GOP Senator: Democratic Activists Participating In ‘Paid Soros Conspiracy’

While the mainstream media has overlooked the fact that the two “hero” survivors who berated Arizona Senator Jeff Flake into calling for a one-week extended FBI background check were paid activists working on behalf of a nonprofit organization funded by George Soros, one Republican Senator brought up that fact during an interview with Laura Ingraham’s radio show.

Perdue

Louisiana Republican Senator David Perdue argued that Republicans should ignore these protestors who have a clearly partisan agenda and instead should “grow up and start playing defense,” the Hill reported.

“These are not genuine people who are concerned about Dr. Ford or anything else, these are paid activists,” he said.

“This is a George Soros conspiracy, and it’s time we wake up, expose them, stand up and fight for our country, because that’s what’s at stake here” Perdue added, referring to the billionaire activist who has donated to liberal social causes.

Perdue spoke out a day after he was confronted by activists seeking to stop the confirmation of Judge Brett Kavanaugh. Two of the women who confronted Perdue, who was walking through the airport with his wife at the time, stopped him and accused him of callously ignoring victims of sexual assault.

Both women were affiliated with the Center for Popular Democracy – the same organization for which the two women who confronted Flake worked. The organization is funded by Soros’ “Open Society” foundation. Perdue denounced their attempt to monger sympathy with lawmakers and voters as “a sham.”

“This is a sham, it’s a new low in America,” he said.

“This is part of a bigger attempt by the Democrats to take this to a new level. This is a bigger issue, and it’s not going to go away when we confirm Kavanuaugh this week.”

In a separate interview, Perdue decried the Democrats tactics as an embrace of McCarthyism.

“This is a reversion back to McCarthyism by the Democrats,” he said.

“These are not genuine people who are concerned about Dr. Ford or anything else, these are paid activists,” he said.

“I mean, it is outrageous, the character assassination. The Democrats are burning a very bedrock of our democracy, and that is the presumption of innocence in this, and this character assassination is the new low in my time here in Washington.”

And with the FBI expected to turn its investigative report Wednesday evening, expect these ambushes by Democrats to only intensify.

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“Looking To Recoup”: NYC And De Blasio On War Path Over Trump Taxes

The city of New York will go after any unpaid taxes that President Donald Trump should have paid on his inheritance, according to Mayor Bill de Blasio, following a New York Times report alleging that the Trump family committed tax fraud. 

“It’s clear to me that there are real ramifications right now to what has been disclosed, either potential violations of law, or in cases where the statute of limitations has ended that there may be very serious civil penalties that can be applied by both the state and the city,” de Blasio said Wednesday. “The city of New York is looking to recoup any money that Donald Trump owes the people of New York City, period.

On Wednesday the Times reported that Trump received today’s equivalent of $413 million from his father’s real estate empire, based on questionable tax dealings starting when he was a toddler and continuing to this day. 

According to the leaked confidential filings, Trump’s parents left more than $1 billion to their children, which would have resulted in a roughly $550 million tax bill at the time. However, the Trumps paid a total of $52.2 million on that source of income, according to the NYT report. To achieve this, the newspaper cited records that showed Trump helped undervalue his father’s real estate holdings, which led to a lower tax bill when he and his siblings inherited the properties.

New York state tax authorities have launched an investigation into the allegations, while de Blasio said that the city would cooperate closely with state authorities on the matter. 

“It’s also an indictment of the culture of New York City and New York state going back decades. There was a good old boy network that obviously Donald Trump played like a fiddle and evaded the kind of regulation and investigation and prosecution he should have received many times over,” de Blasio added. 

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Peak US Exceptionalism: Study Finds American Human Capital Yield Has Unexpectedly Collapsed 

More evidence that American exceptionalism has peaked.

According to the first-ever scientific report ranking countries by their level of human capital, researchers have found nations failing to invest in health and education are at risk of stagnating economies.

“Our findings show the association – between investments in education and health and improved human capital and GDP – that policymakers ignore at their own peril,” said Dr. Christopher Murray, director of the Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation (IHME) at the University of Washington.

“As the world economy grows increasingly dependent on digital technology, from agriculture to manufacturing to the service industry, human capital grows increasingly important for stimulating local and national economies,” said Murray.

World Bank President, Dr. Jim Yong Kim, describes human capital as “the sum total of a population’s health, skills, knowledge, experience, and habits.” As such, ranking human capital by country will give investors insights into where critical investments are needed to improve health and education.

