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Life Projections: On Swamp Creatures and Pedo Besties
Kudos to VJayBombs, ingenious street artists who once emblazoned L.A. with projections of ICE hauling off Jesus, and who just hit D.C. to plaster “Guardians of Pedophiles" on the Kennedy Center's "literal cover-up" and murky regime minions - bats, worms, turtles - on the besieged Reflecting Pool. Growing more ideological as the fascist stakes rise, they use peaceful but splashy projection bombing to "make our voices heard," sensibly arguing, "If you're gonna say something, say something."
It seems only apt an anonymous collective of renegades chooses as weapons the visual tools of their oppressors, slathering multiple regime cover-ups - like the attempted removal from National Parks of information on slavery and other historical facts that “disparage Americans past or living” - with their own rowdy retorts. Large-scale, dissident projections are part of a relatively new protest tradition, "accessible, disruptive, but not violent," that evidently grew from the Occupy movement. In 2013, using an Illuminator- like projector that came out of a car roof like a turret, one Charles Lechner projected an image of a ballot box stuffed with dollar bills onto Michael Bloomberg’s New York apartment; the Mayor, unamused, had him arrested.
VJayBombs began about ten years ago when three filmmakers and neighbors in a Koreatown apartment complex startedprojecting abstract visuals onto nearby buildings during house parties. That pastime evolved during the lead-up to the 2024 election into "Life's Projections," peaceful guerrilla protest that "sits right in the sweet spot of all our skill sets"; they now have over 300,000 online followers and merch - ICE guy with gun: "Our humanity" - to help raise funds. Moving through group chats, location-scouting, brainstorming - what will resonate, how to highlight absurdity and communicate clearly in seconds - they've progressed from "total novices" who blew a fuse by trying to run power through a car lighter to a large-venue projector.
Their goal is to effectively merge message with architecture in a story that unfolds like a digital billboard or comic strip and gets "the longest legs online - as many eyes as possible." Their projections across L.A. have ranged from No Kings messages to Matt Gaetz as Butt-Head to a spoof of Trump's endless, babbling State of the Union speech, with Trump holding the Statue of Liberty hostage amidst flashing messages of "Immigrant Bad!" and “Forget the Files!” A Super Bowl parody, "Redacted Bowl," featured Trump and cronies as football players with their stats matching their references in the Epstein files. Last week's UFC cage match became Donald Trump vs. the Epstein Files celebrating "the pound-for-pound best cover-up in history."
D.C.'s besieged Kennedy Center and besmirched Reflecting Pool - now the surreal scene of a Stalinist police stop - were logical, tempting next stops. A week after a court ruling forced the removal of Trump's name from the Center, the tarp hung in the dark to hide a fragile narcissist's shame and fury from a gleeful crowd is still there, obscuring not just the spot where the name allegedly came down but the entire facade. In a June 19 court filing, Center lackeys say it's to do maintenance on the marble. Lawyers for Rep. Joyce Beatty, who filed the original lawsuit, say it's a lame move to soothe "broken egos,” one that both conceals whether officials have in fact complied with the court and reduces a once-vaunted arts venue into a "lifeless husk."
Frustrated visitors to the site have their own ideas: One suggested Trump is focused on "trying to deface America’s symbols before he finishes defacing the country," and another proposed using the tarp to cover the brackish debacle that is now the Reflecting Pool. Others have simply moved on to pay tribute to VJayBombs artists for giving Trump "a lesson in the law of unintended consequences" and projecting "what we all wanted" on the Kennedy Center: A "Guardians of Pedophiles" montage of Trump, Epstein, regime toadies - Bondi, Johnson, Patel - with, "No one bends the knee like the GOP,” and a guy climbing a ladder towards the name "Donald," its letters slowly cascading down to form the word "pedo."
