Hello and welcome to the current developments in US politics. We begin with the news that a small number of National Guard troops has started protecting government facilities in the Greater Chicago region and assisting law enforcement in Memphis on Wednesday, according to officials.
Troop Information
An unit of 200 Texas Guard troops were working in the Chicago area, as stated by a spokesperson for the US Northern Command, who spoke to the Associated Press on background basis in order to discuss operational details that have not been officially released.
The military personnel are in the urban area to secure US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) buildings and other government properties and police officers, Northern Command stated publicly.
The forces, along with about 300 from Illinois, had reached on 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 two months. The spokesperson wasn't able to quickly provide details about how the troops were armed.
Background Situation
It coincides with Donald Trump on Wednesday demanded the imprisonment of Brandon Johnson, Chicago's city leader, 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. "Governor Pritzker also!"
Both the mayor and governor are Democrats. Trump's comments coincide with state military forces have started deployment in the Greater Chicago region at the order of the federal administration, despite objections from state authorities, including Pritzker and Johnson.
Other Updates
- The president announced that Hamas and Israel have accepted a provisional agreement to end the fighting in Gaza, and free Israeli hostages and detained persons.
- Reports about the Middle East deal was applauded by GOP legislators, who called on Trump to be given the peace award this week, but received with greater caution by Arab-American communities.
- During presidential gathering, Trump seemed unfamiliar with the term 'legal principle' and deferred to his homeland security secretary. In May, Noem gave a wildly inaccurate explanation of the fundamental legal concept that requires that the authorities provide a official justification for arresting and jailing people.
- All of the participants who provided statements at the White House "antifa roundtable" organized by the president on Wednesday were self-described independent journalists who might better be called partisan conservative social media influencers. The influencers cover leftwing protests in a partisan fashion, more akin to opposition research than nonpartisan reporting.
- Senate Republicans voted down a military authorization measure that would have limited Trump's authority to use lethal armed action against suspected drug smugglers after Democrats tried to oppose the administration's unprecedented deployment of the military to eliminate vessels in the Caribbean.
- During the White House "political discussion" on Wednesday, at least one witness repeated Trump's false claim that significant amounts of people have been killed by political extremists in Portland, Oregon. The accurate count of killings by self-described "antifa" radicals in Portland is: a single incident.
