#Don Bolduc

[britneyshakespeare]

LET'S GOOOOOOO

new hampshire hotties if maggie hassan wins the senate race tomorrow we are poppin biggest bottles

[jovialtorchlight]

The Cursed Halls of Carcosa

By Jonny Bolduc

If you are reading this letter, you want to know about Carcosa? You want to know about the gate? You want to know about the fate of doomed travelers ambling in the dim halls? I can oblige the regaling of the tale. 

There were three of us. George Irish, a strong, competent man of about fifty with grayed hair and a long red beard. Emily Wellspring, a spry, energetic woman who caused a stir in gentle society after she worked for a few nights as the only female ditch digger in London. That did not last long. Now, she roamed around the city, taking whatever work she could find.

What fools we were. Of course, our instructions were clear, with little room for mistakes. Traverse the first few halls of the catacombs, marking the walls with charcoal etchings as we turned.  

Later, as I followed George close enough to breath upon his neck, desperately latching to the dim light of the lantern like a moth to a flame, I cursed the day I signed the contract obligating me to undertake this wretched endeavor.  But in the beginning, it was sold well to me. Let me take you to the start of this descent.  

A week ago, Reginald Garrish, a rotund man dressed in a fine black coat, who claimed to be employed by Howard Black, Esquire treated me to a lavish night of wine and merriment,  and in the stupor of overindulgence, obliged me to scrawl a drunken signature and accept a small pouch of 40 shillings, binding me to the task of diving into the uncharted subterranean catacombs beneath Black’s sprawling estate in search of his missing boy, Barnaby. 

"The only trace we've got," Reginald said halfway through the raucous evening, his voice slipping from the faux haughty accent he so clearly rehearsed and falling into a workyard rasp, "is this little trumpet he used to toot about. Discovered it in the mausoleum, near the stairs that take you down to them crypts."

And so, when we first took the crumbling stone depths down, away from the light of the midmorning, we saw plenty of signs that the boy had been wandering; a half eaten bonbon, wrappers; a half consumed cigar and some spent matches the boy had stolen from some adult. The hall continued straight, long, descending down further and further into the earth, growing colder and dimmer. 

“Just stay close to me,” George uttered earlier in the morning as we donned cloaks and filled our canteens from the well. “We won’t be long in the labyrinth. We are merely scouting.”

George, of course, took the lead of the procession. 

“We must have walked one thousand steps,” George said about an hour into our journey. “How far down do these depths reach?”

A step later, and the dimming light revealed the end to the steps. A carved hallway in the stone, branching off in two directions. On the descent, the sides of the crypt had been bare and smooth; now, at the landing, our lanterns illuminated carved nooks in the walls, on which rested  the desiccated remains of ancient corpses, a body on either side, dusty skeletons resting with arms folded. One skeleton in once ornate, now moth-eaten silks of red, the other clad in yellow. A peaceful rest, it seemed then. 

George stopped to ponder at the split of the catacomb. There was no reason or clear danger at this intersection; we of course knew that this crypt would be full of the dead. But something inside of me screamed at the thought of pausing too long, some internal voice protested, urging me to move, to keep moving, and never to stop. 

I glanced behind. In the few hours I knew her, Emily never really stopped moving; she was animated by some internal engine, constantly bouncing or fidgeting. Now, though, she seemed still, ridgid even. A slight movement caught my peripheral vision; I swung my head around to the corpse in yellow rags. Of course, it hadn’t moved. 

Of course. 

After a moment, George decided to take the corridor on the left. The light was dim, and staring off into the hall, George thought he could see some article of clothing strewn on the ground about twenty feet out. George limped, dragging his foot as if injured, though I knew better. I had known George in passing; a former night-guard upended from his duty by a lingering knee injury who often took unscrupulous jobs or favors. I had also heard pubside murmerings that George faked his  injured knee to avoid his contracted duties. And for the first thousand steps, he had no limp or wavering steps. Now, though, he trembled as he walked, as if his imagined injuries were realized.

