JR Joseph Miller

Review Writer, Video Producer, Mental Health Counselor, USAF Vietnam Era Veteran, UGA Go Dawgs! #SlavaUkraini #countryoverparty

[Occupy Democrats @OccupyDemocrats]

BREAKING: Trump's unqualified new acting spy chief showed up a DAY EARLY, demanding a list of everyone to fire — and asked to take top-secret intel HOME.

Bill Pulte, Trump’s loyalist pick for Acting Director of National Intelligence, isn't even legally qualified to run America's intelligence community. That hasn't stopped him from showing up a DAY EARLY, demanding a list of every employee so he can fire HUNDREDS of them, and asking if he can take the nation's most classified secrets to his house.

According to CNN, Pulte — Trump's acting Director of National Intelligence — stunned ODNI staff by arriving Thursday, a day before Trump said he'd start. He'd already asked for a roster of every single employee so he could "assess whether to fire them," with sources saying he's eyeing CUTS OF HUNDREDS of jobs.

This is a man with ZERO intelligence experience who, before being tapped for the job, didn't even have a security clearance — long considered the bare-minimum prerequisite.

The red flags are everywhere. In his only prior ODNI briefing, Pulte asked if he could bring the President's Daily Brief — among the most highly classified documents in the U.S. government — to his HOUSE. He asked what level of security clearance he had. And he seemed weirdly fixated on whether he gets his own GOVERNMENT PLANE to shuttle between DC, Florida, and Chicago. He even requested a protective security detail before starting the job.

"That was a bit odd," one source noted, with stunning understatement.

So, what actually qualified Pulte in Trump's eyes? Loyalty. As head of the housing finance agency, Pulte sent the DOJ criminal referrals against Democrats who investigated Trump. "President Trump wanted someone who is a true loyalist, who will do what he wants," a source said.

Now Trump has handed him a mandate to gut the intelligence community AND chase his debunked 2020 election fraud lies — a dangerous blurring of the line between foreign and domestic spying that's been forbidden since Watergate.

Even Republicans are alarmed. Intelligence Chairman Tom Cotton issued a rare rebuke. One GOP aide complained about Trump's "consistent curve balls out of left field."

A man fixated on planes and security details, who wants to take secrets home and fire hundreds of professionals, now oversees 18 intelligence agencies.

What could possibly go wrong?

Please like and share this post if you think a LOT could go wrong!

[Mike Levin @MikeLevin]

My friend Jamie Raskin is one of the most careful and principled people in Congress. So when he says the director of the FBI may be running a taxpayer funded slush fund, I pay attention.

Here is what he found.

Kash Patel directed more than $1 million in bonus payments to a small circle of agents in his inner circle and on his security detail.

Some were getting nearly $8,000 every two weeks on top of salaries that were already maxed out at the federal ceiling. A number of them collected close to $40,000 over consecutive pay periods.

The payments came so fast that the FBI’s bonus reserve accounts ran dry and some checks bounced.

So who got the money?

Agents on Patel’s so-called "director’s advisory team."

That is the unit created in 2025 and described internally as a payback squad, built to dig up dirt on the law enforcement officials who investigated Trump and his allies.

Raskin has given Patel until June 29 to account for every payment, every recipient, and any internal review of whether this was even legal.

Patel should answer for all of it.
https://t.co/HZPeRJ2Kqg

[Fred Wellman @FPWellman]

We are so beyond parody.

[Fred Wellman @FPWellman]

There it is. She’s got to get the racists back on board.

[Bill Kristol @BillKristol]

"A business tied to a longtime supporter of Trump was given a no-bid contract to install a water-purification system in the Reflecting Pool. The Park Service bypassed the competitive-bidding process...Cafaro was once involved in a bribery scandal."

https://t.co/Ft7N0am4Ni

[Timothy Snyder @TimothyDSnyder]

The history of strategy knows no greater losers than this man.
https://t.co/kauAA7r3A6

[Norman Ornstein @NormOrnstein]

American Nazi

[Nan Ransohoff @nanransohoff]

New blog post: The third wave of American philanthropy

Hundreds of billions of dollars in new philanthropic capital will soon become liquid. The OpenAI Foundation holds 26% of OpenAI, worth about $220B at today’s valuation. Anthropic’s seven co-founders have pledged to give away 80% of their wealth and have instituted the most aggressive donor matching program for employees in tech history.

How much does this all add up to? And how meaningful is that in the context of philanthropy today?

I was doing some simple napkin math to wrap my head around the scale of what’s coming, and radicalized myself in the process. I had dramatically underappreciated the scale of the philanthropic capital that’s about to become available and the corresponding gap in talent and organizations that will be needed to make the most of it.

This piece aims to directionally sketch the scale of what’s coming, the gap in operational capacity needed to absorb it, and what we can do to fill it.

(Link to full post in reply)

[Michael McFaul @McFaul]

Could not agree more.

[David Axelrod @davidaxelrod]

Over the past 19 years, I've watched @MichelleObama, who never sought a career in the public eye, become a master orator. Her speech yesterday at the opening of the Obama Presidential Center may have been her very best. Moving, direct and powerful.

[Michael McFaul @McFaul]

My latest:

Trump’s Failed War against Iran , by @McFaul https://t.co/1LnBQw3aQE

[Michael McFaul @McFaul]

Trump has lost his war in Iran, so it's time to refocus attention on bashing our European allies. Just watch.

[Christopher Hale @ChristopherHale]

Batya Ungar-Sargon’s key argument over the past few years is that the left systematically stifles dissent.

Today, she was excommunicated by the White House for opposing the Trump-Vance Iran MOU.

[Tom Nichols @RadioFreeTom]

As one of the original Never Trump guys, I can affirm that Dave was not at our meetings.

[George Conway ⚖️🇺🇸 @gtconway3d]

The world's most expensive assisted living facility

[John Cleese @JohnCleese]

What a shame that the Russian Air Force Commander couldn't fly

[Barry R McCaffrey @mccaffreyr3]

Putin is destroying Russia with his criminal war with Ukraine.

[American Veteran @amvetsupport]

Another MAGA MOLESTER

[Anne Applebaum @anneapplebaum]

Ukrainian drone strikes on the Moscow refinery didn't happen by accident. That billowing black smoke is the result of years of planning, plus European money. I wrote about Ukraine's long-range drone project last September:
https://t.co/IglpzzgIPS