Category: zerohedge

Russia is attempting to woo European countries like Germany into a program of reconstruction cooperation in Syria, where broad swathes of the country have been destroyed through seven years of grinding proxy war; however, Pentagon officials have charged Russia with wanting to “seize” Syria’s oil and gas resources. 

This comes as the United States has resolved to keep its over 2,000 troops in the east of Syria while vowing zero reconstruction aid so long as Iranian troops and advisers are present in the country. This week a top US military official even went so far as to accuse Russia of seeking “to take advantage in any way they could” and that a “great power competition” for Syria will continue to shape its post-war future. 

Air Force Brig. Gen. Leah Lauderback, who served as director of intelligence for Operation Inherent Resolve until June, told an Army conference that “Great power competition was an objective by Russia,” and that specifically they are looking to “seize” oilfields in Syria. But a Russian official has slammed the US and Europe as living in a “fantasy land” if they still have removal of Assad on the table as “radicals will take over that will slit people’s throats’’ should regime change happen.

Gen. Lauderback said of Russia in the context of discussing US anti-ISIS operations at an Army conference in D.C. this week: “Economically, they wanted to seize oilfields, they wanted bids and contracts to develop Syria for infrastructure in order to stabilize Syria over the long term,” she said according to Al-Monitor news.

Meanwhile, President Vladimir Putin has reportedly been personally lobbying German Chancellor Angela Merkel over Syria reconstruction, especially as the two met outside Berlin last August, as the vital link solving or at least greatly reducing the migrant crisis which has become a political bombshell across Europe of late.

Russia says, simply enough, that if Syria is rebuilt then Syrians can go home — a process that’s already begun in a number of government-held major cities like Aleppo after their liberation from jihadist forces. But many European leaders, including in Germany, remain on the fence over European demands for a transition away from Bashar al-Assad’s rule.

Russia meanwhile appears to be arguing that neither the US nor Europe can do anything to make this happen as the long push for regime change has utterly failed and Assad is “here to stay” — as even the Washington Post reluctantly acknowledged recently. 

According to a new Bloomberg report, Russia’s latest diplomatic efforts to woo Europe toward reconstruction include “efforts to organize a Syria summit in Turkey with German Chancellor Angela Merkel and French President Emmanuel Macron.” Vitaly Naumkin, a top Russian aide on Syria policy, told Bloomberg the Europeans shouldn’t follow the dictates of Washington on an issue that’s more directly impacting European shores. 

Naumkin questioned, “I don’t see why Europe should always bow down to Washington,’’ and added “If Europe thinks we can get rid of Assad and some moderate opposition forces will come to power, they’re living in fantasy land. Radicals will take over that will slit people’s throats.’’

Bloomberg noted that “the bill for postwar reconstruction is estimated at $250 billion by the United Nations, and Western powers are rejecting Russian appeals to chip in.”

“Why don’t you want to help people returning to Syria, even in government-held areas?’’  Naumkin questioned further in the Bloomberg interview. 

German Foreign Minister Heiko Maas has recently said Germany will pitch in for Syria post-war reconstruction only if there’s a political transition away from Assad that will include free elections. France has also indicated it won’t engage in reconstruction talks or attend the proposed summit in Turkey without similar guarantees. 

However, Naumkin pointed out something that’s been demonstrated time and again in Syria: that “there are no alternative figures’’ to Assad, who would win any election even if held tomorrow. 

via RSS https://ift.tt/2NDkZFu Tyler Durden

Earlier today, we discussed how after the last 2-day furious selloff, the human-machine-human fingerpointing blame game had begun, with carbon-based traders accusing such systematic and risk-targeting quant strategies as risk-parity funds, CTAs, volatility targeting funds, and trend followers (which account for about $1.5 trillion in assets) for being behind the sharp selloff. This followed our own take on how much selling CTAs were responsible for on both Wednesday and Thursday, after selling triggers were hit.

