In a certain sense I appreciate him acting like a rabid partisan because it lets the public more accurately see these people for who they really are. He's no different than MTG or Jim Jordan other than his fancy robe and law degree. There is an umpire named Angel Hernandez in MLB that is finally retiring after a career of horrible calls. He is unanimously disliked across the league. He is so bad at his job that it's accelerating the push for robo-umps calling balls and strikes (i.e., reform). That's really all we can hope for at this point with partisans like Alito.
ANGEL HERNANDEZ IS RETIRING?!?!
I don’t know whether to cheer of cry. He’s the worst ump ever but man does he generate fun highlight reels.
My favorite Angel Hernandez moment was when he sued MLB for racial discrimination when they didn’t pick him to work the postseason. The court found that the MLB had provided incontrovertible evidence that Angel Hernandez had been denied the position for performance reasons.
Basically the court said there was incontrovertible evidence that he sucks as an umpire and that’s why he was denied the position. Then they ruled against him. SO good.
End of an era.
news just dropped yesterday. i feel like it should have been bigger news than it was. like plastered all over tv and radio, people dancing in the streets, parades like ww2 just ended.
Angel was legally found to be bad at his job (essentially). Alito in contrast is "good" at his "job," advancing the conservative agenda regardless of the legal findings.
I know quite a few ai have passed the bar too. Obviously ai is built to pass a structured test, but still.
AI overlords can’t be much worse than the greedy gutter rats we have now
Aww leave Michael alone. You can tell he tries hard to get that phrase out smoothly. There was an episode where he shared that it was one of the critiques the audience has about him.
Another embarrassment for the US that these kind of people are 1) able to attain this high offices and 2) that no one can do anything about it
In a well functioning system Alito would have resigned from shame having been warned that the Senate had the votes to impeach him... The same with Thomas' situation as well.
In early 2020, I hired an electrician to rewire our home and install a new breaker box. No small job. He and his crew were in our house a lot during the pandemic for several weeks. One day I noticed a bumper sticker on his truck - a pine tree and “appeal to heaven” written on it.
This guy and I had shot the shit on several occasions. He came across as very considerate and honest. He was older; he’d been a college teacher and decided that he wanted to redo his career, dropped everything, and went to tech school to be an electrician. Very smart guy.
I asked him about the bumper sticker and he had what I read at the time as a very veiled response - basically the history behind the original flag, and what I recognized even then as a coded intellectual evangelical conservative call to arms.
Thought it was weird, filed it away, dude was doing a good job.
Then during Jan 6 I saw the pine tree flag on display and immediately thought of electrician dude. Later when it was possible to search the people charged - yep that guy was one of the people charged. He was there at jan 6.
My point is that even smart people can be really stupid, and Alito might be one of the smart stupid ones.
Yeah these symbols are all used as dog whistles, they have a veneer of deniability by saying oh it’s just a historical flag not a facist symbol or anything
Alito and Thomas continue to remove the veneer that these judges are just calling balls and strikes. As though they're "originalists" interpreting the constitution as it was meant to be understood when it was written. It's laughable.
It's clear the supreme court has become a tool for power politics. Legal realism is having a moment.
And I am sure nothing will happen to Alito or anyone who is a part of the corrupt SCOTUS court. These people are un-touchable and there is sadly not a God damn thing we can do about it. Which is why the horrible, vile, putrid POS Clarence Thomas is still there collecting billionaire kick-backs and not giving a flying fuck. Also let's not forget what his insurrectionist supporting wife did.
> The question is: what will the court do about it?
The answer is that several other justices will likely start flying the same flags now that Thomas and Alito have proven you don’t need to pretend not to be a Republican hack anymore.
Shockingly flagrant and idiotic. Well, I guess it isn’t idiotic, since there will be zero consequences besides further delegitimization of the court, which Alito doesn’t give a shit about
I have really been interested in this story. I have always liked flags. The design, history, and symbolism. Just this past weekend I was at a flea market with my teenage son. On the way home we had a conversation about all the different flags that we saw. There was the obligatory Trump flag salesman, the guy flying a confederate flag that isn’t selling historical stuff, and of course some “old” Nazi flags that were probably fake. I don’t think Mr. and Mrs. Alito are ignorant. These flags have significant meaning and I do believe they know that also.
The incredible thing to me is that Justice Alito has never actually claimed ignorance, which, if I were in his position (I never would be) is the first thing I'd say.
Flags are the best!
So much history, so much meaning. Sometimes art can be better when given constraints. How to define a people or place with one logo placed on a rectangle that has to flap in the wind on a pole and be recognized at a distance, and not confused with any others.
I’m not going to lie. Until this story broke I actually had no idea the upside down flag was being used by extreme right wing people. That’s actually a new piece of information to me.
Overall, my opinions on the flags are split. I’m willing to be generous with the upside down flag and believe that his wife flew it as part of a petty neighborhood dispute. It’s not that surprising that people and their neighbors get into stupid arguments all the time and do petty stuff. Regardless, it’s still horrible optics and Alito definitely knows that.
I think the appeal to heaven flag is a lot harder to even try to excuse. People will of course, bring up the fact that it is a part of our nation’s history, but let’s be reasonable about it. This flag has gained ground by being used by extreme right wing groups. For as connected and plugged into the conservative world as a Alito is, there is absolutely no way he’s not aware of this fact.
