Europe in Chaos over Migrants and NYC and NJ Are Attacked by Terrorists While Obama Sends $1.7 to Iran's Terrorist Financiers

Europe is finally unravelling into dogfights among its members-- and it may be the only thing that can possibly save the EU from its socialist fog of warm, fuzzy feelings. The public debate about Europe's future may also waken the US to the problems it still has time to avoid. But, right now, European leaders must find a way out of Chancellor Merkel's nightmare open door policy. ~~~~~~ On Tuesday, in a brutally frank attack on his fellow EU members, Italian Prime Minister Matteo Renzi said the Bratislava summit, the first EU summit without the UK, turned out to be : "At Bratislava we had a nice cruise on the Danube, but I hoped for answers to the crisis caused by BREXIT, not just to go on a boat trip." Renzi was excluded from a joint news conference by German Chancellor Merkel and French President Francois Hollande, so he took to the media alone to say he's dissatisfied with the Bratislava summit's closing statement :" I don't know what Merkel is referring to when she talks about the 'spirit of Bratislava.' If things go on like this, instead of the spirit of Bratislava we'll be talking about the ghost of Europe." Renzi, who is frontally attacking Merkel partly because he wants to unseat her as de facto EU head, hit out at the lack of commitments on the economy and immigration in the summit's conclusions, despite signing the statement himself. In a no-holds-barred interview with the Italian daily newspaper Corriere della Sera, Renzi intensified his criticisms, lbeit without saying exactly what he would have wanted in the summit closing statement. The Prime Minister has staked his career on a referendum scheduled this Fall over plans for constitutional reform, promising to resign if he loses. With polls showing the referendum too close to call, Renzi insisted he had "never been so optimistic" about its outcome. The vote is expected to be held in late November or early December. Renzi said he is preparing a 2017 budget which he claims will cut taxes despite a slowing economy and record high public debt, saying there would be "no negotiation" with Brussels, and money he planned to spend on tackling immigration and making Italy safer from earthquakes would be excluded from EU rules on deficit limits, saying other countries are more guilty than Italy of breaking budget rules and Italy has met its commitments on tackling the inflows of migrants crossing the Mediterranean. Renzi's anger was palpable : "If someone wants to keep Italy quiet they have picked the wrong place, the wrong method and the wrong subject." ~~~~~~ Merkel was attacked by several other EU leaders during the summit. EU European Council president Donald Tusk, of Poland, blamed Merkel for the migrant crisis and ISIS attacks. The other EU leader to most vocally criticize the results of the Bratislava summit was Hungarian leader Viktor Orban, who faces his own domestic referendum next month, on the EU plan to relocate refugees throughout the continent. Earlier in September, Austria threatened to sue Hungary for letting migrants cross its border, at the same time that Merkel was insisting the migrant crisis is 'much better.' But, Tuesday, EU Commission President Jean-Claude Juncker gave his own vote-of-no-confidence in Merkel's position when he revealed he was willing to compromise following the latest round of talks between the EC and the Swiss government. The EU insists on free movement of people as a condition for non-EU member Switzerland joining the common market under bilateral accords. But, the arrangement was put at risk by a Swiss referendum in 2014 demanding immigration quotas, which requires a law to be in place by February. This will be jumped on by the UK as it prepares to negotiate its own bilateral BREXIT agreement with Juncker and the EU. ~~~~~~ But, far and away, the biggest threat to Merkel's power is coming from within her own coalition. Horst Seehofer, head of the Christian Social Union (CSU) -- the Bavarian sister party to Merkel's CDU without which she could not win a general election -- has become one of her most vocal critics. Bavaria was the scene of two attacks in July by radicalized asylum seekers, both of whom were killed after an axe attack on a train near Würzburg and a suicide bombing in Ansbach. And, last week the CSU released a paper, called 'Germany Must Remain Germany' outlining what it wants to see happen : a cap on the number of migrants coming into Germany at 200,000 a year. But, the anti-immigrant Alternative for Germany (AfD) sluffed off the CSU cap, and after taking 14% of the Berlin vote Sunday and being ready to enter its 10th of the country's 16 regional assemblies, the AfD said it would target a double digit score in next year's national vote after the "terrific" Berlin result. AfD co-leader Joerg Meuthen told a