SUPREME Court justice samuel alito and his fotze martha-ann are liars, as well as fascist neo-nazi bigoted authoritarians, well qualified for samuel to be a republican appointee to the SCOTUS. And I do not understand how either of them can be offended by anyone using the "C" word when they don't have a problem with their ex-president, their candidate for president in the 2024 Presidential election has had multiple affairs and talks about grabbing any woman he chooses by her pu$$i. But that hypocrisy goes right along with the lies both have told about the flags controversy and sammy's refusal to recuse himself from the legal cases involving drumpf / trump. These from the Washington Post
Alito’s account of the upside-down flag doesn’t fully add up. Here’s why.
A look at the major discrepancies in Justice Samuel Alito’s comments about controversial flags flown at his property and what he still has not fully answered.
June 5, 2024 at 2:15 p.m. EDT
Supreme Court Justice Samuel A. Alito Jr. has offered multiple accounts of how politically charged flags came to fly outside his homes in Virginia and New Jersey — the type of display that is generally off-limits for judges, who must remain impartial and avoid even the appearance of bias as they handle cases.
Since the public revelation of the flags engulfed the nation’s highest court in criticism last month and prompted calls for Alito’s recusal from certain cases, the justice has said it was his wife who flew the banners, not him, and that she flew one of them after a neighborhood dispute. But his successive explanations — in a statement, an interview with Fox News and letters to Congress — have raised additional questions, and in some cases conflicted with known facts.
Alito has yet to fully explain some key aspects of the controversy: How long did an upside-down American flag fly at the Alitos’ Virginia home? Where did they get the “Appeal to Heaven” flag that flew at their New Jersey beach house? And more.
Here are the major discrepancies in Alito’s telling and what he still has not fully answered. Neither he nor his wife, Martha-Ann Alito, responded to a request for comment.
The neighborhood dispute
Alito has consistently cited the feud between Martha-Ann Alito and a neighbor as the backdrop for his wife raising the upside-down American flag at their Fairfax County, Va., home in the weeks after the Jan. 6, 2021, assault on the U.S. Capitol. But his description of the episode is contradicted at significant points by police records, neighbors’ descriptions of events and other facts.
Alito told Fox News reporter Shannon Bream the neighborhood dispute began when his wife went to speak with their neighbor Emily Baden in January 2021. Martha-Ann Alito was upset the woman was displaying an anti-Trump sign, with an expletive, “within 50 feet of where children await the school bus,” as Bream put it on X, formerly Twitter.
But Fairfax County schools were shuttered at the time because of the coronavirus pandemic and had been since March 2020. All but a tiny handful of students were learning virtually. Students did not return to the classroom until Feb. 16, 2021, after the flag episode occurred.
In addition, Baden and her mother said in interviews that the school bus stop near their home was moved before the dispute began and they confirmed no students were catching the bus at the time.
Baden told The Washington Post the row began shortly after Christmas 2020, when Martha-Ann Alito stopped by her home to thank her for taking down an anti-Trump sign featuring an expletive, which the justice’s wife said was offensive.
Baden said she told Alito that the sign would remain on display and had not been taken down, it had simply blown over. She also said Alito never mentioned the school bus stop. The conflict soon escalated.
Justice Alito has portrayed Baden and her then-boyfriend as the aggressors in the dispute, writing in letters to Congress that his neighbors had displayed a sign “attacking” his wife “personally.” But photos provided by Baden and interviews with a neighbor indicate the signs made no explicit mention of Martha-Ann Alito.
One featured the off-color reference to Trump on one side and the phrase “Bye Don” on the other. A second read “Trump Is a Fascist,” while a third read “You are Complicit.”
It’s possible the Alitos thought the latter sign referred to them, but Baden said it was directed at Republicans who she felt were complicit in the Jan. 6 attack on the Capitol. A neighbor who saw the signs at Baden’s house confirmed that none directly referenced the Alitos.
In her telling, Baden said it was Martha-Ann Alito who confronted them on a handful of occasions. After the initial encounter, Baden said Martha-Ann Alito glared at them from her car on Jan. 7, 2021, and ran down her driveway and spat at Baden’s vehicle on another occasion.
