Reader’s Links for March 6th, 2023

Here is a link to the VladTepesBlog social media Mastodon Pod. Please feel free to check it out and sign up for an account if you are sufficiently annoyed with Twitter and Facebook to try something new.

Each day at just after midnight Eastern, a post like this one is created for contributors and readers of this site to upload news links and video links on the issues that concern this site. Most notably, Islam and its effects on Classical Civilization, and various forms of leftism from Soviet era communism, to postmodernism and all the flavours of galloping statism and totalitarianism such as Nazism and Fascism which are increasingly snuffing out the classical liberalism which created our near, miraculous civilization the West has been building since the time of Socrates.

This document was written around the time this site was created, for those who wish to understand what this site is about. And while our understanding of the world and events has grown since then, the basic ideas remain sound and true to the purpose.

So please post all links, thoughts and ideas that you feel will benefit the readers of this site to the comments under this post each day. And thank you all for your contributions.

This is the new Samizdat. We must use it while we can.

About Eeyore

Canadian artist and counter-jihad and freedom of speech activist as well as devout Schrödinger's catholic

24 Replies to “Reader’s Links for March 6th, 2023”

  1. BIG NEWS: 3 More Secretaries of State Approach Omega4 America Founder to Replace ERIC System – New Voter Roll Policing Can Catch Criminals as They Make Massive Changes to Voter Rolls
    By Jim Hoft Mar. 6, 2023 8:00 am27 Comments

    Last week, Jay Valentine, the Director of the Fractal Technology Software Team at Omega4America, released an Open Letter to Shane Hamlin, the Executive Director at ERIC, the outdated and inefficient voter roll maintenance program founded by far-left activist David Becker.

    The ERIC system is now used in 32 states despite the fact that voter rolls in those states are more bloated with phantom voters than ever in US history.

    The Gateway Pundit has reported on the ERIC Systems in a series of articles and follow-up reports for over a year now.

    ** ERIC Part 1: Who’s “Cleaning” Our Voter Rolls? ERIC Now in 31 States
    ** ERIC Part 2: Largest U.S. Counties Removed ZERO to TWO Ineligible Voters
    ** ERIC Part 3: The Founding of the Nation’s Largest Voter Roll Clean-up Operation
    ** ERIC Part 4: A Response to the Panicked Media Attacks

    https://www.thegatewaypundit.com/2023/03/big-news-3-more-secretaries-of-state-approach-omega4-america-founder-to-replace-eric-system-new-voter-roll-policing-can-catch-criminals-as-they-make-massive-changes-to-voter-rolls/

  2. The Results of CPAC Vice President Poll Announced – Surprise Winner?
    By Joe Hoft Mar. 6, 2023 8:15 am54 Comments
    CPAC not only held a poll for GOP Presidential candidates, but there also was a poll for VP candidates. The results may surprise some.

    Resist the Mainstream reports:

    Over the weekend, former Arizona GOP gubernatorial candidate Kari Lake came out on top in a straw poll for the Republican vice presidential pick during the Conservative Action Political Conference.

    The poll results showed that Lake topped the field of 28 candidates with 20 percent of the vote, beating former United Nations ambassador Nikki Haley as well as Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis. DeSantis received 14 percent of the vote, and Haley, who announced her bid for the White House last month, won 10 percent.

    Lake was a featured speaker at CPAC’s Ronald Reagan Dinner over the weekend and has continued to fight her loss in the governor’s race last November, challenging the election results in court.

    https://www.thegatewaypundit.com/2023/03/the-results-of-cpac-vice-president-poll-announced-surprise-winner/
    https://www.thegatewaypundit.com/2023/03/the-results-of-cpac-vice-president-poll-announced-surprise-winner/

  3. On Sunday night, The Gateway Pundit reported that the site of the future cop training center in Atlanta was put under lockdown after a massive fire destroyed the construction site.

    Antifa militants were clashing with the police officers.

    This was the end result of Antifa’s efforts.On Sunday night, The Gateway Pundit reported that the site of the future cop training center in Atlanta was put under lockdown after a massive fire destroyed the construction site.

