It sure is tough writing about politics, these days.  With our vaunted “fourth estate” in tatters, it’s hard to even know what’s going on.  Have you seen the cleverly edited video in which newsreaders were ordered by Sinclair Broadcast Group to read a script supposedly decrying the practice of forcing newsreaders to read scripts that “ some members of the media use their platforms to push their own personal bias and agenda to control exactly what people think…”  These pieces are called “must-runs” as in, the given station is ordered to run them whether they agree with the content or not.

But when you get ownership groups pressing their agendas by using their platforms to complain about ownership groups using their platforms to press their agendas it becomes that much more difficult to figure out who’s trustworthy and who’s not.  Here’s a hint: American broadcast media is NOT trustworthy.  Print media is better because you have time to linger and think about what’s being presented but if it originates in America, you should assume it’s owned by one of the five companies that own most media in this once-great nation and accept that you’re getting either useless fluff or carefully edited news…

My greatest complaint tends to be around what’s NOT reported.  I’m not talking about conservative bubble “stories” only THEY get because they have their super-secret decoder rings.  (“Why, oh why won’t the mainstream media cover THIS?”  “Um, because it’s bullshit?”)  I’m talking about REAL news stories that don’t get carried for reasons that serve the owners.

As an example, these days, we’re treated to a semi-regular feature in which someone is asked for their “best” example of Trump/Russian collusion.  The most common answer I see is the pee tape.  (And how great IS it that we all get to talk about the President of the United States of America and a “pee tape”?)  They don’t ask me, though.  MY best example of possible Trump/Russian collusion is about a Tanzanian bank that operated mostly in Cyprus, FBME, or the First Bank of the Middle East.

It’s closed now.  Pretty good timing, if you ask me.  But before it was closed down, it was a known haven for Russian money laundering.  Some of the Russians laundering money were VERY close to Putin.  Do you know who else stands accused of laundering money through FBME?  Well, that would be Paul Manafort, the one-time campaign manager for Trump.  Manafort denies the charges.

Turns out?  Deutsche Bank was a Correspondent Bank for FBME.  A Correspondent Bank is one that provides financial services for the “partner” institution – wire transfers, accepting deposits and documents, that sort of thing.  Oh, and Deutsche Bank is, far and away, Donald Trump’s biggest lender.  Nobody else will lend to the guy anymore.  He’s too big of a risk.  But Deutsche went out of it’s way to find borrowers who were out of favor with more…respectable institutions and they found the Donald…

I’ll tell you this: in fairness to our crap media, Robert Mueller has played it pretty close to the vest when it comes to the details of his investigation – as he should.  But the Guardian from the UK covered it, so it was clearly “coverable.”  I guess it’s just more fun to salivate over Stormy Daniels’…um…accusations…