Greek islands stage general strike against migrant camps, saying 'we want our islands back'

Thousands of residents on Greek islands hosting large migrant camps on Wednesday kicked off a day of protests, demanding the immediate removal of asylum-seekers.

The islands of Lesbos, Samos and Chios staged a general strike, shutting down shops and public services and rallying in central squares, many protesters waving Greek flags.

"We want our islands back, we want our lives back," was the main slogan.

Asylum-seekers "should be shared out across Greece," 72-year-old Lesbos pensioner Efstratios Peppas told AFP.

"And Europe must assume its responsibilities. It too must take migrants," he said.

The largest camp of Moria on Lesbos island, with a capacity for 2,840 people, hosts more than 19,000 asylum seekers.

"You can't walk alone outside after dark, people get stabbed," Mr Peppas said.

The overcrowding is equally severe on other islands, and rights groups and medical charities have repeatedly criticised the living conditions at the camps.

The government announced plans in November to build larger camps on Lesbos, Chios, Samos, Kos and Leros, which currently host a total of nearly 42,000 migrants and refugees and where outbreaks of violence are frequent.

Two young asylum seekers have been fatally stabbed in brawls at the Moria camp this month. An 18-year-old Afghan girl was also seriously injured in a knife attack this week and remains in hospital.

Three asylum seekers in Greek custody have committed suicide in recent weeks.

"We demand the immediate shutdown of Moria," read a banner carried in the Lesbos demonstration.

But the new camp plans have been strongly opposed by local officials, who want smaller facilities after hosting thousands of asylum seekers for the past five years.

Greece last year again became the main entry into Europe for migrants and refugees, many fleeing war or poverty in sub-Saharan Africa, South Asia and Syria.

The UN refugee agency in 2019 recorded more than 59,000 arrivals by sea and more than 14,000 via the land border with Turkey.

Already more than 3,000 have arrived so far this year.

Only a fraction are allowed passage to the Greek mainland while the rest spend months in the camps, waiting for their asylum applications to be processed.

On Tuesday, 17 human rights organisations warned of a rising "climate of discrimination and xenophobia" towards asylum-seekers, who also faced "serious consequences to their well-being and public health".

SOURCE 





All the president’s sheriffs: How one law enforcement group became ardent Trump supporters

WASHINGTON — President Trump was in the early throes of the Ukraine scandal that would lead to his impeachment last year when he sought to counter the controversy by surrounding himself with loyal supporters who embody law and order: sheriffs from around the country.

Assembled for a photo outside the White House on a humid September afternoon, they greeted him with boisterous cheers, some hollering “We’ve got your back, Mr. President.”

Trump then delivered a barrage against Democrats, accusing them of wanting open borders, drugs, and crime. Applauding his words and handing him a plaque in appreciation of his commitment to public safety was one of his most avid backers — a Massachusetts sheriff who within weeks would be announced as honorary chairman of Trump’s reelection campaign in the state.

“I know when I speak for these sheriffs and America’s sheriffs across the country that you’ve done more in two years than the past administrations could accomplish in 20 years,” said Bristol County Sheriff Thomas Hodgson before the crowd broke out in chants of “U-S-A.”

No president in recent memory has elicited the enthusiasm of the nation’s sheriffs quite like Trump, who brought many of them into his 2016 presidential campaign and has made them central players in his hardline policies on immigration. Many of them in turn have stood unwaveringly behind the president, even as he has sparred with other uniformed officials, including federal law enforcement officers and military generals.

It’s been a mutually beneficial relationship. Trump has been able to cloak himself in the support of officials who represent his tough-on-crime image while the sheriffs — a group that is mostly white and often are politically powerful in their rural, conservative communities — have gained an ally in the White House.

“We had been marginalized by the previous administration,” Hodgson said in an interview. “He has given us our footing back.”’

Over the past three years, Trump has invited sheriffs to more than a dozen televised roundtables and meetings at the White House and visited their counties at least half a dozen more times for news conferences and other appearances with them. The meetings have provided sheriffs a platform to air their concerns on opioids abuse and the need for mental health resources in jails and other law enforcement topics.

