Greetings and welcome to the latest developments in US politics. We start with the news that a limited contingent of National Guard troops has started protecting government facilities in the Chicago area and assisting law enforcement in Memphis on Wednesday, as confirmed by authorities.
Deployment Details
An unit of two hundred Texas military personnel were working in the Greater Chicago region, as stated by a representative for the US Northern Command, who spoke to the news agency on condition of anonymity in order to reveal operational details that have not been officially released.
The military personnel are in the city 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 reached on 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 two months. The spokesperson wasn't able to immediately offer details about how the personnel were equipped.
Political Context
It coincides with Donald Trump on Wednesday called for the jailing of Brandon Johnson, Chicago's city leader, and JB Pritzker, the state governor, accusing them of not protecting US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) officers.
"Chicago Mayor should be in jail for failing to protect ICE personnel!" Trump posted on his social media platform on Wednesday morning. "The state governor also!"
Both the mayor and governor are members of the Democratic party. Trump's comments coincide with state military forces have started deployment in the Chicago area at the order of the Trump administration, despite objections from state authorities, including Pritzker and Johnson.
Additional Developments
- Donald Trump announced that Hamas and Israel have accepted a tentative deal to end the fighting in Gaza, and free Israeli hostages and detained persons.
- Reports about the Middle East deal was applauded by Republican lawmakers, who called on Trump to be given the peace award this week, but greeted with more trepidation by Palestinian Americans.
- During presidential gathering, Trump seemed unfamiliar with the term 'Habeas Corpus' and referred 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 public reason for detaining and imprisoning people.
- All of the witnesses who contributed testimony at the White House "political discussion" organized by the administration on Wednesday were identified as freelance reporters who might better be called partisan conservative social media influencers. The influencers report on liberal demonstrations in a highly political manner, more akin to political investigation than neutral journalism.
- GOP senators rejected a war powers resolution that would have checked Trump's authority to use deadly military force against alleged narcotics traffickers after Democrats tried to counter the government's unprecedented deployment of the military to eliminate vessels in the Caribbean.
- During the White House "antifa roundtable" on Wednesday, at least a participant repeated Trump's false claim that large numbers of people have been murdered by left-wing radicals in Portland, Oregon. The accurate count of fatal incidents by self-described "antifa" radicals in Portland is: one.
