True Nature Naked in Public (Twitter) Square

LEADERSHIP USA

Crimes and Pardons in News

C

orruption and crimes against humanity have been widespread in all branches of U.S. governmental leadership — extending, at least in contemporary times, from 

the 

Reagan era through

the

Obama era —

All setting the pattern (the model, imprint) for Now!

R

ead the history from

Iran-Contra through 2001 - 2019 -

Obliteration of peoples, cultures and institutions of Afghanistan, Iraq, Yemen, Syria, Lebanon, Gaza, Libya, Sudan, Somalia, and other places including the Americas North South and Central; and the

Continuing economic sanctions warfare and threats against Venezuela, China, Korea, Iran, Russia, Ukraine, the United Nations

4

4th’s listing, targeting, and capricious drone-bombing and illegal (warrantless) global surveillance; and

• First-Lady predecessor-to-Pompeo at the U.S. Department of State who, like Pompeo, put on a show for her supporters, broadcasting her vulgar contempt for a long-time foreign head of state; and 
• Her hysterical (contempt for life) jubilation at that leader’s murder by foreign-implicated elements.

T

here have been uncountable U.S. extrajudicial killings and forced regime changes in the post-World War II era.

The 44th, aping his predecessors, acted as if he was from another planet, his oratory coating him in Reagan–style Teflon.

T

he 45th U.S. President is shamelessly putting on an outrageous show, wallowing publicly in his predecessors’ insidious, posh-talking, sugarcoated (swamp?) of contempt for all life and principled decency.

The 45th parades, on the public square, his government’s violations of the U.S. constitution and international laws; his global crimes against humanity and particular crimes of exploitation, treasury theft, and defamation against (foreigners and) Americans and immigrants in the United States.

The Billionaire, who can buy more lawyers than can the pope for his predators, has thrown off his predecessors’ cloak and camouflage. Carelessly, he struts and utters “anti’s” (anti-human, anti-immigrant, anti-Islam, anti-American, anti-“whatever”) and un-statesmanlike eruptions that are so far over the top that he is ensuring the world’s front-row seats — at the crash and burn of the United States of America.

With his billions or multi-millions (it’s all the same) and lacking allegiance to any person, place or thing other than himself, the detached 45th offers a bird’s-eye view of the true nature and consequences of entrenched malignancy:  inept, thoughtless, immoral, unethical, criminal leadership; indeed a long train of “entitled” abuse, arrogant impunity — an “other” world in which the inexcusable is excused, the unacceptable accepted; flagrancy is unchecked by active, impartial institutional and principled restraint, censure, prosecution and/or penalty.

P

ertinent News reported from outside

September 25, 2019 RT: “Trump impeachment proceedings based on ‘nothing’ phone call, but fallout will hurt America long-term…The transcript of President Donald Trump’s phone call with his Ukrainian counterpart shows no pressure or threats to withhold aid. So why are Democrats and media still reading it that way, and invoking it as impeachment grounds?

“For over two years, the Democrats pinned their hopes on Special Counsel Robert Mueller, who was investigating the claims of ‘Russian collusion’ and obstruction of justice in relation to it – only to come up empty-handed back in May.” https://www.rt.com/usa/469626-trump-impeachement-transctript-democrats/

November 13, 2019 RT: “‘Defending our democracy’ or Schiff show? Impeachment hearing reveals world where establishment feelings trump facts… So far, the efforts to impeach President Donald Trump have revealed far more about the corruption in US foreign policy and the Washington bureaucracy than any White House wrongdoing. Nevertheless, the establishment persisted.

“To hear Adam Schiff (D-California), chair of the House Intelligence Committee and the Democrats’ point-man for the impeachment process, this is about no less than ‘defending our democracy’ and stopping Trump’s ‘abuse of power.’ His staff even made an ominous-looking web page laying out the ‘evidence.’ https://www.rt.com/op-ed/473374-impeachment-hearing-schiff-show/

The United States led by a plutocracy of get-rich while entrenched among influence peddlers and buyers and sellers of public office made a deliberate decision a long time ago to stop even pretending to be either “democratic” or a democracy, or even a representative or constitutional democracy. It is all posturing, lies, and show. (My comment)

November 15, 2019 RT: “Ex-Ukraine envoy’s feelings that Trump ‘threatened’ her & his ‘real-time attacks’ on Twitter are IMPEACHABLE, Democrats say: … Ex-ambassador Marie Yovanovitch feeling ‘threatened’ by President Donald Trump and his tweet criticizing her ‘in real-time’ during her testimony amount to new grounds for impeachment, Democrats and their media proxies claimed.” https://www.rt.com/usa/473583-yovanovitch-impeachment-intimidation-trump/

November 16, 2019 Washington Post: “Trump administration ousts top homelessness official as White House prepares broad crackdown” Matthew Doherty quoted: “‘They have now told me to pack my things up and go.’” Reporting by Jeff Stein https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/2019/11/16/trump-administration-ousts-top-homelessness-official-white-house-prepares-broad-crackdown/

November 16, 2019 Press TV: “Trump grants pardons to Army officers in war crimes cases: US President Donald Trump on Friday pardoned two Army officers accused of war crimes in Afghanistan and restored the rank of a Navy SEAL platoon commander who was demoted for actions in Iraq, a move critics have said would undermine military justice and send a message that battlefield atrocities will be tolerated.

