A select group of congressional representatives, participating in a closed-door joint committee of congress, is questioning DOJ-NSD official George Toscas today.
The joint committee is a group from within the House Oversight (Gowdy) and House Judiciary (Goodlatte) committees.  Judiciary Chairman Bob Goodlatte selects the committee members who do the questioning.   Jim Jordan discusses part of today’s events.

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George Toscas is an interesting subject to interview. Within the Lisa Page/Peter Strzok text messages the name Geeorge Toscas is an intermittent occurrence mostly surrounding the Clinton email investigation. He is a key figure in the Sept/Oct. 2016, timeline when the New York DOJ/FBI were in contact with DC DOJ/FBI surrounding the Abedin/Weiner laptop.
It is clear from the conversations that Toscas was not part of the “inside-group”; not always in alignment with their efforts; and often the tone of the Strzok/Page texts showed that they viewed Toscas engagements as a risk to their small group interests.
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Rasmussen did a survey of U.S. voters and discovers a significant jump in black support for President Trump from 19% last year to 36% now.   Not coincidentally, the DNC media apparatus has been pushing a recent racist narrative against President Trump.

(Rasmussen Link) (President Trump Tweet Link)

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Remember that 2016 conversation about retail inflation, Q2 wage growth, durable goods spending and non-durable goods expenditures…  Well, in a growing economy; a bigly expanding economy; with wages actually increasing as an authentic outcome of expanded hiring and jobs, jobs, jobs… in conjunction with lowered tax rates…. you get more money in your pocket.
This natural Main Street dynamic leads to increased consumer spending, specifically in the retail sectors influenced by who?… Oh, yeah, those middle-class economic beneficiaries of all the above.
The expert financial pundits are shocked, shocked I tell you… shocked; when, all of a sudden, the convergence of MAGAnomic Main Street policies delivers results.  DUH!

The Commerce Department – Economic and Statistics Administration – released the figures from July 2018 retail sales today (full pdf available here), showing an incredibly strong .5% increase in spending in July, bringing a 6.4% increase year-over-year;  and the results have dropped the jaws of the “experts”:

“Economists polled by Reuters had forecast retail sales nudging up 0.1 percent in July.” (link)
“Retail spending in the United States increased a half-percent during the month of July — well beyond what experts predicted.” (link)
“U.S. retail sales rose more than expected in July as households boosted purchases of motor vehicles and clothing, suggesting the economy remained strong” (link)

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White House press secretary Sarah Sanders announced today that President Trump has revoked the security clearance of former, highly political, CIA Director John Brennan.

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Brennan is the first person from a former list to lose his clearance.  In addition to Brennan security clearances for former FBI director James Comey; former deputy FBI director Andrew McCabe; former director of national intelligence James Clapper; former national security adviser Susan Rice; and former CIA director Michael Hayden are being reviewed.
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Sarah Huckabee Sanders conducts the press briefing for Wednesday August 15th. Anticipated start time 2:00pm EST.
UPDATE: Video Added

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Originally outlined a year ago. Reposted by request. At the heart of the professional/political opposition the issue is money; there are trillions at stake.

President Trump’s MAGAnomic trade and foreign policy agenda is jaw-dropping in scale, scope and consequence. There are multiple simultaneous aspects to each policy objective; however, many have been visible for a long time – some even before the election victory in November ’16.
If we get too far in the weeds the larger picture is lost. CTH objective is to continue pointing focus toward the larger horizon, and then at specific inflection points to dive into the topic and explain how each moment is connected to the larger strategy.

Today we repost an earlier dive into how MAGAnomic policy interacts with multinational Wall Street, the stock market, the U.S. financial system and perhaps your personal financial value. Again, reference and source material is included at the end of the outline.
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Delivering a very classy and uniting concession speech current Kansas Republican Governor Jeff Colyer concedes the GOP primary race to Kansas Secretary of State Kris Kobach.

Moments ago, after a week of ongoing absentee ballot collection for the GOP gubernatorial primary, Kansas Governor Jeff Colyer conceded the race to Secretary of State Kris Kobach.
During the concession speech Colyer said he felt is was the right thing to do, and as he endorsed Kobach he repeated his goal to keeping the Kansas Governor position in the hands of Republicans.   According to KMBC News Kris Kobach was leading Colyer by 345 votes and a total of 91 out of 105 counties had certified their results.
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It’s not a bluff; it’s never a bluff…. He doesn’t bluff.  I’ve looked through the interviews, writing and granules of opponents describing hundreds of deals, and I cannot find a single person who ever said that Donald Trump was bluffing during any negotiations.

NYT cont. […] In recent days, officials from the Commerce Ministry, the police and other agencies have summoned exporters to ask about plans to lay off workers or shift supply chains to other countries.

With stocks slumping and the currency dropping 9 percent against the dollar since mid-April, censors have been deleting a torrent of criticism online, some of it directed at President Xi Jinping’s leadership.  State news outlets, by contrast, have sought to promote the official line, with the authorities restricting the use of the phrase “trade war.”

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Press Secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders delivers the White House press briefing for Tuesday August 14, 2018.  Anticipated start time 2:30pm EST:
UPDATE: Video Added

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The National Federation of Independent Businesses (NFIB) is an assembly and survey of small business owners throughout the U.S.  In the latest survey (full pdf here) overall optimism is the second highest ever recorded at 107.9 (the highest reading was 108 in 1983).

The full press release is available here.  The full pdf of the survey is available here. The executive summary outlines the overall content and highlights the sentiment amid Main Street U.S.A.:

[…] Although some panned any celebration of the 4.1 percent second quarter GDP growth, small business owners beg to disagree. At least in the small business sector of the economy, Main Street’s performance over the last 21 months is unprecedented based on reports for the past 45 years by hundreds of thousands of NFIB’s member firms. Owners have never been so optimistic for so long. This has translated to improved employment and investment spending that buoys GDP growth, even at the end of what will be the longest expansion in modern history.
Consumer sentiment is at record high levels. Consumer spending, which accounts for 70 percent of our economy, posted 4 percent growth in Q2. Historically revised data show that consumers have been saving much more than thought, and income gains in recent months have been solid, providing support for spending in the second half. The record levels of firms reporting higher compensation is a clear indication that wages will be rising further in the second half.

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