A federal judge in Minnesota, who has donated to an immigrant legal aid group, quashed several federal grand jury subpoenas of documents from Gov. Tim Walz and the mayors of Minneapolis and St. Paul over compliance with immigration enforcement. In a 29-page opinion issued Monday, Chief U.S. District Judge Patrick Schiltz of the District of Minnesota accused the Trump administration’s Justice Department of seeking to “harass political opponents” by initiating a criminal investigation and using grand jury subpoenas to pressure state and local officials into changing their immigration policies. The judge has acknowledged being a donor for “many years” to the Immigrant Law Center of Minnesota, an organization that provides free legal representation to low-income immigrants and refugees. Schiltz has also clashed with Immigration and Customs Enforcement over the agency’s alleged violation of court orders. The grand jury subpoenas sought records related to federal immigration enforcement, including communications regarding cooperation or noncooperation with ICE and other federal immigration authorities; requests for assistance from immigration officials; communications among state and local officials concerning immigration enforcement; and training or guidance provided to employees regarding interactions with ICE. The subpoenas were issued to the offices of Walz, Minnesota Attorney General Keith Ellison, Minneapolis Mayor Jacob Frey, and St. Paul Mayor Kaohly Her, as well as the Ramsey County Board of Commissioners and the Hennepin County Board of Commissioners. “Initiating a criminal investigation in order to harass political opponents or to coerce them into taking official action — particularly official action that the federal government cannot directly require those political opponents to take — is a blatantly unlawful and unethical use of the grand jury process,” Schiltz wrote. “The only question, then, is whether the challenged subpoenas were issued for one of these forbidden purposes,” he continued. “The court has no doubt that they were.” In January, Fox News first reported that Schiltz donated to the Immigrant Law Center of Minnesota in 2019, citing the organization’s annual report. In a statement to Fox News, Schiltz said he has “donated for many years to the Immigrant Law Center of Minnesota.” “I have also donated for many years to Mid-Minnesota Legal Aid,” he added. “I believe that poor people should be able to get legal representation.” Schiltz was appointed by President George W. Bush and previously clerked for Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia. In January, Schiltz ordered Acting ICE Director Todd Lyons to appear in court to explain why the agency had failed to comply with court orders and caused what the judge described as significant hardship for immigrants in the state. “The practical consequence of respondents’ failure to comply has almost always been significant hardship to aliens (many of whom have lawfully lived and worked in the United States for years and done absolutely nothing wrong),” Schiltz wrote. The following month, Schiltz issued another warning to the Justice Department and ICE, writing: “This Court will continue to do whatever is required to protect the rule of law, including, if necessary, moving to the use of criminal contempt. One way or another, ICE will comply with this Court’s orders.”

Although major sports wins bring celebration, the festivities are often marred in big cities by unruly behavior. That was particularly the case in New York, following the Knicks’ June 13 clinching of the NBA championship. The parade that followed brought more chaos. Following that victory over the San Antonio Spurs—the Knicks’ first title in 53 years—hooligans took to the streets, vandalizing as they went, including targeting and torching a school bus. Those in the crowd cheered. Police meanwhile could not visibly be seen. As he showed footage of the chaos during Friday’s episode of “The Tony Kinnett Cast” on the Daily Signal, host Tony Kinnett noted how those burning the school bus were both white and black. And the bus driver begging the crowd to stop was black. “The point of the story is that it is not about the race, it is all about the culture,” Kinnett observed. The revelry of the parade was marred by random gunshots fired into the air to “just cause chaos and panic because that is the celebratory nature that has come out of some of these events,” as Kinnett mentioned. Meanwhile, New York isn’t doing much to stop lawlessness. “There’s no condemnation of this from the city level. There’s nothing. [Mayor Zohran] Mamdani is busy running around patting himself on the back and praising Islamic migrant stuff,” Kinnett said, also addressing how liberals excuse such behavior as how “it just happens.” The New York Department of Sanitation unveiled commemorative garbage cans to celebrate the Knicks win. (They’re also available online for purchase.) Fans reacted by stealing them, dumping out trash onto the city sidewalk to do so. People could be heard cheering in the background. During the parade, an individual appeared to be passed out from a drug overdose on the roof of a platform, as individuals sought to help. Kinnett observed that it took place with a “cop standing there, doing very little, ’cause this is just normal behavior in New York.” The passed-out man was revived using Narcan. He then proceeded to try to kiss the woman who gave him that Narcan. This is a stunning juxtaposition with the amount of support the United States is getting from visitors from around the world who are here for the FIFA World Cup. These visitors, Kinnett said, “realize that everything they’ve been told by people like Keir Starmer about the United States, things that they’ve been told about by, for example, Zohran Mamdani is a lie and that the United States is freaking incredible.” Japanese guests receive particular attention for how respectful they’ve been, as they come to games ready with garbage bags to clean up trash afterwards. For Kinnett, culture plays a significant role. “There are cultures that are objectively better than others because of how they carry themselves.” A young Japanese woman picking up trash shared that it is part of their “culture,” but also a matter of respect, “respect for everything, respect for the players, supporters, and also for the stadium.” The young woman shared “we are honored to be here, so we don’t want to make a mess and then leave it.” Kinnett showed side-by-side footage to even more deeply contrast the behavior of Knicks fans fighting in the streets and the more respectful guests in America.

