The Trump Presidency, Season 2

[Innula Zenovka]

'Reboot' Revealed: Elon Musk's CEO-Dictator Playbook

The Point: In 2022, one of Peter Thiel's favorite thinkers envisioned a second Trump Administration in which the federal government would be run by a “CEO” who was not Trump and laid out a playbook for how it might work. Elon Musk is following it.

The Back Story: In 2012, Curtis Yarvin — Peter Thiel’s “house philosopher”—called for something he dubbed RAGE: Retire All Government Employees. The idea: Take over the United States government and gut the federal bureaucracy. Then, replace civil servants with political loyalists who would answer to a CEO-type leader Yarvin likened to a dictator.

“If Americans want to change their government, they’re going to have to get over their dictator phobia,” he said.

Yarvin, a software programmer, framed this as a “reboot” of government.

 

[Imnotgoing Sideways]

$2?!?!?

Personally, I've ridden the Tsubasa line from Tokyo to Yamagata. Just boarding times alone are enough to show how much more efficient rail can be. At the time, the price difference between train and flight was almost nil. There was a 1.5 hour difference in trip time, but boarding and departure times on airplanes are so long that it likely breaks even in the end.

 

[Katheryne Helendale]

So reading my news today and Im starting to wonder if Im just hallucinating this... Trump is going to take over Gaza, send the Palestinians to Egypt and build a holiday resort? Want's to start a concentration camp for immigrants in Guantanamo? And has ordered the "obliteration" of Iran if they assassinate him?

Yup. And that's just within the first two weeks.

 

[Katheryne Helendale]

$2?!?!?

Personally, I've ridden the Tsubasa line from Tokyo to Yamagata. Just boarding times alone are enough to show how much more efficient rail can be. At the time, the price difference between train and flight was almost nil. There was a 1.5 hour difference in trip time, but boarding and departure times on airplanes are so long that it likely breaks even in the end.

I loved riding on the Shinkansen in Japan.

 

[Jopsy Pendragon]

'Reboot' Revealed: Elon Musk's CEO-Dictator Playbook

FFS, that turd's wikipedia page portrays him as some sort of Nazi Lex Luthor wanna be.

 

[Kamilah Hauptmann]

Remember how it's always projection when your next elections are 97% Trump.

 

[Free]

Small mercies.

Federal judge blocks Trump’s executive order to end birthright citizenship

A second federal judge on Wednesday blocked President Donald Trump’s executive order that seeks to end birthright citizenship, saying it’s likely unconstitutional and “runs counter to our nation’s 250-year history of citizenship by birth.”

The nationwide preliminary injunction from US District Judge Deborah Boardman is a significant ruling against Trump’s Day 1 order, which was swiftly met with legal challenges and put on hold days later by a separate judge.

The order “conflicts with the plain language of the 14th Amendment, contradicts 125-year old binding Supreme Court precedent and runs counter to our nation’s 250-year history of citizenship by birth,” Boardman said during a hearing on Wednesday.

“No court in the country has ever endorsed the president’s interpretation,” she said. “This court will not be the first.”

 

[Isabeau]

Photos and vids of the protests.

Bluesky

bsky.app

(you have to have an account to see)

ETA Feed Bluesky

 

[Bartholomew Gallacher]

This sounds like a sure recipe for desaster.

 

[Bartholomew Gallacher]

Trump issued a ban of trans-women participating in the women's category of sports competitions. With this ban probably many people will do agree with.

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2025/feb/05/trump-trans-athletes-ban

 

[Free]

Trump issued a ban of trans-women participating in the women's category of sports competitions. With this ban probably many people will do agree with.

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2025/feb/05/trump-trans-athletes-ban

But certainly no problem with AFAB transgenders competing in men's sports. We see what's going on here, and it's beyond disgusting.

 

[Cindy Claveau]

"We'll be burning sage for months..."

 

[Free]

The Papua New Guinea Courier's overseas correspondent on America's Coup Klux Klan

To America where Elon Musk, the world’s most economically wealthy and spiritually impoverished man, is staging a coup.

mrhenrymorris.substack.com

Over the weekend the self-styled Teslamensch deployed a team of young DOGE software engineers to take the US Agency for International Development offline and seize control of the federal government’s payment system at the Treasury.

These coders, aged between 19 and 24, with close links to Musk and anti-democracy fan Peter Thiel, are reputed to be part of the Qbitler Youth.

President Trump, meanwhile, is busy with other things, like vendettas, and jabbering. He’s so completely absorbed in an unwinnable war with his own insecurities that he has unwittingly become the Persian cat to Musk’s Blofeld – so preoccupied with exacting revenge that his pussy has been grabbed by the Stay-Puft billionaire.

 

[Bartholomew Gallacher]

Here's an interesting theory, why Musk was so set on defunding USAID: because it was investigating Starlink's contracts in Ukraine.

Elon Musk's Enemy, USAID, Was Investigating Starlink's Contracts in Ukraine

The agency was in the midst of a probe into the billionaire's equipment at the time of Musk's assault.

gizmodo.com

 

[Katheryne Helendale]

"We'll be burning sage for months..."

Just months?

 

[Casey Pelous]

Seems someone jumped the gun. Again. Turns out they'll be accepting those parcels, after all, while the USPS and Customs are "working closely together to implement an efficient collection mechanism for the new China tariffs to ensure the least disruption to package delivery." (Good luck!)

International inbound mail and packages from China and Hong Kong Posts - Newsroom - About.usps.com

Suspension of Inbound Parcels from China and Hong Kong

about.usps.com

..

ETA: I just realized this means something like having to pay the tariff with your credit card before your package gets delivered. Oh, that will be very popular. Maybe now these blinkered dumbfucks will grasp who pays tariffs.

Naahhhhhhhhhhhhh ..... who am I kidding?

 

[Cristiano]

 

[Isabeau]

I don’t understand. Is it worst then what Elon and company have said and believe? I mean good, but who pressured him to resign?

 

[Kamilah Hauptmann]

ETA: I just realized this means something like having to pay the tariff with your credit card before your package gets delivered.

OH OH! JUST LIKE A CANADIAN GETTING A PACKAGE FROM THE US VIA UPS ONLY CHEAPER!

 

[Kamilah Hauptmann]

So, the CIA agents who will be hung out to dry when they blow up that agency rather than a controlled draw down.

Imagine some of those people who take down countries for a living, Imagine the grudge if they get outed or left on their own overseas.