Greetings and welcome to the current developments in American political affairs. We start with the news that a small number of National Guard troops has begun guarding government facilities in the Chicago area and assisting law enforcement in Memphis on Wednesday, as confirmed by authorities.
Troop Information
An element of 200 Texas Guard troops were working in the Greater Chicago region, according to a spokesperson for the US Northern Command, who communicated with the news agency on background basis in order to reveal operational details that have not been made public.
The troops are in the urban area to secure US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) buildings and other federal facilities and police officers, Northern Command stated publicly.
The forces, along with about 300 from Illinois, had reached on Tuesday at a US Army Reserve Center in Elwood, 55 miles southwest of Chicago. All 500 troops are under the Northern Command and have been activated for 60 days. The spokesperson wasn't able to quickly provide information about how the troops were armed.
Political Context
It comes as Donald Trump on Wednesday demanded the jailing of Brandon Johnson, Chicago's city leader, and JB Pritzker, the Illinois governor, accusing them of not protecting US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) officers.
"The city's mayor should be in jail for not protecting ICE personnel!" Trump wrote on his social media platform 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 Greater Chicago region at the order of the Trump administration, despite objections from state authorities, including Pritzker and Johnson.
Other Updates
- The president declared that Hamas and Israel have accepted a tentative deal to cease hostilities in Gaza, and free captured individuals and detained persons.
- Reports about the Gaza agreement was praised by Republican lawmakers, who called on Trump to be awarded the peace award this week, but received with greater caution by Arab-American communities.
- During White House event, Trump appeared not to recognize the term 'legal principle' and deferred to Kristi Noem. In May, Noem gave a wildly inaccurate explanation of the fundamental legal concept that requires that the authorities provide a official justification for arresting and jailing people.
- All of the participants who contributed testimony at the White House "political discussion" hosted by the administration on Wednesday were self-described independent journalists who might better be called political content creators. The content producers cover liberal demonstrations in a highly political manner, more akin to political investigation than nonpartisan reporting.
- GOP senators rejected a military authorization measure that would have limited Trump's authority to use lethal armed action against alleged narcotics traffickers after opposition party tried to oppose the administration's unprecedented deployment of the armed forces to destroy boats in the Caribbean Sea.
- During the White House "political discussion" on Wednesday, at least a participant 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 self-described "antifa" radicals in Portland is: a single incident.
