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Merkel's Human Rights Speaker Resigns Over Refugee Policy

via by Tyler Durden on Tue, 17 Jan 2017 09:00:00 GMT

Submitted by Mike Shedlock via MishTalk.com,

Merkel’s human rights speaker, Erika Steinbach, resigned over the chancellor’s immigration policy. She also left the CDU party.

Erika Steinbach, who’s been with Chancellor Merkel’s CDU for 43 years, has strongly criticized the leader’s handling of the migrant crisis. She claims conservatives have been sidelined in Germany’s main ruling party.

 

“Would I vote CDU at the moment? No. Would I join the CDU today? No. I can only draw the honest conclusion of leaving the CDU,” she told “Welt Am Sonntag” (WaS) newspaper.

 

Ministers ‘encouraged influx’

 

Steinbach went further, accusing the government of deliberately promoting illegal migration.

 

“At the Federal Office for Migration, thousands of thousands of passports have been identified as counterfeit, without the legal consequences for the respective migrants being drawn. There is a political will behind it.”

Political Will

It’s quite obvious Merkel wanted mass immigration. It’s debatable why, but German citizens have to put up with the consequences whatever Merkel’s reason.

If there was a strong candidate willing to challenge Merkel from within, Merkel would easily lose her next election. It’s possible Merkel loses anyway.

Regardless, her “Grand Coalition” has completely splintered as members of her own party are fed up. Even if Merkel wins, I doubt she lasts the full term.

Norway’s Fish For Brains Trade With India (Part I: Background)

via by Tyler Durden on Tue, 17 Jan 2017 07:01:59 GMT

Submitted by Nick Camran of Letters from Norway

This is a personal story, discussing skilled immigration experiences and implications in both Norway and in the USA. I am a native born American of Indian origin having worked in both the US and Norwegian IT sectors. To translate the Norwegian references, you can right click in the Google Chrome browser and select “Translate to English” or use Google Translate.

Desperate to sell more fish, Norway is looking to India, allowing their IT companies increased access to the local market, in exchange for tariff reductions, which are currently high for European imports. On the surface, it appears to be a win-win deal but digging a little deeper, there are some serious long-term implications. (it still remains unclear whether or not this deal went through).

Monica Mæland: Norwegian Minister of Trade & Industry

Specifically, they want the following:

The ability to transmit and host Norwegian more personal information in India. Special areas within the company are sealed and secured, meeting Norwegian regulations. Indian IT workers can work in those zones same as a Norwegian in Trondheim or Oslo: otherwise known as a “Little Norway” zone. Since the connection is ubiquitous wit the onshore entity, they can access data containing credit card and social security numbers.

Although Mæland hopes that the Indians can make concessions on this point, they and the fishing industry are pushing hard. Geir Ove Ystmark, managing director of Seafood Norway, states that the industry is impatient.

Exemption from Norwegian Labor Laws: Tata Consulting Services (TCS), responding to an inquiry from the Labor Inspector, stated that Norwegian laws should not apply to Indian IT workers, residing onshore for short-term business trips. (If that sounds familiar, there is already a precedent from the US almost ten years ago.) Tata further argues that the workers are really employed in India, visiting Norway for a maximum of four to five months.

After the Vipps scandal at DnB (The Norwegian Bank) last year, involving the development of a now popular payment app, the labor directorate decisively denied the request. Against the hallmark Norwegian labor laws, the workers were putting in almost 16 hours per day to complete the project. I personally heard rumors, talking to TCS guys on the metro in Oslo, that they were not allowed to leave the office without their manager’s permission, even for a bathroom break or a movie over te weekend.

NRK (Translated from Norwegian)

Despite the reprimand, given to Tata, ordering them to correct the situation, Lise Raneberg of the Tekna engineering union, believes that they will exploit loopholes to circumvent the law. Nevertheless, Rina Sunder, from Innovation Forum Norway, believes, “Norway should meet India’s demand for easier access for IT workers.”

Premise:

The initial justification behind outsourcing and offshoring is that there is a skilled labor shortage in software and systems engineering. Generally technical, medical and engineering sectors experience shortages, requiring companies to hire offshore workers or companies, on contract, to fill the void. However, companies quickly realized that they could also save money, paying foreign workers much less than their domestic counterparts.

Mechanisms:

There are two models:

• Outsourcing: sending work to another company, working under contract, to deliver a service. This can be both done within the domestic market like having a local consultant teach a course or do a short term project.
• Offshoring: sending the work abroad either within your own company or outsourcing it to another company.

