We're all learning to navigate uncharted territory.
Sunday, July 19, 2026
More On The Canadian Fires
The more I look into the Canadian fires, which seem to have become an annual event that sends enormous amounts of pollution accross the border to the US, the more I'm convinced that Canada has a vast world resource in its boreal forests over which it's incapable of exercisng stewardship. Even more so than in the US, most of its wild territory is publicly owned, 89% to 40%, but in the US, this territory is almost entirely under federal control, via the National Park Service, U.S. Forest Service, U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, and the Bureau of Land Management. Fire prevention and control are managed at the federal level, under consistent national policies.
The only equivalent national agency in Canada is Canada Parks, which manages fire prevention and control within national parks. Based on my research, Canada Parks actually has enlightened forest management policies, including controlled burning, but these apply only within national parks. The rest of the wild boreal forest areas are under individual provincial control, with policies differing across provinces, but the provinces generally have discouraged controlled burning and stress fire suppression.
The picture I'm beginning to see is that Canada is seeing the results of Fabian socialist policies it inherited from the mother country, and these policies overall have inhibited economic development to the point that the country can't afford some basic activities of a fully functioning nation-state, including a military and a national wilderness management system. This is especially concerning considering most of developed Canada is within a hundred-mile-wide zone along the US border, with the rest of the immense country a vast empty quarter that itself affects world climate, but the Ottawa government is neither willing nor able to exercise effective stewardship over it.
Prime Minister Mark Carney was asked about the U.S. government position, and he immediately hit back by saying [in French] the cause of Canada’s wildfires is ‘climate change’ and President Trump’s unwillingness to support the Paris Climate Treaty has created the problem that Canada is now dealing with.
Sundance at Conservative Treehouse says at the link,
Prime Minister Mark Carney makes his “climate change” blame argument in French because he doesn’t want to be put on blast by an American alternative media system who have caught on to his duplicity and will make his insanely insufferable arguments go viral.
Let's acknowledge that at least in recent years, extreme wildfires in the Canadian boreal forests have become annual events.Of the 2023 wildfires alone, Nature says,
The 2023 Canadian forest fires have been extreme in scale and intensity with more than seven times the average annual area burned compared to the previous four decades. Here, we quantify the carbon emissions from these fires from May to September 2023 on the basis of inverse modelling of satellite carbon monoxide observations. We find that the magnitude of the carbon emissions is 647 TgC (570–727 TgC), comparable to the annual fossil fuel emissions of large nations, with only India, China and the USA releasing more carbon per year. . . . Such conditions are likely to drive increased fire activity and suppress carbon uptake by Canadian forests, adding to concerns about the long-term durability of these forests as a carbon sink.
Overall, the annual Canadian wildfires have placed Canada, hardly an industrial power, as the fourth-largest carbon emitter, above countries like Germany and Japan. But the official position of Canadian government leaders is that this is someone else's fault. This was the New York City skyline as of yesterday:
It's hard to think of these annual pollution events that overflow into the neighboring country as anything but a profound national embarrassment, but this is Canada.
Towering plumes of smoke fill the sky as firefighting helicopters battle fast-moving wildfires in western Canada.
The massive blazes are sending smoke south, triggering air quality alerts across more than a dozen U.S. states, including Washington, D.C., as officials warn… pic.twitter.com/uLcDG1lERW
U.S. Sen. Bernie Moreno on Friday released text of legislation that would sanction Canadian government officials, block their assets and revoke their visas over wildfire smoke that has repeatedly fouled the air in Ohio and across the United States.
The Westlake Republican’s bill, formally titled the “Countering Atmospheric Nuisances Arising from Drifting Airborne Foreign Incendiary Residual Emissions Act” or the CANADA FIRE Act, is scheduled for introduction in the Senate on July 20.
“Thanks to Canada’s failed leadership, Ohio’s skies are seeing the worst pollution on record and Ohioans across the state are being subjected to hazardous conditions – we will not tolerate this incompetence,” said a statement from Moreno. “My bill will declare an emergency, sanction all Canadian officials responsible, and study a victims compensation fund driven by imposing additional tariffs.”
President Donald Trump on Friday called the smoke pollution from Canada’s wildfires affecting the United States from the Great Lakes to the mid-Atlantic “totally unacceptable” and said the costs the U.S. is incurring will be added to tariffs on Canada.
