Brian Strub ⚡️🇺🇸🏒

REPORTER: You said you would end the Russia-Ukraine war on your first day in office TRUMP: Well, this is one half a day. I have another half a day left. We'll see.

- Comey indicted for tweeting a number. - Trump FCC threatens ABC's broadcast license. - Trump defacing more govt institutions with his name and picture. - Trump's kids cashing in on huge govt contracts. I'm always torn on whether to speak up on the daily drumbeat of Trump's creepy, corrupt, Putin-style authoritarianism. On the one hand, this has become so standard under Trump, and everyone's opinions on him have long hardened, so why bother? Just keep your head down, post on economic policy (what happened to Econ Twitter?), and don't be distracted by the daily news cycle outrages. That's the standard position in DC policy circles. On the other hand, isn't this defeatist passivity how authoritarianism thrives? Government actions that would have induced a nationwide backlash 15 years ago are now just the day's background noise. So the bar moves. It’s a familiar path: Most authoritarian nations moved there gradually yet persistently - the govt commits some outrages, waits for the public to get used to it and stop complaining, and then pushes for the next round. Authoritarian governments count on the population having a short attention span while they steadily boil the frog. But when you think about how far Trump has pushed just in the last 15 months, it’s fair to wonder where we'll be after the next 33 months of his term. So I’ve been torn - speaking up a lot during the ICE protests, then just focusing on econ for many weeks. I don’t want to bore people who’ve all made up their minds on what is happening in this country - and I've been trying to spend less time on this toxic hellsite for my own mental health. But I also think us trying to be all cool and above-the-fray is exactly what gives the administration the green light to once again push harder towards corrupt, statist, personality-cult Putinism. I don’t really have an answer here. Although this being Twitter, I’m sure that any possible approach (whether passive, hair-on-fire, or in-between) will inevitably get me yelled at here.

Silverio Villegas-González dropped his kids off at school and never came home. ICE agents shot him in the neck, then claimed there was an attack and an injured agent. Video and body cams show none of that was true. I will oppose any DHS funding without real accountability.