Move along… move along… nothing to see here folks… Las Vegas Sheriff Joe Lombardo announces the end to the investigation of the Mandalay Bay Massacre with a declaration there is no known motive and there was no second shooter.

LAS VEGAS –  In the year before Las Vegas gunman Stephen Paddock carried out the worst mass shooting in modern U.S. history, the high-stakes gambler appeared to have become increasingly unstable, distant and constantly complained of being sick, according to a final investigative report released Friday.
(more…)

National Economic Council Chairman Larry Kudlow discusses the July jobs report with Fox News host Stuart “Grumbles” Varney.

The Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) released the July 2018 employment report today (full pdf with tables below) highlighting continued growth in jobs.  Overall private employment gained 170,000 jobs, while government employment decreased 13,000 jobs for a net gain of 156,000 new jobs.   The BLS unemployment rate dropped to 3.9%.
[*Note this footnote:  “The change in total nonfarm payroll employment for May was revised up to +268,000, and the change for June was revised up to +248,000. With these revisions, employment gains in May and June combined were 59,000 more than previously reported.”]  Huh, funny that…. some revision eh?
July’s labor participation is holding steady at 62.9%, with 155,965,000 employed within the U.S. workforce. (Table A-1)
Blue and White-collar Main Street jobs continue to lead the MAGAnomic resurgence. (table B-1) Construction jobs increased 19,000 jobs; manufacturing gained 37,000 jobs; and trade/transportation and utilities gaining 15,000.
With extra cash in their pockets, the U.S. worker/consumer continued to spend and retail employment added 7,100 new workers in July.   (Table B1) Interestingly, and reinforcing a long-ago CTH prediction, the consumer spending growth (leading to increases in employment) is specifically in the consumable goods sector (food, clothing, etc.).   This is connected to the increase in work-time (table B2); an oft overlooked aspect to the economy.
Truck transportation gained 4,400 jobs in July (everyone needs truckers), which is in line with the high wage growth (3.4%) within this sub-set of the transportation industry.

(more…)

In an effort to keep the Daily Open Thread a little more open topic we are going to start a new daily thread for “Presidential Politics”. Please use this thread to post anything relating to the Donald Trump Administration and Presidency.

This thread will refresh daily and appear above the Open Discussion Thread.

President Trump Twitter @POTUS / Vice President Pence Twitter @VP

Sarah H Sanders Twitter @SHSanders45

Our Father, who art in heaven, hallowed be thy Name. Thy kingdom come. THY WILL BE DONE, on earth as it is in heaven. Give us this day our daily bread. And forgive us our trespasses, as we forgive those who trespass against us. And lead us not into temptation, but DELIVER US FROM EVIL.
For Thine is the kingdom and the power and the glory, forever and ever. Amen †

Fox News host Tucker Carlson interviews a British man named Tommy Robinson. Mr. Robinson was arrested and thrown in jail for livestreaming in front of a U.K. courthouse where members of an Islamic gang were attending court proceedings under charges of sexual assault for raping schoolgirls.
For two months Mr. Robinson was held in solitary confinement within the British prison system; he describes the alarming sequence of events, and the political weaponization of the British legal system to Tucker Carlson.

Tonight President Donald Trump is holding another MAGA campaign style rally at the Mohegan Sun Arena at Casey Plaza in Wilkes-Barre, PA.  The anticipated start time is 7:00pm EST with pre-rally festivities ongoing:
UPDATE: Video Added

President Trump has moved into Phase II of the U.S./China confrontation.  Part of that confrontation is to use the inherent weakness of the Chinese economy against them.  To understand the weakness is to understand the China ‘One-Belt / ‘One-World‘ economic trade strategy.  Here’s an outline of the economic battle-space we are witnessing.
People often talk about the ‘strength’ of China’s economic model; and indeed within a specific part of their economy –manufacturing– they do have economic strength.
However, the underlying critical architecture of the Chinese economic model is structurally flawed and President Trump with his current economic team understand the weakness better than all international adversaries.
Lets take a stroll and discuss.
China is a central planning economy. Meaning it never was an outcropping of natural economic conditions. China was/is controlled as a communist style central-planning government; As such, it is important to reference the basic structural reality that China’s economy was created from the top down.
This construct of government creation is a key big picture distinction that sets the backdrop to understand how weak the economy really is.
(more…)

Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross appears on Fox News this morning to discuss Phase II in the economic confrontation with China.  The hurt will increase until behavior changes.
Phase II is direct, deliberate and fully confrontational trade engagement with extreme prejudice to financially hurt the Chinese economy and present the communist regime with examples of what will lie ahead if they do not concede to U.S. terms.
The first objective in Phase II is to convince the Chinese the war is real.  Beijing cannot yet fathom the United States is not going to allow the import of low cost manufactured goods…. they believe, wrongly, against a history with all previous administrations, that President Trump is bluffing.

When I first saw this late last night, the severity of the vulgar racism expressed within the details made me pause… it couldn’t possibly be real.  Alas, it is real.
Stunningly, it is real.
Sarah Jeong is a writer of some sort who was hired by the New York Times to become an editor for their publication.   However, apparently someone on Twitter had encountered Ms. Jeong’s expressed ideology, and shared the content of the new editor’s twitter feed.
To say Ms. Jeong is a severe racist would be an understatement.  The level of racial anger, racial bitterness, race-based vulgarity, and expressed racial hatred is so over-the-top it seems the New York Times must be intent on creating some form of publicity from their decision to hire.
There is no-way a business could/would ever ACCIDENTALLY hire a person who has expressed such vitriolic hatred when their role and responsibility within the organization would be to promote the editorial perspective of the New York Times.  Meaning the New York Times supports and condones this type of overt racism.
A small sample of Ms. Sarah Joeng’s racial perspective is below.
(more…)