Greetings and welcome to the current updates in American political affairs. We start with the report that a small number of National Guard troops has begun guarding federal property in the Chicago area and supporting police operations in Memphis on Wednesday, as confirmed by authorities.
Deployment Details
An element of 200 Texas Guard troops were operating in the Greater Chicago region, according to a spokesperson for the US Northern Command, who communicated with the news agency on condition of anonymity in order to reveal mission specifics that have not been officially released.
The military personnel are in the city to secure US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) buildings and other federal facilities and police officers, Northern Command stated publicly.
The troops, along with about 300 from Illinois, had arrived Tuesday at a US Army Reserve Center in Elwood, approximately 90 kilometers southwest of Chicago. All 500 troops are under the Northern Command and have been deployed for 60 days. The official wasn't able to immediately offer information about how the troops were armed.
Background Situation
It comes as Donald Trump on Wednesday called for the imprisonment of Brandon Johnson, Chicago's mayor, and JB Pritzker, the state governor, charging them of not protecting US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) officers.
"Chicago Mayor should be in jail for not protecting ICE personnel!" Trump posted on Truth Social on Wednesday morning. "Governor Pritzker also!"
Both Johnson and Pritzker are members of the Democratic party. Trump's remarks come as state military forces have begun arriving in the Chicago area at the order of the federal administration, despite opposition from Illinois officials, including the governor and mayor.
Additional Developments
- Donald Trump announced that the conflicting parties have accepted a tentative deal to end the fighting in Gaza, and release 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 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, Noem gave a wildly inaccurate explanation of the core legal principle that mandates that the government provide a public reason for detaining and imprisoning people.
- All of the witnesses who provided statements at the White House "political discussion" hosted by the administration on Wednesday were identified as freelance reporters who might better be called political content creators. The influencers report on leftwing protests in a partisan fashion, more akin to opposition research than nonpartisan reporting.
- GOP senators rejected a war powers resolution that would have checked Trump's authority to use lethal armed action against alleged narcotics traffickers after opposition party tried to oppose the administration's unprecedented deployment of the military to eliminate vessels in the Caribbean Sea.
- During the White House "antifa roundtable" on Wednesday, at least a participant echoed Trump's inaccurate statement that significant amounts of people have been killed by left-wing radicals in the Oregon city. The correct number of fatal incidents by political activists in Portland is: a single incident.