    Antifa militants were clashing with the police officers.

    This was the end result of Antifa’s efforts.

    Protests have been ongoing since June 2021 when the training center was announced with far-left opponents camping out in surrounding trees. TGP previously reported in December 2022 that five Antifa members were arrested and held on terrorism charges after protesting outside the training center.

    In January, TGP reported that a leftist protestor from Stop Cop City ATL was killed and a Georgia State Patrol trooper was injured during a confrontation near the facility.

    The newly-released police footage shows how last night’s terror attack unfolded. Antifa extremists tossed fireworks, Molotov cocktails, rocks, and bricks at the police officers and the construction equipment.

    WATCH:

    https://www.thegatewaypundit.com/2023/03/update-atlanta-police-release-footage-of-antifa-terror-attack-on-future-cop-training-center-in-atlanta-cops-say-35-militants-detained-so-far-video/

  4. New Report Ties Biden Regime Funding to the International Fund for Public Interest Media to Censor and Silence Alternative Media
    By Jim Hoft Mar. 6, 2023 7:30 am36 Comments

    A detailed online report found that the Biden Administration was working through Samantha Power, the administrator of the United States Agency for International Development, to censor alternative media by utilizing the International Fund for Public Interest Media (IFPIM) through the administration’s Presidential Initiative for Democratic Renewal.

    The “founding partners” of the IFPIM include Luminate, BBC Media Action Craig Newmark Philanthropies, and the MacArthur Foundation.

    On September 12, 2021, the Biden Administration announced “up to $30 million” in funding to the International Fund for Public Interest Media (IFPIM) in his opening remarks at the virtual Summit for Democracy conference that was hosted by the US government.

    Twitter user Bad Kitty Unleashed posted the incriminating documents in a thread on the social media platform that tie the Biden administration, USAID and US tax dollars to the IFPIM.

    https://www.thegatewaypundit.com/2023/03/new-report-ties-biden-regime-funding-to-ifpim-to-censor-and-silence-alternative-media/

  5. BBC – GBNews host Mark Steyn’s Covid vaccine claims broke Ofcom rules

    GB News broke broadcasting rules when former presenter Mark Steyn made “potentially harmful and materially misleading” claims about Covid-19 vaccines, regulator Ofcom has said.

    Last April, Steyn said there was “only one conclusion” from official data about the third jab – that it led to a “significantly greater risk to infection, hospitalisation and death”.

    In its ruling, Ofcom said that was incorrect and “may have resulted in viewers making important decisions about their own health”.

    GB News said it was “disappointed” by the findings.

    In his show, Steyn referred to data from the UK Health Security Agency (UKHSA) to compare people who had the booster with those who had only received the first two vaccinations.

    “His interpretation that there was ‘only one conclusion’ from this comparison… was misleading because it did not take account of key factors such as the significant differences in age or health of the people in these two groups,” Ofcom said.

    “The programme also failed to reflect that the UKHSA reports made clear that the raw data should not be used to draw conclusions about vaccine efficacy, due to the biases inherent in the vaccinated and unvaccinated populations.”

    Ofcom said the group who had been boosted “included far larger numbers of older people”, and Steyn failed to take into account “the fact that older people are more likely to die or be hospitalised than younger people”.

    ‘No genuine challenge’

    The regulator said it took into account the “definitive” way the Canadian broadcaster and author presented his conclusion, and the “absence of adequate counterweight or genuine challenge”.

    Ofcom said broadcasters are “free to transmit programmes which may be considered controversial and challenging, or which question statistics or other evidence produced by governments or other official sources”.

    “It can clearly be in the public interest to do so,” it added. “However, with this editorial freedom comes an obligation to ensure that, when portraying factual matters, audiences are not materially misled.”

    In response, GB News said its role was “to ask tough questions, point out inconsistencies in government policy, and hold public bodies to account when the facts justify it”.

    “Mark Steyn’s programme did exactly that,” its statement added. “We support his right to challenge the status quo by examining the small but evident risks of the third Covid booster.

    “As news stories in the last week have highlighted, it was prescient to question whether the government was candid with all the facts. It is an important story in the public interest.”

