June 12—The political screws are tightening on Israel’s Prime Minister Benjamin “Bibi” Netanyahu and his genocidal war in Gaza against the Palestinian people and his crusade against a fully-sovereign Palestinian state.With the acceptance by the Hamas leadership of the terms of a three-phase ceasefire/hostage release proposal submitted by the United States and passed 14-0, (with Russia abstaining) by the UN Security Council June 10, the pressure is escalated on Bibi to make good on his pledge to U.S. officials, including CIA Director William Burns and Secretary of State Antony Blinken, who is currently in Israel, that he accept the deal if Hamas does likewise. This is the same proposal, whose heavy lifting was done by Burns two weeks ago, and was put through the Israeli War Cabinet for approval, over Bibi’s objections, and ultimately with his support; this is virtually the identical deal that was made public by President "Sleepy Joe" Biden on May 31 and branded as an "israeli" proposal.The three-phase proposal would swap Israeli hostages for Palestinian prisoners, require Israel to remove its forces from Gaza, and have both sides adhere to a temporary cease-fire, starting with a 6-week period, and then continuing until all captives are freed. The deal aims to create a permanent truce, as Biden has stated, and has broad support in the Israeli population, including the families of the hostages.There is, however, bitter opposition to the deal among the lunatic fringe of religious zealots and racists who are represented in the Israeli cabinet by National Security Minister Ben-Gvir and Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich, both of whom have said they will resign if Bibi puts Israel behind the deal. Were that to happen, the government would fall, forcing new elections, which would serve as a mandate on Netanyahu’s messianic crusade against the Palestinian state, for which he used the murderous Hamas Oct. 7 raid as a cover.While Blinken told the press that Bibi backs the UN resolution, the Prime Minister has yet to say so directly himself. Sources report that he is hoping that Hamas might seek to alter the terms of the resolution, rather than simply negotiate its implementation, as the Qatar-based Hamas leadership has stated. These sources say that Bibi’s wildcard is his supposed nemesis, Yahya Sinwar, the scheming Palestinian politician who leads Hamas in Gaza and regularly spews forth venom and hate against Jews and Israel. “This has happened before,” said a source.  Sinwar demands changes that he knows Israel will not accept. And each time it gave Bibi an excuse to back away from the deal. If the Hamas leadership is smart, they will take the deal, because it would likely mean the end of Bibi.”This and other sources have offered an interesting speculation. It is known that Israel has both informants and agents inside the Hamas organization, including in high leadership circles. It was those informants and agents who provided Israeli intelligence with a blueprint for the Oct. 7 attack nearly a year before it took place. It is also known that Sinwar was the principal proponent of the savage Oct. 7 event,  that went far beyond any military objective, and brutally slaughtered  around 1,200 mostly innocent Israeli civilians, including women and children, and took 240 hostages. Sinwar pushed it through the Hamas leadership who feared exactly what happened in response—a Nazi-like war against the Palestinian people and the degrading of Hamas’ power and military arm by the same Netanyahu who once propped them up, and even funded them, because they, too, opposed a two-state solution. He told an Israeli journalist some time ago that even if hundreds of thousands of Palestinians died, it would be worth their deaths to help ultimately destroy “the Zionist state.”Sinwar repeated this view after the war started in messages he sent to Hamas officials in charge of cease-fire negotiations, as reported by the Wall Street Journal June 10, referring to the tens of thousands of Gazans killed in Gaza since Oct. 7 as “necessary sacrifices.” The Journal also quoted from a letter Sinwar sent to Hamas politburo chief Ismail Haniyeh, (Chairman of Hamas’ Politburo since 2017) after three of Haniyeh’s sons were killed by an Israeli airstrike in April, saying their deaths and those of other Gazans would “infuse life into the veins of this nation, prompting it to rise to glory and honor.”“What if it is Sinwar, who is effectively the Israeli asset?” asked a source. “Sort of the Ying to Bibi’s Yang. His idiotic statements about martyrdom for the slaughtered to the contrary, what he has done has served neither the interests of Palestinians, nor Israelis, only the insane people around Bibi and Netanyahu himself. I would say he is Bibi’s asset, his ace in the hole.”Netanyahu originally responded to the UN vote by stating that he would not be ordered to participate in “meaningless” negotiations, but after meeting with Bibi yesterday, Blinkin said Bibi would support the deal if Hamas does. The Prime Minister's office would neither confirm nor deny Blinken's statements.Egyptian and Qatari mediators have reportedly received Hamas’ formal response to the proposal, though they have not revealed what that response is; they have yet to receive a formal response from Israel. After the UNSC vote, U.S. Ambassador to the UN Linda Thomas-Greenfield said that once both sides agree to the resolution, Washington will guarantee that Israel upholds the resolution’s obligations while Qatar and Egypt will do the same for Hamas. This arrangement was also worked out by Burns in his meetings with all sides, over the last 2 weeks.“It is Bibi who will be on the hot seat if indeed he has accepted the proposal,” said the source. [Former War Cabinet Minister Benny] Gantz is gone [having resigned from the coalition June 9]. That takes away Bibi’s cover. Meanwhile, Ben-Gvir and Smotrich are going berserk, yelling about a sellout and a betrayal. They will pull down the government. As Burns knows, and has made even ‘Sleepy Joe’ [Biden]  understand; there can be no real pathway to peace unless Bibi is gone. That was the idea behind the three-phase proposal in the first place: Propose something that everyone but Bibi and the looneys could support, then force Bibi to eat it."Meanwhile, the threat of an International Criminal Court arrest warrant from crimes against humanity hangs over Netanyahu, as it does for Hamas leader Sinwar and others. In Bibi's case the pressure to issue this warrant has been jacked up by the horrific slaughter of Palestinians in last weekend's rescue mission of 4 Israeli hostages, which Bibi ordered and for which claimed was a "historic" victoy for Israel; nearly 300 Palestinians, including many women, children and elderly were killed, and around 800 wounded, with many losing limbs, according to medical personnel at strapped facilities in the region.Let’s see how this plays out over the next few hours and days,” the source concluded

