SECDEF Mattis explicitly states US troops in South Korea are not a bargaining chip in North Korea denuclearization talks

Quoted here:

However, Defense Secretary James Mattis said recently at the Shangri-La Dialogue in Singapore that any discussion about U.S. military presence in South Korea will be "separate and distinct" from the negotiations with Pyongyang.

"That issue will not come up in the discussions with [North Korea] and as you all recognize; those troops are there as a recognition of a security challenge," Mattis said.

Our political opponent Charles Krauthammer, unlike John McCain, shows us the way home

Showing gratitude, not acrimony.

Here.

May G-d be with you, Charles.

Just 16% of junior US Navy officers completely competent at ship-handling

But I'll bet the rest know everything there is to know about equality between the sexes and sexual preference.

The story is here.

More US Navy shame, more proof China's our enemy: Chicoms successfully hack 614 gigabytes of highly sensitive data from contractor

WaPo reports here:

Chinese government hackers have compromised the computers of a Navy contractor, stealing massive amounts of highly sensitive data related to undersea warfare — including secret plans to develop a supersonic anti-ship missile for use on U.S. submarines by 2020, according to American officials. ...

In September 2015, in a bid to avert economic sanctions, Chinese President Xi Jinping pledged to President Barack Obama that China would refrain from conducting commercial cyberespionage against the United States. Following the pact, China appeared to have curtailed much, although not all, of its hacking activity against U.S. firms, including by the People’s Liberation Army. Both China and the United States consider spying on military technology to fall outside the pact.

For failure to understand "not-in-labor-force" it's hard to beat Iowa Republican Rep. Steve King

The only segment of this pie chart which could reasonably be expected to be hiding missing labor is the not-working-aged-between-16-and-64.

Trouble is, 37.4 million of the 45.7 million in the group are in high school and college. That leaves 8.3 million from this group who could possibly work, many of whom are homemakers,the idle rich, people who have just given up finding a job, volunteers, etc. The government says only 5.2 million of them in May 2018 "want a job now".

The idea that we should think about putting old people and the disabled to work is crazy on its face, while there is something to be said for putting prisoners to work.

Why King isn't rebuking Republicans for wanting to replace Americans with cheap foreign workers ought to be the issue. So-called record job openings go unfilled because they can. The unemployed at 7.2 million plus the 5.2 million represent 12.4 million who would work, if only business paid enough.

Ralph Peters drinks the Putin KoolAid

Ralph Peters: "I Am Convinced That Vladimir Putin Has Some Grip On President Trump"

A DACA "fix" is a recipe for more illegal immigration

Amnesty for ‘Dreamers’ won’t solve policy flaw creating DACA dilemma:

"Congress itself has been the culprit. ...

Congress continues to refuse to mandate the well-tested and widely-used E-Verify system. The outlaw employers in construction, manufacturing, hospitality and other services, of course, don't use it. Thus, parents worldwide, at this very moment, are enticed to illegally cross borders and overstay their visas while starting their children on the path to the long-term illegal-status life that Dreamers say is untenable. ...

As soon as amnestied illegal immigrants become U.S. citizens, current law allows them to petition for their parents to also obtain lifetime work permits and permanent residency. ...

But in the lifetime of a young Dreamer given an amnesty today, there would likely be time not only to obtain lifetime work permits for the original chain of extended family but for that Dreamer's grandparents (as parents of the Dreamer's parents), aunts and uncles (as siblings of the Dreamer's parents), and cousins (the children of the Dreamer's aunts and uncles).

The chains don't stop there. Every one of those adults could immediately bring their minor children and their spouse. Every spouse can start the same chains in his or her families.

All of them could receive lifetime work permits to compete for jobs with working-age Americans who don’t have a job, nearly one-in-four Americans, according to government data.

That’s the reality of DACA amnesty that Congress needs to face."

As Republicans and Trump prepare legislation granting a DACA amnesty, illegals are swarming the border with Mexico

These idiots are, well, idiots! They're just sending the same old message: If you come, we will let you stay.

Nay, Nay! They cannot stay! Illegal aliens must go away!

From the story, "Illegal immigration rises for third straight month despite Trump crackdown", here:

Total arrests along the U.S.-Mexico border topped 40,000 last month, according to the [DHS], which is used as a benchmark for understanding the level of illegal immigration occurring at the border. ... The crackdown has seemed to have little effect on the overall numbers of immigrants crossing the U.S.-Mexico border illegally, as the arrest numbers have been steadily climbing since January, though some of the rise can be attributed to regular seasonal workers.

Bush's and Obama's legal immigrants have taken all the jobs, no matter how you measure them

Until Bush 41, the average rate of legal immigration into the US was 0.25% of population but has since doubled to 0.49%

Jan Hatzius is hysterical: Unemployment rate set to move into overheating territory

Quoted here:

"We are still creating a lot more jobs than the long-term trend which we would put at 100,000 (each month), so when you are adding 200,000, that means the unemployment rate is set to move into overheating territory," Hatzius added.

