Theatrical Troop

There are legal reasons why a president could deploy troops to American cities. But the current battle over this topic, playing out in courtrooms and the court of public opinion, is less of a debate about laws and more of a fight over reality. “The problem … is that many Americans don’t believe the president’s claims. We look at pictures and videos out of Portland and we don’t see ‘war-ravaged’ anything. We look at news reports out of Chicago and see the principal violence coming from federal officers — not being directed toward them. To put the matter directly, there’s a factual dispute about whether resorting to the military is justified. As Judge Karin Immergut (a Trump appointee) put it sharply in the Portland case, in which she ruled over the weekend that there was no legal basis for sending in troops, the president is acting in a manner that is ‘untethered to the facts.'” (That seems to be going around these days.) Stephen I. Vladeck in the NYT (Gift Article): No, Trump Can’t Deploy Troops to Wherever He Wants. “That is what we, and more important the courts, face: a factual dispute more than a legal one.”

+ Texas national guard troops arrive in Chicago amid Trump’s crackdown

+ These cities aren’t war zones. But the administration is doing everything possible to change that. Using helicopters and chemical agents, immigration agents become increasingly aggressive in Chicago.