June 12—One year ago, June 10, 2023, Helga Zepp-LaRouche organized and keynoted a Schiller Institute Conference, “The World Needs JFK’s Vision of Peace.” Zepp-LaRouche and her newly-organized International Peace Coalition had just begun meeting weekly on Fridays, holding a provocative but fruitful international dialogue, involving all national populations, on how to change the lethal popular culture of pessimism and indifference, to embark upon a new course of optimistic, mass-based, strategic policy-actions. One year later, the International Peace Coalition has held 53 consecutive Friday meetings, open to all those of good will, devoted to the task of establishing a new security and development architecture for the world. On June 10, 1963, JFK stated his vision of peace in these words: Let us examine our attitude toward peace itself. “Too many of us think it is impossible. Too many think it is unreal. But that is a dangerous, defeatist belief. It leads to the conclusion that war is inevitable—that mankind is doomed—that we are gripped by forces we cannot control. We need not accept that view. Our problems are man-made—therefore, they can be solved by man.”Now, in the aftermath of the highly successful, annual St. Petersburg International Economic Forum over June 508, attended by 19,000 people from 136 nations, forces for peace in the trans-Atlantic world must escalate. Today, the Schiller Institute will host, at the National Press Club, an Emergency Press Conference: “The Danger of Nuclear War Is Real, And Must Be Stopped.” The conference features Scott Ritter, former UN weapons inspector and U.S. Marine intelligence officer, who was recently illegally prevented by the United States State Department from traveling to Russia to address the St. Petersburg International Economic Forum; Helga Zepp-LaRouche, Founder and Chairwoman, Schiller Institute; Col. Richard H. Black (ret.), former head of the U.S. Army’s Criminal Law Division at the Pentagon and former Virginia State Senator; and Ray McGovern, former CIA analyst and co-founder of the Veteran Intelligence Professionals for Sanity (VIPS).There is a great need to set the record straight as to who in the world is actually pushing for thermonuclear war. During a 22-minute exchange with moderator Sergey Karaganov at the plenary session of the St. Petersburg International Economic Forum, Vladimir Putin reminded the world that “I’m not the one who started talking about nuclear weapons. It was that little British prime minister.” Putin was referring to Liz Truss, the shortest-serving prime minister in British history, who, in August of 2022, before she was even placed in that office, was asked about launching nuclear war, in an interview during a campaign event: “Your orders to our Trident boat captain on whether you, prime minister, is giving the order to unleash nuclear weapons. It would mean global annihilation … How does that thought make you feel?” In the words of London’s The Independent, which reported the incident at the time, “Truss appeared without emotion as she replied: ‘I think it’s an important duty of the prime minister and I’m ready to do that.’ She added: ‘I’m ready to do that.’”Shortly after she made the statement, Putin had criticized, not only Truss, but Western leaders who did not attempt to correct her. “You see, no one responded to that in any way. Suppose she just spaced out and let it slip. How can you say such things publicly? She did, though. They should have set her straight, or Washington could have publicly stated that it has nothing to do with this. We have no idea what she is talking about, they could have said. There was no need to hurt anyone’s feelings; all they had to do was dissociate themselves from what she said. But everyone was silent.” No such correction occurred, until Truss was removed from office.With respect to thermonuclear war, Putin emphasized, during his remarks over the weekend, and turning to directly address his audience for additional emphasis: “Please do not mention such things idly.” He received spontaneous, general applause, because people could sense both how serious he was about the gravity of even discussing the topic, and how different his manner of strategic thought is from leaders in NATO. They are, as you are reading this, through Ukraine, assaulting Russia’s early warning radar systems with American and British missiles inside Russian territory.In the assessment of Scott Ritter, the world may be one ATACMS missile strike short of thermonuclear annihilation. For that reason, something new and effective must emerge over the short term from the trans-Atlantic nations—a new leadership which has a grasp of reality. It is clear that the results of the just-concluded elections in Europe show the desire of the population for something better. There is, in the case of the United States, for example, access by the citizenry to the power of the Presidency, by means of independent actions taken by private citizens, who have qualified themselves to propose and implement such changes as are required to access and deploy that Presidential power on behalf of the General Welfare of the nation in particular, and the planet as a whole.That is not to suggest that there is presently a U.S. Presidential candidate of that caliber, or even inclination. The candidacies in New York of Diane Sare for U.S. Senate, and Jose Vega for Congress in the 15th CD, however, can represent the standard by which all other candidacies are measured on matters of strategic policy. Such a standard was set by economist and statesman Lyndon LaRouche, through his Presidential campaigns of 1976, 1980 and 1984, during which he proposed, and President Ronald Reagan adopted, his Strategic Defense Initiative (SDI) policy.Today, independent candidacies for office, in the United States and other nations as well, combined with an energetic citizenry, informed by the Alert Service now being daily made available by the Executive Intelligence Review, can prove JFK’s vision of peace to be correct. “No problem of human destiny is beyond human beings. Man’s reason and spirit have often solved the seemingly unsolvable—and we believe they can do it again.”

