USA: No evidence Antifa or 'fake' Trump supporters spurred Capitol riot, FBI's Wray testifies

FBI Director Christopher Wray on Tuesday sought to beat back right-wing conspiracy theories suggesting that fake supporters of former U.S. president Donald Trump stormed the Capitol on Jan. 6.

It was Wray's first testimony in Congress since the attack — a failed bid to block Congress from certifying Joe Biden's November election victory — was carried out by supporters of Trump who, in a speech near the White House, exhorted them to march to the Capitol in protest. B

Read more at: No evidence Antifa or 'fake' Trump supporters spurred Capitol riot, FBI's Wray testifies | CBC News

USA: Trump pardons Michael Flynn, former national security adviser, in tweet

President Donald Trump pardoned former national security adviser Michael Flynn on Wednesday, taking direct aim in the final days of his administration at a Russia investigation that he has long insisted was motivated by political bias.

Read more at: Trump pardons Michael Flynn, former national security adviser, in tweet | PBS NewsHour

USA: Pence uses first coronavirus briefing in months to peddle lies

Mike Pence on Friday convened the first White House coronavirus task force briefing in nearly two months, amid a spike of coronavirus cases in some of the largest states in the country.

Pence used his time to lie about the Trump administration's response to the virus and distort the reality that millions of Americans find themselves in.

Read the complete report at:
Pence uses first coronavirus briefing in months to peddle lies

US First Amendment: U.S. officials flat-out lie about their assault on First Amendment peaceful assembly - by Kerry Eleveld

U.S. officials crossed the Rubicon this week when they not only abetted and perpetrated an assault on peaceful protesters Monday evening outside the White House but subsequently lied on Tuesday about their role in the attack.

The chaotic scene of federal police using shields, batons, tear gas, and rubber bullets to clear Lafayette Park of peaceful citizens played out on TV screens across America, conveniently coming during dinner hour on the East Coast. The lack of provocation or aggression of any kind was clear as police armed in riot gear gassed protesters, ramming them with their shields to push them back.

Inside the White House Rose Garden, Donald Trump was simultaneously declaring himself the "president of law and order" and promising that "thousands and thousands of heavily armed soldiers, military personnel and law enforcement officers" would be deployed to stop the rioting and looting. Trump then exited the White House and shuffled across a cleared square of the park flanked by an entourage of Secret Service agents and the nation's top military and law enforcement officials, including Attorney General William Barr, Secretary of Defense Mark Esper, and Joint Chiefs Chairman Gen. Mark Milley, who was dressed in combat fatigues rather than the dress uniforms always donned by active-duty military officers visiting the White House.

Trump looked like a buffoon but the message was clear: He was declaring war on the constitutionally guaranteed right of The People to peaceably assemble. And Barr, Esper, and Milley were all there to help prop up draft dodger Trump's show of of force.

Once the reviews were in, however, everyone but Barr quickly made flimsy efforts to distance themselves from one of the most deeply un-American abuses of power by a president in modern memory.


Read more at: 
U.S. officials flat-out lie about their assault on First Amendment peaceful assembly

USA: Coronavirus: Information, Misinformation, Disinformation and Outright Lies - by Richard Phillips

We urgently need to equip ourselves better for the basic requirements of contemporary truth management. Here is your guide for survival in a very contested field.

Read more at:
https://www.theglobalist.com/united-states-coronavirus-pandemic-covid19-donad-trump-misinformation/

US's number one problem - testing: Donald Trump is lying about the size of coronavirus testing — but lying about size is typical for him says John Oliver

If there’s one thing Donald Trump does best it’s lie about the size of things.

“Last Week Tonight” host John Oliver pointed out that one of the most dangerous things the president is lying about right now is the size of the group of people that will be tested for the coronavirus.

When asked this week if the U.S. could reach the benchmark of 5
 million coronavirus tests per day recommended by public-health
experts, Trump said USA would. “Well, it will increase it, and it’ll increase it by much more than that in the very near future,”

Trump said, before going off on another incoherent fever-dream that he has singlehandedly saved the world in some kind of war.

The reporter followed up, “Sorry, are you saying you’re confident you can surpass 5 million tests per day?”

