People Like Us!

A while ago, I surmised that Graham Platner was never actually vetted; it was enough that he was People Like Us, preppie, Ivy-adjacent trustfunders. A detailed piece in the Washington Free Beacon profiles two of the talent scouts who promoted Platner, Morris Katz and Daniel Moraff.

Katz, 27, became a bona fide Beltway celebrity after helping Zohran Mamdani defeat a profoundly unpopular sex pest in the New York City mayoral election. He helped recruit Platner to run in Maine, and made a slickly produced launch video of the unemployed business owner cosplaying as a working-class everyman.

"Like Mr. Mamdani, Mr. Katz is a child of the New York cultural elite, but is fluent in the anti-elite language of progressive populism," the New York Times wrote earlier this year in a profile headlined, "He's 26 and Ready to Fix the Democrats' Strategy."

Like Platner, Katz is a child of privilege who abhors capitalism, functioning societies, and opponents of terrorism. His great-grandfather "made a fortune in hosiery," the Times reports. His grandfather, Harry Jay Katz, was a notorious libertine described as a "playboy prince of darkness" with a "multi-million dollar trust fund." He claimed to have slept with 4,000 women, and ran a vanity publication whose poetry editor, Ira Einhorn, would go on to be known as the "Unicorn Killer" after murdering his ex-girlfriend in 1977.

. . . A left-wing activist with degrees from Brown and Yale, Moraff is the "mad scientist" who helped recruit Platner because he wanted Democrats to nominate "real human beings" who oppose Israel and capitalism. He is the grandson of Seymour Ginsburg, who founded the predecessor to Toys "R" Us and served as the toy chain's first president.

. . . Moraff, 34, reportedly likened Platner to Barack Obama in the early days of the campaign, and didn't bother to subject the candidate to a normal vetting process—an ill-advised decision, in retrospect. Along with his business partner and fiancée, Leanne Fan, Moraff was convinced that Platner was a "historic figure" destined to lead a "revolution."

. . . On Friday, we learned that Moraff and Platner had more in common than anyone dared to imagine. While living off his family wealth and "working" on Democratic campaigns in the Pittsburgh area, Moraff developed a reputation as "the most hated staffer in the region."

In 2022, Moraff was banished from congresswoman Summer Lee's (D., Pa.) campaign after multiple women accused him of sexual misconduct. "None of his current embroilment really surprises me because he doesn't have boundaries with women, nor much of an ethical code," a former Pittsburgh organizer told Payday Report.

So there we are, everyone is a member of a tiny club, no other vetting required. The current front runner to replace Platner is in a similar mold, a blue-collar-seeming manly man with a problematic past:

Maine Democrats are so desperate to replace accused rapist Graham Platner with another rugged “working-class hero” type that the left wing has thrown its support behind an Allagash logger — despite a past that’s anything but progressive.

. . . Troy Jackson, a fifth-generation logger and longtime union member who served as president of the Maine Senate from 2018 to 2024, looks like the natural successor to Platner — at least on the surface.

. . . Jackson, 58, campaigned with both Platner and Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-VT) on the “Fighting the Oligarchy” tour at the University of Maine in May. He is a longtime ally of the Vermont socialist, having been one of the few Democratic National Committee superdelegates to endorse him over Hillary Clinton in 2016.

This week, the political organization founded by Sanders after his unsuccessful 2016 presidential run, Our Revolution, said it was throwing its “full organizing machine” behind Jackson’s Senate bid, stating he “spent his life in the fight working people are asking for.”

. . . In fact, Jackson launched his career as a Republican when he first ran for the Maine legislature in 2000. After losing, he tried again in 2002, but as an Independent. In 2004, he morphed again and became a Dem.

But even after that, some of his positions remained very much right of center. In 2009, he voted against same-sex marriage in the Maine Senate and has long thought abortion should be illegal except in cases of rape or incest — even when the mother’s life is in danger.

In 2011, he voted for a state bill that would have declared a fetus a person and in 2013, for mandatory abortion-counseling legislation.

Jackson apparently has his own problems with women:

A progressive advocacy group on Tuesday accused former Maine Senate President Troy Jackson of striking a female colleague with a bottle he threw during a state Senate caucus dispute years ago, complicating his emergence as the leading Democrat contender to replace Graham Platner on the November ballot against Republican Sen. Susan Collins.

. . . In a post on X, the group said Jackson, "in a heated disagreement, struck a female colleague with a bottle he threw at her" during a caucus meeting when he served as Senate president, and it described the episode as "a widespread open secret" in Maine politics that was "not an isolated incident."

