Migrants Mass at Serbia-Macedonia Border

They're moving through Greece to Macedonia, pretty much with the green light from Greek officials.

Remember, the first-contact nation is responsible for refugees under EU rules, so if initial receiving states let refugees pass through with a wink, then migrants will move on to next door neighbors and start a border crisis there. This is why some consider the migrant crisis an existential threat. No nation has an unlimited ability to continue to accept outsiders.

Rinse and repeat.

At the Wall Street Journal:

Thousands of migrants gathered at the border between Macedonia and Serbia on Sunday, after Macedonian officials allowed them the day before to cross into their territory following days of high tension and clashes.

The move is likely to add to the pressure on Serbia and Hungary, two main transit countries for Middle Eastern and African migrants attempting to reach Northern Europe.

During the night, about 40 private buses ferried the migrants from the train station in Gevgelija, near the country’s southern border, to Tabanovce, at Macedonia’s frontier with Serbia. In normal driving conditions it takes around two hours to cover the distance.

Authorities had also set up at least two trains to cross the country. In recent days, at the Gevgelija station, taxi drivers were available to take people north for about €100 ($114), according to migrants interviewed there.

In letting the migrants enter relatively freely, Macedonia reversed an earlier decision to effectively seal the border with Greece, leaving thousands stuck on the Greek side in difficult conditions.

Tensions rose so high that police used stun grenades, batons and tear gas to control the crowds late last week. Authorities then tried Saturday to regulate the flow, but were quickly overwhelmed and decided to open the border, allowing as many as 2,000 people to cross.

“On Saturday the migrants [at the southern border] managed to put so much pressure that they got in,” said Ivo Kotevski, spokesman for the Macedonian Interior Ministry. “But we aren’t letting everybody in, and we won’t.”

Indeed, Macedonian authorities again tried to regulate the flows on Sunday, allowing only about 50 people at a time to cross. More than 1,000 migrants have crossed the border so far, according to the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees.

The flow of migrants toward Macedonia’s southern border is likely to continue, the Macedonian government and aid groups said. The number of migrants, mainly fleeing war and persecution in Syria and Iraq and entering Greece from Turkey, has shot up in recent months, making the country the main entry point into the European Union.

Nearly 142,000 seaborne migrants have arrived in Greece since June 1, according to the International Organization for Migration.

According to the U.N., some 124,000 refugees and migrants arrived in Greece by sea between January and July this year, a 750% increase from the same period last year. The vast majority aims to cross the so-called Balkan corridor—an area stretching from Greece to Hungary—to reach Northern Europe.

“We are trying to let the people in according to our capacity,” said Mr. Kotevski, the government spokesman. “But I am very worried because the migrants’ pressure from the Greek border will continue to be high.” Aid groups expect thousands of seaborne migrants to arrive at the southern Macedonian border in the coming days...

More.

Greece Kos Refugees Receive Little Help and No Shelter

The Greek communists would make the Nazis proud.

At Der Spiegel, "Migrant Misery: Greek Island of Kos Makes Refugees Fend for Themselves":

Up to 600 people arrive each night on the Greek island of Kos, fleeing wars, oppression and hunger. When they arrive, they are often made to sleep outside with not sanitation facilities available. Greek authorities seem uninterested in improving the situation.

Along the beach promenade on the island of Kos, a small settlement of tents has sprung up. Colorful clothing flaps in the breeze, hanging from a palm tree after having been washed in the sea. In the shade beneath the tree sits a 14-person family from the war-torn Syrian city of Aleppo. Children, the 65-year-old grandmother, the pregnant aunt: They're all there.

The women don't want to give their names or be photographed. But they do have something they want to share. "Will you just look at that!" says the grandmother, pointing to the broad, black overcoat that covers her body. It is covered in light-colored dust -- the product of having to spend the night outside, sleeping on a patch of dried-out grass.

The family's home back in Aleppo was destroyed just a few days ago after fighting in their neighborhood flared up again. Now, they are camped under a palm tree on a Greek vacation island with nothing to eat or drink. There is no toilet nearby, much less bathing facilities.