    Steyn “drew a reasonable conclusion from the facts”, but “drew only one conclusion”, GB News continued.

    ‘Several valid interpretations’

    “We accept that the data offered several valid interpretations, and he should have made this clear. Had he done so, the story would have remained within the wide freedoms that Ofcom’s Broadcast Code allows.”

    The overwhelming weight of evidence, from a number of different independent teams of researchers, has found that Covid vaccines’ benefits far outweigh any known harms.

    Steyn left GB News three months ago amid a dispute over contract terms he claimed could have made him personally liable for Ofcom fines.

    Ofcom said it was not imposing a fine or other sanction.

    Steyn’s programme is also the subject of a second Ofcom investigation into comments made by a guest, author and journalist Naomi Wolf, about the vaccine on 4 October.

    A Twitter account run by his team posted a picture of the Ofcom office with the caption “The Ministry of Truth Rules”, linking to a statement headlined “Steyn found guilty!”, which also said: “Mark intends to appeal this and get it before a real court.”

    https://www.bbc.com/news/entertainment-arts-64862979

    ==========================
    Mark Steyn: Ofcom has killed real journalism

  6. zero hedge – Watch: Vast Expanse Of US Military Hardware Positioned At Polish Port

    A Baltic monitoring media outlet has published footage of an enormous amount of American military equipment being prepared to move from the Port of Gdynia in Poland.

    The expanse of military hardware is being described as equipment belonging to the US Army’s 3rd Armored Brigade Combat Team, 1st Cavalry Division. Some Eastern European media reports are claiming that at least a portion of the equipment, which looks multiple football fields in length, are bound for Kiev.
    ================================
    https://twitter.com/balt_security/status/1631977563240144898

    ===============================

    Hundreds of heavy military vehicles can be seen in the footage, including armored personnel carriers, tanks and armored trucks.

    Despite claims that the equipment is bound for Ukraine, a source which widely circulated the footage, “Baltic Security”, wrote that it’s at the Polish port “in preparation for redeployment to the continental United States after serving in the Operation Atlantic Resolve.”

    Russia’s Sputnik noted that “Some Polish and Ukrainian media outlets, however, did not think twice about claiming that part of the military hardware seen in the video would be redeployed to Ukraine, where Russia continues its special military operation.”

    But it remains that “Neither the White House not the Pentagon have commented on the matter yet.”

    “The footage comes as the US had already committed more than $100 billion worth of security and military assistance to Kiev since the beginning of the Russian special operation,” the state publication continued. Given how desperate that Ukrainian front lines, particularly in Bakhmut, are right now for more ammo and equipment – it would be surprising if these rows upon rows of hardware aren’t in the end headed for Ukraine.

    https://www.zerohedge.com/geopolitical/watch-vast-expanse-us-military-hardware-positioned-polish-port


    • reuters – Exclusive: Ukraine seeks US cluster bombs to adapt for drone use, lawmakers say

      Ukraine has broadened a request for controversial cluster bombs from the United States to include a weapon that it wants to cannibalize to drop the anti-armor bomblets it contains on Russian forces from drones, according to two U.S. lawmakers.

      Kyiv has urged members of Congress to press the White House to approve sending the weapons but it is by no means certain that the Biden administration will sign off on that. Cluster munitions, banned by more than 120 countries, normally release large numbers of smaller bomblets that can kill indiscriminately over a wide area, threatening civilians.

      Ukraine is seeking the MK-20, an air-delivered cluster bomb, to release its individual explosives from drones, said U.S. Representatives Jason Crow and Adam Smith, who both serve on the House of Representatives Armed Services Committee. That is in addition to 155 mm artillery cluster shells that Ukraine already has requested, they said.

      They said Ukrainian officials urged U.S. lawmakers at last month’s Munich Security Conference to press for White House approval.

      Ukraine hopes cluster munitions will give it an edge in the grinding fight against Russian forces in eastern Ukraine.

      The Ukrainian government has said publicly that it wants U.S. cluster munitions. The petition for MK-20s – also known as CBU-100s – has not been reported previously.

