06/03/25

Good morning! It’s Tuesday, June 3rd.

National Egg Day

No yolk!

And now, the news.

Update: Denver

-via AP News, ADL, Vox, Guardian

Starting with an update on Sunday’s attack against a group in Boulder, CO that gathered to bring attention to the hostages that have been in Gaza since the October 7th attack.

Here is what we’ve learned since yesterday’s episode.

First – the suspect, Mohammed Sabry Soliman, has confessed to the attack, which he planned for a year and waited to carry out until after his daughter’s graduation, and says he was driven by a desire to, “kill all Zionist people.”

Let’s talk about that word for a second, because it’s an emotional one. A very hot-button word.

At its core, Zionism is the movement for statehood for Jewish people in Israel.

Like many things, there are different interpretations of this word and depending on the context, it can be antisemitic. After the Holocaust, Zionism became a core belief of American Jewish organizations as their support of Israel grew.

That’s not to say all Jewish communities leaned into that belief, but just that belief in Zionism did grow overall in many Jewish communities.

Now, however, what people are seeing more, especially young people, are the actions of the government of Israel in Gaza. And that is changing their views on the government of Israel. And because of that, it is also changing, for some people, their definition of the word Zionism.

Even though, for some Jewish people, their view of Zionism includes a two-state solution that would see Palestinians finding statehood in Gaza.

Because there is no such thing as everybody believes or everybody thinks or everybody does. Especially when you’re talking about a community of people.

Language changes as the world changes.

And understand that I’m not agreeing on either side. I’m just, you know – explaining.

All of that to say, depending on how it’s used, who’s using it, the context, all of that – the meaning can be very different. It can be a description.

It can also be a slur. As it was in this case. Because even though I have said the government of Israel, people are conflating the government of Israel with Jewish people. And while we’re being careful with language, let’s be careful and clear here: the rise in antisemitism, the rise in attacks, what happened on Sunday, comes from a whole history of things. There is no one specific thing we can point to and say here’s where that started, but we be certain that one of the problems is the conflation of the actions of the government of Israel and the existence of Jewish people.

They are not the same.

I talked about that yesterday, too, but since I’m talking about the words that Soliman used in his attack, it bears repeating.

How do you know if you’re using the word correctly? Super easy – if you’re not sure, I would say… don’t.

Soliman has been charged with a federal hate crime, as well as 16 counts of attempted first-degree murder, two counts of using an incendiary device, and 16 counts of attempted use of an incendiary device.

I mentioned yesterday that he was believed to be an Egyptian national. That has now been confirmed. He was born in Egypt and moved to Colorado, where he lived with his wife and five children, three years ago. He filed for asylum in 2022 and has lived in the country illegally since 2023.

There was an initial victim count of eight, but four victims were later identified, so the true count is twelve. Of those, six were taken to the hospital and four have been released from the hospital.

So that’s where things currently stand. Obviously, this is a developing story. Soliman is due in court again on Thursday.

Russia and Ukraine

-via AP News

Moving to Ukraine, where Sunday saw a surprise Ukrainian drone attack that, for the first time, reached as far as Serbia, damaging or destroying out about a third of Russia’s strategic bomber fleet.

Some Russian military bloggers are comparing this to Japan’s attack on Pearl Harbor. That’s how significant this is.

As for peace talks… Representatives for the two countries met on Monday and discussed the exchange of thousands of dead and seriously injured soldiers (and let that be a reminder of the very real consequences of this war), but officials say that beyond that, no progress has been made to end this war.

Trump v SCOTUS

-via CBS News

On Monday, Trump asked the Supreme Court to allow the administration to move forward with their plans to pretty please cause chaos and fire, for now good reason, thousands of federal workers across nearly two dozen agencies.

Look, does the government have waste?

Yes, of course.

Happy to give you some names right now, in fact!

However, this is chaos. They don’t have the authority. And these are employees who, for all we know, for all Trump knows, don’t deserve to be fired. The reason I know that is because they just lumped together anyone who fell under specific parameters.

And because of that, lawyers and judges were like hey man… probably not.

This is the second time he has had to go to the Supremes to ask if he can do federal employee firing chaos.

Previous they asked the Court to put a stop to a two-week temporary restraining order that was issued by a U.S. District Judge, but then they withdrew that request after the judge issued a longer relief.

But that time is up now baybee. And the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 9th Circuit says they’re not going to put a stop to the judge’s order.

So straight to the top for President Ties Too Long!

We’ll see what the high court says.

We’ll see what they say about a lot of things soon enough – as a reminder, June of the month of decisions from the Supreme Court. So buckle up, it’s probably about to be… not amazing. Not great. Not super super fun.

And that’s it. That’s the news.

I’ll tell you what. On Monday’s episode, before the horrific news broke, I had quite the show lined up. Very silly.

That is still my plan for tomorrow.

No one tell anyone, okay. Because a few stories broke over the weekend that I would really love to tell you about.

I’m proud of people who understand that there can be better in this world. We can be better. We can do better. We can love better. And I understand that this is the dumbest and most dangerous timeline. I’m not saying that every single person can be the best person. I’m saying that we, you and me, we can be better. We can do better. We can love better.

We can be 3% better, even on our worst days. And even that would make a difference.

And because you know that. Because you can do that… I’m proud of you.