Greetings and welcome to the current updates in US politics. We start with the report that a limited contingent of state military forces has begun guarding government facilities in the Greater Chicago region and assisting law enforcement in Memphis on Wednesday, as confirmed by authorities.
Deployment Details
An unit of 200 Texas Guard troops were operating in the Chicago area, according to a spokesperson for the US Northern Command, who spoke to the news agency on background basis in order to discuss operational details that have not been made public.
The military personnel are in the urban area to secure US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) facilities and other government properties and law enforcement personnel, Northern Command stated publicly.
The troops, along with about 300 from Illinois, had arrived Tuesday at a US Army Reserve Center in Elwood, approximately 90 kilometers 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 details about how the personnel were equipped.
Background Situation
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 failing to protect US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) officers.
"The city's mayor should be in prison for failing to protect ICE personnel!" Trump wrote on his social media platform on Wednesday morning. "The state governor also!"
Both Johnson and Pritzker are Democrats. Trump's comments come as national guard troops have started deployment in the Greater Chicago region at the order of the Trump administration, despite objections from Illinois officials, including Pritzker and Johnson.
Other Updates
- Donald Trump announced that the conflicting parties have accepted a provisional agreement to end the fighting in Gaza, and release Israeli hostages and detained persons.
- News of the Gaza agreement was praised by GOP legislators, who urged Trump to be awarded the peace award this week, but received with greater caution by Palestinian Americans.
- During presidential gathering, Trump appeared not to recognize the term 'legal principle' and deferred to his homeland security secretary. In May, Noem gave a wildly inaccurate explanation of the fundamental legal concept that requires that the authorities provide a official justification for detaining and imprisoning people.
- All of the participants who provided statements at the White House "political discussion" organized by the president on Wednesday were self-described independent journalists who might better be called partisan conservative social media influencers. The influencers report on liberal demonstrations in a partisan fashion, more akin to opposition research than neutral journalism.
- Senate Republicans voted down a military authorization measure that would have checked Trump's authority to use lethal armed action against alleged narcotics traffickers after Democrats tried to counter the administration's unprecedented deployment of the armed forces to destroy boats in the Caribbean.
- 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 left-wing radicals in the Oregon city. The accurate count of fatal incidents by self-described "antifa" radicals in Portland is: a single incident.