news conference in Berlin after Sunday's vote : "More and more people are convinced and recognising that we are a real alternative not just for Berlin but for Germany." ~~~~~~ But, Angela Merkel is the living definition of German Realpolitik. Merkel has so far rejected a migrant cap, but seems ready to compromise. She said Tuesday that if the wish of the German people was for the country not to be swamped with uncontrolled and unregulated migration "then that is exactly what I am fighting for." Commenting on a recent poll showing 82% of voters want a change in her migrant policy, Merkel added: "If I knew what change in policy people wanted, I would be ready to consider it and to talk about it. But the poll does not give any advice on that." Describing the EU as being in "critical condition," Merkel is pushing for a European solution to the migration challenge by securing Europe's external borders, agreeing migration deals with countries like Turkey and distributing refugees across Europe. Merkel said she accepted her share of responsibility for voters punishing her ruling CDU party for her refugee-friendly migrant policy. Speaking at a news conference in Berlin, she said : "If I could, I would turn back the time by many, many years." She admitted she could have been better prepared for the influx of migrants last year. And she admitted Germany had not been "world champions" in integrating migrants in the past, saying it would take time to integrate them. But, Merkel also stood her ground : "If people decide that they do not want to take in people of a Moslem belief then the constitution, the Christian values and my personal opinion will be opposed to that. I myself have also relied on the Dublin agreement for a long time, that, simply speaking, removed the problem from Germany [and placed the migrant problem with Italy and Greece]. That was not good. And if I could I would turn back time for many, many years to be able to better prepare myself with the entire government and all those responsible for this situation that hit us when we were rather unprepared in the late summer of 2015. Since then we have tried with all our might to shape, organize and regulate and much has already been achieved with this, very much. Still, I am aware that many areas are still lacking." The backlash against her migrant policy has raised questions about whether Merkel, Europe's most powerful and de facto leader, will stand for a fourth term next year. Given that there are few options in her party, however, she is still the most likely candidate. Asked whether she will run again, Merkel smiled and declined to comment. She said she was still motivated. ~~~~~~ The migrant issue is greatly heightened by the attacks by migrants and clashes with Germans that have plagued the country over the past year as they struggle to cope with the numbers unprecedented in modern times. But, Germany is far from unique in this respect. In Calais, the port town in northern France, a so-called 'Great Wall of Calais' that will cost UK taxpayers £2 million is being labelled 'a waste of money' that will not stop migrants from attacking British drivers as UK truckers who routinely pass through Calais call for the French Army to solve the migrant crisis. Rod McKenzie, a director at the Road Haulage Association, criticized the government’s plan to build the 0.6-mile-long motorway fortification near the notorious "Jungle" camp. Truckers and tourists in cars have been subjected to a series of attacks by thugs throwing items at traffic to slow them down so they can climb into lorries in their efforts to get into the UK to ask for refugee status. McKenzie slammed the wall as he told the UK's talkRADIO : "The problem is when the wall is only a kilometer long and four meters high, it's only going to keep migrants from getting on board lorries at that particular point. The trouble will just move a few miles further back. What we're seeing is these highly organized gangs of migrants causing blockages on roads, in the approach roads to Calais, which causes a traffic jam and then they use the resulting traffic jam to gets migrant on trucks." McKenzie said Britain should demand that the French dismantle the Jungle : "The answer, short-term, is to bring in the French army, because only they have the capacity and manpower." Even French business owners and locals are protesting. On September 5, they blockaded the main road into the Port of Calais, and a convoy of trucks joined them to protest against the Jungle, calling for it to be demolished. Up to 10,000 migrants are now living at the camp and are using desperate and violent measures to try and board trucks heading for the UK. ~~~~~~ But, never fear. The French Socialist Party very left-wing mayor of Paris, Anne Hidalgo, has the solution. She is building two migrant camps in the center of Paris -- one for men - with a football field, and another