LA MIGRA:  Gregory Bovino, the lightning-rod chief of the Border Patrol who has personally thrown gas cannisters at protesters is being removed from charge of immigration operations in Minneapolis in an indication that President Trump knows things have gone askew with the killing of two people to the hands of federal agents. Bovino has led the legions of immigration officers masked, armored, and armed for combat as they sweep up immigrant gardeners and nannies in the name of rounding up “the worst of the worst.”

  Trump’s “Border Czar” Tom Homan is being sent in to take over in a snub to Kristi Noem, the secretary of Homeland Security. Homan is gruffer than Noem, but he’s never shot his own dog.

  “Nobody in the White House, including President Trump, wants to see people getting hurt or killed in America’s streets,” White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt said yesterday. “It is President Trump’s hope and wish and demand for the resistance and chaos to end today.”

    President Trump said in a social media post that he and Gov. Tim Walz, had “a very good call” and “seemed to be on a similar wavelength.” 

  A federal judge heard arguments yesterday on ending the Trump administration’s militant immigration crackdown in Minnesota. With 3,000 enforcement officers in the state, Minnesota Attorney General Keith Elison told reporters, “This is the single largest deployment of immigration officers in one place at one time in a state that is not even in the top of immigration.”

  Brian Carter, a lawyer for the state, argued in court that the federal  operation is the result of “personal animosity,” referring to Trump’s denunciations of Democrat leaders.

  Brantley Mayers, a lawyer for the Trump administration, told the judge that immigration agents are in Minnesota “to enforce federal immigration law.” He said, “There is nothing to back up this claim that we’re here for another reason.”

  Some members of Congress are considering a new kind of immigration enforcement … moving to force immigration officers to act within the law.

  Senate Democrats say they will not vote to fund the Department of Homeland Security without rules for immigration enforcement. Withholding their vote could also stall the $1.3 trillion dollar spending bill that would keep the federal government open past midnight Friday. 

THE WAR ROOM: The Israeli military said it recovered the remains of Master Sgt. Ran Gvili, an Israeli police officer whose body was the last among deceased hostages held in Gaza. This clears the way for the  second phase of President Trump’s peace plan.

  Sgt. Gvili was a member of an elite police counterterrorism unit who rushed to fight Hamas militants during their October 7^th incursion into southern Israel. He was wounded and taken hostage militants from the Palestinian Islamic Jihad, an extremist group that joined Hamas in that attack. 

CHINA SYNDROME: Xi Xin Ping’s most senior and trusted general in the Chinese military has suddenly been subjected to  investigation for unspecified breaches of laws and political discipline.Although Xi has been purging senior officers for years in a campaign against corruption, the removal of 75-year-old Gen. Zhang Youxia is considered to be another order of magnitude.

  “It’s fair to say this is a seismic event,” former National Security Adviser jake  Sullivan told The NY Times. For Xi to “take out somebody who he had such a long history with is striking and raises a lot of questions,” he said.  

THE REGIME:

— Still fighting the battle … and the election that he lost in 2020 … President Trump posted on his Truth Social that, “Fake and Fraudulent Polling should be, virtually, a criminal offense,” claiming that 2020 polls were intentionally skewed. He wrote, “If people examined The Failing New York Times, ABC Fake News, NBC Fake News, CBS Fake News, Low Ratings CNN, or the now defunct MSDNC, Polls were all fraudulent, and bore nothing even close to the final results.”

— President Trump is promoting the documentary about his wife, posting on his Truth Social that, “MELANIA, the Movie, is a MUST WATCH. Get your tickets today — Selling out, FAST!”

SUPER:

THE SPIN RACK: At least 21 deaths have been attributed to the weekend’s massive winter storm.  More than 700,000 homes and businesses, particularly in the South, were without power yesterday. The storm formed ice across parts of the south, breaking and dropping trees, and left more than a foot of snow in 19 states. — Six people were killed yesterday in the crash of a private jet at Bangor airport in Maine as it tried to take off during the big winter storm. The jet was owned by the law firm of wealthy Houston personal injury lawyer Kurt Arnold.  His wife, Tara, also a powerful lawyer, was among the dead. — The price of gold hit a record high of $5,102 an ounce yesterday, an indication of worry about global stability. — rapper Kanye West issued an apology for his erratic behavior in recent years, including an embrace of Nazism, blaming it on bipolar disorder he says he developed as the results of a brain injury in a car accident 25 years ago. He wrote in a lengthy letter: “When you’re manic, you don’t think you’re sick. You think everyone else is overreacting. You feel like you’re seeing the world more clearly than ever, when in reality you’re losing your grip entirely,” he wrote in his lengthy letter.”

DEPT. OF CORRECTIONS: In a moment of haste yesterday we misidentified the upcoming Super Bowl as number XLIX (49) when it’s actually LX (60). Only reader Eric Smallwood noticed.

BELOW THE FOLD: Former reality television star Spencer Pratt of “The Hills” announced that he’s running for mayor of Los Angeles. Pratt is known as “the guy you love to hate,” which makes him the perfect politician.

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