monitoring Trump and relevant contemporary events

Repuke America is now a nation of loonies adoring a crook.

They've been at it for over a year and still haven't found (or published) anything.

Meanwhile serious corruption and misuse of office has been confirmed among the officials of the Justice Department, the FBI and Mueller's investigating team, along with deceptive submission to the FISA court.

On the face of it this appears to be sufficient to poison any evidence they may find.

The killing of journalist Jamal Khashoggi was planned days in advance, the Turkish president has said in an address to MPs from his ruling party.

He said Turkey had strong evidence Khashoggi was killed in a premeditated and "savage" murder at the Saudi consulate in Istanbul on 2 October.

He also called for the suspects to be tried in Istanbul.

He demanded Saudi Arabia provide answers about where Khashoggi's body was, and who ordered the operation.

The Saudi kingdom has provided conflicting accounts of what happened to the Washington Post contributor. After weeks of maintaining he was still alive, the authorities now say he was killed in a rogue operation.

Tuesday's address by President Recep Tayyip Erdogan coincided with the start of an investment conference in Saudi Arabia that has been overshadowed by the Khashoggi case, with dozens of government and business leaders pulling out.

President Erdogan confirmed that 18 people had been arrested in Saudi Arabia over the case. However, he has not released any details of the evidence gathered about the killing.

He made no mention of any audio or video recordings mentioned in media reports in the days following the journalist's disappearance.

President Erdogan said three teams of 15 Saudi nationals had arrived in Istanbul on separate flights in the days and hours leading up to the murder.

A day before the killing, he said, some members from the group travelled to Belgrad forest, near the consulate - an area which was last week searched by Turkish police looking for the body.

He also described how the team had removed the security cameras and surveillance footage from the consulate building prior to Khashoggi's arrival - who was visiting to obtain documents for his forthcoming marriage.

"My demand is that 18 people be tried in Istanbul," he told MPs from his ruling AK party, adding that "all those who played a role in the murder" would be punished.

A US Bible museum has removed fragments of what it believed were part of the Dead Sea Scrolls from display, after tests suggested they were forgeries.

The Museum of the Bible, in Washington DC, sent five of its 16 fragments for analysis in Germany.

But results showed "characteristics inconsistent with ancient origin", the museum said.

Costing $500m (£386m), the museum was opened by Evangelical Christian and billionaire Steve Green in 2017.

Q You said “lower tax cuts.” You said that you wanted tax cuts by November 1st. Congress isn’t even in session. How is that possible?

THE PRESIDENT: No, we’re going to be passing — no, no. We’re putting in a resolution sometime in the next week, or week and a half, two weeks.

Q A resolution where?

THE PRESIDENT: We’re going to put in — we’re giving a middle-income tax reduction of about 10 percent. We’re doing it now for middle-income people. This is not for business; this is for middle. That’s on top of the tax decrease that we’ve already given them.

Q Are you signing an executive order for that?

THE PRESIDENT: No. No. No. I’m going through Congress.

Q But Congress isn’t in session though.

THE PRESIDENT: We won’t have time to do the vote. We’ll do the vote later.

Pictures circulating on Twitter showed the Future Investment Initiative website with a mocked-up photo of the country's ruler about to execute Saudi journalist Jamal Khashoggi.

The website was later functioning normally after being inaccessible for at least six hours.

The summit has seen a series of high-profile dropouts amid allegations the country was behind Khashoggi's killing.

Khashoggi, a prominent critic of the Saudi government, vanished on 2 October after visiting the Saudi consulate in Istanbul, where Turkish officials allege he was murdered.

Earlier on Monday, Saudi Arabia blamed Khashoggi's death on a "rogue operation"

Dubbed the "Davos of the Desert", the three-day event from 23 to 25 October in the Saudi capital, Riyadh, is organised by Saudi Arabia's sovereign wealth fund and is an opportunity for firms to build relationships and secure lucrative contracts in the Kingdom.


It is being hosted by Crown Prince Mohamed bin Salman to promote his reform agenda.

Politicians and business executives from Europe, North America and Asia were on the attendance list, which was set to feature 150 speakers from 140 organisations.

But a raft of big names have pulled out, arguing that Saudi Arabia's explanations for Khashoggi's disappearance are not credible.

US Treasury Secretary Steve Mnuchin and UK International Trade Secretary Liam Fox, whose countries have huge defence deals with Saudi Arabia, have already pulled out of the summit.

Company bosses including HSBC chief executive John Flint, JP Morgan boss Jamie Dimon and Standard Chartered chief executive Bill Winters have also said they will not attend.

Car manufacturer Ford, ride-hailing app Uber and media firms including Bloomberg, CNN and the Financial Times have also scrapped plans to attend.

On Monday, Siemens boss Joe Kaeser was the latest high-profile name to withdraw from the conference, saying the official explanation for Khashoggi's murder was "hard to believe".

Organisers have taken down a list of speakers from the conference's website. On Monday, they refused to confirm the number of people attending.

One government source said the list of speakers and moderators was not yet finalised, as many continued to drop out at a "rapid pace".

The World Economic Forum, which organises the official annual high-profile gathering in the Swiss resort of Davos of the rich, powerful and famous every January, has objected to the Saudi Summit's use of its Davos brand.

It said it would use "all means to protect the Davos brand against illicit appropriation".

I believe it applies to immigration.

I bet that is how France felt when they replaced their republic with an emperor.

That's similar to Trump, being the president of all Americans.

I don't envy Trump's micropenis for one microsecond.

The French emperor ruled over "the French people" (Empereur des Français) and not over France (chef de la République française).
That's similar to Trump, being the president of all Americans.