Greetings and welcome to the current developments in US politics. We start with the report 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, as confirmed by authorities.
Deployment Details
An element of 200 Texas Guard troops were operating in the Chicago area, as stated by a spokesperson for the US Northern Command, who spoke to the Associated Press on condition of anonymity in order to reveal mission specifics that have not been officially released.
The troops are in the urban area to protect US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) facilities and other government properties and law enforcement personnel, Northern Command stated publicly.
The troops, 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 deployed for two months. The official wasn't able to immediately offer details about how the troops were armed.
Political Context
It comes as Donald Trump on Wednesday called for the imprisonment of Brandon Johnson, Chicago's city leader, and JB Pritzker, the state governor, charging 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 posted on his social media platform on Wednesday morning. "Governor Pritzker also!"
Both the mayor and governor are members of the Democratic party. Trump's remarks coincide with state military forces have begun arriving in the Chicago area at the direction of the Trump administration, despite objections from Illinois officials, including Pritzker and Johnson.
Additional Developments
- Donald Trump declared that the conflicting parties have agreed to a tentative deal to end the fighting in Gaza, and release captured individuals and detained persons.
- News of the Gaza agreement was applauded by GOP legislators, who called on Trump to be awarded the peace award this week, but greeted with more trepidation by Arab-American communities.
- 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 definition of the core legal principle that mandates that the authorities provide a public reason for detaining and imprisoning people.
- All of the participants who provided statements at the White House "political discussion" hosted by the administration 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 similar to political investigation than neutral journalism.
- GOP senators rejected a war powers resolution that would have checked Trump's authority to use deadly military force against suspected drug smugglers after opposition party tried to counter the government's extraordinary use of the armed forces to destroy boats in the Caribbean Sea.
- During the White House "antifa roundtable" on Wednesday, at least one witness repeated Trump's false claim that large numbers of people have been killed by political extremists in Portland, Oregon. The accurate count of killings by self-described "antifa" radicals in Portland is: one.