And so we walked, and the clump of clothing was revealed to be a shadow cast upon the sides of the catacombs. Rather than preserved bodies, resting upon the carved tables were piles of bones, as if remains had been indiscriminately dumped on the shelves of the catacombs. After a few minutes, George stopped suddenly, and plunged his arms into a bone pile, emerging with a skull. 

I had no real time to protest this, though I would have made it clear that I did not think it wise. Some dread, some superstition was building in my stomach. George emerged with a skull. Taking charcoal from his bag, he marked large “X” on the cranium of the dusty skull, and set it gently down on the cool floor of the catacombs. 

“There,” he grunted, “We’ll be able to find our way back.”

Neither Emily nor I spoke. We kept walking. The light grew dimmer, and dimmer still. 

Over the next hour, George pulled three more skulls, marking them with charcoal. 

Emily, silent, trailed the two of us. I heard a clatter; turning on my heels I saw Emily, sprawled out on the floor. 

“Damn,” she muttered, hoisting herself up. As she regained her standing, we saw the cause of her stumbling; a humerus, knocked from the shelves, strewn across the narrow hall. I noticed that she was not holding her lantern. 

“Oh,” she said, quietly, staring at the catacomb beside her. Somehow, as she fell, the lantern sailed from her hand onto the shelves, and was now covered by loose bone. 

She and myself stared at the lantern. Some voice inside of me begged, pleaded in the whimper of a child not to reach into and graze my hands upon the bone. Emily likewise stood motionless, blue eyes wide. With hands trembling, she reached into the pit of bone and pulled up her lantern. 

“George,” she whispered, “swing the light this way.”

As George did so, the fire cast light upon Emily’s hand, holding the lantern. She let out a high and cutting scream, and I let out a grunt of terror as the light revealed the disgusting truth. 

I was as if Emily had stuck her hand into a fire; her flesh bubbling with pus, red, skin peeled. George came close, and hurriedly wet a rag from his small leather pack, holding it to Emily’s skin as her lantern clanged upon the stone floor.

“It doesn’t hurt,” Emily whispered, frantically, as if enemies were listening in on her words. “Tell me, why doesn’t it hurt?”

“Shock, perhaps,” George muttered as he wrapped her hand. “It’s a bad burn. Something must have happened with the lantern’s fuel.”

“We need to turn around,” I declared. “We need to get her to a doctor.”

As if in reply, a scream, muffled by distance, rang out. The scream of a child. Emily jerked her hand from George, and cradled it, wincing, as if the scream somehow cut her, or at least opened her mind to the pain of her burns. 

“God, it hurts!” she whispered into the darkness. George had already turned around and started to hurriedly amble towards the sound. 

“George!” I said. “She needs a doctor!”

“Was that not the boy?” George said, not turning around. ”Her burn, though grotesque, will be fine. The boy could be in danger.”

We hurried after him, and I realized later, when the terror latched onto us like an engorged tick, that Emily had left her lantern behind.

We walked, in a tight procession, George with his lantern held high to illuminate us all. The dark tunnel had not again diverged into an intersection, but still, three or four times, George pulled a skull from the pile to mark it with charcoal. It seemed as if another hour passed, walking through the long, dark halls.

Eventually, I grew concerned. I heard Emily’s footsteps behind me, and I could sense that she was following close behind, but the young woman who had talked vigorously before the descent,  teeming with adventure and life had uttered only a few fleeting words since descending into this abominable crypt.  

“Emily,” I whispered, half turned to remain close to George, and to also read her face–which was, as I saw,  empty, dreamlike, as if she were sleepwalking. “Do you still feel no pain?”

She nodded, her mouth agape. She cracked a smile. 

“I feel wonderful,” she said, her words slow and slurred. “We plod along the dark path towards the city on stilts.” 

“George,” I whispered, low, teeming with intensity. George had to know that the pain of the burn, in tandem with the oppressive darkness of the crypt, was settling into Emily’s mind. “We've had no sign of the boy for over an hour. We need to turn around.”

