Hello and welcome to the current developments in US politics. We start with the news 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.
Deployment Details
An unit of 200 Texas Guard troops were working in the Chicago area, as stated by a spokesperson for the US Northern Command, who communicated with the news agency on condition of anonymity in order to reveal mission specifics that have not been officially released.
The military personnel are in the city to protect US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) facilities and other government properties and law enforcement personnel, Northern Command stated publicly.
The troops, along with about three hundred Illinois personnel, had arrived Tuesday at a US Army Reserve Center in Elwood, approximately 90 kilometers southwest of Chicago. All five hundred personnel are under the military command and have been activated for two months. The spokesperson wasn't able to quickly provide information about how the troops were armed.
Background Situation
It comes as Donald Trump on Wednesday demanded the jailing 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 failing to protect Ice Officers!" Trump wrote on his social media platform on Wednesday morning. "Governor Pritzker also!"
Both the mayor and governor are members of the Democratic party. Trump's remarks coincide with national guard troops have begun arriving in the Chicago area at the order of the Trump administration, despite objections from Illinois officials, including Pritzker and Johnson.
Other Updates
- Donald Trump declared that Hamas and Israel have agreed to a provisional agreement to cease hostilities in Gaza, and release Israeli hostages and Palestinian prisoners.
- News of the Middle East deal was praised by GOP legislators, who called on Trump to be awarded the peace award this week, but greeted with more trepidation by Palestinian Americans.
- During White House event, Trump seemed unfamiliar with the term 'Habeas Corpus' and deferred to his homeland security secretary. In May, Noem gave a highly incorrect explanation of the fundamental legal concept that mandates that the authorities provide a public reason for detaining and imprisoning people.
- All of the witnesses who contributed testimony at the White House "political discussion" hosted by the administration on Wednesday were identified as freelance reporters who might more accurately described as partisan conservative social media influencers. The influencers report on leftwing protests in a partisan fashion, more akin to opposition research than nonpartisan reporting.
- Senate Republicans rejected a military authorization measure that would have checked Trump's authority to use lethal armed action against suspected drug smugglers after opposition party tried to oppose the government's extraordinary use of the armed forces to eliminate vessels in the Caribbean.
- During the White House "antifa roundtable" on Wednesday, at least one witness echoed Trump's inaccurate statement that large numbers of people have been killed by political extremists in Portland, Oregon. The accurate count of killings by self-described "antifa" radicals in Portland is: a single incident.
