Alito Flew ‘Stop the Steal’ Flag in Front of House

[wing2000]

Leah Litman saying something Alito did is wrong is sort of like Rudy Giuliani or Jon Eastman saying something Joe Biden did was wrong; they've got enough dislike of the person to begin with that their testimony is rather suspect (it's not quite as bad as Giulani/Eastman, to be fair, but only by a matter of degrees). I notice also it's claimed it's "incoherent" but no explanation is given as to how.

What seems more incoherent is the article itself. Here's the whole thing:

Among the Supreme Court’s abominations — shredding precedent to obliterate reproductive freedom, financial impropriety, partisanship — none compares to the upside-down flag, identified with violent insurrectionists, that flew over the home of Justice Samuel A. Alito Jr.

Ethics experts and lawyers (including former judges) of all stripes expressed their outrage. “His statement — which says his wife displayed a symbol associated with a failed coup to subvert democracy because she was offended by an anti-Trump sign one of her neighbors displayed — is so incoherent it is insulting to our collective intelligence,” constitutional law professor Leah Litman emails me. “And a Justice who resides in a house that displays symbols glorifying a coup should not participate in cases that will determine whether people who participated in said coup will face any accountability.”

With a first paragraph like that, one may suspect that, much like Litman, perhaps the writer is not coming into this from a particularly neutral viewpoint.

The article itself is an op-ed.

I standby my initial take: Alito Flew ‘Stop the Steal’ Flag in Front of House

 

[Pommer]

Leah Litman saying something Alito did is wrong is sort of like Rudy Giuliani or Jon Eastman saying something Joe Biden did was wrong; they've got enough dislike of the person to begin with that their testimony is rather suspect (it's not quite as bad as Giulani/Eastman, to be fair, but only by a matter of degrees). I notice also it's claimed it's "incoherent" but no explanation is given as to how.

What seems more incoherent is the article itself. Here's the whole thing:

Among the Supreme Court’s abominations — shredding precedent to obliterate reproductive freedom, financial impropriety, partisanship — none compares to the upside-down flag, identified with violent insurrectionists, that flew over the home of Justice Samuel A. Alito Jr.

Ethics experts and lawyers (including former judges) of all stripes expressed their outrage. “His statement — which says his wife displayed a symbol associated with a failed coup to subvert democracy because she was offended by an anti-Trump sign one of her neighbors displayed — is so incoherent it is insulting to our collective intelligence,” constitutional law professor Leah Litman emails me. “And a Justice who resides in a house that displays symbols glorifying a coup should not participate in cases that will determine whether people who participated in said coup will face any accountability.”

With a first paragraph like that, one may suspect that, much like Litman, perhaps the writer is not coming into this from a particularly neutral viewpoint.

They’re opinionating wrong?

 

[iluvatar5150]

Oh hey, the Alitos did up their beach house, too.

Another Provocative Flag Was Flown at Another Alito Home

The justice’s beach house displayed an “Appeal to Heaven” flag, a symbol carried on Jan. 6 and associated with a push for a more Christian-minded government.

www.nytimes.com

 

[Fantine]

No one is "saying" Alito did this. The photo evidence is there. Neighbors took pictures of his beach house flag.
And the public deserves to know he is violating ethics to promote his agenda.
I can't help but remember when President Obama, in his SOTU address, criticized the Court's Citizens United decision at the start of their decline into partisan incompetence, Alito said, "Liar."
Your honor, your actions show what an astute judge of flawed character President Obama is.

 

[JSRG]

No one is "saying" Alito did this. The photo evidence is there. Neighbors took pictures of his beach house flag.
And the public deserves to know he is violating ethics to promote his agenda.

The photo evidence is just that he flew a flag. People aren't simply saying that. What people are saying, which ventures into areas of greater speculation, is that he did so specifically to try to show support for "stop the steal". Alito said that he didn't have anything to do with it and the reason it was put up was in relation to a dispute with a neighbor. Maybe you personally don't believe that explanation, but photos don't prove anything about intent.