George swung around, the lantern light illuminating his pale, narrow face and unkempt beard, lips pressed together, grinding his teeth, eyes sunk back deep into the socket. 

“That which I have seen on this dreaded path set deep into my consciousness,” he started, slowly, as if a furnace kicking on after a season of sleep. “I heard the slicing whispers the dark ahead, speaking in ancient and vulgar tongue about the dread path. I have seen purple shadows with proportions impossible cast upon the dark stone of the crypt wall. I have seen those bones cast upon the stone of the earth and ground to dust.  We cannot turn back. Carcosa calls.” 

My stomach dipped. Handling one person driven to madness would be an impossible task; guiding two panicked souls from darkness to light seemed ruinous. We walked in silence, until George finally stopped. 

“Companions,” George uttered, his dry voice crackling like a fire in the dark. “Do not falter from the light of my lantern, for these corridors seem..” His voice trailed, swallowed by the heavy dark. 

I looked past him. He was right. Previously, the catacombs had been wide enough for two to walk side by side. The hall narrowed, and instead of remains strewn indiscriminately in piles, ancient corpses stood straight up, mounted into chiseled indents in the walls, posed with ceremonial swords and carvings. 

“George,” I whispered, “How much oil is left in the lantern?”

George turned to me, lips stretched, yellowed teeth exposed, locked into a grimace of pain. With one hand, George gripped my shoulders; in surprise, I tried to throw him off. His other hand dropped the lantern, clattering it on the floor; still it remained lit, casting a dim light upon the low stone ceiling of the tomb. The darkness was so oppressive, so consuming, so encompassing that it was if we were mosquitos encased in amber resin. As George pulled me in close, towards the cast light, I felt his impossibly tight grip on my shoulder. He pulled me so that we were practically nose to nose. 

“It is too late for me, Jonathan,” he said. His breath reeked, as if his organs and guts were rotting; a tooth fell from his mouth and clattered on the floor next to the lantern. “For I have seen the rotting well of midnight and I have been drowned. I have seen the last hour of the world played out in the shadows upon these walls; I have seen the yellow robes tattered, rising up from the detritus of our ashen, burned cities. The river will flood the bank, and my bloated body will drift down a river of filth towards dread Carcosa.”

The side of George’s face was illuminated. It was sopping wet, streams of dark, oily liquid running down from the top of his head to his mouth . He cried out, blubbering, spitting up water, like someone was holding his face in a bucket. His clothes dripped onto the floor.    A chunk of his red hair, dripping wet, coated with slime, plopped onto the floor. His skin bloated, inflated with drowning.  A chunk of black, necrotic skin slopped off the arm that gripped me, landing on the floor with a slap. His shirt rapidly decayed, black mold lining the fabric, coated in discharge, clutch still firm on my arm. 

“The river will flood the bank,” George cried, skin falling off in chunks, slapping against the cavern floor like a rainstorm of meat on a tin roof.

I was finally able to break free of his grip. As his skin fell from his legs, he fell face down into a pile of his own skin, and his movement ceased. I grabbed the lantern, and turned to Emily. She stood, swaying.

“Emily!” I shouted. “If you are present, if you can hear me, we must leave this cursed place!”

She did not respond. Gingerly stepping over the remains of George, I decided to see if I could move her arms like a puppet master. I wrapped them around my waist, and started walking, hoping that somewhere in her deepest consciousness she could decide to save herself. And she did. She walked along with me, her hands wrapped tightly around my waist, keeping my step.  

Part of my panicked mind posited that it did not matter what way we chose to leave. Every turn, every step spelled doom. But it seemed as if we may stand a chance if we turned around the way we came. So in that way I walked, only for a few moments, before the lantern flickered and went out. 

Curiously, it was that darkness that saved me. In the darkness, I could see no shadows cast upon the wall. I could not see the rusted gate swinging wide, leading to Carcosa.  I walked, with Emily close behind, through the darkness, staying straight and true. We walked that way for a time, before I stepped on something that crunched beneath my boot like a plate. 

