Dr. James H. Gundlach
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pecanjim.bsky.social
Dr. James H. Gundlach
@pecanjim.bsky.social
3.5K followers 5.7K following 1.8K posts
Retired Sociology/Demography professor. I know the United States has an awfully high middle aged death rate. My goal is to explain it well enough to get people to fix it.
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pecanjim.bsky.social
Here I look at the relationship between the percent of the state population that is foreign born and state age 20-64 death rate. See text for why this age group and more. 🧪💡☠️ #Sociology #Population #News #Think
The first thing I notice about this distribution is the variation around the regression line is no where near consistent. The distribution is widest on the left where percent foreign born is low and quite narrow at the high end. The second thing I notice is that the state death rates are lowest where the percent born outside the United States are highest, they are even lower than the lowest death rates at the far left. The problem here is interpreting cause and effect. Does people moving to a state bring the death rate down or do people move to areas where the death rate is lower? At least this tells us that if we are logical in moving, that is going to a state with lower death rates, we can expect more people from other countries to live there and at least greater variety in restaurants by cultures. In looking over the states, I can clearly see the Democratic voting states, excluding Texas, have both lower death rates and higher percents foreign born. I would like to pull down a couple of more variables from wonder.cdc.gov but their web side has been down all day so I will go ahead and quit this one.
November 26, 2025 at 5:32 PM
pecanjim.bsky.social
This graph shows the single year age population in Republican voting states death rate as the percent of the same death rate in Democratic voting states. See text below graph for more information. 🧪💡☠️ #Sociology #Population #News #Think
To produce this graph I left the mixed party out and divided the Republican voting state single year age death rate by the Democratic voting states same age and multiplied that by 100 to get a percent. Notice that the children under age ten in Republican voting states have death rates that are generally above 150% of the same aged children in Democratic voting states. I am posting this because one of Trump's high level administrators suggested moving to Republican voting states because their inflation was half a percent less than in Democratic voting states. Since I think people should care more about how early they, and especially their children die in Democratic versus Republican voting states. As they grow up the percentages goes down until the mid twenties and then they level of around the 130 to 140 percent range where they stay until retirement takes them out of state regulated capitalist health insurance to Medicare/Medicaid. Then party difference decline until our data ends at age 84. I don't show the 85+ group because they are very different that the single year ages because nobody lives through it. Anyway, here are the states in the three groups, the mixed are excluded from the graph: I produced this graph. making it, I examined the last twenty years of voting and grouped states into Democrat, mixed party and Republican. To keep this graph simple I only compared. single year age death rates in Democratic versus Republican voting states. Dem Mix Rep CA AZ AL CO GA AK CT IA AR DE MI FL DC MN ID HI NH IN IL NC KS ME OH KY MD PA LA MA TX MS NV WI MO NJ MT NM NE NY ND OR OK RI SC VT SD VA TN WA UT WV WY
November 24, 2025 at 12:28 AM
pecanjim.bsky.social
Here is a link and table from it that shows specific causes of death increased by smoking:
ourworldindata.org/data-insight...
This is why one behavior, smoking, is stronger than specific causes. One of the best pieces of research I have ever seen. 🧪💡☠️ #Sociology #Population #Think #News
Smoking increases the risk of death from many causes
Most of us have heard that smoking damages the lungs. The chart drives this home: in the US, men who smoke are around 21 times more likely to die from lung cancer than men who have never smoked.
