Hello and welcome to the current updates in US politics. We start with the news that a small number of state military forces has begun guarding government facilities in the Chicago area and assisting law enforcement in Memphis on Wednesday, as confirmed by authorities.
Deployment Details
An unit of two hundred Texas military personnel 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 discuss operational details that have not been officially released.
The troops are in the urban area to secure US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) facilities and other federal facilities and police officers, Northern Command said online.
The forces, along with about three hundred Illinois personnel, 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 two months. The spokesperson wasn't able to immediately offer information about how the troops were armed.
Political Context
It comes as Donald Trump on Wednesday called for the jailing of Brandon Johnson, Chicago's city leader, and JB Pritzker, the state governor, accusing them of not protecting US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) officers.
"Chicago Mayor should be in prison for not protecting Ice Officers!" Trump wrote on Truth Social on Wednesday morning. "Governor Pritzker also!"
Both the mayor and governor are members of the Democratic party. Trump's remarks coincide with state military forces have begun arriving in the Chicago area at the order of the Trump administration, despite opposition from state authorities, including the governor and mayor.
Other Updates
- The president announced that Hamas and Israel have agreed to a provisional agreement to cease hostilities 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 given the Nobel Peace prize this week, but received with greater caution by Arab-American communities.
- During presidential gathering, Trump seemed unfamiliar with the term 'Habeas Corpus' and deferred to Kristi Noem. In May, Noem gave a highly incorrect 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 contributed testimony at the White House "antifa roundtable" hosted by the president on Wednesday were self-described independent journalists who might better be called partisan conservative social media influencers. The content producers report on leftwing protests in a highly political manner, more similar to political investigation than nonpartisan reporting.
- GOP senators rejected a war powers resolution that would have checked Trump's authority to use lethal armed action against alleged narcotics traffickers after Democrats tried to oppose the government'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 murdered by left-wing radicals in Portland, Oregon. The correct number of fatal incidents by political activists in Portland is: a single incident.
