The Commerce Dept. announced that retail sales climbed by 0.4 percent in August, twice as high as the 0.2 percent analysts had predicted. The result highlights retail sales strength of more than 4 percent year-over-year. These excellent results come on the heels of blowout data in July, when households boosted purchases of cars and clothing.

 Sec. Wilbur Ross ✔@SecretaryRoss

A significant rise in retail sales for August signals continued growth in consumer spending. Further, the increase in auto dealer sales shows that the U.S. auto industry is still strong. #Congress must pass #USMCANow to ensure it continues to prosper.

/www.foxbusiness.com/economy/august-retail-sales …

 . Vote For Me !

The Democrats’ third presidential debate was a long-winded, platitude-filled disaster ... the seven men and three women took turns displaying why they are all probably unelectable.

• Start with Joe Biden’s incoherence. Most of the time I had no idea what he was trying to say, let alone what he actually said. I veered between feeling sorry for him and expecting the AFLAC duck to come out on stage and shake its head in bewilderment.
• Sen. Elizabeth Warren?  I didn’t hear her saying a single thing about America that she likes.
• As for Bernie Sanders, he spent the entire night needing to clear his throat. It was maddening, though perhaps not as maddening as him screaming at us as though we had just cut him off in traffic.
• Every liberal on Twitter seemed to think Beto O’Rourke is wonderful for saying he’s going to seize everyone’s AR-15. Does it matter that he can’t, Congress won’t, and he’s peddling snake oil?

Trump's 2015-16 hostile takeover of the old GOP has been finalized.

Donald Trump and the Republican National Committee have finalized an agreement that will allow individual donors to contribute nearly half a million dollars each toward electing the presumptive nominee and other down-ballot Republicans this fall.

The agreement cements a shift in campaign strategy that’s been in the works for weeks, as Trump adopts more traditional campaign tactics with an eye towards the general election. Though he largely self-funded his primary campaign — often touting the fact as evidence he can’t be "bought" like typical politicians — he has recently acknowledged the need to tap donor money for the general election, where he’s expected to face an onslaught of hundreds of millions of dollars in Democratic attack ads.

The agreement, announced late Tuesday night by both the Trump campaign and the RNC, sets up two joint fundraising committees — the Trump Make America Great Again Committee, an alliance between the Trump campaign and the RNC; and the Trump Victory Fund, a joint committee that includes the Trump campaign, the RNC and 11 state parties — Arkansas, Connecticut, Louisiana, Mississippi, New Jersey, New York, South Carolina, Tennessee, Virginia, West Virginia and Wyoming.

MORE @ https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/2016-election/trump-republican-party-agree-join-fundraising-forces-n575856

What follows is an account from a French ISAF soldier that was stationed with American Warfighters in Afghanistan. Original Article in French HERE

A NOS FRERES D’ARMES AMERICAINS

"We have shared our daily life with two US units for quite a while - they are the first and fourth companies of a prestigious infantry battalion whose name I will withhold for the sake of military secrecy. To the common man, it is a unit just like any other. But we live with them and got to know them, and we henceforth know that we have the honor to live with one of the most renowned units of the US Army - one that the movies brought to the public as series showing "ordinary soldiers thrust into extraordinary events". Who are they, those soldiers from abroad, how is their daily life, and what support do they bring to the men of our OMLT every day? 

They have a terribly strong American accent - from our point of view the language they speak is not even English. How many times did I have to write down what I wanted to say rather than waste precious minutes trying various pronunciations of a seemingly common word? Whatever State they are from, no two accents are alike and they even admit that in some crisis situations they have difficulties understanding each other. Heavily built, fed at the earliest age with Gatorade, proteins, and creatine- they are all heads and shoulders taller than us and their muscles remind us of Rambo. Our frames are amusingly skinny to them - we are wimps, even the strongest of us - and because of that they often mistake us for Afghans.

