CIVIL BEHAVIOR: President Trump yesterday threatened to invoke the Insurrection Act of 1807 to quell growing protests in Minneapolis following two shootings carried out by immigration officers in that city.

  Trump said in a social media post that “If the corrupt politicians of Minnesota don’t obey the law and stop the professional agitators and insurrectionists from attacking the Patriots of I.C.E.” that “I will institute the INSURRECTION ACT, which many Presidents have done before me, and quickly put an end to the travesty that is taking place in that once great State.”

  The Insurrection Act authorizes the president to deploy military forces inside the United States to suppress rebellion or domestic violence. The President praised “a highly respected judge” for declining “to block I.C.E. operations in the very politically corrupt State of Minnesota.”

  The administration has already surged more than 2,000 immigration officers to Minneapolis who have been grabbing suspected illegal immigrants on streets and out of their cars. The sweeps have at times been indiscriminate with officers detaining Native Americans and other US citizens. Protests have been growing since the shootings, one of them fatal.  Presidential aide Stephen Miller, the driver behind the administration’s severe immigration roundups, described the protests as an “insurgency.” 

  Agents on Wednesday detained Venezuelan national Julio Cesar Sosa-Celis and two other men after he was shot in the leg. Federal officials accused them of assaulting an agent with a shovel and a broom.

  Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz called for Trump to “turn the temperature down” after his threat to deploy the military.  Minneapolis mayor Jacob Frey said of the protesters; “You are not helping the undocumented immigrants in our city. You are not helping the people that call this place home.”

Second Hand: Venezuelan opposition leader María Corina Machado in an effort to curry favor with President Trump presented him yesterday with her Nobel Peace Prize medal mounted in a frame with legends of praise and thanks.

  The inscription says: “To President Donald J. Trump. In gratitude for your extraordinary leadership in promoting peace through strength, advancing diplomacy, and defending liberty and prosperity.”

  Trump thought he should have received the most recent Peace Prize and accepted it although the title of laureate does not convey with the piece of metal. Trump has said Machado is not popular enough to lead Venezuela so we’ll see if this changes his mind. 

OIL SLICK: US forces seized a sixth tanker involved in the Venezuelan oil trade as President Trump sold half a billion dollars’ worth of confiscated oil and deposited the money in a Qatari bank account, not in the US Treasury or an American bank. The administration says the money will start quickly flowing to help Venezuela.

  Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent told the right wing news outlet Newsmax the proceeds from the sale of seized oil will fund Venezuela’s government operations, security, and food provisions.

  President Trump issued an executive order he believes will protect the money from liens, garnishments, and other legal judgments. Venezuela owes money to a lot of entities and putting the money in a Qatari bank puts it further out of the reach of litigation. It also shields the money from public disclosure of what Trump is doing with it.

THE REGIME:

—  Labor Secretary Lori Chavez-DeRemer is under investigation after a department employee filed a complaint that that the married Chavez-DeRemer was having an affair with a Department employee and has had underlings create phony official trips so that she can spend time with friends and family on the government dime. The secretary’s  chief of staff and deputy chief of staff were named in the complaint and have been placed on administrative leave. 

— About 1.5 million fewer people signed up for Obamacare health policies after the turn of the year and the end of federal subsidies for the insurance. 

  Enrollment might drop even further after people get their first bill of the year. Urban Institute economists estimate that a total of 4.8 million people will drop their health coverage as their premiums spike without subsidies.

— The Pentagon said it will seize editorial control of the military newspaper, Stars & Stripes and align it with official department messaging. According to a Pentagon announcement on Twitter/X, “It will focus on warfighting, weapons systems, fitness, lethality, survivability, and ALL THINGS MILITARY. No more repurposed DC gossip columns; no more Associated Press reprints.”

  During World War II Gen. Dwight Eisenhower insisted that the Stars & Stripes have editorial independence, even when he didn’t like what they printed, because a free press was part of what America was fighting for.

— The Trump administration acknowledged that it mistakenly deported a Babson College student to Honduras when she was travelling home to Texas for Thanksgiving. But the government has not dropped the case.

HOOP SCHEMES: Federal prosecutors have brought indictments against 26 people in a point-shaving gambling scheme they say involved 39 college basketball players and 17 NCAA teams.

  “This was a massive scheme,” US Attorney David Metcalf told reporters. “It enveloped the world of college basketball.”

  The indictment charges that players were paid anywhere from $10,000 to $30,000 to hold down their scoring, giving bettors an advantage in placing money on spread bets against their teams. It usually involved underdog teams already expected to lose.

 This comes two months after the FBI announced indictments involving point shaving in professional basketball  and rigged, mafia-run poker games.

THE SPIN RACK: A South Korean court today sentenced former President Yoon Suk Yeol to five years in prison for a conviction on charges of his declaration of martial law that forced him out of office.

BELOW THE FOLD: Actor Matthew McConaughey trademarked his catchphrase, “Alright, alright, alright” from the 1993 movie “Dazed and Confused.” He said he’s trying to protect himself from being duplicated and unpaid by artificial intelligence.

  Alright. Alright.

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