At about 3:00 in the video embedded above, Mark Halperin and his guests roast the top three of roughly a dozen potential replacements for Platner, deriding them as "top tier" and the "crème de la crème" -- "These are the A team that's gonna do the impossible task of beating an incumbent senator, Susan Collins, in less than 100 days." Discussing the incongruous background music in Troy Jackson's announcement video, Halperin says, "You wouldn't put that in a deodorant ad. That's the music they play when you're in a sleep study, and they're tryng to put you to sleep."

A guest says, "The bigger problem in the video is he's talking to voters, but voters aren't gonna have a say in this, so who cares?" Halperin concludes,

You're gonna have to be a major leaguer to beat Susan Collins. And these peopole aren't even talking about, like, AI or China. And the Collins people are sitting back and laughing at all this. Their view of theae videos matches, at least, my own. . . . It's gonna take so much to raise the money, to do everything you need to do, and first they gotta win the nomination. . . . Here's the dynamic I'm going to predict. These candidates are not interesting. Platner is notr gonna go away, and reporters are going to ask all these candidates, for a good long while, "What did you think of Platner? Why didn't you abandon Platner sooner?"

But the informed consensus seems to be that the Democrat establishment unleashed the rape allegation when it did to get Platner off the ticket in time to replace him, because he was already losing to Collins in the polls -- but they did it without a clear replacement. Who can they find who can outperform Platner against Collins?

McConnell Indisposed, Wife In China

Via Breitbart News,

Conservative activist Laura Loomer and journalist Desiree Townsend both claimed Monday that Sen. Mitch McConnell (R-KY) has been declared “brain dead,” citing unnamed sources.

A very high level source told me Mitch McConnell is officially brain dead and machines are keeping him alive, but he is a vegetable and “never coming back.”

So why is his wife @ElaineChao in China instead of by his side?

Is she a Chinese CCP spy? How does the wife of one of… https://t.co/hxTHMPHZEM

— Laura Loomer (@LauraLoomer) July 6, 2026

I've always thought Mitch McConnell was brain dead even when he was alive, that's a dog bites man story. The bigger question is who is his wife, Elaine Chao, and why is she in China? We know she was Secretary of Transportation under Trump 45 and Secretary of Labor under Bush fils, but I took that as simply a payoff to Mitch. It turns out the story is much more complicated. From a 2019 piece at CNN:

Transportation Secretary Elaine Chao’s family has deep business ties to China – placing the key Cabinet official in a potentially conflicting position with the Trump administration’s confrontational posture toward the US’ major economic rival, according to a report from The New York Times. The Times investigation outlined Chao’s ties to Foremost Group, her family’s shipping business. The report noted that while Chao “has no formal affiliation or stake” in the company, she and her husband, Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, have received millions in gifts from Chao’s father, who used to run the company, along with political donations from her family.

Chao, according to the report, has boosted the company in China, whose government runs a bank that has loan commitments from the shipping company in the order of “hundreds of millions of dollars.”

The report said in addition to the shipping company, Chao’s family has other ties to official China, including board positions in state companies and a close relationship between Chao’s father and former Chinese President and Chinese Communist Party General Secretary Jiang Zemin.

. . . Chao was previously the Labor secretary during the Bush administration, and from the outset of the Trump administration, she has been the head of the Transportation Department, which, as the Times noted, makes Chao the top official overseeing the US shipping industry.

Via People,

According to a report shared by the Embassy of the People’s Republic of China in the United States of America, “Chao said maintaining stable U.S.-China relations serves the interests of all parties, and expressed the willingness to continue making efforts to promote practical cooperation and people-to-people exchanges between the United States and China.”

While McConnell’s office has been tight-lipped about his health and the 84-year-old has not made a public appearance or spoken to reporters since his admission on June 14, Chao finally broke her silence through a spokesperson on Tuesday, July 7, in a statement to multiple outlets, including Louisville CBS affiliate WLKY and The Daily Beast.

A spokesperson for Chao told those news organizations in a statement that “the secretary was on a long-planned trip in China to support her family’s philanthropic endeavors.”

“During the trip, she met with a number of people, including the US ambassador,” the statement said. “The Senator’s health did not warrant an immediate return to the US.”