Of course, any time there is a discussion of systemic, and quant, trading – and especially selling – JPM’s head quant Marko Kolanovic can not be far behind. Unfortunately, just like during the February selloff, which Kolanovic failed to predict, so this time Marko’s value added is only from the perspective of a post mortem of what everyone else has already observed.

Furthermore, it was Kolanovic who just a few weeks back said that there was no pressure from systematic selling, and instead the only driver of significance was corporate profits which is why he predicted smooth sailing ahead.

Oops.

So a few moments ago, having failed to predict this week’s selling, the JPMorgan quant released his latest market update and wrote that Wednesday’s selloff was largely technical in nature, “with systematic strategies following the same selling template as in the Feb 5th selloff”, a template which Kolanovic had failed to notice then too.

Discussing the catalyst behind the selling, Kolanovic said that fundamental fears were about rising yields and the Fed’s more hawkish stance, while noting that “in terms of systematic strategies that drove the selloff – by far the biggest selling pressure was from option gamma hedging on Wednesday.“

But don’t worry: the same option gamma hedging risk that Kolanovic failed to warn about, is now supposedly gone or rather, as he puts it “balanced”, and “can turn into a positive impact, i.e. option hedgers buying equities.”

For instance, if the market were to hold its gains during the day, it could result in a squeeze higher by end of the day from gamma hedging flows.

On the other hand, one can counter that with the Dow wiping out most of its gains (at least until the Kolanovic note made the rounds), the selling can accelerate.

According to Kolanovic, other large selling flows were from the same CTAs – which we cautioned about on both Wednesday and Thursday, yet which JPMorgan failed to mention even once – that started in indices such as Russell 2000 and Nasdaq last week, eventually spreading into the S&P 500 on Wednesday.

CTA selling tends to be relatively fast and is likely largely behind us given the already low CTA equity beta, and the fact that 12M momentum on S&P 500 will most likely hold positive (>2550). The remaining part of systematic selling is from volatility targeting (insurance, parity funds, etc.) which will go on for several more days.

In any case, with the market suffering its biggest weekly selloff since February, one which Kolanovic not only did not foresee but instead called for further upside, he is now predictably, optimistic:

Looking at these three groups of sellers, CTAs have already executed the bulk of their selling, option hedging risk is now symmetric, and Volatility Targeters will sell over a longer period of time. As such, we think that the majority of systematic selling is behind us (~70%).

Additionally, Kolanovic notes that since volatility targeting funds tend to sell over a number of days (e.g. 3-10 days for various models), “these flows should be easier to digest by the market”… unless of course they aren’t.

In addition to model buying, the JPMorganite also hopes to boost trader bullishness by noting that flows that may counter selling are “buybacks (e.g. ASR programs not subject to blackout), fundamental buyers attracted by cheap valuation (P/E below historical average), as well as fixed weight portfolio rebalances (e.g. pensions rebalancing on triggers).”

Kolanovic then correctly notes that the amount of systematic assets and leverage was smaller heading into this week than in February (estimate 10-30% smaller); after all most of the February gamma was concentrated amid inverse VIX ETFs, most of whom mercifully blew up after February 5.

So what is Kolanovic’ advice? Simple: buy the dip…

Given that equity indices already experienced comparable declines to February (and e.g. Russell 2000 even a bigger drawdown), we think that the current setup favors buying the dip.

On the other hand anyone who bought the Dow when it opened some 400 points higher was probably not too happy when it dipped in the red shortly after noon. Which is also why Kolanovic felt the urge to hedge his latest rosy forecast:

A risk to the thesis is that market volatility continues to move higher which would result in further outflows from Volatility Targeting funds.

Why does Kolanovic continue to push such a surprisingly optimistic agenda when most of his peers, including Goldman and Morgan Stanley have turned increasingly bearish? For the following simple reason: “We still expect the market to go higher into year-end, and maintain our S&P 500 price target of 3000. We expect a net positive earnings season in October, strong buyback activity in November, and positive seasonal effects in December.“

Hopefully this prediction will be more successful than the one Marko did not make about this week’s option gamma hedging-linked selling. As for what’s really taking place behind the scenes, it appears that JPMorgan still has some stocks to dump to retail hands, while Goldman and MS are largely done liquidating.

via RSS https://ift.tt/2OndAzB Tyler Durden

Much is being made of the modest bounce (a couple hundred Dow points ain’t what it used to be), but while this week has been extremely volatile, as former fund manager and fx trader Richard Breslow notes, “the big moves this week actually tell us very little.”

