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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...

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,...

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...

Platner told MS NOW he wants Trump officials hauled before committees 'day after day after day' Democratic Senate candidate Graham Platner unveiled a plan during an interview on Thursday to "shut this White House down" so that the Trump administration is not able to function. "Something we’re going to have to do if we’re in the majority [is] we need to use the power we get to shut this White House down," Platner told MS NOW host Jen Psaki during "The Briefing." "We do that, I think one of the best ways is through committee hearings and investigations. I want...

It is difficult to determine whether the bizarro worldview of the current Democrat-media nexus can simply be attributed to its generic Trump Derangement Syndrome — but the crazy world of the left increasingly bears scant resemblance to reality. In this alternate universe, Eric Swalwell was a liberal icon and invaluable asset for years, though admittedly a bit randy and occasionally a serial sexual predator. Maine Senate candidate Graham Platner was, at last, the left’s “real thing,” the white working-class liberal stiff who could win back the hoi polloi — although he can’t get his story straight on whether his Nazi...

A Maine city councilor will face an ethics board review after he was heard complaining about 'illegals' in his community. Bangor City Councilor Wayne Mallar, 81, discussed a proposed budget increase for multilingual services in schools at a Board of Ethics meeting on March 31. 'The school department's asking for a 10 percent increase. As far as I'm concerned, they get no increase,' he said - seemingly unaware his comments were being picked up by a microphone. 'They can't speak English, read English or write English. It's not a disability. We do not have to furnish. They're probably all illegals...

I honestly never expected to hear Chuck Schumer announce that he and the rest of the official Democratic Party apparatus would hereby spend millions of dollars to elect a man with a literal Nazi tattoo on his body and a trail of Hamas fandom on his Internet history. But perhaps that’s on me—my expectations were too high. Because that’s what happened today. Graham Platner, a man who makes excuses for political violence, obsesses about the Jews and their supposed nefarious influence on public life, and who according to acquaintances and former employees laughed and bragged about his Nazi tattoo for...

We have an update on the Maine Senate Democrat primary, and it's not good news for Sen. Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY). Newcomer Graham Platner and the state's governor, Janet Mills, were the top two candidates in the race, with Platner being endorsed by twice-failed presidential candidate and Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-VT) as a humble, purported working-class guy who would buck Schumer and the Democrat establishment and would be a "fighter" against President Trump's America First agenda. Mills had the backing of Schumer and the Democrat Senatorial Campaign Committee (DSCC), with the belief that her popularity in the state and...

Democratic Maine Gov. Janet Mills announced Thursday she was suspending her campaign for the US Senate — clearing the way for far-left candidate Graham Platner to face five-term Republican incumbent Susan Collins in November. “While I have the drive and passion, commitment and experience, and above all else –the fight — to continue on, I very simply do not have the one thing that political campaigns unfortunately require today: the financial resources,” Mills said in a statement. “That is why today I have made the incredibly difficult decision to suspend my campaign for the United States Senate.” The 78-year-old Mills,...

Sens. Thom Tillis, R-N.C., Lisa Murkowski, R-Alaska, Susan Collins, R-Maine, and Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., all voted against a modified version of the Safeguarding American Voter Eligibility (SAVE) America Act early Thursday morning. Their defection came during the Senate’s marathon "vote-a-rama," where lawmakers could force votes on any number of amendments, regardless of whether they mesh with the underlying budget blueprint.

The Pentagon has asked for $200 billion in funding for the war in Iran... The request has been sent to the White House, the military official said, which will review it before any request for funds is formally submitted to Congress. The officials spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss the proposal. The request was reported earlier by The Washington Post. “Obviously, it takes money to kill bad guys,” Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth said when asked about the request during a news conference on Thursday, adding: “As far as the $200 billion, I think that number could move.” On Capitol...

BREAKING: SUSAN COLLINS WILL BACK SAVE AMERICA ACT -- WON'T BREAK FILIBUSTER U.S. Sen. Susan Collins (R-Maine) is throwing her weight behind the House-passed SAVE America Act, saying the revised bill strikes the right balance between election security and voter access — while making clear she won’t support scrapping the Senate’s legislative filibuster to get it across the finish line. In an exclusive comment to @TheMaineWire, Sen. Collins said she supports the current version of the SAVE Act, which would require proof of citizenship to vote in U.S. elections. Collins said she will support the version of the SAVE Act...

The House this week is set to take up the SAVE America Act (the SAVE Act 2.0), an election-integrity measure that some Senate Republicans can’t seem to get behind even though the vast majority of Americans already have. House Majority Leader Steve Scalise’s office confirms the SAVE America Act, which would require proof of U.S. citizenship to register and photo identification to vote in federal elections, will hit the floor on Tuesday. While Democrats will spend hours making a mockery of truth and reality in opposing it, the legislation is expected to pass mostly along party lines — as the...

Susan Collins (ME) Lisa Murkowski (AK) Rand Paul (KY) Mitch McConnell (KY) Thom Tillis (NC) Todd Young (IN) Chuck Grassley (IA) Jerry Moran (KS)

A growing number of Republican senators are calling for an investigation into the killing of Alex Pretti in Minneapolis as many Trump administration officials defend federal officers’ actions. Sens. Bill Cassidy of Louisiana, Susan Collins of Maine, Mike Crapo of Idaho, John Curtis of Utah, Jerry Moran of Kansas, Lisa Murkowski of Alaska and Thom Tillis of North Carolina have all said there needs to be a thorough probe into Saturday's fatal shooting of Pretti, a U.S. citizen, by Border Patrol. Administration officials overseeing immigration enforcement may soon face public scrutiny from Republicans and Democrats alike. Sen. Rand Paul, R-Ky.,...

By the slimmest of margins, the U.S. Senate successfully derailed a resolution that would have curtailed the Trump administration’s power to continue military action in Venezuela. Of the five Republicans who originally voted to advance the war powers resolution, U.S. Sens. Josh Hawley, R-Mo.; and Todd Young, R-Ind.; flipped and voted for the majority leadership’s motion to tank it. “After numerous conversations with senior national security officials, I have received assurances that there are no American troops in Venezuela…[and] that [if] American forces are needed in major military operations in Venezuela, the Administration will come to Congress in advance to...