The grandmother once again points accusingly at the spot on her overcoat. Up until 10 hours ago, before her first night under the stars on the island of Kos, she was a proud woman. After leaving Aleppo with her children and grandchildren, she found hotel rooms in Turkey for the family and paid traffickers for the trip across the small strip of the Aegean Sea that separates Turkey's west coast from Greece's easternmost islands. Once they arrived, the family did what they could to find a hotel room on Kos, but nobody wanted to rent a room to them.

Suddenly, on the Greek island, the 65-year-old matron is someone who is unwelcome in the homes of respectable people, someone who the police drive out of the city center at night, someone who is beginning to smell due to a lack of facilities to wash. Someone whose clothes are dirty. "Are we really in Europe here?" she asks. She had expected respect and human dignity.

Like other Greek islands near the Turkish coastline, Kos has for months been experiencing a huge number of new arrivals. Around 600 people land on the shores of the island every day, says the Greek coast guard, in addition to those arriving on Chios, Samos, Lesbos and other nearby islands. The European Union's border agency, Frontex, announced last week that nearly 50,000 migrants arrived in Greece in July. That would be an enormous challenge for any country. But one gets the impression that Greece isn't even trying...

Keep reading.

More Migrants Wash Up on Greek Island of Kos (VIDEO)

This really is a huge story, with tremendous implications for Europe. Especially interesting is the horrible treatment the migrants are getting, especially from the Greeks. And across Europe, getting a legal visa is a total long shot. But they keep coming.

Watch, at Euronews, "More Migrants Wash Up on Greek Island of Kos":

From a distance they almost look like holidaymakers.

But Monday morning's dinghy-load brought the latest batch of migrants to wash up on the Greek island of Kos after "crossing from nearby Turkey.

Like many, this particular group said they were from Syria. They want to travel to Hungary...

Migrant Crisis Threatens European Union's Cohesion

This is exactly what I blogged about the other day, "Migrant Crisis Raises Existential Questions for Europe."

And now at the Wall Street Journal, "The Migrant Threat to EU Cohesion":

Just as the European Union appears to have resolved one crisis, it risks being overwhelmed by another.

Last week eurozone finance ministers approved Greece’s new bailout, a major step toward ending a crisis that had threatened to tear apart Europe’s single currency. Meanwhile, the European Commission was outlining its latest efforts to address what it called the greatest migration crisis Europe has faced since the end of World War II.

Few believe the measures announced match the scale of the challenge. The EU border agency Frontex estimates that more than 100,000 migrants crossed into the EU in July alone, compared with 270,000 in the whole of 2014.

More than 50,000 turned up in Greece in July, more than in the whole of 2014. Many of them have been washing up in small inflatable boats on four small Greek islands. Similar numbers have been making their way to Italy from Libya, while 35,000 have arrived in July alone at the Hungarian border with Serbia.

Many are fleeing violence in Syria, Afghanistan and Libya; others are traveling from Iraq, Pakistan and the Horn of Africa in search of a better life. Most have paid large sums to traffickers who brazenly advertise their services via social media.

Once in Europe, many are intent on making their way to Northern Europe, where jobs are more plentiful. Germany reckons up to 600,000 migrants have arrived this year. Meanwhile, large numbers have congregated around the French port of Calais, where they have besieged the Channel Tunnel, hoping to smuggle themselves into the U.K.

The migration crisis may yet prove a bigger test of European cohesion than the euro crisis. Both pose fundamental questions about where the balance lies between national responsibility and intra-government solidarity. But whereas the Greek crisis was ultimately a dispute over money, the migration crisis concerns visceral questions of culture and identity.

It also has revealed serious deficiencies in the EU’s institutional and legal setup and exposed rifts between Northern and Southern Europe.

The problem is that national governments have responsibility for controlling their borders and deciding on whom to grant citizenship and asylum. But most countries have abolished border controls within the EU, allowing those inside to move freely between the member states.

That makes each country’s border and migration policies a common EU concern. In response, Brussels has put in place harmonized rules on treatment of asylum seekers. But many doubt how rigorously these rules are being applied, particularly in those countries receiving the bulk of the migrants, some of which have been overwhelmed by the scale of the challenge.

