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[ by Charles Cameron — this post models the transition from nuclear threat to celestial peace — a transition our poor minds surely, sorely need ]
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I’m very fond of sacred choral music, and the Orthodox sacred choral music of Russia can be beautiful indeed. Some of that beauty can be heard in this performance in the Cathedral of St. Isaac in St Petersburg, which drew a standing ovation and sustained applause just a week ago:

The Eparchy, or ecclesiastical authority, however, “eventually” expressed displeasure with the event. One might wonder why?

Radio Free Europe’s report provides the answer:

The song’s first verse describes a nuclear submarine with “a dozen little bombs of 100 megatons each” crossing the Atlantic.

“I call to the targeting officer,” the lyric goes, “‘Take aim, Petrov, at Washington!'”

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While we can still draw breath, you at least deserve a taste of Russian chant of the kind targeted at the heart of God:

[ by Charles Cameron — I share with Michael Cohen the problem of papers in boxes in storage — &c ]
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Background text:

Quote:

Dom Donilon: North Korea of course is the combination of a cult and kind of a mob operation ..
Rachel 2/28/2019: Would it be an act of bravery, or an act of high-wire walking, to prosecute Trump?

This post is a catchall for the stray bits of chyron, header, quote, metaphor etc left over from previous, more focused posts.

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Rachel Maddow:

Header:

Quote:

Rachel: When you are talking about allegations of criminal behavior by a sitting president, allegations are sort of on parallel paths — not exactly parallel, I think they might intersect somewhere down the road ..

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strong>Headers:

Two Atlantic headers with gambling metaphors for current affairs, North Korea version:

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And a Vanity Fair Hive header:

As someone whose life library and papers are currently in a couple of hundred boxes in storage, I could hardly fail to offer you this paragraph from Emily Jane Fox‘s reporting on Cohen‘s testimony under the title above:

About nine boxes were there waiting for him. The first contained a bunch of junk. The second did, too. “Oh my god,” he said when he opened the third. He’d hit the mother lode. In the third box were three years of Trump’s financial statements, from 2011 through 2013, which Cohen pointed to on Wednesday as evidence that the president had purposefully inflated and deflated his personal assets when it suited him—to secure bank loans or land a higher spot on the Forbes 400 list, for instance, or to lower his tax liability. There were also countless personal notes from Trump, scrawled across newspaper clippings, printed articles, and torn-out pages from glossy magazines. One note, written in Sharpie across an unflattering article, urged Cohen to call a reporter and threaten him with a lawsuit; another, on a story prominently featuring Cohen, read simply, “Michael, enjoy this while it lasts.”

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This has been a bit of a rag-tag collection, so let me close with a moment of extraordinary strength: Elijah Cummings’ closing remarks at the conclusion of Michael Cohen’s testimony yesterday:

[ by Charles Cameron — that same history-making day of congressional testimony from michael cohen— part 2 of 2 ]
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Hardball:

Chyrons:

Steve Kornacki: .. dramatic split-screen when we return

Quotes:

Steve Kornacki: The unbelievable political theater from one Republican on the committee defending the president ..
Noah Rothman: I think in a lot of ways he’s trying to ingrate himself with the anti-Trump left, and he’s been singing the sermons of the Resistance to the hilt ..
42 Tulsi Gabbard: Kim saw what happened in Libya, he saw how we promised Libya’s dictator Gaddafi that if he gave up his nuclear weapons program, that we would not over that throw him. Well, he gave up those weapons, he gavee up that program and we blew him away. And so Kim’s not going to make this mistake..
Jackie Speier: I think we’re getting closer and closer to being able to put all those puzzle pieces together and have a pretty profound picture to show the American people ..

All In, Chris Hayes:

Chyrons:

Quotes:

14 Chris H: It’s a Chinese finger-art type of situation
Cohen: You don’t know him. I do. I sat next to this man for ten years and I watched his back ..
Rick Wilson: It’s the “my black friend” theory, it was cringe-inducing ..
It’s high school drama class ..
Danielle Moodie-Mills: The proximity to power and money — it’s an incredible aphrodisiac, and that’s what we saw today, that’s what Michael Cohen said, don’t be like me ..
Rick Wilson: You know who doesn’t give a damn about high school drama? Southern District of New York, Robert Mueller. The facts that Cohen’s revealing today today are going to be remembered, and known and litigated long after this playtime is over ..
[ 56 visual split screen ]
he doesn’t give you questions, he doesn’t give you orders, he speaks in a code ..
Hayes 58: he doesn’t tell you something,

Rachel Maddow:

Quote:

This is a feast-day for the news gods ..

And that’s it for yesterday, the 27th February, 2019

[ by Charles Cameron — we only got to see one in three of cohen’s days before congressional committees — but what a history-making day — part 1 of 2 ]
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Header:

Shocked barely causes a ripple these days. Earth-shattering, on the other hand, is about as strong a term as any I’ve chronicled here, as in a different register is flabbergasted.

As a source told Emily Jane Fox,

Some things that are earth-shattering are right in front of your nose, and the reason you don’t know that they’re earth-shattering is because they’re right in front of you

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That was yesterday. Today, Michael Cohen testified for seven hours before the House Oversight Committee.