Justice Alito told Bream a key moment in the dispute came when he and his wife were walking in the neighborhood sometime after the initial conversation. A man got into an argument with Martha-Ann Alito and called her a vulgar epithet for part of a woman’s anatomy, according to the justice. In his letters to Congress, Alito also said the man followed them down the street.
But Baden said that while that confrontation with the Alitos involved both her and her then-boyfriend, it was actually she who uttered the epithet, an account corroborated by a neighbor who heard it. Baden said she could not recall whether she and her boyfriend then followed the Alitos down the street.
Justice Alito told Bream that following the exchange his wife was “distraught” and raised the upside-down flag. A photo obtained by the New York Times showed the flag flying on Jan. 17, 2021.
The profane encounter between Martha-Ann Alito, Baden and her then-boyfriend occurred about a month after the upside-down flag was raised, according to a phone call the boyfriend placed to police on that day. A Fairfax County, Va., government spokesman confirmed that call was placed on Feb. 15, 2021.
Why were the upside-down flag and “Appeal to Heaven” flag flown?
The most pivotal question about the upside-down American flag has yet to be fully answered: Martha-Ann Alito’s motivation for flying it.
Many liberals have said the raising of the flag in the weeks after the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the U.S. Capitol suggests sympathy for the “Stop the Steal” movement or solidarity with the pro-Trump rioters who believed the 2020 election was stolen and had adopted the symbol at the time.
They have called for Justice Alito to recuse himself from a pair of high-profile cases related to efforts to block the election results, arguing the flag indicates political bias or creates the perception that Alito is not impartial. Alito has refused.
The Alitos have not explicitly addressed whether the upside-down flag had a connection to Jan. 6 or “Stop the Steal,” and Justice Alito’s comments about his wife’s motivation for flying it have shifted.
- In comments to a Post reporter outside his home in 2021, Alito said his wife raised the flag in response to the neighborhood dispute and it was not political. Martha-Ann Alito, in her only known public comments about the flag, shouted at the reporter, “It’s an international sign of distress!” The upside-down flag does have a long history as a sign of distress in the military, and has been used by protesters of all political stripes at various times.
- Alito repeated his contention that a neighborhood dispute sparked the flag flying in a statement to the New York Times, which first reported the flag controversy last month. The justice then told Fox News reporter Shannon Bream the dispute began when his wife confronted a neighbor about an anti-Trump sign that featured an expletive, indicating the argument likely did have a political dimension.
- In letters Alito sent to Congress saying he would not recuse himself from the Jan. 6 cases, however, the justice’s explanation subtly changed. He said his wife flew the flag at a time of “great distress” over the neighborhood dispute, but also indicated it might not have been her only motivation, writing, “my wife’s reasons for flying the flag are not relevant for present purposes.”
The letters include a much more specific explanation of why Martha-Ann Alito flew the “Appeal to Heaven” flag at the couple’s vacation home on the New Jersey shore last summer. That flag has origins in the American Revolution, but has recently been adopted by some Christian nationalists and was carried by some Jan. 6 rioters.
Alito said he “assumed” his wife was flying it for religious and patriotic reasons. He definitively said neither he or his wife knew the flag was associated with the “Stop the Steal” and it was not flown in solidarity with that movement.
Alito did not issue a similar denial for the upside-down flag that flew at his Virginia home.
How long did the upside-down flag fly?
A handful of neighbors who saw the upside-down flag at the Alitos’ residence said in interviews that they could not remember exactly when they first saw it but placed it in the latter half of January 2021, which matches the Jan. 17 date of the photo obtained by the Times.
Alito said in an initial comment to the Times that the upside-down flag flew “briefly.” Alito later told Bream it flew for “a short time.” In his most recent account in letters to members of Congress, Alito said he requested his wife take down the flag as soon as he saw it, but she refused for “several days.” Alito did not detail exactly when he saw the flag was up.
