"The Axios Show": Sanders blames "dark period" for Platner tattoo

The Axios Show ^ | Oct 22, 2025 | Alex Thompson

[Robwin]

What they're saying: Sanders, who rallied with Platner last month in Maine, said he still thought Platner was the best candidate to win.

Citing Platner's deployments to Iraq and Afghanistan, Sanders said Platner "went into a dark period in his life. I suspect that Graham Platner is not the only American to have gone through a dark period."

He added: "What he did was he expressed his darkness on the internet. Probably not a brilliant thing to do, alright? And he said things that are stupid, things that were hurtful. He has apologized for them."

I think what we have got to do as a nation is not focus on a tattoo," Sanders said. "We've got to focus on a system which in many ways is collapsing."

[Robwin]

Can you imagine any Democrat, especially Sanders, fogiving any Rrpublican for anything Nazi, real or imagined, minute or otherwise? What Hypocrites!

[Larry Lucido]

Colonel Sanders?

Repeating “Sanders” twenty times doesn’t tell us who the heck you’re talking about.

[HighSierra5]

I’m not a tattoo fan. That goes for body piercing and man buns. Ear ring piercing are okay for women but for men, fugetaboutit.

[Williams]

Bernie Sanders is a disgusting communist pos.

[guitar Josh]

I heard the attorneys for Richard “The Night Stalker” Ramirez blamed his murder spree on a “dark period” too!

[rlmorel]

That said, I have a guy I worked it who I liked immensely and was intellectually one of the most talented people I have ever known. He was nearly half my age, no formal schooling in IT, but he made people listen when he talked.

And he has a "man-bun".

I am retired now, but I recall a time I was on a late night conference call with bigwigs and high-end engineers at a vendor that we were working with to fix a problem that made a medical system unusable.

A very bad and stressful thing. All these people were far more qualified than I was, even though I was the "point person" for this event, system, and issue. I determined to watch the interactions these high end engineers had, and to learn what I could about the system.

This talented fellow I worked with dialed in from home and jumped on the call with us. A very cool thing happened.

As I observed, listening to the dynamic of somewhere between five and ten people on this technical troubleshooting call, within seconds, without any prompting, like two magnets thrown into swirling water, this talented fellow I worked with, and some other engineer on the other side, unerringly gravitated to discussion with each other, even though they had never personally met and were only vaguely aware of the existence of the other, mostly by seeing a name on an email chain.

But in the shallow pitter-patter of introductory conversation meant to lower the stress and provide some diversion before everyone arrived and we got down to business, some guy on the other side made an IT related joke, and the guy I worked with retorted with some witty reply that IT guys would understand, and almost immediately, it was like a plug was inserted into an electrical outlet and the current flowed.

Everyone else just stopped talking on both sides, and within five minutes with these two guys doing a quick back-and-forth, the problem was solved and we were back up and running. We spent the next ten minutes marveling at how an unknown and unforeseen problem had arisen, and having two right people, two talented people talking directly to each other had solved the issue almost immediately.

I found out later he was one of their most highly respected engineers who wasn't expected to either have the time to jump on the call, or was not authorized to be bothered on a call like that one, late at night.

Those two guys didn't need an introduction, a title exchange, a query about some IT related thing that would convey a level of knowledge.

Between these two guys in the exchange of humor-filled pleasantries, had somehow done the equivalent of "exchanging credentials" by simple, unrelated conversation and gotten right down to business.

I say all this, because I often snicker at guys who wear man-buns, but...not this fellow I worked with. Just wow.

Now, on with the ridicule!

[Chickensoup]

You know I have seen this sort of high level guys who know and can happen a few times in my life.

Hugely impressive.

Happens in different fields.

All men in my experience.

[Ronaldus Magnus III]

Every time you hear or read “Axios” think Politico. Politico is affectionately known as BullBLEEPico.

The creators of BullBLEEPico created Axios.

BullBLEEPico received $$$$ via the USAID fraud spigot. Thousands (hundreds of thousands?) of BullBLEEPico subscriptions were funded by USAID. Just another way to funnel $$$ to the Drive-By Media.

How much of the USAID $$$ reached the wallets of Axios?

[rlmorel]

The thing that is absolutely great about this guy-he is a sterling human being.

He is extremely gifted, yet treats people with far less knowledge with great respect, patience, compassion, and equanimity. He can talk to people, get to their level, and figure out how to help them.

He has seven kids, and he is raising them superbly with his wife as a real team. He treats them with respect and firmness, and seems to inherently know what battles need to be fought and won with them.

You can probably tell how much I like and admire this fellow. I don’t get to talk to him every day like I used to, and he made the last few years of my employment as easy as he could, and obviously encouraged everyone else to do the same, because I had carried the load alone for so many years, and it took an obvious toll on me.

That was his friendship and compassion that did that for me. Amazing guy.

[thecodont]

Great story! Thanks for sharing.

[Chickensoup]

Nice to hear. We are enriched by such people.

Happy for you.

[Chickensoup]

Why bother with the outraged comparison? Leftists do not see conservatives as fully human. Genocide should be your big worry.

[Vaduz]

Sanders in cover up mode don’t look at it oh look a bird in a tree.