Supreme Shenanigans

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Alito and Thomas Aren’t Really Jurists. They’re Theocratic Leninists.​

The shock of that upside-down flag at Samuel Alito’s house still hasn’t worn off. Hats off to the amazing Jodi Kantor for one of the great political scoops of our time. So seemingly insignificant, in a way; just a silly little symbol. But what a symbol. It says everything about these treacherous, amoral, and arrogant people.

That last adjective is the most important one. The arrogance is bottomless. Why did the Supreme Court justice do this, or allow “Mrs. Alito”—on whom he pinned the blame—to do it? He knew it was petty. And he surely knew that, by conventional ethical standards, it was wrong. But he didn’t care because he knew that he stands beyond punishment for such acts.

Who exists to mete out such censure? No one. I and people like me are writing pieces like this. Others are fulminating on cable news. The New York Times and others write editorials. Who cares? None of it matters to Alito. This is the great advantage of conservatives’ having built their own media infrastructure and their own echo chamber with its own twisted morality (rule number one: if it helps us stay in power, do it; rule number two: if it infuriates the libs, do it over and over). They can tune us out completely. Ditto the polls. They just don’t care.

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searcher said:
"It's really important that we flood the zone with cases that challenge misuse of the Constitution by the administrative state and by Congress,"
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Why would anyone be against that?

The only way the courts could be "flooded" by cases challenging the misuse of the Constitution, would be if there already is lots of Constitutional misuse going on. If there wasn't, there'd be nothing to challenge.
 

Opinion: How the Supreme Court can get around its ethical dilemmas on Trump-related cases​

Law and the American people require a remedy for what seems irremediable. Justices Clarence Thomas and Samuel Alito are both properly disqualified from participating in cases involving Donald Trump and the Jan. 6 coup attempt at the U.S. Capitol. Both insist, however, on participating regardless of ethical considerations and standards of judicial propriety.

As is well known, Thomas’s wife actively participated in encouraging the Jan. 6 bid to prevent the peaceful transfer of power, and Alito’s wife prominently displayed a symbol of support for the “stop the steal” movement, repeatedly flying an upside-down American flag at their home. With respect to cases involving Trump and Jan. 6, those varied actions create obvious appearances of impropriety for both Justices. Their wives’s actions, moreover, fall perfectly in line with the justices’ own established political and ideological views and further suggest possible conflicts of interest that strengthen doubts about their possible political bias in Trump cases. Those appearances of impropriety should require both to recuse themselves from all Trump-related cases.   

The problem is that neither will withdraw from the cases. Notwithstanding grave reasons to recuse themselves, both insist on remaining involved. Their fierce determination to participate, otherwise puzzling, is itself highly suggestive.

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searcher said:
Those appearances of impropriety should require both to recuse themselves from all Trump-related cases.
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Why?

The Judge in his current trial didn't recuse himself, and he has clear conflicts of interest when it comes to this case.

Neither did the other AG's and prosecutors, who are clearly on record as irrationally hating the man. After all, they campaigned on "getting him", even though at the time, they had no idea what "crime" they'd get him for.
(That's why I call them "Stalinists". They identify the man they don't like, then try to mfg a crime to charge him with. Just like Stalin did.

If it's ok to have anti-Trump judges and prosecutors with such strong bias' against him going after him, it should be ok to also keep ones who do like him, in the loop.

There's gotta be balance in this, but I realize that you would prefer that he not get a fair trial, or appeals.
 
^^^^^^

Alito Ethics Defense Blown Up by Second Insurrectionist Flag​

The most entertaining aspect of a Republican Supreme Court ethics scandal is when the justices construct an elaborate defense tailored to fit the known facts of their ally’s misconduct, only for new facts to quickly arise that render their defense moot. It happened repeatedly in the Clarence Thomas financial scandals, and now it’s happening to Samuel Alito.

The first Alito story found that the justice had flown an upside-down American flag, a symbol used by stop-the-stealers, in January 2021. It was a scandal because judges are not supposed to engage in political displays and because it associated Alito with an especially nutty faction of right-wing politics (and one that calls into question his ability to fairly adjudicate cases related to Trump’s coup attempt).

Alito and his allies came back with several defenses. They insisted the flag had been flown by Alito’s wife in response to the provocations of a rude neighbor. This defense did not explain why Alito was unaware of a flag flying at his own house, nor why his wife chose to respond to a neighborhood quarrel by endorsing Trump’s election lies. And they insisted she briefly flew the flag because “it was a very heated time in January 2021.”

