Theprogressivist

It's real

The Republican-led Senate has delivered a rare rebuke of President Donald Trump and his signature trade agenda.

Senators voted 51-48 Wednesday to reject the national emergency Trump declared earlier this year to justify his plan to slap 25 percent tariffs on Canadian imports. The vote took place hours after Trump delivered remarks from the White House rolling out his latest plans to slap new tariffs on a wide range of products.

Republican Sens. Susan Collins, Mitch McConnell, Lisa Murkowski and Rand Paul joined all Democrats in backing a resolution from Virginia Democratic Sen. Tim Kaine that would end that national emergency. Paul, of Kentucky, co-sponsored the measure.

McConnell offered Paul, a fellow Kentuckian, a fist-bump on the chamber floor. They broke out into applause as the gavel went down and closed the vote.

Friendly reminder that this is an attempt to distract the masses from what's actually going on.

Donald Trump took to Truth Social in the early hours of Tuesday to go on a lengthy rant about Maggie Haberman, likely set off by a recent article in The New York Times on his weird relationship with aide Natalie Harp.

"Will the failing New York Times apologize to its readers for getting years of “Trump” coverage so wrong. They write such phony “junk,” knowing full well how incorrect it is, only meaning to demean.” Magot Hagerman, a third rate writer and fourth rate intellect, writes story after story, always terrible, and yet I almost never speak to her. They do no fact checking, because facts don’t matter to them. I don’t believe I’ve had a legitimately good story in the NYT for years, AND YET I WON, IN RECORD FASHION, THE MOST CONSEQUENTIAL PRESIDENTIAL ELECTION IN DECADES. WHERE IS THE APOLOGY?"

The article, published Monday, detailed Harp’s questionable proximity to Trump since his 2020 presidential campaign. Known as the “human printer” by the rest of the Trump team, Harp has “established herself at the center of a fast-moving carousel of text messages, articles and tidbits directed at Mr. Trump,” the Times reported, which is apparently worrisome to other aides “at a moment when Mr. Trump appears more contemptuous than ever of attempts to manage or control him.” Haberman goes on to describe her as an “instant enabler of [Trump’s] impulses.” For every Truth Social rant or mean tweet, Harp is there.

Harp also freaked out the rest of Trump’s inner circle with steamy handwritten messages, writing, “you’re all that matters to me.… I’ll never let you down.” She also wrote to him that she wanted to reclaim the “synergy” they had. “We’d talk about everything and nothing.… I want to bring you joy,” Harp wrote. “To feel like we can get through a day without ever having to talk ‘work.’” And it isn’t particularly one-sided either. The Times, which viewed the letters, reported that Trump apparently commented that Harp was the only member of his team that truly cared about him.

Harp first hit the scene in 2019, when she appeared on Fox News and started talking about how Trump saved her life by signing a law that gave her access to unspecified experimental drugs that helped treat her bone cancer. That launched her into a Republican National Convention speaking slot in 2020, and by 2022, she was a full-time aide to Trump.

WASHINGTON (AP) — The leaders of the FBI and the Department of Homeland Security declined to testify publicly at a scheduled Senate hearing Thursday on global national security threats, a break from precedent following years of open testimony before the panel.

“Their choice to not provide public testimony about their departments’ efforts to address wide-ranging national security threats robs the American people of critical information and the opportunity for public accountability of what the federal government is doing to keep Americans safe,” Sen. Gary Peters, chairman of the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs committee, said in a statement.

The Michigan Democrat said it was the first time in more than 15 years that an FBI director and Homeland Security secretary had refused to offer public testimony at the annual committee hearing focused on threats to the homeland, calling it a “shocking departure” from tradition.

A separate hearing scheduled for Wednesday before the House Homeland Security committee also was postponed.

...

The Department of Homeland Security said in a statement that they and the FBI offered to speak to the committee in a classified setting and emphasized the amount of unclassified information they’ve already shared publicly

Scott Pelley recapped the Cabinet picks of President-elect Donald Trump in the “60 Minutes” opening Sunday, enraging MAGA supporters despite the segment’s recitation of facts. (Watch the video below.)

The summary “is exactly why no one respects the legacy media anymore,” one person complained on X, formerly Twitter.

“Pure Democratic propaganda,” griped another.

Pelley, a correspondent, began by noting “some nominees appear to have no compelling qualifications other than loyalty to Trump.”

He pointed out defense secretary nominee Pete Hegseth’s lack of government experience and recent gig as a Fox News morning host; the investigation into attorney general nominee Matt Gaetz’s alleged sex with a minor; and the vaccine skepticism of health and human services nominee Robert F. Kennedy Jr.

“It’s up to the new Republican majority in the Senate to decide whether these nominees are equipped to represent the American people,” Pelley concluded.

We chase misprinted lies

We face the path of time

And yet I fight, and yet I fight

This battle all alone

No one to cry to

No place to call home