In their weekend art spree, VJayBombs also took to other D.C. landmarks. At the Lincoln Pool, they placed in that now-sorry site a fitting array of swamp creatures: McConnell as turtle, Hegseth as crocodile, Vance as worm, Rubio as fish, Stephen Goebbels Miller a bat hanging upside-down, bald head glinting. At the DOJ, Ted Cruz popped up as a grotesque sex worker in Trump underwear. Hard to unsee, but VJayBombs argue, these dark days, it's "more important than ever to use whatever skills we have to push back." Their art "gives people a new way to engage," they say. "We all have more power than we think...Real change doesn’t come from one big event - it comes from countless small acts that, together, move the needle."
‘Bad Day to Be a Duck’: Trump Reflecting Pool Disaster Continues With Hydrogen Peroxide Treatment
National Park Service employees on Tuesday were seen pouring a bleaching agent into the Lincoln Memorial Reflecting Pool in Washington, DC, apparently to kill algae that had sprouted up shortly after the completion of a $14.2 million renovation commissioned by President Donald Trump.
The bleaching of the pool was spotted by CBS News journalist Bob Kovach, who posted video of workers dumping 12% hydrogen peroxide into the water.
This morning at the reflecting pool pic.twitter.com/uygkbcn7Mn
— bob kovach (@bkovoDC) June 16, 2026
The pool in recent days has turned a bright green due to algae growth, which threatened to spoil Trump's effort to make it appear "American flag blue" ahead of the celebrations of the country's 250th anniversary next month.
As noted by The New Republic, 12% hydrogen peroxide is strong enough to "cause problems if inhaled and burns if the chemical touches the skin, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention."
"Hydrogen peroxide is generally considered less environmentally destructive as its compounds readily break down in water," The New Republic added, "but the high concentration could nonetheless pose a risk to some of the pool’s frequent visitors, such as ducks or other birds."
Michael O'Brien, a Washington DC-based primary care pediatrician, expressed skepticism that the plan to dump bottles of hydrogen peroxide into the pool would succeed in fixing the algae problem.
"Y’all, not to be a huge nerd but for the reflecting pool you would need a minimum of about 8,000 liters of 12% hydrogen peroxide to reach the 50 parts per million concentration to kill algae," O'Brien wrote. "Is this what happens when you have zero scientists in your administration?"
NOTUS reporter Igor Bobic, upon seeing the chemical being dumped into the pool, remarked it was a "bad day to be a duck."
A Fox News reporter on the scene tried to put a good spin on the pool being green by pointing out that "there's pool guys cleaning it up," and then exclaiming, "No other president would do that!"
FOX: I'm here at the newly renovated reflecting pool. It's painted American flag blue. The Democrats will tell you there's green algae. There's pool guys cleaning it up. No other president would do that. pic.twitter.com/19MzxnEcq5
— Acyn (@Acyn) June 16, 2026
Trump's efforts to renovate the reflecting pool raised eyebrows even before it became overrun by algae. According to a Tuesday report in The Guardian, the pool was renovated by Atlantic Industrial Coatings, which received a no-bid contract from the Trump administration after having "previously carried out work on a swimming pool at one of the president's golf clubs."
110 Days of Trump's Iran War Cost US Consumers $53 Billion Extra in Raised Gas Prices
President Donald Trump said on Wednesday that if his war in Iran continued much longer, the US could have faced "economic catastrophe" with gas prices expected to soar as emergency oil reserves were exhausted.
But new reports suggest that although the war appears to be coming to an end and the Strait of Hormuz is reopening, extraordinary irreversible damage has been done, and the economic consequences will be felt well into the future.
The Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy (ITEP) estimates that as a result of the war, Americans have paid nearly $54 billion extra for gas and fuel, amounting to more than $400 per household, than if the war had never started.
Trump on the Iran War MOU: "I didn't want to see economic catastrophe. If you kept this going, that could have happened."
It's honestly a surreal minute to watch:pic.twitter.com/K7ZRPYklV5
— Rory Johnston (@Rory_Johnston) June 17, 2026
In the wake of the memorandum of understanding signed between the US and Iran, Trump has tried to claim credit as average gas prices have fallen below $4 for the first time since the early days of the war in March. However, gas still costs 25% more than it did last year.
This state of affairs can be expected to continue into the future. As The Associated Press reported Thursday morning:
Even as gas prices start to decline, it is anticipated to take weeks or months for oil to start flowing through the Strait of Hormuz again...
And Gulf oil producers that throttled back production will need time to get the oil moving again. Analysts also say ship captains may take their time to decide if passage is safe and that the threat of attack from Iran has truly receded.
In addition, refineries typically pay for crude oil a month or more in advance, so even after oil prices drop, they won’t immediately be processing cheaper products.
Fighting over the Strait of Hormuz disrupted not only supplies of crude and refined fuel but also the supply chains for fertilizer, food, and even footwear. Businesses expect higher costs to linger, which means their customers might need to prepare for that too.
Patrick De Haan, a petroleum analyst at GasBuddy, told CBS News it will be “a very long, multi-month to multi-year process for things to fully normalize,” and that it could take “until potentially mid-to-late 2027” for gas prices to return to pre-war levels.
Even as Americans, and indeed consumers around the world, continue to see their pocketbooks drained in the coming months, there is one big winner here: the fossil fuel industry.
An analysis released on Thursday by the environmental group 350.org shows that over the course of the war, households and businesses have paid the oil and gas industry an additional $374 billion in profits due to higher prices driven by the war.
Based on pricing scenarios from the International Monetary Fund, the group projected that even with the Strait of Hormuz open, the amount siphoned off could balloon to over $700 billion by the end of the year.
"Even if the Strait of Hormuz reopens tomorrow, we should expect prices to remain above pre-crisis levels," said Andreas Sieber, 350.org's head of political strategy. "We witness not only a massive fossil fuel crisis but a vast upward transfer of wealth built on instability of fossil fuel markets and pain."
Failing 'Moral Test,' Newsom Rejects Compromise 2% Wealth Tax on California Billionaires
California Gov. Gavin Newsom on Thursday refused to budge from his opposition to a proposed wealth tax on the Golden State's billionaires, swiftly dismissing a union-led coalition's effort to compromise by reducing its desired 5% rate by more than half.
In a letter to Newsom on Thursday, the Billionaire Tax Now coalition urged the governor and likely 2028 presidential candidate to support a "2% wealth tax on the state’s richest 200 billionaires." The coalition's demand came hours after organizers announced that they had collected enough signatures to get their proposed one-time, 5% tax on billionaire wealth on California's ballot in November.
Newsom's office made clear that the governor, who has been outspoken in his opposition to the proposed 5% wealth tax, would not support the compromise offer.
"The governor has been clear that he is strongly opposed to a California-only wealth tax," Tara Gallegos, a spokesperson for Newsom, said in a statement. "Changing the tax rate doesn’t change this measure’s fundamental flaws that harm working Californians.”
The Billionaire Tax Now coalition on Thursday offered to withdraw its popular ballot initiative calling for a one-time 5% levy on California billionaires' wealth if Newsom agreed to throw his weight behind legislation enacting a 2% wealth tax instead. Organizers and supporters say a tax on the vast fortunes of the state's wealthiest residents would help avert a looming healthcare disaster spurred by federal Medicaid cuts that President Donald Trump and congressional Republicans passed last summer.
"California is home to more billionaires than any state in the nation," the coalition wrote in its letter to Newsom on Thursday. "Their wealth has grown a staggering 212% in the last six years alone to more than $2.2 trillion dollars. A 2% one-time tax on that accumulated wealth is modest by any objective measure, especially if it means keeping emergency rooms open and saving patient lives. It’s more than appropriate at a moment when every other Californian is being asked by Sacramento to sacrifice."
"We need you to stand up against one of Trump’s worst and deadliest domestic policy blunders yet—the cuts to California healthcare contained in the 'One Big Beautiful Bill,'" the coalition added. "Let’s save patient lives together."