“Measuring and ranking countries by their level of human capital is critical to focus governments’ attention on investing in their own people,” Kim said. “This study from IHME is an important contribution to the measurement of human capital across countries and over time.”

The study, “Measuring human capital: A systematic analysis of 195 countries and territories, 1990–2016,” was published last week in the weekly peer-reviewed medical journal called The Lancet. It is based on an analysis of an extensive collection of data from many sources, including government agencies, schools, and healthcare systems.

Over the past quarter-century, there has been tremendous progress in global health and education investments with Finland at the top of the list. However, the study confirms that American exceptionalism is waning, as its human capital yield has collapsed from 6th to 27th over the period.

Meanwhile, China jumped from 69th to 44th, Turkey from 102nd to 43rd, South Korea from 18th to 6th, and Singapore from 43rd to 13th.

“The study places Finland at the top. Turkey showed the most dramatic increase in human capital between 1990 and 2016; Asian countries with notable improvement include China, Thailand, Singapore, and Vietnam. Within Latin America, Brazil stands out for improvement. All these countries have had faster economic growth over this period than peer countries with lower levels of human capital improvement.

In addition, the greatest increase in human capital among sub-Saharan African countries was in Equatorial Guinea. Some of the world’s most rapid improvements were in the Middle East, including Saudi Arabia and Kuwait.

…The US was ranked sixth in human capital in 1990 but dropped to 27th in 2016 due in part to minimal progress in educational attainment, which dropped from 13 to 12 years during that time.”

“Underinvesting in people may be driven by lack of policy attention to the levels of human capital,” Murray said.

Murray is correct, the White House, Federal Reserve, and Wall Street have sent interest rates to 5,000-year lows, sparking the most extended bull market of all-time, producing significant wealth, health, and education inequalities, as Keynesian economics has destroyed America’s middle class.

Trillions of dollars in credit via quantitative easing programs from the Federal Reserve did not flow into local communities for investments in health and education, but rather speculation in the stock market.

America’s elites were too busy speculating in many stock market bubbles than investing in the real economy.

The IHME report now enables Americans to measure investments in health and education. It will give them the ability to hold their politicians accountable for the era of gross negligence, where taxpayers funds were used for speculation and enriching the elites rather than investing in health and education in communities for the middle class.

One of the most transformative themes for the 2020s will be correcting the epic inequality that has left America paralyzed. The evidence above shows that exceptionalism is dead, we must recognize the empire has peaked. Make America Great Again might be much harder than you think.

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Planet X? Mysterious Planet ‘The Goblin’ Redefines Solar System

Authored by Mac Slavo via SHTFplan.com,

The discovery of a new dwarf planet called “The Goblin” is redefining our solar system. The planet’s massively elongated orbit suggests object is influenced by theoretical giant Planet Nine (Planet X) in the Oort Cloud region.

Planet X, an as-of-yet unseen world could be shaping the orbits of smaller, extremely distant objects like the newly described 2015 TG387, nicknamed “The Goblin.” The Goblin is likely spherical and about as wide as the state of Massachusetts. And much like a handful of other distant solar system inhabitants, its orbital behavior might signal the presence of Planet X lurking in the distant outer dominions of the solar system.

The Goblin is the third minor planet to have been found in the outer solar system, following the discoveries of Sedna and, recently, another object called 2012 VP113. This region, which was once thought of as a cold, dark, and empty realm now appears to be a rich collection of exotic and extreme objects. And these three planets may be just the beginning of the discoveries.

“We are only just now uncovering what the very outer solar system might look like and what might be out there,” said Scott Sheppard of the Carnegie Institution for Science in Washington DC and a member of the team which located The Goblin.

“We believe there are thousands of dwarf planets in the distant solar system. We are just seeing the tip of the iceberg right now.”

Doomsayers have been warning of Planet X (or Wormwood, or Planet Nine) for years, however, most of their prophecies include a collision with Earth or a conspiracy to hide the planet’s existence from the public. But it appears that the discovery of The Goblin has even scientists wondering what else is out there beyond the far reaches of our solar system. “Every small object we find that is isolated like this will bring us closer to finding the planet,” said Scott Sheppard. Sheppard also reported the finding in a notice distributed by the International Astronomical Union’s Minor Planet Center, according toThe National Geographic

The newly discovered small icy world is in an extremely elongated orbit. At its closest, it gets about two and a half times as far from the sun as Pluto and then it heads off to the outermost fringes of the solar system, to almost 60 times further out than Pluto, taking an astounding 40,000 years to loop once around the sun. For 99% of its orbit, it would be too faint to see, according to a report by The Guardian

Konstantin Batygin, assistant professor of planetary science at Caltech, who has worked on theoretical simulations of the hypothetical Planet Nine, described the latest observations as a “great discovery indeed.” He added, “Despite centuries of surveys, our understanding of the solar system remains incomplete,” he said. “This certainly adds to the growing ledger of … objects that show Planet Nine’s influence.

