I have hoped for more from her for years. Every once in awhile, she peaks out and says something hopeful, that I like. then she crawls right back under that republican rock.

Go get her Portland (especially!)

This is an ACA repeal without replacement. I thought she was so against that!,

Grilling them and speaking the truth to those who hated him, which did not deter him.

We were sold down creek, and even those who don't have to worry about reelection, kissed up. MONEY talks, walks and has been elevated to do so even more.

she's listening to her donors not her constituents.

Sounds like a good inscription for a tombstone:

GOP
1856 - 2018
THEY LISTENED TO THEIR DONORS
NOT THEIR CONSTITUENTS

there was more public support for tax increase bills under Clinton and Bush senior than this tax cut bill.

Silver lining: seems the public may be waking up to the tactics of the GOP slime, if those pools are any indication.

She doesn't need no stinking constituents when she has her "donors."

It's high time the faux moderate nightmare is finally given the boot.

Hope we have some good ones!!

Troy would throw his hat into the ring for the Blaine house. But he would be great candidate for Sen. Collins seat, He seems to be popular in the second district.
Also great usèr name. We need to find celtsfan and bruinfan, also I hope they protect Brady this week and can beat the steelers

I thought he might give the second district seat another go but I'm actually glad he didn't as we have a great candidate in Jared Golden. Jackson has a few things going for him in 2020 if he challenges Collins 1) He's progressive and will likely get Bernie's endorsement 2) It's a presidential year and 3) As a logger from northern Maine, he can speak to the second district and blue collar workers. A King, Jackson, Pingree, Golden Maine delegation would be amazing.

Thank you! Great username to you as well. Any takers out there to complete the New England trifecta??
And Gronk is back this week! Woohoo.

We need to understand that almost any Democrat is better than any Republican, moderate or otherwise.

If there is not a bullshit third party candidate splitting the progressive vote

and no Democratic Party. True, they are sometimes successful as spoilers, but mostly they're a lot noisier than they are numerous and end up making little difference.

(Democrats, to put it mildly, are interested in both advancing party goals and stopping the Republicans. Abandoning those goals to take out their own candidates has very limited appeal.)

Anti-Democrat leftists also have a little tendency to self destruct by disagreeing among themselves, very similar to their inability to respect and get along with Democrats. I was checking them out the other day, and the Sanders revolution is so far fragmented into a number of competing groups.

Having lived in Portland when I was younger, I was more speaking about Maine. I am hard pressed to remember a time when challenged from the left a dem was able to win. It would often leave us with a “moderate republican” but in this case it gave the state a complete but job

interior is supposed to be pretty conservative and they've reelected Collins a couple times now. Also that terrible governor. Haven't heard about him in a while.

I can well believe that Portland might be different judging from some acquaintances who joined a flood of people moving to Maine in the 60s-70s. They were seeking a back-to-the-earth paradise, an "in" thing to do. I never heard how subsistence farming suited them. Who knows, might actually be growing all their own food on their own five acres, but having grown up poor myself I would be less than surprised if it didn't.

You've made me remember another summer's gone by without visiting. Always mean to.

toast

yup

Mainers aren't living large. I hope they're on her like ugly on an ape.

As much as we hate her for this vote. Deplorables hate her for the Obamacare vote, and not supporting Trump if Lepage or Poliquin challenge her.

but this bill could wreck the US economy causing untold suffering.

Not worth a political advantage.

brought the worse economic collapse sinse the Great Depression in 2008.

By 2010 enough voters forgot that to elect a GOP Congress.

Not the advantage you think it will be.

and ignoring the housing bubnle that caused it. Clinton allowing the end of Glass/Stegel did not help.
And as it was happening his team completely punted.

By 2010 voters were backing the same policies that caused it.

2 freaking yearrs.

Voters kept the GOP out of power for a generation after the Great Depression.

They have the memory of goldfish.

advantage and all we do as a country is sink deeper into the military industrial complex ruled by the 1%. Hell, even when we have the numbers, we are TOO FUCKING NICE to do anything with them.
I haven't given up, but damn, the cloud over my head darkens daily.

We have to sink them first.

We need preemptive stricks. We are too nice to them. We try and try, while they cheat and lie.

They are like executioners and not to be trusted, or underestimated. They would sell their mothers, kill children for lack of medical treatment or food, or commit treason, to win...and without any compunctions either.

"They would sell their mothers, kill children for lack of medical treatment or food, or commit treason, to win...and without any compunctions either."

to make thinks better for the super rich and not for the non rich.

This bill SUCKS, FUCKS, and even a big win in 2018 and 2020 is not going to change that bill.

I can almost see her strings being pulled, but don't know who's pulling them.

Nobody forces you run as a Republican in Maine.

They seriously would have to fear for their life from one of the lunatic base ...

Collins is good with her constituents. She's in deep with her voters. They are not the same. Voters are just a minor inconvenience suffered in election years. The real constituents "donors" are always there.

nope

nope

nope

I don't think her constituents are necessarily all that bright.

not getting a majority and still elected. Sounds familiar.

The people of Maine, as far as I can tell, are easy to fool, maybe representing the "Some people you can fool all of the time," crowd.