June 10—The next act in the passion play in Israel aimed at removing the bloodthirsty Prime Minister Benjamin “Bibi” Netanyahu, the menace of peace for that nation and the Palestinians, took place last night as Bibi’s main opponent, former general Benny Gantz resigned from the War Cabinet, pulling his Unity Party out of the coalition government which has provided cover to Bibi’s genocidal impulses since the murderous Hamas raid of Oct. 7, 2023.Last month, Gantz had demanded that Bibi offer a concrete plan by June 8 for a post-war Gaza that did not involve a permanent occupation by the Israel Defense Forces (IDF), or he would resign. Since his intention is to fully destroy, not Hamas, but Gaza, and to continue to bleed the entire Palestinian population, Bibi has offered to such plan; instead he wants the IDF to perform the role of Waffen SS units, policing and effectively enforcing genocide without letup.Sources report that Gantz, working with America’s most able diplomat, CIA Director William Burns, was instrumental in forcing the Burns-negotiated 3-phase ceasefire/hostage release plan through the War Cabinet, over Bibi’s objections. It was that plan, announced May 31 by President “Sleepy Joe” Biden as Israel’s peace offer to Hamas, that Netanyahu still has refused to endorse.Gantz has urged Netanyahu to get behind the plan, and did so again in his televised resignation last night, but stated that it has become clear to him “that Netanyahu stands in the way of a real victory [for Israel] and an enduring peace.” He said this as sources report that Netanyahu changed the wording in the so-named “Israeli plan” submitted to Hamas, to make it more difficult for its leaders to accept; the changes seemed to indicate that Israel reserves the right to continue its war, after the initial 6-week ceasefire.Gantz had delayed remarks originally scheduled for June 8, following another “trick” by Bibi: the deadly hostage rescue mission that freed four Israeli hostages with a horrific slaughter of innocent Palestinians in the Nuseirat refugee camp in central Gaza where they were being held; at latest count, almost 300 Palestinians, including scores of women, children, and elderly were killed, and nearly 800 wounded, with many losing limbs and some critically injured, overwhelming the area’s ruined health care facilities.Gantz praised the rescue, but as has most of the world, expressed sadness at the loss of innocent lives. While Netanyahu pledged to set the IDF to engage in other such bloody rescues, informed sources report that this one was the only possible target for such a raid.Meanwhile, sources say, Hamas-linked sources have stated that the raid has resulted in the deaths of an unknown number of hostages and that, in the future, all of them will be living in diminished circumstances. Leaders of Israel’s defense establishment, including those who would oversee future missions, believe that the best and perhaps only way to secure the return of the remaining hostages is through a deal of the type offered in the Biden plan.Even with Gantz and the Unity Party’s exit from the coalition, Bibi has enough votes to sustain his government—for the time being. But the calls are rising from all over the political spectrum for Netanyahu to call for elections, and to seek a mandate against his intensely unpopular war policies, which have not only slaughtered innocent Palestinians and left Gaza in ruin, but could lead to a new and even bloodier war with Hezbollah in the West Bank.Said a source, “the messianic Bibi and his collection of zealots have split Israel asunder, creating divisions in the population that, if not addressed, will soon lead to disaster. Ironically, Bibi may even then fail to prevent the eventual creation of a Palestinian state, but he will have destroyed the Israeli state. If there is to be stability in the region, this must be reversed. As Burns and others know, this means that Bibi’s tyrannical rule, that has struck blows even against the families of the hostages for demanding a peaceful solution, must come to an end.”“I call on Netanyahu: set an agreed election date. Don’t let our people be torn apart,” said Gantz last night, talking about the possibility of elections in the Fall.But that may not be soon enough. “Bibi is becoming more and more isolated,” said the source. “This is what Burns wants. At some point, there will be direct action against him. What if Hamas accepts the deal on the table with some small changes? If they are smart, they would do that because that deal means the end of Bibi. With Gantz gone he has little cover left.

