I guess there is a feller named Platner running to unseat Susan Collins:
Democrats who have tried and failed for years to unseat Senator Susan Collins, the veteran moderate Republican from Maine, are pinning their hopes this time on recruiting Janet Mills, the state’s seasoned Democratic governor, to challenge Ms. Collins’s bid for a sixth term next year.
But Ms. Mills, 77, is being circumspect about her plans for what could be one of the most competitive Senate races in the country. And some Maine Democrats believe she is too conventional a choice to defeat Ms. Collins, a powerful political force who has demonstrated her staying power.
Enter Graham Platner, a 40-year-old oyster farmer and former Marine who served three tours in Iraq and one in Afghanistan, and is set on Tuesday to announce a long-shot challenge to Ms. Collins, with a campaign focused on making life better for his state’s working class.
I’ve watched a speech or two today and found nothing objectionable and a lot to like, and he seems likeable and a pretty run of the mill populist DFL from Minnesota kind of guy, but he seems to really have upset the party hacks and centrists. “Will he turn into another Fetterman” was something I heard from someone.
I dunno, I hope he doesn’t have a fucking stroke, but what do I know. But right now he seems alright.
My only calculus is “Will he be better than Collins” and the answer is yes, and potentially he could be fucking great. Can he get elected?
Folks, he’s a white male. Of fucking course he can get elected. Donald Fucking Trump got elected twice.
I’m not sure if you all heard it, but Trump and Hegseth murdered near a dozen people last night:
On Sept. 2nd, the Trump administration announced what it described as a “lethal strike” against an alleged drug smuggling vessel in the Caribbean. In a post on social media accompanied with a video of the strike, President Donald Trump stated that the attack was “against positively identified Tren de Aragua Narcoterrorists.” Trump also noted that Tren de Aragua had previously been designated as a foreign terrorist organization (FTO). The social media post also asserted that the strike had occurred in international waters and killed “11 terrorists.”
Although the facts are still emerging, the Trump administration’s extraordinary lethal attack on this purported smuggling vessel – and its vow that the strike was a start of a campaign – raise a number of significant potential legal issues. And even apart from these legal concerns, the strike constitutes a deeply troubling gratuitous use of the military that resulted in the unnecessary killing of 11 individuals.
This is troubling for all the normal reasons but also because it means the military chain of command is rotten all the way up and that trump apparatchik having taking over legal. This would never been approved in any previous administration. It’s just wanton murder.
When I have more energy, I need to go into detail about all the ways maxwell has been an asshole in the last 24 hours. The bastard came over and straight up bit me on my calf hard because he thought it was dinner time and I had not fed him yet. We may come to blows on Daylight Saving Time.
We Only Need Two More Republicans To Sign – Call, Call, Call
Nukular Biskits
THAT is what really bothers me; i.e., what commander took this order, didn’t push back and passed it down to his subordinates.
“Just following orders” ain’t a defense and there are a number of Trump Admin officials (Trump, Vance, Rubio, Hegseth, etc) who should be hauled in front of the Hague for this.
And where the fuck are our members of Congress, the ones who did not explicitly authorize this?
Baud
I’m confident the usual suspects will blame Democrats for the killing.
Professor Bigfoot
I saw on Bluesky that some analyst saw the video and said the boat was likely transporting people.
Not “drugs.”
This was murder most foul.
Nukular Biskits
And this reminded me of a text I got from my brother today.
I knew he had been feeling under the weather so I asked him how he was feeling. This is what I got back:
When I asked him if they were fighting, he responded:
He sent pics … he is definitely scuffed up.
WaterGirl
laura, who is usually pretty well sourced, posted this comment in an earlier thread:
It looks to me like Dan Platner is trying to hide who he really is, right out of the gate.
We need to be discerning about our candidates.
Nukular Biskits
@Professor Bigfoot:
Reposted this on Bluesky, good read. Would love to see Adam Silverman’s input on this:
Just Security: Legal Issues Raised by a Lethal U.S. Military Attack in the Caribbean
Nukular Biskits
@Baud:
Trump should send in the National Guard … oh … wait …
WaterGirl
Something fun.
Odie Hugh Manatee
The powers that be in the individual state Democratic parties need a wake up call and challenges to their old, decrepit power structures. My Mom objected to the sticks in the mud over 50 years ago and it hasn’t changed a bit since then. Go along to get along Democrats have to be ejected from the party, that era is over. The old blood needs to either get with the new program and welcome the new blood, GTFO of the way or be made irrelevant to the process by going around them and straight to the people (Mamdani).
Stop nominating almost dead people, please! I’m old and I generally hate old people because they mostly sucked when I was young and they still mostly suck now.
Scout211
@WaterGirl: LOL!
Here’s another LOL (reposted from downstairs)
Here’s Newsom’s social media team announcing the west coast health alliance for vaccines:
Click over to see the brain worm.
Jackie
John, another Democrat announced his intention to de-seat Collins today. His video announcement is cool, but I’m not a Mainer, sooo <shrug>
japa21
I see Platner has been endorsed by Bernie S. Not sure how well that would go over in Maine.
hitchhiker
I actually loathe Susan Collins more than Ted Cruz these days. And that’s saying something.