Under EU law, those claiming refugee status—as most migrants do—are entitled to be fed and housed while their cases are investigated, an expensive process. For a country such as Greece, in the midst of a deep financial crisis, the drain on resources has been too much, leading to angry scenes at reception centers on the island of Kos.

There, 12,000 migrants have arrived this summer, equivalent to more than a third of its population. Meanwhile, EU rules also say that refugees must be registered and fingerprinted in the country in which they first arrive, which then becomes responsible for housing them until their status is decided.

This system is now in disarray. Richer Northern European countries accuse Southern European countries of failing to keep track of illegal migrants, passing the problem on to them. This summer, France briefly reopened its border post with Italy. Meanwhile, Southern countries say they are unfairly being forced to take responsibility for migrants whose real objective is to head to the richer north.

This makes forging a common response to the crisis extraordinarily difficult.

Faced with harrowing reports of migrants drowning in the Mediterranean earlier this summer, the member states agreed to provide military assistance for search-and-rescue missions and efforts to disrupt smuggler networks off the coast of Italy and in the Aegean Sea. The EU has also handed out €2.4 billion ($2.66 billion) in emergency assistance to member states to help with the cost of managing the crisis. It also says it will use its diplomatic muscle to tackle the problem at source at a summit with leaders of African countries in November.

But when the commission proposed in June that all 28 members of the EU commit to a plan to resettle 20,000 refugees from outside the EU and relocate 40,000 migrants already inside, several countries—including Eastern European countries with no tradition of accepting refugees and richer countries such as the U.K. and Austria where anti-immigrant sentiment is strong—refused to participate. Some EU officials describe this as the darkest moment in EU history...

That's NIMBY politics at the international level. Not-in-my-backyard. You take care of the problem. It's ugly, but it's the way international politics works, and it's interesting that it's the EU system as a whole that's coming up short in response. That's not how institutional theories of cooperation conceptualize problems. Greater integration of states is supposed to facilitate collective action to mutual problems, but the migration crisis shows how self-interest causes collective action failures, and how institutional cohesion breaks down.

It's pretty fascinating.

Still more at the link.

Nazi 'Comments' Attacking European Migrants Voted Up at London's Daily Mail

I guess this was some kind of "experiment," by the leftist parody account The DM Reporter on Twitter.

And of course, this "experiment" proves absolutely nothing, as comment threads are completely unrepresentative of anything except perhaps unreconstructed stupidity.

At Medium, "We Were Upvoted for Posting Nazi Propaganda about Migrants in the Daily Mail."

And as I argued previously, it's not just "far-right extremists" who're reacting badly against the migrant crisis. Remember, the communists are in charge in Greece, and they've thrown migrants in the camps.

Libyan Jihadist Mokhtar Belmokhtar Now Leads 'al-Qaeda in West Africa'

I thought we took this guy out with airstrikes earlier this year? I guess not.

At Long War Journal, "Mokhtar Belmokhtar now leads ‘Al Qaeda in West Africa’."

Germany's Violent Backlash Against Third-World Asylum Seekers

Well, about the existential European migration crisis.

At the New York Times, "Violent Backlash Against Migrants in Germany as Asylum-Seekers Pour In":

FREITAL, Germany — Even as Germany has been trying to accommodate a swelling stream of newcomers, the most anywhere in Europe, it is also experiencing a persistent pattern of violence against migrants, raising concerns about escalating far-right opposition.

Rights activists who monitor the treatment of refugees say while they are seeing an increase in hate crimes across Europe, particularly targeting Roma or asylum-seekers from Europe’s poorest countries, nowhere have they seen mass demonstrations or attacks on housing for refugees like those in Germany.

“We’ve seen many bad news stories from Germany, but not that many from other countries — not in the sense of calling it a growing trend,” said Thorfinnur Omarsson, a spokesman for the European Council on Refugees and Exiles, based in Brussels.

In the first half of this year alone, more than 179,000 people applied for asylum in Germany, a country of about 80 million. That is an increase of 132 percent over the same period in 2014, with Syrians the largest group, the Federal Office for Migration and Refugees said.

During the same period, the Interior Ministry recorded 202 attacks on housing for asylum-seekers, including attempts to render shelters uninhabitable through arson, attacks with stones or other vandalism. In addition, a group called Courage Against the Right cites 48 attacks on individuals, based on local police records.

Some of the episodes, such as the arson attacks in the Bavarian town of Vorra and in the eastern town of Tröglitz, have received widespread attention. But there have been many others, including one in Lunzenau in Saxony on July 29, when vandals broke into and deliberately flooded an empty shelter for 50 asylum-seekers by opening the taps in the bathrooms.

That same night, in nearby Dresden, a group of 50 people staged a demonstration against a tent city, hastily set up by the state to temporarily shelter hundreds of asylum-seekers. The Courage Against the Right group has counted 89 such demonstrations this year, many organized by local groups with names like Freital Defends Itself that have sprung up in cities and towns where empty office buildings and hotels have been converted into hostels for new arrivals.

Germany has also witnessed record numbers of people volunteering their time, clothing and money to help the newcomers, and the German government, both nationally and on the state level, has strongly denounced the attacks.

Still, the persistence of such attacks has human rights groups and security officials worried about the wider implications...

The "wider implications"? Well, one implication is that it's not just the "right wing" that's fomenting a backlash against the migrants. European economies across the board are struggling to absorb the refugees, and the Communists in Greece are putting migrants in concentration camps.

The fact is the crisis doesn't break down into neat "right-left" stereotypes. The Nazis are banned in Germany. Until European governments decide to control their borders, national residents all across the political spectrum will see increasing costs and threats to their security. It's out of control.

And previously, "Latest on Europe's Migrant Crisis (VIDEO)," and "Alongside Doctors Without Borders in the Mediterranean."

Migrant Crisis Raises Existential Questions for Europe

Well, Europe has a lot of existential questions, but yeah, this migrant thing is out of control and very dangerous.

From Timothy Spangler, at the O.C. Register, "Migrant surge raises existential questions for Europe":

This week saw further waves of migrants arriving illegally on European shores. On the Greek island of Kos, more than 2,000 Syrians and Afghans were rounded up from makeshift camps and relocated to a sports stadium, where questions about their treatment were soon raised by aid workers.

In a single day, the Italian coast guard rescued approximately 1,500 migrants from unseaworthy boats attempting to cross the Mediterranean from North Africa, and many others were still lost at sea. Meanwhile, angry migrants in the Spanish seaside town of Salou clashed with police after a Senegalese man jumped to his death as officers raided his apartment.

With each new illegal arrival on European soil, awkward questions are raised about the ability of European politicians to address the migration crisis fully and effectively.

Despite the cataclysmic Greek financial crisis, the near-bankrupt country still makes an appealing destination for thousands of migrants. As police on Kos this week collected individuals from several camps strewn across the island into a stadium for processing, complaints of maltreatment were raised due to the excessive heat and lack of adequate food and water.

Kos sits just off the coast from Turkey, making it a prime target for illegal crossings. Since the beginning of the year, more than 120,000 migrants have illegally entered Greece. Approximately 1.6 million Syrians who fled their civil war are now in Turkey, with many of them eyeing Kos as the easiest point of entry into Europe. Greek Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras has candidly admitted that, while battling the financial crisis, his country lacks the financial resources to do more to address the migration crisis.

Further west, the Mediterranean remains a deadly front line between European authorities and waves of migrants in North Africa. More than 2,000 migrants have died this year attempting the sea crossing. Human traffickers in Libya have profited from smuggling approximately 100,000 men, women and children across the Mediterranean during the same period.

Members of the Italian military have worked diligently to rescue as many migrants as possible. Despite the widely reported casualty numbers, boats crammed to bursting continue to attempt the high-risk voyage.

Even when migrants make landfall in Europe, countries such as Spain, alongside Italy and Greece, must cope with undocumented migrants unable to work legally who must support themselves through illegal activities. In Salou this week, police targeted the homes of several people believed to be associated with the selling of fake luxury goods to tourists in the resort town south of Barcelona. When officers entered the apartment of a Senegalese suspect, he immediately jumped to his death to avoid arrest.

