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[ by Charles Cameron — if Rich Pickings was 35 and maybe concluded was 34, this would be 35 in what’s clearly an ongoing series, though a bit less intense than it was? ]
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A delirious conspiracist DoubleQuote:

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Miscellanea:

The art of the dodge is a time-honored Washington tradition ..

[W]e all know who tends to fare the worst when the pitchforks come out .. [from Bloomberg: Billionaire Hedge Fund..]

[for the arc collection*****, from They Had It Coming]

But even before the molting, never in my wildest imaginings had I dared to dream that the arc of the moral universe could describe a 90-degree angle and smite down mine enemies with such a hammer fist of fire and fury that even I have had a moment of thinking, Could this be a bit too much?

From Ford Foundation, for sludge collection*****]:

The urge to change the world is normally thwarted by a near-insurmountable barricade of obstacles: failure of imagination, failure of courage, bad governments, bad planning, incompetence, corruption, fecklessness, the laws of nations, the laws of physics, the weight of history, inertia of all sorts, psychological unsuitability on the part of the would-be changer, the resistance of people who would lose from the change, the resistance of people who would benefit from it, the seduction of activities other than world-changing, lack of practical knowledge, lack of political skill, and lack of money. Lack of money is a stubborn obstacle, but not as hopelessly unyielding as some of the others..

[From:The Church’s life-and-death struggle with Santa Muerte]

A Mexico City strFrom eet vendor explained the appeal of Santa Muerte to us by saying: “She understands us because she is a battleaxe like us.”

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Melber 4/10/2019:

… also warned Trump he would be boxed in a canypn ..

[Chuck Schumer] The majority, by taking yet another step to erode that legacy, risks turning this body [the Senate] into a Coliseum of zero-sum in-fighting

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All IN Chris Hayes:

The Justice Department is going to serve as the Roy Cohn for this administration, and that the Attorney General and his deputy are consiglieres rather than representatives of the people of the United States.

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Rachel Maddow:

DoubleQuote, Rachel?

11th Hour, Bryan Wms:

Frank Figliuzzi:

What he [Barr] did today by invoking the spying connection was, he threw what I would call a flash-bang into the room.

Anyone who has been involved or associated with tactical teams or the military will know a flash-bang grenade is designed to disorient and distract, with a flash of light and a loud noise, but it’s not made to take our personnel.

What he did today was to toss a flash-bang grenade into the room at the behest of the President..

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Odds:

He [Barr] is a weapon, not a servant..

Two fighting chyrons:

and:

We shall see — yesterday it was Bannon vs Francis — now Benedict XVI?

And a terrific DoubleQuote!

[ by Charles Cameron — metaphor, that Owen Barfield thing that undergirds Tolkien, who gives us our hero myth at highest, truest pitch — see final section ]
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One for the arc archive:

There is not a word in the American lexicon for such gatherings—the semi-spontaneous assembly of people in the wake of tragedy, who are united by both grief and by anger, and whose public mourning serves to reaffirm their civic bond to one another. But we need such a word..

That’s an important point.

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Look, large events have — what do events do, transpired? no — eventuated, actuellement, actually, which is to say, right about now..

From MTP 3/25/2019:

Chuck Todd:

At this point it seems pretty clear that, while politically Democrats have been perhaps, if not check-mated, a pretty touch check on the chess board here, politically..

Chuck Todd:

None of us have read the Mueller report. None of us have got a single complete sentence of the Mueller report.

Jake Sherman:

It’s certain that Democrats run the risk of beating this drum too loud collusion on the collusion thing. The collusion angle, politically, was the singular focus of this investigation. That’s why it started.

Is this going to be like the last scene in Raiders of the Lost Ark, buried in some warehouse in New Mexico?

If they find something, a hundred of them jump on it — it’s the bandwagon effect ..

The Beat, Ari Melber:

Ari: Is Barr departing from those preedents?

Preet:*****

He [Mueller] punts to Congress, and then Bill Barr runs on the field, takes the ball, runa in for a touchdown for the President..\

Holder:

I think Preet was wrong there..

Rossi:*****

Using a football analogy, that’s what Preet did, I want to use a basketball analogy. We have a jump-ball, we’re giving it to Bill Barr, who’s taking the ball, he already decided the possession arrow..

Preet, Holder, Rossi — a touch of Calvinball, one game becoming another?

