My obit of Robert S. Mueller III. We will not see his like again. www.nytimes.com/2026/03/21/u...

In fact, it is the highest responsibility.

What's clear from this hearing with our nation's intelligence chiefs is that intelligence has no bearing whatsoever on the thinking or the conduct of the president of the United States.

A monstrous man, blackout-drunk with power, who cannot bear to see his image in the mirror. www.washingtonpost.com/business/202...

This war will be remembered for this slaughter. So much for those pesky rules of engagement, eh, Whiskey Pete? www.nytimes.com/2026/03/11/u...

I finally had a chance to listen to this. Tight, straightforward interview with answers clear of politics, fake journalism or despair. I highly recommend it Paraphrase: “President Trump is the single most dangerous thing to our national security

‪ The CIA, the FBI, and much of the US intelligence and cybersecurity systems are in great disarray thanks to Trump and his minions. That raises the chances of a successful op if Trump really attacks Iran in coming days.

This conversation on @thesteadystate.org's new podcast with decorated CIA veteran Jim Lawler and yours truly is a warning you should heed....

The Steady State Sentinel Episode 13: America’s “Strategic Self-Immolation” open.substack.com/pub/steadyst...

Trump has cut off almost all US military support, choked off humanitarian aid, and curtailed intelligence liaison to Ukraine. He is aiding and abetting Putin's killing. What we have here is a modern-day parallel to the Hitler-Stalin Pact, an alliance for the conquest of a European nation.

Brief reflections on @tim-weiner.bsky.social's The Folly and the Glory, a brisk and unsettling survey of American-Russian political warfare (1945-2020) and some of the recurring pathologies of great-power projection: grayskythinking.substack.com/p/reading-ge...

In which the legendary CIA officer Jim "Mad Dog" Lawler and I survey the damage Trump's wrecking ball is wreaking on the national security of the United States.

Artificial intelligence might well kill us all in time but human stupidity is doing it faster.

notorious radical left communist rag says tax the rich

This devastating profile would be the end of Kristi Noem in an government capable of feeling a scintilla of shame. www.wsj.com/politics/pol...

The people united will never be defeated. www.nytimes.com/live/2026/02...

Wyden has been on the Senate intel committee for many years. The letter signifies that he's been briefed on a major CIA covert action -- as is legally required -- and the briefing was alarming. He wouldn't do this unless he believed a great deal is at stake. www.forever-wars.com/ron-wyden-on...

US intelligence -- of which this wingnut is the titular head -- has no damn business meddling with voting. This madness flows from lunatic conspiracy theories. What Gabbard's doing here (and in Georgia) is an attack on our democracy and our freedom. It has to stop. www.reuters.com/world/americ...

Ah, the silent majority. Somewhere, Richard Nixon is looking up and smiling.

Gabbard, a crazed conspiracy theorist, doing dirty work for Trump. He almost crashed the intelligence community chasing this chimera in 2020. His tools back then were Ratcliffe and Patel, now running CIA and FBI. This wild goose chase is insanity. And a direct threat to free elections in November.

Cold-blooded murder by Trump’s stormtroopers.

The "paid protesters" libel goes back to the '60s. LBJ and Nixon thought (wrongly!) that Moscow and Beijing financed US antiwar and civil-rights movements. They ordered CIA and FBI to spy on Americans. The result? A seven-year assault on the Constitution. And Nixon's downfall.

From 9/11 to prisoner swaps, a new book takes on the complicated task of chronicling the CIA's 21st century history: inkstickmedia.com/from-9-11-to...

Want to learn about the CIA from the guy that wrote the book? I'm teaching six online classes on the world's most famous secret agency in January and February. Sign up here...and see you there! roundtable.org/live-courses...

I recommend the @tim-weiner.bsky.social book The Mission, a history of the CIA this century. Incredible sourcing, lots of good anecdotes. Includes a fascinating story of the greatest intel op in history, the Russian effort to elect Trump in 2016, what the USG knew about it, and its failure to act.

If the United States Constitution doesn’t protect you from a federal agent shooting you in the face for the “crime” of turning your car around, it doesn’t exist. ICE has become a paramilitary force with zero oversight and a Secretary in Kristi Noem who encourages the chaos. ENOUGH.

Hard to see how this isn’t murder by a federal agent.

I'm teaching a course on the CIA, through Roundtable, starting in two weeks. It's based on LEGACY OF ASHES and THE MISSION. This dangerous moment in history might be the time to sign up. roundtable.org/live-courses...

My NYT obit on Aldrich Ames, CIA turncoat for the Russians. I interviewed him in the county lockup after his arrest in 1994, then by telephone for eight hours. Deluded, deeply alcoholic, he thought he could lift up the hood of history and tinker with the engine. www.nytimes.com/2026/01/06/o...

I'm teaching a course on the CIA, through Roundtable, starting in two weeks. It's based on LEGACY OF ASHES and THE MISSION. This dangerous moment in history might be the time to sign up. roundtable.org/live-courses...

The AP stopped publishing book reviews this year, depriving me of an outlet. So I'm posting short ones to my website for some titles. "The Mission" by Tim Weiner impressed: frankbajak.com#The-Mission Lots of previously unreported material, fully attributed. @tim-weiner.bsky.social

A shout-out from CIA vet @mpolymer1.bsky.social: "THE MISSION took the intelligence world by storm, not only because of the extraordinary sourcing....Weiner seemingly walked the halls of Langley...[describing] in great detail some of the agency’s public failures and greatest successes since 9/11."

This is how Winston Churchill convinced Eisenhower and the CIA to overthrow Iran in 1953 -- to get back the oil the UK had stolen fair and square.

Want to learn about the CIA from the guy that wrote the book? I'm teaching six online classes on the world's most famous secret agency in January and February. Sign up here...and see you there! roundtable.org/live-courses...

A very smart take on Trump's alliance with Putin by a veteran of CIA's Russia House, @johnsipher.bsky.social tomorrowsaffairs.com/a-tempting-m...

Want to learn about the world of American intelligence? Sign up for my online class -- "The CIA: A Short Course in Secret Power" -- and you'll get my four decades of reporting distilled in six hours. The classes begin January 19. Enroll here! roundtable.org/live-courses...

Good to see THE MISSION: The CIA in the 21st Century on Just Security’s best books of 2025 list! The New Yorker and the Washington Post agree — pick up a copy, why don’t you?

This is a journalist’s book, and bears the marks of it. But no one has opened up the CIA to us like Weiner has, and The Mission deserves to win Weiner a second Pulitzer @johnsimpsonnews.bsky.social @theguardian.com The Mission @tim-weiner.bsky.social BRILLIANT www.theguardian.com/books/2025/j...

A six-year-old child wouldn’t buy this. www.wsj.com/politics/nat...

Taking bets on who'll be the first to resign in disgrace: Hegseth, Bondi, or Patel? Bonus points for predicting the reason why.

The crimes of Trump and his acolytes now include cold-blooded murder in the Caribbean and a plot for the ethnic cleansing of America. We are an autocracy lurching towards the death of our democracy.

Once CIA saw itself as above politics. But Ratcliffe is a political animal. CIA trained the shooter to kill and evacuated him and tens of thousands of others who served the US in Afghanistan. They will now be collectively punished by the POTUS who signed a surrender agreement with the Taliban.

This isn't proof that the Kremlin had a unique source of kompromat on Trump, but it's shall we say highly suggestive.

Do your part. I'll do mine. www.falloffreedom.com