Protests soon broke out on the streets of Salou, with 100 migrants clashing with officers, leading to injuries on both sides. With the tourist season along the Catalan coast in full swing, at least one tourist was also injured in these clashes.

Unfortunately, despite the mounting human costs of illegal migration into Europe, many European politicians, as well as countless learned observers in the mainstream media, continue to dismiss the crisis as scaremongering by far-right politicians with ulterior motives...

Yeah. "Scaremongering." That's all they've got, despicable leftists. Meanwhile, people are dying. And all left-wing governments can do is lock them up in containment (concentration) camps? Not good. Not good at all.

Still more.

And ICYMI, "Latest on Europe's Migrant Crisis (VIDEO)," and "Alongside Doctors Without Borders in the Mediterranean."

Alongside Doctors Without Borders in the Mediterranean

They're coming from everywhere. Afganistan refugees even made it Greece this week.

At Der Spiegel, "Mediterranean Desperation: Saving Lives at the World's Most Dangerous Border":

Doctors Without Borders is the only major humanitarian organization actively rescuing refugees in the Mediterranean. So far, it has saved more than 10,000 people. But in the world's biggest crisis region, timing is everything.

The call comes in at 10:15 a.m. on the fourth day at sea, just as the ship's captain says it looks like it'll be a quiet day. A refugee boat has been spotted at 33 degrees 05 minutes north latitude and 12 degrees 27 minutes east longitude, 17 nautical miles off the coast of Sabratha, Libya. It could be a rubber dinghy, with space for around 100 people. Or it might be a wooden boat, with up to 800 people on board. The captain hits the throttle, pushing the MY Phoenix to full speed.

It's the law of the sea: With every passing hour, the children on board the refugee boat get weaker, more women faint, the men below decks inhale more toxic gasoline fumes, the inflatable dinghies lose air and the wooden boats take on more water. Every hour increases the danger of the boats springing a leak or simply sinking.
And the rescue workers won't reach the troubled vessel for another three hours.

On board the MY Phoenix, preparations begin. There's Regina Catrambone, an Italian woman who founded the "Migrant Offshore Aid Station," or MOAS for short. There's also the emergency relief coordinator Will Turner from Great Britain and the American nurse Mary Jo Frawley, both of whom work for the aid organization Doctors Without Borders. These three people are the heart of the mission, but of course they are not alone. With them are a captain from Spain, a drone pilot from Austria and a rescue specialist from Malta. Altogether, there are 18 of them, patrollingg the waters between Sicily, Malta and Libya -- an area almost the size of Germany. They wait, sometimes for a call from Rome, other times for a dot to appear on the horizon.

The 40-meter-long MY Phoenix was a fishing trawler before it was retro-fitted as a research vessel. Now, in its third life, it sails on behalf of humanity with one simple goal: to save lives where no one else does. It is a floating refugee camp, equipped with an infirmary full of pain medication alongside drugs to combat seasickness and scabies. It also has an ample supply of baby food and oxygen, a cooler with vaccines and 50 body bags in two sizes: one for adults and one for children.

The Mediterranean has become a crisis region, one where more than 2,000 people have died this year already -- more than have lost their lives in attacks in Afghanistan. But of course that figure is misleading. It reflects only the number of recorded deaths. Who knows how many people have drowned without a trace?

Nevertheless, no aid agencies are active in the region. They all wait on shore for the survivors to arrive. The business of saving lives is left to those who are the least prepared: navies and merchant vessels. Meanwhile, more and more refugees are embarking on the perilous journey across the Mediterranean -- 188,000 so far this year.

It's hard to believe that a crisis area of this magnitude is empty of aid workers -- unthinkable, Doctors Without Borders thought, or, as their founders call them, Médecins Sans Frontières, MSF. It is the biggest, best organized medical relief organization in the world. An army of survival. They are professionals for natural catastrophes and civil wars, and they are engaged in the fight against HIV, Ebola and measles. With a budget of €1.066 billion ($1.16 billion) in 2014, MSF's 2,769 international employees and 31,000 local helpers undertook some 8.3 million treatments...

