All posts tagged: Platner

Has Graham Platner Changed Enough?

Has Graham Platner Changed Enough?

Published by Daniella Wilson

People can change. I have seen it, and I have lived it. Just when change happens can generally be grasped only in retrospect. In the case of Senate hopeful Graham Platner of Maine, many Democrats are understandably eager to see evidence that he is no longer the man implicated by the drumbeat of damning revelations. Platner’s campaign promise has long been that he’s just an ordinary guy who has learned from his many mistakes—that he is no longer the man who picked fights online, belittled women, and otherwise drank and swore and argued too much. But on the eve of Maine’s primary elections next week, and in light of yet more reports of “reckless” and “unsettling” behavior, in the words of one ex-girlfriend, many voters may be wondering if this aspiring representative of the people has in fact changed enough. Platner, a gruff 41-year-old Marine Corps veteran, is trying to unseat Republican Senator Susan Collins with a platform of economic populism, universal health care, labor protections, and anti-interventionism. Although he was raised on the shores …

Maine Has a Graham Platner Problem

Maine Has a Graham Platner Problem

Published by Daniella Wilson

We don’t know what Graham Platner, a Democratic candidate for U.S. Senate in Maine, wrote in his sexually explicit texts with women other than his wife—six, according to his campaign; a dozen, according to an ex-aide—but do we need to? The glaring question that the texts pose to voters about the presumptive Democratic nominee at this point in a pivotal midterm race is: Are we really going to do this again? In 2016, voters were asked to choose between a populist candidate dogged by questions about his integrity, judgment, decency, civility, empathy, and respect for everyone from complete strangers to his own wife, and an overqualified, glass-ceiling-smashing woman. When voters opted for Donald Trump, Democrats were outraged. Now, faced with the choice between Platner and Governor Janet Mills, Maine Democrats have largely backed the populist themselves. Mills suspended her primary bid in April amid a cash shortfall and concerns that she’s too old and old-school to win. At age 78, she understandably gives pause to many Democrats still suffering from Joe Biden–related PTSD. But she’s …

U.S.-Iran; anti-weaponization fund; Graham Platner : NPR

U.S.-Iran; anti-weaponization fund; Graham Platner : NPR

Published by Sam Flores

Good morning. You’re reading the Up First newsletter. Subscribe here to get it delivered to your inbox, and listen to the Up First podcast for all the news you need to start your day. Today’s top stories American aircraft fired on a number of Iranian sites over the weekend, according to the U.S. military, including on Qeshm Island in the Strait of Hormuz. Iran said this morning that it has responded by firing on a U.S. military base. Despite these volatile conditions, President Trump said on Truth Social this morning that “Iran really wants to make a deal,” and told Americans to “just sit back and relax, it will all work out well in the end.” A plume of smoke rises following an Israeli airstrike on the outskirts of Tyre, southern Lebanon, on June 1. Kawnat Haju/AFP via Getty Images hide caption toggle caption Kawnat Haju/AFP via Getty Images 🎧 The war in Lebanon, where Israel is fighting the militant group Hezbollah, could undermine efforts to end the war in Iran, NPR’s Greg Myre tells Up First. Israeli forces …

Booker on Platner: ‘That guy has questions to answer’

Booker on Platner: ‘That guy has questions to answer’

Published by Sam Flores

Sen. Cory Booker (D-N.J.) on Sunday said Maine Senate candidate Graham Platner “has questions to answer” following reports that Platner allegedly shared sexually explicit messages with multiple other women. ABC’s Jonathan Karl asked Booker on “This Week” about whether this and other controversies “may jeopardize Democratic hopes to get that Senate seat in Maine?” “Yes,… Source link

Democrats Can Do Better Than Graham Platner

Democrats Can Do Better Than Graham Platner

Published by Daniella Wilson

For decades, Nazism and the anti-Semitism underlying it have marked zero on the Kelvin scale of villainy—the metric against which all other forms of evil are compared. This is so well understood that we now have cultural phenomena such as Godwin’s Law, the theory that online debates inevitably lead to Nazi comparisons, and the “everything I don’t like is Hitler” meme. But their existence proves the point: If one wishes to say that something is irredeemably bad, Nazis are the benchmark, the absolute. Yet recently this understanding seems to have grown less universal. Nazi symbolism and more modern versions of the ancient conspiracy theories behind this intolerable ideology have found a degree of toleration within American political movements desperate for shortsighted victories. The underlying hatred that, among other things, motivated the killing of more than a third of all the Jews on the planet eight decades ago is viewed no longer as unacceptable, but rather somewhere on a scale of “problematic” issues that can be either explained away or ignored. The most recent case is …