With so many ill winds blowing, Breslow notes that it makes some sense that traders don’t want to be caught out on a limb. Watching today’s price action and these, almost, end- of-week levels it all smacks of traders trimming back positions that have been working the last few days. I wouldn’t read more into it than that. Other than to note that if asset prices don’t go out at any of the extremes we’ve seen this week, it implies that these latest moves haven’t created new themes that investors just can’t bear to live without.

Via Bloomberg,

Given the noise level we’re experiencing and the conflicting headlines buffeting assets and emotions, I get the strong sense that traders would like to put this one in the history books early. Fridays, after a busy week, can go either way. Render traders impervious to the latest whatever, or make them hyper-sensitive. Today feels like it’s the former that is the hoped for outcome. Now we’ll see if events allow that to happen.

You’ll hear a lot about equities and their 200-day moving averages. Which have mostly been under threat this week.

Dow futures have bounced back above theirs. As has the much maligned Nasdaq 100. S&P 500 futures have spent the day pirouetting around the level, which interestingly enough is pretty much in the middle of the day’s range. The Russell 2000 is unambiguous. It broke below earlier this week with brio, and is trying to look for support. Which, perhaps significantly, is very close to yesterday’s lows. Although, that’s putting it on a pretty tight leash.

Where these indexes finish the week will have significance for traders. Right up until we open on Monday.

Traders hoping we hold these lines will do their best to ignore how weak other global equity markets continue to look, despite today’s bounces.

Chinese shares will be scrutinized from the get go next week, but keep an eye on the DAX. Especially to see how it reacts to however this weekend’s Bavarian State elections turn out.

Ten-year Treasury yields are back near a no-man’s land. But yesterday’s move looked to be positioning panic rather than a convincing rejection of recent highs.

Watch 3.20% and 3.12% to give an indication of where sentiment will lie going into next week. Just for the fun of it, I’m using 3.19%-3.15% for the close touch.

As for the dollar, it is simply not in play at the moment. It has so many conflicting forces working for and against it that it has chosen to be exactly in the middle of the range that has existed since the end of the second quarter.

Anyone claiming there are significant technical signals pointing to its direction are torturing the data. However, if I was forced to, and I can’t resist, I’d say that it’s easier to make a technical case for it to go up from here.

And just as a reminder, if you are tempted to trade oil futures today, use the S&P 500 as your guide, not some unhelpful guesses about supply and demand.

Have a good weekend.

via RSS https://ift.tt/2QL2xgs Tyler Durden

As Jean-Claude Juncker famously admitted (perhaps after one too many bottles of Margaux), “when it gets serious you have to lie.”

And so it appears AT&T Chief Executive Officer Randall Stephenson may have felt the same way last year amid the pressure to get a deal done with Time Warner.

In November 2017, as the battle escalated with antitrust officials over the $85.4 billion acquisition of Time Warner, Stephenson – amid enormous pressure from uber-liberal executives demanding he stand up to Trump’s CNN ‘fake news’ attacks – was adamant that “throughout this process, I have never offered to sell CNN and have no intention of doing so.”

At the time, Bloomberg reported – and it was continuously rumored – that discussions of individual assets, including the division that includes CNN, had come up in talks between the companies and Justice Department officials, according to people familiar with the matter.

Today, October 2018, during a deposition in the government’s appeal of the deal’s judicial approval, recounted the conversation he had with the government in Nov 2017:

According to a transcript, he was questioned by a Justice Department lawyer about the meeting with Delrahim.

“And during that meeting, you raised the subject of CNN?” the Justice Department lawyer said.

“I did,” Stephenson said.

“OK. And you were the first one to raise the subject of CNN?”

