Graham Platner: Susan Collins made me do it!
Falsus in uno, falsus in omnibus.
Platner claims that Susan Collins voted to send him to Iraq; he says that explicitly in the video at the link. He also says the US “destroyed” Iraq, but when I last checked, Iraq was still a functioning country and doing at least somewhat better than it was before the war. As for Afghanistan – which he also says the US “destroyed,” it’s about the same as it was before the war, with the Taliban in charge.
But about Collins:
Democratic Senate candidate Graham Platner said Maine Republican Sen. Susan Collins made a mistake when she voted to “send him to Iraq.”
“We destroyed Iraq and we destroyed Afghanistan, and all the suffering, all the killing, all the dying, all the displacement — we, the United States, did that. And that I’m ashamed of.”
“The anger that I feel is for the people that sent me,” he said.
Sounds a bit John Kerry-esque, doesn’t he?
“The fact is, that was Platner’s decision to serve,” Collins told The Maine Wire on Thursday, adding, “He was not drafted.”
Additionally, the GOP senator cited Platner’s decision to work for the security company Blackwater, which was investigated by the U.S. government over allegations that it violated international law.
He signed up after the war began, and he re-upped. It was entirely voluntary.
His reply? She made me do it anyway:
Now all these years later, instead of acknowledging that she was wrong, she’s decided that she’s going to blame all of us who — in our late teens and early twenties — signed up to serve our country,” he continued. “That somehow it’s our fault that she and establishment politicians like her, wanted to abuse our willingness to serve, to go send us off to fight in stupid wars that did nothing but make some people very, very rich at the expense of American taxpayer dollars.”
Some facts on Platner’s service – and recall that the Iraq War began in March of 2003:
Platner enlisted in the Marine Corps shortly after graduating from high school in 2003. He attended the Marine Corps School of Infantry, then deployed to Iraq in 2005. He served a total of eight years in the military, including three combat tours in Iraq, in areas including Ramadi and Fallujah. Asked why he served in the Iraq War after protesting it, Platner said, “I thought I could do some good. And I wanted to play soldier. I might have read too much Hemingway.”
After four years in the military, Platner enrolled at George Washington University, funded by the G.I. Bill. Shortly after starting school, he enlisted in the Maryland Army National Guard and served an additional tour of duty in the war in Afghanistan. He returned to Washington in 2011, resuming classes at GWU and working as a bartender at the Tune Inn on Capitol Hill. From 2011 to 2016 he alternated between living in DC and military deployments, before withdrawing from GWU and returning to Maine in 2016 for treatment of post-traumatic stress disorder and other military-related injuries.
In 2018, Platner returned to Kabul, Afghanistan, for about six months as a State Department security contractor with Constellis, where he provided diplomatic security to the US Ambassador to Afghanistan.
By 2016 Platner would have been 31-32 years old.
NOTE: Here’s one of my previous posts about Platner.
See also this post by Ace about Platner.
Maine, where even the Republican Senator votes with the Democrats. It’s either the perpetual cold or something in the water. But they sure have good seafood!
F:
Collins has to vote with the Democrats sometimes if she wants to be elected. Much of the time when she does this, her vote is not determinative. She often votes GOP when it really counts . And her presence goes to help Republicans keep majority control.
Collins made him go overseas over and over and then again as a private security contractor?
Couldn’t she just make him drop out of the race, if she can do all that?
I think Susan Collins is probably one of the savviest Senators in Washington. For her, it’s a matter of survival. She has to vote in a way that can be supported by a lot of the Democrats that vote for her. And although I sometimes disagree with her positions on the issues, particularly the issues she is in conflict with the party, I have to say that I admire her willingness to stand instead of go along. She is truly a Yankee in this regard, stubborn.
@Aggie:She has to vote in a way that can be supported by a lot of the Democrats that vote for her.
She brought home pork equal to 10% of Maine’s state revenue in 2024, because she chairs Appropriations. She buys her support with your money.
I have to say that I admire her willingness to stand instead of go along.
Like when she helped Republicans circumvent the filibuster to roll back California’s emissions regulations last year, but won’t help do so this year to pass the SAVE Act.
