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Reposted by Robert Downen

amanda moore 🐢 @noturtlesoup17.bsky.social · 5h

You can just share my video from me instead of sharing a screen recording of my video from a content farm account that isn’t on the scene btw.

amanda moore 🐢 @noturtlesoup17.bsky.social · 16h

The inflatables have made it to Broadview.

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Robert Downen @robertdownen.bsky.social · 5h

This is the most Catholic he’s ever sounded

Aaron Rupar @atrupar.com · 11h

Trump: "I don't think there's anything that's gonna get me in heaven. I think I'm not maybe heaven bound. I may be in heaven right now as we fly on Air Force One. I'm not sure I'm gonna be able to make heaven."

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Violet Miller @vimiller.bsky.social · 9h

Feds deploy tear gas in Albany Park as neighbors respond to them detaining people. One person was taken, though another was freed.

“I was afraid to go over there. I got braver the more people came out. I know my neighbors have my back, and I have their back."

Feds deploy tear gas in another Chicago neighborhood: 'We chased federal agents out of Albany Park today'

A federal judge’s temporary restraining order requires federal agents to issue two warnings before using riot control weapons such as tear gas. Witnesses says they didn't get any warning.

chicago.suntimes.com

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hannah gais @hannahgais.bsky.social · 15h

I feel like it should be a slightly larger story that amid all the administration’s screaming about “antifa” (whatever that is for them), Trump and his cronies are more aggressively and more frequently calling journalists they don’t like terrorists.

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Ricardo Levins Morales Art Studio @rlmartstudio.bsky.social · 16h

This week in 1988: 1,000+ ACT UP demonstrators shut down the FDA headquarters, demanding (and eventually winning) action on developing HIV/AIDS treatments. ACT UP's militant and creative actions always included powerful visual artwork, and paved the way for movements in the decades to come.

A photograph from the 1988 ACT UP demonstration outside the FDA. Many people are participating in a die-in on the front steps, holding mock tombstones with messages like "RIP - killed by the FDA" and "Dead from lack of drugs." A line of police officers (some with classic 80s mustaches) wearing riot helmets stands between them and the building; one cop wearing white gloves is walking through the demonstrators. Affixed to the 2nd story windows of the building is a series of posters and a large blank banner reading Silence = Death.

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Robert Downen @robertdownen.bsky.social · 1d

(The answer is horrific child sexual abuse and torture. That’s really all you need to know.)

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Robert Downen @robertdownen.bsky.social · 1d

Thoughts and prayers for the millennial FuseTV Emo kid who just googled “why was the LostProphets singer in jail”

A mugshot of Ian Watkins and a headline announcing his murder

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Prem Thakker ツ @premthakker.bsky.social · 2d

Huh: TikTok took down my 8-second video featuring this image of Debbie Brockman — the news producer just detained by Trump’s CBP agents — saying it violates the “joy of TikTok”

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City Nolan @ndhapple.bsky.social · 2d

MMWR was the early alert system that told doctors to be on the lookout for Gay-Related Immune Deficiency (and just about every other pandemic/epidemic since the 70s

Sheryl Gay Stolberg @sherylnyt.bsky.social · 2d

BREAKING: Friday night massacre underway at CDC. Doznes of "disease detectives," high-level scientists, entire Washington staff and editors of the MMWR (Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report) have all been RIFed and received the following notice:

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Robert Downen @robertdownen.bsky.social · 2d

I wrote this tweet in that voice

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Robert Downen @robertdownen.bsky.social · 2d

Just look at Southern Baptists: 40 years after purging "moderates" and "liberals," moderates and liberals remain. The definitions just keep changing in reaction to the Culture War. Which to some degree ties Baptist identity to the very secularism its at war with.

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Robert Downen @robertdownen.bsky.social · 2d

All to say that I don't think many Christian nationalists realize how bored they'll be if they ever do Christianize this place. They'd just end up eating their own.

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Robert Downen @robertdownen.bsky.social · 2d

You see this a lot in fundamentalist spaces: If XYZ enemy is opposed to what Im doing, then what I'm doing is right. They place themselves above culture, temporal affairs, etc while simultaneously reacting to and being influenced by them.

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Robert Downen @robertdownen.bsky.social · 2d

He's a patriarch. "Toxic masculinity" is almost a badge of honor. Yet he equates such critiques with a societal rejection of ALL masculinity, as if his is the only true form. He simultaneously twists language to place himself in a narrow/righteous minority and turn critique into proof of as much.

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Robert Downen @robertdownen.bsky.social · 2d

Anyways: That Wilson quote is really interesting and gets to my point about the victim/victor duality of Christian nationalists. Central to the Wilson/Moscow ethos is "Mans Man" patriarchy that is so defined by being the opposite of femininity that its almost downstream from it.