Trump took to Truth Social in the afternoon, after departing a very hazy Washington, DC, where a heavy smell of smoke is prevalent.
“We are holding Canada responsible for the fact that they are not properly maintaining their Forests, and Brush therein, and the United States is being unnecessarily invaded by filthy, polluted, and unhealthy air, the quality of which is dangerous, and totally unacceptable!” Trump said.
The president added that he will speak to Prime Minister Mark Carney, and that costs will be added to tariffs.
“I will call the Prime Minister during the day to find out what they are going to do about it. The cost is incalculable! Canada has refused to engage in basic Forest Management and Debris Removal, knowing that such refusal will lead to exactly this result,” Trump said.
Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney dismissed the possibility that his government could be doing more to contain the out-of-control wildfires ravaging Ontario this week and sending toxic smoke down to flood much of the American Midwest and Northeast, demanding the United States do more to fight alleged “climate change.”
The comments, made during a press conference in Ontario, are Carney’s first in the aftermath of a torrent of outrage in the United States as millions of people were told not to leave their homes on Thursday to avoid becoming sick from inhaling Canadian fire smoke. Disillusion at the inaction by the Canadian government is also reportedly growing among the First Nations communities most directly affected by the fires, including some that have burned to the ground entirely and found little to no support from Ottawa.
. . . A group of Michigan Republican lawmakers — Reps. Jack Bergman (R-MI), John James (R-MI), Lisa McClain (R-MI), and John Moolenaar (R-MI) — published a letter to Carney on Wednesday demanding concrete action and condemning the Canadian government for ignoring pleas from American officials to properly address forest management.
“We were told last year that this would be treated with urgency. It was not,” they wrote. “We were told the causes, chronic under-investment in forest thinning, fuel reduction, and prescribed burns, along with inadequate enforcement against arson, were being addressed. They were not, or not adequately enough to matter to the people we represent.”
This is clearly a blow to the Canadian self-image. I asked Chrome AI mode, "What is the Canadian self-image vis-a-vis the US?" It answered,
The Canadian self-image vis-à-vis the United States is primarily defined by a "narcissism of minor differences," where Canadians actively shape their national identity by contrasting themselves against American culture, politics, and social policies.
. . . Canadians frequently derive a sense of societal superiority through their institutional differences. Universal, publicly funded healthcare, strict gun control regulations, and a lower rate of violent crime are routinely cited as evidence of a more progressive and orderly society.
. . . While American patriotism is often seen by Canadians as overt and nationalistic, the Canadian self-image favors a quieter, self-deprecating, and subdued pride.
Instead, we have Canadian wildfires blowing smoke across the border, threatening the population's health in much of the eastern US. It's comically significant that Prime Minister Carney answered Trump's criticisms in French. Once upon a time, this would have been a fantastic Saturday Night Live sketch.
It's particularly rich that the fires have been catastrophic for First Nations communities within Canada. On one hand, the indigenous practices of controlled burning in forested areas that made fires less of a threat have been effectively suppressed by the Canadian government:
The mandates of wildfire management agencies in Canada often focus on suppression and do not include ecological land management goals. Because of this, agencies with the skills to potentially implement prescribed fire need other government departments and land users to be proponents for prescribed fire. Even so, in large fire years, the lack of resources to conduct the burns and/or attention to high priority wildfires overrides the ability or political will to conduct prescribed fires.
The Namaygoosisagagun (Collins) First Nation watched one blaze largely destroy its entire community in less than an hour, forcing residents to flee by boat. Residents reported having only minutes to gather their belongings before homes were overtaken by the flames on Wednesday, and Anishinabek Nation Grand Council Chief Linda Debassige said in a statement that all community members have been accounted for pending a full assessment.
. . . The Namaygoosisagagun (Collins) First Nation is about 125 miles north of Thunder Bay and inaccessible by road. Debassige told The Canadian Press that residents did not receive advance warning from provincial or national officials, nor did they receive any evacuation support. It’s been reported that community members went door-to-door warning their neighbors, and more than two dozen people fled by boat just as the flames approached.
Meaghan Daniel, a lawyer who represents Collins First Nation, told The Canadian Press that residents also are being denied assistance because the national government does not recognize it as a First Nation.
Although residents are recognized as First Nations people under the Indian Act, the community itself is not. Its leaders have long sought official recognition. Daniel sent a letter to Mandy Gull-Masty, the Indigenous Services minister calling on the agency to provide the emergency, recovery, and reconstruction support recognized communities are entitled to.