US Rep. Ro Khanna (D-Calif.), a Silicon Valley representative who has supported the proposed wealth tax in the face of angry billionaire backlash, expressed support for the 2% compromise offer in a social media post on Thursday, noting that "250 billionaires own half of California GDP."
"Taxing them at 2% would save healthcare for millions. Healthcare workers have already compromised from 5%," Khanna wrote. "I want a Democratic party that will stand for the working class. This is a moral test for our party. Whose side are you on?"
Family Seeks Answers, Justice After Mississippi Cop Kills Toddler Kohen Wiley in Walmart Lot
Relatives of a toddler shot dead on Sunday by police in rural Mississippi are demanding answers and accountability.
"I don’t know anything right now," Carlos Haynes told Memphis channel WMC. "My grandson gone. I just want justice."
Carolyn Sokes, the slain toddler's great-grandmother, said: "The police department not telling us anything. They removed the baby's body without anybody seeing it. All we know is that a car was shot up and a 1-year-old baby was killed, and then nobody tells us anything, like we're not anybody."
One-year-old Kohen Wiley, who was being held by his mother in the front passenger seat while his aunt was behind the wheel, was shot and killed by police in Senatobia, 40 miles south of Memphis, during an incident in a Walmart parking lot. The baby's aunt was also shot and critically injured.
Cellphone video footage obtained by Fox 13 Memphis shows a vehicle driving away from officers, but does not appear to capture the moment of the shooting. A photo of the car shows bullet holes in the windshield.
An eyewitness told WREG that “I seen the officers take off running, not in the car, I’m talking about on feet."
“They’re running through the parking lot and I see the car take off, you know, so in my head, I’m like, I know they’re not chasing the car, they don’t think they’re going to catch the car. Then I hear gunshots, and I’m like, I know they’re not shooting at a car that’s leaving in public; this is Walmart."
Another witness said that he heard two gunshots fired by officers who were already waiting in the Walmart parking lot as the two women left the store holding a box of diapers and the baby.
According to the Mississippi Department of Public Safety (DPS):
Law enforcement officers responded to a shoplifting call at Walmart on US 51. Upon arrival, officers encountered two subjects and a juvenile child fleeing from the store into a vehicle. Officers attempted to stop the vehicle, but the driver drove in the direction of the officers, almost striking one. An officer then discharged their weapon and the vehicle fled the scene. The subjects arrived at a local hospital where one juvenile child in the vehicle was pronounced deceased, and another subject had critical injuries. No law enforcement officers received any serious physical injury.
The responding law enforcement agencies—the Senatobia Police Department (SPD) and Tate County Sheriff's Office (TCSO)—have yet to release the names of the involved officers or any video footage of the incident.
TCSO said deputies were in the area investigating an unrelated matter when their assistance was requested. On Monday, Tate County Sheriff Luke Shepherd declined to comment about the shooting, including whether anyone had been charged, citing pending investigations, according to Mississippi Today.
SPD issued a statement saying it is "committed to full transparency" and "will share as much information as possible" with the public.
Walmart said in a written statement, “We’re saddened by what took place at our Senatobia, MS store."
Relatives of the slain toddler said his mother and aunt were not shoplifting and expressed wariness about local police, who have been embroiled in multiple brutality scandals involving Black victims in recent years.
“Senatobia Police Department get away with too much stuff,” Stokes, the great-grandmother, told WREG. “I hear about it all the time, it’s in the news all the time."
Licole Wiley, the child’s grandmother and the sister of the critically injured woman, lamented that the toddler died "allegedly over some Pampers."
"Whatever the incident may have come to, it still didn’t need for you to shoot two adults and a baby that was not even a threat to you," she added.
Another one of the child's grandmothers, Lasandra Williams, said that “everybody that was involved needs to be held accountable."
"I’m not giving up until I get justice,” she added. “Justice will be served. If it has anything to do with me, it will be served.”
Mississippi Today reported Tuesday that Wiley's relatives have hired national civil rights attorney Ben Crump.