Some neighbors of the Alitos said they recalled seeing the flag flying for between two and five days.
As for Baden, she said she never saw the flag at the Alitos’ home.
Former neighbor disputes Alito's explanation of upside-down U.S. flag flying at his home
GEOFF BENNETT: A former neighbor of Supreme Court Justice Samuel Alito said that, in her words, at worst, he's just outright lying about his account of a neighborhood dispute that led to hoisting an upside-down American flag at his Virginia home.
The inverted flag is associated with the effort to overturn President Biden's 2020 election win.
Justice Alito has been in the spotlight over flying controversial flags at his homes, as first revealed by reporting from The New York Times.
Our Lisa Desjardins joins us now.
So, Lisa, what's new here in this account?
LISA DESJARDINS: Some important details about the timeline are new, but I also want to talk about why this matters, of course.
Justice Alito is currently sitting on two cases about January 6, one about former President Trump's involvement in January 6.
These cases, of course, could determine a lot about our future here.
And, also, Justice Alito has defended himself as saying his wife hoisted the flag.
He said he will not recuse himself.
It is solely up to him, by the way.
And he's used this burden of proof.
He has said that, under the Supreme Court's ethics code, what matters is if someone who is impartial, who is able to look at all of the circumstances involved, if they think that he could be fair, then he should not recuse.
So the circumstances matter, because Justice Alito himself said they would.
Now, here's how he described what happened in a letter to Judiciary Chairman Dick Durbin.
He wrote: "A house on the street displayed a sign attacking my wife personally, and a man berated her in my presence using foul language, including what I regard as the vilest epithet that can be addressed to a woman."
Now, a couple of details in this.
He's saying that's why his wife flew this flag, which can be a sign of distress.
We know now from the neighbor who was involved that it was actually the woman who used that word about other women.
And she says that the timeline was completely wrong.
I want to take us through that timeline now, because it's important first.
We started January 6.
As you say, that is when we saw upside-down flags flying as the Stop the Steal movement attacked the Capitol, moved inside to try and stop the presidential election count.
Soon after that, Alito's neighbors put up a sign that said, "You are complicit."
They say it wasn't just about him, but about people in general.
Alito's family took that as being about them.
January 17 is when we know an upside-down flag was flying at the Alito home, according to The New York Times.
Now, the important piece here is Alito said, well, that was flying because of the confrontation.
But now we know there is evidence that February 15 is actually when that confrontation happened, after that upside-down flag had been flying.
Here's what the neighbor said to CNN.
EMILY BADEN, Neighbor of Justice Samuel Alito: At best, he's mistaken, but, at worst, he's just outright lying.
The interaction that happened on February 15 is the one that they're using as an excuse for why they flew the flag.
And I really want to hammer home the fact that that happened on February 15, and their flag went up two or three weeks before that.
LISA DESJARDINS: So, the question is -- this sounds like it's a minor thing about the timeline, but it's a very big deal over exactly why this flag that was about something that attacked our democracy was flying over a Supreme Court justice's home.
GEOFF BENNETT: So, Lisa what role does Congress have in all of this?
Because there are questions about whether or how Congress could ever impose a tougher code of ethics on the Supreme Court.
There are questions about the Senate Judiciary Committee.
Will they hold a hearing?
Will they call Justice Alito or Chief Justice John Roberts to the Hill to account for all of this?
Walk us through all of that.
LISA DESJARDINS: There are very loud calls among Democrats, including some on the Judiciary Committee, not just to call the justice, but to perhaps subpoena him.
I spoke with the head of that committee, Dick Durbin, this week.
And he said the problem is they don't have that power.
Under the rules of the U.S. Senate right now that was agreed to in this closely divided Senate, in order to issue a subpoena, a committee can do it by majority vote, but they can't take any action unless at least two Republicans come to that meeting.
So the thinking is, Republicans could simply boycott that meeting.
It wouldn't happen.
They cannot issue subpoena.
They cannot enforce it on the floor, which would also take 60 votes.
It's important because constitutional check and balances aren't the question here.
It's Senate rules that are preventing this kind of oversight.