I think the basic problem is that Canada doesn't have either the resources or the political will to maintain its forests or even to provide evacuation assistance and disaster relief to its citizens. It wil be a major step for Canada even to acknowledge this, but it will then mean fundamentally changing its economic model.
Was Platner a real proletarian or a nepo baby who put on a show? Were his supporters working class? The truth may be that he was both: a Hotchkiss dropout who had experienced some hardship. He campaigned hard and made his pitch directly to voters at hundreds of town halls across the state, from the reddest and most rural communities to cities like Portland.
Of course, people of all classes experience "some hardship". That doesn't make you working class. Her puzzlement grows:
If the category includes anyone without a college degree, a car-dealership titan can be a man of the people. If we define it by income, we might exclude foundering households in areas with high costs of living. A person might have a master’s degree and a six-figure salary and struggle with student-loan debt or the cumulative costs of housing, health care, and child care. Grace Mausser, who co-chairs DSA’s New York City chapter, told Gothamist that the “working class really includes anyone who’s dependent on their own work and their own labor for their livelihood and for their income,” a definition with old roots in social science as well as left-wing thought.
During part of my Episcopalian days, I was a member of a very hoity-toity parish. While a relatively small number of parishioners were independently wealthy, most were predictably doctors, lawyers, high-level corporate types, and so forth, who would in fact have been in much-straitened circumstances if they lost their paychecks. They were definitely not working-class, but they saw themselves, and others saw them, as socially comparable to the rentiers. There was a slightly lower category, mostly single women verging on spinsterhood, who were librarians or worked for non-profits.
All of theae people saw themselves, most importantly, as "people like us", which as I've pointed out was almost Graham Platner's sole credential, but it was enough to make him a member. In my case, I worked for a bank doing IT, which meant that even though I had an Ivy degree, I was not "people like us", and nothing was going to change that. It didn't remotely help that I was Republican. Class designations aren't cut and dried, and that goes for all classes. This is probably due to overall social mobility in the US.
But now Ms Jones cuts to the chase:
[A]n ICE agent shot and killed 26-year-old Joan Sebastian Guerrero in Biddeford, Maine, the Portland Press Herald said his body lay in the street for five hours while his toddler daughter looked on. Guerrero was a worker, too. He delivered food to the people of Biddeford and cleaned a veterinary clinic to support his family.
Durán Guerrero was from Bucaramanga [Colombia]. A neighbor who had known him since 2024 said he worked as a delivery driver and lived with his partner and their young daughter. The Maine Immigrants' Rights Coalition and Presente! Maine said Durán Guerrero was authorized to work in the United States and had been issued a Social Security number. ICE said he was an "illegal alien"; his immigration status has not been independently confirmed.
The details on Guerrero and his shooting continue to be sketchy and incomplete, but it's plain that he was a third-world migrant who was in the country under circumstances that are unclear -- in other words, he was a migrant, working merginal jobs, apparently including DoorDash or similar work. The problem with Ms Jones calling him a "worker" is that uncontrolled migration has the effect of lowering wages and raising rents, precisely the conditions that hurt the traditional working class, whose plight Ms Jones herself describes at the start of her piece:
Last spring, my mother and I looked for her childhood home on Zillow. She grew up on the Mid-Coast of Maine in a two-bedroom house without a view of the water. My grandparents could just about afford it on blue-collar wages in 1959. Now Zillow said the same house could sell for almost half a million dollars. We stared at my laptop screen, in silence, until my mother ventured the obvious: None of us could buy the place now.
Well, wages are down, rents are up. The current US liberal immigration policy began with the Immigration and Nationality Act of 1965, also known as the Hart-Celler Act. As of 1959, a working-class family could afford a modest single-family home. Now, they can't. Among the policies that created that circumstance must certainly be decades of liberalized immigration.
Joan Guerrero isn't a "worker", he's a stooge brought in by the millions to keep the native working class down. Ms Jones gets things half right when she more or less concludes that whatever Platner was, even if he seemed to be a member of the working class, he wasn't what the working class needed:
his policies sounded like common sense, because they were; they were designed to help the working class in its broadest and truest form. And I think Platner’s supporters knew that. They reasoned their way to a decision based on the information they had at the time. “I supported him with trepidation,” a retired nurse told the Times after Platner dropped out. “I was giving him the benefit of the doubt because of the bigger picture.” As my colleague Rebecca Traister wrote last week, “Anyone who pretends Platner’s candidacy represented an easy moral and philosophical calculation is wrong.”
