The government has time to defend an ICE shooting on TV, but not to answer the Good family’s letters to preserve evidence in Renee’s killing. No outreach, no accountability, and reported talk of investigating her grieving wife instead. That’s how authoritarian systems treat state violence.

The Constitution still has teeth when authoritarian power meets Independent courts and juries. A grand jury refused to indict the six Democrats in the “illegal orders” video. And now, a federal judge has shut down the Pentagon for trying to demote Mark Kelly over the same speech. #holdfast

The Steady State Sentinel Podcast: Coming Tomorrow, "No Rules of Engagement" Listen at: thesteadystate.org/podcast, on Apple at: apple.co/45rB0JB, or wherever you get your podcasts.

open.substack.com/pub/steadyst... "Mass deportation, detention, and deaths in detention have reached the highest number in decades, and ICE arrests and detention of children have skyrocketed, yet effective internal review of conditions of detention has been decimated."

open.substack.com/pub/steadyst... "From the perspectives of our near-peer adversaries, China and Russia, the current White House occupant is a “useful idiot.”

Attorney General’s defiance, interruptions of members of Congress, and personal insults (calling Rep. Raskin a “washed-up loser lawyer”) mark one of the most disgraceful public displays yet from this lawless, authoritarian administration.

A ProPublica investigation found that > 170 U.S. citizens have been arrested or detained by immigration agents, including cases where agents ignored or dismissed REAL ID–compliant driver’s licenses and other proof of legal status during enforcement operations. www.propublica.org/article/immi...

Senator Kelly points out that in the face of authoritarian threats, the most patriotic thing any of us can do is not back down. Continue to exercise your First Amendment rights, and #holdfast

In the past, a president intervening in a foreign‑funded infrastructure project to protect a politically connected private monopoly would likely trigger sustained investigations, congressional hearings, and front‑page coverage as a potential abuse of power. www.deadlinedetroit.com/articles/342...

Steven Cash discusses two recent DOJ actions—a GA search based on a thin affidavit and a failed bid to indict lawmakers for protected speech. Both signal a performative warning to the public to “speak and vote at your peril,” a classic autocratic intimidation tactic. youtube.com/shorts/7DABU...

Trump wanted a headline about “seditious Democrats.” Instead he got a headline about DOJ failing to secure an indictment. Free speech and the rule of law are still stronger than his fantasies of absolute power.

Foreign policy by autocratic temper tantrum. Trump hiked tariffs on Switzerland from 30% to 39% after a “very aggressive” phone call because he didn’t like the way the PM talked to him.

Rep Goldman raises the obvious point, which is that if ICE doesn’t "want to be called a fascist regime or secret police, then stop acting like one."

This is not normal diplomacy. #holdfast

Join us on February 10 for Episode 10 of the Steady State Sentinel Podcast. Listen at: thesteadystate.org/podcast, on Apple at: apple.co/45rB0JB, or wherever you get your podcasts.

“Given the intense partisan divide at present and the irresponsibility of some actors involved here, the IC seeming to influence or even somehow interfere to prevent the midterm elections thedispatch.com/article/gabb...

Authoritarian governments always go after universities first, b/c free inquiry produces critics. Canceling Harvard’s military education programs and dressing it up as “building lethality” is about keeping future officers away from independent centers of thought that might question Trump’s power.

Episode 9 of the Steady State Sentinel Podcast, “Rubicon Moments,” is out now! youtube.com/shorts/DgDC8... This video is a YouTube Short. Shorts do not support creator-uploaded caption files. Any captions were automatically generated by YouTube, and any typos are a result of this auto-generation.

open.substack.com/pub/steadyst... The... administration has undertaken a wholesale effort to gut America’s soft power: huge budget cuts, bullying most countries around the world. Of the most insidious actions has been the crack-down on immigration, and attempting to end birth-right citizenship.

Join us on February 10 for Episode 10 of the Steady State Sentinel Podcast. Listen at: thesteadystate.org/podcast, on Apple at: apple.co/45rB0JB, or wherever you get your podcasts.

An Olympian says wearing the flag doesn’t mean endorsing everything happening in the U.S. Trump’s response is to say they shouldn’t be on the team.

Autocrats erase history to control the narrative. But there’s a more dangerous reason for deleting these truths from our public consciousness: informed people are harder to control.

