Greetings and welcome to the current developments in US politics. We begin with the report that a small number of state military forces has begun guarding government facilities in the Greater Chicago region and supporting police operations in Memphis on Wednesday, according to officials.
Troop Information
An element of 200 Texas Guard troops were working in the Greater Chicago region, according to a representative for the US Northern Command, who communicated with the news agency on condition of anonymity 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 government properties and police officers, Northern Command said online.
The forces, along with about 300 from Illinois, had reached on 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 two months. The official wasn't able to quickly provide details about how the troops were armed.
Political Context
It coincides with Donald Trump on Wednesday demanded 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) personnel.
"Chicago Mayor should be in jail for failing to protect Ice Officers!" Trump wrote on Truth Social on Wednesday morning. "The state governor also!"
Both Johnson and Pritzker are Democrats. Trump's comments come as national guard troops have begun arriving in the Chicago area at the direction of the federal administration, despite opposition from state authorities, including the governor and mayor.
Additional Developments
- The president declared that Hamas and Israel have agreed to a provisional agreement to end the fighting in Gaza, and free Israeli hostages and detained persons.
- News of the Gaza agreement was applauded by Republican lawmakers, who called on Trump to be given the peace award this week, but received with greater caution by Arab-American communities.
- During presidential gathering, Trump seemed unfamiliar with the term 'legal principle' and referred to his homeland security secretary. In May, Noem gave a wildly inaccurate explanation of the core legal principle that mandates that the government provide a public reason for detaining and imprisoning people.
- All of the participants who contributed testimony 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 report on liberal demonstrations in a partisan fashion, more similar to political investigation than neutral journalism.
- GOP senators voted down a military authorization measure that would have checked Trump's ability to use deadly military force against suspected drug smugglers after Democrats tried to counter the government's extraordinary use of the armed forces to destroy boats in the Caribbean Sea.
- During the White House "political discussion" on Wednesday, at least one witness echoed Trump's false claim that large numbers of people have been murdered by political extremists in the Oregon city. The accurate count of killings by self-described "antifa" radicals in Portland is: a single incident.
