Hello and welcome to the current updates in US politics. We begin with the report that a small number of state military forces has started protecting federal property in the Greater Chicago region and assisting law enforcement in Memphis on Wednesday, as confirmed by authorities.
Deployment Details
An unit of two hundred Texas military personnel were operating in the Greater Chicago region, according to a representative for the US Northern Command, who communicated with the Associated Press on background basis in order to discuss operational details that have not been made public.
The military personnel are in the city to secure US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) buildings and other federal facilities and law enforcement personnel, Northern Command said online.
The forces, along with about 300 from Illinois, had arrived Tuesday at a US Army Reserve Center in Elwood, approximately 90 kilometers southwest of Chicago. All five hundred personnel are under the Northern Command and have been deployed for 60 days. The spokesperson wasn't able to immediately offer information about how the personnel were equipped.
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, charging them of not protecting US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) officers.
"Chicago 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 members of the Democratic party. Trump's remarks coincide with national guard troops have begun arriving in the Greater Chicago region at the direction of the federal administration, despite objections from Illinois officials, including the governor and mayor.
Additional Developments
- Donald Trump announced that Hamas and Israel have accepted a tentative deal to cease hostilities in Gaza, and release Israeli hostages and detained persons.
- Reports about the Middle East deal was praised by GOP legislators, who called on Trump to be given the Nobel Peace prize this week, but greeted with more trepidation by Arab-American communities.
- 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 definition of the fundamental legal concept that mandates that the government provide a official justification for detaining and imprisoning 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 political content creators. The influencers cover liberal demonstrations in a partisan fashion, more akin to political investigation than nonpartisan reporting.
- GOP senators rejected a war powers resolution that would have checked Trump's ability to use deadly military force against alleged narcotics traffickers after opposition party tried to oppose the government's unprecedented deployment of the armed forces to destroy boats in the Caribbean.
- During the White House "political discussion" on Wednesday, at least one witness echoed Trump's false claim that large numbers of people have been killed by left-wing radicals in the Oregon city. The accurate count of fatal incidents by self-described "antifa" radicals in Portland is: a single incident.
