Many Senate Democrats have refused to hold the traditional meet and greet events with Supreme Court nominee Judge Kavanaugh, arguing they have not received all of the millions of pages of documentation related to Kavanaugh's time working in the Bush White House.

Their shut out could ultimately delay the confirmation process and has prompted a threat from Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., to keep the Senate in session until Election Day if that time is needed to confirm Kavanaugh.

Republicans want to confirm Kavanaugh by Oct. 1, which is the start of the next Supreme Court term. To show they mean business, Republican leaders have said they won't adjourn for all-important campaigning this fall if Kavanaugh isn't on track to making that deadline.

"We will stay here until the bitter end, up to the elections on Nov. 6," Senate Majority Whip John Cornyn, R-Texas, said Monday. "That would be the consequence of dragging this out for no good reason. But we will vote on his nomination before the midterm election."

Kavanaugh has been making the rounds in the Senate nearly every day since Trump nominated him on July 9. He's sat down with nearly two dozen senators, but all were Republicans.

Senators Lindsey Graham (R-South Carolina) and Bob Menendez (D-New Jersey) are working on a draft law that would impose sanctions on Russian sovereign debt and demand Senate approval for US quitting NATO, among other things.

The two senators announced on Tuesday they will be introducing the new sanctions law "to ensure the maximum impact on the Kremlin's campaign against our democracy and the rules-based international order."

The US must make it clear it will "not waver in our rejection of [Russian President Vladimir Putin's] effort to erode western democracy as a strategic imperative for Russia's future," Graham and Menendez said.

Although the bill is still being drafted, Graham and Menendez said it would include:

increased sanctions on Russian energy and financial sectors, "oligarchs and parastatal entities" and on sovereign debt as well as sanctions against "cyber actors in Russia."

It will also establish a National Center to Respond to Russian Threats and a sanctions coordinator office at the State Department, demand reports on implementing the Countering America's Adversaries Through Sanctions Act (CAATSA), and authorize financial aid to "bolster democratic institutions across Europe to defend against Russian interference."

Last, but not least, the bill would impose a Senate approval requirement for US withdrawal from NATO.

New anti-Russian sanctions being proposed by US senators are part of the internal political strife in Washington with the real target being Donald Trump, a senior Russian MP has told reporters.

"The US senators' initiative to toughen the anti-Russian sanctions is yet another manifestation of the anti-Russian agony. People on the Capitol Hill cannot put up with the fact that even the top officials of the United States do not perceive Russia only as an enemy," MP Leonid Slutsky (LDPR) was quoted as saying on Wednesday by TASS.

"Obviously these proposals are tied with the internal political strife that has become more intense after the Helsinki summit and they are seeking, in part, to contain President Donald Trump's activity," Slutsky, who is Chair of the State Duma's Committee for International Relations, added.

Slutsky's comments came soon after media reports that a bipartisan group of senators was preparing a new act threatening Russia with a new set of US sanctions in case of its interference with any future American election.

Russian President Vladimir Putin has stated that he and the majority of government officials disliked all of the proposals to raise the retirement age, but without pension reform, Russia would face a serious crisis.

"Of course this is a very sensitive issue for a large number of our citizens. Also, the question did not just appear yesterday; it has been discussed for many years," Putin said on Friday, speaking to a group of volunteers at a stadium in Kaliningrad.

"I have faced this question before and I still face it today: which one of the various options [of pension reform] I like? I like none of those that are connected with an increase in the retirement age. And I assure you that there are few people in the government, if any, who like such options," Putin said, as quoted by RIA Novosti.

The president also stated that if no changes are introduced to the laws concerning pensions, the situation would soon become dire.

"Now we have six working people for every five pensioners, but the quantity of the latter will be falling and at some moment the number of workers will become equal to the number of pensioners and then it will fall even further. And at this point, either the whole pension system would go bust or it will be the state reserve fund that we are now using to cover the pensions deficit," Putin said.

The IDF claims it shot down a Syrian Sukhoi warplane that violated its airspace on Tuesday, a charge Damascus denies. Former UK Ambassador to Syria Peter Ford joined Loud & Clear to discuss.

"It was shot down, and it crashed. We do not have any information so far about the pilots. I do not know of any reports of parachutes being spotted, and we do not know if any pilots have been retrieved," IDF spokesman Lieutenant-Colonel Jonathan Conricus said Tuesday.

Alex Gandler, press attache for Israel's embassy in Russia, told Sputnik News that a communication line was used to prevent the possibility of shooting down a Russian-operated aircraft. While operated by the Syrian Army, the aircraft was Russian-made.