“Oh, yeah,” said Stephenson, who went on to say, “I asked Mr. Delrahim, I think my language, this will be pretty close: ‘If I were to walk in here tomorrow and tell you I had gotten my head around selling CNN, would that allow you to wave this deal through?’ And he said, unequivocally, ‘No.’”

Of course this is not lying or ‘fake’ news – it is alternative facts as Bloomberg reports that this clash with Stephenson’s public statements at the time is a misunderstanding:

• To the Justice Department, that was a proposal to sell, the government said

• Stephenson wasn’t offering to sell CNN in the meeting with Delrahim, according to a person familiar with the case. Instead, he was trying to understand the Justice Department’s core problem with the proposed merger given that similar deals had been resolved in the past without requiring asset sales, the person said.

Finally, we note that Stephenson said in the deposition there were reasons to wonder whether Trump’s animus toward CNN was driving the Justice Department’s opposition to the deal.

via RSS https://ift.tt/2CbiqIU Tyler Durden

After surging more than 40 points at the open, the S&P 500 has just printed new session lows, with the index now just 0.2% higher on the day; banks, utes, energy, industrials and staples are all lower on the day while tech and discretionary continue to lead the day’s gains but are also paring their advance.

Meanwhile, the Dow has just turned red, having dropped over 400 points from the open, with small caps well red by now.

And all the major US equity indices are now below their 200DMAs.

And Treasuries are bid.

One likely reason: the catalyst for yesterday’s attempted ramp, the report that Trump would meet with China’s president Xi Jinping at the November G-20 summit was just put in doubt by Larry Kudlow:

• KUDLOW SAYS `NOT 100 PERCENT DECIDED’ TRUMP, XI WILL MEET

• KUDLOW: CHINA’S RESPONSES TO U.S. ASKS ARE `UNSATISFACTORY’

Europe had no better luck, with the low tick of the day for Germany’s DAX and the Stoxx 600 indexes coming right at the the close and in the red; the DAX currently sits at its lowest close since February 2017, while the SXXP closed at the weakest since December 2016.

Overnight Bank of America ominous warned that “If it doesn’t bounce now…” referring to the market. It was not clear what would happen if the initial bounce indeed turned red…

via RSS https://ift.tt/2OlSktP Tyler Durden

Authored by Nicholas Colas via DataTrekResearch.com,

Yesterday’s market action broke just about every rule that might signal that the worst is past, based on what we outlined previously. Specifically:

• We didn’t get an outsized selloff at the open. Thanks to a tepid CPI print, bonds rallied modestly and the S&P actually ticked higher in the first half hour of trading.

• Instead of rallying after 10am, US stocks began to sell off. This will remind readers who were in the market during the Financial Crisis of the dreaded “margin clerk selloff” that typically occurred mid morning during 2008. Today looked a lot like that.

• Neither Boeing (10% of the Dow) or large cap Tech (25% of the S&P) could muster a positive day. Yes, Tech outperformed the rest of the market but that is cold comfort at best.

Therefore, we don’t think US equities have seen their near term lows. The typical market response to a down 4% day (like Wednesday) is a modest up day in the next session (+1.7% on average). This signals that investors think prices reflect some near term opportunity. That’s what happened in early February of this year, for example, and markets found their footing. The fact that today did not follow the traditional day-after pattern worries us.

And while we are not superstitious by nature, we get a little worried about Friday-Monday trading whenever volatility picks up. 

Case in point: a large sell program hit US stocks around 230pm today. This drove the S&P 500 down 20 points in a matter of 15 minutes. If you have similar action today, and investors have all weekend to stew over their losses, that sets up for a larger selloff on Monday morning.

On the glass half-full side of things, three points:

• Emerging markets outperformed US stocks today, down 1.0% versus the S&P’s 2.1% decline. News reports that Presidents Trump and Xi will meet at the next G20 meeting in late November helped here. Also, the “VIX of” Emerging Markets sits at levels not seen since April, so the chance for a bounce here is good.

