Hello and welcome to the most recent updates in American political affairs. We start with the report that a small number of National Guard troops has begun guarding government facilities in the Chicago area and supporting police operations in Memphis on Wednesday, according to officials.
Troop Information
An element of 200 Texas Guard troops were operating in the Chicago area, according to a spokesperson for the US Northern Command, who spoke to the news agency on condition of anonymity in order to reveal mission specifics that have not been officially released.
The troops are in the urban area 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 three hundred Illinois personnel, had arrived Tuesday at a US Army Reserve Center in Elwood, 55 miles southwest of Chicago. All 500 troops are under the military command and have been activated for 60 days. The official wasn't able to immediately offer details about how the personnel were equipped.
Political Context
It comes as Donald Trump on Wednesday demanded the jailing 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 his social media platform on Wednesday morning. "The state governor also!"
Both the mayor and governor are Democrats. Trump's comments coincide with state military forces have begun arriving in the Chicago area at the order of the federal administration, despite objections from state authorities, including the governor and mayor.
Other Updates
- Donald Trump announced that the conflicting parties have agreed to a tentative deal to end the fighting in Gaza, and free Israeli hostages and detained persons.
- News of the Middle East deal was praised by GOP legislators, who called on Trump to be awarded the Nobel Peace prize this week, but greeted with more trepidation by Arab-American communities.
- During presidential gathering, Trump seemed unfamiliar with the term 'legal principle' and deferred to his homeland security secretary. In May, Noem gave a highly incorrect definition of the core legal principle that requires that the government provide a public reason for arresting and jailing people.
- All of the witnesses who contributed testimony at the White House "antifa roundtable" organized by the president on Wednesday were self-described independent journalists who might better be called partisan conservative social media influencers. The content producers cover liberal demonstrations in a highly political manner, more similar to opposition research than nonpartisan reporting.
- GOP senators rejected a war powers resolution that would have checked Trump's authority to use deadly military force against alleged narcotics traffickers after opposition party tried to counter the administration's extraordinary use of the military to eliminate vessels in the Caribbean.
- During the White House "antifa roundtable" on Wednesday, at least one witness repeated Trump's false claim that significant amounts of people have been killed by left-wing radicals in the Oregon city. The accurate count of killings by self-described "antifa" radicals in Portland is: a single incident.
