Tuesday, June 9, 2026
LIVE STREAM: 2026 PRIMARY ELECTION RESULTS (SC, ME, ND, NV)
LIVE STREAM: 2026 PRIMARY ELECTION RESULTS (SC, ME, ND, NV)
Wash Post RePost - I know firsthand why Graham Platner shouldn’t be a U.S. senator
Originally seen on Citizens Free Press and directly linked below. IF you know anyone in Maine - please send them this CC post below:
Again, seen on Citizens Free Press and directly linked below. IF you know anyone in Maine - please send them this CC post!
I know firsthand why Graham Platner shouldn’t be a U.S. senator
I quit the campaign last fall, disturbed by what I'd learned about the Maine Democratic Senate primary candidate.
Genevieve McDonald, a former Maine state representative, is the former political director of Graham Platner’s Democratic Senate primary campaign in Maine.
I became Graham Platner’s political director in August 2025 as he launched a bid for the Democratic Senate primary in Maine. Taking the job meant leaving a position as a senior policy adviser at a government relations firm in the state, but I thought that Platner and I shared the same goal: fighting for the working people of Maine.
I quit the campaign in October, disturbed by what I learned about the candidate and concerned about his potential impact on the Democratic Party’s prospects in my home state. As Tuesday’s primary arrives, I want to make clear what transpired since August and why my concerns have only grown. Advocating for the working people of Maine has driven me since my days as a commercial lobster boat captain and continued to drive me as a state legislator. I support my local community today by serving as the school board chair. Graham Platner is not someone who would be good for Maine or for the country.
If America wants a stronger democracy, elevating leaders with integrity is essential. Leaders with sound judgment and ethics. Leaders who embrace and live the ideals the nation stands for. Maine is a state that leads; it is the state motto — Dirigo.
Platner has shown us that he is not such a leader. He exhibits a pattern of dishonest behavior that is impossible to ignore. Despite being exposed by a series of scandals beginning last October, he kept assuring voters and the Democratic Party that there were no more skeletons in his closet. Then more emerged — the latest, in recent days, have involved former girlfriends’ serious accusations of physical mistreatment.
I was one of the Platner campaign’s first gaslighting casualties. In September, he told me that he had a tattoo that could be problematic, but assured me that it was just a military thing. I believed him. Then, I began receiving calls from Washington warning me he was not who he seemed: “Have you read his oppo file?” I had not. I trusted that his out-of-state consulting team had thoroughly vetted him.
The campaign marched into the fall, drawing crowds across the state. It was energizing and exciting. I shared a stage with him. I invited people who trusted me to meet with him. I sold his narrative of redemption, that he was a military veteran who, after enduring some troubled times, had moved home to Maine to live a simple life.
But at the same time, I shared my growing apprehension with my closest friends. When I raised concerns to anyone in the campaign, Platner would call me and convince me that everything was fine and that his intentions were noble.
I was willing to believe his explanations — I wanted to believe — until his flaws as a candidate became impossible to ignore.
Days before CNN broke a story about his archived Reddit posts, I was provided a document containing multiple inflammatory posts that were attributed to Platner posting as “P-Hustle.” When the story published, it noted that Platner had suggested online that rural White Americans are racist or stupid. I realized the campaign had not been honest with me. As someone from a real working-class background, I knew this would undermine his cross-party appeal.
Troubling posts kept surfacing. Politico ran a story with his online posts about political violence that were new to me. I started making calls, and someone sent me the full archive of his Reddit account. When his Reddit comments in 2013 downplaying sexual assault were revealed by The Post on Oct. 17, I submitted my resignation and made it public. I would no longer validate Platner.
As scrutiny of Platner continued to heat up after my departure, the campaign offered me $15,000 to sign a nondisclosure agreement. I refused. Then his skull-and-crossbones tattoo, a symbol used by the Nazis, was revealed. His team’s cavalier response, and what I strongly suspected was his feigned ignorance about the significance, was appalling. I said so publicly.
Platner’s campaign attacked me instead of confronting his shortcomings. A Platner spokesperson told the press I was a disgruntled former employee. His campaign claimed to Politico that I was offered a severance package not contingent on an NDA.
