Hello and welcome to the most recent developments in US politics. We start with the news that a limited contingent of National Guard troops has begun guarding government facilities in the Chicago area and assisting law enforcement in Memphis on Wednesday, as confirmed by authorities.
Troop Information
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 Associated Press on condition of anonymity in order to reveal 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 government properties and law enforcement personnel, Northern Command stated publicly.
The troops, along with about 300 from Illinois, had arrived Tuesday at a US Army Reserve Center in Elwood, 55 miles southwest of Chicago. All five hundred personnel are under the Northern Command and have been deployed for two months. The spokesperson wasn't able to immediately offer details about how the personnel were equipped.
Political Context
It coincides with Donald Trump on Wednesday called for the jailing of Brandon Johnson, Chicago's city leader, and JB Pritzker, the state governor, accusing them of not protecting US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) personnel.
"Chicago Mayor should be in jail for not protecting ICE personnel!" Trump posted on his social media platform on Wednesday morning. "Governor Pritzker also!"
Both the mayor and governor are Democrats. Trump's remarks come as national guard troops have begun arriving in the Chicago area at the direction of the federal administration, despite objections from Illinois officials, including Pritzker and Johnson.
Other Updates
- Donald Trump declared that Hamas and Israel have accepted a tentative deal to end the fighting in Gaza, and free captured individuals and Palestinian prisoners.
- Reports about the Middle East deal was applauded by Republican lawmakers, who urged Trump to be given the Nobel Peace prize this week, but greeted with more trepidation by Arab-American communities.
- During White House event, Trump appeared not to recognize the term 'legal principle' and referred to his homeland security secretary. In May, Noem gave a highly incorrect definition of the fundamental legal concept that requires that the authorities provide a official justification for arresting and jailing people.
- All of the participants who contributed testimony at the White House "political discussion" hosted by the administration on Wednesday were identified as freelance reporters who might better be called partisan conservative social media influencers. The influencers report on liberal demonstrations in a partisan fashion, more similar to opposition research than nonpartisan reporting.
- GOP senators rejected a war powers resolution that would have checked 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.
- During the White House "antifa roundtable" on Wednesday, at least one witness repeated Trump's inaccurate statement that significant amounts 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.