. . . Since leaving Trump’s administration in January 2021 following the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the U.S. Capitol, Chao was tapped to serve on the board of directors for the Kroger supermarket chain “and technology companies in the mobility space,” according to an official biography. She also serves on the board of the Kennedy Center and the Los Angeles 2028 Summer Olympics organizing committee.

Chao, 73, married McConnell in 1993 and later became the first Asian American woman to serve in a president’s Cabinet. She immigrated to the U.S. from Taiwan as a child and became a U.S. citizen as a teenager.

McConnell is one of the wealthiest US senators, but this is almost entirely due to gifts from Chao's family (her sister runs the family shipping business).

Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) and his wife, former Labor Secretary Elaine Chao, received a personal gift from a family member worth between $5 million and $25 million, according to his annual financial disclosure report, which was released on Friday morning.

The gift came from Chao’s father, Dr. James S.C. Chao, a wealthy Chinese-born businessman, and it boosted McConnell’s personal worth from a minimum of $3 million in 2007 to more than $7 million.

McConnell's overall net worth was estimated at $34,137,534 in 2018, making him the 7th wealthiest senator at that time. This is primarily due to investments of the Chao family's money. It's hard to avoid thinking that whatever McConnell's actual health condition, it doesn't make much difference; his wife and her family have been running the whole show for years. Nevertheless, this YouTube on McConnell's condition is hilarious:

LA Metro

The Skid Row Express (also known as the D line expansion) is set to open in LA soon. Skid row junkies will soon be able to travel from their homeless camps downtown to new homeless camps in Westwood, with convenient stops at Rodeo Drive in Beverly Hills for naps, open air… pic.twitter.com/GPSGsAs9Ny

— Peachy Keenan (@KeenanPeachy) July 1, 2026

Urban transit in the US is a festering sore. Ridership, especially on subway and commuter rail systems, has diminished since COVID, while transit overall is significantly less safe. Los Angeles is no exception. A recent piece in City Journal, which in 2024 broke the story of Haitians in Temporary Protrected Status, outlines the problem:

Every day, thousands of Los Angelenos take a deep breath, step out of their houses, and plunge themselves into a transit experience straight out of Mad Max. The city’s buses have become rolling homeless shelters, replete with drugs and feces. Its trains are home to murder and mayhem. As Daquan, a daily rider who works near the North Hollywood station told us, “You could kill somebody down there and just get away with it.”

The transformation has been swift and stark. Between 2020 and 2025, crime in the system more than doubled. What drove the change? L.A. Metro’s dedication to creating an equitable transit system, where all Angelenos—drug-addicted, homicidal maniacs included—can effectively ride free, without consequences.

. . . Activists and their allies in city government have spent years laser-focused on driving cops from the L.A. Metro’s buses and trains. Their argument: making people pay to use the trains is racist.

. . . Obviously, none of this is working. . . . Adjusting for ridership, battery and aggravated assaults both increased by more than 100 percent, and narcotics offenses rose by more than 800 percent.

The lawlessness starts at the entrance: about half of L.A. Metro riders don’t pay, according to data analyzed by Davis. By comparison, Metro’s fare-evasion rate was between 3 percent and 7 percent across stations in 2007. Most importantly, more than 90 percent of violent criminals on the Metro evade fares, meaning the sort of people who go on to stab old ladies in the neck could have been caught by fare enforcement, but aren’t. Despite L.A. Metro’s numerous pilot programs and quasi-safety measures, the one method proven to work for the system is the one method board members are reluctant to try: classic policing.

Kansas City discovered that free buses don't work:

Turns out there’s no such thing as a free bus ride. Kansas City started charging fares again this month to ride the bus, six years after making them free. The area’s transportation authority said it chose requiring users to pay over continuing to impose service cuts.

. . . There is voluminous evidence that charging fares, and enforcing them, helps keep troublemakers out. Randy Clarke, the head of D.C.’s Metro system, credits a crackdown on fare evasion with improved public safety. “Not everyone who fare-evades commits crimes, but almost universally, everyone who commits serious crimes fare-evades,” Clarke told Santi Ruiz on the “Statecraft” podcast. “Not many people are going to tap in and then do armed robbery.”

The Bay Area Rapid Transit system in California found that installing hardened fare gates on its subways contributed to rising revenue while reducing crime and decreasing upkeep. BART performed almost 1,000 fewer hours of corrective maintenance in the first six months after the new fare gates were installed.

