Greetings and welcome to the current updates in US politics. We start with the news that a small number of National Guard troops has begun guarding federal property in the Chicago area and assisting law enforcement in Memphis on Wednesday, according to officials.
Deployment Details
An unit of two hundred Texas military personnel were working in the Chicago area, according to 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 made public.
The military personnel are in the urban area to protect US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) facilities and other federal facilities and police officers, 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 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 demanded the jailing of Brandon Johnson, Chicago's city leader, and JB Pritzker, the Illinois governor, charging them of not protecting US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) personnel.
"The city's mayor should be in prison for not protecting ICE personnel!" Trump wrote on his social media platform on Wednesday morning. "Governor Pritzker also!"
Both Johnson and Pritzker are members of the Democratic party. Trump's remarks coincide with state military forces have started deployment in the Chicago area at the order of the Trump administration, despite opposition from state authorities, including Pritzker and Johnson.
Additional Developments
- The president declared that Hamas and Israel have accepted a tentative deal to cease hostilities in Gaza, and free Israeli hostages and detained persons.
- News of the Middle East deal was applauded by GOP legislators, who called on Trump to be given the peace award this week, but greeted with more trepidation by Palestinian Americans.
- During presidential gathering, Trump appeared not to recognize the term 'Habeas Corpus' and deferred to his homeland security secretary. In May, the secretary gave a highly incorrect explanation of the core legal principle that mandates that the government provide a official justification for detaining and imprisoning people.
- All of the witnesses who contributed testimony at the White House "antifa roundtable" organized by the president on Wednesday were self-described independent journalists who might more accurately described as political content creators. The content producers report on liberal demonstrations in a partisan fashion, more similar to opposition research than nonpartisan reporting.
- GOP senators rejected a military authorization measure that would have limited Trump's authority to use deadly military force against alleged narcotics traffickers after Democrats tried to counter the government's extraordinary use of the military to destroy boats in the Caribbean.
- During the White House "political discussion" on Wednesday, at least a participant echoed Trump's inaccurate statement that significant amounts of people have been murdered by left-wing radicals in Portland, Oregon. The correct number of fatal incidents by political activists in Portland is: one.
