Uncategorized
Maine Senate candidate comes under fire for Nazi-style tattoo
A Democrat running for the Senate in Maine is facing backlash after acknowledging that a black skull-and-crossbones tattoo on his chest resembles a Nazi symbol.
Graham Platner, a 41-year-old Marine veteran and oyster farmer, confirmed the tattoo’s existence on Monday, in an effort to get ahead of rumors sparked by an opposition research group after Platner was seen on video singing shirtless at his brother’s wedding.
“I am not a secret Nazi,” Platner said on the Pod Save America podcast, claiming to instead be “a lifelong opponent” of Nazism and antisemitism. Platner said he got the tattoo in 2007 while stationed in Croatia with fellow Marines.
“We picked a terrifying-looking skull and crossbones off the wall,” he said, implying he was unaware of any specific historic implications to the symbol. “It was a standard military thing.”
But a former acquaintance who knew Platner while attending George Washington University more than a decade ago told Jewish Insider that Platner himself identified the tattoo as a “Totenkopf,” the death’s head emblem used by a Nazi SS unit that guarded concentration camps during World War II. That acquaintance said Platner used the term during a 2012 conversation at a Capitol Hill bar where he then worked and socialized.
Platner insisted that he wasn’t aware the tattoo resembled a Nazi symbol until reporters began to recently ask him about it. “I absolutely would not have gone through life having this on my chest if I knew that, and to insinuate that I did is disgusting,” he said in a statement to Jewish Insider. “I am already planning to get this removed.”
However, his former political director, Genevieve McDonald, who resigned from his campaign last week, wrote in a Facebook post that she thought the candidate knew about the “antisemitic tattoo on his chest” before rumors began. “Maybe he didn’t know it when he got it,” she added, “but he got it years ago and he should have had it covered up because he knows damn well what it means.”
McDonald resigned after Reddit posts surfaced in which Platner made incendiary comments, including by defending a man with a Nazi SS lightning bolt tattoo who impersonated a federal officer at a Black Lives Matter protest in Las Vegas in 2020.
Platner is competing in a 10-person race against the longtime Republican incumbent Sen. Susan Collins, and is backed by Sen. Bernie Sanders, the Independent from neighboring Vermont.
Platner, who described himself as a “working-class populist,” enlisted in the Marines in 2003 and served tours in Iraq and Afghanistan. He later returned to Kabul for six months as a State Department security contractor with Constellis.
After that experience, he became outspoken in his criticism of United States defense spending, arguing that it served as “a mechanism for transferring taxpayer dollars into the private bank accounts of defense companies.” He said that his experience overseas “uniquely prepares him to fight back against the broken and corrupt foreign policy that consumes Washington.”
The candidate is also a strident critic of Israel. “There is a genocide happening in Palestine,” he wrote on X in August. Marking the second anniversary of the Oct. 7, 2023 Hamas attack, Platner wrote that the war in Gaza was “the moral test of our time” and said he is “committed to ending this U.S.-funded genocide in Palestine.” He also ran Facebook ads rejecting AIPAC.
His chief Democratic rival is Maine Gov. Janet Mills, who was endorsed on Tuesday by Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer.
The post Maine Senate candidate comes under fire for Nazi-style tattoo appeared first on The Forward.
Uncategorized
Trump Curious Why Iran Has Not ‘Capitulated’ Amid US Military Buildup, Says Witkoff
US Special Envoy Steve Witkoff delivers a press conference upon the signing of the declaration on deploying post-ceasefire force in Ukraine, during the so-called ‘Coalition of the Willing’ summit, at the Elysee Palace in Paris, France, Jan. 6, 2026. Photo: Ludovic Marin/Pool via REUTERS
US President Donald Trump is curious as to why Iran has not yet “capitulated” and agreed to curb its nuclear program, as Washington builds up its military capability in the Middle East, Trump’s special envoy Steve Witkoff said.
“I don’t want to use the word ‘frustrated,’ because he understands he has plenty of alternatives, but he’s curious as to why they haven’t… I don’t want to use the word ‘capitulated,’ but why they haven’t capitulated,” Witkoff said during an interview on Saturday with Fox News’ “My View with Lara Trump,” hosted by the president’s daughter-in-law.