Here's a vignette of fare enforcement at tbe Bay Area Rapid Transit system:

Meanwhile at a BART fare evasion gate in SF (to save $2.55) pic.twitter.com/TdSxenaeeu

— End Wokeness (@EndWokeness) July 2, 2026

According to San Francisco media,

"I hope she wasn’t hurt and I hope she received a nice ticket to pay for fare evasion," says BART Director Liz Ames, speaking to NBC Bay Area about the viral incident.

Ames tells the station that BART revenue is rising and fare evasion has plummeted thanks to the new, mostly evasion-proof fare gates — and, consequently, crime is down as well, Ames says.

Trump-supporting former BART director Debora Allen also got a call for comment from NBC Bay Area, and she was happy to take credit for spearheading the new fare gate project.

"I think it’s great. I think it’s the best thing we’ve done at BART in many, probably decades," Allen tells the station.

Ames added that revenue is up about $10 million, possibly thanks to the fare gates, and if that keeps up each year, the $90 million project to install the gates will have paid for itself in less than ten years.

When I was in tech back in the day, I had lots of assignments in the San Francisco area, and riding transit back then was an enjoyable experience. It was actually always better than in LA, but apparently things changed, and the two cities are about equally bad. Fare enforcement, at least in San Francisco, might turn things around.

Platner Post Mortems

I've got to say I'm disappointed that Graham Platner dropped out of the Maine Senate race, because having him stay on the ballot would have been just too delicious. But there's plenty of awkwardness and embarrassment yet to come. Just for starters is the Maine Democrat chair's message, embedded in Mark Halperin's 2WAY YouTube above:

As you know, the Maine Democratic Party has been working around the clock to develop a process to replace our US Senate nominee that is open, inclusive, transparent, and fair. the integrity of this process is just as important as the outcome, and we are committed to ensuring that Democrats across our state can have confidence in both.

Because, of course, last month's primary wasn't open, inclusive, transparent, and fair enough. She goes on, to cackles from one of Halperin's guests,

We have repeatedly reiterated [sic] to Graham Platner's team that they have no role in determining our next Democratic nominee for the US Senate, nor in determining what this process looks like.

I'm not sure bhow they'll be able, first, to create and promulgate an open, inclusive, transparent, and fair process to pick a new nominee, and then to implement it in an open, inclusive, transparent, and fair way before July 27. For starters, a girlboss type may not be the best spokesperson for the project, but maybe that's just me.

Another intriguing development yesterday was the gathering at Platner's home before he announced he was dropping out:

Mayor Zohran Mamdani’s silver-spoon socialist adviser, Morris Katz, rushed over to beleaguered Graham Platner’s house Wednesday as they plotted how to remain a powerbroker in the Senate race — enraging Democrats.

The gathering included Platner’s top campaign brass in addition to Katz, who is trying to hatch a plan for Platner to “remain a voice” in the Senate contest “no matter what” the accused rapist decides, a source familiar with deliberations told The Post.

. . . His intransigence has left Maine Democrats “livid” and the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee (DSCC) “in shock,” according to the source.

Well, you can tell from the Halperin clip that the girlboss is not amused, anyhow. The piece continues,

“The fact that the NYC mayor’s fixer is headed there to triage Maine has everyone fuming,” the source added.

Allies of Platner argue that he formed a movement in Maine, touting the over 150,000 votes he notched in the primary, and deserves to remain influential.

. . . Two sources say Katz has told allies he believes Platner should to leave the race before the 5 p.m. Monday deadline to withdraw from the ballot — but wants the exit to be on the candidate’s terms.

“It’s quite clear that he’s [Platner’s] gonna have to get out of the race,” a second source told The Post. “Their reluctance here … is a result of their larger political project, trying to get these types of candidates into places of power.”

Other campaign officials seen entering Platner’s Sullivan home include field director Spencer Toth, digital communications consultant Ryan Aquilina, campaign manager Ben Chin, and Chin’s deputy Eleni Neyland.

A later report suggests the leverage Senate Democrats were able to apply:

Just hours after the latest rape claims, Schumer and Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand (D-NY) issued a joint statement denouncing Platner.

“The allegations reported today are incredibly disturbing – violence, abuse and sexual assault are absolutely unacceptable,” it said.

“Graham Platner needs to immediately withdraw as the Democratic nominee for Senate and allow Maine Democrats the opportunity to choose a new candidate who can defeat Susan Collins. The DSCC [Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee] will not invest in the Maine Senate race if Platner remains on the ballot.”

. . . Platner lashed out at those who abandoned him and pulled his financial support.