That said, she’ll probably win no matter who is the nominee or how many fishermen get screwed by trump, or how many wind farms he refuses to finish funding even though they’re 80% complete, or how many old people get sick from not being able to get a damn vaccine, or really anything.
Hating people like me is Republican sport; I’m just ashamed that it took me so long to understand that. Now that I do, at least the futile exercise of wondering how to persuade voters can be shit-canned.
Maybe Joe Rogan will do an interview in which her opponent says something just dumb enough to earn the all-important manosphere vote.
Jackie
@WaterGirl: LOL! Is that Arrrnauld’s body? That would really be funny, if so!
Nukular Biskits
@Jackie:
Saw something on Bluesky today that noted since one candidate was an oyster farmer/fisherman and other made beer, we should always support and vote for candidates who produce tasty stuff.
HinTN
@Jackie: That’s a good announcement and a good ad.
WaterGirl
@japa21: If the guy really is former Blackwater (whatever the name is) he’s not anyone I want running as a democrat.
Jackie
@Nukular Biskits: Thankfully I don’t live in Maine! I don’t like oysters or beer!
Lobster, on the other hand… YUM!
WaterGirl
@hitchhiker: Maybe in a normal year that conventional wisdom would be right.
But this time around? All bets are off. I think a Democratic candidate could win a senate seat in Maine.
HinTN
@WaterGirl: Everybody has to make a living, so let’s not cast too much asparagus just yet.
WaterGirl
@Jackie: Well, if not Arnold, then close enough. That was my thought, too.
syphonblue
All I need to know to support Platner is that Schumer is trying to push another fucking 77 year old
Piss the fuck off already, Schumer
WaterGirl
@HinTN: We’ll have to agree to disagree on this one! :-)
Nukular Biskits
@Jackie:
I’ve been to Maine probably 10 or 15 times over the course of my career.
Just never could understand why folks like “lobstah”. They’re just big crawfish. ;>)
zhena gogolia
@WaterGirl: We can debate Gavin Newsom till the cows come home, but goddamn, he’s the only thing that cheers me up these days!
HinTN
@WaterGirl: np – I’m a wait and see kinda guy.
zhena gogolia
@japa21: Platner’s fundraising texts have been polluting my phone with their shittalking about Democrats. He can go to hell. But I don’t live in Maine so I don’t give a fuck about him. Or Mamdani. Don’t live in NYC either.
WaterGirl
Ad from the latest person to throw his hat in the ring. The “do what’s right” hat.
Good ad! Let’s see what else we find out about him.
Melancholy Jaques
I am not a party hack and I am not at all a centrist. My issues with Graham Platner are with remarks like these:
Someone who’s making a couple hundred thousand dollars a year is far, far, closer to someone who makes below the poverty line than they are to the rich.
That’s ridiculous. Households making $200K a year are in the top 15%
The working class abandoned the Democratic Party, primarily because the Democratic Party abandoned the working class
This is bullshit and I get really angry when putative Democrats say this. Obama made health insurance more affordable. Joe Biden made sure people had money during a pandemic. He walked a picket line – only president so far to do that. When employers were bitching that they could not find employees, he said, “Pay them more.”
People who run with the “I’m not really a politician” schtick are not going to beat a popular incumbent senator. Everybody on our team despises her and her fake moderate act, but the last time she ran against a very well funded liberal Democrat and she won by eight points in a state that Biden won by seven points. She’s an asshole, no doubt, but they like her for reasons that none of us will ever understand. We are not going to win elections with candidates who think the problem is Democrats.
HinTN
@Nukular Biskits: There’s just something about breaking that big ass claw and dipping that large chunk of sweet tender flesh in butter and still having the tail left over for lobster salad the next day.
That said, Suck the head, squeeze the tip!
Gin & Tonic
@Nukular Biskits: Easier to eat than crawfish.
WaterGirl
@WaterGirl: I should have said he threw his hat in the ring “In Maine”
Jackie
@Nukular Biskits:
Ummm, what’s wrong with big crawfish? I also like crab and prawns. Just never acquired a taste for oysters.
Melancholy Jaques
@WaterGirl:
You said something positive about Newsom without a negative introductory clause. This violates well established internet protocols.
@zhena gogolia:
Now, you too?
Nukular Biskits
@Gin & Tonic:
Definitely agree with that.
Down here, crawfish are a big thing. I’ve never really cared for them … too much trouble for too little meat.
Having said that, though, I definitely won’t pass up a fried crawfish poboy or some crawfish etouffe!
Nukular Biskits
@Jackie:
TBH, the only way I cared for oysters was fried. I will not eat them any other way.
HinTN
@Gin & Tonic: IDK about that. They’re different but with practice… There’s something about the singing lips effect from mud bugs that promotes beer drinking versus the white wine tippling that goes with lobster that gets me going.
HinTN
@Nukular Biskits: Come on, man
Nukular Biskits
@HinTN:
mrmoshpotato
OUCH!