Offshoring and outsourcing even became a business goal with many companies, in and out of the sector. Target “offshore/onshore” ratios, vary from 40%-60%. In both cases, on location business trips or extended assignments may be required to complete work, allowing them systems access that they could not reach offsite. Often it becomes difficult to distinguish between an extended assignment, covered under local labor laws, and business trips, which are often extended or repeated in close succession. (Business trip visas can repeatedly be extended, or the laborer returns home every couple of months for a week or two before returning on a new visa.) They can even rotate people on and offshore, ducking the laws.

(Next – Part II: The Workers Perspective)

CoLD WaR NuT JoB...

via by williambanzai7 on Tue, 17 Jan 2017 03:32:39 GMT

.

Abolish The CIA

via by Tyler Durden on Tue, 17 Jan 2017 03:00:00 GMT

Submitted by Michael Rozeff via The Ron Paul Institute for Peace & Prosperity,

Every American who looks at the CIA objectively or in a balanced way and judges it by any number of criteria, such as moral, legal and pragmatic, should reach the conclusion that the CIA should be abolished. JFK wanted to break it into a million pieces. Trump is right to dismiss its intelligence reports about DNC hacking. The CIA war on Trump shows us immediately that the CIA is a rogue organization within the U.S. government and a severe threat to America.

The CIA is an internal threat to the rule of law and to the government that it supposedly serves. Senator Schumer acknowledges the CIA’s unbridled power, its subversive power, its power to undermine even a president, especially one that wishes to control or alter the organization, when he says:

“Let me tell you: You take on the intelligence community, they have six ways from Sunday at getting back at you. For a practical, supposedly hard-nosed businessman, he’s being really dumb to do this.”

Schumer is saying that the CIA is so powerful that a president should not attempt to control it or else! The CIA is so powerful that elections do not matter when it comes to the CIA. The CIA stands alone. The Constitution that empowers the president as the Executive, the boss of government operations, does not matter. Basic American institutions and laws must bow before the threats that the CIA possesses. This is the assessment of a Senator beginning his 4th term and who is the highest ranking Democrat in the Senate in his post as minority leader.

The CIA is an organization that perpetually undermines traditional American values and moral values. It consistently kills innocent people. It continually causes instability and wars. It undermines other societies and our own. It interferes constantly in foreign nations, to the detriment of them and us. It is an unelected power that challenges elected officials. It favors abuses of power, including torture. Its actual value at generating usable intelligence is minimal, often wrong, often misleading, inaccurate and harmful as in the WMD that were never found in Iraq.

“The Association for Responsible Dissent estimates that by 1987, 6 million people had died as a result of CIA covert operations. Former State Department official William Blum correctly calls this an "American Holocaust."

 

This quote and a detailed timeline of CIA atrocities is available.

William Blum has listed CIA interventions for us.

All that needs to be done to understand the enormity of CIA crimes against humanity is to associate each of these interventions with the deaths, injuries, disruption of lives and destruction that they have caused. The most recent of these are

• Afghanistan 1980s *
• Somalia 1993
• Yugoslavia 1999-2000 *
• Ecuador 2000 *
• Afghanistan 2001 *
• Venezuela 2002 *
• Iraq 2003 *
• Haiti 2004 *
• Somalia 2007 to present
• Honduras 2009
• Libya 2011 *
• Syria 2012
• Ukraine 2014 *

The asterisks indicate a case where the CIA overthrew a government.

 As long as Trump is at war with the CIA, a war that the CIA launched against him, not that this matters much because Trump has every right to change the CIA and the CIA has no right to disobey or blacken his name, he should attack the CIA much more completely and thoroughly. It deserves to be attacked. He should abolish it altogether. For a bone to those who have fears that the republic will fall without the CIA, whatever small amount of residual value that is present in its intelligence operations can easily be retained or transferred to other agencies. The latter are already in profuse abundance in Washington. The fact is, however, that the republic is more likely to fall further than it already has in the presence of the CIA than in its absence.

This Is What Venezuela's New, Vertical, Banknotes, Now With Added Zeros Look Like

via by Tyler Durden on Tue, 17 Jan 2017 02:18:16 GMT

We've all been eagerly waiting to see them: Venezuela's crisp,brand new yet soon to be hyperinflated with many more zeros banknotes, and finally, after various failed attempts to deliver the new bills to Caracas (which according to Maduro were at least partially aborted due to pesky CIA meddling) they have arrived. And they are vertical.

