was instantly broken.
Afterward, two doctors confirmed he was dead.
His body was taken to Andrew & Wheatley
Funeral Home. Icitation needed! He wanted his body to be sent to his sister in South Carolina so that she could arrange for him to be interred next to his father, but against these wishes, he was buried in a pauper's grave at Owensboro Cemetery (also known as City Cemetery and
"Potter's Field") in Owensboro. 14]It was estimated that a crowd of about 20,000 people gathered to watch the execution.!9! One man, 36-year-old Leonard A. Peters, was killed in a car accident while driving to Owensboro to witness the hanging. Three others, including his wife, were injured. 15. Afterwards, Hanna complained that Hash should not have been allowed to perform the execution in his drunken
condition. Hanna further said it was the worst display he experienced in the 70 hangings he had supervised. citation needed]
The spot where the scaffold stood
(approximately 37.775248° -87.116462°) is now part of a drop-off/pick-up lane in front of the Owensboro Convention Center. citation needed]へ
End of public executions in
Kentucky
As the Kentucky General Assembly had been meeting in its biennial sessions at the time, the media circus surrounding the Bethea execution embarrassed members of the Kentucky
legislature. In spite of the humiliation, they could not amend laws regarding executions until the next session in 1938. However, the trial judges in two separate Kentucky rape cases ordered that the hangings of John "Pete" Montjoy and Harold Van Venison be conducted privately. Montjoy, age 23, was privately hanged in Covington on December 17, 1937.On January 17, 1938, William R. Attkisson of the Kentucky State Senate's 38th District (representing Louisville), introduced Senate Bill 69, repealing the requirement in Section 1137 that executions for convicted rapists be conducted by hanging in the county seat where they raped their victims. The bill was promoted in the Kentucky House of Representatives by Representative Charles W. Anderson Jr., one of the attorneys who assisted Bethea in his post-conviction relief motions.
After both houses approved the bill, Governor Chandler signed it into law on March 12, 1938; it became effective on May 30 of that year.
Chandler later expressed regret at having approved the repeal, claiming, "Our streets are no longer safe." The last person ever legally hanged in Kentucky was Harold Van Venison, a
33-year-old African-American singer, who was privately executed in Covington on June 3, 1938.
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Peri Pakroo @peripak.bsky.social · 09/10/2026
Reading my way into believing a better future is possible #MastersThesis #Sustainability #DemocraticDigitalFutures
Stack of books on a white table: Dreamscapes of Modernity (Jasanoff), Mission Economy (Mazzucato), Enshittification (Doctorow), Beyond Growth (Daly), Incorruptible (Ries).
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Eric Levai @ericlevai.bsky.social · 09/10/2026
Now THIS is how you write a story. Devastating.
Screenshot from this article: https://www.nytimes.com/2026/10/08/us/politics/fort-hood-execution-streamed-public.html?unlocked_article_code=1.HVE.Rw7O.Sj-0_s5YONzL&smid=nytcore-android-share
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Justin Hendrix @justinhendrix.bsky.social · 08/10/2026
ICYMI: The Trump administration pushed other governments not to participate in a European conference on disinformation because of a panel that was focused on whether the US is now a threat for foreign influence and manipulation in Europe.
techpolicy.press
Disinformation Conference in Europe Caught Up in Transatlantic Politics
Europe’s top disinformation conference faces government withdrawals and pressure over its debate on foreign interference, free speech and the US.
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Eliot Higgins @eliothiggins.bsky.social · 08/10/2026
Credit to the US for making the point the conference was trying to make about US foreign interference in European democracies for them, and bringing more attention to the conference and its themes than they could have possibly hoped for. www.politico.com/news/2026/10...
politico.com
EU, Canada and Lithuania pull out of disinformation conference after US pressure
The Trump administration was bothered by panels that referred to the U.S. as a disinformation threat.
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Chris Murphy @chrismurphyct.bsky.social · 06/10/2026
Something unprecedented happened during my visit to the Gulf. For the first time in 20 years in Congress, I was denied entry to U.S. military facilities and even meetings with military leaders. An order from Hegseth - that applies to both parties - to hide the cost of the war.
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Robert Reich @rbreich.bsky.social · 02/10/2026
CEO-to-worker pay ratio in 1965: 20-1 CEO-to-worker pay ratio in 1990: 75-1 CEO-to-worker pay ratio today: 325-to-1 Trickle-down economics was always a sham. Nothing has ever trickled down.
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Democracy Docket @democracydocket.com · 01/10/2026
The RNC is piloting a program that trains Wisconsin election observers to identify discrepancies with voting machines. Trump has attempted to cast doubt on the accuracy of voting machines. And the new RNC program appears to mark an escalation from typical poll watching activities. Here's how:
democracydocket.com
GOP trained Wisconsin election observers to target voting machines in pivotal swing state
The new RNC program appears to mark an escalation from typical poll watching activities.