Baud
Google must have learned that I support Ukraine in its fight for survival against Russia, because I’m now getting ads for Ukrainian women on YouTube.
mrmoshpotato
@Odie Hugh Manatee:
I am nominating this for the rotating tag, you old codger!
Marc
@Melancholy Jaques: Wow, no wonder you folks hate him! How dare he point out that someone who makes $200K a year is closer to poverty than someone who makes a few billion per year. What a brain-dead stupid idea. And, my god he’s a veteran, he needed a paycheck and he made the fatal error of doing some work with the one company we all love to hate. What an idiot. We have nothing in common with any of those people, nothing. I feel sure this message will save us in ’26.
zhena gogolia
@Melancholy Jaques: Exactly.
Scout211
Is Trump backing down from Chicago?
If he really is backing down, I give high praise to Governor Pritzker. He really made a strong case against Trump’s invasion of his state.
Added: the reporting on this today sounds like Trump’s legal team is realizing that Trump needs the Governors to request the NG. So blue cities with Republican Governors?
lowtechcyclist
@HinTN:
Sometimes you just gotta cast asparagus.
Gin & Tonic
@Baud: Those Ukraine girls really knock me out, they leave the West behind.
Central Planning
@HinTN:
Welcome to Balloon Juice After Dark everyone!
lowtechcyclist
@Nukular Biskits:
You got a problem with crawfish? Damn, now I want a big plate of crawfish etouffee!
HinTN
@Nukular Biskits: Ain’t no limits when it comes to The Radiators. An old Cajun taught me how to prep, cook and eat crawfish. It’s not just the bugs, it’s that second boil of corn, potatoes and what all that makes the meal. The real thing he taught me is that there can’t be too much cayenne. YMM
He also taught me to buy a “city” ham, stab it full of holes and throw it in that boil water after. It comes out amazing!
Gin & Tonic
@Nukular Biskits: Raw is the only way I’ll eat them. Clams, on the other hand, I love fried – but that’s the only fried seafood I can stand, everything else bothers my gall bladder.
MagdaInBlack
@Scout211: Here’s hoping its another TACO Don moment.
lowtechcyclist
@Baud:
But do they knock you out? Do they leave the West behind?
ETA: Beaten to it by G&T!
Marc
@Nukular Biskits: Back home, I always loved lobster boils, as we’d get steamed whole Ipswich clams and butter, too, which was my preferred treat.
HinTN
@Central Planning: Follow the link in my subsequent comment. The Radiators were a musical force in NOLA in the eighties.
prostratedragon
@Nukular Biskits:
Bad kitty Scar at work
Ryan
@Nukular Biskits: That, and also, wasn’t Clear and Present Danger filmed in the 90s? It’s outside of Trump’s typical 80’s timeframe.
Jackie
@Scout211: My bet is FFOTUS was told by someone he needs to sic the NG on a few red states to show “bipartisanship.” THEN he’ll go after Chicago and Baltimore.
Plus, I imagine he’s had secret talks with cooperative/agreeable red state governors. Look for the quid pro quo to follow.
Chetan Murthy
@Odie Hugh Manatee: No! No! I read that Schumer and Jeffries both endorsed the candidate of their party in the NYC mayoral race (only the biggest city in the country) [puts hand to ear] no, no, I’m being told now that neither has endorsed Mamdani.
Sigh.
mrmoshpotato
Shithead Ted is still Shithead Ted.
Domino’s doesn’t have lines. If Ted Cruz spent some time at one instead of jetting out of the country every time a natural disaster hit Texas, maybe he would know that.
He can still suck John Oliver’s balls, and lick his scrot.
(Poem context)
WaterGirl
@Central Planning: No matter how many of you ask for it,
THAT IS NOT GOING TO BE A ROTATING TAG! :-)
Booger
@Scout211: What’s that the young’uns say? “Chef’s kiss?”
stinger
@WaterGirl:
Yes, very nice ad — and thank you for this: “Let’s see what else we find out about him.”
Too often people see one ad and jump on a bandwagon when that ad is the only thing they know about a candidate.
Personally, I’d prefer that someone aiming to become a U.S. senator have at least a nodding acquaintance with legislating or representational governing — city council member, state representative, mayor, aide to a governor…. U.S. senator is not an entry level position. Nor, obvs, is the presidency.
jlowe
Cats are Republicans and operate under Wilhoit’s Law, abridged as follows: feed me, fuck you. Spoken as one who currently lives with two.
WaterGirl
Oh my gosh after no rain since forever, we just got a LOUD clap of thunder, and I think I hear the sound of rain.
It has been so long, I had even stopped looking at the weather hoping for rain. I looked just now, and it’s .42 inches.
We can only hope! Come on, rain!
Suburban Mom
@Nukular Biskits: You say that like it’s a bad thing.
Jackie
@WaterGirl: 😂
lowtechcyclist
“Extrajudicial execution” was the phrase I used earlier in the day. Close enough.
I guess they thought it would be too much trouble to wait until the vessel entered U.S. waters (assuming it would have), and then intercept, capture, and search the boat, and (assuming they found anything illegal) arrest and charge the persons on board.
