Hello and welcome to the current developments in American political affairs. We start with the report that a small number of National Guard troops has started protecting federal property in the Chicago area and assisting law enforcement in Memphis on Wednesday, according to officials.
Deployment Details
An element of 200 Texas Guard troops were operating in the Greater Chicago region, according to a spokesperson for the US Northern Command, who spoke to the Associated Press on background basis in order to reveal mission specifics that have not been made public.
The troops are in the city to secure US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) facilities and other federal facilities and law enforcement personnel, Northern Command stated publicly.
The troops, along with about 300 from Illinois, had arrived Tuesday at a US Army Reserve Center in Elwood, approximately 90 kilometers 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 troops were armed.
Background Situation
It coincides with Donald Trump on Wednesday demanded the imprisonment of Brandon Johnson, Chicago's city leader, and JB Pritzker, the state governor, charging 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 his social media platform on Wednesday morning. "The state governor also!"
Both the mayor and governor are members of the Democratic party. Trump's remarks come as national guard troops have started deployment in the Greater Chicago region at the order of the federal administration, despite objections from state authorities, including Pritzker and Johnson.
Additional Developments
- Donald Trump declared that Hamas and Israel have agreed to a provisional agreement to end the fighting in Gaza, and free Israeli hostages and Palestinian prisoners.
- Reports about the Middle East deal was applauded by GOP legislators, who called on Trump to be awarded the Nobel Peace prize this week, but greeted with more trepidation 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 definition of the core legal principle 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 "political discussion" organized by the president on Wednesday were self-described independent journalists who might better be called political content creators. The content producers cover leftwing protests in a highly political manner, more akin to opposition research than nonpartisan reporting.
- Senate Republicans voted down a war powers resolution that would have checked Trump's ability to use lethal armed action against alleged narcotics traffickers after Democrats tried to counter the government's extraordinary use of the military to eliminate vessels in the Caribbean.
- During the White House "political discussion" on Wednesday, at least one witness 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 political activists in Portland is: a single incident.