“Why, under this pressure, with the amount of seapower and naval power over there, why haven’t they come to us and said, ‘We profess we don’t want a weapon, so here’s what we’re prepared to do’? And yet it’s sort of hard to get them to that place.”
Trump has ordered a huge buildup of forces in the Middle East and preparations for a potential multi-week air attack on Iran. Iran has threatened to strike US bases if it is attacked.
IRAN DENIES SEEKING NUCLEAR WEAPONS
The United States wants Iran to give up enriched uranium which Washington says can potentially be used to make a bomb, as well as stop supporting terrorists in the Middle East and accept limits to its missile program.
Tehran says its nuclear program is peaceful but it is willing to accept some curbs on it in return for the lifting of financial sanctions. It rejects tying this to other issues such as missiles and support for armed groups.
“They’ve been enriching well beyond the number that you need for civil nuclear. It’s up to 60 percent [fissile purity],” Witkoff said. “They’re probably a week away from having industrial, industrial-grade bomb-making material, and that’s really dangerous.”
A senior Iranian official told Reuters on Sunday that Iran and the United States still have differing views over sanctions relief in talks.
Witkoff also said he has met at Trump’s direction with Iranian opposition figure Reza Pahlavi, son of the shah ousted in Iran’s 1979 Islamic Revolution. He did not provide further details of the meeting.
Pahlavi, who lives in exile, served as a rallying figure for some of Iran’s opposition during anti-government demonstrations last month in which thousands of people are believed to have been killed, the worst domestic unrest since the revolution era.
Earlier in February, Pahlavi said US military intervention in Iran could save lives, and urged Washington not to spend too long negotiating with Tehran’s clerical rulers on a nuclear deal.
Uncategorized
US-Iran Talks Expected Friday if Iran Sends Nuclear Proposal Soon, Axios Reports
Atomic symbol and USA and Iranian flags are seen in this illustration taken, September 8, 2022. Photo: REUTERS/Dado Ruvic/Illustration/File Photo
United States negotiators are ready to hold another round of talks with Iran on Friday in Geneva if they receive a detailed Iranian proposal for a nuclear deal in the next 48 hours, Axios reported on Sunday, citing a senior US official.
Reuters could not immediately verify the report.
Uncategorized
Khamenei Designates Larijani to Lead Iran’s Affairs During Protests, Military Threats
Iran’s Supreme National Security Council Secretary Ali Larijani speaks after meeting with Lebanese Parliament Speaker Nabih Berri, in Beirut, Lebanon, Aug. 13, 2025. Photo: REUTERS/Aziz Taher
i24 News – Iran’s Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei has reportedly assigned significant authority to former Revolutionary Guards commander and longtime political figure Ali Larijani in response to rising US and Israeli military threats, as well as nationwide unrest, according to a report by The New York Times.
The newspaper cites Iranian officials, members of the Revolutionary Guards, and former diplomats, noting that Khamenei has issued detailed instructions on succession and emergency decision-making should he be targeted in a potential strike.
Larijani, currently a top national security official, has been tasked with managing state affairs, overseeing the crackdown on protests, coordinating sensitive nuclear discussions with Washington, and liaising with allied nations including Russia, Qatar, and Oman.
“Larijani has been entrusted with responsibilities that cover both domestic security and international relations, effectively acting as Khamenei’s right-hand man during this period of heightened tension,” the report states.
Officials say Khamenei has prepared multiple layers of succession for key political and military positions and delegated powers to a close circle of confidants. While Larijani is not considered a likely successor to the Supreme Leader due to insufficient religious credentials, he is described as one of the regime’s most trusted crisis managers.
Iran has reportedly placed its armed forces on high alert, deployed missile systems near Iraq and in the Persian Gulf, and intensified military exercises. Special forces, intelligence units, and Basij militia battalions are prepared to deploy to major cities to suppress unrest and monitor suspected foreign operatives if conflict escalates.
The move comes amid continued diplomatic engagement over Tehran’s nuclear program. Despite ongoing negotiations, officials say Iran is operating under the assumption that a U.S. military strike is “inevitable and imminent.”
According to the report, Larijani tops the list of emergency successors, followed by Parliament Speaker General Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf, with former president Hassan Rouhani also named as a potential fallback in extraordinary circumstances.