If we had Democratic majorities in Congress, I’d hope they’d impeach him over this. And Rubio and Hegseth and any other Administration officials who played any role in this. This is a fucking war crime.
WaterGirl
@stinger: This time around, I will gladly take someone who is running because things are fucked up and they want to do what’s right.
We’ll see how he holds up when we learn more, but it seems like he built a successful company with his brother, paying people a living wage with good benefits.
Come on, Maine!
WaterGirl
Update: Holy cow, big storm!
cmorenc
@Jackie: Oysters taste like snot-buggers, but good-tasting snot-buggers.
comrade scotts agenda of rage
@Marc:
+1.
Funny how another notable Dem who worked for a company that a lot of people love to hate, McKinsey, is given a pass for that.
Having said that, my knee jerk reaction is one mentioned earlier, I don’t see how a political neophyte who will have a massive target on him by anyone remotely “establishment” on our side of the aisle, stands a chance against Suzie Furrowbrows should he win the primary. As also said above, I hate her more than Ted Fucking Cruz because at least he’s honest about who he is. He still needs to be punched in the face repeatedly just so he knows how much he’s hated.
Anyway, it’s early and a Senate race is an ultramarathon anymore so who knows how long anybody will last.
mrmoshpotato
@Nukular Biskits:
Because they rock!
MagdaInBlack
@prostratedragon: Wow! What a little shit ! And gorgeous. (and knows it)
Suzanne
Weird thing that happened today: I decided to work from home today, even though I usually go into the office on Wednesdays. Needed to focus and had hours of meetings. Anyway, at one point I look out the window, and see a few wisps of smoke. Texted Mr. Suzanne and said, “Is there a fire in the alleyway?”. The answer: YES THERE WAS. He called the FD and they came out in a hurry!
Good thing I stayed home.
Eyeroller
@Melancholy Jaques: This is actually pretty much true. Top 15% is well above average, definitely, but even the top 1% are not anywhere near the top 0.1%. In other words, the income distribution is not linear.
The top 15% may think they are above the commoners, but most are not. A lot do not save much money and do not have the kind of wealth that even the top 2% have, much less the top 0.1%
Krugman has talked about this a lot.
TaMara
So let me get this straight…an ex-Marine worked for the company that bought Blackwater, which is what a lot of military guys do when they don’t know what to do next, and often because it is what other Marines are doing. And we are now declaring him an “untouchable.”
JFC no wonder we are losing to folks like Collins.
For the record, here is how he described his year with them:
mrmoshpotato
@HinTN:
lowtechcyclist
@comrade scotts agenda of rage:
Many of us didn’t, thankyewverymuch, until he’d proven himself as Secretary of Transportation. And I still haven’t forgotten the hubris of his thinking he should go from mayor of South Bend to the White House all in one jump.
ETA:
I figure the Democrats of Maine can pick their nominee without my help. I’ll support the winner against Collins regardless of who they pick.
MagdaInBlack
@TaMara: Thank you.
Ishiyama
@comrade scotts agenda of rage: I haven’t watched the introductory videos for either candidate, I have no idea if their views are aligned with mine, or which of them has the better character for courage and integrity. Bernie Sanders isn’t infallible, but Maine is almost next door to Vermont, and they know about him from before he had a national profile. I find it suspicious that Candidate B didn’t announce until after it became clear that Bernie supported Candidate A. And the mudslinging about his past employment looks like, and is, dirty business.
Smiling Happy Guy (aka boatboy_srq)
@Nukular Biskits: Dad (who was USN for several years, and was defense contractor many years afterward) would not recognize this Navy. These people are far more likely to just do as they are told by anyone higher up, if the latest escapade is any indicator.
David Collier-Brown
@Nukular Biskits: If folks are interested on the bleeding edges of the law of the sea, here’s an article in french on “Corsairs vs. Pirates”, which proposes allowing private vessels to seek and destroy pirates. That’s about as close to a legal as folks are going to get, and it ain’t that close (:-))
canlii.org/w/canlii/2015CanLIIDocs5011.pdf
comrade scotts agenda of rage
@lowtechcyclist:
Duly noted. :)
Melancholy Jaques
@comrade scotts agenda of rage:
If you are talking about Pete Buttigieg, he most definitely was not given a pass for that.
Marc
BTW, someone please explain. The alleged video shows a open boat with several people in it. There is no place to store any drugs. What makes them “drug smugglers”? At worse, probably “migrant smugglers”, but I guess that is now a capital offence.
Kayla Rudbek
As seen over on Bluesky, Modern day Madame DeFarges unite: slate.com/business/2025/09/trump-tariffs-knitting-crocheting-yarn-shortage.html#
JoyceH
@lowtechcyclist: Is it a war crime without a war? Violation of international law certainly. What strikes me is not only the bloodthirsty criminal nature of the act but how STUPID it is! I thought all these drug fighters liked to seize the boat and get the haul all neatly arranged and take proud pictures standing with their catch. It’s like a guy gets a moose license, goes out in the woods, finds a moose – and then bombs it! Just blows it to smithereens. Then goes home and brags about getting a moose.
Central Planning
@HinTN: Following them on Spotify now. Thanks!