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Let’s take a break:

Malcolm Gladwell, Thresholds of Violence

Thresholds are — in Latin — limina. Here a shooter threshold, a limen — a red line which, having been crossed, now shifts towards the susceptible:

The kid .. requires a finely elaborated script in order to carry out his attack .. : the effect of Harris and Klebold’s example was to make it possible for people with far higher thresholds — boys who would ordinarily never think of firing a weapon at their classmates — to join in the riot.

The caption to the illustration heading Gladwell‘s piece reads:

In the years since Columbine, school shootings changed; they became ritualized

That’s what my piece on Tarrant as a follower of Breivik was about.

Here too, from Gladwell, is a serpent that turns to bite its tail when SWAT arrives:

I would detonate when people were fleeing, just like the Boston bombings, and blow them up too. Then my plans were to enter and throw Molotov cocktails and pipe bombs and destroy everyone and then when the swat comes I would destroy myself.

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And serpentine sinuosity in the Mississippi at English Bend, the great river’s tail not quite bitten? Another border blurred, line receding…

The plane took off to the north, over Lake Pontchartrain, and looped back toward New Orleans. We picked up the Mississippi at English Turn, the sharp bend that brings the river almost full circle. Then we continued to follow the water as it wound its way into Plaquemines Parish.

Eh?

The control of nature? Good luck with that.

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Back to business — a rush of chyrons, with a couple of texts:

Booker to Ari:

I have had you on background in many of the rooms I’ve been in

There must be a lot of thoughts about who the umpire should be ..
the letter came from somebody who was already suspect and should have recused himself ..

Booker:

We’re seeing a lot of dots that seem to be directing us toward a real problem, a potential collusion that continues to seem tom be smoldering and that might result in a real fire..

Let’s look at the fact pattern ..

— that last is an interesting phrase —

Just a couple more from Sen Cory Booker to Ari Melber, then we’ll take a break.

Sen Booker:

This is a sacred constitutional moment for us ..

That’s an excellent quote***** for USian civil religion ..

A call to creaate what King calls “a more beloved community”

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Barfield on metaphor —

At a later stage in the evolution of consciousness, we find [the principle of living unity] operative in individual poets, enabling them . . . to intuit relationships which their fellows have forgotten-relationships which they must now express as metaphor. Reality, once self-evident, and therefore not conceptually experienced, but which can now only be reached by an effort of individual mind–this is what is contained in a true poetic metaphor; and every metaphor is “true” only in so far as it contains such a reality, or hints at it. The world, like Dionysus, is torn to pieces by pure intellect, but the poet is Zeus; he has swallowed the heart of the world; and he can reproduce it in a living body.

See here the relationship with Tolkien? with poetry, with HipBone Games?

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Out.

[ by Charles Cameron — brewing, churning, fighting, lashing out, crush, slam, push back, skewer, walk away, road warrior, hit job, full court press, cage match, power grab, bombshell, wow ]
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It’s almost a chyron blizzard today, after the calm weekend!

A Mad Max film ref, perhaps?

— and the ideal Full Court Press example — I’ve had quotes before, but never a chyron. Excellent!@

Fast tracking — is that a spooorts term? Not sure:

A shutdown fight? Okay:

Best mano a mano.. definitely a trove!

IO think I had an explosive interview chyron recently — here’s another, just in case:

And I’ve been tracking arcs, moral and otherwise — trajectories belong in that collection:

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New batch:

pushback — nothing much:

power grab — better:

skewers — excellent

sparring:

hmm: — move along:

lashes out:

slams as treasonous — that’s quite a hit ~

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Time for a break:

Judge Jackson and those cross-hairs

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Okay, how about some quotes — not many, this has been chyron season with a vengeance — but a few:

Robert Costa: Through the churning political waters of the Robert Mueller investigation and everything else that could come ..
Hardball, we Biden: walk up to the starting gate, and then walk away .. ?
One thought that comes to mind, Ben, is the bullet that was dodged in Sessions having to recuse himself early on, given the account McCabe gives of Sessions behind the scenes ..
it was actually the general counsel of the FBI who said That’s a bridge too far, we’re not there yet ..

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Back for some headers and a tweet:

hm, hit job:

cage-match is a pretty good one..

and this one goes to our continuing liminal / borders collection: