Greetings and welcome to the latest developments in US politics. We begin with the news that a small number of National Guard troops has started protecting federal property in the Greater Chicago region and supporting police operations in Memphis on Wednesday, as confirmed by authorities.
Troop Information
An unit of two hundred Texas military personnel were working in the Greater Chicago region, according to a spokesperson for the US Northern Command, who communicated with the Associated Press on condition of anonymity 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) buildings and other federal facilities and police officers, Northern Command stated publicly.
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 500 troops are under the Northern Command and have been deployed for two months. The spokesperson 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 imprisonment of Brandon Johnson, Chicago's mayor, and JB Pritzker, the Illinois governor, charging 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 wrote on his social media platform on Wednesday morning. "The state governor also!"
Both the mayor and governor are Democrats. Trump's remarks 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 Pritzker and Johnson.
Additional Developments
- Donald Trump declared that Hamas and Israel have accepted a provisional agreement to cease hostilities in Gaza, and free Israeli hostages and detained persons.
- Reports about the Gaza agreement was praised by Republican lawmakers, who urged Trump to be given the peace award this week, but received with greater caution by Palestinian Americans.
- During White House event, Trump appeared not to recognize the term 'legal principle' and deferred to his homeland security secretary. In May, Noem gave a wildly inaccurate explanation of the fundamental legal concept that requires that the government provide a official justification for arresting and jailing people.
- All of the participants who provided statements 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 leftwing protests in a partisan fashion, more akin to political investigation than nonpartisan reporting.
- GOP senators voted down a war powers resolution that would have limited 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 destroy boats in the Caribbean.
- During the White House "political discussion" on Wednesday, at least a participant echoed Trump's inaccurate statement that significant amounts of people have been murdered by political extremists in Portland, Oregon. The correct number of killings by self-described "antifa" radicals in Portland is: one.