"A 1-year-old child is dead because police officers in Mississippi opened fire on a car in a crowded Walmart parking lot," Crump said in a statement. "Kohen Wiley was a baby. His mother, who has not been charged with any crime, says she was trying to communicate to officers that there was a baby in the car. They fired anyway, leading to the death of an innocent 1-year-old. We intend to seek justice for baby Kohen and the life that was stolen from him.”
Poll Shows US Voters Have Disapproved of Trump's War of Choice Against Iran From Beginning to End
As talks to end the US-Israeli war on Iran were delayed Friday by continued attacks by the Israel Defense Forces in Lebanon, new polling showed Americans are eager to see the conclusion of the conflict that began in February—confirming that at no point since the Trump administration and Israel began the assault has the war been popular with the public.
Nearly two-thirds of respondents to an Associated Press/NORC Center for Public Affairs Research poll taken from June 11-17 said they were unhappy with President Donald Trump's handling of issues with Iran, which he began attacking as he insisted the country must not have enriched uranium that can be used to make a nuclear weapon and that the US must "destroy their missiles."
One independent voter from Plano, Texas told the AP that he was frustrated by Trump's decision to wage an unprovoked war on Iran—which followed an invasion of Venezuela and threats against Greenland and Cuba—after the president made ending US foreign wars a central campaign promise in 2024.
“I would like the war to end,” the voter, Donald McBride, told the AP. “The original objective of the war was to end the Iranian regime, and that’s just not possible. I don’t really know why we’d continue fighting.”
The poll was in line with an analysis of eight reputable surveys that were taken in early March, just days after Trump and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu began the attacks—a decision Secretary of State Marco Rubio said was made by the Trump administration because the White House believed Iran would retaliate against bombing that Israel was intent on starting.
Those surveys found that just 38% of voters approved of the military strikes against Iran in the days after they began, with polling expert G. Elliott Morris warning that "wars only get less popular” over time.
That quickly proved true in this case, with Americans almost immediately feeling the effects of Iran's retaliatory strategy after the country effectively closed the Strait of Hormuz, sending gas prices skyrocketing. In late April, 78% of respondents to a Reuters/Ipsos poll said they were very concerned about the rising cost of fuel, and 77% blamed Trump.
Fifty-eight percent also told Reuters two months into the Iran War that they'd be less likely to vote for a candidate who supported Trump's actions against Iran.
In the poll released Friday, 53% of voters said the US military action against Iran has gone "too far," slightly down from 59% who said so in March. The poll was taken as the US released a memorandum of understanding with Iran and as the president indicated a retreat from the central demands he had made regarding Israel's missiles and nuclear program, which Iranian officials have maintained is not for military purposes.
30% of Those Killed in Gaza Genocide Were Children, Many From 'Deliberate' Targeting: UN Commission
“By targeting children, Israel is attacking the very capacity of the Palestinian people to exist and to determine their future," said the commission's head.
About 30% of those killed by Israel in Gaza since October 7, 2023, have been children, according to a United Nations inquiry on Tuesday, which found the "deliberate" targeting of kids to have furthered a genocide against Palestinians.
The report, authored by the UN Independent International Commission of Inquiry on the Occupied Palestinian Territory, follows a previous finding in September that Israel's actions in Gaza constituted genocide.
"The deliberate targeting of children is one of the key elements establishing genocidal intent of the Israeli authorities and security forces to destroy the Palestinian group, in whole or in part, in Gaza," the commission said.
Between the start of Israel's military campaign in October 2023 and the "ceasefire" agreement in October 2025, the report found that more than 20,000 children were killed, while more than 44,000 were injured. Among those killed, more than 5,000 were under the age of five, more than 1,000 were under the age of one, and more than 400 were newborn babies.
The report highlights documented instances in which Israeli forces directly fired upon children, with medical professionals testifying that they treated kids with "direct gunshot and sniper wounds, often to the head and abdomen." One sample of 168 children killed by gunshots found that 73 were shot in the head and 22 were shot in the chest, which the commission argued was evidence of intentionality.