Those events also have helped Trump and sheriffs on the far right of the ideological spectrum to drive the narrative on illegal immigration — an issue the president often turns to when facing political blowback. For their part, the sheriffs have been among his fiercest defenders and proselytizers, taking to the media to amplify his vitriolic anti-immigrant rants.

For Trump, the sheriffs’ provide a powerful symbolic appeal to his Republican base, political analysts said. The word “sheriff” evokes images of five-pointed gold star badges and tough-on-crime lawmen. But their support also is important because they are elected officials who directly influence policy in their counties. Through the local jails they administer, sheriffs can control what access federal immigration officers have to the information and citizenship status of hundreds of thousands of people booked into such facilities.

“Sheriffs have a lot of discretion and power, particularly in areas like immigration where the federal government has devolved a lot of authority to the local level,” said Mirya Holman, an associate professor of political science at Tulane University.

Sheriffs departments also extend the reach of federal immigration officials. US Immigration and Customs Enforcement “is a very small agency, and it has very little capacity to conduct its job, but hand in hand with the sheriffs, they can do much more,” said Guadalupe Correa-Cabrera, an associate professor at the Schar School of Policy and Government at George Mason University.

In Bristol County, which includes Taunton and New Bedford, Hodgson has unsuccessfully tried to send inmates from his jail to build the wall Trump is seeking along the Mexican border, and he regularly lambastes immigrants who have crossed into the country illegally.

“The people here illegally are not going to be our eyes and ears,” said Hodgson, who often corresponds with Trump’s immigration adviser, Stephen Miller. “We are not going to create a special class of people for people who didn’t want to respect the law.”

Relations between sheriffs and the White House weren’t always so cozy.

Reform efforts in recent years have given rise to a wave of progressive prosecutors and urban police chiefs across the country.

Yet, many sheriffs have been holdouts to change. They tend to represent more rural and conservative areas, where they are the only law enforcement authorities for miles. Out of more than 3,000 members of sheriffs nationwide, more than 93 percent were white and roughly 99 percent were men as of 2018, according to a study by Holman and Emily Farris, an associate professor of political science at Texas Christian University.

Launching his campaign in 2016, Trump, a leader in the birther movement against Obama, quickly captured the support of many sheriffs by touting himself as a “law and order” candidate, calling for a border wall and endorsing hardline immigration policies.

Arpaio, convicted of criminal contempt over “a tent city” for immigrants he brazenly described as “a concentration camp,” boasts he was with Trump from the beginning.

“We see eye to eye, and I stick with him every day no matter what happens, and that is the way it is,” he said in an interview, rejecting allegations he had racially profiled Latinos. In 2017, Trump pardoned Arpaio, whose facility was criticized as overcrowded and inhumane.

Soon after taking office, Trump sought to increase collaboration between sheriffs and federal immigration officials and waged legal battles against “sanctuary” laws enacted by states and cities to shield people from deportation. His administration moved to reverse Obama-era policies that attempted to limit the assets local law enforcement departments seize in criminal cases and the surplus gear they receive from the military — equipment that included weapons and armored vehicles but also goggles, life vests, and other items that sheriffs from smaller agencies said were crucial for responding to weather disasters and emergencies.

But mostly, sheriffs say, they feel like Trump hears them. “He has opened the door to law enforcement, to sheriffs, letting us speak to him whenever there are issues in our given areas,” said Marc Dannels, sheriff of Cochise County in Arizona, pointing to his own appointment to the Homeland Security Advisory Council in 2018.

For Trump, he’s eager to tout the support from the sheriffs. “I’m a big fan of the people alongside of me,” he said, after receiving the plaque from Hodgson at the White House in September. “I’m a big fan.”