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Robert Downen @robertdownen.bsky.social · 2d

FWIW, Im generally pro-"tell the world about this once-fringe thing" journalism. And the NYT piece had some good pushback. But these folks want to be normalized, and every "grievance presented as fact presented as justification" that they get through is a step in that direction.

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Robert Downen @robertdownen.bsky.social · 2d

Domination*

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Robert Downen @robertdownen.bsky.social · 2d

The folks claiming this stuff are the same ones who decided “believe women” or “Black lives matter” = calls to upend due process and the rights of white men. It’s a nesting doll of obfuscation and hysterics that allows them to be victims and thus justified to openly pursue a politics of denomination

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Robert Downen @robertdownen.bsky.social · 2d

As a straight young white man who covers Christian nationalism, I would perhaps have asked Doug Wilson some follow ups on this if it were running it in the NYT as part of his 10K-word defense of Christian nationalism.

For example:

“That really happen?”
“You sure about that??”
“But did it tho?????”

Wilson: No, I grant the point in principle. I don't believe that classical liberalism gets everything wrong. I really don't believe that.
And I enjoyed very much the country I grew up in, and I received many benefits from that era. So that point's granted.

But on the dank right, I believe that the liberal treatment of young white males has been one of the causes for this recoil and eruption. What you had was a toxic combination of a bad economy of young men being told repeatedly that they are the cancer of the planet, that their masculinity is toxic, that their skin is the blight of the world, and their heterosexuality is a hate crime.

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steven monacelli @stevanzetti.bsky.social · 4d

Texas Republicans Are Using Charlie Kirk’s ‘Martyrdom’ to Crush Free Speech.

Hours after announcing ‘undercover operations’ into leftist groups, Texas’ attorney general compared Charlie Kirk to Jesus at a Turning Point USA event.

My latest for @thebarbedwire.com

thebarbedwire.com/2025/10/08/k...

Texas Republicans Are Using Charlie Kirk’s ‘Martyrdom’ to Crush Free Speech

Hours after announcing ‘undercover operations’ into leftist groups, Ken Paxton compared Charlie Kirk to Jesus at a Turning Point USA event.

thebarbedwire.com

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Robert Downen @robertdownen.bsky.social · 4d

Jr.*

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Robert Downen @robertdownen.bsky.social · 4d

-Twitter was for years the gathering place for a community of clergy abuse survivors who taught me daily what true empathy, righteousness and love look like. I would not be the person I am today without them.

-Jerry Falwell’s belly button.

Conrad Hackett @conradhackett.bsky.social · 5d

Has anything great happened in your life because of social media?

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Jack Jenkins @jackjenkins.me · 4d

Oh — new reporting on Pope Leo from El Paso Matters, citing footage they have of yesterday's meeting.

Sounds like the pope was even *more* forceful in urging U.S. bishops to speak out about immigration than first reported.

I mean, that's…not subtle. elpasomatters.org/2025/10/08/e...

“I was struck at the beginning (of the video), it talks about the feeling of powerlessness, which I think is so much. I think it’s so important that we as a church give a message of hope in the midst of these horrible struggles, what’s going on in so many cities in the United States right now. At least the church cannot be silent,” the pope told the El Pasoans, according to a video of the meeting provided to El Paso Matters by Hope Border Institute.

Seitz responded: “You’ve spoken very strongly. We’re trying to do the same in our country and yet not get into the political fray the best that we can.”

Pope Leo told Seitz that he’d like to see the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops become more vocal on immigration issues.

“I mean, even within the conference, there are challenges. That’s one place they should be … I wish they were stronger in their own voice,” Leo said, adding that Archbishop Timothy Broglio, the president of the conference, should speak out more on immigration.

“There’s been some good movement in that sense, but I certainly intend to continue to encourage” U.S. bishops to address immigration, Leo said.

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steven monacelli @stevanzetti.bsky.social · 4d

The Dallas area Palestinian Youth Movement reported yesterday that Ya'Kub Ira, an activist and martial arts instructor, was abducted by ICE despite Ira's legal status under DACA.

"This is the second unexpected arrest of someone with proximity to the Palestine movement in the past two weeks."

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Texas Monthly @texasmonthly.bsky.social · 4d

We spoke to Wesley Hunt about why he wants to oust Cornyn, whether he thinks he’s helping Paxton win, and what it would take to win Trump’s endorsement.

Texas’s Newest U.S. Senate Candidate Says It’s “Fine” if Ken Paxton Wins

We spoke to Wesley Hunt, the congressman and Trump surrogate, about why he wants to oust Cornyn, whether he thinks he’s helping Paxton win, and what it would take to win Trump’s endorsement.

www.texasmonthly.com

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