Meet ‘Working-Class Mainer’ Graham Platner’s Oyster Farming Business Partner, an Elite Boarding School Graduate Who Owns the Island Where the Farm Is Based
Plus, Dem plastic surgeon running for Congress denounced as ‘creep’ who left patients scarred, disfigured
Maine’s far-left Democratic Senate nominee, Graham Platner, has leaned on his career as a “working-class” oyster farmer to cast himself as a blue-collar everyman. His Ivy League business partner is, well, anything but. Meet Robert Cushman III, an elite New England boarding school graduate who has described his habit of drinking “foraged spring water with Redmond sea salt” and reminisced about a “liminal seafood experience” he had in Maine when he was “about four.” He was born in Africa and raised in Canada by a Harvard-educated doctor and public health official and, based on his public statements, appears to be one of the most unlikable people on the planet.
After attending the ultra-elite St. Paul’s School in New Hampshire—which costs upwards of $80,000 a year and is the subject of the 2012 book Privilege: The Making of an Adolescent Elite at St. Paul’s School—Cushman studied religion at Dartmouth and then received a master’s degree in food from Tufts. But Cushman provides more to the farm than his advanced degree. His family owns Ingalls Island, which is located about 10 minutes southwest of Platner’s home in the town of Sullivan and is effectively home to Platner’s oyster farm.
Platner’s 2021 aquaculture lease application, obtained by the Free Beacon, shows three small farming sites located just off of the island’s shores. Platner testified during the application process that he “has a relationship” with the island’s owners and “has communicated his proposed plans with them.” Another member of the Cushman family submitted testimony “identifying herself as a riparian landowner who supported” Platner’s application. That matters because Maine’s Department of Marine Resources takes into account feedback from such landowners when awarding aquaculture leases and has considered limiting them due to pushback from “homeowners who don’t want to see aquaculture sites from their waterfront properties.” That’s not a concern for Platner thanks to Cushman.
“While Platner says he has ‘lived a fairly simple life’ and ‘never been close to money and power’ (despite attending an elite New England prep school), Cushman’s lifestyle sounds more like that of a multimillionaire Silicon Valley founder than someone who ‘enjoys the physical and mental demands of working on the water,’ as the oyster farm’s website states,” the Free Beacon’s Collin Anderson, Peter Hasson, and Alana Goodman write. “Cushman has described his morning routine as follows: ‘I start by hydrating with foraged spring water with Redmond sea salt then seek out direct sunlight or red light (EMR-TEK). If I can, I then do some Wim Hof breath-work in a SaunaSpace followed by a cold shower. If it’s summer, then I take a cold plunge in my modified chest freezer. All this is followed by a somewhat experimental coffee recipe and meditation, journaling and reading.’”
Together, Platner and Cushman “appear to lead what is more of a boutique hobby farm … than a business that pays the bills.” Platner’s top oyster client, according to his personal financial disclosure, is the Ironbound Restaurant and Inn, a “casual fine dining restaurant” owned by Platner’s mother.
The New Jersey plastic surgeon and pal of the Blind Sheikh now running for Congress has left a string of patients with lifelong burns, scars, and other disfigurements, according to multiple allegations against his medical practice. The surgeon, the far-left candidate Adam Hamawy, has been endorsed by Bernie Sanders and Ilhan Omar and is the leading fundraiser in a crowded Democratic primary in New Jersey’s 12th district. It appears that at least some of his former patients won’t be voting for him. “In addition to being hit by a lawsuit, Hamawy’s plastic surgery practice has been buffeted by a wave of negative Yelp reviews, some going back almost a decade—well before he became prominent politically,” our Jon Levine writes.
In one harrowing Yelp review, a Princeton Junction woman said she was left permanently burned after seeing Hamawy for a routine hair removal treatment. “It has been six months since this unfortunate experience and I still have large scars,” the woman wrote. “Dr. Hamawy has still not called a single time to follow up.” Another patient said Hamawy rushed a filler procedure, injecting it “in the wrong areas.” When she tried to have the issue resolved, she was told Hamawy was unavailable as he’d left for Gaza, where he volunteered at a hospital that sat on top of a Hamas command center. A third patient, Nicole F. in Monroe Township, said Hamawy was a “creep” with “awful bedside manner, and the worst attitude ever!”
Complaints against Hamawy have also made their way to the courts. A retired academic support staff member at Princeton University sued Hamawy over a botched neck left and chemical peel that she said brought “severe and permanent injuries.” The lawsuit was dismissed in 2022 after the parties settled for an undisclosed amount. “We settled because I had moved from New Jersey to Florida, and it was kind of becoming a problem going back and forth and having the right documentation,” the plaintiff, Annamarie Scarpati, told the Free Beacon. “I wouldn’t recommend him to anybody else, because I don’t think he did right by me,” she added, saying she was “shocked” to hear Hamawy was running for Congress.
“In addition to providing medical services at a Hamas command center in Gaza, Hamawy also served as a defense witness in the 1995 trial of terrorist mastermind Omar Abdel-Rahman,” Levine writes. “The so-called Blind Sheikh was later convicted and sentenced to life in prison for his role in orchestrating the 1993 bombings of the World Trade Center bombings and planning a host of other terrorist attacks.”
Elsewhere:
Iran delivered its response to the U.S. proposal to end the war to Pakistani mediators on Sunday, according to Pakistan’s prime minister, Shehbaz Sharif, who said he could not “go further into details.” Around the same time, President Donald Trump posted a statement to Truth Social blasting the Iranian regime, which he said “finally found the greatest SUCKER of them all” in former president Barack Obama and “will be laughing no longer!” He later called the Iranian response “TOTALLY UNACCEPTABLE!”
As those negotiations unfold, Iran’s new supreme leader, Mojtaba Khamenei, “is noticeably MIA and silent on the talks,” according to the Wall Street Journal, which reported that the “only thing[s] Iranians have heard or seen from their new leader” since Khamenei was injured in the February airstrike that killed his father, Ali Khamenei, “are messages purportedly written by him and images that appeared to be modified or generated by artificial intelligence.”
Remember when the likes of Politico and MS NOW suggested in the wake of Virginia Democrats’ narrow gerrymandering election win that Republicans had lost the redistricting war? The roles have reversed now that Virginia’s Supreme Court ruled that Democrats violated the state constitution when they put the referendum on the ballot. The court nullified the election, an outcome that Democrats pretended to be shocked over but was in fact a distinct possibility when the election happened. “Republicans just won the redistricting war—and boosted their slim hopes for holding the House,” Politico reported.
In a conversation with NOTUS on what should change about D.C. journalism, a former Washington Post Berlin bureau chief identified… “mandatory semiannual sabbaticals” as his cause célèbre. “I remember once taking a vacation with my family, then returning to work during Senate confirmation hearings. … With a modicum of outside perspective, I was able to ask: Why does this matter?” Yes, if we all just had a little more time off, trust in media would bounce right back.
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Sounds like typical Democrat party candidates.
“Working class” do NOT own prime coastal real estate in Maine, especially not an oyster farm.