Greetings and welcome to the current developments in US politics. We begin with the report that a limited contingent of National Guard troops has begun guarding federal property in the Chicago area and assisting law enforcement in Memphis on Wednesday, as confirmed by authorities.
Deployment Details
An element of 200 Texas Guard troops were working in the Chicago area, according to a spokesperson for the US Northern Command, who communicated with the Associated Press on background basis in order to discuss mission specifics that have not been made public.
The military personnel are in the urban area to secure US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) facilities and other government properties 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 deployed for two months. The spokesperson wasn't able to quickly provide details about how the troops were armed.
Political Context
It comes as 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 members of the Democratic party. Trump's comments come as state military forces have started deployment in the Greater Chicago region at the order of the Trump administration, despite opposition from Illinois officials, including Pritzker and Johnson.
Additional Developments
- Donald Trump declared that the conflicting parties have accepted a provisional agreement to end the fighting in Gaza, and release Israeli hostages and Palestinian prisoners.
- Reports about the Gaza agreement was applauded by Republican lawmakers, who called on Trump to be given the Nobel Peace prize this week, but greeted with more trepidation by Palestinian Americans.
- During White House event, Trump appeared not to recognize the term 'Habeas Corpus' and referred to Kristi Noem. In May, Noem gave a highly incorrect definition of the fundamental legal concept that requires that the government provide a public reason for arresting and jailing people.
- All of the participants who contributed testimony at the White House "political discussion" organized by the president on Wednesday were self-described independent journalists who might better be called partisan conservative social media influencers. The content producers report on liberal demonstrations in a highly political manner, more similar to political investigation 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 government's unprecedented deployment of the armed forces 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 killed by political extremists in the Oregon city. The correct number of fatal incidents by political activists in Portland is: one.
