Author | Lightnews

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Gravel Influencer @gravelinfluencer.bsky.social · Sep 18

Yesterday Fresh Air did an interview with Robert Draper, who has covered Charlie Kirk. And this section on Draper's relationship with Kirk said a lot to me about modern access journalism, and the soft coverage we've seen in the wake of Kirk's death.

GROSS: After you profiled Kirk, and I think that was published back in February, you stayed in touch with him. And I think you were texting each other the day before he was killed.

DRAPER: That's correct. I'll tell you also, Terry, that the story, as you say, was published in February of this year. But I would say for a full year prior to that, Kirk and I had been getting to know each other, and he would often reach out to me. And I thought this was an interesting aspect to Kirk, that he would reach out to me just to run things by me. Not asking so much for my opinion - because, as a journalist, I couldn't give it - but just as a reality check, he'd say, I'm hearing from the right that this particular viewpoint is prevalent from the left. Am I just living in a bubble, or is that true?

GROSS: How would you respond to that?

DRAPER: Well, sometimes I would say, you know, I think what you're hearing you're hearing from the right-wing media ecosystem, and it's not supported by reality as I understand it. And he would take that and be grateful for it. There was also a time I reached out to him, I remember, to say, I'd like to talk to you off the record about the religious context in which so many people in the MAGA community are viewing Donald Trump. Can you explain to me how they see him as this sort of flawed vessel, like King David or something? And he was very fluent in describing that to me.

And so we had that kind of back-and-forth well predating the publication of the story, and continued to since then. I had dinner with him in D.C. once, I think, a couple of months before he was killed, and I remember he brought security with him. They sat at the bar. And he seemed very casual about it, which is not to say that he was utterly unconcerned. But it was essentially the cost of doing business, that that was just the world that we were in.

I was texting with him the day before the assassination because I wanted to come to Arizona and have dinner with him and his wife to catch up on various things. But also, there's a major magazine project that I'm beginning. And I wanted Kirk's thoughts about it, but not on the phone and not in writing. It just required a face-to-face. And he wrote back saying, absolutely. We would love to have you over for dinner. Just pick a date in September. And I think I sent, a few hours later, the text, how about September 23? And obviously, I never heard back.

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🄼🄴🄴🄷🄰🅆🄻 ⭕ @meehawl.com · 9h

Feds: When we said we didn't mass zip-tie the kids or shoot them with rubber bullets, well, we lied.

But we went easy on the babies!

idahocapitalsun.com/2025/10/22/f...

FBI backtracks on denying children were zip tied in Idaho raid, saying instead no ‘young’ kids were
Updated statement came after KIVI-TV sent FBI photo reportedly showing 14-year-old U.S. citizen in zip ties
By:
Kyle Pfannenstiel
-
October 22, 2025
5:41 pm

At 3:34 p.m. Wednesday, Federal Bureau of Investigation spokesperson Sandra Yi Barker told the Idaho Capital Sun in a written statement that “Reports suggesting children were zip-tied or hit with rubber bullets during the October 19 FBI-led operation in Wilder are completely false.”

But less than an hour after denying any kids were zip-tied or hit with rubber bullets at the raid, the FBI clarified that no “young” children were zip-tied or hit with rubber bullets. At 4:18 p.m., Barker released an updated statement adding “young” before the word “children.”

🄼🄴🄴🄷🄰🅆🄻 ⭕ @meehawl.com · 11h

Fantastic! It's this, and more.

🄼🄴🄴🄷🄰🅆🄻 ⭕ @meehawl.com · 12h

It's also just terribly poor journalism. Who determined? How? What were the different cost analyses? What were the options for the asbestos and lead mitigation? What kind of filtration is being done in the rest of the White House to stop people breathing in this toxic dust?

bsky.app/profile/meeh...

🄼🄴🄴🄷🄰🅆🄻 ⭕ @meehawl.com · 14h

"The White House determined." That's not journalism, it's stenography. Who determined? What's their background in civil engineering? How was this "evaluation" performed? What were the conclusions? How much "cheaper?"

Just embarrassing. A High School paper would reject this.
bsky.app/profile/mark...

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🄼🄴🄴🄷🄰🅆🄻 ⭕ @meehawl.com · 12h

Shawn McCreesh: "There's no telling just what this town might look like by the end of this term. But there will sure be a lot more to look at."

Christianized Washington Monument at the end of the National Mall in The Handmaid's Tale.

Christianized Sorrowful Lincoln in the Handmaid's Tale.

🄼🄴🄴🄷🄰🅆🄻 ⭕ @meehawl.com · 13h

bsky.app/profile/tusk...