“A charcoal skull,” I muttered. “We are on the right path.”

And so we continued. I hugged the walls, and every so often, I stepped on a skull in the darkness. With each skull, improbable hope rose up from a deep internal well. I thought that Emily and I would perhaps see the end of this cursed maze; and that hope became ecstasy when I realized that the hall had turned to steps. 

“Not longer now, Emily,” I muttered. And climbing the steps in the black was difficult, and slow moving. But we rose, slowly. Eventually, light cast from the opening of the tomb illuminated us, however dim. And as if a cosmic puppet on a string, as soon as I saw that light, I tripped, and fell backwards, onto Emily. 

But I did not feel the flesh of a human body when I fell. No, indeed, madness swells in me as I recall. I felt the crunch of bone. I rolled over, and a scream of fear escaped me. I glimpsed a skeletal face, mummified, clad in a crown of iron, twisted and bent in impossible angles; scrambling backwards, I saw the scalloped yellow robes that I now know belong to the King. Propelling myself backwards, the monster raised a feeble hand up at me.

 Like a spider, I threw myself backwards, kicking away from it, eventually righting myself. I bounded up the steps, not looking behind, and as I threw myself out of the tomb, rolling upon the grass, seeing the sun peak through the gray clouds, I was not relieved. Instead, I thought only about dread Carcosa.

You may see me wandering these dark and dim streets, begging for alms. In my mind, I am still stuck in the tomb, clutched by the King in Yellow, dragged towards dread Carcosa. I never again heard mention of Reginald or Howard Black.

But if you look in my eyes and see ghostly shadows cast upon the iris, friend, know that George and Emily live in me, screaming, thrashing to escape the clutch of the King in Yellow and trying to leave the dread Carcosa, the city on stilts. They were claimed by the tomb. They were dragged through the gate and now are captives in the dreaded city of Carcosa.

And if you are reading this letter, know that I am meandering towards the crypt I emerged from seven years ago. Know that I am going to jump into the black oil and listlessly drift towards Carcosa. Know that I will descend back down into madness. I will become the voice of the King in Yellow. I will unleash his will upon this cursed and hanging earth.

[dontmeantobepoliticalbut]

Donald Trump saddled Republicans with a clearly flawed Herschel Walker as their Senate nominee in Georgia, but in the final weeks before the runoff election, the ex-president has not spent a single dime to help Walker — despite the nearly $100 million of donor money he is sitting on.

Some 100 groups have poured $69 million into the Dec. 6 runoff between Walker and Democratic Sen. Raphael Warnock, according to a HuffPost analysis of Federal Election Commission filings through Thursday.

Ten have spent at least seven figures, led by the pro-Warnock Georgia Honor super PAC with $19.4 million and Senate GOP leader Mitch McConnell’s Senate Leadership Fund with $15.3 million.

But groups controlled by the coup-attempting former president, who cajoled Walker to get into the race in the first place, essentially clearing the field for the former football star, have not reported spending anything at all — that despite Trump likely having $94 million on hand between his Save America “leadership” PAC and his Make America Great Again Inc. super PAC.

“He’s not going to spend it. He doesn’t care,” said Martha Zoller, a former adviser to Georgia’s popular GOP Gov. Brian Kemp. “People are really resentful of how Trump has handled all of this.”

Trump staff did not respond to HuffPost’s queries.

Trump also has not staged a rally for Walker since prior to the Georgia primary in May — leading to a stark contrast between him and former Democratic President Barack Obama, who appeared with Warnock prior to the general election and again Thursday evening, five days before the runoff.

Trump has vilified Obama through the years, beginning with the racist lie that he was ineligible to run for president because he was not born in the United States, and later falsely accusing him of “spying” on him and his presidential campaign.

Informal advisers to Trump, who spoke on condition of anonymity, said he likely saw polling suggesting that a visit to Georgia would hurt Walker more than help him because so many Democrats and independent voters despise Trump so intensely. Additionally, a Walker loss would then be blamed on Trump, which would further hurt Trump’s recently announced attempt to return to the presidency in 2024.

