Today the Supreme Court (thanks entirely to Mitch McConnell’s 2016 refusal to allow any consideration of President Obama’s choice for the late Antonin Scalia’s vacant seat) took the country further into the gathering twilight. In a significant step towards autocratic rule, its 5-4 majority ruling in essence its hands the President the power, under the guise of protecting national security, to put in place any policy he chooses.

Today’s ruling upholds a travel ban targeting countries with which the Trump Organization has no business dealings, as it ignores Pakistan and Saudi Arabia (two major sponsors of terrorism - fourteen of the nineteen 9/11 hijackers were Saudis) but it will have clear consequences, the most obvious of which, aside from emboldening Trump to push for ever more racist immigration policies, is serving as ready-made propaganda in the radicalization of Muslim opposition to the US and the West. It also signals to Muslims across the world that America has little regard or use for them or, presumably, their role as the most important source of information on extremist Muslim terrorist groups.

[theguardian.com]