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Maine Dems Will Pick Platner Replacement At Rushed Convention This Month

Zero Rss
1 month ago
Maine Dems Will Pick Platner Replacement At Rushed Convention This Month

After their nominee for the 2026 Maine Senate race dropped out on Friday in the wake of sex assault allegations, Democrats will pick his successor at a convention on July 25th, the state party chair announced Friday afternoon. That's just two days before the deadline for making the change and securing a new nominees' place on the general election ballot. It's a tall order for one of the smallest state party organizations in the country, and Democrats haunted by the rushed 2024 insertion of deeply-flawed candidate Kamala Harris into Joe Biden's nominee slot are uneasy -- all the more so given how tight the race for Senate control could be.    

The crisis springs from previous nominee Graham Platner's withdrawal from the contest on Friday. He won the June 9th primary, but was done in by a Politico report in which a former girlfriend claimed a drunk Platner spontaneously showed up at her house and sexually assaulted her. Democrats who were already uneasy about Platner's profile -- which includes a history of philanderous sexts sent to multiple women, old Reddit posts self-identifying as a "communist," other posts calling cops "bastards," and a Nazi tattoo (though not a particularly obvious one). Setting aside the new rape allegation, all those black marks on his resume were public information before the primary election. 

“The voters of Maine, the Democratic primary voters of Maine, owe the rest of Mainers an apology.”

A thing that was actually said on CNN: pic.twitter.com/A8HOqYfWN7

— Ryan Grim (@ryangrim) July 10, 2026

The new Democratic nominee will take on five-term Republican Susan Collins, a shaky-voiced 73-year-old who's considered the GOP's most vulnerable incumbent. The Cook Political Report says the state's Senate race is one of four toss-ups this fall, along with the contests in Ohio, Michigan and Alaska. To wrest control of the Senate from the GOP, Democrats must flip four seats. 

 "The convention will be fair, representative and as transparent as possible," said Maine Democratic Party Chairman Charlie Dingman in a video statement. "In coordination with our legal counsel, we have put together a plan for this nominating convention that will allow us to choose a qualified candidate who has the energy, ideas and popular support to defeat Susan Collins." On its site, the party implied that a snap primary election was out of the question due to the tight time constraints. The Democratic State Committee "overwhelmingly" voted for the convention process after a long emergency meeting on Wednesday, according to PunchBowl's Ally Mutnick. 

Democrats searching for Platner’s replacement… pic.twitter.com/XqfKUyIrPe

— David Santa Carla 🦇 (@TheOnlyDSC) July 9, 2026

Held on the last Saturday of this month, the convention will comprise a whopping 601 delegates, 101 of whom will be members of the Democratic State Committee -- who are elected by voters -- and 500 delegates appointed by Maine's 16 counties. The proceedings will take place at the Cross Insurance Center in Bangor. "Voting will be conducted in rounds until one candidate reaches a majority," the party explained in an FAQ. "The five candidates receiving the highest number of votes in the first round will advance to the second round. Each subsequent round will eliminate the lowest vote-getter until one candidate is chosen." 

It appears there will be no party-organized debates or town halls before the convention. "The nominating convention will provide an opportunity for candidates to address delegates directly," said the party. "Candidates are encouraged to campaign in any way they see fit." 

A brokered convention, in late July in Maine, with control of the Senate potentially on the line — what more could the political press corps possibly ask for? pic.twitter.com/nwQa5nIbrS

— Alex Seitz-Wald (@aseitzwald) July 10, 2026

Democratic politicians who lost bids for other offices are pouring out the woodwork to take their shot at winning the nomination in a half-month sprint to the July 25th convention, including former public health official Nirav Shah, former Maine Senate president and logger Troy Jackson, and Maine secretary of state Shenna Bellows. All three of them sought the 2026 nomination for governor. Other hopefuls include former congressional staffer (for Katie Porter) Jordan Wood and social worker Paige Loud -- who both lost in the same congressional primary this year -- and Maine Beer Company co-founder Dan Kleban, who took an initial stab at the Senate nomination last year. 

If nothing else, this could make for some great political theater. 

Tyler Durden Sat, 07/11/2026 - 12:15
Tyler Durden

Key Revelations From 4th Batch Of Pentagon UFO Files

Zero Rss
1 month ago
Key Revelations From 4th Batch Of Pentagon UFO Files

Authored by Jacob Burg via The Epoch Times,

The Pentagon released its fourth new batch of UFO files on July 10, including a transcript from a conference that included scientists who worked on the Manhattan Project.

This release of information on UFOs, which the government refers to as unidentified anomalous phenomena (UAP), has a total of 40 files, including 19 videos, 14 documents, four audio clips, and three images.

The mix of partially unredacted files and historical documents is sourced from multiple agencies, including the CIA, FBI, Pentagon, NASA, and the Department of Energy.

The Pentagon said it is not the last release of UFO files in relation to President Donald Trump’s executive order, according to a statement from chief Pentagon spokesman Sean Parnell.