Gabe Ortíz @tusk81.bsky.social · 13h

“To me, this demolition suggests that the current White House does not think that the first lady does anything of value,” said Katherine A.S. Sibley, a professor of history at Saint Joseph’s University in Philadelphia.

Demolished and cleared for the $250+ million Epstein ballroom.

19thnews @19thnews.org · 13h

The East Wing is home to the Office of the First Lady and has played a key role in women’s visibility in the White House. This week, bulldozers began to tear it down to clear the way for President Donald Trump’s $250 million ballroom.

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Transgender World @transgenderreport.com · 13h

Laser clinic offers special deal on Harry Potter tattoo removals: ‘Trans rights are human rights’

www.thepinknews.com/...

#transgender #trans #LGBTQ #LGBTQIA

Laser clinic offers special deal on Harry Potter tattoo removals

A Manchester laser clinic is offering half price Harry Potter tattoo removals in a bid to stand against JK Rowling’s trans views.

www.thepinknews.com

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🄼🄴🄴🄷🄰🅆🄻 ⭕ @meehawl.com · 13h

bsky.app/profile/mibl...

a doctored photo of the back of a $20 bill featuring the White House being demolished by an excavator

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Musicology Duck @musicologyduck.bsky.social · 13h

Mike Johnson not knowing any of the details with Yakety Sax

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🄼🄴🄴🄷🄰🅆🄻 ⭕ @meehawl.com · 13h

bsky.app/profile/cwne...

Claude:
"This is a three-panel meme from the movie "Pacific Rim" featuring the character Dr. Hermann Gottlieb at a chalkboard.
The meme humorously depicts the escalating frequency of "Apologies":
Panel 1: A professor calmly explains that apologies initially came 24 weeks apart, then decreased to 12 weeks, then 6 weeks, then every 2 weeks - showing a concerning pattern.
Panel 2: He becomes more animated, using a pointer stick to emphasize that within 4 days, apologies could be happening every 8 hours, eventually reaching every 4 minutes - indicating an exponential acceleration.
Panel 3: He dramatically concludes that they should expect a "double event" (two apologies simultaneously) within seven days."

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🄼🄴🄴🄷🄰🅆🄻 ⭕ @meehawl.com · 14h

bsky.app/profile/dwda...

Derek Davison @dwdavison.bsky.social · 14h

This guy's base is made up of people who soiled themselves repeatedly because somebody took down a statue of Nathan Bedford Forrest.

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🄼🄴🄴🄷🄰🅆🄻 ⭕ @meehawl.com · 14h

"The White House determined." That's not journalism, it's stenography. Who determined? What's their background in civil engineering? How was this "evaluation" performed? What were the conclusions? How much "cheaper?"

Just embarrassing. A High School paper would reject this.
bsky.app/profile/mark...

“It’ll be views of the Washington Monument. It won’t interfere with the current building. It’ll be near it but not touching it,” the president said. “And pays total respect to the existing building, which I’m the biggest fan of.”

But, upon further evaluation, the White House determined it was cheaper and more structurally sound to demolish the East Wing to construct the ballroom, rather than build an addition, the official said.

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🄼🄴🄴🄷🄰🅆🄻 ⭕ @meehawl.com · 14h

bsky.app/profile/kben...

Karen Dalton Beninato 🐦 @kbeninato.bsky.social · 2d

The East Wing was where Eleanor Roosevelt welcomed all visitors to the White House.

That must have kept this administration up nights until they could knock it down. To build a ballroom we can't afford, during a shutdown, for a president who just posted himself dropping shit on the country.

This photo, taken on April 1, 1941, shows First Lady Eleanor Roosevelt sitting in front of a fireplace, accompanied by her staffers Malvina Thompson and Edith Helm at the White House in Washington, D.C.

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Emissary Of Night | ليلى @diplomatofnight.com · 16h

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🄼🄴🄴🄷🄰🅆🄻 ⭕ @meehawl.com · 15h

"Burn the land and boil the sea,
You can't take the sky from me."

It turns out that they can, in fact, take the sky away.

www.youtube.com/watch?v=7DiW...

Sonny Rhodes - The Ballad Of Serenity(Extended)

YouTube video by DreamOfRetribution

www.youtube.com

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Coach Finstock @coachfinstock.bsky.social · 16h

Mamdani about to appoint Curtis Sliwa as the Anti-Cuomo Czar of his administration. The office has only one mission: to keep any and all Cuomo or Cuomo-adjacent people or businesses away from the government

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🄼🄴🄴🄷🄰🅆🄻 ⭕ @meehawl.com · 17h

Weirdos have been working themselves up into something of a lather thinking about alleged crises of "masculinity" for ages. But fascism does tend to make them yell louder.

bsky.app/profile/meeh...