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After 17 Months, The Mueller Probe Is Finally Winding Down.

The Mueller probe into allegations of collusion between the Trump campaign and Russian government has continued long past its expected termination date (it was initially expected that the probe wouldn’t last more than a year from Mueller’s appointment in May 2017). And with the mid-term elections roughly one month away, signs that the probe is winding down are finally starting to emerge. As the Associated Press reported on Wednesday, several members of Mueller’s team of prosecutors have been reassigned back to various divisions of the Department of Justice, while Mueller’s increasing reliance on outside prosecutors suggests that he has been narrowing the probe’s focus.

Mueller

While the grand jury inquiry into Roger Stone is still ongoing, Mueller is refocusing on two key threads of his probe: The original allegations of collusion, as well as allegations that President Trump obstructed justice when he fired former FBI Director James Comey.

Besides the grand jury inquiry into Stone, other elements of the Mueller investigation remain active, including inquiries into whether the president took action to obstruct the probe and the central unresolved question of whether the Trump campaign coordinated with Russia during the 2016 election.

But after a series of indictments and high-profile plea deals with Trump associates in recent months, Mueller’s shown signs of narrowing his focus, referring cases to other offices of the Justice Department, letting other U.S. attorneys largely take over cases he brought and allowing prosecutors to leave his team without replacement.

As the AP reports, two prosecutors assigned to the Russia investigation are returning to their duties at DOJ, joining two others who left the probe over the summer.

They are:

  • Brandon Van Grack: Grack was one of the prosecutors responsible for securing a guilty plea from former National Security Advisor Michael Flynn: He has already returned to the Justice Department’s national security division, but will continue to be involved in the Flynn case. Flynn is expected to be sentenced in December.

  • Kyle Freeny: Freeny will end her involvement with the probe later this month and return to the DOJ’s money laundering division. Both Freeny and Grack aided in the prosecution of Paul Manafort.

  • Ryan Dickey: Dickey, a computer crimes specialist, aided in the investigation of the Internet Research Agency, a Russian social media troll farm accused of masterminding Russia’s attempt to “sow discord” among the US public via social media. He also worked on the indictments of 12 Russian intelligence officers accused of hacking the DNC and Clinton Campaign. 

  • Brian Richardson: Richardson was part of a team that prosecuted former Skadden Arps attorney Alex van der Zwaan for lying to the FBI while they were investigating Manafort and others involved in his Ukrainian work.

To be sure, existing case law suggests that a sitting president most likely cannot be indicted. But it’s widely expected that Mueller will produce a final report detailing his findings once his probe has concluded. Last month, Mueller’s team made two serious concessions to Trump, offering to allow the president (or rather, his lawyers) to answer questions in writing, and promising to keep those questions focused on the Russian collusion element of the probe, instead of asking that Trump sit for an interview. Then again, subpoenaing the president to try and force an interview likely would have triggered a lengthy legal battle that likely would have ended in front of the Supreme Court.

 

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NAFTA Rewrite Means No More American Super Bowl Commericals for Canadians

In February, Canadian viewers who tuned in to the Super Bowl got to see more than just the Philadelphia Eagles upsetting the New England Patriots. They also got to see the high-dollar commercials that draw as much attention, if not more, than the game itself.

Thanks to the new United States-Mexico-Canada Agreement (USMCA), that won’t be happening again.

Part of the USMCA overturns a 2017 ruling by the Canadian Radio-television Telecommunications Commission (CRTC)—basically the Canuck equivalent of the Federal Communications Commission—banning the use of so-called “simultaneous substitution” to plug local ads into American broadcasts of the big game. Canadian networks use simultaneous substitution to plug their own ads into American sporting events, shows, and other programs all the time, but Canadians had been complaining to the commission for years about not being able to enjoy the American Super Bowl ads.

During the 2017 Super Bowl—which was broadcast not only on a Canadian network with Canadian ads but also via Fox with American ads—Canadians voted with their remotes and CTV lost 40 percent of it’s usual Super Bowl audience, The Economist reported earlier this year.