And they are impressive warriors! We have not come across bad ones, as strange as it may seem to you when you know how critical French people can be. Even if some of them are a bit on the heavy side, all of them provide us everyday with lessons in infantry know-how. Beyond the wearing of a combat kit that never seems to discomfort them (helmet strap, helmet, combat goggles, rifles etc.) the long hours of watch at the outpost never seem to annoy them in the slightest. On the one square meter wooden tower above the perimeter wall, they stand the five consecutive hours in full battle rattle and night vision goggles on top, their sight unmoving in the directions of likely danger. No distractions, no pauses, they are like statues nights and days. At night, all movements are performed in the dark - only a handful of subdued red lights indicate the occasional presence of a soldier on the move. Same with the vehicles whose lights are covered - everything happens in pitch dark even filling the fuel tanks with the Japy pump. 

And combat? If you have seen Rambo you have seen it all - always coming to the rescue when one of our teams gets in trouble, and always in the shortest delay. That is one of their tricks: they switch from T-shirt and sandals to combat ready in three minutes. Arriving in contact with the enemy, the way they fight is simple and disconcerting: they just charge! They disembark and assault in stride, they bomb first and ask questions later - which cuts any pussyfooting short. 

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Honor, motherland - everything here reminds of that: the American flag floating in the wind above the outpost, just like the one on the post parcels. Even if recruits often originate from the hearth of American cities and gang territory, no one here has any goal other than to hold high and proud of the star spangled banner. Each man knows he can count on the support of a whole people who provides them through the mail all that an American could miss in such a remote front-line location: books, chewing gums, razorblades, Gatorade, toothpaste etc. In such a way that every man is aware of how much the American people backs him in his difficult mission.

And that is the first shock to our preconceptions: the American soldier is no individualist. The team, the group, the combat team are the focus of all his attention.

We seldom hear any harsh word, and from 5 AM onwards the camp chores are performed in beautiful order and always with excellent spirit. A passing American helicopter stops near a stranded vehicle just to check that everything is alright; an American combat team will rush to support ours before even knowing how dangerous the mission is - from what we have been given to witness, the American soldier is a beautiful and worthy heir to those who liberated France and Europe.

To those who bestow us with the honor of sharing their combat outposts and who everyday give proof of their military excellence, to those who pay the daily tribute of America's army's deployment on Afghan soil, to those we owned this article, ourselves hoping that we will always remain worthy of them and to always continue hearing them say that we are all the same band of brothers".

Click on image - 

By Wes O'Donnell, Army & Air Force Veteran, Speaker, TV Host

Rep. Michael Waltz: Trump's Taliban decision was smart – He's showing leadership where Obama failed

. Click on image  

 By Michael Waltz | Fox News

Many Americans see just how ideologically corrupt politicians are within British government; and how much they have lied and conned the British people.

Similar to RINO (Never Trump) republicans forced to come out of the shadows against President Donald Trump, the never-Brexit British masks are dropping at an alarming rate. 

The elitist Members of Parliament (MP) have passed a law requiring Prime Minister Boris Johnson to forever stay in the EU until an agreement for terms of exit are reached. However, the EU doesn’t want the U.K. to exit; so the consequence of the MP law is to ‘remain’ in the EU forever.  This elitist scheme has created a Gordian Knot; and the majority of the British people - those who voted to ‘leave’- are insufferably bound within it.

When it comes to the Trump global trade realignment, Prime Minister Boris Johnson is currently positioned to the EU as Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe was to China. Click on image for MORE

The Gordian Knot of Brexit is based on a Parliamentary ruling class within the U.K. government who will not accept Great Britain leaving the European Union.

In one approach to cutting the knot Prime Minister Boris Johnson has requested a national vote for government leadership on October 15th.  With a scheduled round of talks with the EU set for October 17th, a Boris Johnson election victory would create the needed momentum toward a hard-brexit (no deal) on October 31st.  Britain would, finally, be free.