• EAFE (developed Europe, Asia, Far East) stocks likewise outperformed the S&P today, down 1.4%, and both this geography and EM have done mildly better than US stocks over the last week. The S&P is down 6.0% over the last 5 trading sessions; EM is off 4.5% and EAFE is 4.8% lower. If non-US markets are starting to bottom, that could bode well for next week.

• Earnings season kicks off on Friday with Citi, JP Morgan, Wells Fargo and PNC reporting. Analysts’ expectations for Financial sector results are wonky: 3% revenue growth but 34% earnings growth. Still, positive color on the US economy from bank CEOs may help calm investors’ frayed nerves.

Our bottom line: the next two days are too fraught with uncertainty to consider increasing portfolio risk. During volatile periods, we stick to a rules-based approach to determine investable bottoms. And yesterday broke too many rules.

We’re not out of the woods yet.

via RSS https://ift.tt/2CHdKeT Tyler Durden

ABC executives regret their “knee-jerk” decision to fire Roseanne Barr, and now believe that the network’s spin-off series The Conners will fail under the weight of its own politically correct hubris, reports the Daily Mail, citing two anonymous execs. 

“We didn’t think it through properly. What Roseanne did was wrong but we shouldn’t have rushed to fire her. It was almost a knee-jerk reaction by Ben [Sherwood] and Channing [Dungey] who should have launched an investigation,” said one insider, who added “This would have given them more time to listen to the public, advertisers and cast members to determine the best decision.” 

The Roseanne reboot – which quickly became ABC’s #1 top-rated series in April, was quickly derailed after the network suddenly fired star Roseanne Barr after she compared former Obama adviser Valerie Jarrett to if the “Muslim brotherhood & Planet of the Apes had a bay,” comments which were condemned by Dungey as “abhorrent, repugnant and inconsistent with our values.” 

Barr, 65, was fired before a single advertiser pulled out, just three months into the show’s return. Her co-stars immediately turned on her, publicly shunning Roseanne for her tweet. 

Roseanne immediately apologized: 

Many conservatives at the time pointed out that while Roseanne was fired, MSNBC host Joy Reid was allowed to keep her job despite making anti-gay, anti-Muslim blog posts several years ago over a sustained period – and then lying about it. 

The vastly different treatment of the two TV personalities has once again raised questions over the treatment of conservatives in Hollywood. 

Although many applauded the network for taking swift action against the actress, the cancellation marked a premature and unfortunate end to the revival which had been considered an overall success.

Prior to Barr’s tweet, however, the show had already received criticism for Roseanne’s portrayal of a Trump supporter and its attempts to confront social issues involving race and politics.  

According to one source, ABC was aware of what they ‘were getting’ when they hired the outspoken actress and rebooted her show, but the inappropriate tweet was the last straw for Dungey, despite Barr’s desperate attempts to save face. 

‘They could’ve suspended her from the first few episodes without pay and had her return later on in the season. I mean the season finale saw Roseanne going to the hospital for knee surgery,’ the source added.

‘While they worked out her fate, her character could have faced serious complications and fought for her life, while simultaneously making Roseanne fight for her career with a national apology tour. –Daily Mail

ABC will now attempt to run The Conners on October 16 sans Roseanne – which execs now fear may not go so well. 

“When we greenlit The Conners we thought that the public would tune in to see the family return but what we’ve discovered is that people want Roseanne – they don’t want the family by themselves,” another source told The Mail. 

‘The marketing and publicity teams are horrified as no matter what promotional material is released – and let’s be honest it’s been limited for a show that launches next Tuesday – Roseanne’s fans come out in force stating that they won’t watch the show. 

‘The comments on social media tend to skew in favor of Roseanne and slam The Conners and the cast members who came back. Even dedicated fans of the Conner family feel conflicted about supporting a show that so swiftly eliminated the show’s matriarch and creator.’ –Daily Mail

“In the end the ratings are all that matter – and there are many people at Disney and ABC who are worried that firing Roseanne will see their Tuesday night ratings drop substantially. And should The Conners flop, Channing and her team will have many questions to answer.”