A new bank note of 500 Bolivars held outside a bank in Caracas. Jan. 16, 2017.

A new bank note of 5,000 Bolivars outside a bank in Caracas. Jan. 16, 2017.

Eager to get their hands on the new currency, AP writes that Venezuelans stood in long ATM lines Monday to take out new, larger-denominated bills "that President Nicolas Maduro hopes will help stabilize the crisis-wracked economy." Of course, they will do no such thing as the pieces of paper in circulation have absolutely no bearing on the underlying economy, or its hyperinflation, but it will take at least several more shipments of new banknotes before the Maduro figures this out.

As a reminder, in taking a page out of the Indian demonetization playbook, Maduro last month said he was scrapping circulation of the most used bill, the 100-bolivar note, and replacing it with new bills ranging from 500 to 20,000 bolivars. 

The local were appalled. Residents in Caracas expressed shock at seeing bills with so many zeros — a sign of how worthless the bolivar has become amid triple-digit inflation and a collapse in foreign exchange reserves that has led to severe food shortages.

Our advice: get used to it - the fun is only just starting. Ask Zimbabwe.

"I never thought I'd have such a big bill in my hands," Milena Molina, a 35-year-old sales clerk, said as she inspected crisp, new 500-bolivar notes she had just withdrawn. "But with the inflation we're suffering, the notes we had weren't worth anything and you always had to go around with huge packages of bills."

The Weimar Republic agrees.

Monday's rollout of the first batch of imported notes came weeks later than the government had originally promised. Maduro last month ordered the 100-bolivar note to be withdrawn from use well before the replacement bills were ready, leading to widespread chaos as Venezuelans rushed to spend the bills before they were taken out of circulation. With cash running out, looting and protests were widespread - although they were widespread before the currency exchange too, so there wasn't much of a difference - and Maduro had to backtrack. On Sunday, he extended for the third time, until Feb. 20, the deadline for the 100-bolivar note to remain legal tender.

While the new denominations should make cash transactions easier the relief may be short-lived: since the largest, 20,000-bolivar note is worth less than $6 on the widely used black market, Maduro already has to order a fresh batch with at least one more zero. With inflation forecast by the International Monetary Fund to hit four digits this year, few economists expect the currency to rebound any time soon.

Seeking to combat the black market, the government on Monday inaugurated four currency exchange houses near the border with Colombia where Venezuelans will be able to purchase Colombian pesos at a favorable exchange rate of 4 pesos per bolivar. The bolivar currently is worth just a quarter of that amount at exchange houses over the border in Colombia.

And while on the surface this risk-free arbitrage guaranteeing 400% returns would be a slam-dunk trade, there are two problems.

First, while Gov. Jose Vielma Mora of Tachira state said the Venezuelan central bank has at its disposal a large amount of pesos to meet what is expected to be strong demand for hard currency, purchases would be capped at between $200 and $300. A second, and bigger proble, is that it was hard to find anyone Monday who had managed to buy pesos.

Opponents of Maduro said that in trying to set an exchange rate for pesos, authorities are paving the way for corruption, saying only certain individuals and companies close to the government will be able to purchase them at the official rate. They are, of course, right.

New Video Exposes Anti-Trump Groups Plotting Criminal Acts To Disrupt Inauguration

via by Tyler Durden on Tue, 17 Jan 2017 02:04:24 GMT

In the latest undercover video from Project Veritas, investigators uncovered a group of protesters known as the DC Anti-fascist Coalition plotting to disrupt President-Elect Donald Trump’s inauguration by deploying butyric acid (aka "stink bombs") at the National Press Club during the Deploraball event scheduled for January 19th.  In a dose of irony, the planning meeting for the attack was held at Comet Ping Pong, the DC pizza restaurant that recently gained infamy as the location of the Pizzagate controversy.

Apparently "Plan A" of the disaffected agitators was to set off "stink bombs" in the ventilation systems of the building hosting the "Deploraball."

"I was thinking of things that ruin, that would ruin the evening, ruin their outfits or otherwise make it impossible to continue with their plans.  Make sure they get nothing accomplished."

 

"Yeah, if you had...a pint of butyric acid, I don't care how big the building is, it's closing...And this stuff is very efficient, it's very very smelly, lasts a long time a little of it goes a long way."

