Hello and welcome to the current updates in American political affairs. We start with the report that a small number of National Guard troops has started protecting government facilities in the Greater Chicago region and supporting police operations in Memphis on Wednesday, as confirmed by authorities.
Troop Information
An element of 200 Texas Guard troops were working in the Chicago area, according to a representative for the US Northern Command, who spoke to the news agency on condition of anonymity in order to discuss operational details 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 federal facilities and police officers, 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 five hundred personnel are under the military command and have been activated for 60 days. The spokesperson wasn't able to quickly provide details about how the troops were armed.
Political Context
It comes as Donald Trump on Wednesday demanded the imprisonment of Brandon Johnson, Chicago's mayor, and JB Pritzker, the Illinois governor, accusing them of failing to protect US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) officers.
"The city's mayor should be in prison for not protecting Ice Officers!" Trump posted on his social media platform on Wednesday morning. "The state governor also!"
Both the mayor and governor are Democrats. Trump's remarks come as state military forces have begun arriving in the Chicago area at the order of the Trump administration, despite opposition from Illinois officials, including Pritzker and Johnson.
Other Updates
- The president announced that Hamas and Israel have agreed to a tentative deal to cease hostilities in Gaza, and release captured individuals and Palestinian prisoners.
- Reports about the Middle East deal was praised by Republican lawmakers, who called on Trump to be awarded the Nobel Peace prize this week, but received with greater caution by Palestinian Americans.
- During presidential gathering, Trump appeared not to recognize 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 government 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 self-described independent journalists who might more accurately described as political content creators. The influencers report on leftwing protests in a partisan fashion, more akin to opposition research than nonpartisan reporting.
- Senate Republicans voted down a war powers resolution that would have checked Trump's authority to use lethal armed action against alleged narcotics traffickers after opposition party tried to counter the government's unprecedented deployment of the military to eliminate vessels in the Caribbean Sea.
- During the White House "political discussion" on Wednesday, at least a participant echoed Trump's inaccurate statement that large numbers of people have been killed by left-wing radicals in Portland, Oregon. The accurate count of fatal incidents by self-described "antifa" radicals in Portland is: one.