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Peri Pakroo @peripak.bsky.social · 27/09/2026
It's been a while but I'm glad to share a new post at Pyragraph, by longtime contributor and punk rock jock Billy McCall, calling bullshit on the anti-trans groups who claim they want to save women's sports. www.pyragraph.com/2026/09/wome...
pyragraph.com
Women's Sports Don't Need Saving - Pyragraph
Women's sports are thriving right now. Anti-trans groups who claim they want to save women's sports are all full of shit.
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Aaron Reichlin-Melnick @reichlinmelnick.bsky.social · 24/09/2026
Incredible. First Secretary Mullin claimed that DHS had identified 15,903 noncitizens on Nevada’s voter roll. Then DHS officials told a skeptical Nevada, no no no, that’s just people we flagged. Here are the names of 185 people we KNOW aren’t citizens. All 185 were citizens. DHS got 100% wrong.
When the Department of Homeland Security sent Nevada a list of 185 names last month that it claimed identified noncitizens who had been improperly allowed to register to vote, state election officials got to work.
On Tuesday, the state sent a strongly worded rebuke to the federal government: Every single person on the list was a lawful citizen.
"As for the 185 individuals, our records indicate that they were citizens," Greg D. Ott, a deputy attorney general in Nevada, wrote, according to a copy of a letter sent to Department of Homeland Security officials obtained through open records requests.
"You have provided nothing of substance to suggest otherwise."Following the meeting, Ms. Vogt sent a clarifying email to Nevada officials. "I also wanted to be sure I clarified that we did not reduce the 15,903 to 185," she wrote. "We've manually reviewed some of the 15,903 and confirmed 185 are not U.S. Citizens."
Now, Nevada officials are saying even that 185 number is wrong. They also took issue with a letter D.H.S. sent them in early September, in which the agency reiterated its initial claims about nearly 16,000 noncitizens on the rolls and pressured state officials to review each case in a letter to Nevada officials in early September.
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Steven Beschloss @stevenbeschloss.bsky.social · 24/09/2026
50 percent tariffs for our beloved neighbor and historic ally, Canada. A red carpet and a military flyover for Communist China’s leader. Donald Trump is a sick man and a danger to America.
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elizabethginexi.bsky.social @elizabethginexi.bsky.social · 16/09/2026
The Trump administration has cut or frozen up to $177 billion in federal grants since the president took office for his second term, according to a tracking tool released Wednesday by a pro-democracy nonprofit and a group of researchers and scientists. apnews.com/article/trum...
apnews.com
Trump administration has cut or frozen $177 billion in grants across every state, analysis shows
An analysis finds that the Trump administration has cut or frozen up to $177 billion in federal grants since the president took office for his second term.
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Peri Pakroo @peripak.bsky.social · 16/09/2026
RIP Catherine Ringer, it's a Les Rita Mitsouko day over here youtu.be/1zWlnzFXcKY?...
youtu.be
Les Rita Mitsouko - Marcia Baïla (Clip Officiel)
YouTube video by Les Rita Mitsouko
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Reposted by Peri Pakroo
Joseph Cox @josephcox.bsky.social · 14/09/2026
New from 404 Media: humans are reading ChatGPT conversations. OpenAI has hired an army of contractors who read real ChatGPT users' chats. I've seen internal docs, the review system, and real user prompts. Sometimes they contain very personal and sensitive information www.404media.co/inside-proje...
404media.co
Inside ‘Project Lily’: The Humans Reading Your ChatGPT Chats
Humans are reading ChatGPT users’ prompts to improve OpenAI’s models, and those chats can include sensitive, personal information, according to leaked internal documents and real prompts seen by 404 M...
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Peri Pakroo @peripak.bsky.social · 13/09/2026
Wow this is bleak
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Alex Hanna @alexhanna.bsky.social · 11/09/2026
🙅🏽No, AI is not helping worker productivity🙅🏽We dispel 5 common myths in my new video, Myths Around AI and Productivity. The first myth is that AI will improve productivity, which studies not only largely contradict, but sometimes suggest the opposite effect. youtu.be/3BO0iy91lfU
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Mike Masnick @masnick.com · 11/09/2026
Just did a quick look around and I don't see very many headlines about the President of the US making people pledge allegiance to him personally while telling everyone to commit election fraud and "cheat like hell" to support his party. Seems like it should be a story?
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Christopher Webb @cwebbonline.com · 09/09/2026
Have we seriously reached the point where “there’s a greater than 10% chance this kills everybody” isn’t a stop sign, it’s merely a business risk? www.forbes.com/sites/siladi...
forbes.com
Anthropic Alignment Lead Issues Warning About AI Killing Humans As Researcher Resigns
The warnings come amid a push by some AI executives for a coordinated slowdown in AI development.