Of course, speaking of fools, I only know one person from Maine myself; he's made it to my "ignore" list.

I'm sure there are good people in Maine who I don't know, just as their are good people in say, Alabama, as we recently found out.

Still the fact is Maine has a nutty governor, as nutty as Roy Moore, and a useless Senator who does things like vote for Mitch McConnel to lead the Senate.

won the first with only 38%.

Maine is a crazy bi-polar State with very liberal places like Portland and very conservative upstate.

But it is not Alabama, they voted for Obama and Hillary.

She's the worst kind of Republican, one who pretends to be sane and is sometimes claimed to be sane.

She got better than 68% of the vote in Maine in her last election 2014. Her term, therefore ends in 2020. Why should she give a rat's ass about elections? She'll be 68 years old, and will have served 3 terms in the Senate representing Maine, twelve years.

Her last big win means, of course, that 68% of the voters in Maine are willing to vote for a Republican.

Collins obviously doesn't give a shit about her country or humanity. She is, after all, a Republican.

I was only stupid enough once in my life to even consider voting for a Republican - that would have been Jacob Javits - but in the end I just couldn't bring myself to doing it.

Somehow another that racist, corrupt ass Chris Christie once got 60% of the vote here in New Jersey.

We also had Meg Whitman who (permanently) destroyed our State finances with a specious tax cut.

Hopefully New Jersey can be forgiven for that awful man, Christie, although at the moment of re-election he'd spent time cozy with President Obama after Hurricane Sandy, and there was a lot of buyer's remorse leading him to the worst Gubernatorial poll rating in New Jersey history.

Of course there was that awful scene with him burying his nose in Trump's anal sphincter, but at least we can assume it was merely self-serving. He's a pig and and ass, but probably not as nuts as his pal Trump or, frankly, LePage.

Our new governor-elect is a Democrat however, and our Senators, while not necessarily great, are both Democrats. I don't think we've had a Republican Senator here for as long as I've lived here.

New Jersey does very badly choosing Governors, I will say, whether Democratic or Republican. The last decent Governor in this state was Jim Florio. He left office in the early 90's. One hopes Phil Murphy will do a better job than the rest of the heap and at least be roughly comparable to Florio, a very decent and good man.

I actually had a brief chance to chat with Florio and shake his hand after the New Jersey Scientist's march earlier this year, where he spoke to the crowd. He seemed to be wearing a bandage on his hand that looked like something from a recent IV treatment. I hope he's alright. He's old.

They are not all completely nuts.

and he's really horrible - even he tries (at times) to moderate Trump.....which, when you think about it, is really pretty amazing.

Who elected Christie.

Twice.

Susan Collins has made her own bed. Her constituents won't forget.

By Matthew Chapman | December 13, 2017
With a potential vote to raise taxes on the middle class days away, Susan Collins is refusing to even meet with her constituents.

With the GOP tax scam being debated in conference and set for a vote next week before Doug Jones can take office, all eyes are on Sen. Susan Collins of Maine.

Collins, a Republican, voted for the original Senate bill, which includes an individual mandate repeal similar to the one she voted down in July. She did so with the assurance that two other bipartisan bills would be passed to offset any coverage losses, even though neither bill would do any such thing — and Paul Ryan never committed to pass them anyway.

Collins’s constituents are furious and demanding to meet with her on the issue. But not only is she nowhere to be found — her staff actually locked protesters out of her Senate offices in Maine, in the middle of regular business hours.

According to one protester, over 50 people gathered at the office in below-freezing temperatures to make their voices heard, only to be met with a locked door and cold silence from their senator.

After a long wait, a member of Collins’s staff finally turned up — to threaten them with arrest:
***
more: https://shareblue.com/sen-collins-locks-office-doors-refuses-to-answer-to-constituents-on-secret-gop-tax-scam/




Looks like she's a true Repug after all.

coward

Earlier in the week, she said "no" to the tax SCAM but now it's a yes? What was the bribe?

replaced by Paul Lapage who is a total nut case. I grew up in Maine and was so shocked that someone like him was elected Governor -- twice.

of someone like Lapage getting elected as Senator in 2020 given the political climate in Maine. Where that state hates Lapage and just voted overwhelmingly to expand medicaid. More like if Collins were defeated in a primary by someone like Lapage that would just make it easier for Democrats to pick up the seat.

she will be in trouble. If she votes against it and every other republican votes for it then her vote is kind of meaningless. She could've helped to kill this thing last time she voted for it. If she would voted against it then just 1 more vote would've stopped it. Also if she would've came out against this thing from the start that would've gone a long way towards discouraging other republicans to vote for it. Just like every other republican she has never meet a tax cut for the rich she didn't like so she was looking for any excuse to vote for this thing from the start. Now that all of her excuses are gone she still hasn't come out against this thing. So she deserves to lose her seat in 2020.

Cant allow someone like that to believe her own bullshit cause she lives in her own bubble.

People are going to die, let her career be first.

She was supposed to be 'the one with a conscience." What a bunch of fucking horse shit.

I would pay money to see that asshole tarred and feathered. I would LOVE it.