When I told my mother why Platner dropped out, she sounded angry. At him, for the pain he allegedly inflicted. At Collins. “Mainers need an advocate,” she told me.
But if, as she clearly does here, she thinks "the working class in its broadest and truest form" includes migrants who've been brought in deliberately to lower wages and raise rents at the expense of the traditional working class -- which definitely includes the college-educated kids who've been duped into thinking a degree would guarantee respectable employment -- she continues to be deeply confused.
Carl Benjamin, a UK YouTuber who posts as Sargon of Akkad, raises a question that exposes another puzzling difference between both the press and the criminal justice systems in the US and the UK. But before I get to that, I have a problem with UK pronunciation. Benjamin attended Birkbeck College at the University of London, which is mid-ranked, and he seems to have a more or less standard university-level pronunciation, but he mumbles. I find him so hard to follow that, as with many UK and Australian YouTubers, I have to turn on closed captioning to be sure of what tbey're saying.
And frankly, I think that with surprising frequency, it's because these people mumble, not because of their usage. There's an enormous tolerance for mumbling in both Australia and the UK, and that includes people like politicians and broadcast professionals who shouldn't be mumbling, at least in the US. I'm more and more convinced I wouldn't be happy anywhere in the British Commonwealth, but the fact that everyone mumbles is just the least of it.
Mumbling or not, Benjamin points to a story in the Guardian that I haven't been able to locate, but I did find an equivalent version here: UK Police Arrest 12 in Far-Right Terror Plot.
This story has rapidly evolved into one of the most scrutinized incidents related to national security in the UK for the week. This is not only due to the size of the crowd that was supposedly planned to be attacked but also due to the bigger picture in relation to the overall threat level of terrorism in the country. The police stated that the case involves “right-wing terrorism.”
The central gathering in relation to this investigation was the UK Ijtima, which is an important Islamic conference organized at the Shrubland Hall in Suffolk. This was one of the biggest Muslim religious gatherings in the nation and featured an estimated attendance of 15,000 individuals over the weekend. While the sheer size of the event made it important from a public perspective, it is the claim that a group with far right tendencies planned to launch an attack against the event that led to the heightened security concerns. Counter terrorism authorities claimed that the event was brought to an end prematurely following the discovery of what they termed as credible and serious threat. This ensured that thousands of individuals attending the event were able to leave safely without any incident, since there were no reports of anyone getting injured.
The incident also fits a wider pattern in which extremist actors target public events for maximum impact and visibility. In this case, the symbolic value of a major Islamic event would have made it an especially potent target for anti-Muslim violence, which is why the police response was so urgent and heavily coordinated.
Farther down, there's a subhead, "What Police Have Said So Far":
Police have stressed that the investigation is ongoing and that searches are still being carried out. They have not released a detailed operational timeline, nor have they named the suspects publicly. That is consistent with the early stages of a counter-terrorism case, where disclosure is limited to avoid compromising further arrests, evidence gathering, or eventual prosecutions.
By now, the established facts are obvious – 12 arrests, a potential plot by far-right terrorists, a Muslim rally that attracted some 15,000 people, an early shutdown of the event and search operations in England. The rest of the story depends on what information police and prosecution get in the course of their investigation. Should there be any charges brought, the criminal process would help to understand whether those suspects had been working within the larger organization or not. It is especially significant how the authorities have labeled the incident as terrorism and not just a hate crime. It means that police considers the accused activities to be the ones that went beyond extreme statements and reached the point of a planned mass murder.
So, all police are saying is that this plot has gone beyond just crazy talk and reached the stage of a "planned mass murder" -- but because this is just preliminary, this is all they'll say. As far as I can see, this just isn't how these things are done in the US. I asked Chrome AI mode, "What type of substantiating information does US law enforcement provide when announcing an investigation into a terrorist conspiracy?" It answered,
When U.S. law enforcement agencies—primarily the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) and the Department of Justice (DOJ)—announce an investigation, arrest, or indictment involving a terrorist conspiracy, they substantiate their claims using specific types of evidence detailed in public press releases, press conferences, and unsealed court affidavits. Because a legal "conspiracy" requires proving an agreement and an "overt act" taken toward committing the crime, the information focuses heavily on intent and pre-operational activity.