 

"If you get it into the HVAC system it will get into the whole building."

Meanwhile, "Plan B" entailed an effort to simultaneously set off the sprinkler systems throughout the building which had the "added benefit" of sending party goers "outside in the freezing cold."

"I'm trying to think through how to get all the sprinklers to go off at once.  There's usually a piece of like fusible metal or a piece of glass with liquid in it that will blow"

 

"And the added benefit, everybody is going to walk outside in the freezing cold."

Because of the nature of the threats, Project Veritas notes that they notified the FBI, Secret Service and DC Metro Police of the content of this video prior to its release.

With that, here is the full video:

In Defense Of Populism

via by Tyler Durden on Tue, 17 Jan 2017 02:00:00 GMT

Submitted by Mike Krieger via Liberty Blitzkrieg blog,

DAVOS MAN: “A soulless man, technocratic, nationless and cultureless, severed from reality. The modern economics that undergirded Davos capitalism is equally soulless, a managerial capitalism that reduces economics to mathematics and separates it from human action and human creativity.”

 

– From the post: “For the Sake of Capitalism, Pepper Spray Davos”

One thing I’ve been very careful about not doing over the years is self-identifying under any particular political ideology. I articulated my reasoning in the post, Thank You and Welcome New Readers – A Liberty Blitzkrieg Mission Statement:

I am not a Democrat or a Republican. I do not consider myself a libertarian, progressive, socialist, anarchist, conservative, neoconservative or neoliberal. I’m just a 38 year old guy trying to figure it all out. Naturally, this doesn’t imply that there aren’t things which I hold dear. I have a strong belief system based on key principles. It’s just that I don’t think it makes sense for me to self-label and become part of a tribe. The moment you self-label, is the moment you stop thinking for yourself. It’s also the moment you stop listening. When you think you have all the answers, anyone who doesn’t think exactly as you do on all topics is either stupid or “paid opposition.”  I don’t subscribe to this way of thinking.

Despite my refusal to self-identify, I am comfortable stating that I’m a firm supporter of populist movements and appreciate the instrumental role they’ve played historically in free societies. The reason I like this term is because it carries very little baggage. It doesn’t mean you adhere to a specific set of policies or solutions, but that you believe above all else that the concerns of average citizens matter and must be reflected in government policy.

Populism reaches its political potential once such concerns become so acute they translate into popular movements, which in turn influence the levers of power. Populism is not a bug, but is a key feature in any democratic society. It functions as a sort of pressure relief valve for free societies. Indeed, it allows for an adjustment and recalibration of the existing order at the exact point in the cycle when it is needed most. In our current corrupt, unethical and depraved oligarchy, populism is exactly what is needed to restore some balance to society. Irrespective of what you think of Donald Trump or Bernie Sanders, both political movements were undoubtably populist in nature. This doesn’t mean that Trump govern as populist once he is sworn into power, but there’s little doubt that the energy which propelled him to the Presidency was part of a populist wave.

Trump understands this, and despite having surrounded himself with an endless stream of slimy ex-Goldman Sachs bankers and other assorted billionaires, his campaign took the following position with regard to Davos according to Bloomberg:

Donald Trump won’t send an official representative to the annual gathering of the world’s economic elite in Davos, taking place next week in the days leading up to his inauguration, although one of the president-elect’s advisers is slated to attend.

 

Former Goldman Sachs President Gary Cohn, a regular attendee in the past, told the group he would skip 2017 after being named in December to head the National Economic Council, said people familiar with the conference. Other top Trump appointees will also pass up the forum.

 

A senior member of Trump’s transition team said the president-elect thought it would betray his populist-fueled movement to have a presence at the high-powered annual gathering in the Swiss Alps. The gathering of millionaires, billionaires, political leaders and celebrities represents the power structure that fueled the populist anger that helped Trump win the election, said the person, who asked for anonymity to discuss the matter. 

While all of this sounds great, it’s not entirely true. For example:

Hedge fund manager Anthony Scaramucci is planning to travel to Davos, though. The founder of SkyBridge Capital and an early backer of Trump’s campaign, Scaramucci was named on Thursday as an assistant to the president.

Not that Scaramucci’s presence should surprise anyone, he’s the consummate banker apologist, anti-populist. Recall what he said last month:

“I think the cabal against the bankers is over.”

This guy shouldn’t be allowed within ten feet of any populist President, but Trump unfortunately seems to have a thing for ex-Goldman Sachs bankers.

