Hello and welcome to the most recent updates in US politics. We start with the report that a small number of state military forces has begun guarding federal property in the Greater Chicago region and supporting police operations in Memphis on Wednesday, as confirmed by authorities.
Deployment Details
An unit of two hundred Texas military personnel were working in the Chicago area, according to a spokesperson for the US Northern Command, who spoke to the news agency on condition of anonymity in order to discuss mission specifics that have not been officially released.
The military personnel 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 troops, along with about three hundred Illinois personnel, had reached on 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 activated for 60 days. The official wasn't able to quickly provide details about how the personnel were equipped.
Background Situation
It comes as Donald Trump on Wednesday called for the imprisonment of Brandon Johnson, Chicago's city leader, and JB Pritzker, the Illinois governor, charging them of failing to protect US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) personnel.
"Chicago Mayor should be in prison for failing to protect Ice Officers!" Trump posted on his social media platform on Wednesday morning. "Governor Pritzker also!"
Both Johnson and Pritzker are Democrats. Trump's comments come as state military forces have started deployment in the Greater Chicago region at the direction of the Trump administration, despite objections from state authorities, including Pritzker and Johnson.
Other Updates
- The president announced that Hamas and Israel have agreed to a tentative deal to end the fighting in Gaza, and release captured individuals and detained persons.
- Reports about 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 presidential gathering, Trump seemed unfamiliar with the term 'Habeas Corpus' and referred 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 public reason for detaining and imprisoning people.
- All of the participants who provided statements at the White House "antifa roundtable" organized by the administration on Wednesday were identified as freelance reporters who might better be called partisan conservative social media influencers. The influencers report on leftwing protests in a partisan fashion, more akin to opposition research than nonpartisan reporting.
- Senate Republicans voted down a war powers resolution that would have checked Trump's authority to use deadly military force against alleged narcotics traffickers after opposition party tried to oppose the government's extraordinary use of the armed forces to eliminate vessels in the Caribbean Sea.
- 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 Portland, Oregon. The accurate count of killings by self-described "antifa" radicals in Portland is: one.
