ICE, ICE, BABY:  Federal investigators on the ICE shooting of Renee Good in Minneapolis are looking into her possible connections to activist groups in addition to the circumstances of the shooting, The NY Times reports.  Good was taking part that day in efforts to stall an immigration enforcement action.

  Minnesota state and city officials have sued the Trump administration to block the statewide surge of federal immigration enforcement agents in the wake of a woman’s fatal shooting by a federal officer last week.

  The suit asks a judge to bar agents from threatening force, and prevent officers from pointing firearms at people who don’t pose an immediate threat.

   Minnesota Attorney General Keith Ellison said at a press conference that the state has been unlawfully targeted because of its ethnic diversity and “differences of opinion” with the federal government. “

  He said the killing of Renee Good by an officer is a consequence of the influx of federal immigration enforcement efforts that he called a  federal invasion.” 

“This has to stop,” Ellison said. “These agents have no good reason to be here.” 

NO RESERVE: Financial markets took a dip then recovered yesterday following news that the Justice Department opened a criminal investigation into federal reserve Chairman Jerome Powell regarding his testimony before Congress.

  Analysts said that the threat and bluster of President Trump and the administration about Powell and the Fed are unlikely to cause any immediate effect on financial policy. Powell is not the only member of the board who’s been cautious about lowering interest rates … it’s a vote by the whole board. 

  Also yesterday, every former chair of the Federal Reserve joined a group of treasury secretaries from both political parties condemning the criminal inquiry into Powell.

  Trump has been hammering the Fed about lowering interest rates to spur the economy. But the danger is that rates that are too low could overheat the economy, causing inflation, which is the last thing the President would want.

  Subpoenas were issued to the Federal Reserve last Friday. Powell said in a video statement that, “The threat of criminal charges is a consequence of the Federal Reserve setting interest rates based on our best assessment of what will serve the public, rather than following the preferences of the President.”

THE REGIME:

— President Trump issued a screed yesterday about his “emergency” tariffs, defending them in advance of a Supreme Court decision on their legality. “The actual numbers that we would have to pay back if, for any reason, the Supreme Court were to rule against the United States of America on Tariffs, would be many Hundreds of Billions of Dollars,” Trump wrote, “and that doesn’t include the amount of “payback” that Countries and Companies would require for the Investments they are making on building Plants, Factories, and Equipment, for the purpose of being able to avoid the payment of Tariffs.” 

  Trump’s tariffs brought in about $236 billion as of November. What Trump is arguing is that even if his tariffs are illegal they involve too much money to turn back now. Like tearing down the East Wing of The White House, it’s done.

  Trump said,  “Anybody who says that it can be quickly and easily done would be making a false, inaccurate, or totally misunderstood answer to this very large and complex question.” 

— The top deputy to the acting US Attorney in Eastern Virginia has been fired for declining to take on the so-far failing effort to bring an indictment against former FBI Director James Comey. Robert McBride is reported to have said he could act as chief deputy, or lead the prosecution, but not both.

  McBride has been in that job only a matter of months following 10 years as a federal prosecutor in Kentucky. Lindsey Halligan, who was appointed acting US Attorney and has since been ordered by a court to stop using that title, continues to identify herself as US Attorney.

— Arizona Democratic Sen. Mark Kelly filed a lawsuit seeking to block Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth’s move to reduce Kelly’s retirement rank and pay as punishment for the senator urging US service members to refuse illegal orders … as military policy commands. The lawsuit says, “The censure, the grade-reduction process, and its inevitable outcome impose official punishment for protected speech, chill legislative oversight, and threaten reductions in rank and pay.”

THE OBIT PAGE:  Erich von Däniken, the best-selling Swiss author whose 1968 book “Chariots of the Gods,” posited the theory that in pre-historic times advanced alien species had visited Earth, mated with humans and given them the technology and the intelligence, to build such ancient marvels as the Great Pyramids, died last Saturday in Switzerland. He was 90.

  Von Däniken turned observations into assumptions. He said the geoglyphs of Nazca, Peru had been landing strips for spaceships and that artwork on a Mayan sarcophagus depicts an astronaut-god flying a spaceship.

  The late astrophysicist Carl Sagan said of von Däniken: “Every time he sees something he can’t understand, he attributes it to extraterrestrial intelligence, and since he understands almost nothing, he sees evidence of extraterrestrial intelligence all over the planet.”

 THE SPIN RACK: The Supreme Court hears arguments today over laws that ban transgender girls and women from participating in women’s sports at publicly funded schools. — The man suspected of setting fire to the synagogue of Mississippi’s largest congregation told investigators he did it because of the building’s “Jewish ties,” according to a criminal complaint submitted by the FBI. The report says Stephen Spencer Pittman called Beth Israel the “synagogue of Satan.” — Five decapitated heads were found strung up at a popular tourist beach in Ecuador on Sunday. A sign warned local gangs about extorting fishermen. ““The town belongs to us,” the sign said.

BELOW THE FOLD: President Trump changed his bio on his Truth Social account to list himself as “Acting President of Venezuela” above “45^th & 47^th President of the United States.”

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