June 11—Once again, this last week, Emmanuel Macron, that braying jackass who is the President of France, threatened Russia with putting “NATO boots on the ground” in Ukraine in its losing war against Russia. He said that he would be prepared to send French military personnel into Ukraine to train Ukrainian pilots to fly Mirage jet fighters which he pledged to give to Volodymyr Zelenskyy, NATO’s sock puppet dictator of the Ukraine. Zelenskyy had come to France as Marcon’s guest of honor at the war-against-Russia pep rally masquerading as a commemoration of the 80th anniversary of the allied invasion along the Normandy coast on June 6, 1944—“D-Day”—that helped liberate Europe from Hitler’s Nazis.But the pompous Macron was lying about NATO’s involvement in the proxy war in Ukraine, just as President “Sleepy Joe” Biden has been lying. Biden, who also attended the war pep rally, falsely asserted that there are no U.S. military personnel in Ukraine. As informed intelligence sources report, there is already a massive NATO presence in the war zone, nuvering in the thousands, not merely at advanced staging and supply bases in Poland, but also inside Ukraine. This reality was revealed in a Russian taping of a conversation between high ranking German Air Force officers, who reported that British, French, American, and German personnel, in and out of uniform, were inside Ukraine, as reported in Sputnik accounts of that conversation earlier this year.Meanwhile, France, Britain, and the United States (in the person of President Biden) have given the okay for the Armed Forces of Ukraine to use weapons that they supply, to attack positions inside Russia, claiming that Ukraine can now independently make targeting decisions and then use these advanced systems, such as the U.S. built-and-supplied ATACMS missile systems, to hit Russian targets. But this is also a lie. Using this and other even longer-range systems to hit targets in the Russian homeland requires programming and satellite downlink capabilities that the Armed Forces of Ukraine does not have and cannot do without direct help from U.S. and NATO personnel.For some time it has been known that U.S. and NATO pilots have been involved in flying supply missions into Ukraine, and that NATO personnel have been involved in land-based supply missions. Up until this point, the Russian Armed Forces, who are not fooled by the lying and propaganda, have not seriously attacked the NATO supply lines into the Kyiv regime, as a knowledgeable source reports, because they have not wanted to provoke a wider war by killing NATO and especially American personnel.But with the dangerous escalation of NATO-orchestrated attacks on the Russian homeland, Russian President Vladimir Putin has declared that Russia reserves the right to strike at NATO targets and NATO personnel, both inside Ukraine and at bases in Europe and elsewhere involved. In a discussion with heads of many of the world’s leading news agencies June 5, in St. Petersburg, Putin decried the silly press reports that tried to portray such attacks as Ukrainian, and said that NATO personnel inside and around Ukraine are responsible and were now viable targets for retaliation.Mirroring what the U.S. and NATO are doing, Putin further suggested that Russia might supply its allies with weapons which they could use against NATO and the U.S., and he urged especially the United States to consider where this dangerous escalation could lead. Russia does not threaten Europe or the United States, nor will Russia be intimidated or suffer attack silently, he stated.It is now time for the Congress of the United States to show some courage and guts in this matter, so far sorely lacking as the Biden Administration drags the world to the brink of nuclear confrontation with a superpower that will not be bluffed.The most recent attacks and targeting of Russia have made clear that the decision of the Biden Administration to supply Ukraine with advanced offensive weapons system such as the ATACMS, and the decision to deploy U.S. military personnel to program and target such systems for offensive attacks on Russia, constitutes conducting an armed conflict against a sovereign nation state, without seeking Congressional approval for such action, and thus is in violation of the War Powers Act, passed by Congress Nov. 7, 1973, overriding the veto of then-President Richard Nixon. Congress has issued no declaration of war against Russia, Neither has the Biden Administration asked Congress for authorization to commit U.S. armed forces in Ukraine, nor has Congress granted such an authorization.Congress must do its duty and immediately investigate whether the President has violated the War Powers Act, which many informed sources say he has. If Congress finds that this is the case then Congress must impeach this pathetic fool who currently occupies the Oval Office, and upon finding him guilty of his acts, remove him from office.Is there no one in Congress who has what it takes to invoke the War Powers Act and thus stop the insane steady drift toward Armageddon? NATO’s war in Ukraine is already hopelessly lost on the battlefield and this, many experts explain, is not going to be reversed by attacks on Russia.Invoke the War Powers Act! End U.S. involvement in an undeclared and potentially human extinction war against Russia!

