Hello and welcome to the most recent updates in US politics. We begin with the report that a limited contingent of National Guard troops has started protecting government facilities in the Chicago area and assisting law enforcement in Memphis on Wednesday, according to officials.
Deployment Details
An element of two hundred Texas military personnel were working in the Chicago area, according to a spokesperson for the US Northern Command, who communicated with the Associated Press on condition of anonymity in order to discuss mission specifics that have not been officially released.
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 said online.
The forces, along with about 300 from Illinois, had reached on Tuesday at a US Army Reserve Center in Elwood, approximately 90 kilometers 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 comes as Donald Trump on Wednesday demanded 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.
"The city's mayor should be in jail for not protecting Ice Officers!" Trump posted on his social media platform on Wednesday morning. "The state governor also!"
Both the mayor and governor are Democrats. Trump's comments come as national guard troops have started deployment in the Greater Chicago region at the direction of the Trump administration, despite opposition from Illinois officials, including the governor and mayor.
Additional Developments
- The president declared that Hamas and Israel have accepted a provisional agreement to end the fighting in Gaza, and release Israeli hostages and detained persons.
- Reports about the Gaza agreement was praised by GOP legislators, who urged Trump to be awarded the Nobel Peace prize this week, but greeted with more trepidation by Palestinian Americans.
- During White House event, Trump seemed unfamiliar with the term 'Habeas Corpus' and deferred to Kristi Noem. In May, the secretary gave a highly incorrect explanation of the fundamental legal concept that requires that the government provide a official justification for detaining and imprisoning people.
- All of the witnesses who provided statements at the White House "antifa roundtable" organized by the president on Wednesday were identified as freelance reporters who might better be called partisan conservative social media influencers. The influencers cover liberal demonstrations in a highly political manner, more akin to opposition research than neutral journalism.
- GOP senators voted down a war powers resolution that would have limited Trump's authority to use lethal armed action against alleged narcotics traffickers after opposition party tried to counter the government's unprecedented deployment of the military to eliminate vessels in the Caribbean Sea.
- During the White House "political discussion" on Wednesday, at least a participant echoed Trump's inaccurate statement that large numbers of people have been killed by political extremists in the Oregon city. The accurate count of killings by self-described "antifa" radicals in Portland is: one.