“The White House said in a statement Trump granted full pardons to First Lieutenant Clint Lorance and Major Mathew Golsteyn, and ordered that the rank Edward Gallagher held before he was convicted in a military trial this year be restored.” https://www.presstv.com/Detail/2019/11/16/611310/US-Donald-Trump-pardon-army-officers-

November 16, 2019 Press TV: “US officers will not face charges in shooting of Bijan Ghaisar: US federal prosecutors have decided to close the case of the fatal shooting of unarmed motorist Bijan Ghaisar by two Park Police officers with no charges being filed.” A statement issued by US Attorney’s office said “‘Based on the information available at this time, the Department cannot prove, beyond a reasonable doubt, that the two USPP officers committed willful violations of the applicable federal criminal civil rights statute when they shot Mr. Ghaisar.’”

The family of the victim reportedly said in their statement that “the department escaped accountability.”https://www.presstv.com/Detail/2019/11/16/611343/US-Iran-police-civil-rights-FBI-investigation

November 16, 2019 Press TV: “Trump says impeachment process has been ‘very hard on my family’: US President Donald Trump has complained that the impeachment inquiry into his actions on Ukraine that now threaten his presidency had been ‘very hard on my family.’”

The president is reported to have said on Thursday during a campaign rally in Louisiana that he has “one problem …: it has been very hard on my family”; (and that) “impeachment, to me, is a dirty word.” https://www.presstv.com/Detail/2019/11/16/611364/US-Trump-Impeachment-Pelosi

November 16, 2019 (one of many such cases in recent days) Press TV: “Three people wounded by shooting at US high school football game: … Players and spectators ran for cover when a gunman opened fire around 8:30 p.m. Friday (GMT 15:30) during the third quarter of a Pleasantville Greyhounds football game against the Camden Panthers in Pleasantville, New Jersey” (Pleasantville Police Chief Sean Riggins). The shooting incident at the high school football game “has left three people wounded, two of them is serious condition”: A 27-year old victim was hospitalized and will require surgery; a 10-year-old was hospitalized in critical condition; a 15-year-old, grazed by a bullet, was treated at hospital and released. https://www.presstv.com/Detail/2019/11/16/611370/US-Shooting-New-Jersey

Insight Beyond Today’s News, CLB - © All Rights Reserved

Moment USA for Open-minded Self-Reflection

Present leaders, ghostly shadows: Genius declares No more Walls

Barenboim

Beethoven

Steinmeier

Merkel

Thirty years from the Fall of The Berlin Wall

D

aniel Barenboim and Beethoven's Fifth

Ludwig van Beethoven’s “importance in music has been principally defined by the revolutionary nature of his compositions” — Beethoven “freed music from hitherto prevailing conventions of harmony and structure.”

The world says to human beings “‘Do not stick to the old ways; learn to think anew,’” which is “what musicians do every day.” [Quotes attributed to Barenboim]

Barenboim

South American-born Daniel Barenboim (KBE) is a world-renown pianist and conductor who began studying piano at the age of five and at seven “gave his first formal concert in his hometown, Buenos Aires.” He later studied harmony and composition with Nadia Boulanger in Paris. 

Much, much later Barenboim is an acclaimed “musical genius, pianist, conductor and author”; also “lauded as the savior of the Berlin Staatsoper; founder of an important music academy, humanist, peacemaker and one of the most influential musicians in the world.”

He conducted Beethoven’s Fifth Symphony at this year’s celebration of the Fall of the Berlin Wall.

L

udwig van Beethoven

“The true artist is not proud: he unfortunately sees that art has no limits; he feels darkly how far he is from the goal, and though he may be admired by others, he is sad not to have reached that point to which his better genius only appears as a distant, guiding sun.”

“The barriers are not erected which can say to aspiring talents and industry, ‘Thus far and no farther.’” [Quotes attributed to Beethoven]

Of Beethoven and his Fifth and the Ninth

Bonn, Germany-born composer and pianist, Ludwig van Beethoven is one of the greatest composers of all time.

At age 31, 26 years before his death Beethoven began to lose his hearing but he “continued to conduct” and in 1804 and 1808 respectively, he conducted the first performances of his “Third and Fifth symphonies.” By 1811 he was almost completely deaf.

The story has been told and confirmed that after conducting the premiere of his Ninth Symphony, Beethoven, hearing nothing, “had to be turned round to see the audience’s tumultuous applause.