"Based on the clustering of injuries and the targeted body parts, I assess that the Israeli soldiers have been deliberately shooting teenage boys in a game of target practice—a different body part being targeted on different days… There is a very clear pattern that suggests this is a deliberate aiming of different body parts [of children]," one doctor told the commission.
They also cited dozens of cases of children being targeted by snipers and quadcopters. The report quotes one Israeli soldier who appeared anonymously in a documentary about the war and described operating drones like a video game.
"The drones, in my opinion, are what most dehumanize the other side," he said. "You see everything on a screen. You drop the bomb. It feels like a game. You can sit in some basement of a house, safe, with your helmet off, scratching your balls, half-dressed, and kill Palestinians.”
The report also argues that the deaths of children in airstrikes were not mere collateral damage, as Israel often asserts, but the foreseeable result of Israel's use of high payload weapons against densely populated areas, which resulted in massive numbers of civilian casualties.
"These deliberate attacks wiped out entire families across two or three or even four generations, with the Israeli security forces fully aware that children would be present and that children, with their small, fragile bodies, have a higher chance of death and serious injury in such attacks," the report said.
"The Israeli security forces continued and repeated these attacks over a two-year period, without amending targeting criteria or selection of weapons, while child casualties mounted," it continued. "This indicates that such attacks, which killed children in such high numbers, were intentional."
Adding to evidence of intentionality, the report said, was the direct targeting of neonatal and maternity care centers, which it said "directly endangered" the ability of newborn babies to survive and contributed to miscarriages and birth defects. In the first half of 2025, Gaza experienced a 41% decline in live births compared with the same period in 2022, the report found.
The report notes that numerous Israeli politicians have explicitly justified the targeting of children since the early days of the genocidal onslaught.
On October 9, 2023, Nissim Vaturi, the deputy Knesset speaker, called on the army to "Erase Gaza... Do not leave a child there. Expel all the remaining ones at the end." In January 2025, he said, “Gaza is full of terrorists and every child born there is already a terrorist, from the moment of his birth.”
Amid Israel's attack on the Al-Shifa hospital in July 2024, Israeli Knesset Member Amit Halevi stated that the hundreds of babies in its maternity ward were "all born terrorists."
This was part of a “systematic and complete destruction of the healthcare system in Gaza,” the report said, that fell heaviest on children. Attacks on pediatric hospitals forced sick and injured kids into smaller facilities without the necessary supplies or pediatric staff.
Israel's restrictions on humanitarian aid entering Gaza, meanwhile, turned survivable injuries into ones that caused death or permanent disability. Doctors said children were forced to undergo "horrific amputations" without anesthesia, while others who'd suffered burns and other traumatic injuries were left without painkillers.
The destruction of medical infrastructure, the report said, was not incidental. It said Israel had "operational plans and procedures for attacking healthcare facilities.” The result, it said, was preventing Palestinians' “capacity and possibility to heal, recover, and live.”
The report points out that since the ceasefire went into effect, more than 100 children had been killed and hundreds more wounded as of mid-January, with many being shot near the so-called "yellow line" that marks the edge of Israel's occupation area in Gaza, which the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) has been gradually advancing forward.
Israel dismissed the findings of the commission, rejecting what it called a “second defamatory advocacy report."
“Israel dismisses this libelous sham,” it said in a statement and added that while “every child deserves protection,” the report ignored “the brutal tactics of Hamas.”
Srinivasan Muralidhar, chair of the UN commission, said, "The evidence shows that Palestinian children have been deliberately targeted and killed by the Israeli security forces."
“Even after the October 2025 ceasefire," he said, "children continue to be killed and seriously injured, with continued disregard by Israel for the ceasefire and for the protection owed to Palestinian children under international law.”
Beyond Gaza, the commission reported that Israeli forces have killed more than 200 children in the illegally occupied West Bank and East Jerusalem since October 7, 2023. Hundreds more have been detained, often without any charge, and many have been subjected to systemic mistreatment in detention, including the deprivation of food and medical care, torture, and sexual abuse.