HinTN
@mrmoshpotato: Yeah you right!
David Collier-Brown
@Odie Hugh Manatee
Please nominate some dead people, folks. If you insist on a gerentocracy, run a vampire. After a few hundred years, they don’t catch fire at daylight rallies any more.
–dave (born in 1644) c-b
p.a.
I like oysters in all permutations. I like beer in many permutations. I do not like beers brewed with oyster, which has been a thing:
“There is no clear consensus on who was the first person to use oysters in beer, but according to the late Michael Jackson, it was likely in the late 1920s somewhere in New Zealand. It might seem odd to throw the briny bodies of the little mollusks, but it wasn’t such a far leap. The shells of oysters were used to make a filter bed in beer as early as the 1800s. Brewers would pour the mash over a bed of crushed shells to divide the spent grain from the wort.
With oysters so close at hand its no wonder they eventually ended up in the beer.
The subtle sweetness and brine of an oyster is a surprisingly perfect compliment to the sweet and roasty flavors in a stout. Just as the now expensive lobster was once considered the “cockroach of the sea” the rather pricey oysters of today’s restaurants were once an extremely cheap bar food (yes, even cheaper than the $1 oyster happy hour you’re thinking of right now!). The marketing guys at Guiness picked up the nice pairing and made a variety of ad campaigns instilling that oysters meant Guiness.
So why do people put oysters in beer? Because you can’t *really* taste them, at least not in the seafood way you’re expecting. And they are a fun way for brewers to set their creations apart. A hint of saltiness in the stout and all the freedom to say, “Yes! It’s made with real oysters!”” Not a bad plan.- Beerswithmandy.com
Foolproof Brewing’s Shuckolate:
.
This limited-release chocolate oyster stout from Foolproof Brewing in Pawtucket incorporates oysters and chocolate for a creamy, briny, and chocolate-flavored experience.
Harpoon Brewery’s Midtown Oyster Stout:
.
This beer was a collaboration with the Midtown Oyster Bar in Newport, with the brewery providing the beer and the restaurant being its exclusive source.
Other Available Options
Melancholy Jaques
@Eyeroller:
I’m aware of all that. I didn’t compare $200K with the top 1% or to billionaires as another commenter did. While it’s true that 200K is mathematically closer to zero than it is to say, 10 million, that is not what Platner was talking about.
The people in households below the poverty line ($32,500 for a family of four) face issues that never occur in households with $200K of income.
mrmoshpotato
@Scout211:
HOW THE FUCK IS THIS MORON IN THE HIGHEST OFFICE IN THE LAND?
MOTHERFUCKER! My 4-year-old niece is better spoken that this dumbshit, syphilitic, manbaby pedo!
This Chicagoan requests that the orange sucker of Kremlin cock drowns himself in a barrel of porn actresses. (h/t British comedian Stewart Lee)
Central Planning
@WaterGirl: In that case, I demand a refund! 🤣
Jackie
@cmorenc:
Well, you just tripled down any remote desire… 🤮
Sister Machine Gun of Quiet Harmony
@stinger:
Same. I prefer people who know what they are doing. I value knowledge, experience, and competence. I don’t just swoon over people who make the right mouth noises. Apparently, that makes me an evil ‘centrist’.
jlowe
@TaMara: Well spoken! I haven’t stirred myself to read anything further about this (live in the Inland Northwest, we got our own problems). I recently finished reading Carbon Criminals, Climate Crimes by Ronald C. Kramer. Wonderful book, well worth reading. You might have to get it through interlibrary loan, though – my city library didn’t have a copy. One message I took away was that while climate crimes are perpetrated by a small sector of the nation’s population, there is a little of the carbon criminal in all of us living in a modern society. We need to be looking in a mirror if we’re going to rant about purity tests.
Nukular Biskits
@p.a.: YUCK
mrmoshpotato
@MagdaInBlack: Mexican Independence Day parades will be blasting the song Fuck Donald Trump!
hueyplong
@Jackie: The oyster lobby isn’t sending us their best.
hotshoe
@Marc: That point (including the sarcasm) is exactly how I think about the purity-people who are already setting up to be the fucking spoilers in a possible win against that scabby Collins — sure, vow to not vote for the only alternative to yet another odious Collins term. Fuckin idiots.
Oh, I wouldn’t trust him to vote against militarism but ferchrissake he can’t possibly be worse than the RePugnicans who are literally cheering while Dirty Don murders civilians in international waters.
For the people who want to destroy Platner (because of Blackwater), be specific:how would he be worse than Susan Collins who has voted for everything that Mango Mussolini wants?Be specific: what could Platner give away to the ReThugs that Collins has not already given away?
Is this going to be another election where each Dem candidate must be perfect sparkly unicorn?
Shalimar
@Melancholy Jaques: I considered McKinsey to be disqualifying for Buttigieg in 2020, but I also considered the Clarence Thomas hearings, welfare reform, and other ’90s shit disqualifying for Joe Biden. I am willing to admit I was wrong about both.