      The Ukrainian Embassy referred Reuters to the defense ministry in Kyiv, which did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

      A National Security Council spokesperson said that while Ukraine and the White House “closely coordinate” on military aid, she had no “new capabilities to announce.”

      FIGHTING THE “HUMAN WAVE”

      Ukraine wants the artillery rounds – the Dual-Purpose Conventional Improved Munitions (DPICM) – to halt the kinds of “human wave” attacks that Russia has mounted in its months-long drive to overrun the ruined eastern city of Bakhmut, the lawmakers said.

      Each shell disperses 88 submunitions.

      The MK-20 is delivered by aircraft. It opens in mid-flight, releasing more than 240 dart-like submunitions, or bomblets.

      The Ukrainian military believes these submunitions “have better armor-piercing capability” than the weapons it has been dropping from drones, said Smith, the top Democrat on the Armed Services Committee.

      Ukraine, battling an enemy with more manpower and weaponry, has used drones extensively for surveillance and for dropping explosives on Russian forces.

      Crow, a Democrat and U.S. Army veteran, said he might support giving the MK-20 with assurances that Ukrainians would remove the bomblets and “use them in a non-cluster employment.”

      Textron Systems Corporation stopped producing MK-20s in 2016 after the United States halted sales to Saudi Arabia but a congressional aide said there are more than 1 million of them in U.S. military stockpiles.

      Republican Senator Lindsey Graham, who also participated in last month’s conference, confirmed that Ukrainian officials in Munich urged U.S. lawmakers to press the White House to provide Kyiv with cluster munitions. He said he would do so this week.

      The congressional aide, speaking on condition of anonymity, said Ukrainian officials also privately have been lobbying lawmakers in Washington to press for White House approval.

      “That’s not going to happen,” Smith said, referring to Biden administration signoff.

      CONTROVERSIAL WEAPONS

      Since the start of the conflict Ukraine has asked for – and largely received – weapons that the U.S. initially refused, including HIMARS missile launchers, Patriot air defense batteries and Abrams tanks. But cluster munitions could be a step too far for the administration and some in Congress.

      Opponents argue that when bomblets scatter they can maim and kill civilians and have high failure rates, with duds posing a danger for years after a conflict ends.

      A 2008 pact prohibiting the production, use and stockpiling of cluster munitions has been adopted by 123 countries, including most of NATO’s 28 members. The United States, Russia and Ukraine have declined to join.

      Giving the Ukrainians “a banned weapon would undermine their moral authority in a way that (Russian President Vladimir) Putin would exploit,” said Tom Malinowski, a former congressman who served as the top State Department human rights official.

      But there is some support in Congress. The congressional aide said most Republicans “are fairly amenable” to Ukraine’s requests.

      “This is a war where (the Ukrainians) are outmanned,” Graham told Reuters. “And cluster munitions really are pretty lethal to mass formations as well as armor. In the areas where they are going to use this stuff there are no civilians.”

      A 2009 law bans exports of U.S. cluster munitions with bomblet failure rates higher than 1 percent, which covers virtually all of the U.S. military stockpile. U.S. President Joe Biden can waive the prohibition.

      Ukrainian and Russian forces both have used such weapons since Russia first seized Ukrainian territory in 2014, according to news reports and human rights groups.

      The U.S. Army is spending more than $6 million a year to decommission 155 mm cluster artillery shells and other older munitions, according to budget documents

      Providing DCIPMs would ease shortages of other kinds of 155 mm shells that Washington has been shipping to Kyiv in massive quantities, the congressional aide said.

      Crow said he opposed providing the DCIPMs to Ukraine because of the high failure rate of the bomblets, which would worsen Ukraine’s already massive unexploded ordnance problem.

      The State Department says that some 174,000 square-kilometers of territory – nearly one-third of Ukraine – are contaminated by landmines or other “explosive remnants of war.”

      https://www.reuters.com/world/europe/ukraine-seeks-us-cluster-bombs-adapt-drone-use-lawmakers-2023-03-06/

    • patrick lancaster – Donetsk Streets Continue To Be Mined By Ukraine

      Ukraine has continued to fire rockets over Donetsk that break up mid air and drop mines over residential areas.
      Civilians have been injured by these over and over again.


