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 Greater Chicago region and assisting law enforcement in Memphis on Wednesday, according to officials.
Deployment Details
An element of 200 Texas Guard troops were working in the Greater Chicago region, as stated by a representative for the US Northern Command, who communicated with the Associated Press on background basis in order to discuss operational details that have not been made public.
The military personnel are in the city to secure US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) facilities and other government properties and law enforcement personnel, Northern Command said online.
The troops, 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 activated for two months. The official wasn't able to immediately offer details about how the personnel were equipped.
Background Situation
It coincides with Donald Trump on Wednesday called for the jailing of Brandon Johnson, Chicago's city leader, and JB Pritzker, the Illinois governor, accusing them of not protecting US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) officers.
"The city's mayor should be in jail for failing to protect ICE personnel!" Trump wrote on Truth Social on Wednesday morning. "The state governor also!"
Both the mayor and governor are members of the Democratic party. Trump's comments come as national guard troops have begun arriving in the Greater Chicago region at the order of the federal administration, despite objections from Illinois officials, including the governor and mayor.
Other Updates
- Donald Trump declared that Hamas and Israel have agreed to a tentative deal to cease hostilities in Gaza, and release Israeli hostages and Palestinian prisoners.
- News of the Middle East deal was praised by GOP legislators, who urged Trump to be given the Nobel Peace prize 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 wildly inaccurate definition of the fundamental legal concept that mandates that the authorities provide a public reason for arresting and jailing people.
- All of the participants who contributed testimony at the White House "political discussion" hosted by the administration on Wednesday were identified as freelance reporters who might better be called partisan conservative social media influencers. The influencers cover liberal demonstrations in a partisan fashion, more akin to opposition research than neutral journalism.
- GOP senators voted down a war powers resolution that would have checked Trump's authority to use lethal armed action against alleged narcotics traffickers after Democrats tried to counter the administration's extraordinary use of the armed forces to eliminate vessels in the Caribbean.
- During the White House "political discussion" on Wednesday, at least one witness echoed Trump's false claim that significant amounts of people have been murdered by political extremists in the Oregon city. The correct number of killings by self-described "antifa" radicals in Portland is: one.