More.

Saif al-Islam Gaddafi Sentenced to Death Over War Crimes

Muammar Gaddafi's son.

Fuck 'im.

At the Guardian UK, "Gaddafi's son Saif al-Islam sentenced to death by court in Libya."

Plus, at Euronews, "Saif al-Islam Gaddafi: Libya's failed reformer," and "Libya: Rights groups slam death sentence for Gaddafi son."

Mokhtar Belmokhtar Reportedly Killed in Libya Strikes

At CNN, "U.S. airstrike targeted terrorist Mokhtar Belmokhtar inside Libya, officials say."

More, "Mokhtar Belmokhtar reportedly targeted in Libya airstrike."

Holly Williams Reports: Local Militias Say #ISIS Advanced 20 Miles Tuesday, Seizing Power Plant Just Outside Sirte

Via CBS News This Morning, "Libyan militias scramble as ISIS seizes territory."

Secret Memo Shows Leftist Contributors Souring on Hillary Clinton Campaign (VIDEO)

I love it!

This is not only major, it's no surprise.

Hillary's crashing on multiple fronts. And it's still early!

At Politico, "Secret effort to sell Hillary Clinton to rich liberals: Campaign targets unenthusiastic donors on the party’s left":

Hillary Clinton’s allies are working to win over unenthusiastic rich liberals by pitting her against the Koch brothers and prospective GOP rivals rather than more progressive Democrats, according to a draft of a secret memo obtained by POLITICO.

The memo was prepared for Clinton enforcer David Brock ahead of a major donor meeting in April in San Francisco. But the concerns it reveals about liberal donors’ coolness toward her presidential candidacy — with some even holding out hope for a robust primary challenge from the left — are just as acute today, Clinton allies say.

Winning over such donors is seen as critical to Clinton’s White House prospects.

The Clinton forces are counting on a constellation of allied outside groups to raise as much as $500 million to take on a Republican big-money machine that has been raking in cash from dozens of super-rich and highly engaged partisans. By contrast, the main super PAC supporting Clinton, Priorities USA Action, has struggled to collect million-dollar checks.

Part of the donors’ reluctance stems from liberal queasiness about the expanding role of big money in politics since the Supreme Court’s 2010 Citizens United decision. But there’s also some discomfort with Clinton, the former New York senator and secretary of state, who is seen as too hawkish on foreign policy and insufficiently progressive on key issues like fighting climate change, income inequality and the role of big money in politics. Additionally, Democratic finance operatives say, efforts to rustle up seven-figure checks are suffering from a lack of a single, unifying enemy on the right.

All those concerns are addressed in the Brock memo, which appears to have been drafted in preparation for his appearance at the annual spring meeting of the Democracy Alliance — a major liberal donor club — in April in San Francisco. The memo is written as a question-and-answer exchange between Brock and Democracy Alliance donors.

The memo suggests that Brock, who has built a fleet of deep-pocketed groups aligned with Clinton, is taking a conciliatory approach to assuage donors’ concerns — conceding she’s not as liberal as some donors wish but emphasizing her progressiveness in public service and minimizing the prospects of a vigorous Democratic primary.

“You say the Kochs represent all that is bad in this broken system, yet our presumptive nominee is in the pocket of big Wall Street banks,” begins one of the memo’s hypothetical donor questions. “Aren’t we going to have a hard time going after the Kochs’ big money when some could argue that Sec. Clinton is bank rolled by Wall Street and therefore there is a pox on both our houses?”

The answer Brock should give, according to the memo: “It is no secret that Sec. Clinton is fair-left and not far-left. I think it is safe to say that there will be a dramatic difference between Sec. Clinton and whoever is the Republican opponent. She has spent a lifetime advocating for women and children and fighting for the middle class and there is not one GOP candidate who has that record.”

Brock did not dispute the authenticity of the memo, which leaves a pair of questions about the internal politics of the Clinton big-money effort unanswered. But he declined to comment on the memo, or whether it reflected his fundraising approach or his presentation at the Democracy Alliance gathering, which was closed to the news media.