for women and children. Hidalgo calls the camps "The first of many in Europe!" and defends them as "state-of-the-art" housing for 1,000 migrants, with a plug for each bed and Wi-Fi for everyone. But, residents close to the building site -- which sits by the busy Eurostar terminal that welcomes thousands of Britons every year and will surely become a magnet for illegal migrants now that Hidalgo is providing first-rate housing nearby -- have spoken out about the camp, fearing the new camp will only add to existing problems in the area. People in Porte de la Chapelle accused have accused Hidalgo of bringing "a mess" to their neighborhood. Two residents told the UK Express : "We already have quite a few issues in this area. We’ve got druggies, we’ve got prostitutes, and bringing in migrants on top of that – it’s piling misery on top of misery." One Twitter user described the camp as a shocking "creche [nursery] for jihadis." The migrant center, set to open in mid-October, got the go-ahead following complaints of migrants sleeping in public areas and streets in Paris. Since June last year, authorities have dismantled more than 20 makeshift camps around the city. Hildago defends the decision : "This is the first of many in Europe. We must come up with new strategies for coping with the current situation, which is has reached saturation point. This refugee center is in keeping with our values. We are acting with humanity." France has seen a wave of migrants -- a fire of questionable origin on Monday night ripped through a refugee center south of Paris. Hidalgo described the fire as "detestable, deplorable and criminal." ~~~~~~ The Netherlands -- arguably one of the most left of all European countries -- saw its worst backlash in the last few day. Migrant youths had been inflicting what is described as a 'reign of terror' in Zaandam. Outraged locals-turned-vigilantes who said they have been terrorized by migrant thugs for months took matters into their own hands to stop the gang, attacking the group of mostly Turkish youths who are said to have been wreaking havoc in Zaandam. The brutal clash was sparked because the youths would not stop threatening, intimidating and beating up citizens and police officers. In a video clip, a group of Turkish men can be seen brawling with the teenagers who reportedly had had enough of their thuggish behavior. The Turks were filmed fighting in a square outside of a supermarket and one of the vigilantes can even be seen wielding what appears to be a crowbar. On Thursday the police, who have been blasted for not having cracked down on the gang, arrested four of the migrants. The vandals had actually made national headlines when they appeared on a primetime talk show. Ismail Ilgun, one of the suspects arrested, presented himself as the spokesman of the group of youngsters. The thugs claimed national media was stigmatizing them and told the TV program they only hung around the streets because the city council did not give them a youth center. However, Cinderella Meijer, who works at a local youth center, explained that the group was already booted out after damaging and stealing from it. She said : "This has already been playing out for 10 years. They get everything from the city council, everything is done. But each time they destroy the property and steal. They even threatened us with a firearm when we tried to stop them from smoking inside." Ilgun, 19, was released last Friday. According to local media he has been banned from the neighborhood he has been terrorizing, and will get guidance from the City Hall and rehabilitation authorities. [Perhaps Hidalgo will give him a bed in her new Paris camp.] ~~~~~~ And, could we leave out longsuffering Greece? Thousands of refugees detained at Moria, one of Greece’s biggest camps, on the island of Lesbos, have fled the facility amid scenes of mayhem after some reportedly set fire to it on Monday. As many as 4,000 panic-stricken men, women and children rushed out of the camp, which is surrounded by a barbed wire fence. The fires rapidly swept through the facility because of high winds. No one was reported injured, but damage was widespread with more than 90 tents and dozens of prefabricated housing units going up in flames and large numbers of refugees losing their meager belongings to the fire. By Tuesday, witnesses described the camp as looking like a war zone, and the Greek government prepared to send two ferryboats to house detainees in Lesbos’ port until other accommodation can be found. Close to 100 unaccompanied minors, who had controversially been housed at the overcrowded center, were to be evacuated to a camp on the mainland, officials said. Greece’s citizen protection minister, Nikos Toskas, said outside aid was also vital : “The Europeans have to send us real [help] not five blankets that they call ‘international solidarity’,” he said on Greek radio, complaining