June 10—The following is a preliminary, unofficial translation of a lengthy dialogue on June 7 between Russian President Vladimir Putin and Sergey Karaganov, the moderator at the plenary session of the St. Petersburg International Forum (SPIEF). As of this writing, the Kremlin site had not yet published the official translation of this segment on their website. The full transcription is on the Russian page, and the video on the English page includes an English voiceover. S. Karaganov: Thank you.Let’s move on to more political issues. You keep talking about your desire to hold negotiations on ending the conflict with the West in Ukraine. Of course, this desire to have negotiations is commendable and positive.But with whom are we to negotiate? Our Western partners have double-crossed us many times and violate all the agreements we reach with them. The Kiev regime is morally illegitimate, politically illegitimate and even legally illegitimate from the point of view even of the failed state that exists there.And how can we negotiate with them at all, without first defeating them, without obtaining a complete surrender, and without, so to speak, putting a nuclear pistol to [the heads of] our Western adversaries so that they don’t make any moves? Because, in principle, after all, no agreements are going to be honored until there is a defeat. These are illegitimate and unreliable partners.How can we deal with this?V. Putin: Well, yes, but as Joseph Vissarionovich [Stalin] said, “I have no other writers”; he said this about the Union of Writers of the USSR at one time, when Beria made his latest visit to snitch on them. He said: “I have no other writers.” Well, these are the partners there are. What are we supposed to do now, go to war with all of them or something?Of course, we should seek such agreements and conditions as would be in our interests and would be as reliable as possible. You are right that it is very difficult to negotiate with these people; they deceive at every step. They say one thing and do another. That is sad, but all armed conflicts end with some kind of peace agreement. However, as one of the former leaders of a rather important European country said to me, all these agreements can be based either upon military defeat or upon victory. We, of course, are striving for and will achieve victory.[Section on the illegitimacy of Zelenskyy as President omitted.]S. Karaganov: Vladimir Vladimirovich, of course, the maxim that all wars end in negotiations is a false maxim, of course; it is being imposed on us. Most wars end with the defeat and surrender of the enemy. That is the only way to end this war.I will move on to the next question, which is that defeat and surrender of the enemy in the current circumstances, when America benefits from this war, and they will continue it by driving Ukrainians to the slaughter and killing them, and now they are going to drive Europeans to the slaughter as well—it will not be possible to end this war in the near future without accelerated movement up the ladder of nuclear escalation. That’s the first point.Second. The plates under the world system have parted. Objectively, a very great number of conflicts are going to arise. There used to be a nuclear safety-catch, but now it has seriously weakened—the fear of nuclear weapons. Do we realize that we have a huge responsibility not only to win this war—and for that we need to be much tougher in going up the escalation ladder and be ready to use them—but also to put that nuclear safety-catch back into the international system to prevent movement towards a huge wave of conflicts. After all, who but us will do it? Who but you will do it?You have a huge responsibility. And if we are going to crawl so slowly up this ladder, although we are certainly moving, I am afraid that we are kind of shirking this responsibility. Although I understand the gravity of the moral choice.*V. Putin:** Regarding nuclear escalation: we never started this rhetoric. I don’t remember the name of that lady, the former British Prime Minister [Liz Truss], who, when asked—this was when she was becoming Prime Minister—said that she was ready to press the nuclear button.We never talked like that. That’s where it all started. We simply responded that one should take this more seriously, and immediately people started saying we were rattling nuclear weapons. We are not rattling them. That’s the first point.The second point concerns what use is, what non-use is, and in what case to use them. We have a nuclear doctrine, and everything is written there. Just yesterday I was talking to the heads of the news agencies and told them about it. Everything is written there: use is possible in an exceptional case—in the case of a threat to the sovereignty and territorial integrity of the country, in exceptional cases.I do not believe that such a case has come; there is no such need. But this doctrine is a living instrument, and we are closely watching what is happening in the world and around us, and we do not rule out making some changes to this doctrine.At present this is also related to nuclear weapons testing. At a certain time we not only signed it [the Nuclear Test Ban Treaty] but also ratified it. The Americans signed it but did not ratify it, so under today’s conditions we have withdrawn our ratification. But, if necessary, we will conduct tests. For now, there is no such need, because our information capabilities, computer capabilities, allow us to do it [simulated nuclear weapons tests] all, as it is today.Now as far as speed is concerned, as far as results are concerned. You said I have a great responsibility. Yes, indeed. Is it possible to increase the speed of solving the tasks we face? We can, but that is directly proportional to losses. And, understanding my responsibility, I still proceed from what the General Staff and the Ministry of Defense suggest. Speed is important, but it is even more important to take care of the lives and health of our guys who are fighting on the front.Combat work is proceeding. Since the beginning of this year alone, I think 47 settlements have been liberated—880 square kilometers. We are gradually pushing the enemy out of