The primary categories of substantiating information provided include:
Encrypted Messaging Chats: Explicit discussions of targets, timing, and tactics extracted from platforms like Signal, WhatsApp, or Telegram.
Undercover Operations: Statements, audio, or video captured by undercover FBI employees or confidential informants who posed as fellow extremists or arms dealers to document the suspect's intent.
To establish that the plot moved beyond mere talk, law enforcement details the "overt steps" the suspects took:
Seized Blueprints and Manifestos: Handwritten or typed operational guides outlining targets, bomb-making instructions, and strategic objectives (e.g., specific target logs like "Operation Midnight Sun").
Proving "material support to terrorism" involves tracing the flow of goods and money.
Weapons and Ammunition Stockpiles: Detailed manifests of seized equipment, including firearms, body armor, and specialized equipment like armed drones.
Benjamin notices the game the UK police are playing here. At 4:22:
I would think this is a massive terror cell spread across the country of right-wing extremists, I guess. Just far-right terror, extreme right-wing terror, as they call it, and 12 of them have been arrested 'cause they were gonna do what? to one of the largest gatherings of Muslims in the country? Do we not want more information about this? I'm surprised Keir Starmer hasn't mentioned this. I can't believe that the mainstream, Keir Starmer, Ed Davey, you know, the Greens, they're not all condemning this. I thought Muslims were the face of modern Britain, guys,and you found this 12-person terror cell across the country that I assume was going to do something terrible at this event, and yet we don't have any real information on this.
And not only that, but, at the link above,
Counter terrorism authorities claimed that the event was brought to an end prematurely following the discovery of what they termed as credible and serious threat. This ensured that thousands of individuals attending the event were able to leave safely without any incident, since there were no reports of anyone getting injured.
So "authorities" learned of this terrible, terrible threat, but all they needed to do was suggest the Muslims go home early, and no bomb exploded, there was no mass shooting, everyone was fine. Well, I'm the coordinator of our neighborhood rhinoceros patrol. Rhinoceroses are very dangerous creatures. The fact that we have no rhinoceroses in our neighborhood is due entirely to my effective coordination of the rhinoceros patrol. The link above concludes,
At the political level, the case may feed discussions about online hate networks, extremist forums, and the need for stronger prevention measures. Far-right violence often grows in environments where anti-Muslim ideas are normalized, repeated, and escalated. If the allegation in this case is substantiated in court, it will likely become another example of how ideological radicalization can move from rhetoric to concrete operational planning.
The strongest immediate conclusion is that British police acted in time to disrupt a potentially devastating attack on a major Muslim gathering. The deeper consequence is that the case once again places far-right extremism at the center of Britain’s security debate, where it belongs as a live and serious threat.
The only thing I can conclude from a US perspective is that this UK investigation has been at best half-baked. It sounds as thougn just a little more work -- that is, if there's any substance at all to these allegations -- would have brought up just a small fraction of the kind of evidence that US law enforcement would bring to the announcement of any such conspiracy. The US attorney would be standing beside tables of guns, ammunition, homemade bombs, tapped phone coversations, on and on. In the UK, nothing remotely like this.
Hey, I'm sorry, all this chatter about how the US and UK are so similar is just baloney. The whole UK system has enabled this for hundreds of years. A lot of work that was done by the US Founders just never got done in the UK, and we're seeing the result.
The murder of former British politician Ann Widdecombe has sent shockwaves through the country’s political circles, with the case now referred to the counterterrorism police.
Widdecombe, 78, was found dead at her home in southwest England last week with what police had described as “serious injuries”.
On Friday, Devon and Cornwall police arrested a 28-year-old white man on suspicion of her murder. But on Monday, the man in custody was rearrested by counterterrorism police, now on suspicion of the commission, preparation or instigation of acts of “terrorism”.
Head of the national counterterrorism policing, Laurence Taylor, said on Monday they were “pursuing multiple lines of inquiry to establish the motivation for this attack”.
“Our priority is progressing this investigation quickly,” Taylor said.
As we've begun to see, what we in the US would approach as routine law enforcement activity has become highly politicized, and the police seem to be terrified of releasing specifics on any case that could have potential racial or political implications -- except to reassure the public, as we see above, that the alleged perp in this case was white. But it would appear that the man's motives had nothing, no, nothing, absolutely nothing to do with the victim's politics. According to Wikipedia,
As a member of the Conservative Party, she was the member of Parliament (MP) for Maidstone and The Weald and its predecessor Maidstone constituency from 1987 to 2010. She joined Reform UK (then called the Brexit Party) in 2019.