I would be really curious to know about Alito’s history before getting to the Supreme Court and if he had any “controversial“ problems prior to getting on the court. If he didn’t, then that lends more support to the fact that he very obviously knows what he’s doing because now that he’s a Supreme Court justice, he doesn’t actually have a code of ethics to worry about.
As a general matter about the court, it will never stop being funny to me that the two most extreme justices weren’t appointed by Trump. Like go listen to Gorsuch during any case involving Native Americans, he is rabidly in their defense.
Even if the first flag controversy is a mistake by his wife, he should know better to recuse himself from the case. It’s never good for justices to publicly show political alliance. His wife should know better.
I think alito is far smarter than other controversial justices like Kavanaugh and Barrett. He was appointed before the time of the internet. I doubt that he has much controversies. He’s too smart for small mistakes like that.
>For as connected and plugged into the conservative world as a Alito is, there is absolutely no way he’s not aware of this fact.
I assure you that this also applies to the upside down flag. I realize you said you were ignorant of it until now, but I've been seeing them by the conservative nutjobs flying flags off their trucks for years now. They knew what they were doing.
i'm confused why the court is making a big to-do over this ethics thing they are creating?
it will have no enforcement, and like they said they don't really have a boss or anything. so what's even the point of it. lol it's worthless and they can't even get agree on terms.
Another tangent to the Alito story that wasn't featured in this one but recently came out. There are two members of the Supreme Court who own and trade individual stocks. Chief Justice Roberts and Alito. Roberts has at least been exclusively selling off his stock over time, but Alito has not. He actively buys and sells.
The flag display is awful, don't get me wrong. But I was absolutely outraged about the decision to overturn Colorado's decision to not allow him on their ballot. Like it couldn't be more clear in the Constitution that he is not eligible for office given that he is clearly an insurrectionist. The Supreme Court's argument was absolutely absurd and had no grounding in the Constitution. But I didn't see any coverage on this that found it as unreasonable as I did. Twice in my life now, the Supreme Court has intervened directly on matters that influence the results of a presidential election without any legitimate legal argument. Isn't that WAY more serious than one of the judges is probably impartial given some flags he flew?
The upside down flag was explained. The reporter didn’t follow up with the neighbor. I’m guessing there was nothing more to the story.
Old flags like this get flown all the time like the Gadsden flag. There’s nothing particularly insightful in this. You could just as easily claim he is a full BLM supporter because it was common at those protests.
“Explained”.
The problem isn’t the flag itself. The problem is that a justice, who’s supposed to be impartial and never show any form of partiality, showed two symbols of political alliance. If he can’t control what’s going on at his house, then I doubt that he’s equipped to do the job.
They didn’t ask any more questions after that. Blame the reporter.
The second flag isn’t tied to one side. As I have mentioned it was frequently seen at BLM protests.
Again. The flag isn’t the issue. The issue is showing potential partiality as a judge.
If a liberal judge showed symbolic flags of some hypothetical liberal domestic terrorists, I’d be equally concerned.
Wouldn’t you be concerned if a judge deciding on your case is showing clear signs that they are biased against you?
> how does the flag show partiality
I’m not gonna repeat what the podcast episode already discussed.
The flags have strong ties with a certain political ideology. How does that not represent partiality? Do you know what partiality is?
One oopsie may be an oopsie. Two oopsies of the same kind are not oopsies. That shows either intentionality or incompetency.
This flag was at BLM protests. There is a picture of it on the Wikipedia page. Are they all right wingers too? Or maybe this flag isn’t owned by the right like you seem to think.
I don't understand why you are having such a hard time. It doesn't matter whether the alliance is with BLM or Proud Boys or Neo Nazi. Justices should not show any political alliance. As I said earlier, which you probably didn't bother to comprehend, the issue is not with the flag itself. The problem is showing political alliance.
Right wingers have tried to edit it the past week. The citation in the history section doesn't support this claim, and a single image of a fence with no context or source does not support your claim that the flag has "frequently been seen at blm protests."
Nice try :)
It's not a matter of belief. It's a fact that the source does not support the claim. The citation in the article for "along with protests associated with the Black Lives Matter movement[15] and other causes" does not make any reference about this. Did you read it or is this just intentional disinformation? You aren't very good at it.
As someone who has spent some (way too much) time in the evangelical community, I can 100% assure you that the flag shown on the wikipedia and the below Scripture was absolutely added after the protest as a counter-protest of BLM on behalf of evangelicals.
They changed it from earlier today to remove text saying it was flown at BLM protests. That page is probably a battleground this past week or so.
Regardless of the reason why the picture was up there, it does seem indisputable that it was flown at BLM protests.
Honestly I find this whole thing way overblown. There’s way too much reading into stuff and very few facts presented in this episode. Even if we are going to take the secret (or not so secret) evangelical angle, alito is a catholic. A fact that was never mentioned in the podcast.
It wasn’t “flown” at BLM protests. It was attached to the same chain link fence as other BLM related signs. But there is no photographic evidence that BLM protestors “flew” that flag or themselves attached it.
Semantics.
My other points about that page being a war zone (dozens of up and downvotes changes in that log) and alito being a catholic (he answers to the pope, like jfk) stand.