Amid massive party infighting, the U.S. House of Representatives is coming together to put a bipartisan end to chemicals poisoning Americans with Parkinson’s disease. The bipartisan Paraquat Prevention Act would cancel all legal use of the herbicide paraquat, which has been linked to the neurological disorder and is massively produced by China. “The United States has no business allowing a chemical linked to Parkinson’s disease to keep being sprayed on American farmland, and this bill ends that,” Rep. Anna Paulina Luna, R-Fla., the author of the bill, said in a press release. Paraquat has been banned in over 70 countries, including every nation in the European Union, because the science is clear about the devastating neurological risks associated with exposure. The United States has no business allowing a chemical linked to Parkinson's disease to… pic.twitter.com/tYdfwXvtRp— Rep. Anna Paulina Luna (@RepLuna) June 18, 2026 Paraquat is a generic herbicide used for weed control and is banned in every nation in the European Union and more than 70 countries worldwide, including China. Despite China’s ban on the chemical, it is a leading manufacturer of paraquat, exporting roughly 78 million pounds to American ports every year. Vermont recently became the first U.S. state to restrict the chemical’s use. “Vermont just proved a paraquat ban is possible. Now Congress must make it national,” co-author Rep. Chellie Pingree, D-Maine, said. “Our bill cancels paraquat’s registration outright. No more reviews, no more waiting, no more excuses.” The House protected states’ ability to ban dangerous chemicals like paraquat, a pesticide linked to Parkinson’s that is already banned in 70+ countries. We encourage the Senate to do the same Contact your senator at (202) 224-3121 and tell them no Farm Bill should stop…— Parkinson's Foundation (@ParkinsonDotOrg) May 12, 2026 Under the Federal Insecticide, Fungicide, and Rodenticide Act, or FIFRA, the Environmental Protection Agency must register any pesticide to be sold or distributed in the United States. The bill directs the EPA to “cancel the registration of all uses of paraquat,” including revoking any exemption allowing for the presence of paraquat in or on food, and bans the sale and use of existing paraquat stocks. Under this legislation, the EPA administrator, currently Lee Zeldin, may not re-register paraquat as an EPA-registered herbicide. “Independent scientific evidence has found that exposure to paraquat has led to increased risk of Parkinson’s disease, yet the EPA has continued to allow this pesticide to be used in our communities,” Andi Fristedt, executive vice president for the Parkinson’s Foundation, said in support of the bill. “By banning paraquat, the Paraquat Prevention Act would protect Americans and help create a world where fewer people develop Parkinson’s disease in the first place,” Fristedt continued. According to the Parkinson’s Foundation, roughly 1.1 million Americans live with the disease and nearly 90,000 are diagnosed every year. The disease currently has no cure. While it is not fatal, complications can be life-threatening. Parkinson’s, a neurological disorder, primarily affects motor skills and degenerates nerve cells in the brain that produce dopamine, causing cognitive impairment, mental health disorders, and sleep disturbances. “Paraquat exposure is one of the clearest preventable risks linked to Parkinson’s disease,” Dan Feehan, chief policy and government affairs officer at The Michael J. Fox Foundation, said. Both research foundations have backed this bipartisan bill, congratulating and thanking the members for bringing it to the forefront. Luna Named the MAHA Queen This is not the first pesticide fight Luna has taken on. As a young mom serving in Congress, she has taken on the role of a Make America Healthy Again member. The movement, led by Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr., has made its mark on the midterms as an essential voter bloc Republicans must win to hold the majority. Luna has proved herself to be someone who will fight for MAHA priorities. She recently had a major win in the 2026 farm bill, where she got her amendment through to strip pesticide liability protections from the package. While that bill passed the House, it is likely to be heavily marked up by the Senate. Though Pingree is a progressive member of the U.S. House, earning an 8% on the Heritage Action Scorecard, she has pledged to work across the aisle with MAHA moms. Her work as a farmer in Maine led her to a career in politics. While she won’t be supporting President Donald Trump’s MAGA movement, she is on board with MAHA—an important position for Republicans to win moderate voters in the midterm elections.