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Elizabeth Warren @warren.senate.gov · 09/09/2026
NEW: Bloomberg's editorial board said the Trump White House is "courting a banking crisis." They describe how Trump's regulators are “reducing supervision and encouraging the kind of leverage that can make failures, contagion and bailouts more likely."
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Scott Fitzgerald Gray @scottfgray.bsky.social · 07/09/2026
The number of people still seemingly unaware that Substack has a Nazi problem means it’s apparently worth mentioning yet again that Substack has a fucking Nazi problem.
theguardian.com
Revealed: How Substack makes money from hosting Nazi newsletters
Exclusive: Site takes a cut of subscriptions to content that promotes far-right ideology, white supremacy and antisemitism
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Ryan Goodman @rgoodlaw.bsky.social · 07/09/2026
"The war in Iran has now cost U.S. consumers $100 billion in higher energy prices, and the bill is rising another $1 million about every two minutes, per a real-time estimate from Brown University." via @berkowitzbt.bsky.social
axios.com
Iran war drives $100 billion in extra energy costs for U.S. consumers
The average cost burden is more than $760 per household.
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Brent Toderian @brenttoderian.bsky.social · 04/09/2026
First Paris, then London. Who’s next?
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Anna Gifty @itsafronomics.blacksky.app · 26/08/2026
I forgot Dolly Parton helped fight the COVID outbreak.
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Julie S. Lalonde @julieslalonde.bsky.social · 03/09/2026
Gloria Steinem died with fewer rights than she had during her lifetime. That fact needs to be front and centre of every media report, every dedication, every discussion of her death.
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Jadzia Axelrod 🏳️‍🌈🏳️‍⚧️ @planetx.bsky.social · 27/12/2025
Anyway, Brian Eno said it best:
Whatever you now find weird, ugly, uncomfortable and nasty about a new medium will surely become its signature.
CD distortion, the jitteriness of digital video, the crap sound of 8-bit - all of these will be cherished and emulated as soon as they can be avoided. It's the sound of failure: so much modern art is the sound of things going out of control, of a medium pushing to its limits and breaking apart. The distorted guitar sound is the sound of something too loud for the medium supposed to carry it. The blues singer with the cracked voice is the sound of an emotional cry too powerful for the throat that releases it. The excitement of grainy film, of bleached-out black and white, is the excitement of witnessing events too momentous for the medium assigned to record them.
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Elizabeth Jacobs, PhD @elizabethjacobs.bsky.social · 31/08/2026
RFK Jr. ordering the CDC to remove the two measles deaths from Pennsylvania is misconduct. If the protocol for reporting infectious disease cases and deaths is that the CDC uses the state health department determination, then RFK Jr. has just changed that protocol without rationale or explanation.
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David Kurtz @davidkurtz.bsky.social · 31/08/2026
The gig is up in the very first sentence of the Supreme Court's per curiam opinion on the Trump ballroom (emphasis added): "In October 2025, the *federal government* started a project to replace the East Wing of the White House." They've collapsed the legislative branch into the unitary executive.
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Dave Levitan @davelevitan.bsky.social · 31/08/2026
Remember when the ballroom was first announced and the paper of record actually put that he'd pay for it up in their article subhead, I do
NYT headline and subhead:

White House Unveils Plan for $200 Million Ballroom, Trump’s Long-Sought Imprint
Officials said a 90,000-square-foot addition to the East Wing would be [highlight] paid for by President Trump [/highlight] and other donors.
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Ryan Goodman @rgoodlaw.bsky.social · 29/08/2026
Extraordinary, powerful and heart-wrenching. Active duty Marine Colonel Zach Schmidt, speaking in his personal capacity, about Khalil, an Afghan national whose family helped U.S. forces in Afghanistan. Khalil was deported by the U.S. on Friday to a conflict zone.
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Radley Balko @radleybalko.bsky.social · 29/08/2026
You know, ordinarily I’d say centrally planned economies are a bad idea. But what if — and hear me out, here — what if we switched to a centrally planned system, except there was only only one planner, and he was a corrupt, senile, 80-year-old man who had driven multiple businesses into the ground?
theatlantic.com
Trump’s Bad Bet on Beef
A new plan to lower prices is causing a rift in his own party.
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Paris Marx @parismarx.com · 26/08/2026
The United States is taking aim at Canada once again, with a crushing new set of tariffs. Ultimately, government will need to solve this. But in the same way Canadians are avoiding US alcohol, produce, and other goods, they should get off US tech products too. Luckily, I have a guide for that.
disconnect.blog
Getting off US tech: a guide
I’m in the process of dropping US tech services. Here’s how I did it, and options you should consider.