While we’re on then subject, let’s discuss Davos for a moment. You know, the idyllic Swiss town where the world’s most dastardly politicians, oligarchs and their fawning media servants will gather in a technocratic orgy of panels and cocktail parties to discuss how best to manage the world’s affairs in the year ahead. Yes, that Davos.

To get a sense of the maniacal mindset of these people, I want to turn your attention to a couple of Reuters articles published earlier today. First, from Davos Elites Struggle for Answers as Trump Era Dawns:

DAVOS, Switzerland – The global economy is in better shape than it’s been in years. Stock markets are booming, oil prices are on the rise again and the risks of a rapid economic slowdown in China, a major source of concern a year ago, have eased.

First report from Davos is in. Everything’s fine.

And yet, as political leaders, CEOs and top bankers make their annual trek up the Swiss Alps to the World Economic Forum in Davos, the mood is anything but celebratory.

 

Last year, the consensus here was that Trump had no chance of being elected. His victory, less than half a year after Britain voted to leave the European Union, was a slap at the principles that elites in Davos have long held dear, from globalization and free trade to multilateralism.

 

Moises Naim of the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace was even more blunt: “There is a consensus that something huge is going on, global and in many respects unprecedented. But we don’t know what the causes are, nor how to deal with it.”

Thank you for your invaluable insight, Moises.

The titles of the discussion panels at the WEF, which runs from Jan. 17-20, evoke the unsettling new landscape. Among them are “Squeezed and Angry: How to Fix the Middle Class Crisis”, “Politics of Fear or Rebellion of the Forgotten?”, “Tolerance at the Tipping Point?” and “The Post-EU Era”.

Ah, a panel on how to fix the middle class. Sounds interesting until you find out who some of the speakers are.

You really can’t make this stuff up. Now back to Reuters.

Perhaps the central question in Davos, a four-day affair of panel discussions, lunches and cocktail parties that delve into subjects as diverse as terrorism, artificial intelligence and wellness, is whether leaders can agree on the root causes of public anger and begin to articulate a response.

This has to be a joke. The public has been yelling and screaming about all sorts of issues they care about from both sides of the political spectrum for a while now. Whether people identify as on the “right” or the “left” there’s general consensus (at least in U.S. populist movements) of the following: oligarchs must be reined in, rule of law must be restored, unnecessary military adventures overseas must be stopped, and lobbyist written phony “free trade” deals must be scrapped and reversed. There’s no secret about how strongly the various domestic populist movements feel on those topics, but the Davos set likes to pretends that these issues don’t exist. They’d rather focus on Russia or identify politics, that way they can control the narrative and then propose their own anti-populist, technocratic solutions.

A WEF report on global risks released before Davos highlighted “diminishing public trust in institutions” and noted that rebuilding faith in the political process and leaders would be a “difficult task”.

It’s not difficult at all, what we need are new leaders with new ideas, but the people at Davos don’t want to admit that either. After all, these are the types who unanimously and enthusiastically supported the ultimate discredited insider for U.S. President, Hillary Clinton.

Moving along, let’s take a look at a separate Reuters article previewing Davos, starting with the title.

Did you see what they did there? The evaporating trust in globalist elites has nothing to do with “post-truth,” but as usual, the media insists on making excuses for the rich and powerful. The above title implies that elites lost the public truth as a result of a post-truth world, not because they are a bunch of disconnected, lying, corrupt thieves. Like Hillary and the Democrats, they are never to blame for anything that happens.

With that out of the way, let’s take a look at some of the text:

Trust in governments, companies and the media plunged last year as ballots from the United States to Britain to the Philippines rocked political establishments and scandals hit business.

 

The majority of people now believe the economic and political system is failing them, according to the annual Edelman Trust Barometer, released on Monday ahead of the Jan. 17-20 World Economic Forum (WEF).

 

“There’s a sense that the system is broken,” Richard Edelman, head of the communications marketing firm that commissioned the research, told Reuters.

 

“The most shocking statistic of this whole study is that half the people who are high-income, college-educated and well-informed also believe the system doesn’t work.”

Even wealthy, well educated people understand things aren’t working, which begs the question. Who does think the system is working? Well, the people attending Davos, of course. These are the folks who cheer on a world in which eight people own as much as the bottom 50%.

