Greetings and welcome to the latest updates in American political affairs. We start with the news that a limited contingent of National Guard troops has started protecting federal property in the Chicago area and assisting law enforcement in Memphis on Wednesday, as confirmed by authorities.
Deployment Details
An element of two hundred Texas military personnel were operating in the Chicago area, according to a spokesperson for the US Northern Command, who spoke to the Associated Press on condition of anonymity in order to discuss operational details that have not been officially released.
The troops are in the urban area to secure US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) buildings and other federal facilities and police officers, Northern Command said online.
The troops, 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 immediately offer details about how the troops were armed.
Background Situation
It coincides with Donald Trump on Wednesday demanded the jailing of Brandon Johnson, Chicago's mayor, 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 wrote 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 Chicago area at the order of the federal administration, despite opposition from Illinois officials, including the governor and mayor.
Additional Developments
- The president declared that the conflicting parties have agreed to a tentative deal to end the fighting in Gaza, and release Israeli hostages and Palestinian prisoners.
- Reports about the Gaza agreement was applauded by Republican lawmakers, who urged Trump to be awarded the Nobel Peace prize this week, but received with greater caution by Palestinian Americans.
- During presidential gathering, Trump appeared not to recognize the term 'Habeas Corpus' and deferred to his homeland security secretary. In May, Noem gave a highly incorrect definition of the core legal principle that mandates that the government provide a public reason for detaining and imprisoning people.
- All of the participants who provided statements at the White House "antifa roundtable" organized by the administration on Wednesday were self-described independent journalists who might better be called political content creators. The content producers cover leftwing protests in a partisan fashion, more similar to opposition research than neutral journalism.
- GOP senators voted down a military authorization measure that would have checked Trump's ability to use deadly military force against suspected drug smugglers after opposition party tried to oppose the government's unprecedented deployment of the armed forces to destroy boats in the Caribbean.
- During the White House "political discussion" on Wednesday, at least one witness repeated Trump's false claim that significant amounts of people have been murdered by political extremists in Portland, Oregon. The accurate count of fatal incidents by self-described "antifa" radicals in Portland is: a single incident.
