A courageous cleric who never shied away from speaking - and practising - his truth, for which he was twice excommunicated, died last Tuesday.  Catholic traditionalism has lost Bishop Richard Williamson, thirteen years after its leading voice, Society of St Pius X, became lost to him.  He fought on regardless, often straying into the bad-lands of right-wing politics, often though he must have known in advance what the consequences would be.  His last Eleison Comments column, dated 14th December, was on the subject of Russia and the “rotten” west.  But there will be no more columns.  A communique to the recipients of his list states:

He had suffered a cerebral haemorrhage during the evening of Friday 24th January when he was taken to hospital. He spent his final days in a peaceful though declining state, surrounded by clergy and faithful continuously praying at his bedside for the intercession of the Blessed Mother to whom he had been so devoted throughout his life and whom he credited for leading him to the Holy Catholic faith in his twenties.

Another old and wise hand who understands the global contest in which the war in Ukraine is a key element.  As he says, “The question is: will the world in the 21st century be based upon force and tyranny, or not?

Andrei Illarionov, who worked as a senior policy adviser to Vladimir Putin at the start of his term, supplies his insights into the Russian dictator and the global strategy he is advancing.
Interviewer Dr Jason Jay Smart of Kyiv Post.

The American diplomat and academic Mitchell Reiss airs his views of Donald Trump’s forthcoming conversational intervention in Ukraine, indicating that Trump has a degree of realism that will disappoint the bravado-filled pro-Putin right.  Interview by Times Radio.

Kemi Badenoch, a person of Nigerian descent raised in Nigeria and the United States, has been elected to succeed Rishi Sunak, a person of Indian descent, as leader of the Conservative Party, a globalist political party in Britain.  She was elected by the Conservative Association membership, which numbers 130,750 lucky, lucky people.  They preferred her to Robert Jenrick, a lawyer previously dubbed Robert Generic but for the purposes of the leadership election a go-get-em anti-immigration candidate.  The Nigerian person received 53,806 votes to 41,388 for Border Guard Man. Turnout was only 72.8 per cent.

The joyful news was received by the commentariat at the Daily Mail with, it must be said, a degree of scepticism.  At 6.00pm this evening the thread to the main article was topped by the following contribution:

Apparently, Telegraph readers are also sceptical.  The “Most Liked” tab on Nigel Farage’s reaction to the news produced this less than enthusiastic endorsement for our new heroine of the right:

As befits the Torygraph, a slew of slavish Badenoch articles appeared on-line.  The thread to the leader piece was, however, less than encouraging for loyalist journos:

The Daily Express helpfully ran a poll for online readers, asking “Do you think Kemi Badenoch is the right person to lead the Tory Party?”

“Yes - 39%
No - 54%
Don’t know - 7%

And so on.  Badenoch parliamentary career began at the 2017 General Election.  Just two years later she was being tipped as a possible contender for the 2019 Conservative Party leadership election.  She did not run that time round, supporting Michael Gove instead.  She secured a cabinet post by 2021, and the following year entered the leadership contest following the resignation of Boris Johnson.  She made it to the fourth round of voting.  Now she has gone all the way.  Inevitably, she is a WEF attendee.

ATP Geopolitics explains:

So far, four large-scale ammunition storage sites have been hit in under two weeks. The first attack was on the morning of September 7.  The depot is in Soldatsky, Voronezh region, only about seventy-five miles from the Ukrainian border.  It is where North Korean-made KN-23 missiles were held.

Next, on the night of September 18 the SBU security service, GUR defence intelligence, and Special Operations Forces hit Military Unit 11777, the headquarters of the Main Missile and Artillery Directorate of the Russian Defence Ministry in Toropets, Tver region.  As many as 100 drones may have been used.  The depot is vast, and said to have held missiles for Iskander operational-tactical missile systems, Tochka-U tactical missile systems, as well as KAB aerial guided bombs, and artillery rounds.

On the night of September 21, the Defence Forces of Ukraine struck the Russian arsenal of Tikhoretsk, in the Krasnodar region.  This facility is one of the three largest ammunition storage hubs in Russia and one of the key ones in the logistics system of the Russian forces fighting in Ukraine.  According to reports the arsenal had received at least 2,000 tons of ammunition, including from North Korea. The Podliot radar station, which detected air targets in the direction of the arsenal, was also attacked.

The same night the 23rd Arsenal of the Main Artillery Department of the Ministry of Defence, again in the Tver region.  This was another warehouse where the Iskander and Tochka-U ballistic missiles were located. It is about 15 km from Toropets.

All four were major hits.  There are claims from the front in Donetsk that Russian Army logistics have already been affected, and the rate of artillery fire is reducing.  Can the pressure be sustained by the Ukrainians (for example, if the Russians now have to move to a multiplicity of smaller but less secure storage sites)?  What would be the potential effect on the Russians ability to continue their current offensive war?