I can't help but remember when President Obama, in his SOTU address, criticized the Court's Citizens United decision at the start of their decline into partisan incompetence, Alito said, "Liar."
Your honor, your actions show what an astute judge of flawed character President Obama is.

Then you're remembering wrong. During the speech, Alito appeared to mouth the words "not true". Which is a criticism, but quite short of "liar".

Furthermore, it should be noted that the statement Obama made that appears to have provoked the reaction really wasn't true. As an editorial from Linda Greenhouse notes (and Linda Greenhouse is not some kind of big defender of Citizens United either):

Justice Alito's Reaction

Nearly every president finds something to criticize about the Supreme Court, but not every one gets to do it to the justices’ faces, on national television, in the State of the Union speech.

archive.nytimes.com

This time, Justice Alito shook his head as if to rebut the president’s characterization of the Citizens United decision, and seemed to mouth the words “not true.” Indeed, Mr. Obama’s description of the holding of the case was imprecise. He said the court had “reversed a century of law.”

The law that Congress enacted in the populist days of the early 20th century prohibited direct corporate contributions to political campaigns. That law was not at issue in the Citizens United case, and is still on the books. Rather, the court struck down a more complicated statute that barred corporations and unions from spending money directly from their treasuries — as opposed to their political action committees — on television advertising to urge a vote for or against a federal candidate in the period immediately before the election. It is true, though, that the majority wrote so broadly about corporate free speech rights as to call into question other limitations as well — although not necessarily the existing ban on direct contributions.

 

[Fantine]

OK, I learned you could get this flag at Amazon, but since I am neither an election denier, conspiracy theorist, or Capitol stormer I was not aware it existed.

There is someone in my neighborhood whose yard looks like an Etsy Store for militia members, but he doesn't have that one.

As fo Citizens United, Jeffrey Toobin explains how John Roberts conspired to take a small case into a wide reaching decision designed to let oligarchs buy elections. He pretends he's above the fray but he is as bad as Thomas and Alito

 

[wing2000]

The photo evidence is just that he flew a flag. People aren't simply saying that. What people are saying, which ventures into areas of greater speculation, is that he did so specifically to try to show support for "stop the steal". Alito said that he didn't have anything to do with it and the reason it was put up was in relation to a dispute with a neighbor. Maybe you personally don't believe that explanation, but photos don't prove anything about intent.

What do you think other neighbors thought when they passed by the house of a USSC Justice and saw that flag flying 3 days before the inaugaration of a new President?

Any judge and his or her spouse knows that placing such flag outside their house would most certainly give the appearance of political bias. In this case, it's far worse...

 

[RocksInMyHead]

The photo evidence is just that he flew a flag. People aren't simply saying that. What people are saying, which ventures into areas of greater speculation, is that he did so specifically to try to show support for "stop the steal". Alito said that he didn't have anything to do with it and the reason it was put up was in relation to a dispute with a neighbor. Maybe you personally don't believe that explanation, but photos don't prove anything about intent.

Would you believe someone who told you that they were flying the LGBT rainbow flag because they liked the colors, or someone who said they were flying a Nazi swastika flag because they were Hindu? When you display a symbol that's known to represent a specific thing, it's reasonable to assume that you support that thing - and it would require a very good explanation to convince most people otherwise. "I got into a fight with my neighbor, so I chose to display a symbol associated with people who think the election was stolen" is a pretty flimsy excuse. Especially now that we know that he displayed a second, different symbol of the same cause on a completely different property.

 

[JSRG]

As fo Citizens United, Jeffrey Toobin explains how John Roberts conspired to take a small case into a wide reaching decision designed to let oligarchs buy elections. He pretends he's above the fray but he is as bad as Thomas and Alito

It's not clear at all to me what this has to do with either your original mention or Citizens United or my response on the subject. In any event, you're presumably referring to Jeffrey Toobin's article on the subject. But the problem is, according to the facts of his article... Roberts didn't "conspire", at least not more so than any other justice in the majority.