🄼🄴🄴🄷🄰🅆🄻 ⭕ @meehawl.com · 6d

Find something you love doing as much as Worm Brain Bob loves thinking about teenagers' sperm and girls going into puberty really, really early.

Aaron Rupar @atrupar.com · 6d

RFK Jr: "Today the average teenager in this country has 50% of the sperm count, 50% of the testosterone of a 65 year old man. Our girls are hitting puberty 6 years early ... our parents aren't having children."

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🄼🄴🄴🄷🄰🅆🄻 ⭕ @meehawl.com · 17h

Yes, maybe. Their trans articles started out 90s/00s as more of these "overall survey" kind of articles before lurching over into TERF mode.

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🄼🄴🄴🄷🄰🅆🄻 ⭕ @meehawl.com · 18h

Media like the NYT will run positivist stories about cis women taking testosterone to feel “like a teenage boy" but then immed go back to wring hands and tut-tutting about trans people taking hormones.

www.nytimes.com/2025/10/22/m...

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unraveled @unraveledpress.com · 18h

For folks asking if they've made it *inside* a Home Depot yet as the business has clearly just continued letting agents do whatever they want in their lots, the answer is yes. This is from yesterday in Evanston.

Threads post from julieceye

At my local Home Depot today in Evanston, IL. They abducted 5 people in my immediate area.

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🄼🄴🄴🄷🄰🅆🄻 ⭕ @meehawl.com · 18h

bsky.app/profile/inte...

The Ass is the father of the legs @internethippo.bsky.social · 18h

Running for office and revealing a giant back tattoo that just says WOMEN. Nobody can agree if it's good or bad

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Brian Goldstone @brian-goldstone.bsky.social · 18h

Add Cincinnati to the rapidly expanding list of cities where homeless students sleep in parking lots because their families can't afford a place to live.

www.cincinnati.com/story/news/2...

Headline: "Cincinnati Public Schools' homeless student sleep lot is first in Ohio, says coalition"
By Grace Tucker and Elizabeth B. Kim
Cincinnati Enquirer

"There are now so many families living out of their cars in Cincinnati that the city's school district is opening a parking lot for them to have a safe place to stay overnight."

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🄼🄴🄴🄷🄰🅆🄻 ⭕ @meehawl.com · 18h

1919 ink: non-Volkisch association possible.

bsky.app/profile/fooe...
bsky.app/profile/moll...

fooeynet @fooeynet.bsky.social · 18h

It is the TFC, he was on the 2002 crew.
www.amctca.com/wp-content/u...

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🄼🄴🄴🄷🄰🅆🄻 ⭕ @meehawl.com · 18h

1919 ink: non-Volkisch association possible.

bsky.app/profile/fooe...
bsky.app/profile/moll...

fooeynet @fooeynet.bsky.social · 18h

It is the TFC, he was on the 2002 crew.
www.amctca.com/wp-content/u...

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🄼🄴🄴🄷🄰🅆🄻 ⭕ @meehawl.com · 18h

"My Fenrir the Wolf tattoo covering my totenkopf tattoo is raising a lot of questions answered by my Fenrir the Wolf tattoo covering my totenkopf tattoo."

bsky.app/profile/mxla...

Claude: "This image shows a shirtless man with visible tattoos on his chest, apparently demonstrating a cover-up tattoo. The original tattoo was reportedly a Totenkopf (death's head skull), which was infamously used by the Nazi SS. The cover-up features Fenrir (the monstrous wolf from Norse mythology) integrated with Celtic spiral designs.
This tattoo modification reflects a complex relationship between ancient European symbolism and extremist ideology. Both Norse and Celtic imagery have been appropriated by white supremacist movements, who selectively interpret pre-Christian European cultures to construct narratives of racial identity. Symbols like Fenrir, runes, Celtic knots, and other ancient motifs are often co-opted despite having no inherent connection to modern racial ideologies.
The cover-up suggests an attempt to distance from explicit Nazi symbolism, though the replacement imagery remains within a symbolic vocabulary that can still carry problematic associations in certain contexts. Many people with genuine interest in Norse or Celtic heritage are troubled by this appropriation, as it distorts historical and mythological traditions for ideological purposes.
The man appears to be in an indoor setting with bookshelves visible in the background, possibly during an interview or documentary about tattoo removal/modification and leaving extremist movements."

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