HinTN
@p.a.: Somewhere near Wakullah Springs, which the indefatigable Betty Cracker was touting this morning, is Outzs’ Too. They’re a dive but with some redeeming features in the world of food. You can get a special 2 oz shot glass from which you may or may not have consumed an oyster shooter. (Their oysters are good and inexpensive. Service is … problematic at times. So it goes. )
mrmoshpotato
@WaterGirl: Never crossed my mind! LMAO!
It will be a rotating tag in our hearts.
Jackie
@lowtechcyclist:
Yup That’s all us outsiders can do.
WaterGirl
@comrade scotts agenda of rage: Are you equating McKinsey with Blackwater???
WaterGirl
@Suzanne: Yikes!
lowtechcyclist
@Eyeroller:
I’ve been in both places, and I can tell you that being in the top 15% or so enabled my wife and me to glide right past problems that would have brought us down at an earlier point in our lives. 20K for a new roof? We don’t have to worry about where the money’s coming from. Back then, it took us four years to save up a few thousand bucks for an actual vacation.
Maybe if you’re in the top 15% and you spend it all (and then some) as fast as it comes in, but it wasn’t that being that well off didn’t enable them to have genuine security. If you’re stupid with money, I’m not sure what level of income and wealth it takes to overcome that.
me
@Scout211: Is anyone in the press going to point out that if Landry wants the National Guard in New Orleans he can just send them there. If he’s expecting the federal government to pay for it then good luck with that.
mrmoshpotato
@WaterGirl:
(checks dowstate radar)
JEALOUS!
WaterGirl
@Central Planning: Check’s in the mail!
Professor Bigfoot
@TaMara: We’ll see how this turns out, but speaking solely for myself– when I hear a white man saying “we need to take the party back” it sets off my spidey sense.
Man may well be the greatest thing since sliced bead and peanut butter, but he’s already stepped in it, AFAIAC.
WaterGirl
@mrmoshpotato: The rain has come and gone already, but it was a really hard rain while it lasted!
mrmoshpotato
All of you yakking about seafood make me want baked clams.
Baked Clams
Stuffed with garlic, oregano, bread crumbs and cheese
WaterGirl
@TaMara:
You are much more in touch with military stuff than I am. From where I sit, Blackwater (whatever name it has) has been associated with some really nasty, awful stuff. Hence my reaction.
Those of us who haven’t been around much military aren’t aware that a lot of normal military guys join a firm like that when they get out. I know I wasn’t.
barbequebob
@cmorenc: The oysters raised in Nauset Marsh, Eastham Cape Cod, taste like the ocean. So good.
Sister Machine Gun of Quiet Harmony
I don’t care who the people of Maine pick. I hope its someone who has a clue what they are getting into and understands how government works. I hope the person defeats Collins.
That being said, I hate, hate, hate the moderate bashing and the BS implication that there are shadowy Democratic forces out to get populist Democrats. It’s pointless, divisive, and just plain annoying.
Scout211
I would love to hear from a Democrat or two from Maine before I attempt to form an opinion of what type of Democrat should run for election in Maine.
WaterGirl
ooh, I take it back, it’s raining again. yay!
hitchhiker
@Eyeroller:
Yup. At our family party this weekend, one of the guests was a brother-in-law we rarely see. He does a very specialized kind of construction work that involves making sure sufficient water is planned for the UNfuckingBELIEVABLE projects his clients undertake.
In other words, he’s paid by the 0.01% for things like water management at a 200-room luxury private club hotel at the top of one of the best powder snow mountains in the USA. The members will have to put up $5 million just to join.
There will be staff to help remove ski boots and put gear away.
You’re right. These people have nothing at all to say to someone making $200k a year. That guy is my brother-in-law, and he is never, ever going to be invited to join them.
Smiling Happy Guy (aka boatboy_srq)
@Marc: 1) the drugs being pursued are high-value (i.e. not a lot of product is required for a high value cargo). Even an open boat has storage that could be used for several kg of product. 2) Boats like that are frequently rebuilt with false decks, bulkheads and trim to hide smuggling space (didn’t you see Star Wars?).
On the other hand:
3) the most recent trend in smuggling by water has been the submersible or semi-submersible, where the boat is rebuilt to carry the most mass and stay just awash, to minimize detection. It doesn’t work as well as the smugglers hope – aerial detection is still pretty good – and the boats are slow, but it has proven fairly effective. Which leads me to 4) the boat in the video is a fairly high-speed craft, which would almost certainly have difficulty reaching anywhere north of Grand Cayman without refueling unless the hold space was filled not with contraband but with fuel. And 5) 11 persons on board is hideously overcrewed for a smuggler, which might have 3 on board to ensure full-time running. The semi-subs I mentioned earlier all seem to have a crew of 1 or 2, and in any event the cartels would be averse to paying that many crew for what is essentially a semi-diaposable team.
The more I ponder this escapade, the more it stinks. I wonder if what was sunk was some Chavez opponents running to Grand Cayman with cash deposits for numbered accounts, rather than actual drug smuggling. Or worse, a completely innocent boating party.
Suzanne
@Scout211:
Agree.
FWIW, one jackal who moved to Maine said he has met Platner multiple times, and spoke highly of him. That was in a thread a few days ago.
