The penalty may not be assessed. The IRS stands down from legislative, judicial and executive overreach, and stands up for the new executive. Glad!
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HeeHee, Trump on the Beeb: 'Here's another beauty'.
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Sebastian Gorka, a Trump aide, has a ten minute interview with BBC, now on YouTube. Among other things, he says that you don't have credibility in news any longer just because you sit under a letterhead sixty years old. He maintains that Trump will be able to get his message out without the MSM, and so far he's right.
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Kim. only by messages 140 characters or shorter. Alternatively by press conference where much of the time is spent railing at the media. Getting the good governance message out, one terminological inexactitude after another. Each examined minutely by the media with the full glare of publicity.

Saturday Night Live is now apparently offering serious Trump drama, week after week.

Bet you can't get evens now at Ladbrokes that Trump will last the four years.

Er, perhaps you misunderestimate him. It's finely tuned, some Lucas electrics remain.
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You could look at it this way; he is navigating a bathysphere shining a light on the deep state of the ocean. Will the machine stand the pressure?
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kim I've been down in a bathyscape (offshore Jamaica) with an amateur pilot. Bashed a submarine cliff all the way down - very scary particularly because new gaskets needed to be fitted before we dived. Hope Trump doesn't cause as much damage.

Don't need no bathyscape to investigate a swamp!

I think T-Rex is bashing out the seventh floor windows at the State Department. The EPA building is taller, and Pruitt's on the prowl.
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Perhaps T Rex will face his own bolide

What you think is a bright bolide is merely green blobs exploding over Tillerson, Pruitt, and Perry.
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Feb 17, 2017 at 6:19 PM | Supertroll

Was your amateur Bathyscape skipper Piloting Under the Influence, off the coast of Jamaica? It does sound as though Cliff bashing was his mission objective, rather like the BBC.

During the summer, discussions with the Number 1 Son, he asked do you think Trump can win as no one is giving him a chance? I said yes.

Trump was not writing any IOUs to the establishment, to donors or any invisible outside parties. He couldn't fall any further with the attacks on him. And... and he was still getting his message across. Via twitter, via rallies, via alternate internet channels. And the MSM was going on full "we can destroy anyone mode". He was still standing.

"This is me and I do not need the MSM." The campaign didn't know they could win, but they just switched off the MSM. And went with their instincts and kept to the strategy. They were listening, but not to the MSM.

So we come to now. And? The MSM have gone "full court press" on their attacks. And the White House have shown they do not care. They got that far without the MSM, they do not need them now.

Trump was just being Trump. MSM: "You watch, he needs us, when he needs to be seen to be Presidential, we control the message, we are power". But Trumps approval ratings are impervious to the MSM,

I have no idea how the battle with play out. But again history points to some things.

With Brexit being overturned, with Clinton ("rewrite the constitution because she won the popular vote"), with the MSM going full out to destroy Trump, these movements think "we are really the rightful winners, and when we get the correct result everything will return to the Status Quo, well the status quo as we define it."

It doesn't work like that. There are consequences. Major consequences. This is not a static system. There are feedbacks, there are state changes.

The MSM are now promoting stories that Trumps attacks on them will only serve them in the long run. There is only one winner in this, us.

But the MSM is becoming the story, they cannot see it. I was sitting watching the conference live, and thought he is clever. He has his support base. He doesn't have to sound eloquent, "presidential", even probably if he did, his core support would become suspicious of a sell out. And... he went on full attack on the MSM, directly. He has created something real, something tangible, and laughably something those being labelled are happy with being so. He is making the media the story. Because they are making him the story.

And history has shown making the media the story is never good for the media establishment. The media should not be the story.

I think anyone with even an ounce of "intelligence over instinct" can see the attacks on democracy by large parts of the MSM isn't good.

However, if the MSM win, if they destroy Trump (and they may), then things will not return to "normal". The losing side (and I am talking about the populace not the politicians) will not just sit back and say "fair enough", the establishment elite have a blank check to do what they want. Democracy is not about putting you chosen person in power. Democracy is just about the ability to remove the current bastards from power - it is that simple.

The future is uncertain, every establishment makes the mistake that they think they can control it.

Actually Martin I have absolutely no desire to, and have no worries it effects what I say. However, if you had written "Can you clarify?" I might have written something like...

Society's desire for information is basically a "pull" not a "push". The Media of course chose the requests they respond to, chose how they respond to them. And as a member of society you chose your outlet accordingly. That natural process where we feel comfortable with our own freedom and self determination (no matter how much an illusion that is.) That is the "authentic" process.

But where "push" has overridden "pull", things have never gone well (eventually). From total state controlled media, to the Global super brand trying to create that viral youtube hit.

And things are even more different now, because the content consumption is a chaotic (scientific term) system. And in this age of communication the rhythms and the interaction of those rhythms happen much faster. Fashions, tastes, accrued wisdom, education, access points to content, increase in range of content, generally free (as in speech) access, increasingly faster feed-backs as popular content creates crazes, instant creation of memes. You cannot control it, predict, manipulate it to the perfect end result.