Her hierarchy of principles seems to be
help car manufacturers > hallowed Senate traditions > cleaning up Federal elections
Maybe Platner’s not the threat to her that media makes him out to be. She doesn’t act like she thinks it will be close enough he can cheat.
@ Niketas > “Couldn’t she just make him drop out of the race, if she can do all that?”
Good point.
It also applies to the complaint-liturgy of anti-Semitism: if the Jews really do control Everything in the Known Universe, then why do they let Palestinian supporters protest against Israel, often violently, and allow people to harass Jews worldwide?
Segueing from Plattner to Pratt, Ace has a post up on that election, and includes these two short videos.
The first is a brilliant campaign ad, by his supporters if I got that right; the second is Pratt himself explaining why he got into the mayoralty race and what that entails.
https://ace.mu.nu/archives/419923.php
https://x.com/dsonoiki/status/2060370719071211591/video/1
https://x.com/WesternLensman/status/2060329098077999597/video/1
Ace quotes extensively from this post by Mike Solana, which I have seen excerpted elsewhere – possibly even here at Neo’s.
The bits I’ve seen are matched by the post as a whole; RTWT.
https://www.piratewires.com/p/pratt-summer
“pirate wires #160 // the reality tv villain who just shattered the honesty taboo in los angeles, and the power of a local politician who talks about local politics
In re Mark Atwood’s observations on Neo’s other post: Spencer Pratt’s formational career was also in reality TV, and he might perhaps be a worthy Apprentice to The Donald.
Believing Platner is not necessary for democra. They either like the stinking pile he represents or they don’t. Probably, it’s the smell.
It’s a perfectly valid position to be against US engagement in Iraq- and Afghanistan-type wars. But Platner chose a foolish argument.
Platner has a 9 point lead AFTER all the dirt on him has come out.
https://www.foxnews.com/politics/despite-inflammatory-comments-platner-holds-9-point-lead-collins-new-poll-
I know, don’t trust polls, but still.
Per the American Conservative Union, Collins’ voting record is equidistant between the median of the Democratic caucus and the median of the Republican caucus. She’s not a ‘Rockefeller Republican’, but a careerist temporizer. IMO, she’s less bothersome than Sleaza Murkowski, Glitch McConnell, and the latest authors of failure theatre.
He ridiculed ted daniels he libeled chris kyle (what was his answer to afghanistan: probably reparations to al queda) he is tim blairs law encarnate
Every insane notion wrapped in one person
Because the arab lobby has always been stronger since the 40s, from defense state and company men forrestal acheson dulles et al
It’s entirely possible that whatever electoral fraud happens in Maine benefits Collins. Lot of hogs in Maine depend on her filling the trough: politics is local and the non-Maine Dems who might really want Platner can’t vote. If Platner wins AND the Dems get a majority–big ifs this year–he can’t fill the trough, he has no seniority, Patty Murray (D-WA) would sit in that chair and she’ll be carried out of it. And Platner winning without a Dem majority is just as bad for the hogs in Maine.
Doesn’t mean Collins can’t lose. I once lived in a district that threw out the Speaker of the House in favor of a freshman Congressman in 1994.
Every Republican currently in the Senate got there with elections the way they work now. Every Republican currently in the Senate has helped to set aside a filibuster at least once. The problem is not that the GOP needs 60 votes to do what we want and there are only 53 of them. It’s that the GOP needs 51 votes to do what we want, and they have up to 53, but they’re lying to us about how many there really are and the real number is less than 50.
Clearly, she also forced him to get that Nazi SS tattoo…
(Some people really do have extraordinary powers…and if I were a Maine voter, I might just consider Platner’s purported complaint as an endorsement for the incumbent…)
@John Galt III:Platner has a 9 point lead AFTER all the dirt on him has come out
I clicked through to the actual poll. His lead is not that high if you just count who said they’d vote for him in the sample; the pollsters applied a weighting to get that higher number. The percent undecided is really high, 7%, and most of the polls for this race have something like 10% undecided.
The poll you see in the news is the one they want to talk about, and they pick through the numbers to get the story they want.
I live in northern Maine. We aren’t crazy up here, it’s downstate that the problem.
Janna from Maine: interesting! Sounds like NY, doesn’t it? South part of the state is the wackiest.
Unfortunately that’s also the dense city & power centers.