. . . Ideologically, Widdecombe identified as a social conservative and emphasised traditional values. During her time in the House of Commons, she opposed the legality of abortion, opposed granting LGBT people legal rights such as equalisation of the age of consent, and opposed the repeal of Section 28. She supported the reintroduction of the death penalty for murder, and opposed all forms of assisted dying. She supported rigorous animal protection laws and opposed fox hunting.
Following her retirement, she continued to make frequent television appearances. According to the first link above,
On Friday, the police issued a statement saying they had launched a murder investigation, but said they had “no information that this is a politically motivated crime” and that it was not being treated as terror-related.
By Saturday, police said a 28-year-old white British national had been arrested in South Yorkshire by officers from the counterterrorism police and South Yorkshire police.
So far, little information is available on why counterterrorism units have taken on the case.
On Monday, Home Secretary Shabana Mahmood said “new information” had come to light over the circumstances of Widdecombe’s death but said the suspect was not known to the country’s counterterrorism programme, Prevent.
“The police have cautioned against speculating about the case. That is the right thing to do for Ann’s family and friends. It is also vital that the police are given the space they need to carry out their work. For now, what matters most is supporting the investigation,” Mahmood said.
This is puzzling to me. We in the US haven't really had problems assimilating the facts of a somewhat similar case, the assassination of Charliie Kirk by an individual with generally leftist and pro-trans views. The judge in last week's preliminary hearing is generally regarded as performing a valuable public service in providing a forum in which all the prosecution's evidence could be reviewed in detail; he had the option of simply ruling from the bench that probable cause existed to go to trial, without a full hearing. The consensus appears to be that this process went a long way to discrediting conspiracy theories about the case.
Instead, the police in the UK seem to be squeamish about releasing much of anything at all, and we can only surmise that the fear is that if the public knew the facts before they've been properly curated, there might be riots. Nevertheless,
Now, Counter Terrorism Policing South East has confirmed it is leading the investigation after "new information and evidence has come to light".
Late on Monday night, The Times reported her killing is now being treated as politically motivated.
Police had suggested on multiple occasions that neither terrorism nor politics appeared to have played a part in the attack.
Reaction to the case strikes me as inchoate. For instance,
Britain's populist Reform UK called on Wednesday for all lawmakers to be given "full security" if they want it after the murder of Ann Widdecombe, a prominent member of the party led by veteran Brexit campaigner, Nigel Farage.
But that wouldn't have protected Widdecombe -- she'd been out of parliament since 2010. In the US, numerous retired members of congress, like Newt Gingrich, Jason Chaffetz, and Trey Gowdy have high public profiles, but even if they had some level of security via the Capitol Police while in office, they have no official protection when out of it. And while former US presidents and their families receive Secret Service protection for life, former vice presidents retain it for only six months after leaving office.
I suspect that the real issue is more basic, a certain refusal to trust the public with information on issues that could be controversial. The US is more or less acclimated to leftist violence, even if legacy media is still unwilling to acknowledge it. The UK appears to be waking up to this only just now.
Mark Halperin continues to rebuild his reputation as a serious commentator with a piece at The Free Press, Ditching Platner May Not Be a Win for Democrats. I think he has a handle on the dilemma:
It was the rise of Platner, far more than the downfall, that tells us much about the energy in the Democratic Party today, which has also been exemplified by the success of Zohran Mamdani and other socialists and super progressives in mayoral, House, and Senate races. These candidates’ platforms can almost be summed up by those four piquant words from the closing paragraph of the ousted oysterman’s letter Friday giving up the Senate nomination he had so easily won, which I now repeat because, my goodness, who ends a campaign that way: “F*ck ICE. Free Palestine.”
That wave among the Democrats points to the two biggest questions facing Democrats in Maine: Will the party back another Senate candidate from its radical, populist wing? And could a candidate like that take out the popular incumbent, GOP senator Susan Collins?
Platner had a unique charisma, and the talent scouts who discovered him had things at least half right: a certain hard core was going to stick with him no matter what. But the hard core was certainly overrepresented in the primary vote. Still, Platner post-withdrawal represents a whole second set of problems: his endorsement of a new candidate, if he gives it, is both a curse and a blessing. There's no question it will give the new candidate a good part of the hard core that voted for him in the primary, but it will also mean that candidate has been endorsed by a rapist.
