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Jun 23, 2022 15 tweets 10 min read Read on X
In anticipation of Susan Collins inevitable PR offensive to mitigate the reputational damage of Roe getting reversed after she set herself out as a reliable last line of defense for abortion rights...some thoughts. #mepolitics 1/X
Though media reflexively called Collins "pro-choice" till recently, her abortion record has actually always been pretty mixed.

E.g. in 2000s she voted for the Unborn Victims of Violence Act and was silent re: a Bush admin rule meant to limit contraception access. #mepolitics 2/X
Collins also voted to put Alito on the Supreme Court even after it emerged he'd written a memo explicitly affirming that he didn't believe the Constitution protected the right to an abortion and that he was super proud of his efforts to kill Roe under Reagan. #mepolitics 3/X
For these reasons, Planned Parenthood took the unprecedented step of endorsing Collins challenger in 2008--the first time the org had taken sides against an incumbent it had previously supported.

In a release, @PPact described defeating Collins as "pivotal." #mepolitics 4/X
During the Obama years, Collins took some pro-choice votes...but she also voted to defund @PPact and waffled on whether she'd support a 20-week abortion ban (before ultimately voting against it), all the while funneling $400,000+ to anti-choice GOP candidates. #mepolitics 5/X
Under Trump, famed institutionalist Collins voted to scrap the filibuster for Sup Ct nominees to confirm Gorsuch, a judge handpicked by the right-wing, vehemently anti-choice @FedSoc, which viewed Roe's overturn as central to its mission. #mepolitics 6/X
She also put out a plan to ban abortion coverage on the Obamacare health exchanges, a curious move for a "pro-choice" senator since it would've cut off abortion coverage for tens of millions of Americans.

Planned Parenthood blasted the plan in scathing terms. #mepolitics 7/X
And then we come to Kavanaugh.

Before he was announced as Trump's pick, Collins said she wouldn't vote for any nominee hostile to Roe. But she never came close to explaining why Kav's public speeches/rulings clearly evincing such hostility weren't disqualifying. #mepolitics 8/X
Collins then played a key role in GOP efforts to denigrate Kavanaugh accuser Christine Blasey Ford, making elliptical attacks and e.g. amplifying an Alex Jones conspiracy theory re: Ford's yearbook to distract from Kavanaugh's gross behavior and his lies about it. #mepolitics 9/X
Ultimately, Collins threaded a political needle, positing Ford told the truth but was mistaken about the attacker.

This was icky but in blue Maine it was a keener rationale for backing Kav than saying she discounted Ford's claim--or didn't care about the issue. #mepolitics 10/X
With pro-choice/anti-choice groups and virtually all experts on all sides convinced Kav would vote to gut Roe, Collins then voted to confirm him.

She followed this with a fundraiser @FedSoc head Leonard Leo's home, where she mingled w/ bigwig anti-choice donors. #mepolitics 11/X
Almost as if to underscore her lack of enthusiasm for abortion rights, Collins then closed out her 2020 race by accepting the backing of Maine's leading hard-right, anti-choice org, whose leader disclosed that he/Collins had been in touch regularly for a decade. #mepolitics 12/X
Now, under Biden, in the face of a clear threat from the Supreme Court, Collins has repeatedly filibustered Dem efforts to safeguard abortion rights, complaining e.g. that the Dem bill would prevent states from forcing disinformation on those seeking abortions #mepolitics 13/X
Finally, just a couple weeks ago Collins went out of her way to talk up the presidential prospects of Tom Cotton, as strident a foe of abortion rights as there is in the Congress.

Collins suggested he was one of a handful of pols she's hoping will run in 2024. #mepolitics 14/X
If you look at this fact-pattern, developed over decades, and conclude that Susan Collins is a firmly pro-choice pol who accidentally stumbled into triggering the evisceration of abortion rights through a sloppy blunder...

...I don't know what to tell you. #mepolitics 15/15

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More from @CollinsWatch

Sep 29, 2022
Easy to loose the forest from the trees with this stuff, so here's a quick thread/timeline on the relationship between Susan Collins and Martin Kao, her biggest contributor to her 2020 campaign, who plead guilty of illegal donations to Collins yesterday. #mepolitics 1/X
1. Kao and his wife give the maximum legal contribution to Susan Collins campaign (early 2019)

2. Susan Collins helps Kao's company win an $8,000,000 contract with the Navy and joins him at a press event to celebrate (August 2019) #mepolitics 2/X
3. Kao writes to Susan Collins campaign and asks what more he can do to help (September 2019)

4. The campaign notes that he's given the maximum and so encourages him to get friends or family to contribute (September 16, 2019) #mepolitics 3/X
Read 7 tweets
Jul 28, 2019
A few weeks ago there was a telling incident that, while of no great consequence in the scheme of things, provides a behind-the-scenes look at the Collins spin apparatus and says a lot about the Maine media. Worth unpacking briefly. #mepolitics 1/X
On June 28 @KJ_Online ran a sharp, carefully-crafted letter from Cornelius Donovan V focusing on Susan Collins muted reaction to Trump administration anti-LGBT acts and policies. It was especially salient b/c it spoke to the fraudulence of Collins moderate brand. #mepolitics 2/X
@KJ_Online The letter got attn on social media (e.g. I tweeted it out) but then vanished from KJ's website. I asked editorial page editor @benbragdon why. He replied, "Part of the letter was inaccurate & shouldn’t have been printed. We’ll work w/ the writer to resolve it." #mepolitics 3/X
Read 15 tweets

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