Hello and welcome to the current developments in US politics. We start with the report that a limited contingent of state military forces has begun guarding federal property in the Greater Chicago region and assisting law enforcement in Memphis on Wednesday, according to officials.
Deployment Details
An unit of two hundred Texas military personnel were working in the Chicago area, according to a spokesperson for the US Northern Command, who communicated with the Associated Press on condition of anonymity in order to discuss operational details that have not been made public.
The troops are in the urban area to protect US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) facilities and other government properties and police officers, Northern Command said online.
The troops, 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 military command and have been deployed for two months. The spokesperson wasn't able to quickly provide information about how the personnel were equipped.
Political Context
It coincides with Donald Trump on Wednesday called for the imprisonment of Brandon Johnson, Chicago's mayor, and JB Pritzker, the state governor, charging them of failing to protect US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) personnel.
"Chicago Mayor should be in jail for failing to protect ICE personnel!" Trump posted on Truth Social on Wednesday morning. "The state governor also!"
Both Johnson and Pritzker are Democrats. Trump's remarks coincide with national guard troops have begun arriving in the Chicago area at the direction of the federal administration, despite objections from Illinois officials, including the governor and mayor.
Other Updates
- The president declared that Hamas and Israel have agreed to a tentative deal to end the fighting in Gaza, and free Israeli hostages and detained persons.
- Reports about the Gaza agreement was applauded by GOP legislators, who urged Trump to be awarded the Nobel Peace prize this week, but greeted with more trepidation by Arab-American communities.
- During presidential gathering, Trump appeared not to recognize the term 'Habeas Corpus' and referred to his homeland security secretary. In May, Noem gave a wildly inaccurate definition of the core legal principle that mandates that the government provide a public reason for arresting and jailing people.
- All of the witnesses who provided statements 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 content producers cover leftwing protests in a partisan fashion, more similar to political investigation than neutral journalism.
- Senate Republicans rejected a war powers resolution that would have limited Trump's ability to use lethal armed action against suspected drug smugglers after opposition party tried to counter the administration's extraordinary use of the armed forces to eliminate vessels in the Caribbean Sea.
- During the White House "antifa roundtable" on Wednesday, at least a participant repeated Trump's false claim that significant amounts of people have been murdered by political extremists in Portland, Oregon. The accurate count of killings by political activists in Portland is: a single incident.
