Greetings and welcome to the current updates in US politics. We start with the report 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 working in the Chicago area, as stated by a representative for the US Northern Command, who communicated with the Associated Press on background basis in order to discuss operational details that have not been officially released.
The military personnel are in the urban area to secure US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) buildings and other government properties and police officers, Northern Command said online.
The troops, along with about three hundred Illinois personnel, had arrived 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.
Background Situation
It comes as Donald Trump on Wednesday demanded the imprisonment of Brandon Johnson, Chicago's city leader, and JB Pritzker, the state governor, charging them of not protecting US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) personnel.
"Chicago Mayor should be in jail for not protecting ICE personnel!" Trump wrote on his social media platform on Wednesday morning. "Governor Pritzker also!"
Both Johnson and Pritzker are members of the Democratic party. Trump's remarks coincide with national guard troops have begun arriving in the Greater Chicago region at the order of the Trump administration, despite opposition from Illinois officials, including Pritzker and Johnson.
Other Updates
- Donald Trump declared that the conflicting parties have agreed to a provisional agreement to end the fighting in Gaza, and free Israeli hostages and Palestinian prisoners.
- News of the Gaza agreement was praised by Republican lawmakers, who called on Trump to be given the Nobel Peace prize this week, but received with greater caution by Arab-American communities.
- During White House event, Trump seemed unfamiliar with the term 'legal principle' and deferred to his homeland security secretary. In May, the secretary gave a wildly inaccurate definition of the fundamental legal concept that mandates that the authorities 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 administration on Wednesday were self-described independent journalists who might better be called partisan conservative social media influencers. The content producers report on liberal demonstrations in a partisan fashion, more similar to opposition research than neutral journalism.
- Senate Republicans voted down a war powers resolution that would have checked Trump's authority to use lethal armed action against suspected drug smugglers after Democrats tried to oppose the administration's extraordinary use of the armed forces to eliminate vessels in the Caribbean.
- During the White House "political discussion" 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 correct number of killings by self-described "antifa" radicals in Portland is: a single incident.
