End Of The Week Tiedrich


holy shit, the unthinkable is happening: Republicans are beginning to openly revolt against Mad King Donny’s corrupt agenda.

over the past couple, Senate Repubs have served up multiple slices of Fuck You Pie to Dear Leader. they’re refusing to fund the Epstein Dance Hall — and they absolutely want no part of this business of enriching the shitheads who did January 6.

Glitch McConnell unfroze long enough to actually say “so the nation’s top law enforcement official is asking for a slush fund to pay people who assault cops? utterly stupid, morally wrong — take your pick.”

whoa.

so with all that going on, it’s good to see that the worthless scribblers of the corporate-controlled press were focused on the real top story of the day: would Preznit Fuckwit be attending the wedding of number one failson Cokey McSniffles?

reporter: “are you attending your son’s wedding this weekend?”

Donny: “uhhhh. he’d like me to go. I’m gonna try and make it. I’m in the midst— I said, ‘you know, this is not good timing for me.’ I have a thing called Iran and other things. he’s a person I’ve known for a very long time. hopefully they’re going to have a great marriage.’”

wait, what? did Donny actually refer to his eldest son as ‘a person I’ve known for a very long time’? I mean, technically, that’s an accurate statement — but what in the hallowed name of Cognitive Collapse Jesus is going on inside this imbecile’s big dumb pumpkin head?

you know what? I’m going to include Don Jr. in my What The Fuck Is Wrong With You Challenge™.

if Junior stands up in public and asks his father ‘what the fuck is wrong with you,’ I say he gets that lifetime Pulitzer. after all, you just know he’s said it in private countless times.

how does Donny have ‘other things’ more important than a child’s wedding? any normal human parent would jump at the chance to attend that shit, but not Donny — not when there’s an entire holiday weekend full of cheating at golf in front of him.

the Trump family — going all the way back to bordello operator Frederick Drumpf — has essentially been a multi-generational experiment in ‘what would happen if a parent actively hated his children?’

well, obviously, not all his children.

but you get my point.

before we move on, can I take a moment to introduce you to America’s latest sweetheart? I’m talking about the outie belly button of the dude standing behind Donny.

look at that thing. that is fucking adorable — and check out what goes on at the 27 second mark of that clip.

go, man, go! how long before that navel is a featured speaker at CPAC? I want that thing to have its own show on Newsmax. I’d watch the shit out of it.


anyway, onto the Republican revolt. they’re fucking pissed right now at Dear Leader. the midterms are coming, and a historically-unpopular Donny is seriously dicking with their chances of hanging onto their razor-thin majorities.

voters don’t want this don’t-you-dare-call-it-a-war on Iran that’s made gas unaffordable. nor do voters want some ginormous vulgar Epstein Dance Hall, with its sniper nests and what Donny calls a ‘drone empire’ on its roof. and this business of enriching the January 6th insurrectionists with taxpayer money is just too blatantly in-your-facedisgusting for words. as I said the other day, ‘there’s corruption, and then there’s holy fucking shit corruption.’

the first thing Republican Senators did yesterday was call Donny’s personal rent-a-lawyer Todd Blanche into their chambers, where they used him as a chew toy for almost two solid hours.

News — Nearly 2-hour meeting with Acting AG Todd Blanche and Senate Republicans was incredibly hostile, per multiple attendees. As many as 25 GOP senators spoke (this is very rare for these meetings), all in opposition to weaponization fund. R’s pitched specific ideas such as dictating how the 5 commissioners are chosen & not allowing people convicted of violence against cops to be eligible for a payout.

the thing about Todd Blanche is that everyone fucking hates him, because he’s a sleazy little shitweasel. ask Todd what two plus two is, and he’ll dance around and prevaricate for half an hour without ever answering the question.

here’s the indispensable Heather Cox Richardson to explain what happened next.

In the end, Republicans were so angry about the slush fund and immunity agreement that Senate leadership decided not to try to pass $72 billion of funding for immigration agencies, left out of an earlier funding package, out of fear Democrats would force Republicans to vote on the slush fund.

