Greetings and welcome to the latest developments in US politics. We begin with the report that a limited contingent of National Guard troops has begun guarding federal property in the Chicago area and supporting police operations in Memphis on Wednesday, as confirmed by authorities.
Deployment Details
An unit of two hundred Texas military personnel were working in the Greater Chicago region, as stated by a representative for the US Northern Command, who communicated with the news agency on condition of anonymity in order to discuss mission specifics that have not been officially released.
The military personnel are in the city to secure US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) buildings and other government properties and law enforcement personnel, Northern Command said online.
The troops, along with about 300 from Illinois, had arrived Tuesday at a US Army Reserve Center in Elwood, approximately 90 kilometers southwest of Chicago. All 500 troops are under the military command and have been deployed for 60 days. The spokesperson wasn't able to quickly provide details 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, accusing them of failing to protect US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) personnel.
"The city's mayor should be in jail for not protecting Ice Officers!" Trump wrote on his social media platform 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 direction of the Trump administration, despite objections from Illinois officials, including Pritzker and Johnson.
Additional Developments
- Donald Trump declared that Hamas and Israel have accepted a provisional agreement to end the fighting in Gaza, and free captured individuals and Palestinian prisoners.
- News of the Gaza agreement was applauded by GOP legislators, who called on Trump to be awarded the peace award this week, but greeted with more trepidation by Arab-American communities.
- During White House event, Trump seemed unfamiliar with the term 'Habeas Corpus' and referred to his homeland security secretary. In May, Noem gave a highly incorrect definition of the fundamental legal concept that mandates that the authorities provide a public reason for arresting and jailing people.
- All of the witnesses who provided statements at the White House "antifa roundtable" organized by the president on Wednesday were self-described independent journalists who might more accurately described as political content creators. The content producers cover liberal demonstrations in a partisan fashion, more similar to political investigation than nonpartisan reporting.
- GOP senators voted down a war powers resolution that would have limited Trump's ability to use lethal armed action against alleged narcotics traffickers after Democrats tried to counter the government's unprecedented deployment of the armed forces to eliminate vessels in the Caribbean.
- During the White House "political discussion" 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.
