Greetings and welcome to the latest developments in American political affairs. We begin with the report that a limited contingent of National Guard troops has started protecting federal property in the Greater Chicago region and supporting police operations in Memphis on Wednesday, according to officials.
Troop Information
An unit of 200 Texas Guard troops were working in the Greater Chicago region, according to a representative for the US Northern Command, who spoke to the Associated Press on background basis in order to discuss mission specifics that have not been made public.
The military personnel are in the urban area to protect US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) buildings and other government properties and law enforcement personnel, Northern Command said online.
The forces, along with about 300 from Illinois, 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 deployed for two months. The official wasn't able to quickly provide information 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 Illinois governor, accusing them of failing to protect US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) officers.
"The city's mayor should be in prison for failing to protect ICE personnel!" Trump posted on Truth Social on Wednesday morning. "The state governor also!"
Both Johnson and Pritzker are members of the Democratic party. Trump's comments come as state military forces have begun arriving in the Chicago area at the order of the federal administration, despite objections from Illinois officials, including Pritzker and Johnson.
Other Updates
- The president announced that Hamas and Israel have accepted a tentative deal to cease hostilities in Gaza, and free Israeli hostages and Palestinian prisoners.
- Reports about the Gaza agreement was applauded by Republican lawmakers, who urged Trump to be given the peace award this week, but greeted with more trepidation by Arab-American communities.
- During White House event, Trump seemed unfamiliar with the term 'Habeas Corpus' and deferred to his homeland security secretary. In May, the secretary gave a wildly inaccurate definition of the core legal principle that mandates that the authorities provide a public reason for arresting and jailing people.
- All of the participants who provided statements at the White House "antifa roundtable" hosted 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 similar to political investigation than neutral journalism.
- Senate Republicans voted down a military authorization measure that would have limited Trump's ability to use lethal armed action against alleged narcotics traffickers after Democrats tried to counter the government's unprecedented deployment of the military to eliminate vessels in the Caribbean.
- During the White House "antifa roundtable" on Wednesday, at least one witness repeated Trump's inaccurate statement that significant amounts of people have been killed by left-wing radicals in Portland, Oregon. The accurate count of fatal incidents by political activists in Portland is: a single incident.