Where the messenger becomes the story, then in the minds of the receiver the information is corrupted. Every Spokesperson, Press Secretary. Media Office, etc... etc... When Toto pulls the curtain and the voice you hear suddenly belongs to a person with motives.

We are pretty niaive and stupid. We believe. Until Toto comes along. An they we don't, and you can't put the curtain back and pretend it didn't happen.

So I leave it to you trawl your own personal experiences, knowledge and opinions. But that is what I meant. Basically.

I guess you could also say..."You can fool all the people some of the time, and some of the people all the time, but you cannot fool all the people all the time."

And then often there just comes a tipping point. Toto the Tipping Point. I'll trade mark that.

So Toto has ripped the curtain to pieces, and now it transpires he is the world's first fortune telling dog.He just looks into the ruby slippers and can tell the future.

Trump has brought his media treatment to the fore. In a press conference forum where he knew his supporters would be watching. No filtering by the press. He basically said "this is a war".

Ok, so Trump might lose. He is certainly not polished enough to cover every possibility.

(As an aside every media outlet with resources must be looking for the bullet or the smoking gun. The one to bring him down. They have been a long time. Interestingly he must be the most investigated President in history, and haven't got anything to stick yet.)

But the way the MSM and establishment are acting they think they can then get back to their iPads and latte's in peace (ignoring that their preferred candidate was Hilary... Hilary for god's sake?)

Here is Toto's prediction. If Trump is picked off by the establishment in they way they are acting now, I predict the breakup of the Union. There is no status quo. Things only move forward. States will secede from the Union. Americans certainly are not afraid of this, these things are part of the their history (even relatively recently with Texas and New Mexico). Montana Man will not stand a perceived Establishment Coup.

A strong prediction, and not as nuanced as it could be, but I have no time. I just throw it on the table, to show the future cannot be controlled as you want. Democracy is a bitch.

MH. The links that bind the different states together are far greater than any differences, so I cannot believe secession will be raised, let alone acted upon. If Trump is overthrown it will be done by the system, not the MSM. The MSM might provide the ammunition or the spark, but the actual overthrow will be a political act. If it happens it will only occur when and after Trump will have lost credibility with his supporters. If his administration is as chaotic as it has been so far, I don't see this being an impossibility.
Would Pense make a good President?

Supertroll, it isn't about Trump... or Pence, it is about disenfranchisement.

Secession was raised by many on the left in liberal states, and they had "just" lost a democratic election. And many on the right said let them go. Imagine how it will be raised if a significant proportion of the population feel disenfranchised by the establishment elite in what they believe to be an establishment coup? Perception is reality. Currently Trump versus the media is a war, and no one can win it. But Trump has at least made sure the stakes are well known and public.

Forgive me but yours views on Trump seem to be based upon the MSM view. Where is there chaos? There is change. Is the rule of law breaking down? Are their mixed messages from Trumps cabinet? The judiciary in the US is political, Supreme Court judges are the final court of appeal and are political appointments.

He has said to the MSM "I do not need you", in light of that you don't think perhaps they might want to cling onto their power? Or do you really believe they are acting as the true arbiters of society's wishes?

The MSM are openly challenging the democratic process, therefore they are part of the political process. If you push an agenda there are consequences. And returning to Climate Science, 20-30 years time the damage to science will be evident. Politicised.

And as to the system you mention, that totally depends on where you stand. There actually is no definition. 1776. 1947. 1865. Change happens. A thousand years of stability in England colours our views. And the two World War generations never talked about things after events.

Change happens. If Trump is taken out, the change doesn't go away, and depending how he is taken out will dictate the scope of change. What he has done is bring the MSM onto the battlefield, not allowing them to operate as 5th columnists.

Trumps problem is not be being destroyed by something he did, it will be by something he didn't do. He knows where his power comes from.

MH. Chaos seems to be the appropriate word for introducing ill-thought out policies like that on immigration, staff members forced to quit and others refusing to serve (all in four weeks). Deliberate policies, statements and tweets undermining the media (even Fox News), the Intelligence Agencies and the Judiciary - creating enemies. Causing widespread confusion with allies like NATO or potential enemies like China. Even important members of the Republican Party have been picked upon. And this continued support for a despot like Putin.
Politics is the art of convincing your opponents that they are wrong or that they would benefit from not opposing. Trump seems to be doing the exact opposite. Trump seems to be the diametric opposite of presidents like LBJ and Roosevelt who wheeler-dealered with the best and accomplished much. Trump seems to favour the cave-man approach.

Alternate facts, tomo?

Well quoting MSM reports raises a a few issues.

Was this the same MSM that failed en mass to predict Brexit and Trump wins? They are quietly ignoring their failures in that regard, but they are very publicly there and acknowledged. As these episodes have show, and related to Climate Science, most "experts" are just regurgitating the consensus... added value? Not very evident.

And then I ask the question... If Trump is quite clearly going to have car crash, why the need the to jump on the running boards, press the accelerator and guide the wheel, to hit the tree? As the MSM is trying to do? Why get involved in a crash the many assume he is quite capable of making on his own. Why wrestle the pig? Surely the best strategy is to sit back and report?

In the Hungarian language the word for government and steering wheel is the same. Trump has just pointed out the hands through the window.

And as to Putin...