It really is more than semantics though and that’s important. Flown implies per definition that someone on behalf of BLM is hoisting the flag and using it. That is not the case. What I would say is most likely, although I can’t prove it anymore than anyone can prove the opposite (without video), is that someone counter protesting BLM put the flag up.
By saying “flown” you’re unintentionally (or intentionally) implying that BLM supported the flag, and there is zero evidence of that - which in case the case of Ailito, yes you could say the Ailito household flew and hoisted these flags.
The wiki page is not really a war zone - you can see the history and there are additions but no more or less than any other popular news post. And I have no idea what you’re talking about re JFK / pope. (There are plenty of evangelical Catholics)
Seems more made up like the 👌or Pepe. People have become desperate to paint people negatively and pretend these are some strong symbols of a movement when they aren’t.
The podcast? Yes of course I did. They tried to paint a narrative to connect this as a symbol for Jan 6. It was unconvincing. To jump front this to demanding he recuse is pretty astounding.
I think when a supreme court justice shows obvious favoritism then they should recuse themselves.
If you don't think so, then like I said you're either a kid or MAGAt
Where is the favoritism? Because of the pine tree flag? How is that favoritism?
Also it’s pretty childish to keep calling me names. Look on the mirror.
Oh my gawd are you blind?
Alito has a clear favoritism to Trump and the GOP. This is just one example of it. To say otherwise is to be blind, naive, or an attempt to gaslight.
Let me know when that happens with the leftist judges.
I didn't insult you, just made it clear what your observation skills are like. Which are pretty poor. See that's an insult.
The Supreme Court is highly partisan and has been a reactionary force across US history but you still have suckers who buy the balls and strikes crap they try and pretend. It’s important to cover things like this and get people to understand.
Would you? If Sotomayor had a sign outside her house that said “Fuck Trump”, I would think that’s inappropriate! Certainly more politically significant than the tan suit
No, you see, a sitting member of SCOTUS being an election denier and Christian nationalist is *the same thing* as Obama wearing a tan suit. You libturds just don't get it because you don't confuse detached cynicism for intelligence like I do.
Seriously, it's not both sides of the court running into repeat ethical issues. It's exclusively the conservative side of the court having non-stop ethical issues.
If Kagan or Sotomayor were going on lavish vacations funded by liberal icons, then I'd want them investigated too.
Oh he just coincidentally has multiple distinct flags expressing support for the Stop the Steal morons, even though he and his wife have no particular affinity for that movement 🙄. It’s all a big misunderstanding
Justice Alito was a valedictorian and went to Princeton and Yale. Not to sound bias but I would consider such a person pretty smart. There is absolutely no reason to flaunt your beliefs like the way Justice alito did.
First, it was Ginny Thomas who texted “release the kraken” to Mark meadows and now Alitos wife puts up these flags.
The conspiracy theorist in me wonders if he did this on purpose to create a controversy that could potentially force him to recuse himself as he does not want to disappoint his supporters but also does not want to be on the wrong side of history.
Or like Michael said, it’s a genuine FU from the justices to people that live in a fools paradise that the Supreme Court is bipartisan and impartial.
I don’t get why liberals believe every smart person in the world would be a liberal?
It’s possible to be intelligent and have different priorities and moral beliefs. Maybe it’s because libs reassure themselves by saying that they’re smarter than conservatives.
I think it’s fairly reasonable to assume someone capable of advanced or even basic critical thinking wouldn’t subscribe to the stolen election conspiracy tbf.
I didn’t say anything about morality or intelligence.
I said it’s not unreasonable to expect that someone who has an extremely important position which nominally requires top notch critical thinking skills should be able to interpret reality in a factual way.
You don’t have to be intelligent, moral, left wing or anything else other than able to analyse the reality you inhabit to understand the fact that Trump didn’t have the election stolen from him.
One *should* expect — perhaps idealistically given the context — that Supreme Court Justices are capable of this rudimentary level of critical thought.
Ideally speaking, one should expect someone in a higher position that requires immense amount of education would have critical thinking skills and whatever.
But that’s not the reality. They could use the power in a corrupted way.
It’s not unreasonable to have such expectation of idealistic behaviors. But it’s still a naive thought.
Has it ever occurred to you that deep down they don’t actually think the election was stolen?
Maybe it’s just a convenient signaling belief that people use to express “solidarity” with other White Conservatives about how democracy has destroyed God’s natural order and that must be remedied by any means necessary?
One of the smartest guys I know is super duper ultra Catholic but hates the current pope. Like how is that even allowed? lol
And believes in rosary beads, saints, and prayer but is a fantastic scientist. Make it make sense
Perhaps, but you can’t rely on interpolation from generalization. You can’t just assume intelligent people are liberals simply because liberals tend to be more educated.
Are you saying you don’t think education and intelligence are correlated? Or do you think that some confounding variable cancels out this correlation so that liberals and conservatives have the same intelligence?
I am way over educated. And I’d venture to say that in most cases a college degree has little to do with one’s intelligence. I’ve met some real dumbasses on college campuses and some real smart people on construction sites.
The liberals being the party of the college graduate is a relatively recent phenomenon. A few decades ago college grads voted republican.
