>> i'm ali velshi. "on target" tonight, power play, we'll show you how small but vocal fringe group wields power, bringing further to the right, while no one is impressed with the steady growth in jobs. america's economy is cruising, 215,000 new jobs added in july and the unemployment rate steady at 5.3%. this is lowest level since the 2008 recession. but even president obama's administration admits there is still slack in the labor market. after all those layoffs. later in the story, i'll speak

with christopher lew. meanwhile, the republican party debate, the first of many for a presidential election that is still 17 months away, we didn't hear much from the gop about jobs and economy but a country under threat and leaders from countries who take these leaders astray. >> to be honest for you this country doesn't have time. this country is in big trouble. we don't win anymore. we lose to china we lose to mexico boat in trade and at the border. we lose to everybody. >> i get it. >> as conservatives as republicans we keep winnings elections. we got a republican house a republican senate and we don't have leaders who honor their commitments. i will always tell the truth and do what i said i would do. >> i get it. we still have more than a year to go before americans vote for their next president. roughly 2 dozen candidates have

thrown their hats into the race and seeking big gains in the primaries but for many republicans the so-called base includes some fringe groups that never used to wield this kind of influence. antigovernment groups, extreme gun rights advocates are now being catered to by mainstream politician he as never before. so as -- politicians as never before. many republicans worry that this fringe politics poses a bigger threat to the party's future than any challenge from the democrats. david ariosto disciplinarians. >> c.j. grisham is not just any gun owner. when i met him at a range just outside austin, texas he had six guns on him and made sure i was aware he was prepared for anything. >> breakdown of society all the food in the world is not going to protect you from a person who

wants to take that food from you. >> that sort of doomsday experience may seem but the oath keeper, who feel that violating the u.s. constitution. >> i can't run around with a rifle, it's an unlawful ordinance so we carry our loaded rifles there all the time really to dare them to do something about it. >> and he's not alone. since 2008, the number of gun owners has increased by 800%. some same the direct result of the election of barack obama. >> illegal president who needs to step down. good by his election empowered a rad owners -- >> by his election, empowered a party that had always existed but never been a force that you would even want to be associated

with because it would be certain political death. >> todd smith is a former texas house republican who served in the state legislature from 1997 until 2013. he says the real risk in his party isn't from the left. instead its from politicians who pander to fringe groups like the oath takers on the right. how primary politics have become in states like texas. >> of the 31 senate seats maybe one senate seat that could potentially swing from republicans to democrats in almost every house district and in almost every senate district the general elections are completely meaningless. >> reporter: and that spells changes in campaigning. >> at some point in time everybody becomes so predictably and substantively conservative that it is no longer about substance. it's about who can you know who

can grab the perception of being the real conservative. >> but that has real implications when it comes to actually governing. here's an example. right now, a military training exercise cause jade helm 15 is taking place across the southwest and it's getting a lot of attention. the reason is because of a rumor that's cropped up on conspiracy sites and extreme right wing blogs that say this isn't a training exercise at all. instead they accuse the federal government of using jade helm to plan for a takeover, confiscate guns and impose martial law. it is an issue the military has rebuffed but is gaining traction. >> truly invested in are's personal rights and their privacy. that's what we live for. >> my question is i want you to address receiving this and cutting it out and not bring it

back by any other name that your strategist may find in this dictionary that has anything to stay that it is a preparation for martial law. >> that is because it is not a preparation for martial law sir. >> that is what you say. >> even some oath keepers like c.j. griffin feels military take overis overblown. >> i don't mean that in a facetious way, it is a training exf just as we did throughout history. >> that didn't stop texas governor greg abbott from making sure texans were protected. that obama administration has ulterior motives. ted cruz asked the pentagon to clarify its intentions. neither senator cruz or governor

abbott responded to requests for interviews. something played well with primary voters in states like texas yet those moves could have real consequences outside politics. residents have taken to monitoring the military on their own and federal officials this week say they arrested three men in north carolina who were fearful of jade lega helm. >> a question being put out there for the republican party which is how are they going to deal with some of these extremist elements? >> it's a question that's expected to be raised more and more as candidates look past the primaries and into 2016. david ariosto, al jazeera, austin, texas. >> when it comes to fringe politics, candidates even sitting governors even play to totopic play to on these air wa.

