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Portland Press Herald Maine official recommends transgender athlete referendum be invalidated Chief Deputy Secretary of State Katherine McBrien says that supporters fell roughly 500 valid signatures short of qualifying for the November ballot. May 21, 2026 Billy Kobin, Staff Writer A Maine official is recommending that a proposed referendum seeking to ban transgender athletes from competing in a way that aligns with their gender identity not appear on the November ballot. The rebuke Thursday came from Chief Deputy Secretary of State Katherine McBrien, the designated hearing officer in a case that has pitted supporters of the referendum against opponents. McBrien...

PORTLAND, Maine (AP) — Federal judges in Maine and Wisconsin on Thursday dismissed lawsuits filed by the U.S. Department of Justice seeking to compel the states to hand over detailed voter registration information. U.S. District Judge James Pederson in Wisconsin said the state’s voter registration list is not a record that can be requested under the Civil Rights Act of 1960, as President Donald Trump’s administration argued. In Maine, Chief U.S. District Judge Lance Walker described the government’s claim as “half-hearted” and granted a state motion to dismiss it. The rulings were the latest in a string of defeats for...

Seven years ago, Democratic Maine Senate candidate Graham Platner cruelly mocked an American soldier who was caught on camera taking fire from the Taliban in Afghanistan. The viral helmet footage showed how Pfc. Ted Daniels moved into the open as a diversion tactic to help his squad mates get to safety. But Platner saw him as a “dumb motherf—er” who “didn’t deserve to live.” “This video never gets old. Dumb mother—er didn’t deserve to live. At least his stupidity and fat ass wheezing are available for all future infantrymen to witness and hold in contempt,” Platner, then a 34-year-old, chided...

Democratic Maine Senate candidate Graham Platner, who is already facing criticism over past Reddit posts, made graphic sexual comments on his now-deleted account about masturbating in portable toilets and explicit graffiti found in military restrooms. In one March 2017 post on Reddit’s r/Military forum, Platner responded to a discussion about nostalgic military smells by writing: "I still have to jerk off every time I sit in a portas----er… that blue water smell conditioned me." The archived posts were made under "P-Hustle," a now-deleted Reddit account that Platner previously acknowledged was his. In another post from March 2021 on Reddit’s r/USMC...

Senate Republicans on Tuesday vented their frustration and disappointment over President Trump’s decision to endorse state Attorney General Ken Paxton over Sen. John Cornyn (R) in the Texas Senate Republican primary, a move that deals a crushing blow to Cornyn’s hopes of winning the May 26 runoff. “I don’t understand. He is an ethically challenged individual,” Sen. Susan Collins (R-Maine) said of Paxton, who was charged with defrauding investors in a Dallas-area tech startup before he completed a pretrial diversion program. Sen. Lisa Murkowski (R-Alaska) said she was “supremely disappointed” in Trump’s endorsement of Paxton over Cornyn. “I don’t understand...

Teenagers are known for dishing out the dirt, but not quite like this. Students at a high school in Maine were fed potting soil at a community service event raising money to fight hunger, in a bizarre incident the school called “an unfortunate accident.” Students at Medomack Valley High School in Waldoboro had baked a batch of potting soil earlier that day during a science class experiment to determine the effect of sterilized soil on plant growth, according to a statement from the school. “The soil had been placed in a baking dish covered with foil and set off to...

Authorities are investigating after a fiery explosion Friday at a lumber mill in Searsmont, Maine. Officials have not yet released the number of injuries or fatalities. Camden Fire & Rescue confirmed it has a crew providing assistance. "Our thoughts are with the injured, medical professionals providing care and first responders working to control the situation," the department wrote in a statement on Facebook. "We anticipate having personnel committed to helping for several days." Ben Hamel, the mill's purchasing manager, told the Bangor Daily News that the fire started in an area where wood shavings are packaged. The fire then spread...

If you want to know how far some liberals are willing to go to register their fear and loathing of President Trump, just read the recent opinion piece by Frank Bruni in the New York Times. (...) Platner has said he is a communist. He said cops are bastards. He called people who post online “retarded.” He said war was “the most enjoyable experience of my life.” Working as a bartender, he wondered “Why don’t black people tip?” And speaking about women who are concerned about sexual assault, he wrote that “Rape is a real thing. If you’re so worried...

In 2002, my classmate Graham Platner ran for student-body president of John Bapst Memorial High School in Bangor. I remember watching him in our auditorium debate his fellow candidates. He was the radical, wearing a revolutionary proletarian costume: overalls and a red armband... I don’t recall the issues they discussed, but I do remember Platner proposing collective action to overturn some school policy — saying something along the lines of, “They can’t suspend us all.” The history teacher serving as moderator interjected to remind Platner and everyone else that, yes, in fact, they could... Students elected the safe candidate, a...

Republicans’ support for President Donald Trump's war on Iran fractured on Wednesday. Senate Democrats have tried to splinter off Republicans from their near-unified backing of Operation Epic Fury for months with a campaign of attrition, putting war powers resolution after war powers resolution on the floor ever since fighting began. And after two months of trying, they finally got some in the GOP to flip on Trump with Sen. Jeff Merkley's, D-Ore., latest attempt. Still, it wasn’t enough to terminate ongoing operations in the Middle East. Sens. Susan Collins, R-Maine, Lisa Murkowski, R-Alaska, and Rand Paul, R-Ky., who has consistently...