Trump, though, has not even reported spending on get-out-the-vote efforts, which would not risk bringing negative publicity to Walker.

“I’m thankful he’s not coming. We don’t need him here,” Zoller said of Trump.

Trump injected himself into the 2022 midterm elections by pushing candidates based on their willingness to spread his lies that the 2020 election was stolen from him. Those candidates typically won their Republican primaries, but many, particularly those running statewide, lost to Democrats in November. Among them: Senate candidates Mehmet Oz in Pennsylvania, Blake Masters in Arizona, Adam Laxalt in Nevada, and Don Bolduc in New Hampshire; and governor’s race nominees Kari Lake in Arizona, Tim Michels in Wisconsin, Doug Mastriano in Pennsylvania and Dan Cox in Maryland.

Erick Erickson, a conservative talk radio host based in Georgia, said he’s sensing that Republicans are tired of losing and tired of Trump. “I think more and more of the GOP is starting to move away from Trump after the midterms,” he said. “They ultimately want to win. Trump and his candidates aren’t the winners they claimed to be. So it’s time to move on.”

The midterm losses come just two years after Trump effectively sabotaged both Georgia U.S. Senate seats for Republicans by claiming that the elections in that state were “rigged.” That depressed GOP turnout in the Jan. 5, 2021, runoffs, allowing both Democrats to win and handing control of the Senate to New York Sen. Chuck Schumer.

In that election, Warnock won the right to serve out the final two years of Republican Johnny Isakson’s term, after Isakson resigned in 2019, by defeating Kelly Loeffler, who had been appointed by Kemp to serve until the 2020 election.

Tuesday’s runoff will determine who will fill that seat for the next six years.

Trump is under investigation by the Department of Justice for his role in Jan. 6, including the scheme to submit to the National Archives fraudulent slates of electors from states that voted for Democrat Joe Biden as a way to pressure then-Vice President Mike Pence to award Trump a second term. A separate probe is investigating Trump’s removal of highly classified documents from the White House and subsequent refusal to hand them over, even in defiance of a subpoena.

In addition to the federal criminal investigations, a Georgia prosecutor is looking at Trump and his allies’ attempts to coerce state officials into falsely declaring him the winner in that state.

Trump, despite losing the election by 7 million votes nationally and 306-232 in the Electoral College, became the first president in more than two centuries of elections to refuse to hand over power peacefully. His incitement of the Jan. 6, 2021, assault on the Capitol ― his last-ditch attempt to remain in office ― led to the deaths of five people, including one police officer, the injury of 140 officers and four police suicides.

At rallies and in statements on his personal social media platform, Trump has continued to lie about the election and the Jan. 6 House Select Committee’s work, calling it a “hoax” similar to previous investigations into his 2016 campaign’s acceptance of Russian assistance and his attempted extortion of Ukraine into helping his 2020 campaign.

[mariacallous]

Last week, when Joe Biden remarked that democracy would be “on the ballot” in the midterms, he was criticized by some for not focussing on other issues. However, his warning was well founded. In this year’s elections, according to a tally by Bright Line Watch, a group of political scientists that monitors democratic practices and the potential threats to them, between thirty-one per cent and fifty-five per cent of all G.O.P. candidates for Congress or top statewide office had expressed support for the unfounded claim that the 2020 Presidential election was stolen from Donald Trump. Candidates for attorney general were the least likely to endorse the stolen-election claim, whereas candidates for the U.S. House were the most likely. The election deniers included Republicans running for the U.S. Senate, the House of Representatives, governorships, and for state offices that oversee the election process—usually secretaries of state.

In addition to the risk of election deniers gaining power, there were concerns that right-wing militia groups could interfere with voting. In parts of Arizona, vigilantes bearing arms and wearing tactical gear lingered near voting drop boxes, prompting a federal judge to order the members of one right-wing group, Clean Elections USA, to stay at least seventy-five feet away from the boxes and refrain from carrying firearms or wearing body armor. Another legitimate concern was that some defeated Republican candidates might mimic Trump and refuse to accept the results, prompting a rerun of 2020, albeit on a smaller scale.

