Hello and welcome to the most recent developments in US politics. We start with the news that a small number of National Guard troops has started protecting government facilities in the Chicago area and supporting police operations in Memphis on Wednesday, as confirmed by authorities.
Troop Information
An unit of 200 Texas Guard troops were operating in the Chicago area, according to a spokesperson for the US Northern Command, who communicated with the Associated Press on condition of anonymity in order to discuss mission specifics that have not been made public.
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 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 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.
Political Context
It coincides with Donald Trump on Wednesday demanded the imprisonment of Brandon Johnson, Chicago's city leader, and JB Pritzker, the Illinois governor, charging them of failing to protect US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) officers.
"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 coincide with national guard troops have begun arriving in the Greater Chicago region at the direction of the Trump administration, despite objections from Illinois officials, including Pritzker and Johnson.
Other Updates
- Donald Trump announced that Hamas and Israel have agreed to a tentative deal to end the fighting in Gaza, and release Israeli hostages and detained persons.
- Reports about the Gaza agreement was praised by GOP legislators, who urged Trump to be given the Nobel Peace prize this week, but received with greater caution by Palestinian Americans.
- During presidential gathering, Trump appeared not to recognize the term 'Habeas Corpus' and deferred to his homeland security secretary. In May, the secretary gave a wildly inaccurate explanation of the fundamental legal concept that mandates that the authorities provide a official justification for detaining and imprisoning people.
- All of the participants who contributed testimony at the White House "antifa roundtable" organized by the administration on Wednesday were identified as freelance reporters who might better be called partisan conservative social media influencers. The influencers cover leftwing protests in a partisan fashion, more similar to political investigation than neutral journalism.
- Senate Republicans voted down a military authorization measure that would have limited Trump's authority to use lethal armed action against alleged narcotics traffickers after Democrats tried to oppose the government's extraordinary use of the military 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 murdered by political extremists in the Oregon city. The accurate count of fatal incidents by political activists in Portland is: one.