that non-governmental organizations, the recipient of €80 million in EU funds so far, had failed to use the money properly. “To a great degree, they did not correspond to what they had promised the EU [when] it gave them the money.” The riots are believed to have been fuelled by frustration over the notoriously slow pace with which asylum requests are being processed. A rumor, earlier in the day, that Greek authorities were preparing to send possibly hundreds back to Turkey -- in an attempt to placate mounting frustration in Germany over the long delays -- was enough to spark the protests that led to the confrontation between refugees and the police at the Moria camp. Tovima Greek news said about 300 refugees left the hot spot to stage a demonstration in the city, but were turned back to the camp. Fires then broke out north and south of the clash point. Human rights groups have criticized conditions in Moria and 50 detention centers elsewhere in Greece as deplorable. The increase in arrivals in recent months from Turkey -- the launch pad for more than a million Europe-bound refugees last year -- has added to the pressure on Greek authorities. On Monday, the government announced that 60,352 refugees and migrants were registered in Greece, trapped by border closures along the Balkan corridor into Europe. About 13,536 were detained on Aegean islands, including Lesbos which has borne the brunt of the influx. Brawls between rival ethnic groups at the camp has increased tensions, with fights regularly erupting between Afghan and Syrian detainees. A police officer said : “None of them wants to go back to Turkey. And nor do they want to stay here. The whole point of making the journey is Europe and getting to some rich country there.” Greek patience and compassion for refugees is wearing thin. On Monday, scores of irate residents in Moria village above the camp, marched through the town of Mytilene protesting against the prospect of a second detention center being built in the area and denouncing the mayor, Spyros Galinos, as a traitor who had ignored local people in favour of refugees. Lesbos, Greece’s third biggest island, is also among the poorest in a country experiencing unprecedented social hardship because of its worst economic crisis in modern times. Giorgos Kosmopoulos, Amnesty International’s researcher on refugees’ and migrants’ rights in Europe, said : “Witnessing the charred remains of Moria camp is shocking but comes as little surprise. Holding thousands of vulnerable people on Lesbos in appalling conditions with no knowledge of their fate inevitably creates an incendiary atmosphere of fear and despondency. The government must ensure that no one is left sleeping rough tonight and everyone is adequately protected from possible violent attacks. The European Union and Greece cannot carry on stockpiling refugees indefinitely on the Greek islands. Instead EU leaders must share responsibility fairly and they must urgently start moving refugees to the mainland and onwards across Europe.” ~~~~~~ The Guardian reported in August that migration continues despite the construction of several fences along borders in eastern and central Europe. Since the March closure of a humanitarian corridor that funnelled asylum seekers from Greece to Germany and the erection of fences along parts of the Macedonian, Hungarian and Austrian borders, migrant flow has decreased but 24,790 people are estimated to have passed through Serbia, a key waypoint on two major migration routes across eastern Europe, according to Guardian analysis of daily records and estimates by the UN refugee agency. During the same period, 21,231 are recorded as having reached Austria, the last stop on the route to Germany. Many are now entering Europe through Bulgaria instead of taking boats from Turkey to the Greek islands, where new arrivals are now detained after landing. Those stranded in Greece since detentions began in March sometimes pay smugglers to take them to the Greek mainland and then reach Macedonia on foot, since Macedonia’s new fence does not line the whole border. "Right now it’s heaven for the smugglers," said a 26-year-old Syrian carpenter who set off from northern Greece this week. Gauri van Gulik, Amnesty International’s deputy Europe director, said: “Shutting a border like in Macedonia doesn’t mean closing a route for refugees and migrants; it just means more business for exploitative smugglers, more dangerous routes, and more suffering for people who need protection and care. Instead of laying more razor wire and erecting ever higher fences, Europe’s leaders should end their head-in-the-sand politics and provide meaningful, sustainable solutions." ~~~~~~ One solution often offered is to keep the migrants in the Middle East near their home countries. But, for the people who have remained in Aleppo to fight the al-Assad regime, it hasn't worked out well. Monday