ourworldindata.org
November 23, 2025 at 5:02 PM
pecanjim.bsky.social
Here the way I see what is going on: Trump and the fascist Republicans are just working to give Hitler a late win. It worked in Russia, why not the USA?🧪💡💡 #Sociology #Population #Think #News
November 23, 2025 at 12:49 PM
pecanjim.bsky.social
Here are two graphs that show the relationship between percent smoking and life expectancy, the age by which half the people born die. The difference between the two slopes surprised the hell out of me. See ALT for more information. 🧪
💡☠️ #Sociology #Population #Think #News
Here life expectancy increases a little as the percent of population smoking cigarettes increases. I suspect this is due to both increasing with income but I am not adding a control variable here. Now let's look at the next, graph for the United States. Here the pattern is in the predicted direction but the effect is much stronger than I expected. It tells me clearly that smoking in the United States has a very different effect on the smokers health than it does in the rest of the world. In an earlier post here I compared several predictors of life expectancy and three variables remained statistically significant when controlling for several others. Cigarette smoking was the strongest, followed by percent Southern Baptist and percent of the middle aged without health insurance. A couple of data analysis points about this graph., First, the pattern in the dots strongly suggest that the relationship is not simply linear. If you look at the first half of dots you should be able to see the pattern seems more toward horizontal than the line and the last half the line is more horizontal than the dots. I won't do it here but those two halves need to be looked at separately. Second, the regression statistics. Here r= -0.80, b=-0.56 and a=84.3. You can reduce your errors in predicting state life expectancy by 80 percent when you know the percent of the state who smokes cigarettes. As a state's population increases in percent smoking by one percent, the life expectancy declines by 56% of a year! And the predicted life expectancy for a state with zero percent smokers is 84.3, that is one tenth of a year higher than the fourth and fifth ranked Japan and Canada in the CIA's World Fact Book. Given that large increase in death rates probably. means that the smoking that goes on probably kills more people than just the smokers early. I simply cannot see that large of effect without second hand smoke killing people also. Well, enough said on this for now.
November 22, 2025 at 8:45 PM
pecanjim.bsky.social
This graph shows the latest year of available data, 2023, single year age homicide and suicide rates by single year ages, 0-84 and 85+, This shows much more about what is going. on than just repeating the numbers 9.3 suicides and 5.4 homicides per 100,000 om 2023. 🧪💡☠️ #Suicide #Sociology #Population
Up to age 40 you can see that the Homicide and Suicide rates have fairly similar patterns and with homicides especially higher in the late teens and early 20's, but as we move the later middle and elderly ages, suicides are much higher. What I find amazing is the shift in the trends at age 70. Suicides increase dramatically and homicides just keep changing like they were, except at the very end. I think, but I have no data, that a lot of very late suicides are escaping what people feel will be a bad dying experience. As I look at it, it made me think putting a few years of one. group. on one graph might be interesting. Anyway, I think it shows a lot more than saying the suicide rate is 9.3 and the homicide rate is 5.4.
November 22, 2025 at 12:57 PM
pecanjim.bsky.social
This is an addition to the earlier post on Southern Baptist and COVID death rates. This on includes a link to a Florida Southern Baptist church web page that includes instructions on avoiding immunization. 🧪💡☠️ #Sociology #Population #Think #News
Here is a link to a church page that addresses this issue: If you go to this page and scroll down a couple of pages you will find the text provided by the church to help their members avoid immunizations. The earlier text clearly argues against immunization. https://founders.org/articles/grace-baptist-church-statement-on-religious-exemption-to-mandatory-medical-procedures/ I am going to send the minister a link to this post including. this graph to try to contact some beyond the Blue Sky group of like-mes. This is also a try to provide a click. to an earlier post that takes a different look at this same data: Well that didn't work. In party this is an experiment so I ask. for a little tolerance.
November 22, 2025 at 4:31 AM
pecanjim.bsky.social
Here is another way of looking at state percent Southern Baptist and death rates, measured here as state total population life expectancy. 🧪💡☠️ #Sociology #Population #Think #News
First here is a context to understand what the predicted state life expectancy for hypothetical states with 0% and 100%f it in our CIA's ranking of countries in the CIA World Fact Book life expectancy table: Predicted life expectancy at zero percent Southern Baptist is 80.3. Here is the CIA data line : Rank. Country. Life Exp. Data source. 55 Chile 80.3 2024 est. The predicted life expectancy at 100% percent Southern Baptist is 72.2, halfway between: Rank. Country Life Exp. Data source 164 Russia 72.3 2024 est. 165 Togo 72.1 2024 est. If you look at the dot for Mississippi, you will see that it is not all the way to the predicted 100%, it is right at 70% and has a life expectancy of 75. Anyway the scatter plot gives you a sense of where each state stands. The important thing to see is that the states with small Southern Baptist populations are generally clustered up at. the high life expectancy end while. the increase. in percent Southern Baptist flows right. along. the line showing a lower and flower life expectancy as percent Southern Baptist increases. Here are the regression statistics: r -0.89 b -0.08 a 80.30 Here is a general description of what I think is the root cause this relationship between percent Southern Baptist and death rates: Back when Obama Care was passed, it included a provision to allow religious groups to offer their own health care. I can find no data the level they substitute prayer for health care. However, I live in rural Alabama, see that AL dot on the graph, and I find relying on prayer for health care is not rare around here. That is why I put together the data to produce the. above graph. The limitation is that this includes no control variables. I don't have room to include a total multivariate analysis but when I started with several variables and whittled the down with multiple regression, percent smoking cigarettes was strongest, this was second and percent uninsured was third.