Over the weekend, Republican Utah Sen. Mike Lee spoke out against establishment Republicans for asking senators behind closed doors to stop talking about the SAVE America Act after publicly advocating for the legislation. Lee’s remarks come after the Daily Caller reported that during a Republican Senate lunch, longtime conservative senators told Lee and other legislative advocates of the act to overlook the legislation. While Senate Majority Leader John Thune’s office refuted the remarks, Lee’s comments seem to confirm the outlet’s reporting. “To donors: Pass the SAVE America Act. To Fox News: Pass the SAVE America Act. On talk radio: Pass the SAVE America Act. At campaign rallies: Pass the SAVE America Act. To Senate Republicans behind closed doors: Stop talking about the SAVE America Act,” Lee wrote about Republican Senate leadership. Lee, while on “Fox News Sunday,” then blamed “lazy Republicans” as the reason for the SAVE America Act not passing. The controversy comes after Senate Republicans, including Thune, have refused to invoke endless debate that would overrule the Senate’s 60-vote threshold rule, known as the filibuster. In another post, one responding to Sen. Tom Cotton’s statement on Fox News that the Senate Republican conference does not have enough votes to pass the voter ID legislation, Lee contradicted the claim by saying that Republicans are “not powerless” and “should act like it.” “We have 50 votes for the SAVE America Act. With the @VP, we have a simple majority,” Lee added in another post. “The fact that we don’t currently have 60 votes for cloture doesn’t mean it can’t pass. It just means we have to work harder to break the filibuster. We have to shed the defeatist attitude.” Simultaneously, Sen. Rick Scott, R-Fla., announced that President Donald Trump will attend the next Senate Republican lunch, which is scheduled for Wednesday. Scott, who is a staunch supporter of the president and a hardline advocate of the voter ID law, chairs the Senate GOP Steering Committee, which hosts the weekly lunch. While Scott did not mention why the president will be in attendance, Lee wrote on X after Scott’s announcement that the president will “not give up” on the SAVE America Act. “Good chat with President Trump tonight. He’s not giving up on the SAVE America Act. Neither am I,” Lee wrote. “He’s as convinced as I am that we can get this done if the Senate’s willing to do the hard work.” Scott quoted the tweet, adding that Senate Republicans are “going to work” with the president to ensure the legislation’s passage. “If we put in the work, we can make this happen,” Scott said. “We’re going to work with @POTUS and FIGHT for the SAVE America Act.”

In the end, as the Virginia General Assembly returned Monday for a perfunctory vote on the one-sided $212 billion tax plan, it appears that the Senate president pro tempore was holding up the process not on the principle of clawing tax dollars from data center operators—they were the most eye-catching hostages to take—but for getting legalized marijuana put into the budget. As soon as the governor announced that there was a Senate plan ready to go with a tax on excess electric usage, in lifting opposition that she had only just picked up in the previous six months—given her long support of sales tax abatement for technology purchased by data center operators—one doesn’t have to wait for the FBI to finish its investigation of Lucas’ business ventures to know why. By the way, the Joint Legislative Audit Review Commission’s 2025 report says that each dollar of those tax breaks created $6.10 of labor income. Based on Virginia’s 5.75% tax rate, the commonwealth only ‘sacrificed’ 65 cents, and once you start calculating the economic impact of people with more money to spend, the actual ‘cost’ continues to go down. One red flag (the Left loves those) to watch for is a common Virginia General Assembly mistake: counting their chickens before they hatch. The budget presumes the “usage fee” that data centers will be asked to pay for excess electricity will generate $1.2 billion in tax collections, and they are gleefully already spending those dollars, despite an industry push to make these centers self-sustaining electrically. This has been a very popular campaign and is taking hold all over the country. What happens when the Virginia spenders “only”’” collect three-quarters of a billion dollars? We learned about how this will play out when Virginians started buying up electric vehicles. Albemarle County alone had the highest concentration of Teslas per capita in the United States before the Left decided it hated Elon Musk. The Virginia Department of Transportation was in crisis mode because it was tracking to receive far less gasoline tax money to fund its operations, so the General Assembly created a special “highway use fee” for electric and hybrid vehicles. I hope you are not holding your breath that they don’t try to institute an “information superhighway” (an ancient name for the internet, kids) usage fee. Or maybe postage on emails? Don’t laugh. History may not repeat, but it rhymes. Plus, the Virginia budget will allow your locality to impose a 1% sales tax to fund the singularly least transparent portion of government: the school division capital expenditure budget. Adding that to the 7% that your electric bills will be going up for a plan that even Pennsylvania’s Democrat governor, Josh Shapiro, won’t participate in—the Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative—how’s that “Affordability Agenda” shaping up? Question: If NOT charging a dollar of tax created $6 of income, what do you think charging MORE taxes will do? We publish a variety of perspectives. Nothing written here is to be construed as representing the views of the Daily Signal.