Greetings and welcome to the most recent developments 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.
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 spoke to the news agency on background basis in order to discuss mission specifics that have not been made public.
The troops are in the city to secure US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) facilities and other government properties and law enforcement personnel, 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 military command and have been activated for two months. The spokesperson wasn't able to immediately offer 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, charging them of not protecting US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) officers.
"Chicago Mayor should be in prison for not protecting Ice Officers!" Trump posted on Truth Social on Wednesday morning. "The state governor also!"
Both the mayor and governor are members of the Democratic party. Trump's comments come as national guard troops have started deployment in the Greater Chicago region at the direction of the federal administration, despite opposition from state authorities, including Pritzker and Johnson.
Additional Developments
- The president announced that Hamas and Israel have agreed to a tentative deal to end the fighting in Gaza, and free Israeli hostages and detained persons.
- Reports about the Gaza agreement was applauded by GOP legislators, who called on Trump to be given the peace award this week, but received with greater caution by Palestinian Americans.
- During White House event, Trump seemed unfamiliar with the term 'Habeas Corpus' and referred to Kristi Noem. In May, Noem gave a wildly inaccurate explanation of the core legal principle 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 "political discussion" hosted by the administration on Wednesday were identified as freelance reporters who might better be called political content creators. The content producers report on leftwing protests in a partisan fashion, more similar to opposition research than neutral journalism.
- Senate Republicans rejected a war powers resolution that would have checked Trump's ability to use deadly military force against alleged narcotics traffickers after Democrats tried to oppose the administration'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 false claim that large numbers of people have been murdered by left-wing radicals in Portland, Oregon. The accurate count of fatal incidents by self-described "antifa" radicals in Portland is: one.