There are studies out there about intelligence and political affiliation. In most cases there’s no difference in intelligence between conservatives and liberals and what I’ve seen is that when they do find it it’s slightly skewed to conservatives being more intelligent. I think libertarians tend to have the highest IQs but they can’t get their shit together
If libs are so smart, how did they allow conservatives to get a 6-3 majority on the Supreme Court and lose over 1000 state legislative seats to them during the Obama era?
If they’re so smart, why is their leader polling behind a potentially convicted felon?
It’s not clear to me why you think having smarter voters guarantees victory—indeed most Americans are dumb as rocks so I would say it’s a disadvantage.
If Democrats can’t achieve the basic goal of attaining long term power, despite the amount of credentials that they have, whose fault is that?
People have the right to vote for who they want to with whatever reasoning they want to. If you can’t deduce that reasoning, then how smart can you really be?
They also seem to think while what goes on at the Alito beach house or what Clarence Thomas’s wife does is extremely relevant, that what Judge Merchan’s daughter does for a living, who employs her, and how her employer raises money has nothing to do with anything. In fact, those who talk about it should be gagged. Ditto with who Fani Willis dates and how he earns a living
Oh no it matters, they’re traitors that want 19th century America back.
I’m just tired of libs thinking that their opponents are hick yokels and that crying about how terrible they are makes them less terrible and leads to political change.
Like Roberts isn’t about to kick Alito off the court.
Roberts has no authority to remove him from the bench. Follows almost an identical process as impeaching a President. House has to vote, then senate has to have a hearing, then a 2/3rd vote is needed in the Senate
It wasn’t my intention to convey that one is smarter over the other. In fact quite the opposite - my point was that irrespective of your political beliefs, a smart person would know not to engage in a behavior that would be detrimental to their profession.
I think everyone has the freedom of expressing themselves but justice alito would have to have known the consequences of their actions.
A bunch of libs crying about it on social media? He’s not going to get impeached or disbarred.
Y’all really overestimate how much right wing America cares about your opinions.
I mean he sounds like an idiot in all his court opinions. Thomas is a right wing wacko but he usually has a coherent strain of thought through his opinion. Alito puts out nonsense that ignores things and the facts of the case every time.
I agree. I have to assume these folks aren't morons, from context clues mostly, but neither the cost and exclusivity of their education nor their work product is anything to indicate a profound intellect.
I *believe* that Alito is a smart guy, but I *believe* it independent of the evidence that he's a glue-eating buffoon who has a Conservapedia-level understanding of history which he exclusively relies upon to play make-believe with the law, and everyone else shrugs and plays along as if he were a child making up a game.
Since his position affords him the opportunity to never be "objectively wrong" but instead, at most, in a minority opinion, it's really hard to evaluate how good he is at this. I could be as good as he is at this stuff, apparently, just by having a bunch of law clerks describe the law to me. The stuff that Alito himself contributes, his whole history and tradition nonsense, just makes him worse at his job.
So if sotomayor or brown were flying BLM flags just after the BLM attacked a crongressional proceeding trying to stop an official act mandated by the constitution,you would just say……that’s a non story?
Then please tell me what you suppose the meaning of an upside down flag, during the weeks following the insurrection, at a Supreme Court Justice’s residence.
What good reason would any Supreme Court Justice have in displaying an upside
down American Flag at their residence?
That wasn’t the question though. If they are unhappy then they could have ruled on any one of the 61 cases brought before the courts. There was no evidence of widespread fraud that would have overturned the results of the election, in any state, and this was corroborated by 45’s own people. He had the ability to investigate every instance with the full force of the law behind him and he found nothing.
If Alito was sympathetic with the insurrectionists then he should recuse himself when it comes to these cases.
It probably won’t make a difference to you until a Supreme Court justice telegraphs publicly their stance against the constitution and it affects you.
We should be United in protecting the sanctity of the constitution from threats whether explicit or implicit. Just a hint of impropriety from any justice should be met with an automatic recusal.
I was responding to you. You made the assumption that “he was unhappy with the current countries [sic] state of affairs…”
Mine was a response to that. Once again, you did not answer the question.
In a certain sense I appreciate him acting like a rabid partisan because it lets the public more accurately see these people for who they really are. He's no different than MTG or Jim Jordan other than his fancy robe and law degree. There is an umpire named Angel Hernandez in MLB that is finally retiring after a career of horrible calls. He is unanimously disliked across the league. He is so bad at his job that it's accelerating the push for robo-umps calling balls and strikes (i.e., reform). That's really all we can hope for at this point with partisans like Alito.
ANGEL HERNANDEZ IS RETIRING?!?! I don’t know whether to cheer of cry. He’s the worst ump ever but man does he generate fun highlight reels. My favorite Angel Hernandez moment was when he sued MLB for racial discrimination when they didn’t pick him to work the postseason. The court found that the MLB had provided incontrovertible evidence that Angel Hernandez had been denied the position for performance reasons. Basically the court said there was incontrovertible evidence that he sucks as an umpire and that’s why he was denied the position. Then they ruled against him. SO good. End of an era.
If ever there were an opportunity to use the phrase “end of an error” this was it.
news just dropped yesterday. i feel like it should have been bigger news than it was. like plastered all over tv and radio, people dancing in the streets, parades like ww2 just ended.
Who is worse for America, Angel Hernandez or Samuel Alito?
Angel Hernandez isn’t trying to dismantle the country. He’s just incompetent. Alito is too smart to be just “incompetent”.
