Greetings and welcome to the latest developments in US politics. We start with the report that a limited contingent of National Guard troops has begun guarding government facilities in the Chicago area and supporting police operations in Memphis on Wednesday, according to officials.
Troop Information
An element of two hundred Texas military personnel were working in the Greater Chicago region, according to a spokesperson for the US Northern Command, who spoke to the Associated Press on condition of anonymity in order to discuss mission specifics that have not been officially released.
The military personnel are in the urban area to protect US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) buildings and other government properties and law enforcement personnel, Northern Command said online.
The forces, along with about 300 from Illinois, had reached on Tuesday at a US Army Reserve Center in Elwood, 55 miles southwest of Chicago. All five hundred personnel are under the Northern Command and have been activated for 60 days. The official wasn't able to quickly provide information about how the troops were armed.
Political Context
It comes as Donald Trump on Wednesday called for the imprisonment of Brandon Johnson, Chicago's city leader, and JB Pritzker, the state governor, charging them of not protecting US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) personnel.
"The city's mayor should be in jail for not protecting Ice Officers!" Trump posted on his social media platform on Wednesday morning. "The state governor also!"
Both the mayor and governor are Democrats. Trump's remarks coincide with state military forces have started deployment in the Greater Chicago region at the direction of the federal administration, despite objections from Illinois officials, including Pritzker and Johnson.
Other Updates
- Donald Trump declared that the conflicting parties have accepted a provisional agreement to end the fighting in Gaza, and free captured individuals and detained persons.
- Reports about the Middle East deal was praised by Republican lawmakers, who called on Trump to be awarded the Nobel Peace prize this week, but greeted with more trepidation by Palestinian Americans.
- During White House event, Trump appeared not to recognize the term 'Habeas Corpus' and referred to Kristi Noem. In May, the secretary gave a wildly inaccurate definition of the core legal principle that mandates that the authorities provide a official justification for detaining and imprisoning people.
- All of the witnesses who contributed testimony at the White House "antifa roundtable" hosted by the president on Wednesday were self-described independent journalists who might better be called partisan conservative social media influencers. The influencers cover liberal demonstrations in a partisan fashion, more akin to political investigation than neutral journalism.
- Senate Republicans voted down a war powers resolution that would have checked Trump's ability to use deadly military force against suspected drug smugglers after opposition party tried to counter the government's extraordinary use of the armed forces to destroy boats in the Caribbean Sea.
- During the White House "antifa roundtable" on Wednesday, at least a participant repeated Trump's false claim that significant amounts of people have been murdered by left-wing radicals in the Oregon city. The accurate count of killings by political activists in Portland is: a single incident.
