Greetings and welcome to the most recent updates in US politics. We start with the report that a small number of National Guard troops has started protecting federal property in the Chicago area and supporting police operations in Memphis on Wednesday, as confirmed by authorities.
Deployment Details
An element of 200 Texas Guard troops were working 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 reveal operational details that have not been officially released.
The military personnel are in the urban area to secure US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) facilities and other government properties 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 500 troops are under the Northern Command and have been deployed for two months. The spokesperson wasn't able to immediately offer information 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 prison for failing to protect ICE personnel!" Trump wrote on his social media platform on Wednesday morning. "The state governor also!"
Both the mayor and governor are Democrats. Trump's remarks come as national guard troops have started deployment in the Chicago area at the order of the federal administration, despite opposition from state authorities, including the governor and mayor.
Additional Developments
- The president announced 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 Gaza agreement was applauded by GOP legislators, who urged Trump to be given the Nobel Peace prize this week, but received with greater caution by Arab-American communities.
- During White House event, Trump appeared not to recognize the term 'Habeas Corpus' and deferred to Kristi Noem. In May, the secretary gave a wildly inaccurate definition of the core legal principle that requires that the government provide a public reason for arresting and jailing people.
- All of the witnesses who contributed testimony at the White House "political discussion" hosted by the administration on Wednesday were self-described independent journalists who might more accurately described as partisan conservative social media influencers. The influencers report on liberal demonstrations in a partisan fashion, more akin to opposition research than nonpartisan reporting.
- Senate Republicans rejected 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 oppose the government's extraordinary use of the armed forces to eliminate vessels in the Caribbean Sea.
- During the White House "antifa roundtable" on Wednesday, at least one witness repeated Trump's false claim that significant amounts of people have been killed by political extremists in Portland, Oregon. The accurate count of fatal incidents by political activists in Portland is: one.