High-Speed ‘Rectangle’

In one report, five U.S. military-affiliated personnel witnessed a strange object over the eastern United States in 2019.

“I noticed an object with flight characteristics unlike anything I had seen in my 28 years of performing [REDACTED] for the [Army] and Navy. A small object was below us and appeared to be traveling in a straight line opposite our direction at high speed,” the observer wrote.

“I tracked it for ~10-15 seconds before we turned on the recorder to provide the attached video. When I zoomed in to try and achieve more resolution, the object’s speed took [it] out of my [field of view] and I was unable to reacquire, even at a lower zoom.”

The military service member said the object “appeared to be rectangular,” and said others “with equal or more experience” were also unable to identify it.

In the 20-second video, the object is tracking quickly to the left of the screen before it zooms out of view.

The report came from a “range fouler debrief,” which is a “standardized reporting form the U.S. Navy uses to record the circumstances surrounding an unauthorized intrusion into controlled airspace during active military operations or training,” according to the Pentagon.

Balloon Over the Atlantic?

Another range fouler debrief described a sighting over the Atlantic in 2020 of what an observer suggested could have been an unidentified balloon.

The heavily redacted report stated that the object “traveled with the wind, the closer we came to it,” and that it was difficult to ascertain which direction it was heading, but it was “generally” moving south without any “maneuvers or change in direction.”

“The object itself was a darker, maroonish color, approximately 12-15ft in height. Structurally, it appeared as a large, somewhat deformed balloon, but we were unable to verify that as we passed at the merge,” the observer wrote.

The strange object slowly comes into focus in the 32-second video, which was captured by a U.S. military infrared sensor, before the footage abruptly cuts off.

Manhattan Project Scientists  

One of the historical documents included in the Pentagon’s fourth batch of UFO files is a transcript of a conference at the-then Los Alamos Scientific Laboratory in Los Alamos, New Mexico, in 1949.

Now known as the Los Alamos National Laboratory, the facility was hosting leading scientists and physicists at the time, including many who had worked on the Manhattan Project.

After unknown “green fireballs” had been observed for several months near the laboratory, the U.S. Atomic Energy Commission convened the conference to determine their origin and explain the phenomenon.

The panel failed to reach a consensus to explain the “green fireballs,” with one hypothesis suggesting they could be meteors entering the atmosphere at a “shallow” angle and altitude.

Lincoln LaPaz, an expert specializing in meteorics at the time and one of the key witnesses, said “95 percent of the observations indicate a very nearly horizontal path” of the objects, which he estimated were moving “between 3 miles per second and 12 miles per second.”

That would equal roughly 10,800 to 43,200 miles per hour, within the range of speed for a meteor.

However, after running calculations based on the objects’ estimated light, speed, and kinetic energy, Edward Teller suggested that if they were not characteristic of a “material body,” they “might be an electron phenomenon.”

LaPaz replied, “You see why I’m puzzled, Dr. Teller.”

“Nothing like this, to my knowledge, has ever been observed in the case of meteorite drops,” he added.

At the conclusion of the meeting, another scientist said, “The puzzling thing is the long horizontal path; also, absence of noise is puzzling.”

When meteors fall through the atmosphere, their high speed creates a sonic boom, along with other noises, sometimes a crackling or “whooshing” sound.

‘Six-Pointed Star’ Near China

A 12-second infrared sensor video came from the U.S. Indo-Pacific Command last year, showing “an area of contrast resembling a six-pointed star” that remains in the center of the screen.

The Pentagon said the video was taken near China over the Yellow Sea.

The area of contrast looks similar to the “eight-pointed star with arms of alternating length” that was submitted by U.S. Central Command in 2013, and featured in the Pentagon’s initial batch of UFO files released in early May.

Another video taken in 2025, this time over the East China Sea, shows what appears to be an object tracking across the sky for nearly five minutes.

What is seemingly multiple areas of contrast moving in formation across the sky, at times appearing like a curved line similar to a massive, fast-moving flock of birds, was shown in a video taken over the South China Sea in 2024.

Intrusion Near Nuclear Facility

The Energy Department included a file detailing a UFO sighting in the airspace over the Pantex nuclear weapons facility near Amarillo, Texas, in 2015.

Two officers reported seeing the object at 7 a.m. local time flying northward “in a non-threatening manner” at roughly 10 to 15 miles per hour.

As the facility was placed on lockdown, the officers continued tracking the object and, through binoculars, reported that it looked to be approximately four feet tall and two feet wide at the bottom.

“They noted that the object did not make any sound. Furthermore, the [lieutenant and security police officer] stated that they were unable to identify any type of propulsion system on the object while using binoculars to assess the object. After viewing it for 1-2 minutes, the object then continued north offsite,” the report states.

Observers were split on the object’s color, with some reporting it looked black, while others said it “appeared to be silver, red, and blue.”

Tyler Durden Sat, 07/11/2026 - 11:40
Tyler Durden

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