In what is hands-down the most surprising, and welcome, development concerning a Trump pick for a national security top post, Tulsi Gabbard has been confirmed as New Director of National Intelligence. It was narrow, and predictably along parisan lines...

Mitch McConnell was the lone Republican no vote... in a post-vote statement he claimed that Gabbard is "tainted".

"Tulsi Gabbard failed to demonstrate that she is prepared to assume this tremendous national trust. The nation should not have to worry that the intelligence assessments the President receives are tainted by a DNI with a history of alarming lapses in judgment," he said, citing her refusal to condemn Edward Snowden, and her stance on the Russia-Ukraine war.

She's been subject to years of media attacks branding her a 'Kremlin agent' and 'Assadist' etc... For example, right up through the vote The New York Times was running its smear campaign in the following:

Gabbard is a lieutenant colonel in the Army Reserve and a former Democratic congresswoman from Hawaii. She has taken a sympathetic stance toward Russia and Syria under the Assad family's rule.

And she has defended Edward Snowden, an intelligence contractor who released classified information in 2013. These positions, at odds with the foreign policy establishment in both parties, have made her one of President Trump’s most divisive cabinet nominees.

But she's long risen to popularity among military members and veterans especially, given her no compromise approach to blasting America's regime change wars abroad in the wake of Bush's Iraq war, taking neocons and liberal interventions alike to task.

It's a new day in the world of the deep state intelligence blob in Washington, and without doubt the old powers that be are nervous, or else running scared. But time will tell.

Meanwhile, somewhat surprising to see Thune praising her, the new sheriff in town overseeing the nation's intelligence collection...