Rep. Raskin explains that the scotus is lawless after Alito 's insurrection flags revelations. There is an absolute collapse of the legitimacy of the Supreme Court. Representative Jamie Raskin. #insurrection
"Alito’s misconduct also brings Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr., who heads an entire branch of government, to an inflection point. If he does nothing, Roberts is complicit in the destruction of the court’s reputation. Such spinelessness might even snatch from Roger B. Taney, the author of the majority opinion in Dred Scott, the title of “worst chief justice ever.”" https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2024/05/26/alito-durbin-supreme-court/
I’ve heard somewhere that democracy dies in darkness.
“In a series of paragraphs that are up there as being among the most shocking I have read in my journalistic career, the Post acknowledged on Saturday — dropped in the middle of the holiday weekend, more than a week after the Times’s report — that they had known about the flag since at least January 20, 2021, and had not revealed knowledge of it until May 25, 2024.”
As Chris Geidner reports, Washington Post knew three years ago about Alito's wife flying the insurrectionist flag of white Christian nationalism, and buried the story.
"As Alito provided an essential fifth vote hollowing out the Fourteenth Amendment’s bar to insurrectionists’ holding office, the Post sat silent."
"What are we to make of the fact that Trump can be re-elected, that the Supreme Court is full of reactionary fanatics, and Congress isn't acting on the will of the American people? For starters, we have a political system that acts like a dam, blocking the 'main stream' of where this country is today. …
"It serves people who want to keep living in what used to be the American mainstream. Our demographics are changing rapidly, but there was a time not that long ago when the vast majority of American society was white and Christian. There was a time when being LGBTQ+ was considered by a majority to be morally reprehensible. When it was okay to deny Black people the right to vote, or even freedom."
The wife of #SCOTUSJusticeSamuel #Alito told a WaPo reporter in Jan 2021 that an #UpsideDown American #flag recently flown on their flagpole was “an international signal of distress” & indicated that it had been raised in response to a neighborhood dispute. #MarthaAnnAlito made the comments when the reporter went to the couple’s FairfaxCounty, VA, home to follow up on a tip about the flag….
The Washington Post knew about Alito distress flag in January 2021, interviewed Martha-Ann Alito about it, and didn’t think there was a story worth publishing.
Stephen Gillers, an expert in judicial ethics at New York University,
said he initially gave #Alito the benefit of the doubt
that the upside-down flag was not tied to the 'Stop the Steal' effort.
The second flag, he said, makes that theory no longer plausible," reported Ann E. Marimow and Justin Jouvenal.
"[Chief Justice John] Roberts must encourage Alito to recuse himself from the Trump cases
and give him a deadline to do so, Gillers said Friday.
He said the chief justice should separately address the circumstances surrounding the flying of the flags,
even if Alito does not recuse,
because of the intense public interest in the upcoming court decisions,
which are expected to be announced by the end of June"
I was in law school when Samuel Alito was nominated to SCOTUS. One of my law professors knew him personally. Outside of class, he tried to reassure me that Alito was a "good" conservative, and not one of those crazy right-wing ideologues.
“To me, the #flag issue is much simpler. The fact is that, regardless of its legality, displaying the flag in that way, at that time, shouldn’t have happened. To put it bluntly, any #judge w/reasonable #ethical instincts would have realized immediately that flying the flag then & in that way was improper. And dumb.”
“The same goes for the flying of an #AppealToHeaven flag at Justice #Alito’s vacation house along the NJ shore. Like the #UpsideDown flag, this #flag is viewed by a great many people as a banner of allegiance on #partisan issues that are or could be before #SCOTUS.
“…In 4 decades as a #federal#judge, I have known scores, possibly hundreds, of federal trial & appellate #judges pretty well. I can’t think of a single one, no matter who appointed her or him, who has engaged or would engage in conduct like that. You just don’t do that sort of thing, whether it may be considered over the line, or just edging up to the margin. Flying those flags was tantamount to sticking a ‘Stop the steal’ bumper sticker on your car. You just don’t do it.”
New: Senate Judiciary Chair Dick Durbin and Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse are requesting a meeting with Chief Justice John Roberts to discuss "the Supreme Court's worsening ethics crisis" and have sent a letter imploring Roberts to "take appropriate steps" to ensure Samuel #Alito recuses himself from 2020 election and Jan. 6 cases.
“Lisa Rubin explained a couple of years ago, ‘Miers withdrew within weeks, in part due to her relative inexperience but more so because of vociferous opposition from anti-abortion conservatives. Days later, Bush announced a more reliable anti-abortion nominee: then-Judge #Alito.’
“…NBC News reported the day after Miers’ nomination was announced:
“‘...Bush insisted that “people are going to be amazed at her strength of character & intellect.”
“‘But that left open the question: If Miers is a classy, top-of-the-line #conservative, then why was Sen Charles Schumer, D-NY, beaming in contentment at his press conference Mon when he proclaimed that in nominating her, Bush had rebuffed “the very #extreme wing of his party”?’
“Democrats didn't belittle Bush for choosing an unqualified #SCOTUS nominee; Democrats were relieved that Miers wasn't #Alito.”
>> As Samuel #Alito’s reputation reaches new depths, it's worth remembering that he wasn't George W. Bush's first choice for the court. Harriet Miers was. We'll obviously never know, but nearly two decades later, it's hard not to wonder what could've been