“The whisper across ABC is that they will not even be a quarter of what Roseanne achieved last season.”

An ABC spokesperson told the Mail denied that the network is concerned about the success of the Connors. 

To hear more about her firing, supporting Trump, and much, much more, check out Roseanne’s Thursday appearance on the Joe Rogan show: 

via RSS https://ift.tt/2ORHITg Tyler Durden

The sell-off post-mortems continues, and with human action seemingly unable to explain what happened on Wednesday and Thursday, especially at or around the 3pm selling peak observed on both days, attention is now focusing on quants, algos and other machines that may have been involved in indiscriminate selling.

To be sure, we noted on both days that CTAs, or momentum chasing systematic funds, had finally joined in the fray, and once the selling accelerated it was only a matter of time before specific selling triggers were hit on both Wednesday and Thursday. Now old-school – and angry – fund managers are chiming in, with Omega’s Leon Cooperman picking up where the February selloff left, and placing the blame squarely on the machines:

“Warren Buffett made his fortune by buying low and selling high,” Omega Advisors founder Leon Cooperman told Reuters “Machines buy strength and sell weakness and aggravate the moves. There was no reason for that kind of a move yesterday.”

In other words, humans blaming machines. There was no mention by Cooperman that it is those same “machine” that also buy on the way up, accelerating upside momentum; it is only when they sell that the pros seem to notice.

It’s not just the CTAs that were to blame: a 2017 paper by LongTail Alpha LLC chief investment officer Vineer Bhansali and USC Marshall School of Business professor Lawrence Harris estimated that total assets under management in a set of strategies that respond to risk is about $1.5 trillion, including risk-parity funds, volatility targeting funds, and trend followers.

“When there’s $1 trillion in mitigating the downside, there’s a good argument to be made that it actually creates more downside because now they’re all selling at the same time,” said David Lafferty, chief market strategist at Natixis Investment Managers.

“When everyone does it, they create the problem they’re trying to avoid” he added, once again forgetting that it is only when they sell that people tend to notice; nobody has a problem on the way up.

Others also joined the blame game: Michael Purves, Weeden’s chief global strategist said the market action suggests rules-based, volatility-contingent investment strategies adjusted to the sharp selloff in long-term Treasuries.

“When massive elephants move stuff around it can drive a lot of violence,” he said. “It doesn’t mean equities are broken but it means in the medium term they get spicy.”

Then there is the traditional bogeyman, the “risk parity” funds, which all share a specific set of parameters within which they operate, traditionally linking leveraged exposure to both bonds (60%) and stocks (40%), which is why on days of violent moves in one asset class, the other traditionally moves in tandem, especially if there is deleveraging of exposure. Risk Parity also often sees itself blamed when stocks see steep selloffs. 

Predictably, risk parity funds themselves said they were not to blame for this week’s market rout. Speaking to Reuters, Bob Prince, the co-CIO at Bridgewater said the world’s largest hedge fund’s All Weather strategy, which launched the risk-parity movement in 1996, does not actively trade and, while it does periodically adjust, has not done so since the market selloff began. Instead when adjustments happen, Prince claimed that they are generally restoring the fund to its original balance, buying those assets that have gone down and trading against the trend.

And hardly surprising, with everyone blaming everyone else, risk parity decided to blame the HFTs and the hedge funds:

“Risk parity didn’t have anything to do with yesterday’s market movement,” said Prince. “We’re getting closer to the point that earnings growth could disappoint. As people get an inkling of that, probably the smart money’s getting out first.”

In other words, machines blaming humans. That said, the reason why risk parity tends to be a traditional bogeyman is that when they combine multiple assets within a portfolio, as risk parity critics argue, during times of extreme volatility, they do so in a way that still exposes them to too much equity risk and with too little a reward for doing so.

Furthermore, risk parity funds – who take leveraged position in assets other than stocks, including bonds, borrowing money to increase the return – benefit from the fact that stock and bond prices often move in opposite directions, i.e. there is a negative correlation. Things quickly break however, when correlations turn positive, i.e. treasurys and equities both drop or rise at the same time as they have over the past week, which is usually when the risk parity fingerpointing begins.