Here is the facts as Toobin claims them. Roberts wrote the majority opinion that decided the issue more narrowly. Anthony Kennedy wrote a concurring opinion arguing they should go farther in their ruling, which ended up getting the rest of the majority to agree with him and join his opinion, making it the new majority opinion. Souter, who wrote the dissenting opinion, was so angry about this he aired unspecified "dirty laundry" in his dissent, and in an effort to try to avoid backlash from such a dissent being published, it was agreed to re-hear the case on the larger question. This was done, the lineup in majority and dissent stayed the same (outside of Souter being replaced with Kagan), and then Anthony Kennedy wrote the majority opinion. Toobin does some blatant editorializing, but those are the facts as he claims them. Of course, it's impossible for us to verify the accuracy of these, as it would have all come from insider sources, so we're reliant on assuming Toobin represented these things accurately.

However, assuming his description of the sequence of events is true... his attempts to put this at Robert's feet don't make much sense. Roberts doesn't seem to have a particularly important role in this, at least not more so than anyone else in the majority. If anyone "conspired" it would have been Anthony Kennedy given he was the one who was advocating for it and convinced the others. The article Toobin wrote wildly speculates that the reason the opinion went to Kennedy in the final decision was "by giving the opinion to Kennedy he [Roberts] obtained a far-reaching result without leaving his own fingerprints." Or, far more plausibly, Kennedy got the opinion because he was the one who seemed most passionate about it, given that he wrote the concurring opinion that got the others to agree with him to begin with (he may have outright requested it).

This conclusion--that "John Roberts conspired to take a small case into a wide reachign decision"--doesn't seem at all supported by the actual events that happened. All Roberts really did in these events was get convinced by Anthony Kennedy's argument.

 

[Fantine]

I read the book years ago. What I remember is that Roberts deferred adjudication of the case to the following year so that they could do more damage with the decision.
Toobin was not a Roberts fan and now that Roberts shields potential treason and criminality he is probably less so.

 

[SimplyMe]

Gabriel Sterling walks 60 Minutes though surveillance footage from Fulton County taken the night of the 2020 Presidential Election.
Sterling is a Republican election official in GA where this took place.

It is also worth noting that these are the specific claims of Giuliani that got him sued by two election workers, after they received death threats from Giuliani posting the edited footage to look as if the workers had done something wrong. And before you claim the $148 million dollar verdict against Giuliani is because of a biased judge or a biased jury, Giuliani never even seriously attempted to defend himself against the charges. Instead, Giuliani flat out admitted to the facts of the case, as claimed (that he lied about what happened) were accurate; the only caveat he added was that somehow his lies didn't defame the election workers (who he referenced by name in the presentation where he lied).

The interesting thing about so many of the cases is how many of the claims made by Trump legal teams were based on speculation and the "affidavits" given them to supporters. I should have bookmarked a post I made shortly after the election of a Michigan judge who went through the affidavits to show that the claims made were either a complete misunderstanding of election procedures (boxes of ballots being brought in by the "back door" -- the loading dock of the arena where vote counting was being done, which was the designated, secure entrance for votes to be unloaded) and either mistakes or lies about various things. One of the affidavits concerned "boxes" being removed from a van and brought into the counting area but, on checking the facts, the "boxes" were camera gear that was being unloaded by a cameraman working for a local TV station, unloaded from a van owned by the TV station, where they were setting up for live shots from inside the arena.

There is even a judge in Arizona quizzing Trump's lawyers about the affidavits they presented and how the lawyers had not checked the accuracy of the affidavits claimed. Instead, Trump's lawyers merely read through them quickly and threw out the ones that were obviously fake. And, to be clear, this is bad because lawyers are not to submit claims they have not verified and believe to be the truth, it is part of their job as officers of the court. You can see the exchange here:

 

[JSRG]

I read the book years ago. What I remember is that Roberts deferred adjudication of the case to the following year so that they could do more damage with the decision.