“We are going to lose our ability to fundraise. We are going to lose our ability to access voter data. We are going to lose all of the things that any campaign needs on the basic level simply to function,” he bemoaned.

“Larger organizations, the national level party, the bigger donor networks – they have all committed to spending no money in this race if I’m in it,” Platner continued. “They would rather see Susan Collins win than have me be the next senator from Maine,” he said.

In other words, grassroots donations weren't going to pay the big-bucks salaries of all the hangers-on who gathered at Platner's house yesterday afternoon. Might there have been a deal to keep those folks off unemployment, or have the establishment Democrats dealt the DSA a mortal blow in the Platner fiasco? In any case, according to the UK Guardian,

The state party said on Wednesday it would hold a nominating convention to pick a new candidate.

But one complicating factor has been that Platner won more primary votes than any Democratic Senate candidate in the state’s history, and energized a coalition that the establishment favorite, governor Janet Mills, never matched. Some have suggested that his successor will need to carry forward that energy, while others are arguing the new nominee will have to be independent from him, or risk being seen as his protégé.

Whoever takes the position will have little time to prepare for a general election against Collins, a five-term incumbent.

Media conventional wisdomm lists a dozen or more potential Platner replacements, but a problem is that nearly all of them, like former Gov Janet Mills, have already lost in recent Democrat primaries, either for governor or the Senate nomination that Platner won last month. There are other questioms about numbers. This piece, written just before Platner dropped out, asks:

In her 2020 election, Susan Collins got 417,645 votes (51%), while her Democrat opponent, Sara Gideon, got 347,223 (42.4%). In the Democratic primary that year, Gideon got 116,264 votes, which was 71.5% of the 162,681 ballots cast in the primary. Let’s compare the performance of Gideon to how Platner did in this year’s Democratic primary: 154,084 votes (72.1%) — about 38,000 more votes. But if Collins once again tops 400,000 votes in the November election, where’s Platner going to come up with the extra 250,000 votes he’ll need to beat her?

A Platner replacement won't have the Platner glitz, while former Platner voters may not have the same enthusiasm for someone not specifically aligned with the DSA.

The Platner Story Won't Quit!

The big lesson for me in the evolving Platner saga is how easily mainstream leftists let themselves be conned. Scott Jennings claims he was in fact "vetted":

All of this whole thing is disgusting but to say that they hadn't vetted him, or that they didn't know about all this is totally false. They knew it and they signed up for it and I don't know why they're backing away from this scumbag today when they had already signed off on all that other crazy behavior.

Strictly speaking, the specific Jenny Racicot allegations of sexual assault (and now sneaky behavior relative to contraception) became public only as of the past few days; they weren't general knowledge, for instance, before the Maine primary.

What was actually going on was that, as I pointed out yesterday, Platner was merchandised by DSA talent spotters as though he had been vetted, and the Democrat machine and out-of-state donors took this on faith. He looked authentic, as only someone out of the L L Bean catalog can look. (Full disclosure: the first big change in my lifestyle that my wife announced after our marriage was that I would no longer be sourcing my wardrobe from L L Bean.)

A better take is from Michael Cohen at MS NOW:

The first lesson is don’t fall in love with an unvetted political outsider — or, for that matter, any politician. When he announced his candidacy, Platner told a compelling story. He was a political outsider with no experience in electoral politics, a Marine combat veteran and an oyster fisherman in a state where working on the water is a badge of honor.

. . . It turned out that, far from being a successful oyster fisherman, his biggest customer was his mother, who runs a restaurant. Platner’s claims of a hardscrabble youth were contradicted by stories of living off his parents’ generosity and stints at an elite private school.

But even Cohen misses a central point: like many modern Democrats, if Platner is anything, it's entitled. Platner is People Like Us. Why vet him? We already know who he is! I think this is also key to what's likely next in this saga. Scott Pinsker gamed this out a little over a month ago at PJ Media:

1. Graham Platner drops out in shame and is replaced by a DNC establishment favorite who’s safer, fully vetted, and more likely to win (and follow orders).
2. Graham Platner stays on the ballot, but because the scandal(s) dropped in May/June, it’ll be “old news” by the first Tuesday of November.