The CRTC ruling might have pleased Canadian football fans, but it left the National Football League unhappy. The league sells broadcast rights to its annual championship game, and those broadcasts are less valuable if they don’t include the Canadian ads. For this year’s game, the Canadian broadcaster that owns the rights to carry the Super Bowl lost an estimated $11 million because it couldn’t sell domestic ads, according to the CBC.

Under the terms of the new trade deal, “Canada may not accord the program treatment less favorable than the treatment accorded to other programs originating in the United States retransmitted in Canada.” Trade officials from the United States, Canada, and Mexico agreed to the new trade deal on Sunday night, though it will not become official until it receives additional rounds of approvals from the governments of all three countries.

If the USMCA is approved, both the NFL and the Canadian network broadcasting the Super Bowl will make more money, but Canadians won’t get to watch (frankly awesome) American ads for beers, trucks, and all things ‘Murica during next year’s game. Perhaps they’ll instead be stuck with re-runs of ads for Tim Horton’s and…I don’t know, snowmobiles?

The NFL is pleased about the new trade deal. Roger Goodell, the league’s commissioner (and frequent target of President Donald Trump’s football rage) even praised the American president for negotiating the change.

Of course, the Canadian network that broadcasts the Super Bowl should have the right to show whatever ads it wants—the idea that it’s “in the public interest” to have American ads during the Super Bowl, as the CRTC ruled in 2017, is pretty absurd.

But the fact that it took a rewrite of NAFTA to settle this dispute is a reminder of both importance and scope of trade agreements. While deals like the USMCA and NAFTA contribute to the easier movement of goods across national borders, they also take into account various type of protectionism filtered through the complexities of both domestic and international politics.

Deadspin’s Chris Thompson sums it up: “The commissioner of an American sports league thanked the American president for helping to overturn a Canadian regulatory rule that forced a Canadian broadcaster to show American advertisements during the Super Bowl, which is the signature American sporting event.”

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Euro Tumbles In Late Trading As Hawkish Powell Sends Dollar, Yields Soaring

Just when dollar bears and Treasury bulls thought the pain was finally over, the previously discussed hawkish Powell comments hit the tape.

In a remarkable sequence of comments, Powell basically said that not only is the Fed not worried about stifling growth by tightening too much, the he took the opportunity to underscore why he remains so complacent about the US economy, saying “it’s a remarkably positive set of economic circumstances,” and “there’s no reason to think it can’t continue for quite some time.”

Powell also praised the recent wage increases, saying some gains are welcome and noting that “the Phillips curve is not dead, just resting” and repeated what he said after the last week’s FOMC announcement, saying that “interest rates are still accommodative” because “rates have just now, in real terms, moved above zero.”

And here is the reason for dollar bear pain after hours: Powell said that not only are rates far away from the neutral rate of interest – or the interest rate that neither stimulates nor holds back the economy – suggesting that the Fed will keep hiking for a long time, but that the Fed may also go past “neutral” as the tightening process continues:

“interest rates are still accommodative, but we’re gradually moving to a place where they’ll be neutral – – not that they’ll be restraining the economy. We may go past neutral. But we’re a long way from neutral at this point, probably.”

And whether it was after-hours momentum, or Powell’s unexpected hawkishness that the Fed is a “long way from neutral”, today’s dramatic surge in yields and the dollar, and the plunge in the Euro, accelerated after hours. And, as shown below, once EURUSD took out the 1.15 stops, the pair tumbled as low as 1.147, the lowest level since late August…

… while the 10Y Yield continued its relentless levitation to the highest level in 7 years…

… a move which during the cash session finally sent stock reeling amid concerns that rate had risen too far, too fast.

As for the dollar, it surged above 96 and is now putting enough pressure on financial conditions to hit S&P futures.

Which is ironic, because during his speech, Powell said that “we don’t detect financial instability as elevated now.” Well, a few more such comments, and he will.

And with the dollar now in blast off mode, we hope the emerging markets enjoyed their brief respite and got their affairs in order, because overnight it’s about to get ugly again.

 

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Rep. Devin Nunes Sends Out 38-Page Mailer Knocking Local Newspaper

|||CARLOS BARRIA/REUTERS/Newscom

The war between Rep. Devin Nunes (R–Calif.) and his local paper took a bizarre turn when he sent a 38-page mailer to his supporters. Fresno County Deputy District Attorney Andrew Janz is challenging Nunes for his seat, but the mailer may give you the impression that his opponent is the Fresno Bee.