audience of 3 million listeners is considered the man behind this jade helm conspiracy. david ariosto sat down with jones to see what his claims for martial law are all about. >> i'm simply giving my opinion about what's happening and i've never said it's imminent martial law. i've said it's clearly an invasion map for training domestically in the united states. >> but you have said this is a process toward -- >> absolutely. >> -- toward martial law. >> let's be clear. i'm not saying it's a process towards totalitarianism. >> taking or part of the american southwest, just sounds a little off to me. >> we've seen military called

out all over the country for riots and racial division. we saw reconstruction in this country during the civil war. most nations have been broad under military rule. it is the preparation for domestic takeover so the media can misrepresent they can change definitions -- >> you say that if it's fact, on the radio as if it's fact that you have clear cut evidence-based components of what your argument is here or discourse is and it's theory and isn't there a danger there in positing theory as fact and we talk about this stuff? >> you keep framing the debate like i'm speculating. it is not hundreds but thousands of documents and admissions and hundreds of mainstream news articles that north com south come and cent com all are training for bringing aid domestic operations in the u.s., civil unrest, they say number

one enemies and gun owners that there's a coming civil war. >> in the united states? >> civil war thing -- >> that's what you just said. >> that's what they're trying opush. the people don't trust the system to protect them. and so obama called them bitter clingers, they cling to their guns and their bible. i guess call me a bitter clinger then. i dloing individualism and the fact that i'm going to take care of myself and my family. one thing that could spark a civil war in this country is the attempted to disarm the people. that is a line in the sand that a large number of the 180 million gun about owners won't allow to be crossed. >> gun bans in new york. >> washingtonwashington, d.c. this country was founded when the red coats came to take the guns in 1775 in livmen lexingtod

concord. >> this is croikly untrue and this is a concern that a lot of you predict have that aren't true and you posit them as fact. >> you can pull the statistics up they went from in the '70s and stuff where they had shooting clubs for high schools to all those being shut down. they have massively reduced the second amendment. >> up next we'll talk about fringe groups on the right but what about those on the left? answers when we come back mexico back mexico

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>> we've been talking about

political fringe groups on the right but political conservatives complain there are as many fringe groups on the left that go unreported on the media. noelle jones us from los angeles. good to have you on the show. fringe groups on the left want everybody to get a $15 minimum wage and social benefits to go up. i think it's a little different than these folks loading up on weapons and bombs. >> do you have a point but i've got to tell you i think the lunatic fringe needs to be cut from both sides, i think extremists from both sides are a real turnoff. as far as division within the republican party we are fractured. i mean it's evident. we've got 17 candidates running for president. the democrats have three. >> right. >> this is evident. but what you need to look at, is why do we have so many? because we are to divided.

we're fractured not just between used to be the tea party versus the establishment. we've got tea party we've got establishment we've got moderates we've got people for gun rights, people against planned parenthood. we've got so many issue oriented groups out there but let me tell you something they're funding candidates. they're organizing as we just saw special interest groups. they're raising money and they're also getting behind candidates. so it's something to look at because it's changing. especially with social media it's changing the way -- >> let me ask you this. it's a chicken and egg situation. i guess you could say there are some of these candidates up there because they're being funded by a group with a particular interest or range of interests. on the other hand i think this is what david story was getting at, to what degree are politicians finding themselves developing policies or supporting policies so as to get that support?

you know greg abbott, the governor of texas. >> yes. >> does he really think the feds are going to are invade texas? gives him credentials to be reelected in a very competitive state. >> first of all, i did some work for governor abbott, i have a lot of respect for governor ab botd for who he iabbott as a pea grade background story. for what he's doing for texas is you have to realize texas is the mother land for all conservatives. if i'm going to take a candidate to anyplace for fundraising, a conservative, i'm going to take them to texas. you have to look at the extremes. greg abbott is doing a great great job in everything he's doing for texas. is he trying pander to special

interest groups to be reelected? no. because texas is one great special interest group, the land of conservatism. >> you take out california you take out texas, the home land for political idealogues. having to deal with this for the last 18 months you get back to the middle so you can actually get elected as republican in this country? >> wow, that is such a good point. because how do you appeal to all these interest groups too get them all behind you? and the answer is: you don't. here's when you need to look at. who's got the most power? who -- what group exactly do you really need their money, their votes, their you know rallying

behind you and you're going to have to let maybe some of them go because you're not going to please everyone. with that said, whoever's going to get the nomination, hopefully, hopefully, all these groups will rally and gather behind them. and we're not going to see people that are going to be irritated and realize he didn't stand for this therefore i'm going to stand out and not vote. >> noelle, thank you for coming. strategist of branding america. coming up next, it's used to be that unemployment rate around 5% was good for the country, not anymore. i'll tell you why 5.3 unemployment is not impressive. impressive.