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Supreme Court Justice Called Out Justice Alito's 'Power Grab'—Attorney​

Supreme Court Justice Samuel Alito has been called out by liberal Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson over a "judicial power grab," according to a legal scholar.

Rachel Barkow, a professor of law at New York University, said that the outcomes Alito "endorses almost always coincide with what a conservative politician or interest group would prefer" and that the justice is governed by "his own practical judgment about what is acceptable." Barkow added that Jackson, without referring directly to Alito's dissent, "called out this judicial power grab for what it is."

Alito has come under fire after The New York Times reported that an upside-down U.S. flag—a symbol associated with Donald Trump's baseless claims that the 2020 election was stolen—was flown at his home in Virginia days after Trump's supporters stormed the U.S. Capitol on January 6, 2021.

Alito, one of six conservative justices on the Supreme Court, told the newspaper that the flag was briefly flown by his wife amid a dispute with neighbors and that he had no role in it. But the firestorm has intensified after The Times reported on Wednesday that "Appeal to Heaven" flag—which is associated with Christian nationalists and carried by some who stormed the Capitol—flew outside Alito's summer home in Long Beach Island, New Jersey, last summer.

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Rolling Stone

Supreme Court Architect Flew Same ‘Appeal to Heaven' Flag as Alito​

The New York Times reported on Wednesday that Supreme Court Justice Samuel Alito flew an "Appeal to Heaven" flag at his New Jersey beach house. The flag's close association with both far-right Christian nationalists and the insurrectionists who stormed the Capitol on Jan. 6 raises serious questions about Alito's ability to rule impartially. The conservative court on which Alito sits is largely the product of right-wing dark-money overlord Leonard Leo, and - wouldn't you know it - Leo flew the same "Appeal to Heaven" flag outside of his house in Maine.

Murray Ngoima, a Bar Harbor resident, provided Rolling Stone with a photo she took of the flag hanging outside of his house on Feb. 25. Ngoima says that residents were outside Leo's house that day to protest the Alabama Supreme Court's decision declaring that IVF embryos are people under the law.

A spokesman for Leonard Leo, reached by Rolling Stone on Thursday morning, did not have an immediate comment to share.

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Clarence Thomas Criticizes Brown V. Board Of Education Decision While Ruling In Racial Gerrymandering Case, Black Twitter Calls Him ‘Uncle Ruckus’​

Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas has received his fair share of criticism for his staunchly conservative rulings and his attempts to downplay racism in the United States. But Justice Thomas may have outdone himself this time by attacking desegregation, as he criticizes the landmark Brown v. Board of Education ruling.

Read it all:


 
Beatify St. George of Floyd, and smear and destroy an accomplished thinker, legal scholar and jurist.

This isn't Clown World we're moving into - it's barbarism.
 

Justice Alito rejects demands that he step aside from Jan. 6 cases because of flags​

WASHINGTON − Supreme Court Justice Samuel Alito rejected calls to recuse himself from cases involving the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the Capitol, telling members of Congress Wednesday that such calls are politically motivated.

Alito said the flags flown over his homes, which experts say are connected with false claims that the 2020 election was stolen, were raised by his wife and were not in support of the "Stop the Steal" movement.

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The Alito Scandal Is Worse Than It Seems​

Supreme Court Justice Samuel Alito has been infuriating his critics for years. He has gone on undisclosed luxury vacations with conservative donors who have business before the court. He appears to have leaked the result of a major case to conservative activists before the decision was announced. And that doesn’t even get into his jurisprudence, including the opinion that threw out Roe v. Wade.

But the revelations over the last two weeks from The New York Times concerning the political flags flown at Alito’s homes — an upside-down American flag in the days after Jan. 6, 2021, and an “Appeal to Heaven” flag in the summer of 2023 — have pushed Alito’s behavior into an entirely different realm, one that raises serious questions about Alito’s partisanship, his ethics and the integrity of the court.

The upside-down American flag has historically been used as a sign of distress by the U.S. military but became a symbol of support for Donald Trump’s “Stop the Steal” movement following the 2020 election, and the Appeal to Heaven flag has been used by Christian nationalists. Both were flown by Jan. 6 rioters.

The Alito household’s display of those flags — no matter what prompted it or whose decision it was to fly them — means that Alito should recuse himself from the cases pending before the court concerning Trump’s alleged efforts to steal the election. His stated refusal to do so in a letter to senior Democrats Wednesday runs afoul of the most basic judicial ethical norms: Judges are not supposed to signal their views on matters that are likely to come before the court.

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