Greetings and welcome to the latest updates in US politics. We start with the report that a small number of National Guard troops has begun guarding government facilities in the Chicago area and supporting police operations in Memphis on Wednesday, according to officials.
Troop Information
An element of two hundred Texas military personnel were working in the Chicago area, according to a representative for the US Northern Command, who spoke to the news agency 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) buildings 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 activated for 60 days. The spokesperson wasn't able to quickly provide details about how the troops were armed.
Political Context
It coincides with Donald Trump on Wednesday called for the jailing of Brandon Johnson, Chicago's mayor, and JB Pritzker, the state governor, accusing them of not protecting US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) officers.
"The city's mayor should be in jail for failing to protect ICE personnel!" Trump posted on his social media platform on Wednesday morning. "The state governor also!"
Both the mayor and governor are Democrats. Trump's remarks come as national guard troops have begun arriving in the Greater Chicago region at the direction of the federal administration, despite objections from Illinois officials, including Pritzker and Johnson.
Additional Developments
- Donald Trump announced that Hamas and Israel have agreed to a provisional agreement to end the fighting in Gaza, and free captured individuals and Palestinian prisoners.
- News of the Gaza agreement was applauded by Republican lawmakers, who called on Trump to be awarded 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 deferred to Kristi Noem. In May, Noem gave a highly incorrect explanation of the fundamental legal concept 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" hosted by the president on Wednesday were self-described independent journalists who might better be called partisan conservative social media influencers. The influencers report on liberal demonstrations in a highly political manner, more akin to opposition research than nonpartisan reporting.
- Senate Republicans voted down a military authorization measure that would have checked Trump's ability to use lethal armed action against alleged narcotics traffickers after Democrats tried to counter the administration's unprecedented deployment of the military to destroy boats in the Caribbean.
- During the White House "antifa roundtable" on Wednesday, at least one witness repeated Trump's inaccurate statement that large numbers of people have been killed by political extremists in Portland, Oregon. The correct number of killings by self-described "antifa" radicals in Portland is: one.