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Peri Pakroo @peripak.bsky.social · 27/08/2026
Heads up Lisbon: Rizoma Coop hosts #DigitalIndependenceDay events every first Sunday of the month. Looking forward to the next one on 6 Sept as I continue seeking alternatives to the enshittified platforms poisoning democracy! (Other cities at events.diday.org) events.diday.org/events/6b17f...
events.diday.org
Digital Independence Day Veranstaltungen
Immer am ersten Sonntag im Monat #DIDit #DUTgemacht
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Anil Dash @anildash.com · 26/08/2026
Meta is a creep who will _never_ take no for an answer, and never stop trying to ignore their lack of consent. Every media & regulatory organization in the world seems determined to ignore this reality; I genuinely don't understand why. Today's settlement is so that Meta can keep violating consent.
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Darwin Brandis @darwinbrandis.com · 26/08/2026
Guys i'm not really sure "work through the sickness and die young" is a winning message.
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Peri Pakroo @peripak.bsky.social · 24/08/2026
I've read other analysis saying this was decided on mostly procedural grounds and could still go the other way on the merits, but it's still objectively terrible for democracy 🤬
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Philip Oldfield @sustainabletall.bsky.social · 22/08/2026
Social housing in Paris always blows my mind! This is in a refurbished 19th Century building, with 15 new social homes and 3 shops. A thread 🧵
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Jess Calarco @jessicacalarco.com · 24/08/2026
Of course, there's basically 0 chance that the cost of ChatGPT for all stays at $13M/yr. The whole ed tech model is to offer an initial price that's ridiculously low, get schools hooked (ie, by helping them embed the new tech in all their systems), then jack up the price for contracts long-term. 3/
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Kyle Griffin @kylegriffin1.bsky.social · 24/08/2026
Justice Jackson: This "violates well-established precedents concerning this Court's equitable discretion and needlessly injects chaos and uncertainty into the upcoming midterm elections. It also lets another shoe drop in the Kafkaesque nightmare that our precedents have been steadily creating."
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Mark Copelovitch @mcopelov.bsky.social · 24/08/2026
Adding a few seats is the <bare minimum baseline moderate> position at this point. Other, more serious positions are readily available, & frankly essential at this point if we're going to get through this & still claim to call ourselves a constitutional republic.
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Peri Pakroo @peripak.bsky.social · 22/08/2026
Great explainer for the Atmosphere-curious, demystifying the broader Bluesky ecosystem, the tech driving it and the digital democracy dividends lab.leaflet.pub/3mrq6ma5dgs2x
lab.leaflet.pub
What is the Atmosphere?
An explainer for everyone in 4 minutes or less.
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Peri Pakroo @peripak.bsky.social · 20/08/2026
Today in Self-Inflicted Societal Injuries (US Edition)
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Jen Taub @jentaub.bsky.social · 17/08/2026
“A single-payer universal health care system could cover every American, save more than 100,000 lives a year, and still cost $1 trillion less than the system it would replace, according to a new preprint study led by researchers at the Yale School of Public Health.” ysph.yale.edu/news-article...
ysph.yale.edu
Universal Health Coverage Could Save $1 Trillion and 114,000 Lives Every Year, Yale Study Projects
A single-payer universal health care system could cover every American, save more than 100,000 lives a year, and still cost $1 trillion less than the system it
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Radley Balko @radleybalko.bsky.social · 15/08/2026
Economist covers from three months before Trump took office, and three months after.
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Ketan Joshi @ketanjoshi.co · 14/08/2026
Here's Amazon's two new planned fossil-fuelled AI data centres next to the ENTIRE POWER GRIDS OF SEVERAL LARGE COUNTRIES Together, the two gas-burning data centres will emit more than Spain's entire grid, if built
Bar chart comparing 2025 national grid CO2e emissions (grey bars) with two Amazon fossil‑fuelled AI data centres (red bars), showing the Amazon sites at about 33 and 17.5 megatonnes CO2e—higher than many countries' entire power grids.
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Jay Willis @jaywillis.net · 13/08/2026
Since presidential appointments happen one by one, it can be hard to track, but: With Todd Blanche's confirmation, basically every lawyer in a position of power in the federal government was on one of the egal teams that worked to keep Trump in power, out of prison, or both
ballsandstrikes.org
The Justice Department Is a Glorified Pro-Trump Law Firm Now
The president is staffing the government with trusted lawyers who share a willingness to do anything for their favorite client.
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Dave Levitan @davelevitan.bsky.social · 10/08/2026
Again, it is an *exceptionally* strange situation where the president of the US gets to literally invent preposterous things out of thin air every day and no one can do anything about it
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Brandon Friedman @brandonfriedman.bsky.social · 08/08/2026
Highly usable post from last year
@weedle.bsky.social: Pete Hegseth is not going to remember his soldiers need food.
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