Incidentally, supporting Prince’s point that risk parity was not at the forefront of the latest selloff is that risk parity strategies reported narrower losses than the S&P 500 index’s 3.0% drop on Wednesday, but the declines nonetheless compounded their negative returns for the year. According to Reuters, Bridgewater’s All Weather Fund is down 0.6% in 2018 through September 30.

As for who’s responsible,

via RSS https://ift.tt/2yA8EN5 Tyler Durden

Authored by Patrick Buchanan via Buchanan.org,

With Friends Like These…

Was Washington Post columnist Jamal Khashoggi murdered inside the Saudi consulate in Istanbul, and then his body cut up with a bone saw and flown to Riyadh in Gulfstream jets owned by Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman?

So contend the Turks, who have video from the consulate, photos of 15 Saudi agents who flew into Istanbul that day, Oct. 2, and the identity numbers of the planes.

Supporting the thesis of either a murder in the consulate or a “rendition,” a kidnaping gone horribly bad, is a Post story that U.S. intel intercepted Saudi planning, ordered by the prince, to lure Khashoggi from his suburban D.C. home back to Saudi Arabia. And for what beneficent purpose?

If these charges are not refuted by Riyadh, there will likely be, and should be, as John Bolton said in another context, “hell to pay.”

And the collateral diplomatic damage looks to be massive.

Any U.S.-backed “Arab NATO” to face down Iran, with Riyadh as central pillar, would appear dead. Continued U.S. support for the Saudi war in Yemen would now be in question.

The special relationship the crown prince and President Donald Trump’s son-in-law, Jared Kushner, have established could be history.

Congress could cancel U.S. arms sales to the kingdom that keep thousands of U.S. defense workers employed, and impose sanctions on the prince who is heir apparent to the throne of his 82-year-old father, King Salman.

Today, the Saudi prince has become toxic, and his ascension to the Saudi throne seems less inevitable than two weeks ago. Yet, well before Khashoggi’s disappearance in the consulate, Crown Prince Mohammed’s behavior had seemed wildly erratic.

Along with the UAE, he charged Qatar with supporting terrorism, severed relations, and threatened to build a ditch to sever Qatar from the Arabian Peninsula. To protest criticism of his country’s human rights record by Canada’s foreign minister, he cut all ties to Ottawa.

Last year, he summoned Lebanese Prime Minister Saad Hariri to Riyadh, held him for a week, and forced him to resign his office and blame it on Iranian interference in Lebanon. Released, Hariri returned home to reclaim his office.

A professed reformer, Crown Prince Mohammed opened movie theaters to women and allowed them to drive, and then jailed the social activists who had called for these reforms.

Three years ago, he initiated the war on the Houthis, after the rebels ousted a pro-Saudi president and took over most of the country.

And, since 2015, the crown prince has conducted a savage air war that has brought Houthi missiles down on his own country and capital.

Yemen has become Saudi Arabia’s Vietnam.

That our principal Arab ally in our confrontation with Iran, which could lead to yet another U.S. war, is a regime headed by so unstable a character should raise serious concerns about where it is we are going in the Middle East.

Have we not wars already?

Do we not have enough enemies in the region — Taliban, al-Qaida, ISIS, Hezbollah, Hamas, Syria, Iran — to be starting another war?

As for our regional allies, consider.

NATO ally Turkey, which is pressing the case against our Saudi allies, leads the world in the number of journalists jailed. Our Egyptian ally, Gen. al-Sissi, came to power in a military coup, and has imprisoned thousands of dissidents of the Muslim Brotherhood.

While we have proclaimed Iran the “world’s greatest state sponsor of terror,” it is Yemen, where Saudi Arabia intervened in 2015, that is regarded as the world’s great human rights catastrophe.

Moreover, Iran is itself suffering from terrorism.

Last month, a military parade in the city of Ahvaz in the southwest was attacked by gunmen who massacred 25 soldiers and civilians in the deadliest terror attack in Iran in a decade.