The three-day meeting of the Democracy Alliance — a group that includes more than 100 individual and institutional donors and various unions — took place at San Francisco’s Four Seasons Hotel just as Clinton officially launched her campaign.

Heh, when leftist big-money hypocrites are worried about forking over big money to Hillary, you know something's not right in leftist la-la land.

More.

PREVIOUSLY: "Hillary Clinton Crashes in Public Opinion."

Hillary Clinton Crashes in Public Opinion

Her ratings are tanking.

At CNN, via Memeorandum, "Poll: New speed bumps for Clinton."

Clinton Campaigning in a Bubble, Largely Isolated from Real People

At McClatchy:

CONFIRMED: http://t.co/VTJMBzMPjF Hillary Clinton's home-brewed server contained now classified info on #Benghazi. pic.twitter.com/aq8qrBdNdz

— Reince Priebus (@Reince) May 23, 2015

CEDAR FALLS, IOWA — Here’s how Hillary Clinton campaigned for president this week: She took a private 15-minute tour of a bike shop that had closed for her visit. She spoke to four small business owners chosen by her staff in front of an audience of 20, also chosen by her staff. She answered a few questions from the media following weeks of silence.

And after a little more than an hour, Clinton was off, whisked away by aides and Secret Service agents, into a minivan and on to the next event.

Members of the public who wanted to go inside the building to support her, oppose her or merely ask a question of her were left outside on an unseasonably cool Iowa day. Most didn’t bother showing up.

“I am troubled that so far in this caucus cycle she hasn’t had any public town halls,” said Chris Schwartz, a liberal activist from Waterloo, as he stood outside the bike store hoping to talk to Clinton about trade. “If she had a public town hall then we wouldn’t be out here. We would much rather be in there engaging with her.”

Welcome to Hillary Clinton 2.0. Mindful of her defeat by Barack Obama in 2008, Clinton has embraced a new strategy – one that so far does not include town-hall meetings and campaign rallies, media interviews, even public events.

Instead, she holds small controlled events with a handful of potential voters in homes, businesses and schools. She repeats many of the same lines (“I want to be your champion” is a favorite), participants are handpicked by her staff or the event host, and topics are dictated by her campaign.

Brent Johnson, 35, the owner of Bike Tech, said Clinton campaign staffers walked into the shop a week earlier and asked him if he’d be interested in hosting an event. He and the three roundtable participants were on a conference call with the campaign the day before to hear Clinton’s “basic talking points” about helping small businesses. A campaign aide says they found guests through the small business community.

Clinton’s approach – made possible by her lack of strong competition for the Democratic nomination – comes as she works to relate to working American families after years of being criticized as an out-of-touch Washington insider garnering hefty paychecks for her speeches and books.

But the campaign to show the world that she’s never forgotten her middle-class, Middle America sensibilities can be a tough sell from inside a bubble of armored cars, Secret Service agents and wary aides.

“It’s going to come back and haunt her,” said Eric Herzik, chairman of the political science department at the University of Nevada, Reno. “I think it will backfire.”

She can't talk about her record. She's a walking radioactive meltdown of scandal baggage and political corruption.

More.

Hillary's Failed War of Choice in Libya

Cut through all the partisan crap and what's now happening with the Benghazi attack is the ultimate clusterfuck which proves conservatives right all along back in 2012.

At Instapundit, "HILLARY’S FAILED WAR OF CHOICE IN LIBYA: Email calls Clinton ‘public face of US effort in Libya’":

This is a modified limited hangout. Everything you get is sanitized, and none of the worst stuff is being released. And given that this stuff is actually fairly bad, that may provide a sense of what they’re holding back.

Click through to read the whole thing.

Sidney Blumenthal Emails to Hillary Clinton at State Department

If this is the beginning of some genuine reporting at the New York Times --- genuine and hopefully sustained investigative reporting --- the Clinton campaign's in for a whole lotta hurt. Don't hold your breath, obviously. Gawker's been running reports on the Blumenthal emails for years. But should disgust at the Clinton cash corruption finally shake loose the blinders among the journalist-cadres at the Old Gray Lady, all hell could break out across the Democrat-Media-Complex.