As can be seen fro the above excerpts, one thing that’s abundantly clear to almost everyone is that the system is broken. This is exactly where populism comes in to perform its crucial function. This is not an endorsement of Trump, but rather an endorsement of mass popular movements generally, and a recognition that such movements are the only way true change is ever achieved. As Frederick Douglass noted in 1857:

This struggle may be a moral one, or it may be a physical one, and it may be both moral and physical, but it must be a struggle. Power concedes nothing without a demand. It never did and it never will. Find out just what any people will quietly submit to and you have found out the exact measure of injustice and wrong which will be imposed upon them, and these will continue till they are resisted with either words or blows, or with both. The limits of tyrants are prescribed by the endurance of those whom they oppress. In the light of these ideas, Negroes will be hunted at the North and held and flogged at the South so long as they submit to those devilish outrages and make no resistance, either moral or physical. Men may not get all they pay for in this world, but they must certainly pay for all they get. If we ever get free from the oppressions and wrongs heaped upon us, we must pay for their removal. We must do this by labor, by suffering, by sacrifice, and if needs be, by our lives and the lives of others.

The above is an eternal truth when it comes to human struggle. The idea that the most wealthy and powerful individuals on earth are going to get together in a Swiss chalet and figure out how to help the world’s most vulnerable and suffering is on its face preposterous. Again, this is why popular movements are so important. They represent the only method we know of that historically yields tangible results. This is also why the elitists and their media minions hate populism and demonize it every chance they get. Which is really telling, particularly when you look at the various definitions of the word. First, here’s what comes up when you type the word into Google:

Or how about the following from Merriam-Webster:

Aside from the 19th century historical reference, what’s not to like about any of the above? The mere fact that billionaire-owned media is so hostile to populism tells you everything you need to know. Behind the idea of populism is the notion of self-government, and Davos-type elitists hate this. They believe in a technocracy in which they make all the important decisions. Populism is dangerous because populism is empowering. It implies that the people ultimately have the power.

I think a useful exercise for readers during this Davos circus laden week is to note whenever the word “populism” is used within mainstream media articles. From my experience, it’s almost always portrayed in an overwhelmingly negative manner. Here’s just one example from the first of the two Reuters articles mentioned above.

The global financial crisis of 2008/9 and the migrant crisis of 2015/16 exposed the impotence of politicians, deepening public disillusion and pushing people towards populists who offered simple explanations and solutions.

The key phrase in the above is, “populists who offered simple explanations and solutions.” This betrays an incredible sense of arrogance and contempt for regular citizens. Note that it didn’t offer a critique of a specific populist leader and his or her polices, but rather presented a sweeping dismissal of all popular movements as “simplistic.” In other words, despite the fact that the people mingling at Davos are the exact same people who set the world on fire, they somehow remain the only ones capable enough to fix the world. How utterly ridiculous.

The good news is that most people now plainly see the absurdity of such a worldview, and understand that the people at Davos represent a roadblock to progress, as opposed to any sort of solution. While I don’t endorse any particular populist movement at moment, I fully recognize the need for increased populism as a facet of American political life, particularly at this moment in time.

Populism can be dangerous, and it’s certainly messy, but it’s a crucial pressure release valve for any functioning free society. If you don’t allow populist movements to do their thing in the short-term, you’ll get far worse outcomes in the long-term.

In the timeless words of JFK:

Those who make peaceful revolution impossible will make violent revolution inevitable. 

Nobody wants that.

TSA Finds Record Number Of Guns In Carry-On Bags In 2016 - Up Over 250% Since Obama Elected

via by Tyler Durden on Tue, 17 Jan 2017 01:30:00 GMT

A record number of firearms was discovered in carry-on bags in the U.S. in 2016, according to the Transportation Security Administration. In total, 3,391 firearms were found in carry-on bags at TSA checkpoints across the country -- averaging more than nine per day - an amazing 28% rise from 2015 and a shocking 250% increase since President Obama first took office.

Guns were discovered in 238 airports across America with Atlanta the highest...

1. Hartsfield-Jackson Atlanta International Airport (ATL):198
2. Dallas/Fort Worth International (DFW): 192
3. George Bush Intercontinental Airport - Houston (IAH):128
4. Phoenix Sky Harbor International (PHX):101
5. Denver International (DEN): 98
6. Orlando International Airport (MCO):86
7. Nashville International (BNA):80
8. Tampa International (TPA):79
9. Austin-Bergstrom International Airport (AUS):78
10. Salt Lake City International (SLC):75

In addition to firearms discovered last year...