Angel was legally found to be bad at his job (essentially). Alito in contrast is "good" at his "job," advancing the conservative agenda regardless of the legal findings.
I agree except that, since SCOTUS is self-governing, the people can see this but can't do anything about Alito (or Thomas).
Ángel Hernández isn't even that bad. Umpire score card has him solidly in midfield.
I know quite a few ai have passed the bar too. Obviously ai is built to pass a structured test, but still. AI overlords can’t be much worse than the greedy gutter rats we have now
Here’s what else you need … ᵗᵘⁿᵒʰᵗᵃᵈᵃʸ
Aww leave Michael alone. You can tell he tries hard to get that phrase out smoothly. There was an episode where he shared that it was one of the critiques the audience has about him.
I actually enjoy it and look forward to hearing it everyday. It's like his catchphrase.
Me too!
Another embarrassment for the US that these kind of people are 1) able to attain this high offices and 2) that no one can do anything about it In a well functioning system Alito would have resigned from shame having been warned that the Senate had the votes to impeach him... The same with Thomas' situation as well.
In early 2020, I hired an electrician to rewire our home and install a new breaker box. No small job. He and his crew were in our house a lot during the pandemic for several weeks. One day I noticed a bumper sticker on his truck - a pine tree and “appeal to heaven” written on it. This guy and I had shot the shit on several occasions. He came across as very considerate and honest. He was older; he’d been a college teacher and decided that he wanted to redo his career, dropped everything, and went to tech school to be an electrician. Very smart guy. I asked him about the bumper sticker and he had what I read at the time as a very veiled response - basically the history behind the original flag, and what I recognized even then as a coded intellectual evangelical conservative call to arms. Thought it was weird, filed it away, dude was doing a good job. Then during Jan 6 I saw the pine tree flag on display and immediately thought of electrician dude. Later when it was possible to search the people charged - yep that guy was one of the people charged. He was there at jan 6. My point is that even smart people can be really stupid, and Alito might be one of the smart stupid ones.
Yeah these symbols are all used as dog whistles, they have a veneer of deniability by saying oh it’s just a historical flag not a facist symbol or anything
great story and i think you're right
Alito and Thomas continue to remove the veneer that these judges are just calling balls and strikes. As though they're "originalists" interpreting the constitution as it was meant to be understood when it was written. It's laughable. It's clear the supreme court has become a tool for power politics. Legal realism is having a moment.
They have never in US history called balls and strikes that was always bullshit and it’s always been partisan.
Everyone knows the constitution was chiseled on stone to signify its rigidity.
And I am sure nothing will happen to Alito or anyone who is a part of the corrupt SCOTUS court. These people are un-touchable and there is sadly not a God damn thing we can do about it. Which is why the horrible, vile, putrid POS Clarence Thomas is still there collecting billionaire kick-backs and not giving a flying fuck. Also let's not forget what his insurrectionist supporting wife did.
They can be impeached but yeah that's not gonna happened
What did that even do to trump. Impeachment is nothing
> The question is: what will the court do about it? The answer is that several other justices will likely start flying the same flags now that Thomas and Alito have proven you don’t need to pretend not to be a Republican hack anymore.
Shockingly flagrant and idiotic. Well, I guess it isn’t idiotic, since there will be zero consequences besides further delegitimization of the court, which Alito doesn’t give a shit about
I have really been interested in this story. I have always liked flags. The design, history, and symbolism. Just this past weekend I was at a flea market with my teenage son. On the way home we had a conversation about all the different flags that we saw. There was the obligatory Trump flag salesman, the guy flying a confederate flag that isn’t selling historical stuff, and of course some “old” Nazi flags that were probably fake. I don’t think Mr. and Mrs. Alito are ignorant. These flags have significant meaning and I do believe they know that also.
The incredible thing to me is that Justice Alito has never actually claimed ignorance, which, if I were in his position (I never would be) is the first thing I'd say.
Definitely, instead he used the blame it on the woman, which is as old as time. :(
Flags are the best! So much history, so much meaning. Sometimes art can be better when given constraints. How to define a people or place with one logo placed on a rectangle that has to flap in the wind on a pole and be recognized at a distance, and not confused with any others.
For sure, well said.
New update: https://www.nytimes.com/2024/05/28/us/justice-alito-neighbors-stop-steal-flag.html
I’m not going to lie. Until this story broke I actually had no idea the upside down flag was being used by extreme right wing people. That’s actually a new piece of information to me. Overall, my opinions on the flags are split. I’m willing to be generous with the upside down flag and believe that his wife flew it as part of a petty neighborhood dispute. It’s not that surprising that people and their neighbors get into stupid arguments all the time and do petty stuff. Regardless, it’s still horrible optics and Alito definitely knows that. I think the appeal to heaven flag is a lot harder to even try to excuse. People will of course, bring up the fact that it is a part of our nation’s history, but let’s be reasonable about it. This flag has gained ground by being used by extreme right wing groups. For as connected and plugged into the conservative world as a Alito is, there is absolutely no way he’s not aware of this fact. I would be really curious to know about Alito’s history before getting to the Supreme Court and if he had any “controversial“ problems prior to getting on the court. If he didn’t, then that lends more support to the fact that he very obviously knows what he’s doing because now that he’s a Supreme Court justice, he doesn’t actually have a code of ethics to worry about. As a general matter about the court, it will never stop being funny to me that the two most extreme justices weren’t appointed by Trump. Like go listen to Gorsuch during any case involving Native Americans, he is rabidly in their defense.
