I was driving my daughter to school this morning, listening to MSNBC on the satellite radio, when one of my favorite News People in what is mostly a very good crop of journalists (with a few Truly Great Ones, a few Profound Mediocrities, and, bringing up the rear — the Dumbest Man In The Solar System — Hugh Hewitt) — Stephanie Ruhl used a word that I don’t think she meant — and it was only in pitching an upcoming segment — but she chose the word and spoke the word: “SHADOWY” — to describe CHRISTOPHER STEELE.  And that, simply, is not an accurate description of the man.  It just ain’t.

We have arrived, culturally, at a True Tipping Point.  We can no longer, some of us, agree on what ‘is’ is.  That’s not because ‘is’ has suddenly changed meanings.  It hasn’t.  And it’s not going to.

The only thing that’s changed in this equation is the sudden appearance of Willful Ignorance as a full-on ‘playah’.  There are genuinely nefarious people actively engaged in altering our perception of Truth.  But what is ‘Truth’?

In one sense — yeah, sorta ‘unknowable’.  But in the day-to-day sense — TRUTH is that collection of ‘What’s Really Happening Here From Everyone’s Point Of View’ as we collectively agree it is.  And we have, most of us, agreed for most of the past year that something about Donald Trump’s presidency isn’t just ‘different’, isn’t just ‘change-y’, isn’t just ‘Trumpian’ — it’s fraudulent.

We KNOW so much already.  And our NEWS MEDIA does too.  Some ‘news’ they feel comfortable reporting.  Other news they’d rather sit on for a while, awaiting more verification.  But knowledge of the underlying ‘I don’t know this for sure but I’m pretty sure it IS true and IF IT IS?’ should color the language any articulate, well-spoken, (theoretically) professional communicator would employ as part of their ‘speech palette’.

Words like ‘shadowy’ to describe Chris Steele reflect a choice of dark colors when far lighter hues clearly reflected REALITY.  “PATRIOTIC” would be a far more accurate word to describe Chris Steele than ‘shadowy’.

Which kinda brings to mind another word our News Media used to use with great abandon — “UNSUBSTANTIATED” or its cousin “UNVERIFIED” to describe Chris Steele’s work — when those words only applied to THEM; my meaning — Chris Steele’s work was neither UNSUBSTANTIATED nor UNVERIFIED to the people to whom it was directed:  INTELLIGENCE PRO’S & THE FBI.

Reality — the ‘work’ of the Steele Dossier — went on REGARDLESS of the words dimwits in the media used to describe events and actions that were not happening and would not happen. But the public remained either UNDER-INFORMED or, worse, ‘MIS-INFORMED’.  Deliberately so.

Words, all by themselves, can speak volumes — if you know how to listen to them.  Our ‘president’ is a man who literally SCREAMS AND SHOUTS who and what he is — yet half the country (it feels like) still refuses to listen to him.

The solution is simple.  Not easy, but simple.  We — The People — have to call out members of the Press when they are careless or deliberately misleading with language.  Undermine how we communicate with each other and chaos will absolutely follow.  This assault on the Truth is not an accident.

From Vladimir Putin’s point of view — it’s a ‘Building Block’…