the Donbass and other adjacent territories. The General Staff and the Ministry of Defense have plans to implement and achieve all our goals; we are acting according to this plan. I am sure that all these plans will be realized.S. Karaganov: Nevertheless, we understand perfectly well that accelerating movement up the ladder of nuclear escalation can save a great number of lives, because it can educate our adversaries, who have taken advantage of the fact that we, among other things, have such a soft doctrine.I have no doubt that it will be changed, and I hope it will be changed soon, and you will have the formal right to respond, if you so choose, with a nuclear strike to any strikes on our territory. That absolutely should be the sovereign right of our leader. I hope that such a statement will appear in our doctrine, and that it will cool down our adversaries a little bit, and it will also, sooner or later, mean fewer losses among our soldiers.Of course, it is probably too early now to go for nuclear escalation, but it is necessary to move towards it in order to cool down our adversaries. They have gone mad, especially the Europeans. For the third time, practically, in a hundred years they are going for war. The Americans are a good deal more cautious; they have fed the Ukrainians, they are pushing them, but they are much more cautious themselves. But the Europeans are going for war.I’m a hunter, I know how animals behave. If you are attacked by a pack of wild dogs or hyenas and you have a stick, you can beat them, try to drive them away, and there is a chance that you will drive them away. But most likely they will rip your pants and then, if you get tired, chew you up. If you can nail a couple, they will scatter, I guarantee it.President Mnangagwa knows what hyenas are like. Do you agree with me, Mr. President, that this is the way to disperse hyenas?E. Mnangagwa (as translated): Yes, you know, there are many hyenas in Zimbabwe. But they are all kept in national parks so that they don’t bother us. We don’t have any problems with them and they breed quickly. If someone wants a hyena, we can give it to you.V. Putin: We have enough of our own.S. Karaganov: In Europe.Again, I repeat this question—I will take it to the end. If we do not go more resolutely up the ladder of escalation, will we not draw the ire of the Almighty? After all, the Almighty showed us the way once, when He destroyed Sodom and Gomorrah with a rain of fire for wantonness and debauchery. And after that mankind remembered it for many years and behaved properly, but now it has forgotten about Sodom and Gomorrah.So, maybe we should remember this rain and try again to bring humanity to its senses, or that part of humanity that has lost faith in God and lost its reason?V. Putin: Without me, maybe? You’re going to make it hot in here! They [the audience] are already scared.Although, of course, there’s something to think about: You are talking about the Europeans right now; all kinds of logic are possible. If, God forbid, it comes to some kind of strikes, everyone should realize that Russia has a missile attack warning system. The United States has one. Nowhere else in the world is there a system of that type. We have one. Europe does not have a developed system; they are more or less defenseless in this sense. That’s the first thing.The second is the power of the strikes. Our tactical nuclear weapons are three times more powerful, four times, than the bombs used by the Americans against Hiroshima and Nagasaki, three or four times more powerful. We have many times more of them in terms of numbers, and on the European continent, and even if the Americans bring their own from the United States, we still have many times more.If it comes [to that], God forbid, which would be highly undesirable, and I cross myself, then—you said “reduce casualties”—they could increase to infinity. That’s the first thing.And the second. Of course, the Europeans themselves will have to think: if those with whom we [the Russian Federation] exchange such strikes are not going to exist, will the Americans get involved in this exchange of strikes, already at the level of strategic weapons, or not? I very much doubt it, and the Europeans should also think about that, for sure.But still, my premise is that it will never come to that, and we do not have such a need, because our Armed Forces are not just gaining experience and increasing their efficiency; our defense-industrial complex is demonstrating its effective work. I have already said many times, and I can repeat it: we have increased the production of ammunition more than 20-fold, we exceed the enemy’s capabilities in terms of aviation equipment many times over, we are significantly ahead of them in terms of armored vehicles, and so on and so forth. We don’t even need to think about this topic.Please, and I would also once again ask everyone, do not mention such things in vain.S. Karaganov: You behave so responsibly and speak so responsibly, but we are dealing with partners who are completely irresponsible and have lost their minds.V. Putin: This is a scary man. [Points at Karaganov.]S. Karaganov: No, it’s just that I… You know, most of us have looked at these partners from the outside, but I grew up in that system, it so happened to me in my life. I have known them from a young age and I assure you that I have grounds for saying what I say.Although I understand perfectly and support your hesitation, because it is a terrible choice, and one that should only be made as a last resort. But if they know you are not ready to make that choice, they will endlessly try to fight and bleed us.And at the same time they are fighting not only against us—they are fighting against our friends in the world majority, because we are the military-strategic root, the linchpin of this world majority. If they turn us around, they’re going to start suppressing them again. I don’t know if Mr. Presidents [Arce and Mnangagwa] agree with this.V. Putin: Allow me to make one remark.My decisions, and those of my colleagues with whom I work in this area, are not linked to any hesitation; there is no hesitation and there can be none. All our decisions