No, Pelosi can’t just magically refuse to seat seditious republicans. Courts would overrule it, and she’d look toothless. There are NEVER any magic wands in politics, on either side. Stop listening to pundits who promote simplistic magic wand solutions as if they were real.

1) If you want a better understanding of how to fight and win on the left, look no further than Rep. Bill Pascrell. He knows Speaker Pelosi can't just magically refuse to seat 126 House Republicans and pull it off – but that's the entire point. This is all about leverage.

2) There are no magic wand solutions in politics. There just aren't. Pascrell is a fearless flame thrower, but he understands that. He's calling for Pelosi to refuse to seat these Republicans, because it gets the discussion going about what should be done to these Republicans.

3) By calling for an extreme and impossible action (the 14th Amendment isn't a magic wand the Speaker can just wave), Pascrell is laying the groundwork to give Pelosi cover to be able to take some kind of more realistic action against the 126 House Republicans.

4) By the time Pelosi ends up taking whatever realistic action she was planning to take against them, it ends up looking reasonable in the eyes of voters in the middle, in comparison to the more extreme (and again, impossible) course of action that Pascrell put on the table.

5) So the Democratic Party will get a savvy win out of this. They'll ding the 126 House Republicans in some way, and it'll resonate with voters in the middle. But most liberal activists will end up throwing a fit about it, because they didn't get the magic wand solution.

It's trendy to suggest that Trump's attempt at stealing the election has finished off what was left of our democracy. But after everything we've been through in the past four years, I just don't buy that his endgame has been any more harmful than the rest of what he's done to us.

First of all, Trump DID manage to rig the 2016 election. The media largely swept that inconvenient fact under the rug when the evidence started to emerge shortly after he "won" because they were too excited at the ratings that a Trump presidency would give them.

But the reality is that Trump's successful theft of the 2016 election was obviously more harmful to the sanctity of our democracy than his failed theft of the 2020 election. It's just that the media now wants to get ratings out of his failed 2020 attempt.

Trump has spent four years systematically chewing at the fabric of every aspect of our democracy. We don't even know what our democracy is going to look like after this. His tantrum about losing, and zero-chance attempt at overturning it, is just a footnote at the end.

We've all known for four years now that if Trump lost the 2020 election, he'd try to overturn it by any illegal means possible. If you were paying attention, you also knew that if he got blown out, he would have zero chance of overturning it. This isn't some gasp-worthy surprise.

No, Mike Pence can't magically do anything on January 6th. No, Louie Gohment can't force the courts to give Pence magic powers. Trump has literally zero chance of magically overturning the election. Stop panicking over imaginary things. This is getting incredibly boring.

There won’t be a civil war. No one will pull off a coup. There won’t be martial law. None of these things are real.

It’s over. But the more clear it becomes that it’s over, the fantasizers on Trump’s side, and the panickers on our side, become more hallucinatory about it.

We have a pandemic, people dying, an economic crisis, people starving, and a runoff election that’s for all the marbles. Yet you’re going to focus on IMAGINARY doomsday scenarios? None of what’s going on is real enough for you? You have to go invent more bad things? Come on.

Those of us who have fought so hard for four years, deserve better than to have our agenda derailed by the doomsday panickers on our side. They don’t care about winning, they’re just addicted to the adrenaline rush of telling themselves they’re going to lose.

In fact the panickers on our side, and the fantasizers on Trump’s side, deserve each other. Both completely removed from reality. Neither interested in helping their own side. Just a shared interest in hallucinating over laugh out loud imaginary scenarios. And of no use to anyone

What do the Atlantic, Business Insider, Vox, Salon, Slate, BuzzFeed, Washington Post, New York Times have in common? They've all knowingly published lies about me over the past four years. There's zero honesty or accountability in journalism. We're going to change that in 2021.

I'm in a unique position to know just how dishonest the mainstream media is, because I've read lies about myself in so many major news outlets. I know who the bullshitters are, on the left and right, because they've all targeted me to try to score cheap points.

I have a hard time trusting anything that's reported the mainstream political media, because I've read lies about myself most of the major publications publications, thus forcing me to question what all else they might be lying about. It's a really creepy position to be in.

What's even more disturbing is how few people truly know how dishonest the mainstream political media is. If it's from a big name publication, they just believe it. That's because they haven't read lies about themselves in those news outlets, like I have. It's eye opening.