November 21, 2025 at 12:42 AM
pecanjim.bsky.social
What's up? Repetition of Trump's lies about illegal Hispanic immigrants being the most violent. Here is good solid research that actually measures it:
www.migrationpolicy.org/sites/defaul...

#science #Sociology #Population
www.migrationpolicy.org
November 20, 2025 at 12:59 AM
pecanjim.bsky.social
Yesterday I posted this graph and described the changes in 2023 firearm and total suicide rates in Democratic and Republican voting states. But I forgot to include the number of deaths each experienced and would have experience at the other rate. 🧪💡☠️ #Sociology #Population #Republican #Democratic
First a brief summary of what the graph shows. First all four groups show increases up to about age 21 followed by very stable death rates up to about age 55 where all but Democratic firearm suicides started going down until about age 70 where they all started going up. This last rate of increase was strongest among the Republican party states firearm suicide rates. Now to what I forgot to include yesterday, the actual number of deaths and what each party's numbers would have been if they experienced the other party's death rates: Here they are: Suicide rate Dem states At Rep rates Pct chg IF Gun suicide 163,456 244,829 49.78 All suicide 326,559 488,994 49.74 Rep States At Dem rates Gun suicide 177,147 118,602 -33.05 All suicide 353,789 236,935 -33.03 One thing I see in this that automatically creates a warning flag is that one set of percent changes are almost exactly one half and the other almost exactly one third. But I have re-worked and re-worked and re-worked the data and I am left suspecting that there may be something going on with the data, but I can't figure out what it is. Anyway the main point is that the different rates reflected in height of the party lines is a large number of deaths. What have I done about it. I found it too late to determine where my wife and I live but both daughters live in Democratic voting states.
November 17, 2025 at 12:35 AM
pecanjim.bsky.social
Here I display single year age total and by firearm suicide death rates by single year age up to age 84 for Democratic and Republican voting states. |See text for more information. 🧪💡☠️ #Sociology #Population #Republican #Democratic
The order of the colored limes is a bit confusing so let's look at them in order from the bottom to the top. The bottom line of square yellow dots shows the suicide death rates by firearms in the Democratic voting states by age as you follow that line you get the firearm suicide rates by age from age nine through age 84. The age group 85+ is excluded because it is hard to interpret because nobody lives through it. The pattern is generally followed by each of the groups, from age 9 through 22 the firearm suicide rate goes up. Then it sharply shifts to nearly level line that slightly increases up to age 55 when all but Democratic firearm suicides decline until about age 70 when the rate slightly more than doubles at the end. Next, let's do the line of green diamonds, the total Democratic voting states, their being lower at the right end actually makes them lower than the Republican voting states firearm suicides. They follow the same pattern as the Democrats by firearms except they decline from age 55 to about 70. Then they increase like the others but at a less steep rate in increase. Next to the top is the Republican's suicides by firearms. They follow the Democratic voting states almost exactly to age 20 then they edge down to bouncing between two and three points below the Democrats total until age 65 when they exhibit the steepest increase in the final years. The last line is the red diamonds for the Republican total which is consistently the highest. They follow the pattern of the total Democrat line of dots but generally get closer to the total Democratic line at the end. Here are the two letter abbreviations for states: Dem Mix Rep CA AZ AL CO GA AK CT IA AR DE MI FL DC MN ID HI NH IN IL NC KS ME OH KY MD PA LA MA TX MS NV WI MO NJ MT NM NE NY ND OR OK RI SC VT SD VA TN WA UT WV WY
November 16, 2025 at 2:08 PM
pecanjim.bsky.social
What's up? Some health insurance TV commercials. Remember that the more times you see a particular commercial, the more money that company will make by giving you the least for the money you give them. 🧪💡☠️ #Sociology #Population #Buy #think
November 14, 2025 at 2:30 PM