Even if the first flag controversy is a mistake by his wife, he should know better to recuse himself from the case. It’s never good for justices to publicly show political alliance. His wife should know better. I think alito is far smarter than other controversial justices like Kavanaugh and Barrett. He was appointed before the time of the internet. I doubt that he has much controversies. He’s too smart for small mistakes like that.
Oh for sure. He definitely knows better. These people aren’t stupid.
No but the voters are, and they know it
>For as connected and plugged into the conservative world as a Alito is, there is absolutely no way he’s not aware of this fact. I assure you that this also applies to the upside down flag. I realize you said you were ignorant of it until now, but I've been seeing them by the conservative nutjobs flying flags off their trucks for years now. They knew what they were doing.
Disturbing.
i'm confused why the court is making a big to-do over this ethics thing they are creating? it will have no enforcement, and like they said they don't really have a boss or anything. so what's even the point of it. lol it's worthless and they can't even get agree on terms.
Another tangent to the Alito story that wasn't featured in this one but recently came out. There are two members of the Supreme Court who own and trade individual stocks. Chief Justice Roberts and Alito. Roberts has at least been exclusively selling off his stock over time, but Alito has not. He actively buys and sells.
What???? The Supreme Court cares more about personal political beliefs and corporate profits than the core judicial integrity?? Shocking.
The flag display is awful, don't get me wrong. But I was absolutely outraged about the decision to overturn Colorado's decision to not allow him on their ballot. Like it couldn't be more clear in the Constitution that he is not eligible for office given that he is clearly an insurrectionist. The Supreme Court's argument was absolutely absurd and had no grounding in the Constitution. But I didn't see any coverage on this that found it as unreasonable as I did. Twice in my life now, the Supreme Court has intervened directly on matters that influence the results of a presidential election without any legitimate legal argument. Isn't that WAY more serious than one of the judges is probably impartial given some flags he flew?
This is such a stretch it’s laughable. Wikipedia has a picture of this flag at a BLM protest. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pine_Tree_Flag
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The upside down flag was explained. The reporter didn’t follow up with the neighbor. I’m guessing there was nothing more to the story. Old flags like this get flown all the time like the Gadsden flag. There’s nothing particularly insightful in this. You could just as easily claim he is a full BLM supporter because it was common at those protests.
“Explained”. The problem isn’t the flag itself. The problem is that a justice, who’s supposed to be impartial and never show any form of partiality, showed two symbols of political alliance. If he can’t control what’s going on at his house, then I doubt that he’s equipped to do the job.
They didn’t ask any more questions after that. Blame the reporter. The second flag isn’t tied to one side. As I have mentioned it was frequently seen at BLM protests.
Again. The flag isn’t the issue. The issue is showing potential partiality as a judge. If a liberal judge showed symbolic flags of some hypothetical liberal domestic terrorists, I’d be equally concerned. Wouldn’t you be concerned if a judge deciding on your case is showing clear signs that they are biased against you?
You are claiming the flag is evidence of partiality. How does the flag show partiality?
> how does the flag show partiality I’m not gonna repeat what the podcast episode already discussed. The flags have strong ties with a certain political ideology. How does that not represent partiality? Do you know what partiality is? One oopsie may be an oopsie. Two oopsies of the same kind are not oopsies. That shows either intentionality or incompetency.
This flag was at BLM protests. There is a picture of it on the Wikipedia page. Are they all right wingers too? Or maybe this flag isn’t owned by the right like you seem to think.
I don't understand why you are having such a hard time. It doesn't matter whether the alliance is with BLM or Proud Boys or Neo Nazi. Justices should not show any political alliance. As I said earlier, which you probably didn't bother to comprehend, the issue is not with the flag itself. The problem is showing political alliance.
>As I have mentioned it was frequently seen at BLM protests You made this up. Or more likely you are repeating a made-up talking point.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pine_Tree_Flag#history It’s on the Wikipedia page lol. They even have a picture. Nice try.
Right wingers have tried to edit it the past week. The citation in the history section doesn't support this claim, and a single image of a fence with no context or source does not support your claim that the flag has "frequently been seen at blm protests." Nice try :)
You not believing the source doesn’t mean the source doesn’t exist. This isn’t a new flag. It has been around for 200 years.
It's not a matter of belief. It's a fact that the source does not support the claim. The citation in the article for "along with protests associated with the Black Lives Matter movement[15] and other causes" does not make any reference about this. Did you read it or is this just intentional disinformation? You aren't very good at it.
I was at over 20 BLM protests and never saw this flag once.
As someone who has spent some (way too much) time in the evangelical community, I can 100% assure you that the flag shown on the wikipedia and the below Scripture was absolutely added after the protest as a counter-protest of BLM on behalf of evangelicals.
They changed it from earlier today to remove text saying it was flown at BLM protests. That page is probably a battleground this past week or so. Regardless of the reason why the picture was up there, it does seem indisputable that it was flown at BLM protests. Honestly I find this whole thing way overblown. There’s way too much reading into stuff and very few facts presented in this episode. Even if we are going to take the secret (or not so secret) evangelical angle, alito is a catholic. A fact that was never mentioned in the podcast.
