Bill Pulte Was a "Degenerate" Buffoon. Now He's Head of U.S. Intelligence.

https://www.thebulwark.com/p/bill-pulte-dni-director-national-intelligence-bbby-bbbyq-memestock-bed-bath-beyond-green-dildo

YEARS BEFORE PRESIDENT DONALD TRUMP nominated him to be the acting director of national intelligence for the government of the United States of America, Bill Pulte was spending his time circling a gullible group of investors trading shares in a dead company.

The year was 2023 and Bed Bath & Beyond, after prolonged death throes, finally stumbled into bankruptcy in April; its stock (“BBBY”) was delisted from Nasdaq in early May. But a portion of the shareholders went on believing a resurrection was possible. Over the previous year, the retail chain had become a prominent “memestock”—the subject of intense speculation and rumor—and after the company shut down they refused to accept that their investments were worthless. Many of these diehards kept trading shares “over the counter” (as “BBBYQ”).

Pulte claimed in the summer of 2023 that he was “captivated” by the “incredible BBBY community.” And he went to extraordinary, often ridiculous lengths to promote it. On a livestream in September 2023, Pulte donned a jacket with astronaut patches, implying that the bankrupt company’s stock would somehow still go “to the moon.” At some events, Pulte would wear a bulletproof vest for fear that an unnamed cabal acting against the home-goods store might try to kill him.

In the fall of 2023, the BBBYQ shares were finally eliminated—but even that didn’t convince the lingering true believers, and Pulte kept stoking their baseless excitement. He even organized a December 2023 event in a Florida hangar that was, as journalist Paris Martineau put it, “dedicated to the conspiracy that Bed Bath and Beyond never actually went bankrupt.” With Pulte sitting onstage, one promoter slapped a grateful supporter in the face with a green dildo, apparently a powerful symbol in their inscrutable online subculture.

*snip*