Despite all these threats, democracy prevailed. In many closely watched races, voters repudiated Republican proponents of the Big Lie. Despite logistical issues in a few places, voting and vote-counting went ahead largely without incident. And, in something of a surprise, many of the defeated election deniers have publicly acknowledged that they lost. “The basic institutions of democracy held,” Brendan Nyhan, a political scientist at Dartmouth who is a co-director of Bright Line Watch, told me. “We had another round of free and fair elections, and the major institutions of state haven’t been taken over by election deniers.”

Among the prominent Big Lie losers were the U.S. Senate candidates Don Bolduc (New Hampshire) and, it seems likely, Blake Masters (Arizona), along with the gubernatorial candidates Doug Mastriano (Pennsylvania), Tudor Dixon (Michigan), and Tim Michels (Wisconsin). In Michigan, Minnesota, and New Mexico, election deniers lost in races for secretary of state, and their vocal counterpart in Arizona, Mark Finchem, appears to be heading for a defeat, too, although that race remains undecided. Joanna Lydgate, who heads the nonpartisan election group States United Action, told the Times, “The voters stepped up to defend democracy.”

That they did, and they also delivered a message to the unrepresentative and far-right Supreme Court, which took it upon itself to overturn Roe v. Wade. In California, Michigan, and Vermont, voters approved amendments to their state constitutions that would guarantee abortion rights. In Kentucky, which Trump carried by more than twenty-five points in 2020, voters rejected a constitutional amendment in the opposite direction, which would have ended protections for abortion. Regardless of one’s view on Roe, these ballot measures indicated that the institutions of U.S. democracy are doing what they are supposed to do—giving the citizenry a voice.

In sum, Tuesday’s election showed that American democracy is in better shape than some people feared. But there were also some less encouraging developments. In the U.S. Senate races in Ohio and Wisconsin, J. D. Vance and Ron Johnson, two Republicans who have questioned the 2020 result and toadied to Trump, both prevailed. In some deep-red states, including Alabama, Indiana, and Wyoming, promoters of the Big Lie were elected as secretaries of state. And, according to the Washington Post, “at least a hundred and fifty G.O.P. election deniers running for the U.S. House won their races as of Friday.”

“There are going to be a lot of election deniers in the new Congress,” Nyhan noted. “We can’t be confident that the G.O.P. has repudiated election denialism. It has taken over the Party. The fact that the Democrats have done well in this one election doesn’t mean that the threat has been eliminated.” As if to emphasize this point, Trump is set to announce his 2024 candidacy, in which he will surely renew his assault on the norms and institutions of democracy. Although many Republican leaders are privately alarmed about the prospect of having Trump at the top of the ticket again, and though the conservative media outlets owned by Rupert Murdoch appear to have turned on him, the former President still has a great deal of support among the Republican base.

With Trump back out there whipping up the MAGA faithful, will other G.O.P. politicians, who have caved to him so often in the past, behave any differently? And would a defeat for Trump in the 2024 G.O.P. primary, perhaps at the hands of Ron DeSantis, actually end the threat of democratic erosion? “On the one hand, Trump is the locus of election denialism and the threat to democracy,” Nyhan said. “At the same time, though, he has demonstrated the appeal of an authoritarian populist approach, and there may well be other Republican candidates who will adopt it after him.” It was only three months ago that the audience at a conference of conservative Republicans warmly greeted Viktor Orbán, the Hungarian exponent of illiberal democracy, who has squashed his domestic opposition. “The results of the election were generally good news, but we have to keep up our vigilance,” Nyhan said. “There are still many grounds for concern.” ♦

[agentfascinateur]

Did the US go against the UN in Libya?