Tension between Nunes and the Bee have been high since June, when the paper ran a report tying Nunes to a controversial incident. The congressman had invested in a friend’s Napa winery called Alpha Omega. When the friend auctioned off a trip aboard the winery’s yacht in 2015 to raise money for charity, the winning bidders brought sex workers on board. An employee who was tasked with serving the ride has claimed that a number of the sex workers were underaged; she also says she witnessed sex acts and drug use between the guests and the sex workers. After she sued for sexual harassment and a violation of fair employment laws, the winery reportedly settled.

In June, Nunes released an ad criticizing the paper for the reporting. He accused the paper of working with “radical left-wing groups to promote fake news stories.” Though Nunes’ campaign ad admitted that the guests “abused the use of the boat,” his mailer accused the paper of “slandering” a family-owned business. In fact, the ad largely reads like an extended hit piece on the paper’s reporting, and accuses it, among several other things, of being “fake news.” Another part of the mailer accuses the Bee of staging a “political stunt” to benefit an interview with Vice News over the report.

Nunes has spent a great deal of time focusing on the press, even going so far as to decry reporting about potential campaign finance violations. In July, the Federal Election Commission (FEC) found that in 2017 Nunes used money raised by NEW PAC, the political action committee he created, for questionable travel, lodging, dining, and entertainment expenses. Though the funds are meant to be used for campaigning, Nunes spent nearly $15,000 to see the Celtics play home games at TD Garden. He also spent thousands on winery tours and tens of thousands on catering, meals, and hotels in Las Vegas. After McClatchy brought light to the FEC report, Nunes told The Hill that the news source was engaged in “yet another baseless attack.”

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Fed Chair Powell Hints He May Soon Crash The Market

Speaking at an event at the Atlantic Festival in Washington, Jerome Powell’s second public appearance of the week, the Fed chair took the opportunity to underscore just why he remains so complacent about the US economy, saying “it’s a remarkably positive set of economic circumstances,” and “there’s no reason to think it can’t continue for quite some time.”

Powell also praised the recent wage increases, saying some gains are welcome and noting that “the Phillips curve is not dead, just resting.”

The surprisingly confident Powell then put on the hawkish afterburners, and repeated what he said after the last week’s FOMC announcement, saying that “interest rates are still accommodative” because “rates have just now, in real terms, moved above zero.”

And here is the reason why the dollar is surging after hours: Powell said that not only are rates far away from the neutral rate of interest – or the interest rate that neither stimulates nor holds back the economy – but the Fed may go past neutral, i.e., overheat the economy, as the tightening process continues:

“interest rates are still accommodative, but we’re gradually moving to a place where they’ll be neutral – – not that they’ll be restraining the economy. We may go past neutral. But we’re a long way from neutral at this point, probably.”

Why is this important?

Because as Stifel analyst Barry Bannister – who correctly predicted the February correction – wrote three weeks ago, contrary to Powell’s assessment, just two more rate hikes would put the central bank above the neutral rate. The Fed’s long-term projection of its policy rate has risen from 2.8% at the end of 2017 to 2.9% in June. The September rate hike followed Bannister’s note, so as of this moment just one more hike would be sufficient to push the fed funds rate beyond neutral.

What Bannister said next was ominous:

“Although some say the neutral rate is difficult to observe, stocks see the barrier quite clearly. A ‘maximum tolerable peak’ for the fed funds above the neutral rate has been associated with bear markets since the late-90s global-debt boom.”

As we noted further back in September, the Fed has a choice: it may not hike, which leads to the following dilemma: “cross the neutral rate in 2019 to forestall late cycle inflation or remain below neutral and foster speculative bubbles.”

When we last touched on this topic we said that “Fed Chair Powell has yet to tip his hand whether he leans more toward controlling inflation or avoiding the bursting of the biggest ever asset bubble.”

Well, as of Powell’s latest speech, the answer appears clear: Powell will push above, and perhaps far above, the neutral rate. And, as the following chart, every time this has happened, a bear market has inevitably followed.

This is bad news for Trump: not only has Powell hinted that he will keep hiking rates for the foreseeable future, but in doing so the Fed will be the catalyst the ultimately crashes the market, something we discussed earlier today when we laid out the conditions under which the Fed would keep hiking, and warned that every Fed tightening cycle ends with a crisis.