Even before they decided to avoid the vote, Republicans had dropped from the measure the $1 billion Trump wants for security for his ballroom.

so, no money for masked ICE thugs, no money for the heavily-militarized Epstein Dance Hall — oh, and a few days ago four Republicans broke ranks and voted with the Dems to finally send that Iran war powers resolution to the House. (where Holy Mike had yank it at the last minute from a scheduled vote because it was certain to pass there, too.)

you love to see the GOP and Donny at war with each other — bring it the fuck on! — but let’s not get too happy. after all, these are Republicans we’re talking about. at the end of the day, they still fucking suck. they love to talk big, but they could still TACO out and end up doing a Reverse Lucy: swear they’re going to yank the football away, and then end up holding it down for Dear Leader to kick a mile.

it wouldn’t be the first time.

oh, and fuck Senator Glitchy McTurtlehump and all his ‘I do declare it’s morally wrong’ outrage. dude could have put an end to this shit five years ago, by whipping up enough votes to convict Donny when he got impeached for doing January 6 in the first place. but Glitch wimped out, and here we are, trapped in the timeline he created. get back in your terrarium, Turtle Man.


and, of course, we still have the entire Moron Wing of the Republican Party to deal with.

here’s one dumbfuck who’s totally down with the idea of doling out millions to traitors, because he thinks the whole January 6 thing was staged.

South Carolina Rep. Ralph: “look, January 6th is an issue that was made up in the first place.”

reporter: “made up, sir?”

Norman: “that was a staged thing from day one … there was a riot there but it was a self-made riot by members who hate Trump.”

fact check: fuck off, Ralph.

Rep Norman has forced himself to chug an entire tanker truck full of Kool-Aid. his current premise is that Capitol Cops allowed people who hate Trump to fake a riot — but he sung a very different tune back on the day that it happened.

‘the riots were fake’ is a conspiracy theory that doesn’t make one lick of sense — because riddle me this: if the rioters were all Democrats who ‘hate Trump,’ then why the fuck does Ralph Norman want to give each of them millions of dollars?

the cognitive dissonance, it burns.


before we get out of here, let’s circle back to Dear Leader. apparently there’s one more thing he simply must get off his chest.

“my most exciting is the Reflecting Pool between the Washington Monument and the— uhhhhhhhhhhh, the— the— Washington Monument, Lincoln Memorial, it’s uh— [gestures with his hands] two hundred— two thousand, five hundred feet long by almost two hundred feet wide. it’s a massive— structure, if you think of it. it’s taller than the tallest building in the world.”

that’s right, folks. the refurbished Epstein Reflecting Poll — which I guess I need to point out is flat and at ground level — is taller than the tallest building in the word. he’s so fucking dumb.

he’s also wrong.

The Lincoln Memorial Reflecting Pool is about 2,029 feet long, not “2,500 feet long.” Also the tallest building in the world, the Burj Khalifa, is about 2,717 feet tall.

this weak and insecure halfwit is such a bottomless pit of need that he has to exaggerate the size of a pool he didn’t even build.

but what else is new?


this is going to be my closing message for the foreseeable future:

practice self-care. do what you need to do to keep sane. if that means you need to disengage with my daily posts for a while, I get it. this community of ours will still be here when you return.

to all the people who have signed on in the days since the election, welcome aboard. settle in as we all try to deal with the shitfuckery that’s ahead of us.

we are all in this together, and we are all here for each other.

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Stephen Colbert’s The Late Show is over.

After 11 years and over 1,800 episodes, the final installment aired this week to great fanfare and emotion. The show’s premature demise was, of course, the direct result of Donald Trump’s eggshell-fragile ego and his complete inability to withstand criticism of any kind.

The joyless, narcissistic Man-Child-In-Chief has always despised people like Colbert, Jimmy Kimmel, and Jon Stewart; guys who possess a comfort in their own skin that he will never know, a razor wit that will always escape him, and an easy humanity that he is simply incapable of. Though he positions himself as an overconfident Alpha Male, his raging insecurity and naked resentment have always exposed him as a terrified fraud who knows he doesn’t measure up.

Trump has spent an embarrassing amount of time during his two presidential terms trying to silence and de-platform any members of the media who do not bend the knee and kiss the ring: leveraging his social media platform, weaponizing the FCC, and begging his billionaire buddies to purge the airwaves of dissension or critique.

With his surrogates now overseeing CBS, the thin-skinned wannabe despot was finally able to shutter The Late Show, something his similarly morose disciples have hailed as a kind of righteous victory. In reality, though, all it really did was illustrate why MAGA will always lose: it is a misery movement of deeply unhappy human beings.

Colbert began his series finale with a poignant, heartfelt monologue, addressing the home and studio audiences simultaneously about the genuine gratitude he felt for those who have traveled this journey with him.