SOURCE 





POLITICAL CORRECTNESS ROUNDUP FROM AUSTRALIA

Three current articles below

The grim reality of gender-neutral toilets: Women are forced to use filthy bathrooms soaked in urine and covered in pubic hair at one of Australia's busiest train stations

Comment from an experienced male social worker:

I have worked in several establishments when the toilets were being converted to unisex, or what now gets termed "gender neutral". In each case, it was feminist women who were pushing for unisex or gender neutral toilets.

None of the men wanted them. After the toilets were made unisex, most men would walk to the basement or the carpark to use the last remaining male toilet. Some men would drive home at lunchtime to use their own toilet.

Most men don't feel comfortable (what a woman would call safe) using toilets with women in them. Men feel vulnerable because we don't want to be accused of molesting a woman.

Also, we men like to stand to pee. And making toilets unisex means the urinals are removed and men are forced to pee in the toilet bowls, and then the same feminists who wanted the unisex toilets start demanding men should sit sown to pee so they don't pee on the seat or floor. They also reprimand any man who does not shut the cubicle door behind him when he pees.

One day, during a shift at the hospital where I worked, the only day that I went in the toilet after it was made unisex, I went in and a female nurse screamed at me to "Get out of here!".

I ran out in a hurry indeed, into the corridor to see people looking at me with horror. It was a most uncomfortable feeling that did not want to experience again.

But I did experience something similar again, recently at a different hospital where I am now stationed. When coming out of the unisex toilet a female nurse stopped me and sternly told me not to use that toilet again. The toilet door had both male and female silhouette signs on it, but I did not argue with the nurse.

As a man who has worked in many female dominated workplaces, I know better than to argue with a feminist without reliable witnesses present. In my observations, with few exceptions, they will accuse the men they conflict with of anger, threatening, intimidation, violence or sexual harassment.

So I simply ignored her and walked on. I have not used that toilet since, though. It did not shake me up as the first time did, but it was still unpleasant.

Good men do not want unisex or gender neutral toilets. And good women do not want them either. Only feminists want them. And feminists do not want them out of any sense of charity or helpfulness towards others, but only for the sense of power over men that public and workplace unisex toilets give to feminists.

Women in Sydney are being forced to use urine-soaked toilets after Wynyard train station introduced unisex cubicles.

Despite being cleaned every hour, the public toilets are often left in a filthy state by commuters, with toilet paper littering the floor. Pictures show the bathrooms covered in urine, toilet roll and even body hair after being used by thousands of commuters every day.

Not accessible unless the person taps their Opal card or train ticket, the two rows of toilets are through the ticket barriers on the concourse in Sydney's CBD.

And there is no choice but to use a single-sex cubicle, as all the toilets are unisex.

One commuter told Daily Mail Australia the toilets often 'stank'.  'They're not great, but how good are any train station toilets?' she said. 'Though they might be a bit cleaner if there were some just for women.' Another said it was 'a bit gross'.

Unisex toilets have become a hot topic of debate across Australia, as gender diversity activists campaign for them to become commonplace.

According to a survey carried out by Sydney officials for its Public Toilet Strategy report, 75 per cent of people - the majority women - preferred to have single-sex facilities.

Of those who preferred single sex toilets, 32 per cent said it was for privacy and 29 per cent stated hygiene. A further 19 per cent they felt safer in a single sex bathroom. 

Despite this, the 2014 policy said all public toilets 'where modification is not possible' should be replaced with compliant unisex automated public toilets. 

It comes after the University of Technology Sydney introduced 'all-gender' bathrooms. The university, based in Ultimo, introduced the gender diversity policy to 'make students feel safe and welcome on campus'. 

One of the students who campaigned for the new bathrooms said they had experienced harassment and intimidation in single sex toilets.  'What motivated me to be involved in this campaign is that I’m a non-binary student who has been harassed in bathrooms in the past, and I experience social dysphoria as well as other types,' the student told news.com.au. 'Gender neutral bathrooms are something that have helped with reducing my dysphoria and anxiety about being verbally abused in a bathroom setting.'

In 2018, a NSW council is replaced its unisex toilet signs because they were deemed offensive.