Honestly, at this point, I care about winning first. Fetterman makes me crazy, but he won, and usually votes the right way. So fine. We’ve tried a few times to win this Maine seat without luck, so potentially our instincts are wrong about what is activating to voters. So I am reserving an opinion until I can see what he can do.
Geminid
@WaterGirl: There’s another candidate in this race I read about in a Maine Public Radio article. His name is Jordan Wood. The reporter said Wood is a former Katie Porter staffer, and had raised $1.6 million as of June 30. Betty Cracker said she watched Wood being interviewed and he sounded ok at least.
The Maine Public Radio article is titled, “Who is Graham Platner and why is he everywhere right now?” The first part is about Platner, his campaign, and his very successful campaign launch video. The latter part reviews the larger field.
Governor Mills gets a few paragraphs. The reporter describes Mills as “ambivalent” about running, and she sounds that way in statements quoted. My guess is she won’t, and that Wood, Platner and Kleben will fight it out for the nomination.
I think the primary will be Ranked-choice. That would add an interesting wrinkle to the race, as well as provide an opportunity to learn more about how Ranked-choice voting works out in practice.
Another Scott
@TaMara: Thanks for the counterpoint.
From what is well known about Blackwater from their behavior in Iraq, it’s hard for me to conceive of someone sensible in 2018 apparently not knowing that history and it giving them pause.
But people are weird and everyone has to make their own choices.
We’ll see what happens in the campaign.
Thanks.
Best wishes,
Scott.
Ishiyama
Perhaps Maine is in the rare situation of having multiple qualified candidates?
Eyeroller
@Suzanne: As many of us (I think including you) have noted, Maine is one of the oldest and whitest states. Our only hope is that it is not as hostile to Democrats as some other states with that demographic (cought West Virginia cough). They seem to be highly idiosyncratic and insular. I have heard assessments by residents that one of the big problems Gideon had was that she had lived in Maine for “only” 15 years or so. This guy is at least a native. So I am not going to make any judgements and don’t feel like I have a dog in this fight.
But that’s why the national Dems were trying to recruit Gov. Mills–she has won statewide office as a Democrat, she has name recognition, she seems to be popular, and she has a record. She would be nearly perfect if she weren’t 77 years old.
Jackie
@Ishiyama:
Minus the permanently furrowed brow Collins ;-)
Suzanne
@Eyeroller: The issue if whether or not it’s appropriate for Dem candidates to “run against the party” is an interesting one. I have a suspicion that this is a huge generational divide in party perception… part of the whole lack to trust in institutions tendency we see amongst younger Americans.
lowtechcyclist
@Jackie:
Well, Platner got $1M in small contributions, and I’m sure most of that money came from out of state.
By having a say in which candidate(s) have the money to get their message out, outsiders like us can collectively make a difference in a nominating contest. Sometimes that’s a good thing. This isn’t a nominating contest I feel like I know enough about to even toss money at this or that candidate.
prostratedragon
@MagdaInBlack: Triumphant little smirk at the end, the bastard.
Bill Arnold
@lowtechcyclist:
An alt-measure of class based on income security might be something like
-1*log((estimated :)probability of achieving destitution at least once in the next 5 years).
Natural log, and a 5 year window.
Part of the joke is upwards class migration via gaming the estimated probabilities.
Already destitute would be level 0,
extremely poor would be level 1 (37%),
middle poor would be level 2 (14%),
lower middle class level 3 (5%)
etc
Interesting Name Goes Here
@syphonblue: And your precious Saint Bernard is pushing Blackwater mercenaries as progressive darlings.
You should probably do something about that first before you go worrying about anything else.
Glidwrith
@Marc: We have only the word of someone that couldn’t tell the truth if it was a rabid dog latched onto his ass. This is almost certainly cold-blooded murder. Any means of proving otherwise was blown up.
mrmoshpotato
@Glidwrith: Yup.
hotshoe
@Smiling Happy Guy (aka boatboy_srq):
No matter who they were, they were a completely innocent party when they had not been detained, had not been charged, had not gone to trial and had not been convicted (of drug smuggling, money laundering, whatever).
And no matter what, the US doesn’t have a death penalty for conviction of smuggling.
Calling it “War on Drugs” doesn’t make it an actual war.
Calling it “War on Terror” doesn’t make it an actual war.
The US military is not supposed to have the leeway to explode civilians just because the filthy president wants to see an explosion.
Because we are not at war with Venezuela, nor at war with “The Cartel”, I don’t believe this counts as a war crime.
It counts as depraved murder by the US Navy.
Every man in the chain of command for this specific incident should be tried for murder.