Steven Cash tells young students pursuing careers in intelligence that there’s a duality at the heart of their profession. In the United States, the intelligence community is filled with talented public servants trying to keep the country safe; www.youtube.com/shorts/5mWkM...

Not only has the CIA stopped publishing the World Factbook, it appears the agency has also scrubbed its website of past editions going back decades. A reference source used since the 1960s, suddenly hard to find. So… Internet, do your thing. Let’s locate and preserve the cached versions. #getsmart

A pleasure to join Rory!

On Executive privilege: “Steve Cash, an attorney and former CIA officer who runs The Steady State, a nonprofit that advocates for the preservation of America's national security institutions, tells The After-Action Report that we’re in uncharted waters.” open.substack.com/pub/theicema...

“For more on the book’s demise, see the caustic take of former senior CIA operations officer Margaret Henoch over at The Steady State…” www.spytalk.co/p/new-in-spy...

Democracies preserve records so power can be checked. Authoritarian systems bury records so power can’t be challenged. www.npr.org/2026/02/07/n...

substack.com/@steadystate... Left unchecked, an American oligarchy can erode public trust, weaken institutions, and threaten the foundational principle of government by and for the people.

open.substack.com/pub/steadyst... [...The] answer to the seemingly puzzling question of why the CIA will not continue to publish? That answer:... Donald Trump who is completely devoid of any capability for fact. Plus, he’s afraid of facts: they are kryptonite to his fantasy world."

In Trump’s authoritarian government-by-vanity project, he’s holding critical infrastructure hostage for a personal branding deal, putting the Gateway Tunnel on ice and suggesting it will resume only if Dulles and Penn Station are renamed after him.

The emperor has no clothes, but like every autocrat, he demands you pretend you don’t see it.

Not sure if anyone has noticed a pattern that everything this administration does seems to benefit Moscow: weaken alliance credibility and deterrence and signal unpredictability.

Imagine being Poland on the border of Russia’s war and hearing the U.S. ambassador threaten to pull troops, then having to ask if he’s freelancing. This is what Trump’s “America First” really looks like to our allies.

Episode 9 of the Steady State Sentinel Podcast, “Rubicon Moments” is now live! Listen at: thesteadystate.org/podcast, on Apple at: apple.co/45rB0JB, or wherever you get your podcasts.

open.substack.com/pub/steadyst... “Begin with a plea to keep up the marches, the protests, the smartphone imaging, the whistles, the angry shouts, the massive turnout across the nation in cities large and small that make clear that working Americans are fed up with DHS…”

Who ordered the DNI to observe an FBI raid? According to everyone involved: “Not me.”

See this slide deck with a statement from Steady State member Edward J. Appel, Sr., who served from 1969 to 1997 in the FBI as a Special Agent, Supervisor, Manager, and Senior Executive.

Turns out firing career diplomats and replacing them with Trump loyalists who learned international relations from Truth Social has consequences. Who knew. #holdfast

Amateur hour, indeed. This DNI and this administration are dangerous. “This is well beyond what ODNI has the authority or expertise to do,” a former senior intelligence official who has worked on election security told CNN. “This is amateur hour.” www.thedailybeast.com/tulsi-gabbar...

open.substack.com/pub/steadyst... These are the actions of an authoritarian government, and, regrettably, a sign of things to come.

Steven Cash, Executive Director of the Steady State, joins Rory Truex on The Civic Forum to sound the alarm on Trump’s authoritarianism. www.youtube.com/watch?v=aSOg...

Trump is suing the U.S. government for up to $10 billion, claims he’s already “won a lot of money,” then plays it off as no big deal because he’ll donate it, before pivoting to phantom “$19 billion” fraud in Minnesota. This is not normal.

The Steady State Brief: Steven Cash discusses the cancellation of the CIA World Factbook. youtu.be/LuJonnW8ze4?...

Join us tomorrow for Episode 9 of the Steady State Sentinel Podcast, “Rubicon Moments.” Listen at: thesteadystate.org/podcast, on Apple at: apple.co/45rB0JB, or wherever you get your podcasts. @lcandersonintl.bsky.social

open.substack.com/pub/steadyst... "Unfettered executive power...unilateralism..isolationism – postures Americans have deeply regretted in the past and which, in today’s complex world, are especially disastrous."

The point here obviously isn’t clarity. The only goal is permanent doubt.