I'm not even talking about misinformation. I'm talking about outright and intentional lies that major publications made up about me for competitive reasons, because they were worried Palmer Report was getting too big, and didn't want the competition. Truly evil tactics.

Everyone calm down. While we don’t know why witnesses weren’t called, we know that the Democrats didn’t “cave.” They’re not hapless idiots. They’re savvy fighters, and they must have had a damn good reason for this. Stop blindly attacking them and let this play out.

For insurance, the DC Attorney General let it be known last night that he’s looking to criminally charge Trump for the insurrection. That’s infinitely more important than impeachment. Perhaps he asked the Democrats not to screw up his prosecution by calling his witnesses.

It’s also possible that one or more of the witnesses changed their story, and therefore it would have backfired.

There are all kinds of plausible explanations for what just happened. “Democrats stupidly caved” is NOT one of them, because these Democrats are NOT stupid or cavers.

We really, really, really need to learn to avoid jumping straight into the “all hope is lost” and “Democrats just stupidly caved” routines. Neither of those things ever ends up being true. When we fatalistically yell that stuff, WE are the ones (unwittingly) causing harm.

We deserve answers as to what happened today, but we’ll get them soon enough.

I warned you from day one not to let the media suck you into the fictional notion that the impeachment trial was crucial, and that he’s “getting away with it all” if he’s not convicted in it.

1. Military Intelligence Contact: . He is confirming X’s sources, Bruce's sources, and other sources reporting that the bond redemption processing finished today Christmas Eve Thu 24 Dec and as of about 1 pm EST all banks in this country and globally started moving fully onto...

2. ... the QFS system in all their operations, as the St Germaine Trust and the Rodriguez Trust start on Christmas Day Fri 25 Dec to pay out very large tranches to the Global Collateral Accounts and UST and other central bank accounts that are free of Deep State control and...

3. ... interference in preparation to release the shotgun liquidity start when T4B is started, his current info matching Bruce's sources, T4B start currently set for approximately next Tue-Wed 29-30 Dec;
. He is confirming Mr. X’s sources saying that 2 separate groups in...

4. ... different geographic locations said that there is expected to be activity on the holiday as well as into the weekend and if so we in T4B will be in great shape soon thereafter next week.
. He is confirming that bond liquidity in bond holder accounts will begin to be...

5. ... released giving account holders 1% to 1.5% access to funds next Mon-Tue 28-29 Dec, & that the bond liquidity release will enable release of trillions in liquidity globally to paymasters to downstream payments to T1-4A as we in T4B get started by some time29-30 Dec;(edited)

New from me and @MarkMorales51: Cuomo said 'he can destroy me': NY assemblyman alleges governor threatened him over nursing homes scandal

Democratic NY Assemblyman Ron Kim told CNN that Gov. Cuomo called last Thursday to “threaten my career if I did not cover up for Melissa [DeRosa] and what she said.” Cuomo also said “I hadn't seen his wrath and that he can destroy me,” according to Kim.

Kim's wife told CNN she overheard parts of the phone call and heard Cuomo say, "Who do you think you are?" as well as the words, "my wrath," and that immediately after the phone call, her husband told her: "The governor threatened to destroy my life."

CNN first reached out to Cuomo's office for comment on TUESDAY. In a written statement, his communications director did not directly respond to or deny Kim's allegation of threats from the governor in a written statement.

Ultimately, Cuomo's office sent another statement from senior adviser Rich Azzopardi late Wednesday morning that said: "Kim's assertion that the governor said he would 'destroy him' is false."

Last week, @CleCityCouncil started reviewing Mayor Frank Jackson’s proposed city budget for 2021. There was robust discussion, and Documenters were there to cover it. Here’s a thread of what we learned last week about the #CLEBudget

First, it helps to know where we are in the budget process. From today through Feb. 24, the council will meet about the General Fund budget. The council will then agree on a budget with their changes (if any); 15 days after doing so, they can vote to make the budget official.

In other words, there’s still time to use your voice! The #refundcleveland tool can help. Create the #CLEBudget you want and send it to your council member. Click “Change the Budget” on the homepage and follow the on-screen instructions from there.

Want to know the budget basics? Our #CLEBudget primer details the timeline, different types of budgets and the funds involved, and defines budget-related terms. It can be a helpful guide during City Council’s discussions.

And don’t forget: all these meetings are livestreamed on City Council’s YouTube channel. They’re slated to start at 9 a.m. every business day from today through the 24th. You can also follow along with #CLEDocumenters live-tweet threads and