pecanjim.bsky.social
The total United States reported life expectancy, age by which half the people die, is higher in Harris voting states than the states that voted for Trump. Two other things: Total USA is higher than all the states and people in 99 countries live longer. 🧪💡☠️ #Sociology #Population #News #Think
In the 2022 life expectancy data, Hawaii was the only state that had a longer life expectancy than that reported for the United States in the CIA's World Fact Book. In the 2023 data, Hawaii joined the rest of the states below the CIA's reported life expectancy for the United States. To provide national data that allowed states to be compared to the nation as a whole, I used the traditional method of calculating life expectancy, the age by which half the deaths occurred and got 76.8 years. I sorted the states and found Maryland the 25th had a life expectancy of 76.3 years. Virginia which ranks 29th matched the 76.8. This suggest only a little deviation from a normal distribution, as I looked at the total list, I saw Virginia had the matching life expectancy and is ranked 29th, close enough to the middle to make me feel there is no problem using this calculation for the nation. I then compared this national life expectancy with the CIA ranked table and found it tied Sri Lanka which just happened to rank 100th out of 227 countries on the CIA list. In other words, calculating an honest life expectancy for the United States, which pays the most for health care has 99 countries with longer life expectancy that spend less on health care. Health care wise we are not getting our money's worth. I wanted to paint the state abbreviations party colors but still can't get the software to do it so here is the table of the state abbreviations by party: Dem Mix Rep CA AZ AL CO GA AK CT IA AR DE MI FL DC MN ID HI NH IN IL NC KS ME OH KY MD PA LA MA TX MS NV WI MO NJ MT NM NE NY ND OR OK RI SC VT SD VA TN WA UT WV WY In general, the states with the longest life expectancy are solid Democratic voting states, New Mexico is the major exception. And, the states with lowest life expectancy are the Southern Republican voting states, the mid-west Republican voting states have life expediencies even with the lower Democratic states.
November 11, 2025 at 11:29 PM
pecanjim.bsky.social
Here I look at the bi-variate effect of state percent Southern Baptist on death rates. While these numbers may appear high in light of the size of the Southern Baptist population, their effect on a states death rate is not limited to them. 🧪💡☠️ #Sociology #Population #News #Think
First some background. The Southern Baptist gained the ability to offer their own health care and insurance system as a rider on the Obama Care legislation. Over the years they have offered very economical health insurance that can be cheap because it includes prayer, a very cheap and ineffective treatment, for health care. An additional note is that promoting prayer for care is not limited to the Southern Baptist population. When a practicing Southern Baptist knows a non member who is having health problems, if that non member cannot afford care they may well rely of their neighbor's prayer for cure. The research problem is that we have no way to measure the extent prayer is used for health care in the United States. Now to regression analysis results looking at state percent Southern Baptist and state death rates: r = 0.66 2,788,934 297,034 b = 5.17 pct 9.6 a = 867.21 Using the above regression results I was able to estimate that the additional deaths related to the state percent Southern Baptist was about 297,034 in 2023, that was 9.6% of the United States in 2023 total number of deaths, 3,085,968. I feel every Southern Baptist church needs to post "Prayer does not cure!" on their announcement signs everyone one driving past the church can read. But I have lost count of the things I would like to see done to save lives that there is absolutely no chance that they would ever happen. I am ending with the regression results predicting state under age 1 death rates from state percent Southern Baptist: r = 0.71 b = 5.11 a = 461.20 The a = 461.2 is the predicted infant death rate for the hypothetical state with no Southern Baptist. The b = 5.11 means it goes up to 461.2+(5.11*100) or 972.2. This last number is the only estimate of the Southern Baptist infant mortality rate I can come up with.