As of this morning, the state of play appears to be number 2: Platner so far is either refusing to drop out entirely, or refusing to drop out unless he can name his successor:

Stay strong king you got this https://t.co/DNGWQcIH28

— The Drunk Republican (@DrunkRepub) July 8, 2026

One take I've seen on the Platner story is that this scandal is now actually a bid by establishment Democrats to retake the party from DSA. The biggest piece of evidence is that the latest Jenny Racicot allegations emerged while there's still time for Platner to drop out and be replaced by an establishment Democrat. But as of right now,

according to a source with knowledge of Platner’s campaign, the candidate, his campaign and Democrat strategist Morris Katz are discussing a plan for him to drop out “only if his replacement shares his left-wing values.”

Katz, a former advisor to Socialist New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani’s campaign, is described in the Washington Free Beacon as a “26-year-old Nepo Baby Theater Kid.”

. . . But Katz, according to the Post, is recommending that Platner stay in the race. The candidate “appears to be holding the Democratic Party hostage,” the Post said.

“His team is delusional,” the source declared, adding that Platner seems to think “whoever might replace [him] would want a rapist’s endorsement.”

But here's the problem: only Platner can decide to drop out. If he doesn't by next Monday, the Democrats are stuck with him on the ballot -- but the Democrats also want to retake the Senate, and the route to that lies through beating Collins in Maine. If Platner hangs on through next Monday, the Democrats will have to get back on board and re-endorse the rapist.

If Platner stays in -- and there are two ways he can do it, either by insisting on choosing a DSA-aligned successor, or simply refusing to drop out at all -- then the Democrats will need to return to the fold if they have even the remotest hope of retaking the Senate. The DSA will still be on board; Platner is People Like Us. I suspect this will be the end game:

It’s quite funny that the case for Platner, up until about 15 hours ago, was, “well, yes, he has a Nazi tattoo and a history of saying terrible things and treats women abominably, but on the other hand he’s a communist.”

— Charles C. W. Cooke (@charlescwcooke) July 7, 2026

The Democrats will simply fall back on this former line, because they'll have no choice. For Platner, as the saying goes, when you ain't got nothin', you got nothin' to lose.

Platner Implodes

We last looked at Graham Platner here a month ago. A link to the New York Post pointed out,

The truth is he was discovered and coached by a pair of Ivy League-educated radical Democratic socialists, replicating a playbook they’ve used in Nebraska and Iowa. That revelation could be more damaging than the tattoo, sexting women other than his wife, blasting fellow veterans and admitting to masturbating in a port-a-potty, as it strikes at the heart of Platner’s alleged authenticity.

. . . In summer 2025, Moraff and Fan were in Maine scouting for a new candidate. They had settled on union boss Chris Williams in Bath, but dropped him at the last minute due to “a skeleton in the closet that wasn’t true that we would’ve had to explain,” according to an interview they gave to Politico.

What skeleton could possibly have been worse than a credible rape allegation? As of yesterday,

A woman who dated Maine U.S. Senate candidate Graham Platner says he forced her to have sex with him nearly five years ago despite her repeated objections, an allegation Platner denies.

The woman, a 41-year-old Maine resident named Jenny Racicot, detailed the alleged incident to POLITICO in three interviews over the past two weeks. POLITICO also spoke with a man Racicot dated and confided in the years after the alleged incident, and reviewed documents, including emails between Racicot and her therapist and messages between Racicot and an acquaintance whom she warned against getting involved with Platner years before he ran for office.

According to The New York Post,

Maine Democratic Senate candidate Graham Platner has cleared his campaign schedule and is considering next steps after bombshell allegations of sexual assault from ex-girlfriend were published.

The former girlfriend, Jenny Racicot, told Politico that Platner drunkenly forced her to have sex with him in 2021 — allegations which the candidate immediately denied as “troubling, serious and false.”

The Platner campaign, hours before the article was posted, had indefinitely postponed town halls in Augusta on Sunday and in Gorham on Monday, as well as an event in Sanford whose listing was taken down.

. . . Last month, The New York Times published a story about six ex-girlfriends of Platner, three of whom alleged he “hated women” — with one alleging he twisted her arm before locking her in her room during an argument, among other acts of physical abuse or intimidation.

Racicot was interviewed for the Times’ piece and recounted Platner’s inebriated arrival at her home in 2021, without any accusations of rape.