must be based on analysis—real, objective analysis of the situation. That is what we are doing.S. Karaganov: The day before yesterday, you spoke to the heads of the news agencies and said something extremely interesting about the fact that we are ready and able to supply our long-range weapons to countries that are enemies of our enemies. That made me very happy, because it’s long overdue. What, we will supply both high-precision and hypersonic? Naturally, with our own technicians? This could really improve the situation in the world. For example, aircraft carriers, which are a pointless tool now, under the current circumstances, will vanish from the world arena, and people will stop spending huge sums of money on them.So what are we going to deliver? When and how? Of course, I realize that we should not do this ourselves, or at least we should say that we are not doing it.V. Putin: As for aircraft carriers. You said that they are pointless. No. They are pointless only in a global conflict in a strategic sense. But from the standpoint of solving geopolitical problems, as a tool of geopolitics, in order to bring them closer to the territories against which the Americans, French or British want to fight and force something, they make sense. True, given that Russia and China have modern hypersonic weapons, of course, they lose some of their meaning. You are calling not to spend money on this. Let them spend it. Why did you say this out loud? Let them spend it.S. Karaganov: In this regard, I address our Chinese and Indian friends. They are spending extra money.V. Putin: And I said that maybe there are geopolitical considerations. It’s like a non-strategic weapon. Only as a strategic weapon, has it lost its meaning, but in general, maybe. And let other countries spend. Why not?Now, about us supplying weapons. We are not supplying weapons, not yet. But we reserve the right to do so to those states or even to some legal entities that are experiencing certain pressure, including of a military nature, from those countries that are supplying weapons to Ukraine and calling for them to be used against us, against our Russian territory. If they supply weapons to the war zone and call for them to be used against our territory, why do we not have the right to do the same, to respond in a mirror-like manner?I am not ready to say that we will do it tomorrow, either. Because in any case, any such supply involves a whole range of circumstances that will affect certain regions of the world in one way or another, and we must, of course, think about this.S. Karaganov: Let’s maybe conclude this military part, which is not pleasant at all. Now, in order to attack—if we are not going to go up the escalation ladder very quickly in the near future, which I insist upon, because it’s absolutely not necessarily… I think we can sober them up along the way [Russian transcript not very clear; K. changes formulation midstream]—then we need, perhaps, to go for a mobilization, some kind of at least partial mobilization. Do you think that we can defeat the enemy without a mobilization, or will we still need to mobilize?V. Putin: If we follow the recommendations we have heard from you, if we want to do this as quickly as possible, then the current contingent is not enough for us. But we are taking, as I said, a different tactic: we are pushing the enemy out of the territories that should be brought under our control. In that sense, we have no need to mobilize. We are not planning on it.We had a mobilization, we drafted 300,000 people. But last year, without any mobilization, our men, our patriotic-minded men voluntarily came to the military registration office and signed contracts with the Armed Forces. There were over 300,000 of them. (Applause.) Since the beginning of this year, more than 160,000 people have come to the military enlistment offices and signed contracts. Every day we have more than a thousand people coming to the military enlistment offices, voluntarily.You know, when we see what the Russian character is, what the character of a Russian citizen is, understand it and build on it, we don’t need any atomic weapons for the final victory. (Applause.)To this I can only add that we see this forced mobilization in Ukraine. Certainly, I have no doubt, the conscription age will be lowered there. We know reliably from Ukrainian sources that the Americans have made lowering the conscription level by age a condition for continued support by—to 23-25, to 20, 18, maybe straight to 18. This is not our business; let them then replace the current leadership of Ukraine. I have already talked about this.But what’s important to us? It’s that somewhere they’re conscripting 30, 50, I think it was 70,000 the month before last. It will go down. What does that tell us? It says that what they’re gaining and will continue to gain will only go to make up for the losses. There will be a small increase, as they call it. We can count in different ways, I won’t even name the figures now, although we understand them.But in this situation, when our people are coming voluntarily and go to the front to defend their homeland, a mobilization is out of the question.S. Karaganov: Vladimir Vladimirovich, of course I understand your arguments, but I know the history of our country well. I remember about 1916, when we were winning, but the people were tired. So we will still need to hurry up at some point. We snatched defeat from the hands of victory back then, in 1917.Now, thank God, because of the fact that we started, maybe even belatedly, this operation, there is an explosive rise in the spirit of the people, and it is quite obvious that the economy has finally begun to work, because only in such conditions can we work. The traitorous elements and the fifth column of compradors have been driven out, or they scattered on their own, our Western adversaries are eliminating our own. That is all wonderful. Nonetheless it cannot be expected to go on for long, so I don’t think you should write off my and my comrades’ arguments, which we send to you on a regular basis.V. Putin: We are not writing off anything, we take everything into account. Thank you for these recommendations.