“Even if the bombs and guns fall silent in Gaza and the West Bank, Palestinian children will not simply recover overnight,” said Muralidhar. “The destruction of their health, education, and development is irreversible.”
“The protection, care, and survival of Palestinian children are inseparable from the Palestinian people’s right to self-determination,” he continued. “By targeting children, Israel is attacking the very capacity of the Palestinian people to exist and to determine their future.”
Judge Finds Trump DOJ Abused Subpoenas in Attempt to ‘Coerce’ Minnesota Leaders
"I will never stop exercising my constitutional rights to stand up for Minnesotans and the American freedoms we hold dear," Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz said after the ruling.
A federal judge on Monday quashed multiple grand jury subpoenas issued by the US Department of Justice aimed at political leaders in Minnesota, including Gov. Tim Walz and Minneapolis Mayor Jacob Frey.
In his ruling, Judge Patrick Schiltz of the United States District Court for the District of Minnesota found there was "no doubt" that the DOJ had initiated "a criminal investigation in order to harass political opponents or to coerce them into taking official action," which he described as "a blatantly unlawful and unethical use of the grand-jury process."
Finding that "the evidence that the challenged subpoenas were issued for unlawful reasons is overwhelming," Schiltz, an appointee of former President George W. Bush, cited multiple instances of Trump administration officials "threatening and attempting to punish states and localities that have adopted 'sanctuary' policies."
The judge then quoted several social media posts by President Donald Trump in which he warned that "retribution" was coming for Minnesota officials, as well as statements from Trump DOJ officials linking grand jury subpoenas to the state's lack of cooperation with federal immigration enforcement operations.
Schiltz also said it was "risible" for the DOJ to justify the subpoenas on the grounds that it is investigating officials' refusal to devote state and local resources to assisting federal law enforcement, which he described as "constitutionally protected conduct."
"A grand-jury subpoena cannot be issued for an improper purpose," Schiltz emphasized. "The fact that connections between the information sought in the subpoenas and any possible criminal violation range from extremely weak to nonexistent only adds to the overwhelming evidence that these subpoenas were not issued to investigate, but to harass, coerce, and retaliate."
In a statement released after Schiltz's ruling, Walz hailed the decision as "a victory for the rule of law and our democracy," depicting the DOJ probe as yet another example of the department "pursuing criminal investigations into the president's political opponents."
"I will never stop exercising my constitutional rights to stand up for Minnesotans and the American freedoms we hold dear," Walz added.
Frey also released a statement after the ruling, accusing the DOJ of "subpoenaing political opponents because they spoke out on behalf of their constituents."
"My job is not to stay silent when Minneapolis residents are killed, families are torn apart, and businesses are closed," Frey said. "My job is to stand up for the people I represent, the families who call our city home, and the thousands of people who showed up and spoke out."
Rep. Angie Craig (D-Minn.) celebrated the ruling, which she said "confirms what we knew all along—that this was nothing but a baseless political attack on Minnesota’s leaders."
Aaron Reichlin-Melnick, senior fellow at the American Immigration Council, noted in a social media post just how far off the rails the Trump DOJ has gone.
"The Trump administration’s efforts to use the criminal grand jury process to retaliate against Minnesota and Minneapolis has floundered badly," he wrote. "It's a sign of how they are willing to toss aside basic rules to get at their enemies, and how the courts have largely smacked them down when they tried."
'They Knew Exactly Who Mona Khalil Was': Israel Kills Lebanese Turtle Conservationist
"The murder of Mona Khalil sends a chilling message: Even those whose only weapon is compassion, whose only mission is preservation, are not spared," said one observer.
For more than 25 years, she protected the endangered sea turtles that laid their eggs near her beachside home in southern Lebanon. But Mona Khalil could not protect herself from Israeli invaders who spared neither her sanctuary nor its steward.