One thing strikes me here that nobody else has mentioned: there was nothing grassroots about Platner. He may as well have been ordered from the L L Bean catalog and was merchandised and sold to both the media and the Democrats by the Moraff-Fan team. I think Scott Jennings has this one wrong:

Democrats fully vetted Graham Platner, happily signed off on his incredibly disturbing history to win a Senate seat, and are only pretending to be shocked now because they can no longer rationalize the hypocrisy. pic.twitter.com/jkp12Gwv16

— Scott Jennings (@ScottJenningsKY) July 7, 2026

I don't think anyone vetted him, certainly not before his name was put on the ballot. Real Clear Politics dropped its mask this morning and linked only one piece about Platner, by Ed Kilgore at New York Magazine, Platner on the ledge after sexual-assault allegation, none of the usual one-from-column-A-one from column-B charade:

The crucial, intermittently impressive, but perpetually imperiled U.S. Senate candidacy of Maine’s progressive oysterman Graham Platner hit new shoals today after Politico published allegations from an ex-girlfriend that he sexually assaulted her five years ago. CNN later reported the same. The fresh allegations, on the heels of an assortment of damaging information involving his background, his views, and most of all his treatment of women, has raised the simmering fears among Democrats in and beyond Maine about his candidacy to a full boil, with time running out for a possible replacement for him on the November ballot.

. . . It’s possible Platner is working behind the scenes with Maine Democrats to identify a suitable substitute and to prepare his own public rationale for folding his tent and disappointing the many Mainers who gave his grassroots campaign so many resources and so much excitement.

Again, there was nothing grassroots about Platner, he was packaged and merchandised by DSA talent scouts looking for attractive boutique candidates. He was simply too good to vet. A review of his campaign history in Wikipedia shows there were warning lights blinking all the time:

In late October and early November 2025, several high-level staffers left Platner's campaign during a period that coincided with media reporting on his past controversial Reddit posts. On October 17, Platner's political director, Genevieve McDonald, resigned. Platner offered her $15,000 in severance pay if she signed an NDA, but she refused the offer. On October 27, Platner's campaign manager, Kevin Brown, resigned, citing family reasons. On October 31, Platner's campaign finance director, Ronald Holmes, resigned.

. . . In October 2025, various news outlets reported on Reddit posts Platner made between 2013 and 2021 in which he called himself a "communist", wrote that "all cops are bastards", agreed with a post calling rural white Americans "racist and stupid", and referenced political violence and armed resistance. In a 2013 Reddit discussion about anti-rape underwear, Platner wrote that people worried about assault should "take some responsibility for themselves and not get so [redacted] up they wind up having sex with someone they don't mean to".

. . . During his 2026 Senate campaign, Platner faced scrutiny over a tattoo on his chest of the Totenkopf symbol used by the Nazi Schutzstaffel (SS) and SS-Totenkopfverbände. In an interview on Pod Save America, Platner said he and other Marines received the tattoo while on leave in Croatia in 2007 and that he had been unaware of its historical association at the time. He later covered the tattoo. CNN and Jewish Insider reported a former acquaintance's allegation that Platner had previously called the tattoo "my Totenkopf", which Platner denied.

. . . In May 2026, The New York Times and other news outlets reported that in 2025, Platner's wife, Amy Gertner, told a senior campaign aide that Platner had been sexting with multiple other women. The Platner campaign's political director, Genevieve McDonald, alleged that Gertner had said Platner had sexted as many as a dozen women. A Platner campaign official said he had been communicating with no more than six, and that the conduct had stopped before the campaign launched.

. . . In June 2026, The Times reported allegations that Platner engaged in disturbing and physically threatening behavior toward women he had dated. A former girlfriend described by The Times as "a Virginia conservative who has worked for right-leaning groups and Republican campaigns" alleged that Platner had grabbed her repeatedly with enough force to leave marks and once twisted her arm behind her back, pushed her into a room, and locked her in against her will until morning.

But it looks like the DSA has already come up with a potential Platner replacement:

As Maine’s Democratic Senate candidate Graham Platner faces mounting calls to withdraw from the race over a sexual assault allegation he denies, Troy Jackson has emerged as the favorite to replace him.

. .. . State law allows Platner to be replaced on the ballot if he withdraws by July 13. Then, the Maine Democratic Party would have until July 27 to name a replacement.

Among the potential replacements, Jackson is one that could appeal to the progressive base that backed Platner.

. . . Jackson ran a progressive campaign for governor in this year’s race, with a platform that included pledges to reduce prescription drug costs, create a Department of Affordable Housing, and lower property taxes.

Jackson had the backing of Platner, Vermont Senator Bernie Sanders and more than 20 unions—with the Bangor Daily News describing Jackson as Platner’s "gubernatorial counterpart and prototype."

. . . Jackson had supported Platner on the campaign trail, but joined calls for him to withdraw from the Senate race on Monday.

