The Trump administration branded Chicago a “war zone” Sunday as a justification for deploying soldiers against the will of local Democratic officials, while a judge blocked the White House from sending troops to another Democrat-run city.An escalating political crisis across the country pits President Donald Trump’s anti-crime and migration crackdown against opposition Democrats who accuse him of an authoritarian power grab.In the newest flashpoint, Trump late Saturday authorized deployment of 300 National Guard soldiers to Chicago, the third-largest city in the United States, despite the opposition of elected leaders including the mayor and state Governor JB Pritzker.Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem defended the move on Sunday, claiming on Fox News that Chicago is “a war zone.”But Pritzker, speaking on CNN’s “State of the Union” show, accused Republicans of aiming to sow “mayhem on the ground. They want to create the war zone, so that they can send in even more troops.”In a statement, the governor called the proposed deployment “Trump’s invasion,” saying “there is no reason” to send troops into Illinois or any other state without the “knowledge, consent, or cooperation” of local officials.A CBS poll released Sunday found that 58 percent of Americans oppose deploying the National Guard to cities.Trump — who last Tuesday spoke of using the military for a “war from within” — shows no sign of backing off his hardline campaign.On Sunday, he claimed falsely that “Portland is burning to the ground. It’s insurrectionists all over the place.”Key ally Mike Johnson, the Republican speaker of the House of Representatives, echoed the president’s rhetoric Sunday, telling NBC that National Guard troops deployed in the US capital Washington had responded to a “literal war zone” — a characterization at odds with reality.- No to ‘martial law’ -Trump’s campaign to use the military on home soil hit a roadblock late Saturday in Portland, Oregon, when a court ruled the deployment was unlawful.Trump has repeatedly called Portland “war-ravaged,” but US District Judge Karin Immergut issued a temporary block, saying “the president’s determination was simply untethered to the facts.””This is a nation of Constitutional law, not martial law,” Immergut wrote in her ruling.Although Portland has seen scattered attacks on federal officers and property, the Trump administration failed to demonstrate “that those episodes of violence were part of an organized attempt to overthrow the government as a whole” — thereby justifying military force, she said.One of Trump’s key advisors, Stephen Miller, called the judge’s order “legal insurrection.”Another court order issued late Sunday blocked the deployment of National Guard soldiers from other states, according to Oregon’s attorney general and California Governor Gavin Newsom, who earlier announced he was suing to stop the mobilization.”A federal judge BLOCKED Donald Trump’s unlawful attempt to DEPLOY 300 OF OUR NATIONAL GUARD TROOPS TO PORTLAND,” said Newsom, whose press office has deliberately copied the president’s abrasive, all-capitals style.”Trump’s abuse of power won’t stand,” Newsom added.- Chicago shooting -The Trump crackdown is being spearheaded by ICE (Immigration and Customs Enforcement). The department is being rapidly expanded both in personnel and duties.ICE raids around the country — primarily in cities run by Democrats — have seen groups of masked, armed men in unmarked cars and armored vehicles target residential neighborhoods and businesses, sparking protests.Days of tense scenes in Chicago turned violent Saturday when a federal officer shot a motorist that the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) said had been armed and rammed one of their patrol vehicles.DHS officials have said that ICE officers also shot and killed 38-year-old immigrant Silverio Villegas Gonzalez during a traffic stop on September 12, accusing him of allegedly trying to flee the scene and dragging an ICE officer with the vehicle.

Donald Trump’s unprecedented expansion of the powers of the US presidency will be put to the test when the Supreme Court returns for its fall term on Monday.”The crucial question will be whether it serves as a check on President Trump or just a rubber stamp approving his actions,” said Erwin Chemerinsky, dean of the University of California Berkeley Law School.If past is prologue, the Republican leader is in line to notch up more legal victories from a conservative-dominated bench that includes three of his own appointees.On the docket are voting rights, state bans on the participation of transgender athletes in girls’ sports and a religious freedom case involving a Rastafarian who had his knee-length dreadlocks forcibly shorn while in prison.But the blockbuster case this term concerns Trump’s levying of hundreds of billions of dollars in tariffs on imports and whether he had the statutory authority to do so.Lower courts have ruled he did not.But the Supreme Court has overwhelmingly sided with Trump since he returned to office, allowing, for example, mass firing of federal workers, the dismissal of members of independent agencies, the withholding of funds appropriated by Congress and racial profiling in his sweeping immigration crackdown.”You’ve seen the court go out of its way, really bend over backwards, in order to green-light Trump administration positions,” said Cecillia Wang, national legal director for the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU).- ‘Legal equivalent of fast food’ -Many of those decisions have come on the controversial emergency or “shadow” docket, where the court hands down orders after little briefing, without oral arguments and with paltry explanation.Samuel Bray, a University of Chicago law professor, described it as the “legal equivalent of fast food” and the court’s three liberal justices have condemned the increasing use of the emergency docket.Chemerinsky noted in an opinion piece in the Los Angeles Times that using the shadow docket, the six conservative justices have “repeatedly and without exception… voted to reverse lower court decisions that had initially found Trump’s actions to be unconstitutional.”The high-stakes tariffs case, on the other hand, will involve full briefing and oral arguments and will be heard on November 5.Trump invoked the International Emergency Economic Powers Act to unilaterally impose his extensive tariffs, bypassing Congress by claiming the country was facing an emergency due to the trade deficit.”At least hundreds of billions of dollars or more are at stake and they may need to refund those billions of dollars if they lose in the Supreme Court,” said Curtis Bradley, a University of Chicago law professor.Other high-profile cases involving the power of the president are to be heard in December and January when the court weighs in on Trump’s bid to fire members of the independent Federal Trade Commission and Lisa Cook, a governor of the interest-rate setting Federal Reserve Board.