And like Afghanistan, Iraq, Syria and Libya, Iran suffers, too, from tribalism, with Arab secessionists in its southwest, Baloch secessionists in its southeast, and Kurd secessionists in its northwest.

The U.S. cannot look aside at a royal Saudi hand in the murder of a U.S.-based journalist in its consulate in Istanbul. But before we separate ourselves from the Riyadh regime, we should ask what is the alternative if the House of Saud should be destabilized or fall?

When Egypt’s King Farouk was overthrown in 1952, we got Nasser.

When young King Faisal was overthrown in Baghdad in 1958, we eventually got Saddam Hussein. When King Idris in Libya was ousted in 1969, we got Qaddafi. When Haile Selassie was overthrown and murdered in Ethiopia in 1974, we got Col. Mengistu and mass murder. When the Shah was overthrown in Iran in 1979, we got the Ayatollah.

As World War I, when four empires fell, testifies, wars are hell on monarchies. And if a new and larger Middle East war, with Iran, should break out in the Gulf, some of the Arab kings, emirs and sultans will likely fall.

And when they do, history shows, it is not usually democrats who rise to replace them.

via RSS https://ift.tt/2QJug0T Tyler Durden

The GOP message going into midterms just three weeks away is simple; the left is an “unhinged mob” full of “radical Democrats” who shouldn’t be allowed to govern the country. 

The mob-mentality began last Saturday after President Trump said that the Democratic resistance to Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh was an attempt by an “angry mob” to hijack the proceedings “in their quest for power.” 

“They threw away and threw aside every notion of fairness, of justice, of decency and of due process,” Trump said of the anti-Kavanaugh efforts. “What he and his wonderful family endured at the hands of Democrats is unthinkable, unthinkable.“

Trump then said “On November 6 you will have the chance to stop the radical Democrats — and that’s what they have become.” 

To that end, the GOP has crafted an advertisement around the “unhinged mob” theme in a Thursday video which quickly went viral: 

The Left: An Unhinged Mob. pic.twitter.com/d4YhXrAsXe

— GOP (@GOP) October 11, 2018

Others have created similar videos, such as conservative political consultant, Harlan Hill: 

The Democrats are extreme, unhinged, and dangerous. If they take back Congress this fall, that will be the END of our great American comeback.

Vote for the #MAGA 🇺🇸 agenda! pic.twitter.com/2NQiAEoQnC

— Harlan Z. Hill (@Harlan) October 12, 2018

The MSM “resists” 

To combat the phrase “mob” from being attached to leftists, the mainstream media has begun to push back against conservative guests who utter the word. This was immediately picked up on and turned into yet another viral video of reporters telling people not to say “mob” juxtaposed with more of the “unhinged left.” 

SUPERcut of reporters telling people to not use the “mob” word cut with video of the mob. pic.twitter.com/o2tgNZMEv5

— Andrew Kugle (@AndrewJKugle) October 11, 2018

Inciting the troops

During a Sunday campaign event in Georgia, former Obama Attorney General Eric Holder suggested violence against conservatives; telling the crowd “Michelle [Obama] always says ‘When they go low, we go high.’ No. No. When they go low, we kick them.” 

Moments later Holder sought to clarify, saying “I don’t mean we do anything inappropriate. We don’t do anything illegal.” 

Then in a Tuesday interview, Hillary Clinton rejected the idea that Democrats should be “civil” with Republicans in the age of Donald Trump. 

“You cannot be civil with a political party that wants to destroy what you stand for, what you care about,” said Clinton. 

Hillary Clinton: “You cannot be civil with a political party that wants to destroy what you stand for” https://t.co/8QI5BoEN6t pic.twitter.com/P04am7WREQ

— CNN Politics (@CNNPolitics) October 9, 2018

Perhaps the GOP messaging campaign is the only reason we didn’t see the same highly organized protests after Kavanaugh’s confirmation. Instead, the left seems to have completely forgotten about their latest hill to die on. 

via RSS https://ift.tt/2CH5mfl Tyler Durden