Speaking about the small army of collaborators responsible for making The Late Show possible five nights a week for over a decade (writers, booking agents, crew members, musicians, artists), the host described their collective endeavor as ‘The Joy Machine,’ saying:

”We call it the Joy Machine, because to do this many shows, it has to be a machine, but the thing is, if you choose to do it with joy, it doesn’t hurt as much when your fingers get caught in the gears.”

Manufacturing joy.

When you hear Stephen Colbert deliver that simple, elegant mission statement, you can rewind through those 1,800 shows and realize that this is exactly what he and his team have been doing all along. The Daily Show helped us all face the terrifying, infuriating, grief-worth reality around us by helping us stay emotionally buoyant enough to laugh at the absurdity of it all. Colbert, leading by example, never let his hateful adversaries win by becoming them. It has been his resiliency and optimism that have made him the perennially sanguine counterpoint to Trump’s unceasing nihilism.

Continuing, the host said of his team:

“I cannot adequately explain to you what the people who work here have done for each other and how much we mean to each other.”

Joy. Gratitude. Affection. In just over two minutes, Colbert exhibited the kind of quiet, confident humanity that the current president has never had access to.

Over the last decade, though he has quite literally never shut up, Donald Trump has never expressed any kind of genuine appreciation for other people, never centered anyone but himself, and never offered humility of any kind. He has never been anything but a sad, insult-hurling, grievance-wielding malcontent who will never find peace in this life because his self-hatred will not allow it.

And this unrelenting unhappiness is something his followers are similarly afflicted with. It’s the reason that, although they have their president in the White House, a chokehold on Congress, a compromised Supreme Court, and a near-complete monopoly on the media, they are all still miserable. They continue to be in perpetual war with the world, and the rest of us need to pay attention.

Yes, while Colbert’s cancellation is certainly a sad milestone, another tangible sign that we are approaching the throes of authoritarianism, we can take heart in being reminded that in inhumane times such as these, victory is found in holding onto our humanity. We are not fully defeated when we lose platforms, have rights stripped away, or face corrupt power’s persecution, but when we forfeit the love of life and of the people around us, that they have long since discarded.

Trump can continue to abuse his office to attempt to silence criticism. He can leverage the power of the presidency to try to steamroll dissenters. He can marshal every resource at his disposal to remove voices that ridicule him, and his hateful acolytes across this country can celebrate all of it.

But none of these things will deter those of us who refuse to fall prostrate before him.

They will not break us down or shut us up.

We will continue to traffic in laughter and beauty and connection.

We will continue to dance and dream and create.

We will continue to give and celebrate and embrace.

We will not become as miserable as the people who seek our demise.

Friends, be encouraged, be courageous, stay human… and let the Joy Machine roll on.

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And What Will Be Done About It?

Ashley St. Clair, who dated and had a baby with Elon Musk, says he admitted to her that he used AI and voting machine technology to rig the 2024 election for Trump.


Elon Musk’s Ex, Ashley St. Clair, Confirms He Rigged the 2024 Election Using Technology
“10,000 satellites and lasers in space.”

THISWILLHOLD.SUBSTACK.COM


    • October 5, 2024 — According to “The New York Times,” Elon Musk texts a friend, who we now believe to be St. Clair:

“I’m feeling more optimistic after tonight. Tomorrow we unleash the anomaly in the matrix.” An hour later, he adds: “This isn’t something on the chessboard, so they’ll be quite surprised. ‘Lasers’ from space.”

    • Oct. 7, 2024 – Musk laughingly tells Tucker Carlson in an interview: “If Trump loses I’m fu*cked. How long do you think my prison sentence is going to be?”

[….] Then, on November 5, 2024, Donald Trump, a 34-count convicted felon and adjudicated sexual predator who had to pay people on Craigslist to attend his rallies, supposedly won all the swing states just above the threshold for an automatic recount, 88 counties flipped red, none flipped blue, and he did it with less than 50% of the vote.

Even Ronald Reagan didn’t accomplish that.

Even stranger, in the swing states, Democratic voters supposedly voted blue down-ballot and then switched to Trump at the top of the ticket.

And according to Joe Rogan, Elon Musk knew the results several hours beforehand—and Donald Trump thanked Elon Musk for his knowledge of those “vote-counting computers.

Ashley St. Clair just corroborated Joe Rogan’s statement in her TikTok video:

“‘Yeah, I knew hours ago that Trump won. My team has the best real-time data anywhere,’” said St. Clair. “First of all, how the f*ck do you have real-time data on elections?” she continued. “How do you have real-time data? I could not understand that.”