The 62-year trend for total nonfarm (Jan 1939 - Jan 2001) is 138,143 jobs/month. Since 2001 through Jan 2018 we're off that trend by 46%, with a monthly rate of just 74,014 jobs added a month. Go back 18 years from May 2018 to incorporate present-day job-creation and the monthly rate goes up only to 76,597 jobs/month.

For workers, the last 17-18 years have absolutely SUCKED!

Nothing is overheating here except Jan Hatzius.

For him recovering the missing 13 million + jobs since 2001 would be a catastrophe . . . for the profits of Goldman Sachs. 

We have 16.1 million total unemployed in May 2018, and 16.8 million new legal immigrants since Bush 43 was elected

That doesn't make any sense!

Legal immigration into the US has been out of control since Bush 41 succeeded Reagan

Kinder, gentler America, my ass.

More like multicultural hell.

Are you paying attention, Mr. Trump?

Brian Wesbury thinks job growth of 2.3 million to 2.4 million is great when we're really just treading water

Here, in "Jobs, Jobs, Jobs":

"[W]e’ve rarely seen a job market this strong. ... Nonfarm payrolls grew 223,000 in May and are up 2.4 million in the past year. Civilian employment, an alternative gauge of jobs that better measures small business start-ups, grew 293,000 in May and is up 2.3 million in the past year."

Where has Brian been? Living under a rock?

Between 1991 and 2000 annual average total nonfarm grew by 2.6 million a year for nine years straight.

How about between 1983 and 1989? Annual average total nonfarm grew then by almost 3 million a year for six years straight.

Payroll growth right now of 2.4 million a year is barely adding 100,000 net new jobs annually with population increasing at a rate of 2.3 million a year.

We have 16.1 million total unemployed as it is.

At this rate it'll take 161 years to put them all back to work.

What that means is the economy has effectively, and permanently, shrunk.

Rush is right: On the eve of Election 2016 the American Bar Association Journal was speculating whether Hillary could pardon herself

The assumption was she would win.

The BS headline about jobs the open-borders fanatics keep repeating: Job openings outnumber available workers

The unemployment level is currently 6.06 million. The part-time who want a full-time job currently number 4.87 million. The number not-in-the-labor-force-want-a-job-now is 5.18 million in May 2018. Add 'em all up and there's 16.11 million people right here in America for the 6.55 million job openings. The employers don't fill the jobs because they can, otherwise the situation wouldn't persist.

Meanwhile 78 million gig workers work side-hustles to make ends meet.

Not enough workers? Like hell there aren't.

Euphoric employment headlines are absurd, signify an economic top

So says macromon, here:

Yikes!  Those euphoric headlines signal an economic top to us, they always do.  Furthermore, they are completely absurd. 

Correctamundo.

Not one month in to his ambassadorship to Germany, Richard Grenell is throwing his weight around like Ernst Röhm

All of Trump's problems begin with personnel, because he picks them.

From the story here:

Richard Grenell had taken up his diplomatic posting in Berlin on May 8, and immediately irked Germany when he tweeted on the same day that German companies should stop doing business with Iran as Trump quit the nuclear deal with the Islamic Republic.

He stoked further outrage over the weekend with reported comments to far-right website Breitbart of his ambition to "empower other conservatives throughout Europe, other leaders".

Grenell also raised eyebrows with his plan to host Austria's arch-conservative Chancellor Sebastian Kurz -- who the US envoy describes as a "rock star", for lunch on June 13.

Trump request for 1 million barrel per day oil production boost from Saudis and others debated in Kuwait over the weekend

What's this? Trump has to ask the Arabs to do what American producers cannot?

The story is here.

Sorry Jonathon Trugman, one month does not a full-time story make

Here he is, without data:

"Yes, folks, things really are looking better for full-time employment." 

It's true that the percentage of the population working full-time in May 2018 is up, to 50.1%.

Unfortunately the average for the first five months of 2018 is only 49.3%, the same as for the whole of 2017. Despite the surge in May, the average indicates no progress over 2017, yet.

Full-time peaks every year in July or August, so we'll see what happens. But when all is said and done, I'm expecting the full year to average about 49.8%, up about a half point.

In any event, we're still down in the basement trying to climb back to 52.1%, the pre-Great Recession average. To do it, we'll need another 5.1 million jobs, right quick like. If using the averages, 7 million.

But there is no driver for such jobs in this country, because we threw out the old one: housing. The whole economy was based on housing in the post-war, and once the Baby Boom bankers and politicians got their grubby little hands on it under Clinton and Bush 43, they managed to screw that pooch right along with everything else they've touched. A bunch of spendthrifts and squanderers are we.