Greetings and welcome to the current developments in American political affairs. We start with the report that a limited contingent of state military forces has started protecting government facilities in the Chicago area and assisting law enforcement in Memphis on Wednesday, as confirmed by authorities.
Troop Information
An unit of two hundred Texas military personnel were operating 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 mission specifics that have not been officially released.
The troops are in the city to secure US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) facilities and other federal facilities and police officers, Northern Command stated publicly.
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 activated for 60 days. The spokesperson wasn't able to immediately offer details about how the troops were armed.
Political Context
It comes as Donald Trump on Wednesday called for the jailing of Brandon Johnson, Chicago's mayor, and JB Pritzker, the Illinois governor, charging them of failing to protect US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) personnel.
"The city's mayor should be in jail for not protecting Ice Officers!" Trump wrote on his social media platform on Wednesday morning. "The state governor also!"
Both the mayor and governor are members of the Democratic party. Trump's comments come as national guard troops have begun arriving in the Greater Chicago region at the order of the Trump administration, despite opposition from Illinois officials, including the governor and mayor.
Other Updates
- The president announced that Hamas and Israel have accepted a tentative deal to end the fighting in Gaza, and free Israeli hostages and Palestinian prisoners.
- News of the Gaza agreement was applauded by Republican lawmakers, who urged Trump to be awarded the peace award this week, but greeted with more trepidation by Palestinian Americans.
- During White House event, Trump seemed unfamiliar with the term 'Habeas Corpus' and deferred to his homeland security secretary. In May, the secretary gave a wildly inaccurate explanation of the core legal principle that requires that the authorities provide a official justification for arresting and jailing people.
- All of the witnesses who provided statements at the White House "antifa roundtable" organized by the president on Wednesday were identified as freelance reporters who might better be called partisan conservative social media influencers. The content producers report on liberal demonstrations in a partisan fashion, more similar to opposition research than neutral journalism.
- Senate Republicans voted down a military authorization measure that would have limited Trump's authority to use deadly military force against alleged narcotics traffickers 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 "antifa roundtable" on Wednesday, at least one witness echoed Trump's inaccurate statement 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.