Then, on June 5, 2025, Elon Musk announced to the world that he won the 2024 election for Trump: “Without me, Trump would have lost the election, Dems would control the House and the Republicans would be 51-49 in the Senate.”

▪️▫️▪️▫️▪️▫️▪️▫️

Why oh why didn’t Harris ever question any of the results?

In the comments to this article, someone with an IT background claims that Musk could not have actually changed the votes, but that he did a whole lot of things to influence the voting (including the $1 million lottery), and he also probably had an electronic way of determining whether “voter intentions have changed.”

Regardless, this adds additional questions about how far Musk went to impact the vote before the election.

So, now we have a monster in the White House brought to us, in part, by one of the tech oligarchs.

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And Now The Comment Counter Is Broken…

My WordPress installation prompted me to update to version 7 this evening. Normally these things go off without a hitch, but I—for some reason this time—had the foresight to run a backup first.

That being said, the few lines of code for my comment counter went missing after the upgrade, which is why you may see [my comment counter] and not a number next to the Comments link.

I checked the backup .php file where I thought the counter code had been inserted, but there’s nothing there that references [my comment counter] and after hours of scouring the internet, I can’t find the original source I used and every other solution I’ve found breaks the site completely.

It’s now nearly 1 a.m. and I’m giving up for tonight. I need to get to sleep.

Maybe I’ll find the original code tomorrow…

UPDATE 5/21: WOOHOO! I found where the code was located and restored it from backup! It’s working again! (And because the code wasn’t where I expected it to be, the process is now documented because I will probably totally forget how to fix this with the next update if it’s not written down.)

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Ah, Memories…

It was a simpler time. Groceries this week or five new CDs? Decisions, decisions! So…ramen it is! (I had my priorities, after all!)

(Yes, I tagged this in the Decline and Fall of Civilization category because as a society we lost something when music stores died.)

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Apologies…

I’ve been really bad about adding those “Comments” links to my posts. It’s a manual process that obviously isn’t quite integrated into my workflow just yet and something I’m still forgetting to do more often than not. I spent the last half hour going back several days and correcting this oversight. I’m sure there must be a way of building this into the basic template so I don’t have to consciously think about it, but it’s beyond me. (I’m not a WordPress programmer by any stretch of the imagination.)

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The Tidepool House

From the architect’s posted description:

Located on a prime corner lot in the Marea neighborhood, the Tidepool House seamlessly integrates Caribbean character with a design that embodies the Texas coastal lifestyle. This charming courtyard house curates a unique seaside vernacular that reflects the vibrant spirit of its surroundings while offering a serene retreat for its inhabitants.

Fronting the palm tree-lined boulevard of Estes Pointe Drive, the Tidepool House boasts a crafted gable that nods to the Cape Dutch style, establishing a welcoming presence for passersby.

The front porch serves as a gracious threshold, bridging the lively public realm of the neighborhood with the intimate comfort of home. As one rounds the corner, the west façade presents a symmetrical composition defined by two hipped roofs that bookend the property. These elements are elegantly connected by a spacious vaulted area crowned with a delightful cupola. The exterior design exudes classical rationality while incorporating distinctive elements of Gulf Coast architecture, ensuring the house resonates with its coastal context.

At the heart of the Tidepool House lies the expansive living, dining, and kitchen area, united under a vaulted ceiling that amplifies the sense of openness. Natural light floods this central space through sliding doors that open onto the courtyard, as well as from the cupola above the dining area, creating a luminous atmosphere ideal for gathering. In the private wings of the house, the three bedrooms provide thoughtfully framed views, transforming the home into a tropical sanctuary for all guests.

The central courtyard serves as the soul of the Tidepool House, nurturing vitality and reflection, much like a tide pool teeming with marine life.

This tranquil outdoor space invites moments of peace and connection with nature, allowing residents to step away from the bustle of daily life and immerse themselves in the wild beauty of Redfish Bay. Overall, this residence not only captures the essence of the Texas coast but also offers a peaceful haven, inviting all who enter to experience the joy of coastal living in a uniquely designed environment.

I would want that fence bordering the street to be a standard 6′ (1.8M) height all around for privacy and pool safety—especially if said pool is anything more than the reflecting variety (and even then, curious toddlers can drown in a bucket of water so better safe than sorry). I’d also push that covered porch out another couple feet to actually make it usable.

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