brought the horrific news that a UN aid convoy delivering food relief to a rebel-held area near Aleppo was targeted in an airstrike, as a week-old ceasefire brokered by Russia and the US collapsed with a new surge of Syrian government bombing. The US said it blamed Russia for the attack on the convoy, whether or not Russian planes were involved, saying Moscow was responsible under the ceasefire agreement for reining in Bashar al-Assad’s government forces.The convoy, made up of Syrian Red Crescent trucks carrying UN-supplied food, saw at least least 12 people killed and 18 trucks destoyed. The trucks carried food intended for tens of thousands of people cut off by the war in a rural area west of Aleppo. Aid officials said it was hit from the air while unloading food at a warehouse in opposition controlled Urem al-Kubra. Early reports suggested most of the dead were Syrian Red Crescent drivers. Stephen O’Brien, UN emergency relief coordinator, said that the convoy was clearly marked and its route had been provided to all parties to the conflict.The UN has suspended aid convoys in Syria after the airstrike on Monday. ~~~~~~ Dear readers, while the uncontrolled and unmanaged migrant crisis continues to cast its huge shadow over Chancellor Merkel and all EU leaders, a US House Intelligence Committee member says he has additional evidence that the Obama administration skirted US sanctions law when it sent $1.7 billion to Iran. The Washington Free Beacon reports that Representative Mike Pompeo said disclosures made to him by the Treasury Department in a letter, after he requested details of the money transfer, show that the first $400 million cash payment to Iran was wired to the Federal Reserve Bank of New York (FRBNY) and then moved to an account at the Swiss National Bank. FRBNY then "withdrew the funds from its account as Swiss franc banknotes and the US government physically transported them to Geneva" before overseeing the handover to an Iranian central bank official. Congress has been looking into the legality of the payments for months to determine if they were ransom for the release of Americans who were held in Iran, but Pompeo says the administration has not provided most of the information they seek. By withholding critical details and stonewalling congressional inquiries, President Obama seems to be hiding whether or not he and others broke US law by sending $1.7 billion in cash to Iran," Pompeo told the Free Beacon, whose headline called it 'Obama money laundering.' Pompeo agreed, saying : "Americans can plainly see that the Obama administration laundered this money in order to circumvent US law and appease the Islamic Republic of Iran." Deputy Secretary of State Antony Blinken explained to CNN that as part of the nuclear deal with Tehran last year, some sanctions were lifted that freed up previously frozen Iranian assets, such as money the US owed from an arms deal to the shah that did not go through. Administration officials added that cash was the most reliable way to ensure Teheran received the funds, as its banking system is still under sanctions. Critics of the transfer, such as the American Action Forum, say that Iran has used tens of millions of the $1.7 billion it received from the US to bolster its worldwide terrorism operations, including giving funds to organizations which have murdered American citizens. The non-profit group estimated, after detailed research into how the Iranian budget is spent and then taking the corresponding percentage of the funds given to Teheran by the US, that at least $37.4 million went into the hands of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, which is responsible for orchestrating terror attacks that have killed Americans. The research comes as many question the wisdom of the Obama administration's decision to hand Iran billions in cash and demand more information about the deal. Blinken insisted that the funds the US transferred are going to help the Iranian economy and are not being used for military purposes. But, Pompeo told The Washington Free Beacon : "For the Obama administration to argue that the IRGC was somehow not involved in the US transfer of $1.7 billion...to Iran is totally unconvincing. Given the IRGC's extensive control of the Iranian economy, and its vast influence with Iran's regime, it was most likely influential in the set-up and execution of the payment. Like other malicious actors, the IRGC is eager to get its hands on cash to fund its terrorist activities." Considering the monumental migrant mess in Europe and the increasing number of islamic jihadist attacks in the US, we must also ask how much of the Obama largesse to Iran is actually funding the US islamic terrorist attacks about which he tells Americans to have no fear because we are "winning the war" on terrorism. We would be winning this war a lot faster if Barack Obama would stop funding the enemy.