Meet the Press:

Chyrons:

Quotes:

Elijah Cummings:
16: I lived in the inner city of Baltimore, and when yoiu call somebody a ratthat’s one of the worst things you can call them, because when you go to prison, rat means a snitch ..
19: And hopefully, this part of your destiny will lead to a better Michael Cohen, a better Donald Trump, a better United States of America, and a better world, and I mean that from the depth of my heart. When we’re dancing with the angels, the question will be asked, in 2019 what did we do to make sure to keep our democracy intact..
We have got to get back to normal ..
Kasey Hunt:
This was akso a very human day ..

**** amash clip[ 32-33 ****

Chuck: You don’t say it, you say it ..
34 Ben Wittes: the direction without direction .. for Michael Cohen, when to lie ..
39 Cummings: we have strayed so far from normal ..
44/5 these were my exact words: I’ll nail you to the cross ..
55 [ Sam Nunberg re Matthew Calamari ] he was a security guard and was beating somebody up and Trump hired him, saw him at the US Open ..
Carol Leonnig: eccentricities of accounting ..

Ari Melber, the Beat:

Chyrons:

[ 59 chyron: Cohen checks .. ]

Quotes:

Cohen: I did the same thing that you’re doing now, for ten years. I protected Mr Trump for ten years. I can only warn people the more people that follow Mr Trump as I did, blindly, are going to suffer the same consequences that I am suffering ..
Maya Wiley: his points about Donald Trump’s wink, wink, nod, nod, in terms of the Trump Moscow Tower ..
Ari; The most ominous thing for Trump has apparently been playing out in plain sight, in public, with this new chapter today that is legally gigantic even though it might have been understandably overshadowed at times by other fireworks and passion, scandal and drama and intrigue in that hearing ..
Maya Wiley: How can you save a client who’s not telling the truth? You can’t. I thought we were going to go old school, Houdini? A friend?
Flannery: This whole gang of Pinocchios can’t be trusted to tell us anything that’s truthful. I do credit the performance, if you will, by Cohen today for giving the sense of being a man who is eating ashes and as close to being transparent as he could possibly be, perhaps in his entire life ..

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I am going to break here, after Ari Melber‘s The Beat and before Chris Matthews‘ Hardball, because this is enough for one bite of an exceedingly rich day.

[ by Charles Cameron — beating the drum, dancing around, clapback, bracing, blocking, curve-ball, armed to the teeth, showdown, passion play, game-changing, end-game — and some appalling religious hate ]
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Quotes:

Rachel Maddow: that new curveball in the Manafort case coming up next — stay with us ..

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Chyrons, ok:

Prosecuting Trump:

Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, aka AOC:

Then there’s this set of three horrific sub-captions, drawing distinctions between three major religions..

One on the National Emergency question:

And a game-changer screen-grab re Elizabeth Warren:

I chose these grabs for their wording, not their politics — bracing, clapback, massage, blocking, game-changing, hellscape — and those three stunning alt-right subtitles.

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Quotes, continued:

Ari Melber:
04/5 Rob Rosenstein was sort of dancing around it [indicting Trump] when he spoke about the normal rules for non_presidents, so to say..
We’re now in this interesting period of a kind of an end game ..
We’re in this interesting end-game, and everyone is thinking, Who’s going to do what?
07/8 David Frum: Special Prosecutors seek prosecutable offences. This js a drum I’ve been beating since early in 2017.. There is a real risk that in this highly legalistic culture, that we look to Bob Mueller to do things that it’s really up to Congress to do ..
08 Frum: We’re not at an ending, we’re at the beginning of the game ..
Rep Joe Neguse: We’re not at the end-game, we’re at the beginning ..
Ali Mystal: Southern District of New York is the bear of the Trump vs Leonardo DiCaprio and this time we’re not sure the bear is going to let him 29: go..
It’s Don Junior and Ivanka who, to my mind, are going to be the first people over the falls ..
32 [SDNY]: If they have to play a role in this passion play, I’d set them up to be the Avengers ..
41 Bernard-Henri Levy: there is a massive attack, today, onbthe very udsea of truth ..
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Hardball, Chris Matthews:
17 Charlie Sykes: That would be the smart play ..
53: he needs to be a little more strategic about this — time your hits, do them in the right way..
towards end: We could be looking at a showdown between Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren in New Hampshire .. This could be what amounts to an elimination contest between the two of them ..
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All In:
He thinks he’s Teflon Don ..
Why he holds his cards so close to the vest .. he has another hand to play ..
He had an opportunity to show his hand, and he didn’t show his hand ..
32: Republicans came to the table armed to the teeth ..
?40 Elizabeth Warren: We are going to play by some rules that are way past now ..
55 Neera Tanden: .. changed their calculus on this ..
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Singing: In short, in matters quasi-international and criminal / [?Kusmani?] is the model of a modern major-general..
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53: the big/?/great reveal ..

So here we can add dancing around, beating the drum, armed to the teeth, showdown, passion play, end-game ..

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Previous Metaphoric Snow posts:

One delicious ouroboros and miscellaneous chyrons &c

I have a huge dose of chyrons and a great ouroboros

It’s snowing metaphoric chyrons, ignore unless interested

It’s snowing metaphoric chyrons, ignore unless interested 2

It’s snowing metaphoric chyrons, ignore unless interested 3

It’s snowing metaphoric chyrons, ignore unless interested 4

It’s snowing metaphoric chyrons, ignore unless interested 5

It’s snowing metaphoric chyrons 6

It’s snowing metaphoric chyrons, ignore unless interested 7

It’s snowing metaphoric chyrons 8

It’s snowing metaphoric chyrons, ignore unless interested 9

Second Civil War? It’s snowing metaphoric chyrons 10