“Well, we’re going to be there very soon,” he said, more concisely. “If you look at the numbers, it could be that we’re getting very close. I mean, I don’t have the exact numbers. We would have had them if you asked me the same question a little while ago because people with the statistics were there. We’re going to be there very soon.”

Currently, the U.S. is only able to test about 200,000 people per day.

“There is absolutely no way on Earth, on this planet or any other planet, that we can do 20 million tests a day, or even 5 million tests a day,” said Admiral Brett Giroir, assistant secretary of health. He’s the person in charge of the U.S. testing response.

 Read more: John Oliver: Donald Trump is lying about the size of coronavirus testing — but lying about size is typical for him – Raw Story

Coronavirus: Trump says US mortality rate one of the world's lowest

President Donald Trump said the United States' coronavirus mortality rate is "one of the lowest of any country in the world" on Tuesday.

Dr. Deborah Birx, who leads the White House coronavirus task force, echoed the claim at a news briefing, saying the United States had "one of the lowest mortality rates in the entire world."

Neither Trump nor Birx cited a specific statistic or study to support their claims, but both used the mortality rate metric as evidence America is making progress in fighting coronavirus.

Here's where the U.S. ranks, according to data from John Hopkins University:

• The U.S. has the 33rd-highest mortality rate, measured as deaths divided by total cases, out of the 134 countries tracked by Johns Hopkins. That means more than 100 countries have lower mortality rates than the U.S., although many of those countries reported comparatively few cases.
• When compared only to the ten countries with the most cases, the U.S. ranks as the second-lowest mortality rate as a percentage of total cases. That means eight of those countries hardest-hit by the coronavirus have higher mortality rates than the U.S.
• The U.S. ranks 12th-highest in the world when it comes to deaths per 100,000 people.
• When mortality is measured per 100,000 people among the ten countries with the most cases, the U.S. ranks seventh, with Iran, Germany, and China reporting lower numbers of deaths per 100,000 people. 

Experts said Trump's comments glossed over the fact that under several metrics, the U.S. mortality rate is worse than that of many other countries. However, they cautioned that the lack of testing in the United States could lead to an undercounting of overall COVID-19 cases. If the total number of cases is actually higher, that would mean the current data might be overstating the death rate.

Read more: Coronavirus: Trump says US mortality rate one of the world's lowest

USA: Trump halts World Health Organization funding amid coronavirus pandemic: byJeff Mason,

President Donald Trump said on Tuesday he would halt funding to the World Health Organization over its handling of the coronavirus pandemic while his administration reviews its response to the global crisis.

Trump told a White House news conference the WHO had “failed in its basic duty and it must be held accountable.” He said the group had promoted China’s “disinformation” about the virus that likely led to a wider outbreak of the virus than otherwise would have occurred.

The United States is the biggest overall donor to the Geneva-based WHO, contributing more than $400 million in 2019, roughly 15% of its budget.

The hold on funding was expected. Trump has been increasingly critical of the organization as the global health crisis has continued, and he has reacted angrily to criticism of his administration’s response.

Note EU-Digest: In February Trump praised the WHO for the great work they were doing with China on fighting the Coronavirus, while at the same time he did nothing to prepare America for the onslaught of the virus. Trump now blames everyone else, including the WHO for his total mismanagement of the fight against the coronavirus in America. The WHO in Geneva.is a dedicated and professional organization, in service of humanity, to improving health and sanitation around the globe. 

Trump's rambling accusations and lies constantly contradict his earlier TV recorded statements. Trump is a disgrace to America.

Read more at: Trump halts World Health Organization funding amid coronavirus pandemic - Reuters

Coronavirus : Why Is the U.S. Behind on Coronavirus Testing?

Testing is the biggest problem that we’re facing,” Peter Slavin, president of Massachusetts General Hospital, said recently in a roundtable on Covid-19 at Harvard Medical School. While South Korea had tested about 4,000 people per million of its population at the time, the United States had just run five tests per million — despite the fact that they both reported their first cases at essentially the same time (on January 21 and 20). The discrepancy was surprising because the genome of the virus had been available since January and scientists had figured out the diagnostics shortly thereafter, using proven molecular methods first discovered in the 1970's.

Based on the total US population of 327.2 million people, the number of people tested so far, based on President Trumps own statement, which he said was a total of 2 million people tested, is a very low number. You don't need to be Einstein to figure that out, based on the total US population.