The other factor for Halperin is Susan Collins:
Susan Collins has developed a political reputation that few senators of either party enjoy: She consistently performs better at the ballot box than many analysts expect and polls project.
Her 2020 reelection campaign remains seared into the minds of both Chuck Schumer, the Democrats’ Senate leader, and Collins herself. For much of that race, public polling showed Democratic nominee Sara Gideon leading. In the closing days, the RealClearPolitics polling average had Gideon ahead by roughly 6 percentage points. On Election Day, Collins won by more than 8 points, a margin and victory that became one of the biggest polling surprises of the 2020 cycle.
This is one more reason I question why Real Clear Politics has the reputation it does, although to its credit, RCP linked Halperin's essay. But as we've also seen here from clips of his YouTube channel, Halperin is also skeptical of the Democrat replacement field:
Running statewide is a little like launching a Broadway show. Opening night arrives whether you’ve finished rehearsing or not. And based on the résumés, recent electoral failed pasts, and early efforts to replace Platner, the cast of characters vying for the Senate slot would struggle to earn supporting roles in a Bayonne, New Jersey, dinner theater production of Pippin, let alone take on an incumbent senator from a standing start.
The eventual nominee’s tasks include, but are not limited to: assembling—or reassembling—a political organization. Becoming well-known by voters across the state. Building a fundraising operation to pull in millions of dollars quickly. Preparing for debates on issues ranging from national security to AI to trade policy. Parrying the opposition research that will come from Team Collins. And replying to an endless stream of questions about the Platner of It All. This is sort of what Kamala Harris tried and failed to do in 2024.
He also sees an incongruity in the whole Platner phenomenon:
And it is worth noting, with irony and hilarity, that when Platner was tapped, he was created by Dr. Frankenstein consultants in order to appeal to both men and working-class voters. Yet the recent polling indicates his support was disproportionately from women and college-educated voters, the heart of the anti-Trump base of the party. To beat Collins, the new nominee is almost certainly going to have to do better than Platner did with men and the actual blue-collar folks of the Pine Tree State. Republicans are going to exploit every biographical element, past vote, and piquant quote to try to stop that from happening.
Democratic upstart Graham Platner holds a slight lead over Republican incumbent Susan Collins in a general election matchup for Maine’s U.S. Senate seat should he win next week’s primary, according to a UMass Lowell/YouGov poll issued Thursday.
The survey of 650 likely Maine voters shows Platner has the support of 48% of respondents, compared to 43% for Collins, with 6% undecided and 2% supporting another candidate. A gender gap exists among polltakers who back each candidate: 54% of women and 42% of men support Platner, while Collins earns the support of 35% of women and 51% of men.
The survey found 43% of respondents have a favorable view of Platner, while 41% view him unfavorably, 14% have no opinion of him and 2% have never heard of him. Thirty-six percent of respondents view Collins favorably compared to 53% of respondents who view her unfavorably, while 11% have no opinion of her.
And we need to keep in mind Collins's history of outperforming the polls -- in 2020, by 14%. This would confirm the speculation that Democrats engineered the rape allegation so that Platner could be forced out before the deadline to find his replacement; Republicans would have preferred the whole thing come out much later.
But you know what? I'm really starting to root for my fellow Bethesdan, Mark Halperin.
Candace Owens And The Tyler Robinson Probable Cause Hearing
I've basically been tuning out the whole Candace Owens conspiracy theory over Charlie Kirk's assassination for the past eight months or so, but the level of convincing detail in the prosecution's case against Tyler Robinson in last week's probable cause hearing has made me want to bring myself up to date. The clearest version of the whole controversy I've seen is this:
As far as I can tell, there seem to be two competing theories for how and why Charlie Kirk was assassinated on Sept. 10, 2025.
The first, of course, is the story we’re hearing in court: Tyler Robinson hated Charlie’s so-called “trans-phobia” and murdered him with a German rifle for ideological reasons. Supporting evidence includes Robinson’s romantic relationship with a trans person, his confession(s), his DNA, his fingerprints, his text messages, ballistics data, bullet shells, video surveillance, eye-witness testimony, and much, much more.
The other theory?
