#susan-collins

[wilwheaton]

Maine GOP Sen. Collins Says Trump Removal From Ballot 'Should Be Overturned'

Maine's secretary of state announced she'd determined Trump was ineligible to appear on the ballot under the 14th Amendment's provision barring insurrectionists from holding office

Susan Collins is a Vichy piece of shit.

What a garbage human she is.

[sethshead]

Susan Collins Knew Exactly What She Was Doing

She helped dismantle Roe v. Wade. Why is she pretending to be shocked by its demise?

Collins’ record in the Senate is speckled with ostensibly bold moves that, upon closer examination, function more like feints. She helped save the Affordable Care Act by casting a decisive vote against the Republican Party’s attempted repeal, then turned around and voted to repeal the individual mandate. She voted against Betsy DeVos for Trump’s secretary of education—but only after voting to greenlight the nomination in committee and send it to a full vote. She made a strong defense of Planned Parenthood when she voted against the ACA repeal, then defamed Planned Parenthood in her support of Kavanaugh, erroneously accusing the group of mounting knee-jerk, partisan campaigns against previous justices.

She has taken some seemingly principled steps to protect the country from the worst of her own party, but only once her ineffectuality was guaranteed. Her vote to convict Trump after his second impeachment trial came with the knowledge that the Senate would not meet the two-thirds threshold required to convict. Ditto the bill she introduced in February with Sen. Lisa Murkowski, which would codify the protections of Roe in U.S. law. The Senate does not have a filibuster-proof supermajority in favor of abortion rights, so the bill is going nowhere. Collins knows that—and she only proposed the bill in response to a more progressive, comprehensive abortion rights bill introduced by Democrats.

[...]

This has long been the Collins M.O.: Purport to expect the best from fellow conservatives who have already shown their worst, then act bemused and disappointed when they behave exactly as they’ve demonstrated they would. Collins’ definition of political moderation is participating in the dismantling of democratic norms and the infrastructure of human rights, then performing mild displeasure when they proceed to fall apart.

What worries me most is that Maine voters are in on Collins’s charade and approve of it. That they prefer the image of moderation over taking a stand when it counts. This is, after all, the state of Paul LePage, the Teabagging populist reactionary firebrand who won election as governor twice. When push comes to shove, Maine voters will not infrequently prefer the right-wing path. A Susan Collins offers some plausible deniability.

[delcisco]

How Will the Senate Get Away With Its Sham Trial Now?

As more evidence pours out, Mitch McConnell’s position becomes increasingly untenable.

[spinelessdemsandwhinyrepublicans]

A Democratic Senator Just Endorsed GOP Sen. Susan Collins for Reelection in Maine, a Key Battleground State

“I would go up and campaign for Susan Collins. If she wanted me to, I would campaign for Susan Collins."

Joe Manchin is no Democrat.

[saywhat-politics]

Susan Collins’ Pro-Kavanaugh Speech Was an Insult to Americans’ Intelligence

An astonishingly hypocritical, bad-faith embarrassment.

[sentinelleblr]

Susan Collins’ Pro-Kavanaugh Speech Was an Insult to Americans’ Intelligence

An astonishingly hypocritical, bad-faith embarrassment.

“ Collins praised her allies, discredited her opponents, and dismissed the concerns of her constituents. She did not sound like a statesperson carefully weighing a crucial decision. She sounded like a partisan hack. “