Since retiring in early 2025, Mitt Romney avoided national politics — until his old friend Susan Collins needed help.Former Sen. Mitt Romney has made his first foray back into national politics since leaving the Senate, hosting a fundraiser on Wednesday for his former colleague Sen. Susan Collins.It was the first time the former Utah senator directly reengaged with Washington politics since leaving office at the beginning of 2025. And it shows how seriously the 2012 Republican presidential nominee and sharp critic of President Donald Trump — who has prized privacy in his retirement — wishes to preserve a group of...

Maine Sen. Susan Collins, a 73-year-old Republican who has been in office for three decades and is presently running for re-election, revealed in an interview this week with News Center Maine that she suffers from a nervous system disorder. Collins — shown in two recent polls to be trailing radical Democrat candidate Graham Platner by at least 27 percentage points — indicated, however, that the disorder has not interfered with her job. "What I have is an extremely common condition that is called a benign essential tremor," Collins explained. According to the National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke, an...

“Don’t be stupid, be a smarty – come and join the Platner party!” is the collective refrain from Democrats (with rare exceptions) as they close ranks around the guy with the Nazi tattoo. Now that Governor Janet Mills has dropped out of the primary race, the opportunity for Graham Platner to be the Democrat candidate for United States Senate in Maine is all but assured, and Democrats are willingly spinning this news as “happy and gay.” Yes, yes, Graham Platner covered up his Totenkopf tattoo with a really shitty wolf-ish thing, but let’s all remember two things. First, he knew...

During a recent episode of Mark Halperin’s ‘2Way’ podcast, Mark and guest, conservative talk radio host Larry O’Connor, teased that something major is going to drop on far left Maine senate candidate Graham Platner that is so bad he will have to ‘leave the state.’ It’s hard to imagine what such a thing could be. Platner has already faced wide criticism for having a Nazi tattoo on his chest for almost twenty years, which democrats and various liberal media types are hilariously trying to defend. Platner has also faced scrutiny for comments on the website Reddit, in which he disparaged,...

In late April 2026, Maine Governor Janet Mills suspended her campaign for the Democratic U.S. Senate nomination, effectively handing the race to Graham Platner, a 41-year-old Marine veteran and purported oyster farmer.Platner now stands as the presumptive Democrat nominee against incumbent Republican Sen. Susan Collins.The development itself is unremarkable in the rough-and-tumble of primary politics.What demands scrutiny is not the candidate’s past, but the cognitive mechanism by which that past has been processed, reframed, and ultimately laundered by his party. Platner acquired a prominent chest tattoo in 2007 while on leave in Croatia with fellow Marines. The image, a skull...

GRAHAM PLATNER: RELEASE THE RECORDS After three days of exposing the lies, it's time for transparency. Graham Platner has made his military service, his veteran status, and his "working-class oyster farmer" identity the centerpiece of his Senate campaign. So prove it, Graham. Release the records. Every veteran candidate releases their DD214. John Kerry did. John McCain did. Tammy Duckworth did. Dan Crenshaw did. Your DD214 would show your exact deployment dates and locations (you claim 3 Iraq tours + 1 Afghanistan), your awards and decorations, your Military Occupational Specialty (MOS) and rank progression, your character of discharge, and the reason...

Graham Platner, a man with a Nazi tattoo and current Democrat candidate for the US Senate in Maine, vows "if Democrats win a majority we will shut the White House down with incessant hearings requiring the presence and testimony of every person working for Trump. They won't have any time to do what Trump wants them to do. This November election is our opportunity to seize power and wield it to bring the benefits of collectivism to the people who are oppressed and deprived under capitalism." Platner has been endorsed by Sens. Bernie Sanders (Vt), Elizabeth Warren (Mass), Ruben Gallego...

The rise of the United States as the world’s foremost economic and moral force in the 20th century was largely marked by the defeat of Nazi Germany, made possible thanks to the monumental sacrifice of the country’s greatest generation. In the decades that followed, the term “Nazi” remained so loaded with historical significance that, for the longest time, to be called a Nazi was the ultimate insult. Thanks to some members of the Democratic Party, however, that is no longer the case. In Maine, Gov. Janet Mills (D) announced on Thursday that she would be withdrawing from her state’s U.S....

Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz, the Democratic nominee for vice president last cycle, opted to fly to Maine to stump for Graham Platner, an oyster farmer who is running for Senate and who has a Nazi tattoo. Several members of Congress responded. “Don’t forget to ask him about his Nazi tattoo,” stated Rep. Pat Fallon (R-Texas). “Can you let him know there’s ways to remove the Nazi tattoos from his chest?” asked Rep. Don Bacon (R-Neb.). “In case it wasn’t clear before why Kamala Harris selected Tim Walz over Josh Shapiro. This is who they are,” the Republican Jewish Coalition stated....

Sen. John Fetterman sounded the alarm Friday about the leftward drift of his own party, warning that a “small Communist takeover” is underway in Maine as Graham Platner closes in on the Democratic Senate nomination. Appearing on Fox News’ “Jesse Watters Primetime,” the Pennsylvania Democrat said the rise of Mr. Platner — an oyster farmer and Marine Corps veteran who wrote in a 2021 Reddit post, “I got older and became a communist” — exemplified the Democratic Party’s inability to resist its worst impulses. “There is kind of a small Communist takeover in Maine,” Mr. Fetterman said. “Platner, he’s already...