This morning I went to check what news was trending on Twitter. I came across President Trump’s tweet boasting about a 9-0 unanimous win, in regards to his travel ban.

Very grateful for the 9-O decision from the U. S. Supreme Court. We must keep America SAFE!

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) June 26, 2017

Many tweets surrounding this tweet were in support, denouncing the Democrats as not knowing about how the constitution works, and so on. After a little digging I discovered that the supreme court had partially reinstated his travel ban. The travel ban blocks people from six-Muslim majority countries, entering America. The countries are: Iran, Libya, Sudan, Syria, Somalia and Yemen.

This all stems from two court-rulings, one in the fourth circuit and one in the ninth circuit court. The first ruling stopped the President from suspending the entry of all refugees for 120 days. And it also reduced the cap for the amount of refugees to be admitted from 110,000 to 50,000, in the 2017 fiscal year. These have now been overturned, with one exception, refugees from these countries can’t enter America, unless they can prove that they have a “bonafide relationship with a person or entity” there. “But when it comes to refugees who lack any such connection to the United States, for the reasons we have set out, the balance tips in favor of the Government’s compelling need to provide for the Nation’s security,” the court said. No doubt there will be confusion in coming months as to how broad the term “bona fide” is and what that means in regards to travel documentation.  

The ruling in the ninth circuit court, was about executive-power overreach. They believed that in issuing the executive order for the travel ban, that he’d exceeded the scope of the authority that has been delegated to him by congress. The Trump administration argues that the fourth circuit ruling created uncertainty about the President’s authority to combat terrorism, and that the 9th circuit’s decision, “threatens to hamstring the Executive in safeguarding the nation’s border.”    

The Supreme court has agreed to hear the government’s arguments in October, nothing has been scheduled yet. Sean Spicer was challenged at his media briefing, over the claims that the President made on Twitter about the “9-0” decision. It was in fact a per curium decision, which means that only a majority of votes were needed by the court, to partially reinstate the travel ban and hear arguments in October. Judges aren’t required to reveal their votes. Interestingly, three conservative judges — Clarence Thomas, Samuel Alito and Neil Gorsuch — signed a separate opinion stating that they wanted the travel ban fully reinstated.

I’ve written a little about Mr Thomas and his wife, so far, in my propaganda series. He was one of the judges that presided over the Citizens United v. Federal Electoral Commission case. He was one of the judges to rule in favour of Citizens United (CU), meaning that non-profit organisations could accept as many donations as they liked, for and against political candidates. Donations are meant to be made to benefit the public good, not private interest. As a 501(c)(4) nonprofit group, to keep their charity status CU, is classed as a “social welfare” group. It can participate in electoral politics but it mustn’t be their “primary activity”. Many groups get around this by spending forty-nine percent of donations.

The next part of the series that I’m working on, will look at how the web of dark money has not only infiltrated education in regards to economic ideologies, but also the law. I’m writing this interim post, because of Australian Immigration minister, Peter Dutton’s continued executive power overreach. As well as three senior Australian ministers, nearly being found in contempt of court, despite them all being qualified lawyers, for their comments during a judiciary appeal, to the media. In my opinion, this is a concerted, continued attack on the rule of law that is underwritten by conservative foundations. I’m also hoping to highlight how deceptive some tweets can be, with many celebrating a 9-0 victory, with no votes even counted. Some main-stream-media will also regurgitate these tweets as fact, fact-checking has never been more important.  

Many thanks to all of the sourced researchers, publications and artists involved in this article.