Hello and welcome to the current updates in US politics. We begin with the report that a limited contingent of National Guard troops has begun guarding government facilities in the Chicago area and assisting law enforcement in Memphis on Wednesday, as confirmed by authorities.
Troop Information
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 condition of anonymity 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) facilities and other federal facilities and law enforcement personnel, Northern Command stated publicly.
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 deployed for two months. 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 imprisonment of Brandon Johnson, Chicago's city leader, and JB Pritzker, the Illinois governor, charging them of not protecting US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) personnel.
"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 remarks come as national guard troops have begun arriving in the Chicago area at the direction of the federal administration, despite objections from state authorities, including the governor and mayor.
Other Updates
- Donald Trump announced that Hamas and Israel have agreed to a provisional agreement to end the fighting in Gaza, and free Israeli hostages and Palestinian prisoners.
- News of the Middle East deal was praised by GOP legislators, who called on Trump to be awarded the Nobel Peace prize this week, but received with greater caution by Arab-American communities.
- During White House event, Trump appeared not to recognize the term 'Habeas Corpus' and deferred to Kristi Noem. In May, the secretary gave a highly incorrect 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 contributed testimony at the White House "antifa roundtable" organized by the president on Wednesday were self-described independent journalists who might better be called political content creators. The content producers report on leftwing protests in a partisan fashion, more akin to opposition research than neutral journalism.
- GOP senators rejected a military authorization measure that would have checked Trump's ability to use lethal armed action against suspected drug smugglers after Democrats tried to oppose the government's extraordinary use of the armed forces to eliminate vessels in the Caribbean Sea.
- During the White House "antifa roundtable" 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 correct number of killings by self-described "antifa" radicals in Portland is: a single incident.