Then, in late May, the Wall Street Journal contacted me, saying it had multiple sources confirming that Platner, who is married, had a history of sexting with other women. His wife, Amy Gertner, had made the campaign aware of the problem before Labor Day — an early sign, for me, that the candidate I had signed up with a few weeks earlier was not who he seemed.
I spoke with the Journal off the record, but I went on record with the New York Times. Platner and his campaign admitted the sexting occurred, but then he also denounced the reports as “journalistic malpractice” and “gossip from a former staffer” — me. He was upset, apparently, that I said he had sexted with as many as a dozen women when, his campaign clarified, it was only about half that many.
Over the past eight months, women have come to me with their own disturbing stories about Platner. Last week, revelations about his physical mistreatment of women erupted in the Times. I had never met or spoken with Lyndsey Fifield, who spoke to the Times, but I knew about her experience while dating him.
Yet many Democrats seem unconcerned. On CNN, Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vermont) offered a dismissive response about Platner’s behavior: “Is he a saint? I guess not. I don’t know too many saints here.”
His comment reflects one of the deepest problems in American politics today. We have learned to excuse what we should condemn. I want better for my daughters, and for the people of Maine. Democrats are being sold a narrative that Platner is the only choice for the race against Republican Sen. Susan Collins. Maine voters don’t have to accept that. There are two other named candidates on Tuesday’s ballot. If Platner wins the nomination but later withdraws, Maine Democrats can hold a convention and choose a different nominee.
The answer to a broken political culture is not to accept it. Demand better from those entrusted with power or seeking it. Enough is enough.
Monday, June 8, 2026
President Trump is attending! New York Knicks vs San Antonio Spurs - Game 3 LIVE STREAM
President Trump is attending! New York Knicks vs San Antonio Spurs - Game 3 LIVE STREAM
Live Stream - Iran Launches Missiles at Israel and Israel Attacks Iran - LIVE Breaking News War Coverage
Iran and Israel have resumed fighting for the first time since early April, with Iran launching missiles at Israel and Israel attacking Iran with strikes of its own. Get the latest war updates on the new fighting between Iran and Israel in our live breaking news coverage.
Live Stream - Iran Launches Missiles at Israel and Israel Attacks Iran - LIVE Breaking News War CoverageSunday, June 7, 2026
Golden Tempo Comes From Dead Last to Win the Belmont Stakes - Video
Video - Golden Tempo Comes From Dead Last to Win the Belmont Stakes:
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Good to know!! Just seeing an American Flag entices people to vote Republican!!!
How interesting is it that the mere sight of the American Flag helps tilt people to voting Republican. And that the effect can last up to eight months!
As a visitor to the USA, one sometimes gets the feeling that it’s hard to move or look around without seeing a flag. They are seemingly everywhere, an omnipresent reminder of national identity. But the star-spangled banner is more than a symbol; it can also influence minds in unexpected ways. Travis Carter from the University of Chicago has found that when people think about voting decisions, the mere sight of the American flag can subtly shift their political views... towards Republicanism. It’s an effect that holds in both Democrats and Republicans, it affects actual votes, and it lasts for at least 8 months. In the run-up to the 2008 US presidential election, Carter recruited a group of around 200 volunteers and asked them about their political views. A month or so later, he split them into two groups that were comparable in terms of their political beliefs, voting intentions and other variables. Both groups rated how likely they were to vote for either the Democrat Barack Obama or the Republican John McCain on an online questionnaire. The questionnaires were identical except for one small detail – in the top left corner of the screen, one group saw a small American flag and the other saw nothing. That tiny difference was enough to swing their voting preferences. Carter found that the volunteers who saw the tiny flag became more likely to vote for McCain than Obama (relative to their answers at the start of the experiment). They claimed to feel more positive towards the Republicans and even when Carter tested their unconscious attitudes, a small Republican bias still came through. After the election, Carter contacted the volunteers again and asked them who they actually voted for. He found that those who saw the flag were less likely to have voted for Obama than those who didn’t (73% versus 84%). They were also more likely to think that the media were unduly harsh in their treatment of McCain. Remember that there were no differences in the political leanings of the two groups before one of them saw the flag-bearing questionnaire. Finally, in July 2009, Carter caught up with his volunteers one last time. Even though eight months had passed since half of them saw the tiny flags on-screen, these recruits still showed some Republican bias. They were less happy about Obama’s job performance than their peers, less warm about other liberal leaders, and even held slightly more conservative views. (Bear in mind that in this final round, only a third of the original sample answered Carter’s call; however, both the flag and no-flag groups were equally represented).