Passengers decide to travel with many other hazardous items... (real or not)

And here the 10 most unusual items discovered by TSA agents in carry-on luggage...

Source: blog.TSA.gov

New Video Exposes Anti-Trump Groups Plotting Criminal Acts To Disrupt Inauguration

via by Tyler Durden on Tue, 17 Jan 2017 01:01:24 GMT

In the latest undercover video from Project Veritas, investigators uncovered a group of protesters known as the DC Anti-fascist Coalition plotting to disrupt President-Elect Donald Trump’s inauguration by deploying butyric acid (aka "stink bombs") at the National Press Club during the Deploraball event scheduled for January 19th.  In a dose of irony, the planning meeting for the attack was held at Comet Ping Pong, the DC pizza restaurant that recently gained infamy as the location of the Pizzagate controversy.

Apparently "Plan A" of the disaffected agitators was to set off "stink bombs" in the ventilation systems of the building hosting the "Deploraball."

"I was thinking of things that ruin, that would ruin the evening, ruin their outfits or otherwise make it impossible to continue with their plans.  Make sure they get nothing accomplished."

 

"Yeah, if you had...a pint of butyric acid, I don't care how big the building is, it's closing...And this stuff is very efficient, it's very very smelly, lasts a long time a little of it goes a long way."

 

"If you get it into the HVAC system it will get into the whole building."

Meanwhile, "Plan B" entailed an effort to simultaneously set off the sprinkler systems throughout the building which had the "added benefit" of sending party goers "outside in the freezing cold."

"I'm trying to think through how to get all the sprinklers to go off at once.  There's usually a piece of like fusible metal or a piece of glass with liquid in it that will blow"

 

"And the added benefit, everybody is going to walk outside in the freezing cold."

Because of the nature of the threats, Project Veritas notes that they notified the FBI, Secret Service and DC Metro Police of the content of this video prior to its release.

With that, here is the full video:

GM Will Invest Over $1 Billion In New US Factories, Create More Than 1,000 Jobs

via by Tyler Durden on Tue, 17 Jan 2017 00:41:12 GMT

Not a week seems to pass without some an automaker, foreign or domestic, making an unexpected round of concessions when it comes to Trump's ambitions to "Make it in the US."

And so, days after first Ford, then Fiat Chrysler announced major expansion plans in the US (to the partial detriment of Mexico) the latest automaker to respond to Trump's Twitter criticism is General Motors, which according to the WSJ, will announce this week plans to invest at least $1 billion across several U.S. factories "a move aimed at underlining its commitment to U.S. manufacturing jobs in the wake of President-elect Donald Trump’s criticism of the auto maker’s imports from Mexico."

The company will also announce that it will create more than 1,000 new jobs stemming from the investment but doesn’t plan to specify which of its factories are in line for more work.

The move comes days after Mr. Trump publicly ratcheted up pressure on the nation’s largest auto maker. During his press conference last week, the president-elect thanked Ford Motor Co. and Fiat Chrysler Automobiles for recently announced U.S. investment plans that are expected to create a combined 2,700 jobs.

He then turned up the heat on GM to follow suit. “I hope that General Motors will be following. And I think they will be,” Mr. Trump said.

They did indeed, even if GM's response was largely predictable. Recall that GM CEO Mary Barro was appointed to Trump's Strategic and Policy Forum, which as a reminder "is composed of some of America’s most highly respected and successful business leaders, will be called upon to meet with the President frequently to share their specific experience and knowledge as the President implements his plan to bring back jobs and Make America Great Again."

It would look confusing if one of Trump's own economic policy advisors looked the other way when practicing what Trump is preaching.

On January 3, Trump launched the opening salvo in this brief but productive "negotiation", when he tweeted that “General Motors is sending Mexican made model of Chevy Cruze to U.S. car dealers-tax free across border. Make in U.S.A.or pay big border tax!.”

General Motors is sending Mexican made model of Chevy Cruze to U.S. car dealers-tax free across border. Make in U.S.A.or pay big border tax!

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) January 3, 2017

GM picked the middle option: to invest money in the US, creating new jobs.

In keeping with the narrative proferred by other carmakers, in an interview with the WSJ, GM general counsel Craig Glidden declined to confirm specifics of the announcement but said any investment the company might disclose has been long planned and isn’t a response to pressure from Mr. Trump.

“This is something we’ve been undertaking for some period of time,” he said. “It’s really getting our story told in a way that is I think complete and fulsome.”

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