Hawkesbury City Council, in Sydney's north-west, changed four signs after meeting two campaign groups. The 'unisex' signs were replaced with ones saying they were toilets for 'all genders'. 

This is because not all people identify is either male or female, meaning that 'unisex' wouldn't apply to them, as they are not either gender.

SOURCE  


Inner-city council to spends $20,000 of ratepayers' money on one-hour 'mourning ceremony' on Australia Day

The Left love to racialize everything

Inner-city ratepayers will spend as much as $20,000 on an Australia Day 'mourning' ceremony to recognise how colonisation has negatively affected indigenous people.

The ceremony at Alfred Square in Melbourne's St Kilda will run for an hour from 6am on Sunday and will be held in collaboration with the Boonwurrung Land and Sea Council.

City of Port Phillip council will then at 11am hold a citizenship ceremony, which officials said is 'presented in harmony' with the mourning event.

The idea for the early morning reflection ceremony was promoted in October as a 'morning of mourning' by the council's mayor Dick Gross. 'There is no doubt that elements of Australia Day are controversial,' he said. 'The First Nations paid an undeniable price from European 'settlement'and we need to acknowledge this.'

The council will spend $20,000 on proceedings, and Australia Day Council funds have also been committed towards the event.

Funds from the Australia Day Council will be used for 'cultural delivery aspects', the Herald Sun reported.

Whittlesea Council, in Melbourne's north, will also hold a minute's silence and an official 'mourning ceremony' to pay respect to the Stolen Generations on Australia Day.

Guest speakers will be required to acknowledge 'past injustices in our nation's history'.

It comes after Darebin and Yarra councils in Melbourne were both stripped of their right to hold citizenship ceremonies in 2017 after announcing they were scrapping Australia Day celebrations.

A survey from The Institute of Public Affairs earlier this week revealed Australia Day celebrations on January 26 are wanted by more than 70 per cent of Australians.

SOURCE  


The left media’s different treatment of two very different prime ministers

It is a rare occasion when comments made by two former Australian prime ministers make news on the same day, especially when both are former Liberal Party leaders. The circumstance provides a case study on how the media reports politics.

On Thursday Imogen Crump, editor of the University of Melbourne’s Pursuit research news publication, was the guest commentator on influential ABC television program News Breakfast. She led the discussion on what was making news in newspapers and online. Co-presenters were Madeleine Morris and Paul Kennedy.

It was a busy media morning. News had recently broken about Malcolm Turnbull’s interview on BBC Two’s Newsnight on Tuesday (London time). And The Australian was running an opinion piece by Tony Abbott titled “Lives Matter, Not Political Points”.

Turnbull used the occasion to criticise his successor, Scott Morrison, along with Abbott and US President Donald Trump. Turnbull accused Morrison of downplaying the influence of global warming on bushfires which he declared “is just nonsense from a scientific point of view”. Turnbull also took a swipe at Morrison’s leadership abilities.

Neither Crump nor the co-presenters made any criticism of Turnbull’s intervention in the public debate, although Crump did concede that “harsh words” were spoken. However, Morris did declare that Turnbull’s (alleged) comment, as reported by Crump, that Morrison “is probably the most prominent climate denier in Australian politics” was “quite a big call”. It certainly was. In fact, Turnbull’s put-down was directed at Abbott.

Then Crump moved her attention to Abbott’s article stating that, despite the headline, the former prime minister “does go on to make political points”. In fact, Abbott did not refer to the term “political points” in his article and the heading was not written by him. The piece was essentially a report from the bushfire front, narrating the author’s experiences as a volunteer in the Davidson Rural Fire Brigade in NSW.

According to Crump, Abbott made a political point when discussing his role as a volunteer firefighter. She also declared that it was a political point to state that Australia was meeting its Paris Agreement emission targets.

The same comment was made about Abbott’s decision to quote from a recent speech by Andy Pitman, director of the ARC Centre of Excellence for Climate Extremes at the University of NSW, to the effect that there was no link between climate change and drought.

Crump described Abbott’s straightforward statements as “quite extreme language from a former prime minister” — a significant exaggeration.