However, the MP ruling class, those who say they know better than the people they are supposed to serve, know such a popular vote would upend their schemes – and likely lead to many of their alliance being removed from office.  So the elites will not support a national election that would lead to their own defeat. [More knot building].

A second knot-cutting tactic implied by the Prime Minister, is to ignore the insufferable law –recently passed and pending signature– and proceed toward a ‘no-deal’ Brexit on October 31st. This approach could lead to the British Parliament being forced to vote against the Prime Minister (no confidence); and would set up a replacement election, which Boris Johnson wants anyway. 

Actually, no-one is quite sure what will happen on this second knot-cutting avenue… no map available.

Keep watching  The Conservative Treehouse

Since 2014, Washington has provided more than $100 million to help Mexico with immigration control, including equipment and training, according to a Congressional Research Service report. The U.S. has allocated millions more in asylum and refugee assistance for Mexico.

Mexican President Andres Manuel López Obrador, a leftist who took office Dec. 1 promising better treatment of migrants, instead has embraced the fight against migrant smuggling.

In recent weeks, he has seldom mentioned the U.S. pressure and depicts the crackdown on migrants as a struggle to defend Mexican laws. His administration has taken a tough line against hundreds of African migrants waiting in the southern city of Tapachula for transit visas that Mexico no longer hands out.

“We will not budge,” he said after the Africans protested, “because the recent events in Tapachula aim to make Mexico yield and oblige us to give out certificates so migrants can get into the United States. We cannot do that. It isn’t our job.”

He said migrant caravans once tolerated by Mexico were the work of human traffickers, and effectively ended them.

“All of these people who traffic with migrants’ needs for jobs, safety and welfare, they are committing a crime and they will be punished,” López Obrador said last week. “We are already doing this in Mexico, without violating human rights. We are ensuring there isn’t anarchy, disorder.”

Read More - The Conservative Treehouse

"I am thankful every day that we have a businessman in the White House who brilliantly understands how to leverage U.S. economic power to achieve national security objectives." Posted on September 6, 2019 by sundance

(CNSNews.com) - The number of people employed in the United States hit a record 157,878,000 in August, according to the employment report released today by the Bureau of Labor Statistics.

That's an increase of 590,000 from the record 157,228,000 employed in July.

The unemployment rate held steady at 3.7 percent. For blacks, the unemployment rate dropped to a record low of 5.5 percent last month. And for Hispanics, the unemployment rate was 4.2 percent in August, which ties the record low set earlier this year.

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The labor force participation rate edged up to 63.2 percent in August, indicating that the strong labor market has continued to draw Americans into the workforce.

While the economy continued to grow in the second and third quarter, it has slowed from the rapid 3.1 percent rate of growth in the first three months of the year. Manufacturing appears to have contracted and business investment has been weak, with surveys indicating that uncertainty around trade policy and global economic weakness have become a drag on the U.S.

Consumer spending and the labor market have been strong. Data released Thursday showed worker compensation rising strongly and well-above inflation. Rising labor costs can promote capital investment by businesses seeking to make workers more productive. With unemployment near 50-year lows, job growth has slowed and many businesses say they are having trouble hiring. Employment growth has averaged 158,000 per month thus far this year, compared with an average monthly gain of 223,000 in 2018.

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U.S. private employers added 195,000 jobs in August

(Reuters) U.S. private employers added 195,000 jobs in August, above economists’ expectations, a report by a payrolls processor showed on Wednesday.

Economists surveyed by Reuters had forecast the ADP National Employment Report would show a gain of 149,000 jobs, with estimates ranging from 110,000 to 175,000.

The internal U.S. economy is very strong.  It’s the U.S. companies, multinationals, that rely on external operations for their end-product production income that are tentatively positioned.

Main Street is thriving; Wall Street is in flux.  This is the exact opposite of two prior decades where Wall Street was thriving and Main Street was in flux.  Why?…

Because Trump!

Read More by sundance