- Voting rights -On October 15, the Supreme Court will hear a voting rights case in which “non-African American” voters are contesting the creation of a second Black majority congressional district in Louisiana, claiming it is the result of unconstitutional racial gerrymandering.A victory for the plaintiffs in the case would deal a severe blow to a section of the Voting Rights Act that allows for creation of majority-minority districts to make up for racial discrimination.”The stakes are incredibly high,” said the ACLU’s Sophia Lin Lakin. “The outcome will not only determine the next steps for Louisiana’s congressional map, but may also shape the future of redistricting cases nationwide.”Another notable case on the docket concerns challenges to state laws in Idaho and West Virginia that ban transgender girls from taking part in girls’ sports.A religious freedom case to be heard on November 10 has unusually brought together legal advocates on both the left and the right.  Damon Landor is a devout Rastafarian whose hair was forcibly cut while he was in prison in Louisiana.He is seeking permission to sue individual officials of the Louisiana Department of Corrections for monetary damages for violating his religious rights.The Supreme Court is generally hostile to approving damages actions against individual government officials, Bray said.At the same time, he noted, the right-leaning court has tended to side with the plaintiffs in religious liberty cases.

The bitter tribalism that drove the United States into a government shutdown is putting compromise out of reach, analysts say — and threatening to turn a staring contest between the Democrats and Donald Trump’s Republicans into a protracted crisis.As the nation enters its second week with federal agencies paralyzed, multiple strategists with vivid memories of previous standoffs told AFP the president and his foes could be in it for the long haul.”It’s possible this shutdown drags on for weeks, not just days,” said Andrew Koneschusky, a former press secretary for Senator Chuck Schumer, the Democratic leader at the center of the latest deadlock.”Right now, both sides are dug in and there’s very little talk of compromise.”At the heart of the showdown is a Democratic demand for an extension of health care subsidies that are due to expire — meaning sharply increased costs for millions of low-income Americans.On Sunday, Trump blamed minority Democrats for blocking his funding resolution, which needs a handful of their votes.”They’re causing it. We’re ready to go back,” Trump told reporters at the White House, sounding resigned to a shutdown dragging on.Trump also told reporters Sunday his administration has already started to permanently fire — not merely furlough — federal workers, again blaming his rivals for “causing the loss of a lot of jobs.”In March, when the threat of a shutdown last loomed, Democrats blinked first, voting for a six-month Republican resolution to keep the coffers stacked despite policy misgivings.But Schumer — the top Senate Democrat — was lambasted by the party’s base, and will be reluctant to cave this time around as he faces potential primary challenges from the left.- ‘Maximum pain’ -For now, Senate Republicans are banking on their Democratic opponents giving in as they repeatedly force votes.”I could see a temporary agreement coming from both parties by the end of October,” said Jeff Le, a former senior official in California state politics who negotiated with the first Trump administration.”Anything beyond two months would halt government operations seriously and potentially impact national and homeland security considerations, casting blame on both parties.”A shift in the strategy would likely depend on either side noticing public sentiment turning against them, analysts told AFP.Polling so far has been mixed, although Republicans have been taking more flak than Democrats overall. Trump presided over the longest shutdown in history in 2018 and 2019, when federal agencies stopped work for five weeks.This time around, the president has been ratcheting up pressure by threatening liberal policy priorities and mass layoffs of public sector workers.- The Trump factor -James Druckman, a politics professor at the University of Rochester, sees Trump’s intransigence as a reason to believe this standoff could rival the 2019 record.”The Trump administration views itself as having an unchecked mandate and thus generally does not compromise,” he told AFP.”Democrats have been critiqued for not standing strongly enough and the last compromise did not result in any positive outcome for Democrats. Thus, politically, they are inclined to stand firm.”The 2018‑2019 shutdown cost the economy $11 billion in the short term, according to the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office — and $3 billion was never recovered.US Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent has warned that the latest shutdown could wreak its own havoc on GDP growth.For California-based financial analyst Michael Ashley Schulman, the economic realities of the shutdown may be what end up forcing compromise.”If Wall Street gets spooked and Treasury yields spike, even the most ideologically caffeinated will suddenly discover a deep commitment to bipartisan solutions,” he said. Not all analysts are gloomy about the prospects for a quick resolution.Aaron Cutler, head of the congressional oversight and investigations practice at global law firm Hogan Lovells, and a former staffer in the House, sees the shutdown lasting 12 days at most.”Senate Democrats will blink first… While the shutdown continues, there will be no congressional hearings and a lot of work at the agencies will be paused,” he said.”That’s a win for many Democrats in Congress but they don’t want the blame for it.”