However, a Syrian military source told Sputnik News that the pilot of the jet, Omran Muri, died. The second pilot's fate was unknown, however. But the facts of the engagement are de-facto dubious, Ford said:

"The Israelis have a track record of lying about these things, not to put too fine an edge on it. Only yesterday they admitted they had lied about an earlier incident involving Syrian missiles."

The US Congress moved closer to an outright ban on sales of F-35 jets to its NATO ally, Turkey for its decision to buy Russian S-400s. Lawmakers have now OK'd a delay to the delivery, despite warnings from the defense secretary.

Defense Secretary James Mattis must submit a report to congress assessing Turkey's part in the F-35 program, Senators Thom Tillis and Jeanne Shaheen announced on Tuesday. The special provision is now included in the conference report for the Fiscal Year 2019 National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA).

The senators say the defense department "may not deliver any F-35" to Ankara until congress gets the report. Turkey received two jets in late July. However, the delivery of the remaining aircraft now appears to be uncertain.

Ankara's decision to buy Russian S-400 anti-aircraft systems has contributed to growing tensions with the US. Shaheen says Turkey's "stated ambition" to buy S-400s "continues to give our government pause," particularly as it relates to the F-35. She also urged Turkey to put its alliance and membership in NATO first.

The second reason for congress' opposition to the sale of F-35s to Turkey is the detention of Andrew Brunson, a pastor and US citizen. He is being held by Turkey on charges of espionage and assisting the plotters of an unsuccessful 2016 military coup attempt.

The European Union could introduce a new wave of tariffs against imports from the US if Washington targets European cars, according to the EU's trade chief Cecilia Malmstrom.

The announcement comes hours ahead of a meeting between the European Commission President Jean-Claude Juncker and President Donald Trump at the White House on Wednesday. They will reportedly discuss a wide range of issues, including trade relations which have become tense recently.

Malmstrom warned the White House against imposing a 20 percent tariff on cars imported from the EU, in an interview with the Swedish daily Dagens Nyheter. The official said that the bloc is ready to introduce new counter-tariffs on $20 billion worth of the US imports.

Malmstrom added that Brussels was not planning to punish specific US states, but would apply the levies to general items, including agriculture, machinery and high-tech goods.

The issue had been previously commented on by Alexander Winterstein, a spokesperson for the European Commission, who stressed that the results of talks with Donald Trump are impossible to predict. "If tariffs were to be imposed then we need to take countermeasures and we are ready for that, we are ready to act immediately and we are ready to react adequately," Winterstein said.

Emmanuel Macron's presidency is being battered by its worst scandal so far and at the center of it is the protester-beating bodyguard Alexandre Benalla, a young man with a surprisingly successful career.

On May 1, a man wearing a police helmet was filmed roughing up unarmed protesters at an anti-Macron rally in Paris. In mid-July, he was identified as Macron's bodyguard Benalla. This has given rise to a scandal that could swell up to what the opposition called "Watergate level," with French politicians baffled by the lengths to which Macron's team has gone to protect the bodyguard.

US President Donald Trump claims Washington is ready to make a "real deal" with Iran over the country's nuclear program, a significant retreat from his blustery rhetoric just days after he threatened the Islamic Republic with incredible hardships.

"Iran is not the same country anymore, that I can say," Trump said Tuesday during a speech at the Veterans of Foreign Wars (VFW) national convention in the US state of Missouri. "And we'll see what happens, but we're ready to make a real deal, not the deal that was done by the previous administration, which was a disaster."

Trump announced on May 8 that Washington was walking away from the nuclear agreement, officially known as the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA), signed between Iran and the P5+1 group of countries in 2015, and that he planned to reinstate US nuclear sanctions on Iran and impose "the highest level" of economic bans on Tehran.

Southern Syria is surrendering to the forces of the Syrian army: deals have been concluded between the Syrian government and the militants, including jihadists belonging to Jabhat al-Nusra (aka Hayat Tahrir al-Sham). The main deal, supervised by the Russian forces, allows whoever is willing to go to the northern city of Idlib, which is becoming the largest gathering of jihadists, to join the caravan and board the green buses, carrying their personal light weapons.

The Syrian army is facing a real logistic challenge, its forces did not expect the fall of the southern front so quickly. Therefore, the military command is asking militants and jihadists to stay in their villages until their turn comes to be evacuated or to be reconciled with the authorities.

The aim is also to prevent ISIS, occupying the enclave in al-Yarmouk Basin, from expanding its control over nearby abandoned villages where jihadists were based and are today unwilling to fight.

The only pocket remaining is the one of "Jaish Khaled bin al-Waleed", ISIS-Huran, where the Syrian army and its allies have initiated an attack after surrounding the area from all sides, with the exception of the west flank bordering the 1974 line with Israel.