Greetings and welcome to the current updates in US politics. We begin with the report that a small number of state military forces has started protecting government facilities in the Chicago area and supporting police operations in Memphis on Wednesday, according to officials.
Troop Information
An element of 200 Texas Guard troops were working in the Chicago area, according to a representative for the US Northern Command, who spoke to the Associated Press on condition of anonymity in order to discuss operational details that have not been made public.
The military personnel are in the city to protect US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) facilities and other federal facilities and law enforcement personnel, Northern Command stated publicly.
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 activated for two months. The spokesperson wasn't able to immediately offer information about how the troops were armed.
Political Context
It coincides with Donald Trump on Wednesday demanded the jailing of Brandon Johnson, Chicago's mayor, and JB Pritzker, the state governor, accusing them of failing to protect US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) officers.
"The city's mayor should be in prison for not protecting Ice Officers!" Trump wrote on his social media platform on Wednesday morning. "The state governor also!"
Both the mayor and governor are Democrats. Trump's comments come as national guard troops have started deployment in the Chicago area at the order of the Trump administration, despite objections from Illinois officials, including Pritzker and Johnson.
Additional Developments
- The president announced that Hamas and Israel have accepted a tentative deal 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 awarded the peace award this week, but received with greater caution by Arab-American communities.
- During White House event, Trump seemed unfamiliar with the term 'Habeas Corpus' and deferred to Kristi Noem. In May, the secretary gave a highly incorrect explanation of the core legal principle that mandates that the authorities provide a official justification for detaining and imprisoning people.
- All of the participants who provided statements at the White House "political discussion" organized by the administration on Wednesday were identified as freelance reporters who might more accurately described as partisan conservative social media influencers. The content producers report on leftwing protests in a partisan fashion, more akin to opposition research than neutral journalism.
- GOP senators voted down a military authorization measure that would have checked Trump's authority to use deadly military force against alleged narcotics traffickers after Democrats tried to oppose the government's extraordinary use of the military to destroy boats in the Caribbean Sea.
- During the White House "antifa roundtable" on Wednesday, at least a participant repeated Trump's inaccurate statement that significant amounts of people have been killed by political extremists in the Oregon city. The accurate count of killings by political activists in Portland is: a single incident.
