Greetings and welcome to the current updates in American political affairs. We start with the news that a small number of National Guard troops has begun guarding federal property in the Chicago area and assisting law enforcement in Memphis on Wednesday, as confirmed by authorities.
Troop Information
An element of two hundred Texas military personnel were working in the Chicago area, according to a spokesperson for the US Northern Command, who communicated with the Associated Press on condition of anonymity in order to reveal operational details that have not been made public.
The military personnel are in the urban area to secure US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) buildings and other federal facilities and police officers, Northern Command said online.
The troops, along with about 300 from Illinois, 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 activated for two months. The spokesperson wasn't able to quickly provide information about how the personnel were equipped.
Background Situation
It comes as Donald Trump on Wednesday demanded the jailing of Brandon Johnson, Chicago's mayor, and JB Pritzker, the Illinois governor, accusing them of not protecting US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) personnel.
"The city's mayor should be in jail for failing to protect 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 comments come as national guard troops have begun arriving in the Greater Chicago region at the direction of the federal administration, despite objections from state authorities, including the governor and mayor.
Additional Developments
- Donald Trump announced that Hamas and Israel have agreed to a tentative deal to cease hostilities in Gaza, and release captured individuals and detained persons.
- News of the Gaza agreement was applauded by GOP legislators, who urged Trump to be awarded the peace award this week, but received with greater caution by Palestinian Americans.
- During White House event, Trump seemed unfamiliar with the term 'Habeas Corpus' and deferred to Kristi Noem. In May, the secretary gave a wildly inaccurate 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 "political discussion" hosted by the administration on Wednesday were self-described independent journalists who might better be called political content creators. The influencers cover leftwing protests in a highly political manner, more akin to opposition research than neutral journalism.
- Senate Republicans rejected 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 government's unprecedented deployment 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 inaccurate statement that large numbers of people have been killed by political extremists in Portland, Oregon. The accurate count of fatal incidents by political activists in Portland is: one.