June 10—On Thursday evening, June 6 Jose Vega, a LaRouche Independent candidate running for Congress in New York’s 15th Congressional District, hosted his first major event and fundraiser at Bronxlandia, a venue in the Hunts Point neighborhood of the Bronx. Featured headliners included Jimmy Dore, a popular stand-up comedian and political commentator with over 1.33 million followers on his show, along with Keaton Weiss and Russell Dobular of the Due Dissidence podcast.A crowd of well over 100 showed up to the event, with supporters of Jose from both the Bronx and from other areas. Several individuals who had volunteered to successfully get Vega on the ballot by petitioning New York voters over a six-week period starting on April 16th also attended, including some from out of state who flew in just to attend the event.The significance of the event was marked not just by its headliners, but by the intense diversity of the audience, as well as the support from those in Vega’s community. Majora Carter, a long-time business owner in Hunts Point, and the owner of Bronxlandia, the venue where the event occurred, opened it with impassioned remarks about her first encounter with Vega:“I own a little café up the street, and the first time that he walked in, I was looking out the window and there was this really happy dude, playing chess with this guy outside, and it was Jose who was wandering outside the Bronx. He had no idea our café was there, but when he realized (it), we got to talking about what we believe to be the value of understanding and supporting our own community.“As a business owner, as someone who gets that, the fact that Jose is doing what he’s doing, I cannot tell you, as someone from this community, being so proud to know that there’s things I always knew to be true—that there is amazing talent coming from our neighborhood; and that we want to support ourselves, and we are also looking outward, because we are not just this insular people. We’re the kind of people who also understand that the world is something we can also take care of.”Russell Dobular, a co-host of the Due Dissidence podcast, who has featured Jose and his colleagues on his show several times, noted in his remarks that Vega may very well be considered as the first to set the trend of political disruption and intervention against the gatekeepers of the Establishment class, who are so committed to endless wars and the never-ending financial assistance they are willing to supply to perpetuate these wars. The interventions of Vega and his colleagues on President Biden, Vice President Kamala Harris, Congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, former Secretary of State/CIA Director Mike Pompeo and Hillary Clinton, have had a profound effect nationally and internationally, inspiring many people to rise up and become active in a moral, anti-war, pro-peace process against the ever-increasing danger of war against Ukraine and Russia, and the brutal genocide in Gaza. Dobular remarked:“When it comes to disrupting the civility politics so beloved of the liberal class, Jose has not only been at the frontlines, it’s fair to say he’s helped to set the trend. Jose represents a future where a new generation of activists working in politics, labor, and the arts is truly ‘woke,’ in the original sense of the word … that is truly awake to the failure of our system to address the needs of all our people, and rises up to challenge that system.”Keaton Weiss followed up on the subject of Vega’s viral intervention against Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez in October 2022, and noted that when he first encountered Jose online, he was directed away from him, because of his involvement with Lyndon LaRouche’s organization. Despite that, Weiss invited him to his show, nevertheless, and found that he was anything else but some wild cultist: “I think a conversation with Jose could be a great demonstration in transcending political labels in order to forge common ground on the most important issues of the day.”Weiss continued, noting that discussions about the danger of nuclear war and the ongoing genocide in Gaza being financed and supported by the United States, have shattered previous, outdated notions of what actually constitutes political dialogue in the United States.Jimmy Dore followed with his set. Most of his jokes covered the COVID-19 pandemic, the wars in Ukraine and Gaza, and related political topics. Dore noted towards the end of his set that he was “proud to be supporting Jose Vega.”Jose Vega thanked Dobular, Weiss and Dore for their contributions. He noted that it was the 80th anniversary of D-Day, where the allied forces worked with Russia to turn the tide of the war against the Nazis. Much like that moment in history, Vega said, this present moment marks the opportunity for independent voices, not just candidates, to actually take back their government in each of their respective districts. Vega noted that this was a process that involved many of his colleagues, with the purpose of having other people replicate it in each of the 435 congressional districts in the United States. The incumbent of NY-15, Rep. Ritchie Torres (D), who vociferously defends Israeli “Crime” Minister Bibi Netanyahu’s murderous campaign against the innocent children and women of Gaza and the West Bank, has taken over $600,000 from AIPAC, along with many other contributions from big, super-PAC type lobbyist groups, totaling at least $1.5 million. Torres’s unapologetic acceptance of these contributions translates into his advocacy of Gestapo-type laws, like the recently introduced Columbia Act, a bill Torres himself sponsored. This bill threatens to put monitoring agents in college campuses, such as New York’s Columbia University, to intimidate students now protesting Israel’s legally criminal actions. Vega said that his campaign is a message to sell-outs like Torres, and his controllers, who think they can buy a congressional district in a place like the Bronx, because they believe the people there are too ignorant to stop it.A Q&A followed, featuring all of the previous speakers. Weiss and Dobular, following questions from those who identified themselves as petitioners for Jose Vega’s campaign, identified the importance of their own active participation in that process, when they came for a weekend to do it. Weiss noted that he had not canvassed for any candidate since Bernie Sanders, when Sanders looked like a promising candidate, but was incredibly moved to speak to people in the Bronx who are itching for an alternative independent voice. Weiss asked the people in the audience who petitioned for Vega to stand up.This was no “headliner” event. The group of diverse, active, and passionate individuals who either donated or volunteered to petition for Vega made for an incredibly vibrant atmosphere. More will be done in the following days and weeks, particularly an intensive campaign to create a Bronx Freedom Summer, consisting of science, music, and economics classes in the South Bronx and other parts of New York City, noted Vega, at the event’s conclusion.