November 10, 2025 at 1:23 PM
pecanjim.bsky.social
A major thing about low wage workers that is being missed in the news is how much food stamps actually support our low minimum wage. For example the United States minimum wage is 62.5% of Canada's. Our food stamps let our low paying employers pay less. 🧪☠️ #Sociology #Population #News #Think
November 7, 2025 at 11:53 PM
pecanjim.bsky.social
Here is a refined version of the kind of graph that I have posted five times before. Here a dot does not represent the value of x and y for data, it shows the value of r, the correlation, between year and single year age death rates. 🧪💡☠️ #Sociology #Population #Think #News
For the United States, life expectancy increased from 76.7 in 1999 to 78.9 in 2019. That does not look bad. But, it does not tell you that the trend changed from very consistent declines for our 17 year olds to very consistent increases for when they live to be 30 year olds. Now that pattern is the same for all three party groups of states. But for the late middle aged, the major party differences emerge. To put it simply, living in Democratic voting states is a hell of lot better for the late middle aged. A major problem with this graph is that it displays the values of the correlation, r, between year and death rates and a substantial part of our adult population not only don't understand r's they are afraid of them. If you feel you are in this group, here is an easy way to understand this graph displaying r's. If the dot is high, like those around age 30, that means those death rates very consistently increased over this time. If they are right at halfway up the graph that means they went down as much as they went up and if they are down at the bottom of the graph they consistently went down over time. Now one problem is it doesn't show how much they changed. The problem with showing how much they changed is that the major consistent thing about death rates is they go up with age and when you deal with single measures, they are dominated by changes in elderly deaths. The other problem is the standard measure is life expectancy, this is simply the age by which half the people die. The 1999 life expectancy of 76.7 does not go up when younger age groups deaths increase. And a death at age 75 changes life expectancy the same amount as a death at age 1. Our health care for the elderly has improved while a lot of our health care for the middle ages has gone down. How? One way is capitalist health insurance has moved to prior approval for their dominated population's health care. This is an unmeasured lack of adequate health care is killing them early.
November 5, 2025 at 2:59 PM
pecanjim.bsky.social
I wonder how many people know that our public schools, k through 12, colleges and university are socialist parts of our economy? That is why the Republicans, especially Trump, are trying to kill them.🧪💡☠️ #Sociology #population #Think #News
November 4, 2025 at 4:18 AM
pecanjim.bsky.social
Here are two graphs showing the changes in death rates by party state votes for in presidential elections for non-Hispanic Whites aged 20-54 and 65-84. See text for descriptions and explanations. I wonder who Everyone hits?🧪💡☠️ #Sociology #Population #Think #News #Everyone
This graph shows the death rates for non-Hispanic Whites aged 20-54 broken down by party the state the dead lived in has regularly voted for. The data used to make the dots are below.this text. The last year of data is dominated by the the deaths caused by COVID during the first year. In the United States we have conducted a natural experiment by turning over payment for health care for the middle aged to capitalist health insurance and payment for health care for the elderly to socialist medicare and the capitalist clone of it to Medicaid. Now the populations covered by Medicare and Medicaid or not identified in mortality data so the only comparison our data makes available are between middle aid health care that is regulated by state government and the elderly care which has socialist care for a big portion of our elderly with a growing portion covered by the capitalist clone. In general the middle aged Non-Hispanic Whites in Republican voting states have generally doubled the amount that their death rates are higher than their peers in Democratic voting states. At the same time, the mixed party states moved from essentially being tied with the Democratic voting states to very close to half way between the Democratic and Republican voting states. Here are the data: Year Dem Rep Mixed 1999 190.8 227.3 190.3 2000 192.6 234.5 196.9 2001 204 241.9 201.2 2002 203.1 250 206.5 2003 202.9 256 207.3 2004 202 255.5 207.8 2005 203 262.6 214.5 2006 204.7. 