(...) retired Army Brig. Gen. Don Bolduc, who headed Special Operations Command Africa from 2015 to 2017, said that under Obsidian Lotus — a so-called 127e program that allows the U.S. to use foreign troops on U.S.-directed missions targeting America’s enemies to achieve America’s aims — U.S. commandos trained and equipped more than 100 Libyan proxies. Those forces, according to three Libyan military sources and a U.S. official who spoke on the condition of anonymity, became elite troops within Hifter’s LNA. In 2020, Bolduc described Hifter as a “guy that we could trust.” By the late 2010s, Hifter’s LNA increasingly controlled the east of the country, while the U.N.-backed central government held the west.

#creating chaos

#overthrowing governments

[movienized-com]

A Harvest Homecoming

A Harvest Homecoming (2023) #DonMcCutcheon #JessicaLowndes #TrevorDonovan #RyanAllen #EveCrawford #RogerDunn Mehr auf:

Jahr: 2023 Genre: Romantik Regie: Don McCutcheon Hauptrollen: Jessica Lowndes, Trevor Donovan, Ryan Allen, Eve Crawford, Roger Dunn, Sarah Fisher, Luxton Handspiker, Stuart Hughes, Joanne Jansen, Matteo Tossa, Dexter Bolduc … Filmbeschreibung: Drew Granger übernimmt einen vorübergehenden Ersatzlehrerjob in seiner Heimatstadt Chestnut Hollow, aber als er ein neues Kind und dessen Mutter…

[mongowheelie]

Republican ex-general slams Trump’s attacks on service members as 'absolutely disgraceful' - Alternet.org

[newswireml]

Why Is Nikki Haley Running for President?#Nikki #Haley #Running #President

On Thursday night, Nikki Haley strode into the first stop on her Presidential campaign tour, a town hall in Exeter, New Hampshire, escorted by Don Bolduc, the retired general whose failed Senate run ended in this same room three months earlier. Bolduc had distinguished himself during the midterms as an unabashed election denier, before walking back his stance; Haley’s Stand for America PAC had…

[worldofwardcraft]

Serious serial loser.

December 12, 2022

Donald J. Trump's status as an abject loser in the business world is well documented. His failed ventures go back more than thirty years and include his numerous hotel and casino bankruptcies, the folding of the New Jersey Generals, and the fraudulent Trump University. Plus, Trump Steaks, Trump Airlines, Trump Mortgage, Trump Magazine, the list goes on and on. Between his father and Apprentice producer Mark Burnett, Trump managed to acquire some $840 million. Which he parlayed into an estimated $1.3 billion in debt. Verdict: Loser businessman.

Likewise, Trump is a habitual loser in the courts. Most glaringly in his lawsuits to overturn the 2020 election results (61 losses out of 62 challenges). And in the jury trial that found his company guilty of criminal tax fraud and other crimes. Add to this his many unsuccessful attempts to get courts to grant him total and lifelong immunity, allow him to retain the top secret documents he stole, and keep his cronies and co-conspirators from giving evidence against him. Verdict: Loser litigant/defendant.

Of course, he's also been a loser at the ballot box. Not once, but twice. In both his presidential runs, he lost the popular vote (though he did win the electoral vote once). In 2016, Hillary Clinton received 48.18% of the popular votes (6,58,53,514) to his 46.09% (6,29,84,828). Four years later, Biden beat him 51.3% (81,282,916) to 46.9% (74,223,369). Verdict: Loser political candidate.

Recently, anticipating a midterm election "red wave," Trump tried to demonstrate his power over the Republican Party as a kingmaker by endorsing roughly 300 MAGA candidates for offices from US Senator to county commissioner. As usual, he displayed his instinctive predisposition to lose. Here's a partial list of the candidates he backed and the races they lost.