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu — along with Charlie’s (backstabbing) widow Erika Kirk, the French government, Egyptian planes, and traitorous, evil turncoats in Turning Point USA — discovered that Charlie was going to abandon Israel, so they staged a fake shooting in a Satanic pentagon, used Tyler Robinson as a patsy, killed Charlie with an exploding microphone, and then stole the organization he built from the ground up.
It looks like we may be about to see a conspiracy theory fall apart in real time.
It was clear the day after Charlie Kirk was assassinated in front of a crowd of 3,000 people at Utah Valley University on September 10, 2025, who the main suspect was. Surveillance footage showed Tyler Robinson getting down from the rooftop where the fatal shot appeared to have been fired. He had already penned a handwritten confession and a set of texts to his lover admitting the crime. The next day, Robinson’s mother recognized her son from a photograph released by the Federal Bureau of Investigation, and his parents arranged for him to speak to a family friend who was a retired sheriff’s deputy. The family friend convinced Robinson to turn himself in on September 11.
Of all the shocking things that happened in the immediate aftermath, perhaps the most shocking was how hard some online commentators tried to ignore everything about the case. Instead, they blamed almost everyone but Robinson for the shooting. At various times, the accused have included the Israeli government, Egyptian spy planes, Kirk’s colleagues at Turning Point USA, his widow, and people in the crowd that day who were wearing maroon-colored shirts.
Worse still is that two of the people who have diverted attention from the actual effort by prosecutors to put Robinson on trial for Kirk’s murder are Candace Owens and Tucker Carlson, who were once close to Charlie Kirk. For almost a year, both Owens and Carlson attempted to poke every hole they could imagine in the government’s case and point the finger at anyone other than Robinson, whose preliminary hearing began on Monday in a Provo court. A judge will decide whether the evidence against Robinson is strong enough to proceed to a trial. Robinson has not entered a plea in the case.
Two commentators who had previously sided with Owens and Carlson, David Freiheit, who posts as Viva Frei, and Megyn Kelly, have eased their stances and now say that at minimum, prosecutors have established that there's probable cause to send the case to trial, even though this is a "low standard". Other commentators, including Micheal Lebron, who posts as Lionel, and Carlson himself, continue either to support Owens directly or support her right to promote a conspiracy theory.
Although David Freiheit in particular has criticized Judge Tony Graf Jr for holding the lengthy probable cause hearing when he could simply have ruled that probable cause exists from the bench, it's plain that bringing the prosecution's evidence out in the public hearing has minimized the effect of the conspiracy theories.
Although Robinson's defense team objected to showing his autopsy report in court, testimony from Utah State Bureau of Investigation Agent David Hull listed his death as a homicide caused by a gunshot wound to the neck.
The testimony included no indication that the forensic pathologist who handled the autopsy found anything inconsistent with that conclusion, ruling out theories involving an exploding microphone.
. . . The video isn't the only evidence that prosecutors say places Robinson at UVU, however. They have surveillance video of a Dodge Challenger coming and going. He allegedly encountered a Spanish Fork police officer who ran his license plates. And his DNA was allegedly recovered from a screwdriver found near the sniper's perch and on the suspected murder weapon, hidden in a "wooded area" just steps away from campus.
. . . Again, investigators alleged they can place Robinson on campus multiple times the day of the murder with video, physical and digital evidence.
They say he arrived in the morning, entered the campus, left, and came back later with different clothes on, following virtually the same path. And they showed a compilation video taken by UVU surveillance cameras showing all of that.
. . . Another conspiracy theory promoted on social media claims that there are "many" young men who decided to wear maroon shirts and light shorts on the day Charlie Kirk was killed, stating "without a clear image, they certainly cannot declare it is Tyler Robinson."
A compilation video played in court shows the suspect in two different outfits — one of which included a maroon T-shirt. In the other, he wore a black, long-sleeved shirt. Prosecutors have alleged Robinson appears to be both of them, and they also have video of the suspect getting out of a gray Dodge Challenger in the school's parking garage — the same kind of vehicle Robinson drove.
. . . The defense tried hard not to allow the public to hear testimony from Twiggs or see text messages, Discord chat logs or the handwritten note Robinson left for Twiggs — all three of which include what appear to be admissions of guilt.
Graf allowed that evidence, however,
and the defense showed nothing to indicate there was a foreign conspiracy involved in Kirk's murder.
This is actually all pretty boring stuff. I hope it will have the effect of diverting attention from Owens and Carlson.
