Hello and welcome to the most recent developments in US politics. We start with the news that a limited contingent of National Guard troops has started protecting government facilities in the Greater Chicago region and assisting law enforcement in Memphis on Wednesday, according to officials.
Deployment Details
An element of two hundred Texas military personnel were operating in the Greater Chicago region, according to a spokesperson for the US Northern Command, who spoke to the news agency on condition of anonymity in order to discuss mission specifics that have not been officially released.
The troops are in the city to protect US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) buildings and other government properties and police officers, Northern Command stated publicly.
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 500 troops are under the Northern Command and have been activated for 60 days. The official wasn't able to immediately offer information about how the troops were armed.
Political Context
It comes as Donald Trump on Wednesday demanded the jailing of Brandon Johnson, Chicago's city leader, and JB Pritzker, the Illinois governor, charging them of not protecting US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) personnel.
"The city's mayor should be in prison for not protecting Ice Officers!" Trump wrote on Truth Social on Wednesday morning. "The state governor also!"
Both Johnson and Pritzker are members of the Democratic party. Trump's comments come as national guard troops have started deployment in the Greater Chicago region at the order of the federal administration, despite opposition from state authorities, including Pritzker and Johnson.
Additional Developments
- Donald Trump announced that Hamas and Israel have accepted a provisional agreement to end the fighting in Gaza, and free Israeli hostages and Palestinian prisoners.
- News of the Gaza agreement was praised by GOP legislators, who called on Trump to be given the Nobel Peace prize this week, but received with greater caution by Arab-American communities.
- During presidential gathering, Trump appeared not to recognize the term 'Habeas Corpus' and referred to Kristi Noem. In May, Noem gave a highly incorrect explanation of the core legal principle that mandates that the government provide a public reason for detaining and imprisoning people.
- All of the participants who contributed testimony at the White House "antifa roundtable" hosted by the administration on Wednesday were identified as freelance reporters who might better be called partisan conservative social media influencers. The influencers report on leftwing protests in a partisan fashion, more akin to political investigation than neutral journalism.
- GOP senators rejected a military authorization measure that would have checked Trump's ability to use lethal armed action against alleged narcotics traffickers after opposition party tried to oppose the administration's unprecedented deployment of the armed forces to destroy boats in the Caribbean Sea.
- During the White House "antifa roundtable" on Wednesday, at least one witness repeated Trump's inaccurate statement that large numbers of people have been murdered by left-wing radicals in the Oregon city. The accurate count of killings by political activists in Portland is: one.