I have not read his book, but I have read his article. Unless he changed things between the article and book, this is does not not seem an accurate representation. There was no actual need to defer adjudication in order to "do more damage", adjudication was deferred because going so far without having proper arguments on the larger issue was so strongly objected to.

If you want to find one single person to blame (or credit) for Citizens United, it's very clearly Anthony Kennedy. Because according to the events that Toobin claims happened, Anthony Kennedy was the one who pushed for it, and he was the one who wrote the concurring opinion that convinced the others. Given that, singling out John Roberts is bizarre.

And this is assuming that everything Toobin wrote was accurate. I'm not saying he made anything up (I Don't think he did), but given the information was available exclusively to him, I can absolutely see some slanting going on on his part... heck, even based on the facts he did provide, I see obvious slanting (e.g. him wildly speculating that Kennedy got the opinion because Roberts wanted to leave his fingerprints off of it, rather than the more obvious conclusion that Kennedy got it because he was clearly very passionate about it), which immediately makes me wonder what kind of slanting there was in his reporting that we can't see due to not having the information.

Toobin was not a Roberts fan and now that Roberts shields potential treason and criminality he is probably less so.

And if Toobin is not a Roberts fan, perhaps we should be more careful putting a bunch of trust on his claims if it's all coming from a biased source?

 

[Fantine]

After doing the research for The Nine, he found plenty of reasons to dislike Roberts' actions. Roberts' comfort with two justices' off the rails behavior facing zero accountability is contemptible.

 

[Pommer]

Roberts “the jurist” is a different man than Roberts “the administrator”.
It’s as if he would rather not do the internal finger-waving and wrist-slapping, so he doesn’t.

 

[wing2000]

Roberts “the jurist” is a different man than Roberts “the administrator”.
It’s as if he would rather not do the internal finger-waving and wrist-slapping, so he doesn’t.

It's my understanding the Chief Justice has very little real corrective power. He can try to persuade a jusitice to do x....and that's it. There is no system of accoutability for the US Supreme Court - other than Congress impeaching a justice.

 

[iluvatar5150]

Mrs Alito speaks:

https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2024/05/25/alito-flag-martha-ann-washington-post/

On Jan. 20, 2021 — the day of Biden’s inauguration, which the Alitos did not attend — Barnes went to their home to follow up on the tip about the flag. He encountered the couple coming out of the house. Martha-Ann Alito was visibly upset by his presence, demanding that he “get off my property.”


As he described the information he was seeking, she yelled, “It’s an international signal of distress!”
Alito intervened and directed his wife into a car parked in their driveway, where they had been headed on their way out of the neighborhood.

The justice denied the flag was hung upside down as a political protest, saying it stemmed from a neighborhood dispute and indicating that his wife had raised it.
Martha-Ann Alito then got out of the car and shouted in apparent reference to the neighbors: “Ask them what they did!”

She said yard signs about the couple had been placed in the neighborhood. After getting back in the car, she exited again and then brought out from their residence a novelty flag, the type that would typically decorate a garden. She hoisted it up the flagpole. “There! Is that better?” she yelled.



 

[iluvatar5150]

Now the neighbor says that the flag went up before they had words:

The Alitos, the Neighborhood Clash and the Upside-Down Flag

Inside the escalating conflict on a bucolic suburban street that Justice Alito said prompted a “Stop the Steal” symbol at his home.

www.nytimes.com

ETA: both sides sound insufferable.

 

[Pommer]

Now the neighbor says that the flag went up before they had words:

The Alitos, the Neighborhood Clash and the Upside-Down Flag

Inside the escalating conflict on a bucolic suburban street that Justice Alito said prompted a “Stop the Steal” symbol at his home.

www.nytimes.com

ETA: both sides sound insufferable.

This is how America does “royal family scandals”, the elites squabble about how best to rule the rest of us, like they have any business attempting that!
Good times!