Summary
Edward Coristine, a 19-year-old DOGE staffer recently promoted to a senior adviser role in the State Department, is reportedly the grandson of former KGB spy Valery Martynov.
Martynov was executed in the Soviet Union after being exposed as an FBI informant. Coristine, an alleged former cybercriminal, previously worked in the General Services Administration and now has potential access to sensitive diplomatic data.
Concerns have been raised over his background and apparent lack of a security check.
The situation fuels fears about foreign influence in U.S. government operations.
You can’t even make this shit up…
[slightly off topic]
I’m a native of the Northeastern United States and I’ve lived in numerous areas depicted in the media as being under the influence of ‘organized crime.’ To wit, Harlem, lower Manhattan, Hell’s Kitchen, and Staten Island.
Actual tough guys never have nicknames like ‘Big Balls.’ Never. The guys you fear have names like ‘the Chin,’ or ‘Bumpy,’ or ‘Legs.’ Al Capone’s buddies called him ‘Snorky.’
Maybe that’s what this is. Like calling a fat guy slim, or a tall guy tiny. Maybe he’s used to many steroids and actually shrunk his balls
Look at his photo… there’s no steroid use there. He’s just got a pair of undescended testes, they’re missing.
Pilot’s nicknames / unofficial callsigns often are as well, some kind of back handed reference to a fuck-up or troublesome character trait.
The exception to that is one I read about a few years back about a carrier based pilot. Callsign was S T A B which stood for shit twice and bailed
Off topic but it reminds me.
Astronaut Chris Hadfeild wrote a fun little thriller I quite enjoyed. The Apollo Murders. If the words “Soviet space pistol” stir your blood, you might want to check it out.
I worked in construction and we used radios to communicate between crews. One kid insisted we call him ‘AntDawg.’ His name was Anthony.
It’s started with ‘Labradoodle.’ He put up with that for two days before bitching he didn’t wanna be Labradoodle. Everyone agreed it was too annoying over the radio, so we all agreed to shorten it. Doodle still hates his name.
I know a dude who introduced himself with “hey, my name’s Mike but call me Spike.” I think it was one of those “I just changed schools and want to reinvent myself as someone cooler” scenarios.
That was like 15 years ago. To this day, we still call him Spmike (pronounced “SPUH-mike”).
I’m pretty sure it comes from his twitter handle or something like that. I think it’s more irrelevant/childish humor and less serious than it’s made out to be. Plenty of people refer to each other by their online handle, and I don’t think it’s intended as a “nickname” in the conventional way. I have a friend whose UN is basically “dragonslayer42069” and people call him dragon. I don’t think he chose that name so his nickname would be badass or anything. I think he thought it was funny when he made it and people just happen to refer to him as dragon. Plenty of memorable vulgar UNs on microblogs and forums are just there for some immature fun.
You’re losing sight of the fact that he and his boss weren’t elected, haven’t been vetted by Congress, and have zero experience.
His name is the least of his problems.
That’s why my comment was [off topic]
I’m not losing sight of anything. My comment wasn’t off topic because it was a response to your comment, not the post. I wasn’t supporting him or Elon/DOGE. I don’t know why you’re taking issue with my comment. I imagine we agree on more than we disagree on, I was just adding context. If you didn’t want to talk about it, then I’m not sure why you brought it up.
Unveiling the "Wu Tang District’ street sign on Staten Island.
It is so sad how fitting this image is and will be for the foreseeable future.
Big Balls looks like a Connecticut boat shoe that came to life.
He looks like a half dressed toddler. Nice of him to give everyone an immediate visual cue for what they’re about to deal with, I guess.
Wouldn’t they have been a double agent, if they were an FBI informant working in the KGB?
Per Silverman’s research, Martynov was an officer in the technical espionage division of the Russian intelligence agency back in 1980, when he was sent to the United States to serve as an undercover agent at the Soviet Embassy in Washington, D.C. About two years into his stay, Martynov got flipped by the FBI and started to feed the US government Soviet secrets.
so not a planted double agent.