Cheryl from Maryland
As this is an open thread, I invite all Southern Cali Juicers to visit the Muzeo Museum and Cultural Center in Anaheim starting September 14th – https://muzeo.org/exhibition/corazon-y-vida-lowrider-culture-in-the-united-states/. This exhibition was started by my spouse, Wayne, in 2015, when he said to me, this would be a great exhibition. I spent two years researching and writing and finding partners, presented it to Management, who told me I and Wayne were wrong, then mentored a new employee who was a specialist in Latino culture, and gave her my thick file of ideas when I retired. Well, MAJOR KUDOS to her — she has made the idea become a reality. I’m going to the opening on 9/13, being invited by the Director. The exhibition will tour various museums for the next few years, so here are many chances to see it. sites.si.edu/s/topic/0TO4z000000SlyhGAC/lowrider-culture-in-the-united-states-cultura-lowrider-en-lo…. Huzzah Smithsonian! Fuck Management and Trump! Art and History win again! Apologies for open/bad links; my iPad is not cooperating.
seefleur
@WaterGirl:
That was stated by someone named Jacob Silverman, stated on X. I am not on Xhitter, so I have no idea who this person is. I do know that Graham (not Dan) Platner is way more likely to draw interest from Mainers who may have been more maga-interested. I have lived in Maine for over 30 years, raised 4 progressive kids, and two of them know Platner from high school days. They are interested in his campaign. Someone commented on how he said that people making $200K are middle class – for someone who is commercially fishing, that is true. And out of that $200K, they are paying for things like harvesting licenses, workers, and fuel for boats. I worked closely with the commercial fishing aspects, and the cost of doing business is crazy high, and generally when people say that so-and-so made 350K in a year, that’s pre-tax and business costs. Most commercial fishing folk, at most, are running LLC small businesses, not big business in the sense of being corporations. At this point, those of us who have a vested interest in getting rid of Susan Collins are willing to look at anyone who is willing to take her and her huge-money backers on – and Maine voters have skepticism running through their veins so we tend to do our own background checks that might actually go deeper than what the media finds. More power to anyone who can remove Collins! And we have a pretty decent field of candidates at this point – and that hasn’t always been the case in the past.
mrmoshpotato
@hotshoe:
This was just straight up murder.
hotshoe
@mrmoshpotato:
I figure that US forces have done this before.
What’s different this time is that we have an insane president who wants to show off his murderous power on TV and wants us all to be sad and angry that there’s nothing we can do about it.
Yes, I’m sad and angry.
mrmoshpotato
@hotshoe: Yeah. I saw someone on Bluesky call it a snuff video. And the nightly news fucking showed it!
hotshoe
@hotshoe:
Adam Silverman in the Ukraine thread (above) says it’s a war crime. He goes on to give a plausible explanation
Food for thought …
Melancholy Jaques
@lowtechcyclist:
My point precisely. I’ve never been in the top 15%, but I’ve been at or around the poverty line and it is juggling of money to meet problems and anxiety about what else might go wrong.
chemiclord
Ya know what? Is the entire Blackwater thing a red flag? Yep. But ya know what else? People do learn. They can change over time. I’m less worried about the things he did fifteen years ago than I am the things he did fifteen minutes ago.
This entire “bashing Dems is cool shit” doesn’t resonate with me at all.
Darkrose
@WaterGirl: From The New Republic article on Platner, August 29, 2025:
Darkrose
@WaterGirl: From The New Republic article on Platner, August 29, 2025:
Another Scott
@Cheryl from Maryland: Kudos!
It looks like a great show. Thanks to you (and Wayne) for coming up with it, for mentoring the person who ran with it and finished the job, and for letting us know.
Balloon-Juice – Is there anything it cannot do??
:-)
Best wishes,
Scott.
Ken_L
@Nukular Biskits: You want members of Congress to side with the terrorists? MAGAts are ecstatic about Mad King Donnie’s “courage” in ordering mass murder. There’ll be no significant pushback for it, any more than there was for the assassination of Soleimani (on Iraqi soil!).
Paul in KY
@WaterGirl: Agree. No ex-fucking-Blackwater people.
Paul in KY
@Nukular Biskits: I like crawfish too!
Paul in KY
@Melancholy Jaques: Gov. Newsome is badass!
Paul in KY
@Marc: $200,000 per year is rich. If he’d actually said ‘billionaires’ or ‘multi-millionaires’ then his statement would have been true.
Paul in KY
@WaterGirl: Been raining since early morning in Central KY. 1st in about a month.
Paul in KY
@TaMara: If you say he’s worth a shot, then I’ll re-evaluate. Just don’t want a ‘fake Democrat’ running, as Ole Furrowed Brow will beat that, IMO.
Paul in KY
@mrmoshpotato: I wouldn’t do that to the poor porn actresses…
Paul in KY
@hotshoe: I’m just afraid he would lose to her. I know he’d be better than her, even if he is a ‘fake Democrat’.
Paul in KY
@Professor Bigfoot: The poor working men of Maine…Left by the Democratic Party…
Paul in KY
@seefleur: Thank you for your take.
Geminid
@Paul in KY: I wonder why Platner threw $200,000 a year out there. It makes me curious as to what his salary was the year he worked as a security contractor.
But I expect that will come out, as will details of Dan Kleben’s and Jordan Wood’s biographies. This looks to be a long, hard-fought primary contest that will get plenty of attention from Maine and national news sites.
Paul in KY
@Geminid: Maybe it is as someone up above said that if you run a business that puts boats out on water, etc. then $200,000 can get eaten up fast. Or maybe that’s what he was making as a contractor and just thinks that’s chump change?