Kari Lake — Governor (AZ)

Lee Zeldin — Governor (NY)

Tudor Dixon — Governor (MI)

Darren Bailey — Governor (IL)

Doug Mastriano — Governor (PA)

Leora Levy — US Senator (CT)

Mehmet Oz — US Senator (PA)

Don Bolduc — US Senator (NH)

Adam Laxalt — US Senator (NV)

Blake Masters — US Senator (AZ)

Herschel Walker — US Senator (GA)

Kim Crockett — Secretary of State (MN)

Mark Finchem — Secretary of State (AZ)

Kristina Karamo — Secretary of State (MI)

And we haven't even mentioned the utter fiasco of his presidency. Or his failure to overthrow the government by force. According to his niece Mary, Trump was taught from childhood that the very worst thing in life was to be a loser. Ironically, in whatever he tried, that's exactly what he's been.

[arpov-blog-blog]

What the mainstream media is not reporting as breathlessly as they are reporting a fictional conflict between DeSantis and DJT, is the Democrats did just as well in five states, flipping the state legislatures and pushing back against veto-proof GOP control, and they did it without gerrymandering and voter suppression...“We fight the woke in the legislature. We fight the woke in the schools. We fight the woke in the corporations. We will never, ever surrender to the woke mob. Florida is where woke goes to die.”

With these fighting words, Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis hailedhis sweeping re-election victorylast week. DeSantis trounced his opponent, Democrat Charlie Crist, by1.5 million votes. The blatant gerrymander hemastermindedhelped Republicansflip four House seatsin the state. The results leave little doubt that Florida is now firmly a red state and that he is the non-Trump front-runner for the 2024 presidential nomination.

But while Tuesday was a big win for DeSantis, it was a loser for "DeSantis-ism." His war on wokeness, attacks on liberals, and divisive culture war politics played well in Florida, but elsewhere it landed with a resounding thud. 

While DeSantis may be capturing the id of Republican voters, his cross-party appeal is limited.

Even as he faced a re-election fight, DeSantis found time to travel the country and campaign with Republican politicians cut from the same cloth. Heattended rallies withKari Lake and Blake Masters in Arizona, Doug Mastriano in Pennsylvania, Lee Zeldin inNew York, Mark Ronchetti and Rep. Yvette Herrell inNew Mexico, Derek Schmidt inKansas, and J.D. Vance in Ohio. The first seven all lost, and while Vance emerged victorious, he rannearly 10 pointsbehind his Ohio Republican ticket mate,Gov. Mike DeWine(who did not campaign with DeSantis). 

In addition, DeSantisspoke at a rallyin Wisconsin for Sen. Ron Johnson, whonarrowly won his re-election fightby 1 point, and gubernatorial candidate Tim Michels, wholost to incumbent Democrat Tony Evers. He gave a last-minute endorsement to New Hampshire Senate candidate Don Bolduc, wholost by 9 pointsto incumbent Democrat Maggie Hassan. And herallied for Adam Laxaltin Nevada Republicans' Senate primary fight last April. While Laxalt won his party’s nod, he ultimatelylost the election to Democratic Sen. Catherine Cortez Masto.

The symbolism is rich. While DeSantis may be capturing the id of Republican voters, his cross-party appeal is limited. It wasn’t just that DeSantis-endorsed candidates fared poorly; the issues that have propelled his rise up the Republican presidential ranks did little to move voters this election cycle."

[optimisticfoxkoala]

Don Bolduc Explains His Defeat https://t.co/KhsD1N0os7

Don Bolduc Explains His Defeat https://t.co/KhsD1N0os7

— Karen Spears (@Kar3nSpears) Nov 15, 2022

from Twitter https://twitter.com/Kar3nSpears

[theusviral]

Trump Ridiculously Washes His Hands Of Losing Senate Candidate He Endorsed

Trump Ridiculously Washes His Hands Of Losing Senate Candidate He Endorsed

Donald Trump said Don Bolduc, the Republican U.S. Senate candidate he backed in New Hampshire, lost Tuesday because he eventually “disavowed” the former president’s false election fraud claims. Despite a recent endorsement from Trump, Bolduc fell to Democratic incumbent Maggie Hassan on a night when Republicans’ hopes of dominating fizzled. Trump did his dancing best to distance himself from the…