Read more at:
Why Is the U.S. Behind on Coronavirus Testing?

Saudi minister: ′We don′t have a history of murdering our citizens′

Saudi Minister of State Adel al-Jubeir says his country is paying "a great price" over the murder of Jamal Khashoggi. Human rights groups continue to condemn its dire treatment of activists.

Read more at:
https://www.dw.com/en/saudi-minister-we-dont-have-a-history-of-murdering-our-citizens/a-52415830

USA: Republicans celebrate their version of "reality" : Forget Trump's Lies, Here's the Real Economic State of the Union - by Robert Reich

I wasn’t going to comment on Trump’s lie-filled State of the Union message but the whoppers were so big—especially on the economy—that I feel compelled. Here, for the record, is the real state of the union:

1. JOBS: Average monthly job creation dropped from 223,000 in 2018 to 176,000 in 2019. The employment rate for working-age adults has increased less than during the Obama recovery, and is still significantly below that of other developed countries. The pace of job creation is also markedly slower than it was under Obama.

2. WAGES: Wage growth has slowed, except in states with minimum-wage increases. The typical American household remains poorer today than it was before the financial crisis began in 2007. The median wage of a full-time male worker (and those with full-time jobs are the lucky ones) is still more than 3% below what it was 40 years ago.

3. TAXES: The Trump-Republican tax cut has been a huge failure. We were promised an increase in business investment, but business investment has contracted for the third straight quarter—the first time this has happened since the Great Recession in 2009. Instead, the tax cut triggered an all-time record binge of share buybacks – some $800 billion in 2018.

If fully implemented, the 2017 tax cut will result in tax increases for most households in the bottom 80 percent.

And it has resulted in record peacetime deficits (almost $1 trillion in fiscal 2019) in a country supposedly near full employment. Even with weak investment, the US had to borrow massively abroad: the most recent data show foreign borrowing at nearly $500 billion a year, with an increase of more than 10% in America’s net indebtedness position in one year alone.

Nothing has trickled down to average workers. To the contrary, If fully implemented the 2017 tax cut will result in tax increases for most households in the bottom 80 percent.

4. TRADE: The 2018 goods deficit was the largest on record. Even the deficit in trade with China was up almost a quarter from 2016.

5. GROWTH: Last quarter’s growth was just 2.1%, far less than the 4%, 5%, or even 6% Trump promised to deliver, and even less than the 2.4% average of Obama’s second term. That is a remarkably poor performance considering the stimulus provided by the $1 trillion deficit and ultra-low interest rates.

6. WORKERS’ RIGHTS: Trump administration has systematically weakened workers’ rights. More than eight million workers will be left behind by the Trump overtime rule. Workers would receive $1.4 billion less than under the 2016 rule. New Trump administration joint-employer rule has $1 billion price tag for workers.

7. HEALTH: Millions of Americans have lost their health coverage, and the uninsured rate has risen, in just two years, from 10.9% to 13.7%. US life expectancy, already relatively low, fell in each of the first two years of Trump’s presidency, and in 2017, midlife mortality reached its highest rate since World War II.

8. CLIMATE: losses related to climate change have already reached new highs in the US, which has suffered more property damage than any other country – reaching some 1.5% of GDP in 2017.

Read more: Forget Trump's Lies, Here's the Real Economic State of the Union | Common Dreams Views

Middle East: U.S. troops in Syria heading to Iraq, not home as Trump claims

U.S. President Donald Trump insists he's bringing home Americans from "endless wars" in the Mideast, but his Pentagon chief says all U.S. troops leaving Syria will go to western Iraq, and the U.S. military will continue operations against ISIS.

Read more at:
https://www.cbc.ca/news/world/u-s-troops-syria-heading-to-iraq-1.5328549

USA - the Trump impeachment: Nobody is above the law’: Americans take to streets in support of Trump impeachment

Hours before Congress began to convene for Wednesday’s vote to make Donald Trump only the third US president in history to be impeached, thousands of Americans from across the country gathered to make their views plain under the banner: “Nobody is above the law”.