Just as the US media finally had to come clean about the capacity of Joe Biden to lead the country, the UK media went into full dirty tricks mode, salivating over the “racism” of Reform candidates and party workers.  According to Nigel Farage this included sending in an actor to tell a Channel 4 crew that Rishi Sunak is “a fucking paki”.

We have been here before.  During the 2015 general election campaign a UKIP candidate named Richard Blay, allegedly a ‘former’ Tory called Richard Blay confided in a complete stranger that he held violent racist views.  The complete stranger turned out to be an undercover reporter who was able to catch it all on camera.

This time round Farage used a BBC Question Time appearance to defend his corner:

Nigel Farage has repeated claims that a canvasser caught on camera branding Rishi Sunak a ‘f****** p***’ is actually an actor playing his part in ‘a total and utter set-up’, during a fiery appearance on Question Time.

The Reform UK leader’s much-anticipated appearance on the BBC Leaders’ Special at the Midlands Arts Centre in Birmingham came just hours after the Prime Minister lashed out at him over the slur.
At the centre of the furore is Reform activist Andrew Parker, who made the remark about Mr Sunak during a secret recording made by Channel 4 News in Essex.

He also suggested that migrants should be shot by soldiers as they arrive on UK beaches and called for Muslims to be ejected from mosques so they can be turned into Wetherspoons pubs.

Unfortunately, other Reform folk who are not actors have also been caught out wrong-thinking out loud.  This time Farage folded:

Elsewhere, Mr Farage was faced with laughter from the BBC Question Time audience when he said he has ‘no idea’ why candidates who have made racist comments are still standing for Reform.

He was read racist or xenophobic comments made by Reform candidates, including Leslie Lilley, candidate for Southend East & Rochford, who reportedly said he would ‘slaughter’ migrants and ‘have their families taken out’ in a Facebook post about small boat crossings.

Edward Oakenfull, candidate for Derbyshire Dales, who tweeted derogatory comments about the IQ of ethnic minorities, and Robert Lomas, candidate for Barnsley North, who claimed ‘black people of Britain’ were ‘grifting the race card’, were also referenced.

Mr Farage said: ‘In most cases, they’ve been disowned. People like (Leslie) Lilley, honestly, what he said is criminal.’

When asked: ‘So why is he your candidate?’ Mr Farage said: ‘I have no idea’, prompting laughter from the audience.

He said: ‘I inherited this. It was a start-up party. I paid a professional London vetting company to weed this out. The work wasn’t done.’

Asked if he would withdraw support from the three referenced candidates, Mr Farage said: ‘I wouldn’t want anything to do with them’.

So another opportunity to take the initiative goes begging.  Were I Farage’s advisor I would have urged him to go on the attack.  The answer I would have written for him is:

“An awful lot of proud and loyal Englishmen are absolutely furious that they have never been asked if they want what the Establishment euphemistically terms diversity. They do not accept the Establishment’s dictate. They will never accept it. They want the question of the English people’s future to be front, left, and centre of public debate. They see the sneers and smears from Establishment politicians and journalists as just a means to avoid that and impose silence on the lot of us. They’ve had a belly full, and sometimes it shows. Sometimes they don’t express themselves with the authorised political niceties. Well, not everyone writes for the Guardian. Perhaps politicians and journalists should show some humility before the English people, stop hiding behind confected moral outrage, and have the courage to engage honestly.  And if that means some very frank blow-back for the last twenty-five years of one-way political traffic, so be it.”

Perhaps he might have added to that a couple of new policy announcements to the effect that a Reform government would repeal all anti-free speech laws and get the debate started.

Sleepy Joe, meanwhile is down on both knees, and won’t be getting up.  He cannot be allowed to run in November.  The immediate problem is that if he stays in office until November or even the January hand-over it means admitting that the world’s most powerful nation is in the hands of a mental incompetent.  If he goes it means four months of care-taker president Kamala Harris followed, one would suppose, by the campaign for her re-election.  Democrats might prefer almost anybody else, and there is some Republican precedent for them here.  The politically dead and buried Richard Nixon was kept in place until Spiro T Agnew could be relieved of his vice-presidential role on 10th October 1973.  Might it, time-permitting, be vice president Newsom, followed by Biden’s rapid retirement and Trump vs President Newsom in November?

Alexey, a 47-year-old Russian and a teacher by profession, shares his perspective on Putin’s war in Ukraine.  Among other things, he explains why he believes Ukraine should not cede territory, and questions whether the West is really the great enemy to Russia:

“We have China right next door and it’s many times scarier.

... China’s policy is that the whole world, that is, the globe, is China.  And all those who think otherwise simply do not understand the magnitude of the imperial scheme of the Chinese and their emperor”

Video from HEADSHOT, who specialise in bringing the vox populi of that vast country to the internet.