See, "Clinton Friend’s Memos on Libya Draw Scrutiny to Politics and Business," and "What Sidney Blumenthal's Memos to Hillary Clinton Said, and How They Were Handled." There's a motherload of damaging information here, but just to pick out one nugget:

In May 2011, Mr. Blumenthal sent Mrs. Clinton a memo reporting that affiliates of Al Qaeda in Libya were plotting attacks in revenge for the United States’ killing of Osama bin Laden. Mrs. Clinton forwarded the email to Mr. Sullivan, saying that it was “disturbing, if true.” [Clinton aide] Mr. [Jake] Sullivan questioned its accuracy, but said he would share with others. (Pages 4-5)

Mindboggling, really.

Sid Blumenthal & the Clintons--Is this a Rerun? @nickconfessore & @MichaelSSchmidt get to the bottom of it. In Libya. http://t.co/sjReVTgowW

— Eric Lipton (@EricLiptonNYT) May 18, 2015

It's easy to see why Hillary wanted to deep six all her private email communications. They're the smoking guns of a Watergate-scale scandal.

More at Hot Air, "NYT: Banned from State Dep’t, Clinton Foundation crony advised Hillary on Libya anyway — while pursuing business there; Update: Another e-mail lie."

And at Politico, "State Department won't release Hillary Clinton's emails until January 2016." (At Memeorandum.) The timing's not so great on that, actually. January's when the primaries kick off. And if Bernie Sanders catches some fire, he could cause bloody havoc for the Clintons --- and he'd be tickled pink doing it.

Read some of these emails at NYT, "Selected Libya-Related Messages From Hillary Clinton’s Personal Email Account."

Rich Smuggling Trade Fuels Deadly Migration Across Mediterranean

At WSJ, "Brazen, multi-million-dollar people-smuggling enterprise run by Libyan militias and tribesmen proves hard to combat":

The deaths of more than 1,000 Italy-bound migrants in the Mediterranean Sea in the last week are the product of a multi-million-dollar people-smuggling enterprise run by Libyan militias, tribesmen and bandits, law-enforcement officials and migrant-aid groups say.

Authorities in the European Union on Monday pledged to step up efforts to crack down on a well-oiled and increasingly brazen business of putting desperate people on rickety boats and setting them afloat on the deadliest migrant route in the world. Italian Foreign Minister Paolo Gentiloni called for international support “to fight against these traffickers of human beings, this new slavery of the 21st century.”

Yeah, it's bad.

More at London's Daily Mail, "Captain arrested over Mediterranean migrant disaster: Two charged with 'multiple manslaughter' when they step on to Italian soil with survivors - as EU vows to 'capture and destroy' human traffickers' boats."

Also at the Guardian UK, "EU ministers meet for crisis talks after hundreds of migrants drown in Mediterranean."

Boko Haram Jihadists Attack Chad for First Time (VIDEO)

Meanwhile, in Central Africa.

At Pamela's, "Jihad in Chad: Boko Haram attacks Chad, kills several, burns village."

Egypt's Abdel Fattah al-Sisi Calls for 'Urgent' Talks After Islamic State Beheads 17 Copts

Well, Jordan wasn't dithering after Islamic State torched Moaz al-Kasasbeh.

And now here comes Egypt with freakin' righteous indignation. The terror threat is hitting too close to home in Arab states across the Middle East.

At Al-Arabia, "Sisi calls for urgent security talks after ISIS beheading video."

Sisi bans Egyptians from going to #Libya. pic.twitter.com/vy0ZyNof8G

— Zaid Benjamin (@zaidbenjamin) February 15, 2015

#Sisi: I'm sending foreign minister to New York "#Libya situation is s threat to global security" pic.twitter.com/UsDfZn13JC

— Zaid Benjamin (@zaidbenjamin) February 15, 2015

Sisi: The time is not for "selectivity and double standards" when it comes with dealing with terrorism. pic.twitter.com/PnQubDY80L

— Zaid Benjamin (@zaidbenjamin) February 15, 2015