The effect of Carter’s simple questionnaire is stark in both its size and duration He writes, “A single exposure to an unobtrusive American flag shifted participants’ voting intentions, voting behavior, attitudes, and beliefs toward the Republican end of the ideological spectrum.“ This was true whether the volunteers identified as liberal or conservative – people from both ends of the spectrum shifted towards Republicanism. This isn’t the first time that a national flag has provoked such a striking effect in a psychological study. In 2007, Ran Hassin (who led Carter’s study) found that the sight of an Israeli flag could affect the attitudes of people involved in the Israeli-Palestine conflict. The flag appeared too briefly to be consciously seen, but still it drove the volunteers towards a more moderate stance in the political centre. And the brief flash of flag even shifted the volunteers’ votes. But there is one important difference between the two studies: the Israeli flag pushed people towards the political centre, but the US one shifted people to the right. Why? Perhaps the volunteers moved towards the dominant party at the time? Carter thinks not. In the spring of 2010, with Obama a year in power, Carter recruited 70 people and asked them to look at four photographs. Half the people saw buildings with flags in front of them; the others saw photos where the flags had been digitally removed. Even though the two groups had the same spectrum of political beliefs beforehand, the flag group shifted towards a Republican worldview after seeing the photos. It doesn’t seem to matter who is sitting in the White House at the time. Instead, Carter suggests three alternative explanations. First, it’s possible that the flag does shift people to a more moderate position. Carter’s recruits tended to be more liberal than conservative, so if they all moved towards the political centre, that would come across as a shift to the Republican end. The fact that conservative volunteers shifted further to the right argues against this, but it would be simple enough to test by repeating the study with a group of predominantly Republican volunteers. Second, people might associate the American flag with Republicans more than Democrats. Carter demonstrated as much in a small pilot study of 50 people – they associated brandishing the flag with Republicans more than Democrats. And indeed, previous studies have found that conservative Americans are more like to own or display a flag than liberals are. Carter writes, “The American flag conjures up Republican beliefs and attitudes, and these primes collectively push people in the Republican direction.” Third, people might simply believe that the average American is more conservative than they are. Carter argues that people associate national flags with the archetypal citizen, and if they see a flag, they might shift their attitudes towards that imaginary every-American. All three possibilities can be tested in future studies. For now, one thing is clear: these results come as a shock to most people. Indeed, Carter found that 90% of people believe that the presence of a flag wouldn’t affect their voting behaviour. We like to think that their political beliefs and choices are the result of thoughtful consideration and objective analysis. In truth, several studies have now shown that voting simply isn’t that rational. Our choices are affected by unconscious preferences, our reflexes, and even local sports results. We are so predictable that people can guess the victors of elections with a surprising degree of accuracy based only on fleeting glances. In this context, the idea that a powerful national symbol like a flag could affect political preferences is not unreasonable. It does, however, seem unbelievable that one exposure to an innocuous flag could have such broad effects, especially since the recruits will have seen hundreds of flags in their daily lives. Carter acknowledges this incredulity. “Considering how often Americans are exposed to their flag, why would this one exposure have any impact at all?” he writes. He thinks that the answer lies in the context of the experiment. During his study, people saw the flag while explicitly declaring their voting intentions. That’s a very powerful act, and not one that people do very regularly. Carter says, “For some participants, explicitly declaring voting intentions may have been a rare event that further crystallized their stated intentions and attitudes, incorporating any bias introduced by the presence of the flag at that critical moment.” Reference: Carter, Ferguson & Hassin. 2011. A Single Exposure to the American Flag Shifts Support Toward Republicanism up to 8 Months Later. Psychological Science http://dx.doi.org/10.1177/0956797611414726Sturdy American Flag 3x5 Ft Outdoor Heavy Duty,100% Made in USA American Flags ,Non Fading American Flags for Outside 3x5,Embroidered American Flag,3 by 5 America Flags Best High Wind all Weather US Flag,Indestructible America Flag Sewn Stripes and Embroidered Stars
Saturday, June 6, 2026
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