Greetings and welcome to the latest updates in US politics. We start with the report that a small number of National Guard troops has started protecting federal property in the Greater Chicago region and assisting law enforcement in Memphis on Wednesday, according to officials.
Deployment Details
An unit of two hundred Texas military personnel were working in the Chicago area, according to a representative for the US Northern Command, who spoke to the Associated Press on background basis in order to reveal operational details that have not been made public.
The military personnel are in the urban area to protect US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) buildings and other federal facilities and law enforcement personnel, Northern Command said online.
The forces, 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 Northern Command and have been deployed for 60 days. The official wasn't able to quickly provide information about how the troops were armed.
Political Context
It comes as Donald Trump on Wednesday called for the jailing of Brandon Johnson, Chicago's mayor, and JB Pritzker, the Illinois governor, charging them of not protecting US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) officers.
"The city's mayor should be in prison for failing to protect ICE personnel!" Trump wrote on Truth Social on Wednesday morning. "The state governor also!"
Both the mayor and governor are Democrats. Trump's comments coincide with state military forces have started deployment in the Greater Chicago region at the order of the federal administration, despite objections from state authorities, including Pritzker and Johnson.
Additional Developments
- Donald Trump announced that the conflicting parties have accepted a tentative deal to end the fighting in Gaza, and free captured individuals and detained persons.
- Reports about the Middle East deal was praised by Republican lawmakers, who called on Trump to be given the peace award this week, but greeted with more trepidation by Arab-American communities.
- During White House event, Trump seemed unfamiliar with the term 'Habeas Corpus' and referred to Kristi Noem. In May, the secretary gave a highly incorrect definition of the fundamental legal concept that mandates that the authorities provide a public reason 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 more accurately described as political content creators. The content producers cover liberal demonstrations in a highly political manner, more similar to political investigation than neutral journalism.
- Senate Republicans voted down a military authorization measure that would have checked Trump's authority to use deadly military force against suspected drug smugglers after Democrats tried to oppose the administration's extraordinary use of the military to eliminate vessels in the Caribbean.
- During the White House "political discussion" on Wednesday, at least one witness echoed Trump's inaccurate statement that significant amounts of people have been killed by political extremists in the Oregon city. The accurate count of fatal incidents by political activists in Portland is: one.
