Everywhere you look the end of each year brings forth a series of lists outlining some variant of an annual summation.   We don’t traditionally assemble anything like that – however, this year my thoughts have been on specifically domestic stories that have not received the attention they deserve.
With that in mind, here’s my Top Ten list of domestic, mostly political, stories that I view have not been discussed with the importance or emphasis they should have carried:
jeb bush what#10 – Jeb’s failure to launch.  When you think about the years of strategic planning that went into a Jeb Bush presidential campaign, well, the scope Jeb’s failure to launch just exemplifies how disconnected the professional republican apparatus was from the average voter.  The party apparatchik genuinely believed Jeb Bush had a chance at winning the nomination.  Hundreds of millions of corporate and individual dollars, from major GOP donors, contributed to a campaign that was intensely futile, but the people supporting Jeb seemed oblivious to the reality.  Almost every incumbent republican politician aligned with his campaign.  Their collective disconnect from the feeling of the average American voter was definitely under reported.

Trump rally illinois 4#09 – The number of grassroots voters who donated to the Donald Trump campaign.  After a decade of the republican party surviving only from the mega-donors and bundlers, the era of the small donor returned.  Donald Trump gained the largest ever group of small donors to contribute to the presidential campaign of any republican ever.  It’s also stunning how this fact was seemingly overlooked by all those talking heads who said he didn’t have a chance.   This under reported story was also the largest reason why Reince Priebus defended Trump from the professional dopes within the party he chairs.
five stooges never trump#08 – The irrelevance of “conservative” talk radio.  Hugh Hewitt, Glenn Beck, Eric Erickson, Mark Levin, and Charlie Sykes all supported anyone except Donald Trump until there was no-one left except Donald Trump.  Their ravings, rantings and anti-Trump endorsements/non-endorsements made absolutely ZERO difference in the republican presidential primary race.  They were completely sidelined, held no influence and were simply cast into parking lot spectator status.  Unfortunately no-one will ever write a story about it, let alone interview or question them about their newly fractured status.
a17b2-hip-replacement-recall-bribery#07 – The inability of multi-million republican Super-PAC’s to defeat the grass roots voters.  That’s a major under reported story, also connected to #9: the size of the Trump coalition.  Browsing through the Super-PAC expenditure and FEC reports all year it was stunning to see how many hundreds of millions of dollars were spent on negative advertising “against Donald Trump” by the donors to the GOPe professional political class.  If anyone ever took the time to total up all that Super-PAC money it would well exceed the amount wasted by the Hillary Clinton campaign, by a significant margin; a VERY significant margin.
little marco#06 – The collapse of Little Marco’s professional career.  Senator Marco Rubio humiliated himself publicly, embarrassingly and unbelievably.  How anyone could ever envision Rubio attempting to gain higher office on his own merits is beyond my ability to understand.  There’s a reason he’s been essentially invisible on the national stage; however, as soon as he might think about poking his head up again – there’s reams of footage of him playing the fool and showcasing a painful lack of maturity.  Sure he’s apologized, but he’ll likely never recover from the embarrassment of his own behavior.
mosby you mad bro#05 – The failure of the false prosecutions.  The media have never taken a full accounting of how the insufferable false narratives spurred by anti-police, and anti-law-and-order social justice movements have collapsed when faced with sunlight of actual evidence. The attempts to prosecute the transparently innocent began with Zimmerman (’12), continued with Darren Wilson (Ferguson ’14) and culminated with the Baltimore Six trials (’16). In each example the fraud within the prosecution could not withstand the sunlight of the actual legal system.  Think about how many millions were spent on investigations and cases that were constructed entirely by fraud and deceit, and simultaneously promoted by the ideological broadcasts of the media.  Stunningly under reported.
bush affluenza#04 – The final defeat of the Bush Clinton legacies.  Bush, Clinton, Clinton, Bush, and Bush.  That’s 20 years of presidential valuation wiped out by the overwhelming support evidenced by Bernie Sanders and Donald Trump.  The larger American electorate simply had enough of self-appointed political dynasty building and the final rebuke of Hillary Clinton was the end of an era.  There’s been little media attention paid to this aspect of current political reality, but the influence of the Bush and Clinton families is finally over.
Allred#03 – The disappearing women – Trump accusers.  Isn’t it interesting how the manufactured and promoted claims of dozens of women simply disappear once their usefulness is exhausted. Where’s the media follow-up stories on what, who, why and where are they now?  It’s as if the entire media apparatus knew from the outset the story only held value in the short-term goal of taking down candidate Donald Trump.  Now, they simply just disappear as quickly as they originally surfaced.  Yet somehow, at some later date, those same media voices will be back on TV promoting the next target of Gloria Allred inc.
trump-media-8#02 – The wipe-out of the corporate media apparatus.  It is understandable why the media would choose not to report on their own irrelevance; yet that doesn’t mean their irrelevance is any less a story.  Arguably you could make the complete collapse of the U.S. corporate and legacy media the #1 story of this entire election cycle.  Never before has any single political election so thoroughly, completely and visibly destroyed the credibility of print or broadcast journalism.  Collectively and individually they will never recover from the continual abject and transparent falsehoods they promoted in each and every hour of their coverage, and in almost every column inch of their publications.  Put a fork in them, they are all done – and they did it to themselves, repeatedly.  Good riddance.
trump-hat-2#01 – The New Economy.  In my opinion the inability of media, business media, economic or financial forecasters to understand the concept of the new Trump “America-first” economy is not only the least reported story in 2016, but will also be the biggest under-reported story of 2017 and beyond.
There is an entire new dimension in modern American economics that is uncharted territory – but that doesn’t mean it is not understandable.  However, any forward economic understanding can only take place if financially-minded people wipe out their preconceived thoughts (a completely clean slate) and allow room for rethinking the concept of two parallel economic models.   The ability to understand what can and will be possible is only found in the dimension between the two parallel economies.  Between the “Wall Street economy” and the traditional “Main Street economy” you will find our economic pathway for the next several years.
Consider me resoundingly optimistic.
trump hard hat 2
Well, that’s my list.  Can you think of any under-reported stories that you would like to have seen expanded in national discussion?

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