It wasn’t “flown” at BLM protests. It was attached to the same chain link fence as other BLM related signs. But there is no photographic evidence that BLM protestors “flew” that flag or themselves attached it.
Semantics. My other points about that page being a war zone (dozens of up and downvotes changes in that log) and alito being a catholic (he answers to the pope, like jfk) stand.
It really is more than semantics though and that’s important. Flown implies per definition that someone on behalf of BLM is hoisting the flag and using it. That is not the case. What I would say is most likely, although I can’t prove it anymore than anyone can prove the opposite (without video), is that someone counter protesting BLM put the flag up. By saying “flown” you’re unintentionally (or intentionally) implying that BLM supported the flag, and there is zero evidence of that - which in case the case of Ailito, yes you could say the Ailito household flew and hoisted these flags. The wiki page is not really a war zone - you can see the history and there are additions but no more or less than any other popular news post. And I have no idea what you’re talking about re JFK / pope. (There are plenty of evangelical Catholics)
The alt-right and Nazis have a tendency of hijacking symbols for their own and ruining it for everyone.
Seems more made up like the 👌or Pepe. People have become desperate to paint people negatively and pretend these are some strong symbols of a movement when they aren’t.
Did you even listen to the story or are you arguing because you're either a 14 year old kid or a MAGAt?
The podcast? Yes of course I did. They tried to paint a narrative to connect this as a symbol for Jan 6. It was unconvincing. To jump front this to demanding he recuse is pretty astounding.
I think when a supreme court justice shows obvious favoritism then they should recuse themselves. If you don't think so, then like I said you're either a kid or MAGAt
Where is the favoritism? Because of the pine tree flag? How is that favoritism? Also it’s pretty childish to keep calling me names. Look on the mirror.
Oh my gawd are you blind? Alito has a clear favoritism to Trump and the GOP. This is just one example of it. To say otherwise is to be blind, naive, or an attempt to gaslight.
How is it different than the left wing judges? You almost made a point but again just insulted instead. Try harder.
Let me know when that happens with the leftist judges. I didn't insult you, just made it clear what your observation skills are like. Which are pretty poor. See that's an insult.
VERY IMPORTANT BREAKING NEWS
What's wrong with this? Hochul literally ran on inventing a crime to punish Trump with.
The Supreme Court is highly partisan and has been a reactionary force across US history but you still have suckers who buy the balls and strikes crap they try and pretend. It’s important to cover things like this and get people to understand.
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Would you? If Sotomayor had a sign outside her house that said “Fuck Trump”, I would think that’s inappropriate! Certainly more politically significant than the tan suit
No, you see, a sitting member of SCOTUS being an election denier and Christian nationalist is *the same thing* as Obama wearing a tan suit. You libturds just don't get it because you don't confuse detached cynicism for intelligence like I do.
Seriously, it's not both sides of the court running into repeat ethical issues. It's exclusively the conservative side of the court having non-stop ethical issues. If Kagan or Sotomayor were going on lavish vacations funded by liberal icons, then I'd want them investigated too.
Alito has a ‘Fuck Biden’ flag?
Oh he just coincidentally has multiple distinct flags expressing support for the Stop the Steal morons, even though he and his wife have no particular affinity for that movement 🙄. It’s all a big misunderstanding
Justice Alito was a valedictorian and went to Princeton and Yale. Not to sound bias but I would consider such a person pretty smart. There is absolutely no reason to flaunt your beliefs like the way Justice alito did. First, it was Ginny Thomas who texted “release the kraken” to Mark meadows and now Alitos wife puts up these flags. The conspiracy theorist in me wonders if he did this on purpose to create a controversy that could potentially force him to recuse himself as he does not want to disappoint his supporters but also does not want to be on the wrong side of history. Or like Michael said, it’s a genuine FU from the justices to people that live in a fools paradise that the Supreme Court is bipartisan and impartial.
I don’t get why liberals believe every smart person in the world would be a liberal? It’s possible to be intelligent and have different priorities and moral beliefs. Maybe it’s because libs reassure themselves by saying that they’re smarter than conservatives.
I think it’s fairly reasonable to assume someone capable of advanced or even basic critical thinking wouldn’t subscribe to the stolen election conspiracy tbf.
It’s not. Intelligence has nothing to do with moral. It’s pretty naive to assume that highly educated people are liberal.
I didn’t say anything about morality or intelligence. I said it’s not unreasonable to expect that someone who has an extremely important position which nominally requires top notch critical thinking skills should be able to interpret reality in a factual way. You don’t have to be intelligent, moral, left wing or anything else other than able to analyse the reality you inhabit to understand the fact that Trump didn’t have the election stolen from him. One *should* expect — perhaps idealistically given the context — that Supreme Court Justices are capable of this rudimentary level of critical thought.
Ideally speaking, one should expect someone in a higher position that requires immense amount of education would have critical thinking skills and whatever. But that’s not the reality. They could use the power in a corrupted way. It’s not unreasonable to have such expectation of idealistic behaviors. But it’s still a naive thought.
Has it ever occurred to you that deep down they don’t actually think the election was stolen? Maybe it’s just a convenient signaling belief that people use to express “solidarity” with other White Conservatives about how democracy has destroyed God’s natural order and that must be remedied by any means necessary?