266.7 215 2007 201.5 264.4 213.5 2008 198.9 267.8 216.6 2009 200.8 270 218.4 2010 192.3 268.4 216.5 2011 194.8 270.2 221.5 2012 193 267.1 216.7 2013 193 264.4 220.6 2014 194.7 268.8 219.5 2015 196.3 273.8 227.8 2016 203.1 282.5 239.7 2017 201.8 281.1 243.4 2018 197.8 275.3 231.3 2019 195.5 270.7 225.9 2020 221.4 313 256.8 This graph displays the age 65-84 deaths per 100,000 by states grouped by the party they vote for. I am posting it to show how our elderly death rates have gone down by all three party groups. The most noticeable thing is that party differences barely existed when this graph starts but grew in a slight imitation of the middle aged pattern shown in the first graph. The important thing is these changes show declining death rates while the middle age only shows changes that are increases. The best the middle age does is the Democratic voting states almost holding on to earlier death rates. The two graphs clearly show that capitalist health care KILLS. The question is: What is causing the elderly in non-Democratic states to increasingly show higher and higher death rates? I have some ideas about how it could be going on but I haven't found any way to test any of them. I consider the one that suggests this is simply a result of the denied care during middle age. I believe it is caused by damages caused by lack of health care during the middle age years to leave their bodies weakened and more likely to be killed by later health problems. But again I can't figure out how to find data to test that hypothesis. Anyway, here is the same kind of data for the elderly that the first one presented for age 20-54. I have found that Bluesky does not let you copy data, If you would like a copy to play with, just email me at pecanjim@bellsouth.net and I will send a copy to the email address requesting it. Year Dem Rep Mixed 1999 3732 3783 3806 2000 3675 3770 3767 2001 3629 3722 3708 2002 3606 3709 3693 2003 3538 3647 3621 2004 3405 3515 3510 2005 3363 3507 3489 2006 3269 3389 3358 2007 3165 3295 3259 2008 3092 3297 3243 2009 2952 3162 3092 2010 2889 3159 3070 2011 2855 3115 3035 2012 2723 3035 2925 2013 2680 3025 2880 2014 2610 2977 2839 2015 2608 2971 2837 2016 2556 2925 2768 2017 2540 2949 2774 2018 2499 2932 2750 2019 2466 2904 2723 2020 2784 3259 3062
November 3, 2025 at 11:06 PM
pecanjim.bsky.social
Trump is not supporting the real reason for food stamps. It is to keep under paid workers alive and workin for wages that make their bosses a lot more money. Why is Trump undoing it? My guess is the Russian brains directing him want to cause chaos in the United States. 🧪 #Sociology #Population
October 29, 2025 at 12:37 AM
Reposted by Dr. James H. Gundlach
scarfy.bsky.social
What will happen to the stats? I'm very interested in watching it grow. Will it not be tracked anymore?
September 26, 2025 at 9:17 PM
Reposted by Dr. James H. Gundlach
martie38.bsky.social
Let’s make Bluesky a safe heaven for ALL communities.
No haters allowed here !
November 9, 2024 at 11:08 PM
pecanjim.bsky.social
Here I compare the effect of state percent Hispanic and percent of state vote for Trump on state firearm murder rates. I have done this because I see our public unaware of Trump's lies about how criminal Hispanics are. 🧪💡☠️ #Sociology #Population #Think #News #Hello
This scatter plot shows the relationship between state percent Hispanic, the population President Trump is saying they are so bad that they need to be gotten rid of. I think this is the weakest statistical relationship I have shown in the more than 200 I have displayed here. Now look at the next graph, the same kind of graph but comparing the last election's state vote for Trump against the state firearm homicide rate. Here you can see that there is a weak statistical relationship between the percent of the state vote for Trump in the last presidential election and the state firearm homicide rate in 2022 and 2023 together. The more of the state voters voting for Trump, the higher the state firearm homicide rate. Now, Trump and other Republicans are pro gun sales, they do what the gun industry wants which leads to a higher gun death rate in states that Trump got more votes in. So Trump's reason for going after Hispanics is just another one of his too many lies to count. Just a side note on another one of his lies, the recently cleared area next to the US capitol is being set up to build a much larger building than the proposed super luxury dining room, he clearly has plans to do more than he is telling the public. Enough written, we hare headed on a week long trip tomorrow so I want to get this posted.
October 25, 2025 at 11:34 PM
pecanjim.bsky.social
Here is one from memory:
After synthetic car oils were available we bought two non-hydraulic valve Honda's and after break-in oil we ran one on petro-oil and the other on synthetic. Petro made 42,000 and synthetic 158,000 miles before valve adjust was needed, .001+ gaps. 🧪 #Sociology #Auto #Oil
October 23, 2025 at 6:19 PM
pecanjim.bsky.social
A re-do: If Trump let the builders build it logically, the lounge unit would be built first then the connection would be built last. He wanted to destroy as much of our old ways as much and as soon as possible. His goal is destroy the United States. 🧪💡☠️ #Sociology #Population #Think #News
October 23, 2025 at 3:06 AM
pecanjim.bsky.social
As I look at the way Trump is having this built, He wanted to destroy the old White House the most. A logical way to built this is first built the lounge, then build the connection to the old white house. Trump wants to get us used to his destroying our way of life. He is EVIL!
October 23, 2025 at 3:00 AM