Happy Freedom 250! Acting DNI Bill Pulte Fires More “Deep State” Intel Officials

Acting DNI Bill Pulte has fired more "Deep State" intel officials, according to MS NOW. The post Happy Freedom 250! Acting DNI Bill Pulte Fires More “Deep State” Intel Officials appeared first on The Gateway Pundit.

What Is Iran Building Now in the Zagros Mountains?

Unnerved ex-officials uncork stark analogy as Trump spy chief cleans house on 'deep state'

President Donald Trump's controversial new intelligence chief is clearing house, and career officers warn the man swinging the axe doesn't know what he's cutting.Bill Pulte, Trump's loyal acting director of national intelligence, began notifying dozens of intelligence officials of their terminations Thursday, part of a downsizing Trump ordered when he installed Pulte at the office two weeks ago, MS NOW reported Friday. An intelligence official, who spoke anonymously citing fear of reprisal, told the outlet that leadership is targeting workers it believes are "deep state" and accused them of failing to hand up a complete picture of available intelligence.But former officials aren't buying his rationale. Several told MS NOW they had never heard of intelligence officers withholding information from their superiors. "The premise is absurd," one said. Another questioned how Pulte, who ran the federal housing agency and has no intelligence background, could reach such a conclusion within days of arriving.“I have a real question of how he would know this. This isn’t a guy who is familiar with intelligence,” a former official told the outlet. “How is he going to get to the bottom of this and rely on any information with a matter of fidelity? It would be like me taking over a hospital and firing dozens of surgeons in a matter of days.”The cuts follow Pulte's earlier removal of six political appointees who served under his predecessor, Tulsi Gabbard. His arrival has drawn alarm across party lines: he took the post without ever holding a security clearance, and he can stay in the acting role past November's midterms under federal vacancy rules. Critics note his office doesn't collect intelligence of its own, relying instead on the CIA, the NSA and more than a dozen other agencies to supply it.Democrats and some Republicans fear the purge is less about efficiency than about clearing out analysts who might resist Trump's election claims. The ODNI says it is providing "elite, apolitical intelligence that keeps America safe."

Iran threatens response without ‘full implementation’ of US deal

Iran’s Parliament Speaker Mohammad Bagher Qalibaf has warned of an Iranian response if the U.S. and Israel breach the interim peace deal, as Tehran prepares to bury its former supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei. “We strongly demand full implementation of the agreements, and if the U.S. and the Zionist regime fail to fulfill their commitments, Iran…

Feds Announce Pipeline Steps, BC Advances Protected Areas

Alberta’s path to the coast won’t threaten the northern tanker ban. But the new oil pipeline will land near Vancouver.

Iran’s supreme leader bails on first day of late dad’s funeral ceremonies

Iran's entire regime made a red carpet entrance to the first of three funeral ceremonies for late Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei — except the dead ayatollah's own son and successor.

Trump team believed Israel plotted assassinations to derail Iran talks: reports

Trump administration officials reportedly believed that the Israeli government intended to assassinate Iran’s top negotiators—including the country’s foreign minister—during peace talks with the US in an effort to sabotage diplomatic progress.The New York Times reported Thursday that “American concerns about the targeting of two particular Iranian officials—Abbas Araghchi, Iran’s foreign minister, and Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf, the speaker of the Parliament—spiked during delicate ceasefire negotiations that began in April.” In response, the US “went so far as to ask other countries in the region to warn Iran about the possibility Israel could target the two officials,” according to the Times, which cited unnamed current and former American officials.The US and Israel have killed dozens of top Iranian officials since launching their illegal joint war in late February. But the allied countries reportedly removed Araghchi and Ghalibaf from their target list in late March, opening the possibility of high-level negotiations to end the war.But Israel remained bent on targeting the negotiators, according to the Times, whose reporting was later corroborated by The Washington Post.The Times detailed one dramatic incident in April, when Ghalibaf was planning to travel to Pakistan’s capital to meet with US Vice President JD Vance:Pakistani fighter jets escorted the Iranian airplanes carrying a delegation of more than 70 Iranians from the border of Iran to Islamabad and back again when the session was over.But on the way back to Tehran, an Israeli security threat emerged.Iran’s security forces notified the plane carrying Mr. Ghalibaf back to Tehran that they had picked up intelligence that Israel planned to attack the plane and that two Israeli fighter jets had entered Iran’s airspace from its western border near Iraq, the two officials said.Mahdi Mohammadi, a senior adviser for Mr. Ghalibaf, who accompanied him to Islamabad, confirmed this account on his social media page. The plane made an emergency landing in the city of Mashhad, Iran’s closest airport to the Pakistani border, and the Iranian delegation traveled some eight hours by land back to Tehran, Mr. Mohammadi and the two officials said.The Post reported that “cracks emerged” between the US and Israeli approaches to the war following Israel’s assassination of top Iranian national security official Ali Larijani in March.“They’ve wiped out everybody,” Trump told reporters in late March, suggesting Israel’s assassination campaign was making it difficult to find potential negotiating partners.Trita Parsi, executive vice president of the Quincy Institute for Responsible Statecraft, wrote in response to the new reporting that “Israel is a state that, on paper, is a US partner, but in reality is so extreme in its obsession to undermine US diplomacy that it even tries to assassinate those the US engages with in crucial negotiations.”“I can’t recall a government as terrified of peace as the one running Israel,” Parsi added.At present, the Israeli government—led by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu—is endangering tenuous US-Iran peace talks with its continued occupation of and assault on Lebanon, which Iran has highlighted as a key factor in the negotiations.Visiting occupied southern Lebanon earlier this week, Netanyahu declared to Israeli troops that “our insistence is that we will not leave... until the threat is removed.”Parsi wrote earlier this week that “beyond his long-standing desire to use American force to subjugate Iran to Israeli domination and achieve a regional balance favorable to Israel,” Netanyahu “now also has stark political and personal reasons to restart the war” with Iran.“The [US and Iran’s memorandum of understanding] has come at a steep political cost for Netanyahu,” wrote Parsi. “His prospects for reelection in October are weaker than they have been in months. Once seen as the Israeli leader uniquely capable of delivering President Trump, he now confronts the prospect that both the war and the ensuing diplomacy will leave Israel in a strategically weaker position—undermining the very case he has made for his leadership.”“And of course,” Parsi added, “if he loses the elections, he will likely spend the next few years in jail, as he will lose his immunity as prime minister and face trial over corruption charges.”The story was published in partnership with Common Dreams, read the original here.

‘It’s crazy’: GOP rebel declares war on Republican leadership

Rep. Anna Paulina Luna (R-FL) committed to block House floor proceedings unless House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-LA) inserts the SAVE Act into a must-pass piece of legislation, Punchbowl News reported on Friday.Luna has pressed for the SAVE America Act – a bill that mandates voter ID and citizenship checks while adding new restrictions on mail-in ballots – to be folded into the annual defense policy bill."We should be doing all of the above," Luna told Punchbowl News for its report published Friday. "Why not try? It's crazy."Luna has already disrupted leadership's plans once – she helped defeat a rule that would have inserted SAVE Act language directly into the defense bill, despite House GOP leaders having spent three years working to keep unrelated amendments out of it.Meanwhile, Senate Republicans have grown frustrated with inter-party disputes. Sen. Ron Johnson (R-WI) told Punchbowl that Republicans "need to be very careful" about how they message the standoff, arguing that Democrats – not Republicans – are the ones blocking the SAVE Act's passage.“The message we need to convey to our supporters – it’s not Republicans that are preventing the SAVE America Act from being passed. It’s Democrats,” Johnson told Punchbowl News.