Now, they could have a hearing they could call other people.
Dick Durbin has said he's doesn't think there would be much reason to that to do that at this point.
But he has said he thinks that Alito should recuse.
And here's what Durbin said this week on the Senate floor.
SEN. RICHARD DURBIN (D-IL): Displaying the upside-down American flag and Appeal to Heaven flag creates the appearance that Justice Alito has already aligned himself with the Stop the Steal campaign.
He cannot credibly claim to be an umpire calling balls and strikes in these cases.
LISA DESJARDINS: Durbin's committee is working on an investigation, not just of Alito, but of all Supreme Court justices.
And I'm told they had hoped to release it soon.
But all of this with Alito means now there's new things to investigate, and they don't know when they will release it.
GEOFF BENNETT: Lisa Desjardins, thanks so much.
LISA DESJARDINS: You're welcome.
Retired judge David Tatel issues a stark warning about the Supreme Court
In a memoir, the retired D.C. Circuit judge reflects on his career and the high court, regret about initially hiding his blindness, and his love for his guide dog, Vixen.
June 7, 2024 at 6:30 a.m. EDT
A retired federal judge has delivered an unusually stark warning about the Supreme Court and the future of the planet and democracy, which he says is imperiled by a conservative majority that is amassing power for itself while weakening minority voting rights and making it harder for the federal government to protect the health and safety of Americans.
In a memoir published this month, David Tatel joined other retired judges who have been publicly critical of the Supreme Court at a time when public opinion and confidence in the institution is at historic lows and as some justices have been consumed by ethics controversies.
Justice Stephen G. Breyer, who retired in 2022, shares more circumspect concerns about the court’s direction in his new book — “Reading the Constitution: Why I Chose Pragmatism, Not Textualism.” J. Michael Luttig, a long-retired conservative appeals court judge, has critiqued the Supreme Court’s decision to take up former president Donald Trump’s claims that he is immune from criminal prosecution for his efforts to remain in power after he lost the 2020 election.
Tatel’s commentary is notable because he only recently left the bench, and because he prided himself on judicial restraint and for his friendships with judges nominated by Republican presidents while serving on the influential federal appeals court.He is unrestrained, however, in “Vision: A Memoir of Blindness and Justice,” offering an unsparing take on the Supreme Court for chipping away at past precedent, most notably overturning Roe v. Wade in 2022 and restricting the use of race in college admissions last year.
The 82-year-old judge, a leading candidate for the high court during the Clinton administration, writes that he stepped down from the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit in January in part because he was tired of having his work reviewed “by a Supreme Court that seemed to hold in such low regard the principles to which I’ve dedicated my life.”
“It was one thing to follow rulings I believed were wrong when they resulted from a judicial process I respected. It was quite another to be bound by the decisions of an institution I barely recognized.”
Conservatives have dismissed such critiques, saying they are based on disagreement with the outcome of the court’s rulings and its rapid shift to the right with the addition of three justices nominated by Trump.
Tatel calls for term limits for Supreme Court justices (“Eighteen years on our highest court is long enough”), and describes conversations about retirement he had with his friend, the late Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg, and the political repercussions of her decision to remain on the court until her death. He also confesses to being a “little guilty” of gamesmanship in timing his departure from the bench.
There is no doubt, he wrote, that Ginsburg’s decision not to retire before the 2016 election contributed to Roe’s demise, because the justice’s death in 2020 allowed Trump to nominate Justice Amy Coney Barrett, who was the fifth vote to eliminate the nationwide right to abortion.
Tatel recalls how Ginsburg pulled him aside during a dinner at his home before Trump was elected to express annoyance with the commentators calling for her retirement while President Barack Obama was still in the White House and could choose her successor.
“I sometimes wonder if the public pressure to retire made Ruth even more stubborn. She was never one to succumb to pressure,” Tatel observed.
Tatel’s announcement in 2021 that he would take a lighter caseload or “senior status” gave President Biden plenty of time to get Judge J. Michelle Childs confirmed as Tatel’s successor before he officially stepped down in January.
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