>> traffic

>> america's job market is steadily cruising. the economy produced 250,000 net new jobs in july while the unemployment rate held steady at 5.3%. that's the lowest in search years. much was expected but i'm here to tell you the expectation of these numbers are plain wrong. the problem is the drop in unemployment is happening within the shrinking pool of workers. look at this graph, the bar shows the unemployment rate, in 2008 it was 5.8%. today it's at 5.3%. that would sound good but every time you start feeg good a feelt this take a look at the wider bars. labor force participation rate.

that is the percentage of the population that is able to work, that is actually working currently, or actively seeking work. this worker pool has come down from 66% of the population in 2008, to 62.8% currently. now, there are many reasons for this. but some warn of a new normal with a smaller workforce changing the calculation, when it comes to characterizing what a good unemployment rate is for the economy. now to discuss that i have with me christopher lew, he is the deputy secretary of the department of labor. he joins me from washington, d.c. deputy secretary lew thank you for being with us. i i've been a financial journalist for a long time and there was a point ten years ago and more, longer, when we would describe 5% unemployment as full unemployment. most economists would say that. that meant there was a normal churn in unemployment, once you get below 5 you start having wacky problems like you can't

find enough people the work. we're below that, at 5.3% and it doesn't feel like 15 years ago what 5.3% felt like. >> first of all ali, thank you for having me here. i don't want to gloss over the good news, 250,000 jobs, excessive job growth to the tune of 13 million jobs in this country, the best two year stretch that this country has had since the late '90s and to be clear things are improving. >> you are underscoring my point. even if we created 150,000 jobs that would feel terrific and 5.3% unemployment. i'm wondering why what you just said, 16 months of straight job growth and when you go out and tell americans they don't tell you the unemployment situation sounds good. >> ali, two issues, one is labor

force participation which you just mentioned, ensuring that we create wider opportunities for all people to participate in this recovery and i think the second unfinished business is wages. if you look at worker productivity since the late 1970s it's basically doubled yet workers wages are basically stagnant. that's why the average american doesn't always feel positive effects of this recovery. >> how has somebody who has been in politics as long as you have how do we recast this situation, what does good look like? ten years ago as i said what we had today looked not only good but it would be fantastic. we would be gaining the best expectations and full employment. now that it's not about the job creation numbers and not about the percentage of the workforce that's looking for work numbers it's about wage, it's about quality of job. how should we be looking at this first friday every month in this

new environment? >> well, i think we do need to look at wage growth. over the past of 12 months -- past 12 months job growth has been going up but one of the reasons why we are reforming our overtime rules to ensure that if you work more than 40 hours in this country you get paid for that extra by time and a half. it's one of the reasons that we spend as much time as we do focusing on providing skills to workers so that they can compete for the good high paying jobs of the 21st century. but more broadly it's ensuring that people who haven't always participated in the workforce as fully as they should, whether it's women, veterans, people with disabilities, people from advertise advantaged groups have those opportunities. we could pass a long term

infrastructure bill, it not only helps workers, it helps businesses as well. >> you say something close to my heart. jeb bush righjeb bush repeated e could decrease unemployment to fowfe4%. i'm not going to ask you if it's achievable, but give me your evaluation of making a promise like that? >> look i'll confess i did not watch last night's debate. i will tell you this, there are steps that we know we can take in this country now to create jobs. infrastructure and comprehensive immigration reform. both of those, congress is had a had a commitment to do. the fact that we've had this 65 months of job growth is a

significant improvement. >> 250,000 jobs added in july. of those 193,000 came from private service performing industries, industries like educational health care, not just old fashioned, manufacturing, folks need money in their foblghts t pockets to o pay for these services and drive this job growth. goods manufacturing construction almost blue collar middle class economy into this entirely service generated economy. >> onone number that is significant is the manufacturing jobs. i would say this, the economy is always transitioning, it's transitioned throughout our history and i think what we need to do is ensure that we have a workforce that is prepared for

the jobs not only of today but of tomorrow. i always looked back from what i training education is not something you do one time in your life but it has to be a lifelong process. because the economy is going to change. and we need to transform our workforce system to constantly be helping people dapped. >> deputy secretary christopher lew, thank you for coming. >> thank you for having me. >> traffic of teenagers, within days natalie was being trafficked for sex on the website backpage.com an ad website. here's a preview. >> gone for 108 days, raped and beaten and trafficked by a

32-year-old man they thought she loved. >> it was maddening. i don't understand the amount of times that she was sold. i think that was awful to hear. 15, 20 times a day. you know, just couldn't imagine that. i just can't even -- >> reporter: it was during one of those encounters that natalie was found. her trafficker had posted an ad for her on backpage.com, the second largest website. >> i discovered that you could order a child online like you could order a pizza from domino's and she was sold there as a weekend special. >> we'll also talk to the general counsel of backpage.com who defends the website against charges that it is explicit with

sex charges. right here on al jazeera. i'm ali velshi, thank you for joining us. joining us. >> against the deal. the white house facing strong opposition to the iran nuclear agreement from top democrats in congress. attack strategy. one year into the u.s. led bombing campaign against i.s.i.l, new questions about the effectiveness of the air strikes. life in prison. >> that's not justice. he's living. he's breathing.