During the Cold War-divided Germany at the Olympic Games for the United Team of Germany (1956-1968), the “Ode to Joy” segment of Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony was played instead of a national anthem. The Council of Europe in 1972 and later the European Communities (now the European Union) in 1985 adopted the “Ode to Joy” instrumentation (without the words) as the Anthem of Europe.

G

erman President Frank-Walter Steinmeier

Brandenburg Gate, Berlin, Saturday November 9, 2019, speaking a crowd

“This evening, we stand here with gratitude (and) with tears in our eyes.”

“This massive wall, this inhuman structure that claimed so many lives, is no longer standing. This wall is gone, once and for all”

But new walls have been constructed…

… “Walls of frustration,

walls of anger and hatred;

walls of speechlessness and alienation;

walls that are invisible but still divide;

walls that stand in the way of our cohesion.

Frank-Walter Steinmeier

Detmold, West Germany born of Polish and German parents one a carpenter, one a refugee (“during the flight and expulsion of Germans after World War II”) from a Lutheran part of Silesia, a historical region of Central Europe located mostly in Poland, with small parts in the Czech Republic and Germany.

Steinmeier is a veteran public servant: current President of Germany (March 19, 2017 -); former  Minister for Foreign Affairs (2005- 2009; 2013 -2017); Vice-Chancellor of Germany (2007-2009); chairman-in-office of the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe, OSCE (2016). A “career civil servant” in the 1990s through the turn of the century, he holds a doctorate in law and was formerly a career civil servant.

Studied Law and Political Science, credentialed Doctor of Law) Justus Liebig University Giessen); “dissertation explored the role of the state in the prevention of homelessness”; Member of the Bar.

G

erman Chancellor Angela Merkel

Saturday November 9, 2019, speaking at the Chapel of Reconciliation

“I remember those who were killed at this wall because they were seeking liberty”
“We want to ensure that no wall will separate people ever again.”
“The Berlin Wall is history, which teaches us this:

“No wall that segregates people and limits freedom

is so high or so wide
that it can’t be broken through.”

 Angela Merkel

Born of Polish (mother, a teacher) and German (father, a Lutheran pastor) parents first in Hamburg (West Germany) then in infancy to East Germany, Angela Dorothea Kasner Merkel is a veteran public official and current Chancellor of Germany (2005 -), lauded as “de facto leader of the European Union, “the most powerful woman in the world,”  and “leader of the free world.”

In addition to political party offices and positions, Angela Merkel, before assuming the Chancellorship, was Minister for the Environment, Nature Conservation and Nuclear Safety (1994-1998); Minister for Women and Youth  (1991-1994);  Member of the Bundestag (Constituency: Stralsund – Nordvorpommern – Rügen 1991-2013;  Vorpommern-Rügen – Vorpommern-Greifswald I (2013–)

In addition to being a politician she is a scholar. Her academic credentials, in addition to having studied several languages other than German, include a doctorate (Dr. rer. nat.) for her thesis on quantum chemistry; Leipzig University (B.S.);    German Academy of Sciences at Berlin (Ph.D.)

Moments of Reflection in red, white and blue

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ommemorations instead of lolling and idling us in the past can push us forward — past walls, over and beyond walls — together.

Surely Americans are able to distinguish sense from nonsense, shallowness from depth, con artists from artists, and geniuses from jacklegs.

The shallow among us 

are deficient in natural talent, in genius.

They spend their lives 

hoarding, wasting and destroying 

wealth and resources of mountains and mankind.  

Their toxicity robs, blames and 

defames the living in all of its forms. 

Their congenital, perverse egoism renders them 

incapable of offering anything of true value to the world.

Sources

Barenboim

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Daniel_Barenboim

https://www.dw.com/en/

https://www.brainyquote.com/authors/daniel-barenboim-quotes

Beethoven

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ludwig_van_Beethoven

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ludwig_van_Beethoven#Loss_of_hearing

http://www.beethoven.ws/loss_of_hearing.html

https://www.brainyquote.com/quotes/ludwig_van_beethoven_553973

553973

DW News “Germany’s Steinmeier warns of ‘invisible’ walls that threaten social cohesion” ; “Germany has commemorated 30 years since the fall of the Berlin Wall on November 9, 1989”; DW’s Kate Brady “assesses the ‘new walls’ in a Germany divided over identity”  https://www.dw.com/en/germanys-steinmeier-warns-of-invisible-walls-that-threaten-social-cohesion/a-51184946

DW News “Germany marks 30 years since the fall of the Berlin Wall” November 9, 2019 https://www.dw.com/en/germany-marks-30-years-since-the-fall-of-the-berlin-wall/a-51186864

Wikipedia

Frank-Walter Steinmeier https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Frank-Walter_Steinmeier

Angela Merkel https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Angela_Merkel

Insight Beyond Today’s News, CLB - © All Rights Reserved