Khalil, 76, was mortally wounded when Israeli forces bombed her brightly painted conservation hub and ecotourism site, called the Orange House, in al-Mansouri, Tyre province, on June 4. She suffered injuries including severe burns during the attack, which also wounded her Ethiopian assistant, and was transported to a hospital in Beirut for treatment.
"They knew exactly who Mona Khalil was," Lebanese journalist and professor Marwa Osman said on social media following Khalil's death. "They knew the bright orange house... They knew it was not a military site, not a command center, not a battlefield position. It was one of the most recognizable symbols of environmental conservation on Lebanon's southern coast; a sanctuary dedicated to protecting endangered sea turtles and preserving life."
The Israel Defense Forces said Saturday that Khalil "was not a target."
"There is no known IDF strike in which she was injured,” the military said. “However, strikes were conducted in the area after the IDF issued evacuation warnings.”
Khalil—who was born in Nigeria in 1949 and held Dutch and Lebanese citizenship—co-founded the Orange House Project in 1999 in what had once been her grandmother's home. Khalil and volunteers gathered there each nesting season to protect sea turtles, their eggs, and hatchlings from both predators and people. She also fought against the privatization of beaches, habitat destruction, dynamite fishing, and other threats.
"For decades, Mona dedicated her life to protecting endangered sea turtles and their nesting habitats," the Lebanese environmental group Green Southerners said on Instagram. "Through the Orange House, she inspired generations of Lebanese to value and protect their natural heritage and coastal ecosystems. Her work made her one of Lebanon’s most respected voices for marine conservation and biodiversity protection."
Green Southerners co-founder Hisham Younes told the BBC on Saturday that Khalil "used to talk about the beach like it was a person."
"Her bond to the sunset, her bond to the water and the turtles... she was really into conservation, and into the soul, the spirit of conservation," Younes added.
According to Lebanon's Ministry of Public Health, Israeli attacks have killed at least 4,106 people—including 383 women, 251 children, and 135 medical workers—and wounded 12,153 others since March 2. Over 1 million Lebanese have also been forcibly displaced.
Over the weekend, Israeli National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir said his country's forces "need to go berserk" and "obliterate" Lebanon, all of which, he said, "must burn."
Ben-Gvir's comments were widely viewed as part of Israel's efforts to sabotage an elusive peace agreement between the United States and Iran, which has endured 114 days of an illegal US-Israeli war of choice.
Israel's Lebanon onslaught, occurring amid a backdrop of its ongoing genocide in Gaza, did not deter Khalil.
"When the war broke out, she said, 'No one should tell me to leave. I don't want to leave,'" Lebanese journalist and environmentalist Fadia Joumaa told Al Jazeera on Monday. "She made the decision to stay. What she said was, 'I'm a civilian. I don't have a weapon. I'll lock myself inside my home. This is my life.' She made that choice and remained in her house."
The Lebanese environmental group Green Southerners decried the Israeli strike, which "targeted a site that had long been known for environmental conservation, biodiversity protection, and public awareness."
"[Khalil's] death stands as a stark reminder of the devastating toll that Israeli attacks continue to exact on civilians, environmental defenders, and the natural heritage they sought to protect," the group said on Instagram. "We condemn the killing of Mona Khalil and reaffirm that those responsible for attacks on civilians and environmental defenders must be held accountable."
Recalling Khalil's successful campaign to ban dynamite fishing and the violent backlash it sparked from opponents, Joumaa told NPR: "Mona was a fighter. She did not like diplomacy. There were times when they shot at her house."
"She always told me: Defend the beach, defend the turtles, defend your country," she added.
Osman called the Israeli strike that killed Khalil "an assault on a woman whose life's work was devoted to safeguarding life itself, a woman known internationally for her environmental activism, whose name had become synonymous with the protection of Lebanon's coastline and its endangered sea turtles."
"The murder of Mona Khalil sends a chilling message: Even those whose only weapon is compassion, whose only mission is preservation, are not spared," Osman added.