Greetings and welcome to the current developments in US politics. We start with the report that a limited contingent of state military forces 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 two hundred Texas military personnel were working in the Greater Chicago region, according to a representative for the US Northern Command, who communicated with the Associated Press on condition of anonymity in order to reveal mission specifics that have not been officially released.
The military personnel are in the urban area to protect US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) facilities and other government properties and law enforcement personnel, Northern Command stated publicly.
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 500 troops are under the Northern Command and have been deployed for 60 days. The official wasn't able to quickly provide details about how the personnel were equipped.
Background Situation
It coincides with Donald Trump on Wednesday called for the imprisonment of Brandon Johnson, Chicago's mayor, 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 not protecting ICE personnel!" Trump posted on his social media platform on Wednesday morning. "The state governor also!"
Both the mayor and governor are Democrats. Trump's comments come as national guard troops have begun arriving in the Greater Chicago region at the direction of the Trump administration, despite opposition from state authorities, including Pritzker and Johnson.
Additional Developments
- Donald Trump announced that the conflicting parties have accepted a tentative deal to end the fighting in Gaza, and release Israeli hostages and detained persons.
- News of the Gaza agreement was applauded by Republican lawmakers, who urged Trump to be awarded the Nobel Peace prize this week, but received with greater caution by Arab-American communities.
- During presidential gathering, Trump appeared not to recognize the term 'legal principle' and referred to Kristi Noem. In May, the secretary gave a wildly inaccurate definition of the fundamental legal concept that requires that the government provide a official justification for detaining and imprisoning people.
- All of the witnesses who provided statements at the White House "antifa roundtable" hosted by the administration on Wednesday were self-described independent journalists who might better be called partisan conservative social media influencers. The influencers cover liberal demonstrations in a partisan fashion, more akin to political investigation than neutral journalism.
- Senate Republicans voted down a war powers resolution that would have checked Trump's ability to use lethal armed action against suspected drug smugglers after opposition party tried to oppose the administration's unprecedented deployment of the armed forces to destroy boats in the Caribbean.
- During the White House "political discussion" on Wednesday, at least a participant repeated Trump's false claim that significant amounts of people have been killed by political extremists in Portland, Oregon. The accurate count of killings by self-described "antifa" radicals in Portland is: a single incident.
