Hello and welcome to the current developments in US politics. We begin with the news that a small number 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.
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 spoke to the news agency on background basis in order to discuss operational details that have not been officially released.
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 said online.
The forces, along with about three hundred Illinois personnel, 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 60 days. The spokesperson wasn't able to immediately offer information about how the personnel were equipped.
Political Context
It comes as Donald Trump on Wednesday demanded the jailing of Brandon Johnson, Chicago's mayor, and JB Pritzker, the state governor, charging them of not protecting US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) officers.
"Chicago Mayor should be in prison for not protecting ICE personnel!" Trump wrote on his social media platform on Wednesday morning. "Governor Pritzker also!"
Both the mayor and governor are Democrats. Trump's comments coincide with state military forces have begun arriving in the Greater Chicago region at the order of the Trump administration, despite opposition from state authorities, including the governor and mayor.
Other Updates
- The president declared that Hamas and Israel have agreed to a provisional agreement to end the fighting in Gaza, and release captured individuals and detained persons.
- Reports about the Middle East deal was praised by Republican lawmakers, who urged Trump to be awarded the Nobel Peace prize this week, but greeted with more trepidation by Arab-American communities.
- During presidential gathering, 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 fundamental legal concept that requires 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 political content creators. The content producers report on liberal demonstrations in a highly political manner, more akin to opposition research than neutral journalism.
- Senate Republicans rejected a military authorization measure that would have checked Trump's ability to use lethal armed action against alleged narcotics traffickers after Democrats tried to oppose the administration's unprecedented deployment of the military to destroy boats in the Caribbean.
- During the White House "antifa roundtable" on Wednesday, at least one witness echoed Trump's inaccurate statement that large numbers of people have been killed by political extremists in the Oregon city. The accurate count of fatal incidents by self-described "antifa" radicals in Portland is: a single incident.