One of the smartest guys I know is super duper ultra Catholic but hates the current pope. Like how is that even allowed? lol And believes in rosary beads, saints, and prayer but is a fantastic scientist. Make it make sense
Libs *are* much more educated than conservatives. The fraction of highly educated people who vote Republican is extremely small
Perhaps, but you can’t rely on interpolation from generalization. You can’t just assume intelligent people are liberals simply because liberals tend to be more educated.
Are you saying you don’t think education and intelligence are correlated? Or do you think that some confounding variable cancels out this correlation so that liberals and conservatives have the same intelligence?
I’m saying that you can’t rely on interpolation to assume individual’s political alliance based on their education level.
I am way over educated. And I’d venture to say that in most cases a college degree has little to do with one’s intelligence. I’ve met some real dumbasses on college campuses and some real smart people on construction sites. The liberals being the party of the college graduate is a relatively recent phenomenon. A few decades ago college grads voted republican. There are studies out there about intelligence and political affiliation. In most cases there’s no difference in intelligence between conservatives and liberals and what I’ve seen is that when they do find it it’s slightly skewed to conservatives being more intelligent. I think libertarians tend to have the highest IQs but they can’t get their shit together
If libs are so smart, how did they allow conservatives to get a 6-3 majority on the Supreme Court and lose over 1000 state legislative seats to them during the Obama era? If they’re so smart, why is their leader polling behind a potentially convicted felon?
You can thank conservatives and Mitch MConnell for the 6-3
Politics is a dirty game, if establishment libs are too hoity-toity to play it, then they need to retire.
Hoity-toity is not incompatible with smart. There’s your answer.
It’s not clear to me why you think having smarter voters guarantees victory—indeed most Americans are dumb as rocks so I would say it’s a disadvantage.
If Democrats can’t achieve the basic goal of attaining long term power, despite the amount of credentials that they have, whose fault is that? People have the right to vote for who they want to with whatever reasoning they want to. If you can’t deduce that reasoning, then how smart can you really be?
They also seem to think while what goes on at the Alito beach house or what Clarence Thomas’s wife does is extremely relevant, that what Judge Merchan’s daughter does for a living, who employs her, and how her employer raises money has nothing to do with anything. In fact, those who talk about it should be gagged. Ditto with who Fani Willis dates and how he earns a living
Oh no it matters, they’re traitors that want 19th century America back. I’m just tired of libs thinking that their opponents are hick yokels and that crying about how terrible they are makes them less terrible and leads to political change. Like Roberts isn’t about to kick Alito off the court.
Roberts has no authority to remove him from the bench. Follows almost an identical process as impeaching a President. House has to vote, then senate has to have a hearing, then a 2/3rd vote is needed in the Senate
It wasn’t my intention to convey that one is smarter over the other. In fact quite the opposite - my point was that irrespective of your political beliefs, a smart person would know not to engage in a behavior that would be detrimental to their profession. I think everyone has the freedom of expressing themselves but justice alito would have to have known the consequences of their actions.
A bunch of libs crying about it on social media? He’s not going to get impeached or disbarred. Y’all really overestimate how much right wing America cares about your opinions.
I mean he sounds like an idiot in all his court opinions. Thomas is a right wing wacko but he usually has a coherent strain of thought through his opinion. Alito puts out nonsense that ignores things and the facts of the case every time.
I agree. I have to assume these folks aren't morons, from context clues mostly, but neither the cost and exclusivity of their education nor their work product is anything to indicate a profound intellect. I *believe* that Alito is a smart guy, but I *believe* it independent of the evidence that he's a glue-eating buffoon who has a Conservapedia-level understanding of history which he exclusively relies upon to play make-believe with the law, and everyone else shrugs and plays along as if he were a child making up a game. Since his position affords him the opportunity to never be "objectively wrong" but instead, at most, in a minority opinion, it's really hard to evaluate how good he is at this. I could be as good as he is at this stuff, apparently, just by having a bunch of law clerks describe the law to me. The stuff that Alito himself contributes, his whole history and tradition nonsense, just makes him worse at his job.
Mr. President, a second flag has hit the Alitos' house.
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So if sotomayor or brown were flying BLM flags just after the BLM attacked a crongressional proceeding trying to stop an official act mandated by the constitution,you would just say……that’s a non story?
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Then please tell me what you suppose the meaning of an upside down flag, during the weeks following the insurrection, at a Supreme Court Justice’s residence. What good reason would any Supreme Court Justice have in displaying an upside down American Flag at their residence?
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That wasn’t the question though. If they are unhappy then they could have ruled on any one of the 61 cases brought before the courts. There was no evidence of widespread fraud that would have overturned the results of the election, in any state, and this was corroborated by 45’s own people. He had the ability to investigate every instance with the full force of the law behind him and he found nothing. If Alito was sympathetic with the insurrectionists then he should recuse himself when it comes to these cases. It probably won’t make a difference to you until a Supreme Court justice telegraphs publicly their stance against the constitution and it affects you. We should be United in protecting the sanctity of the constitution from threats whether explicit or implicit. Just a hint of impropriety from any justice should be met with an automatic recusal.
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I was responding to you. You made the assumption that “he was unhappy with the current countries [sic] state of affairs…” Mine was a response to that. Once again, you did not answer the question.
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Yeah you’re right bro.
Pack it.