Greetings and welcome to the latest updates in US politics. We begin with the report that a limited contingent of National Guard troops has started protecting government facilities in the Greater Chicago region and supporting police operations in Memphis on Wednesday, as confirmed by authorities.
Troop Information
An element of 200 Texas Guard troops were working in the Chicago area, as stated by a representative for the US Northern Command, who spoke to the Associated Press on background basis in order to discuss operational details that have not been made public.
The troops are in the urban area to protect US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) facilities and other federal facilities and police officers, Northern Command said online.
The forces, 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 deployed for two months. The spokesperson wasn't able to immediately offer details about how the personnel were equipped.
Political Context
It comes as Donald Trump on Wednesday called for the imprisonment of Brandon Johnson, Chicago's mayor, and JB Pritzker, the Illinois governor, accusing 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 posted on Truth Social on Wednesday morning. "The state governor also!"
Both the mayor and governor are members of the Democratic party. Trump's remarks coincide with national guard troops have started deployment in the Chicago area at the order of the federal administration, despite opposition from state authorities, including Pritzker and Johnson.
Other Updates
- Donald Trump declared that Hamas and Israel have accepted a tentative deal to cease hostilities in Gaza, and release Israeli hostages and detained persons.
- News of the Gaza agreement was applauded by Republican lawmakers, who called on Trump to be given the Nobel Peace prize this week, but greeted with more trepidation by Palestinian Americans.
- During White House event, Trump seemed unfamiliar with the term 'Habeas Corpus' and referred to his homeland security secretary. In May, the secretary gave a wildly inaccurate definition of the core legal principle that mandates that the government provide a public reason for detaining and imprisoning people.
- All of the witnesses who provided statements at the White House "antifa roundtable" organized by the administration on Wednesday were self-described independent journalists who might better be called partisan conservative social media influencers. The content producers report on liberal demonstrations in a highly political manner, more akin to political investigation than neutral journalism.
- Senate Republicans rejected a war powers resolution that would have limited Trump's authority to use deadly military force against alleged narcotics traffickers after Democrats tried to oppose the government's unprecedented deployment of the military to destroy boats in the Caribbean Sea.
- During the White House "political discussion" on Wednesday, at least a participant repeated Trump's inaccurate statement that significant amounts of people have been killed by left-wing radicals in Portland, Oregon. The accurate count of killings by self-described "antifa" radicals in Portland is: a single incident.