But don’t believe us, here is what Deutsche Bank’s macro strategist Alan Ruskin explained back in May:

  • Every Fed tightening cycle creates a meaningful crisis somewhere, often external but usually with some domestic (US) fall out. Fed tightening can be likened to the monetary authorities shaking a tree with some overripe fruit. It is usually not totally obvious what will fall out, but that there is ‘fall out’ should be no surprise.
  • Going back in history, the 2004-6 Fed tightening looked benign but the US housing collapse set off contagion and a near collapse of the global financial system dwarfing all post-war crises.
  • The late 1990s Fed stop start tightening included the Asia crisis, LTCM and Russia collapse, and when tightening resumed, the pop of the equity bubble.
  • The early 1993-4 tightening phase included bond market turmoil and the Mexican crisis.
  • The late 1980s tightening ushered along the S&L crisis.
  • Greenspan’s first fumbled tightening in 1987 helped trigger Black Monday, before the Fed eased and ‘the Greenspan put’ took off in earnest.
  • The early 80s included the LDC/Latam debt crisis and Conti Illinois collapse.

And a post-script from Ruskin’s colleague at DB, Jim Reid:

A reminder that our note from last September suggested that financial crises have been a very regular feature of the post-Bretton Woods system (1971-) and that based on history we’d be stunned if we didn’t have another one in some form or another by around the end of this decade/turn of the next one.

The most likely catalyst was the “great unwind” of loose monetary policy/QE around the world at a time of still record debt levels.

We would stand by this and I suppose the newsflow and events this year so far makes me more confident of this even if we’re still unsure on the timing or the epicentre.

So for all those curious when the next crisis will finally strike, just ask Powell how much above neutral he plans to keep hiking, because every prior crash was ultimately manufactured by the Federal Reserve. This time won’t be different.

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Russian TV Releases Footage Of S-300 Battery Being Offloaded In Syria

Christmas came early this year for Syria’s Assad as Russia yesterday confirmed delivery of its feared S-300 surface-to-air missile system.

And on Wednesday Russian TV aired footage and provided photos of what are unmistakably the S-300 missiles being offloaded large cargo transport planes in Syria.

The nighttime footage shows the hardware being unloaded from the cargo door of the massive Antonov An-124 Ruslan, also called ‘the Condor’, which is known to be able to carry a payload of 120 tons.

Russian Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu had told Putin on Tuesday in a televised meeting, “The work was finished a day ago,” and that the transfer includes 49 pieces of military hardware.

Video and official photos appear to show a launcher, radar, control vehicles, and missile tubes. 

Russian advisers will now train Syrian personnel to operation the new weapons, which is expected to take up to a few months, with the likelihood that Russians will man the active systems in the meantime, set to go fully operational by October 20.

It’s now confirmed that Moscow has fully followed through on its prior vow to move “swiftly and appropriately” in response to Israel’s massive September 17 airstrikes on Syria which resulted in the accidental downing of a Russian reconnaissance plane with 15 people on board by Syrian defenses.

Meanwhile, though clearly too little too late, the U.S. State Department said on Tuesday that it hopes the Russian Federation did not deliver the S-300 systems to Syria because if they did, it would be a “serious escalation”.

“I cannot confirm that that is accurate. I hope that they did not, that would be a serious escalation and concern,” Nauert said when asked about the administration’s reaction to reports Russia had sent S-300 systems to Syria. Apparently Nauert now has photographic proof, however.

* * * 

The chief worrisome game changer for Netanyahu is that — as a Haaretz report noted previously  the range of the new defense system will give Damascus the ability to detect potentially hostile aircraft from point of origin inside Israel: “With Putin’s S-300, Assad’s army could even ‘lock-on’ IAF aircraft as they take off from bases within Israel.” And as one Israeli defense analyst put it“Israel should be worried.”

Russia has further notified the world that it would help Syria blanket the coast and its sovereign territory with an “electronic umbrella” of new electronic countermeasures, which will allow the Syrians to “suppress satellite navigation, onboard radar systems and communications of warplanes attacking targets on Syrian territory.”

And Syria for its part has signaled to the Israelis that it’s essentially gameover. Syria’s Deputy Foreign Minister Faisal Mekdad recently said that “Israel, which has gotten used to carrying out attacks under various pretexts, will now have to weigh and rethink before attacking again.” He told the Chinese news agency Xinhua: “The aggression against Syria is directed towards the forces that are fighting against terrorism in Syria. If Israel will try to attack we will defend our people as we did in the past.”

The Israeli Defense Forces (IDF) over the summer confirmed that it had struck targets inside Syria over 200 times within just the last year alone. But it now appears those days are over. 

 

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