From snowy Portland in Maine to an even chillier Anchorage in Alaska, 4,500 miles away, protesters turned out on the eve of the impeachment vote to lend their voices to the effort to hold Trump accountable for the abuse of power and obstruction of Congress of which he is accused. Organisers of the nationwide demonstrations, drawn from a coalition of groups including Indivisible, MoveOn and Greenpeace, recorded 617 events nationwide.

The protests ranged from tiny to thousands strong. In Concord, Massachusetts, a small crowd gathered at the historically poignant spot of the Battle of Lexington and Concord that sparked the revolutionary war.

They waved placards that quoted one of the founding fathers, John Adams, who said: “Facts Are Stubborn Things”. That paean to truth was poignant too. At the very moment the Concord protesters were braving the sleet, Trump was delivering a six-page letter full of insults and ranting to Nancy Pelosi, the Democratic speaker of the House, denouncing the impeachment process.

Note EU-Digest: Trump is a man for whom everything is transactional, and who is engaged in a constant struggle for short-term advantage. Blustering, bullying, threatening and arm-twisting are his tools. He doesn’t feel bound by the rules and niceties that have guided most of his predecessors, or by the constitutional and institutional limits that have constrained them. Norms, shared values, civil institutions and even the rule of law take a back seat, in his playbook, to the ceaseless struggle for the upper hand. He doesn’t seem to make much distinction between what’s good for America and what’s good for him personally. His disdain for the truth and his attraction to conspiracy theories are well known. Republicans will pay a heavy price for following him.

Read more at: ‘Nobody is above the law’: Americans take to streets in support of Trump impeachment | US news | The Guardian

USA: Donald Trump: "there is method in his madness", and Republicans are playing along with him

'No, you're corrupt!': why there's method in Trump's playground taunts

Read more at; 

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2019/sep/24/donald-trump-joe-biden-ukraine?CMP=Share_AndroidApp_Blogger

Support EU-Digest, Almere-Digest, Insure-Digest which have reported the news without any political affiliation since 2004, and opposes those who seek to discredit and even destroy news organizations who believe in the right of a free Press. You can do that by investing in an advertisement in EU-Digest, or by giving a donation to keep our efforts going : to donate or advertise and pay by credit card, click on: https://www.paypal.com/webapps/hermes?token=8BP18304C1657151J&useraction=commit&mfid=1567106786154_8591ae1288ebf  

USA: Trump campaign boss Paul Manafort sentenced to 47 months for tax and bank fraud

Ex-Trump campaign boss Paul Manafort sentenced to 47 months for tax, bank fraud

Read more at: 
https://www.cbc.ca/news/world/manafort-sentence-tax-bank-fraud-1.5046393

USA: Republican opposition mounts against Trump's emergency declaration, could trigger President's first veto- by Chris Sommerfeldt

President Trump is on a collision course with his own party.

A growing number of Republican senators are openly criticizing Trump's attempt to build a border wall without congressional approval, paving the way for an intra-party clash that could prompt the President to issue his first-ever veto.

Ten Republican senators have publicly questioned Trump's national emergency declaration, which the White House says frees up about $8 billion in taxpayer funds for the construction of a wall between the U.S. and Mexico, including Susan Collins of Maine, Lisa Murkowski of Alaska, Lamar Alexander of Tennessee, and Marco Rubio of Florida.

"I'm disappointed...with the President's intention to declare an emergency to build a wall," Sen. Rand Paul of Kentucky, who is typically committed to Trump's agenda, said after the planned declaration was first announced Feb. 14. "Extraconstitutional executive actions are wrong, no matter which party does them."

Jerry Moran of Kansas, another loyal Trump backer, raised similar concerns last week. "If it gets used this time, what's the next instance in which it becomes used?" Moran asked.

Republican insiders say several more members are privately skeptical, which could prove problematic for Trump as a measure is set to be taken up in Congress this week to block the order altogether.

"The private number is way higher, around 25 or so in total," said longtime GOP strategist Evan Siegfried, citing private conversations with aides and members of Congress.

A congressional source, speaking on condition of anonymity, said a couple dozen Senate Republicans remain critical of Trump's controversial order but likely won't vote against it out of fear of political repercussions.

