Greetings and welcome to the most recent updates in US politics. We start with the report that a small number of National Guard troops has started protecting government facilities in the Chicago area and assisting law enforcement in Memphis on Wednesday, as confirmed by authorities.
Deployment Details
An unit of 200 Texas Guard troops were operating in the Chicago area, as stated by a representative for the US Northern Command, who communicated with the Associated Press on background basis in order to discuss operational details that have not been officially released.
The military personnel are in the city to secure US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) facilities and other federal facilities and police officers, Northern Command said online.
The troops, along with about three hundred Illinois personnel, 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 activated for 60 days. The spokesperson wasn't able to immediately offer information about how the troops were armed.
Political Context
It comes as Donald Trump on Wednesday called for the imprisonment of Brandon Johnson, Chicago's mayor, and JB Pritzker, the Illinois governor, accusing them of failing to protect US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) personnel.
"Chicago Mayor should be in jail for failing to protect ICE personnel!" Trump wrote 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 started deployment in the Greater Chicago region at the direction of the Trump administration, despite objections from state authorities, including the governor and mayor.
Other Updates
- Donald Trump announced that Hamas and Israel have accepted a tentative deal to cease hostilities in Gaza, and release Israeli hostages and detained persons.
- Reports about the Middle East deal was praised by GOP legislators, who called on 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, Noem gave a wildly inaccurate explanation of the core legal principle that requires that the government provide a public reason for arresting and jailing people.
- All of the witnesses who provided statements at the White House "political discussion" hosted by the administration on Wednesday were identified as freelance reporters who might better be called political content creators. The content producers cover leftwing protests in a partisan fashion, more similar to political investigation than neutral journalism.
- Senate Republicans voted down a war powers resolution that would have checked Trump's ability to use lethal armed action against suspected drug smugglers after opposition party tried to oppose the government's unprecedented deployment of the military to eliminate vessels in the Caribbean.
- During the White House "political discussion" on Wednesday, at least a participant echoed Trump's inaccurate statement that large numbers of people have been murdered by left-wing radicals in the Oregon city. The accurate count of killings by political activists in Portland is: one.
