June 2 2025
Boulder flamethrower attack; Johnson threatens spending bill; Meta to automate ad creation; Trump targets elite structure; Ukraine, Russia peace negotiations
Terrorism Probe Launched After Man Uses "Makeshift Flamethrower" on Pro-Israel March in Boulder
Sen. Ron Johnson Threatens to Derail Trump's Spending Bill, Demanding Deeper Cuts
Meta Bets on AI to Fully Automate Ad Creation and Targeting by Next Year
Trump's Moves Against Harvard Signal an Attempt to Topple America's Elite Power Structure
After Coordinated Strikes on Air Bases, Ukraine and Russia to Meet for Peace Negotiations
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1. Terrorism Probe Launched After Man Uses "Makeshift Flamethrower" on Pro-Israel March in Boulder
The authorities said they were investigating an attack in Boulder, Colo., on Sunday as an act of terrorism, after a man used a “makeshift flamethrower” to attack demonstrators marching peacefully in support of Israeli hostages in Gaza. Eight people were hospitalized with burns and other injuries, and two of them were in serious condition, officials said. The suspect was arrested. The attack may intensify deep unease in the Jewish community in the United States. In recent months, two Israeli embassy aides were murdered in Washington, and a man set fire to the residence of Gov. Josh Shapiro of Pennsylvania, who is Jewish. The injury victims — four men and four women, who range in age from 52 to 88 — were participating in a weekly event called Run for Their Lives that is held in cities around the world. It is designed to call attention to the hostages taken by Hamas militants in the Oct. 7, 2023, terrorist attacks in Israel.
NYT
2. Sen. Ron Johnson Threatens to Derail Trump's Spending Bill, Demanding Deeper Cuts
WASHINGTON—Sen. Ron Johnson (R., Wis.) is used to watching his fellow GOP senators look at their shoes during closed-door meetings when he waves his charts and digs in his heels on the fiscal policies that are the foundation of his political career. But when lawmakers return to work this week, he is determined to make them look up and pay attention. The three-term Republican is insisting on deeper spending cuts in President Trump’s “big beautiful bill,” saying his party is doing too little to address the country’s debt burden. His hard-line stance threatens to complicate passage of the GOP’s multitrillion dollar measure, which the Senate is turning to now and Trump wants on his desk by July 4. He takes issue with GOP colleagues’ claims that economic growth from the new tax cuts will rein in the deficit, instead siding with official scorekeepers who say the deficit will expand. He said he appreciates that Trump’s ideas, such as no tax on overtime, are “directed toward working men and women, but there’s nothing growth-incentivizing about his tax proposals.” The current bill—with tax relief and border spending partially offset by Medicaid and other reductions—is expected to increase budget deficits by $2.7 trillion through 2034, compared with doing nothing, though a final official estimate wasn’t available. Johnson casts his current crusade as part of a bid to return the U.S. to prepandemic levels of spending, arguing that the U.S. needs to get control of its debt. Publicly held debt as a share of gross domestic product is approaching the record levels reached after World War II. JPMorgan Chase Chief Executive Jamie Dimon on Friday predicted a crisis unless the U.S. takes steps to address the debt. Moody’s Ratings last month downgraded the U.S. government, citing doubts that Congress would do anything significant to reduce deficits. Beyond Medicaid work requirements in the House bill, Johnson wants to take aim at a provision of the 2010 Affordable Care Act that allows states to shift to the federal government 90% of the tab for low-income, mostly able-bodied adults who became eligible for Medicaid under the law. Johnson wants to rescind the federal matching rate for the expansion population, cutting it back to as little as 50% and removing billions of dollars from many of his Republican colleagues’ states. Wisconsin is one of only 10 states that didn’t expand Medicaid.