"There is no place in our politics for sexual violence. Not in our party, not in any party. Graham Platner must withdraw from this race today," he wrote on X. "This is not what we stand for. Not as Democrats, not as Mainers, not as human beings."

But Jackson appears to have his own record of sexual violence:

So yeah, about that DSA-endorsed candidate that folx want to replace Platner:

"As Maine Senate President in a state senate caucus meeting several years ago, Troy Jackson in a heated disagreement struck a female colleague with a bottle he threw at her." https://t.co/iE2GildZXY

— Wesley Yang (@wesyang) July 7, 2026

Some of the comments, though, suggest this could be a Platner operation. All I can say for now is stay tuned.

Jacob Rees-Mogg Gets The US Wrong

I've noted before that I've recently discovered the UK Thatcherite toff Jacob Rees-Mogg, who gets things wrong in an entertainingly stuffy way. In the video above, he congratulates the US for having what he implies is a copy of the UK constitutional system. This is the sort of comfortable patter that Winston Churchill used to ingratiate himself with Roosevelt, and the sort of thing King Charles said to the US congress not long ago in a similar effort to get the US to continue to spend money on the UK's defense.

Of the events in 1776, Rees-Mogg says, at 1:40:

[T]he Americans said they were English gentlemen who just happened to live in another place, and they wanted the rights of Englishmen. They wanted taxation with representation. . . . Edmund Burke pointed out that there was a precedent for people living abroad being able to to send MPs. That is to say, up until the reign of Mary Tudor, Mary I, people living in Calais had sent members to Parliament, to the House of Commons.

A little earlier, he says,

The Americans blamed poor old George III, harmless old, mad in the end, George III for what happened and their departure.

On one hand, he's correct in that the Declaration of Independence is in part a list of specific grievances against poor old King George, but Jefferson, the lawyer who wrote it, was certainly aware that on one hand, even as of 1776, the king had little or no power to do the things the Declaration accuses him of doing, such as:

He has kept among us, in times of peace, Standing Armies without the Consent of our legislatures.

He has affected to render the Military independent of and superior to the Civil power.

He has combined with others to subject us to a jurisdiction foreign to our constitution, and unacknowledged by our laws; giving his Assent to their Acts of pretended Legislation:

For Quartering large bodies of armed troops among us:

For protecting them, by a mock Trial, from punishment for any Murders which they should commit on the Inhabitants of these States:

For cutting off our Trade with all parts of the world:

For imposing Taxes on us without our Consent:

For depriving us in many cases, of the benefits of Trial by Jury:

In the UK, parliamentary supremacy had been codified almost a century earlier, first in practice during the civil war, and then via the Bil of Rights 1689. But on the other hand, Jefferson didn't assert any legal right for the colonists; the complaint wasn't that the king via parliament hadn't given the colonists legal rights; the complaint in the Declaration of Independence was based on natural law, not any sort of UK legal precedent, Edmund Burke notwithstanding:

Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, --That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness. . . . But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute Despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such Government, and to provide new Guards for their future security.--Such has been the patient sufferance of these Colonies; and such is now the necessity which constrains them to alter their former Systems of Government.

The list of grievances is formally against the nominal sovereign, King George, but practically it's against the system by which parliament embodies the sovereign power. The king as a practical matter couldn't do of his own volition any of the things alleged against him in the Declaration.

Rees-Mogg then goes on to list the guarantees provided in the US Bill of Rights and suggests that these are traditionally also establised in the UK, but then he defeats his own argtument by saying those guarantees have been eroded in recent years in the UK -- but it's parliamentary supremacy that's allowed this; it was allowed in 1776 just as much as it's allowed now. Parliament can abridge freedom of speech in any way it chooses. There's no wording in UK law equivalent to "Congress shall make no law" in the US First Amendment.

In fact, a little over a decade later, the Constitutional Convention moved to circumscribe the power of congress and establish an executive that could act independently, something the UK monarchy hadn't been able to do for 100 years. Clearly this was done with the experience of the UK in mind.

Rees-Mogg concludes,

My goodness, how well our two constitutions have done in making the world rich, successful, and safe.

Wait a moment. It's been roughly 100 years since the UK had much of anything at all to do with making the world rich, successful, or safe. UK policies had a great deal to do with bringing about the Great Depression and then World War II. The US, on the other hand, has had everything to do with making the world rich, successful, and safe; the UK has just been along for the ride but seems eager to convince itself it's somehow responsible.