Kennedy and Morris concurred that Abbott had made political points. Yet no such criticism was made of Turnbull’s at times explosive BBC interview.

In fact, Turnbull has changed his position on the causal link between climate change and bushfires. At a media conference in Bega on March 19, 2018, the then prime minister said it was wrong “to attribute any particular event, whether it’s a flood or fire or drought or a storm, to climate change”. This statement was made in the aftermath of devastating bushfires that had destroyed parts of the seaside town of Tathra on the NSW south coast. Now Turnbull is accusing Morrison of downplaying the influence of climate change on bushfires.

It came as no surprise that the likes of Crump, Morris and Kennedy seemed to welcome Turnbull’s contribution to the climate debate. That’s invariably going to happen when two ABC presenters interview the editor of a university publication about climate, bushfires and all that.

The ABC is a conservative-free zone, without a conservative presenter, producer or editor for any of its prominent TV, radio or online outlets. And universities are no longer (if they ever were) the repository of open discussion with respect to many contemporary matters. Public broadcasters and tertiary institutions are bastions of left-of-centre thought, and when their personnel get together they tend to agree with one another.

Lara Logan, a former US CBS 60 Minutes correspondent, put it well when talking to Fox News Media Buzz presenter Howard Kurtz on Sunday (New York time). She grew up in a left-liberal (in the American sense of the term) environment “believing that we were all right … we all agreed with each other”.

According to Logan, many journalists are “not aware of our own bias because I never worked in a newsroom where people were not liberal and where people were not Democratic (Party supporters).” She agreed with Kurtz that a certain groupthink was at work and added: “Most journalists are liberal. That doesn’t mean you’re not capable of being objective, it just means you might not be aware of the extent of your own bias.”

Logan’s comments came after MSNBC presenter Lawrence O’Donnell declared recently that he did not interview Trump supporters because anyone who supported the President was a liar and “we don’t bring on liars”. Lawrence is a former Democratic Party staff member.

In view of the fact Australia produces 1.3 percent of global carbon emissions and cannot do anything to reduce global warming on its own, it should be possible to have a considered discussion about how best to mitigate bushfire risk. But this is not the case. Just as it was not possible for News Breakfast to objectively assess the recent comments of both Turnbull and Abbott.

It was much the same on Thursday when Nine Entertainment newspapers’ Latika Bourke reported from London that “Australian mining magnate Andrew Forrest has repeated his unsubstantiated claim that the bushfires are primarily caused by fuel loads and arson”. What’s wrong with the sentence is the insertion of the word unsubstantiated. This is journalistic opinion.

Forrest told CNN’s Christiane Amanpour he had a PhD in marine ecology. He said carbon was “partially responsible for the slowly warming planet which has an impact on fires”. But he believes more scientific research needs to be done on the issue. This is a reasonable proposition by a successful business figure who understands the importance of mining and the tragedy of bushfires. But Bourke felt incapable of reporting his position without stating her view that Forrest’s position was “unsubstantiated”. Just as Crump and her presenters felt the need to distance themselves from Abbott.

SOURCE  

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Political correctness is most pervasive in universities and colleges but I rarely report the  incidents concerned here as I have a separate blog for educational matters.

American "liberals" often deny being Leftists and say that they are very different from the Communist rulers of  other countries.  The only real difference, however, is how much power they have.  In America, their power is limited by democracy.  To see what they WOULD be like with more power, look at where they ARE already  very powerful: in America's educational system -- particularly in the universities and colleges.  They show there the same respect for free-speech and political diversity that Stalin did:  None.  So look to the colleges to see  what the whole country would be like if "liberals" had their way.  It would be a dictatorship.

For more postings from me, see TONGUE-TIED, GREENIE WATCH,   EDUCATION WATCH INTERNATIONAL, AUSTRALIAN POLITICS and  DISSECTING LEFTISM.   My Home Pages are here or   here or   here.  Email me (John Ray) here.  Email me (John Ray) here. 

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