WSJ
3. Meta Bets on AI to Fully Automate Ad Creation and Targeting by Next Year
Meta Platforms is betting that automation is the future of ads. The social-media company aims to enable brands to fully create and target ads using artificial intelligence by the end of next year, according to people familiar with the matter. Meta’s ad platform already offers some AI tools that can generate variations of existing ads and make minor changes to them before targeting the ads to users on Facebook and Instagram. Now, the company aims to help brands create advertising concepts from scratch. AI-powered advertising is part of Meta Chief Mark Zuckerberg’s grand vision for his company’s evolution. Advertising makes up the bulk of Meta’s business—it brought in more than 97% of overall revenue in 2024—and funds its multibillion-dollar investments in AI chips and data centers, and for training cutting-edge AI models.
Editors note: this is a terrifying vision of the future. Facebook will become a feed of AI-generated slop designed to extract your money. I am not bullish on this idea.
WSJ
4. Trump's Moves Against Harvard Signal an Attempt to Topple America's Elite Power Structure
The Trump administration is escalating attacks on Harvard University, including a foreign student ban (currently held up in court) and proposals to redirect university funding to trade schools, according to a recent Multipolarity podcast. The podcast host argues these actions represent something far more significant than educational policy disputes—they constitute a political revolution targeting what he calls America's "credentialed aristocracy." Harvard, he explains, sits at the apex of a system that produces credentials enabling access to senior positions in government and business, with its PhDs populating universities nationwide that train lower-level bureaucrats and professionals.
The host characterizes this as a revolution led by "elite anti-elites" like JD Vance, a Yale Law graduate now attacking the very system that credentialed him—similar to how French Revolutionary leader Robespierre used his elite education to overthrow the monarchy. He predicts these attacks will inevitably destroy Harvard's credibility and the entire credential-based power structure by the end of Trump's term, dismissing critics like Larry Summers who focus on maintaining academic standards as missing the revolutionary nature of the moment. The host compares their concerns to "criticizing the Jacobins because they're not thinking about French GDP growth," arguing that a historic political upheaval is underway that observers fail to recognize.
Multipolarity
5. After Coordinated Strikes on Air Bases, Ukraine and Russia to Meet for Peace Negotiations
A. Ukraine on Sunday launched one of its broadest assaults of the war against air bases inside Russia, a coordinated operation that targeted sites from eastern Siberia to Russia’s western border and that left several Russian aircraft in flames. The Ukrainian drone attacks on Russian airfields came as Kyiv suffered a damaging blow of its own on Sunday, with Russia striking a Ukrainian military training base and killing at least 12 soldiers.
B. A day after exchanging some of the most intense air attacks of the war, Russia and Ukraine were set to meet in Istanbul on Monday for peace talks, discussions that will be complicated by their entrenched positions and the situation on the battlefield. Russia and Ukraine are expected to formally exchange their respective conditions for a deal in the second round of negotiations since the two sides resumed direct dialogue two weeks ago. Expectations are low for the talks, which were expected to kick off in the early afternoon local time at a five-star hotel on the European shore of the Bosporus. By 1 p.m. in Turkey, both delegations had arrived at the hotel.
NYT
June 2, 1924: Congress enacts the Indian Citizenship Act
With Congress’ passage of the Indian Citizenship Act, the government of the United States confers citizenship on all Native Americans born within the territorial limits of the country. Before the Civil War, citizenship was often limited to Native Americans of one-half or less Indian blood. In the Reconstruction period, progressive Republicans in Congress sought to accelerate the granting of citizenship to friendly tribes, though state support for these measures was often limited. In 1888, most Native American women married to U.S. citizens were conferred with citizenship, and in 1919 Native American veterans of World War I were offered citizenship. In 1924, the Indian Citizenship Act, an all-inclusive act, was passed by Congress.
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Sources
- https://www.nytimes.com/2025/06/02/us/boulder-colorado-attack-what-we-know.html
- https://www.wsj.com/politics/policy/ron-johnson-trump-tax-bill-deficit-dec36940?mod=hp_lead_pos6
- https://www.wsj.com/tech/ai/meta-aims-to-fully-automate-ad-creation-using-ai-7d82e249?mod=hp_lead_pos4
- https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/multipolarity/id1663927350?i=1000710399948
- https://www.nytimes.com/2025/06/01/world/europe/russia-ukraine-strikes.html, https://www.nytimes.com/2025/06/02/world/europe/ukraine-russia-istanbul-talks.html