  7. WHITE HOUSE – FEBRUARY 15 2023 – FACT SHEET:

    Biden-Harris Administration Announces New Standards and Major Progress for a Made-in-America National Network of Electric Vehicle Chargers

    Today, the Biden-Harris Administration announced its latest set of actions aimed at creating a convenient, reliable and Made-in-America electric vehicle (EV) charging network so that the great American road trip can be electrified.

    These steps will help the United States meet President Biden’s ambitious goals to confront the climate crisis, by building a national network of 500,000 electric vehicle chargers along America’s highways and in our communities and have EVs make up at least 50% of new car sales by 2030

    […]The result is that the future of American transportation is on track to be cleaner, safer, more affordable, and more reliable than ever before.

    MORE :

    https://www.whitehouse.gov/briefing-room/statements-releases/2023/02/15/fact-sheet-biden-harris-administration-announces-new-standards-and-major-progress-for-a-made-in-america-national-network-of-electric-vehicle-chargers/

  8. South Africa Faces Collapse – Warnings of “Civil War” Conditions Amid Possibility of Total Power Grid Failure
    By Jim Hoft Mar. 6, 2023 10:13 am

    This could get really ugly – really quick.

    South Africa is facing collapse and state officials are warning of “civil war” like conditions and the possibility of the complete collapse of the power grid.

    Kenya suffered a nationwide blackout last week.

    AU.com reported:

    South Africa is on the verge of “collapse” amid rolling blackouts and warnings a total power grid failure could lead to mass rioting on the scale of a “civil war”.

    Western embassies including the United States and Australia have advised their citizens in the country to stock up on “several days worth” of food and water and be on high alert during extended blackouts sweeping the country.

    South Africa’s President Cyril Ramaphosa declared a national “state of disaster” on February 9 in response to the record electricity shortage, which has seen state-owned power company Eskom institute rolling blackouts – dubbed “load shedding” – lasting up to 12 hours in some cases.

    “Rolling blackouts (load shedding) are occurring throughout South Africa which are affecting private residences, businesses, municipal lighting, traffic lights and hotels,” Australia’s Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade said earlier this month.

    https://www.thegatewaypundit.com/2023/03/south-africa-faces-collapse-warnings-of-civil-war-conditions-amid-possibility-of-total-power-grid-failure/

  9. First Canadian politician to apologize for vaccine mandates.

    “Town Councillor Apologizes for Mandates”

    https://youtu.be/iBSppvX6MwM

    https://twitter.com/DonaldBestCA/status/1632250443954003970

    Town of West Nipissing, Ontario, Canada rescinds the COVID vaccine mandates.

    Councillor Anne Tessier publicly apologizes for the “punitive policy” and acknowledges that the town knew beforehand that the vax “doesn’t stop the spread of the virus.”

    It’s almost as if government had signed some sort of a non-disclosure contract.

    https://twitter.com/DonaldBestCA/status/1632257268266995712

    Igor’s Newsletter covered the West Nipissing, Ontario, Canada – Council apology for the vax mandates…

    See the Igor’s article linked in the tweet

  10. Prominent DC Lawyer Who Served in Clinton Administration Killed After Business Jet Hit Severe Turbulence
    By Cristina Laila Mar. 6, 2023 7:00 pm334 Comments
    TruthGettrGab

    A prominent DC lawyer who served in the Clinton and Obama Administrations was killed when a private jet she was aboard hit bad turbulence while flying over New England.

    The business jet carrying five passengers made an emergency landing at Bradley International Airport in Connecticut on Friday after encountering heavy turbulence.

    Dana Hyde, 55, was rushed by ambulance to a hospital in Hartford, Connecticut on Friday where she was pronounced dead.

    Hyde also served as a lawyer on the 9/11 commission

    https://www.thegatewaypundit.com/2023/03/prominent-dc-lawyer-who-served-in-clinton-administration-killed-on-plane/

    (Richard: No comment)