Read more: Republican opposition mounts against Trump's emergency declaration, could trigger President's first veto

USA: Trump lies and twists figures and facts to sell his border wall as he puts 800.000 government workers on furlough

Trump demands border wall; Dems say he deals in 'fear, not facts' -

Read more at:
https://aje.io/87x9y

USA: "liar, liar, your pants are on fire" as Trump slams "Russian Hoax" only hours after his own Administration condemned Russian meddling US elections

Trump slams 'Russian hoax' hours after administration says Russia is meddling in midterms http://flip.it/-TOemC

USA - Trump European Tour: Trump falsely claims credit on NATO spending

President Donald Trump took credit for a supposed new decision by NATO members to increase military spending, though there was no evidence of that.

And after hinting Thursday that the alliance is in trouble, he asserted that his aggressive demands at this week's summit had suddenly turned NATO into a "fine-tuned machine" that will treat the U.S. "much more fairly" — hyperbole that sent U.S. allies scrambling to make clear that NATO unity wasn't at risk.

Here's a look at how Trump's statements at a news conference in Brussels compare with the facts:

TRUMP: "Everyone's agreed to substantially up their commitment. They're going to up it at levels they've never thought of before."

"I can tell you now that NATO now is really a fine-tuned machine. People are paying money that they've never paid before. They're happy to do it. And the United States is being treated much more fairly."

THE FACTS: There's no outward sign that Trump's aggressive posturing in recent days has changed much for the alliance other than bruise its veneer of unity.

Read more: AP FACT CHECK: Trump falsely claims credit on NATO spending

USA: The Russia Probe: What Roger Stone’s Latest Lie Reveals About Russia Scandal - by Jonathan Chait

TRUMPUT

This weekend, the Washington Post reported that Roger Stone met in May 2016 with a Russian man offering to sell the Trump campaign damaging information on Hillary Clinton. There’s no evidence that Stone consummated the transaction. But there is plenty of significance in the revelation.

The first is that the story confirms Stone’s functionally active status as a surrogate for the Trump campaign. Stone officially left his role in August 2015. But he continued to speak regularly with Trump, while supporting him fervently. There is abundant evidence that Stone communicated privately with WikiLeaks during the campaign.

Stone turned down the latest offer because, as he told fellow Trump adviser Michael Caputo at the time, the self-styled Russian intermediary was demanding too much money in return for goods that seemed to promise little. He turned the deal down because it was a bad deal, and claims he now believes the man was an FBI planting trying to entrap him, but there is no dispute he was negotiating on Trump’s behalf.

This tells us that any contacts Stone had with WikiLeaks were also done in his unofficial capacity as Trump surrogate. Stone was colluding with the publicity arm of Russian intelligence as a functional member of the Trump campaign.

Second, it matters that Stone and Caputo have been caught in another lie. Both men told congressional investigators they had no contact with Russians or people identifying themselves as Russian. “I’ve never been to Russia. I didn’t talk to anybody who was identifiably Russian during the two-year run-up to this campaign,” he explained to the Washington Post. “I very definitely can’t think of anybody who might have been a Russian without my knowledge.”

Stone now says he forgot all about this meeting. “I just didn’t remember, 2016 was a pretty busy year,” he tells ABC. It would be fairly surprising for Stone to have forgotten all about an approach from a Russian man offering dirt on Clinton given that Stone says he had zero contacts with Russians. You never forget your first time, as they say. It would be plausible that he forgot this contact with the Russians if he had a lot of contacts with Russians. Even if Stone’s unsupported charge that he was being set up is true, it would not explain why he failed to disclose the meeting and lied about it. In either case, “I forgot” is not usually a compelling defense against charges of perjury.

And the broader point is that Trump and his campaign keep lying, over and over, about the extent of their contacts with Russia. It is conceivable that one or two members of Trump’s campaign might forget an incidental contact with a purported Russian agent, especially if that person had a legitimate role as well. But the scores of lies tell us something different. They are not coming clean in the belief they did nothing wrong. They are denying everything, and when their lies are disproven, they simply retreat to a new categorical defense, and keep doing it. At every moment they insist that the only Russian contacts that occurred are the ones publicly known, but the list just keeps growing. The assumption that the list of known contacts is the entire list rests upon an assumption of innocence that, at some point we long ago passed, is forfeit.

Read more: What Roger Stone’s Latest Lie Reveals About Russia Scandal