The Bias of Alito

[Honeyman]

So I'm just curious, since this isn't the first time that a controversy over a SCOTUS Justice's spouse has occurred. If you're married to a SCOTUS Justice, do you thereby relinquish some of your First Amendment rights?

If you truly believe this is action was done entirely by Mrs. Alito, your gullibility is really in question.

[bmw]

So my broader question is an invalid one simply because you believe it isn't applicable in this particular instance?

[Honeyman]

So my broader question is an invalid one simply because you believe it isn't applicable in this particular instance?

Nice deflection, but I'll play anyway....

It's not the 1st amendment rights that are in question here. There are only 9 SCOTUS judges, and they have lifetime positions. It is important they at least show neutrality when it comes to presidential elections. I know as a Trumper, the US Constitution means little to you, but there is something in there about "separation of powers" that many us still feel to be valid.

[bmw]

1st Amendment rights are only not at play here to the extent you are flat out calling Alito a liar.

And your little quip about the Constitution meaning little to me is utter BS.

[Matt]

WSJ Editorial:

The political left will never forgive Justice Samuel Alito for writing the opinion that overturned Roe v. Wade, and so like Justice Clarence Thomas he will be attacked to the end of his days. The latest attempt to discredit him is the story in the New York Times about an inverted flag at his home in January 2021.

Flying the flag upside down, we are informed, was a gesture at the time by some Americans to show solidarity with Donald Trump’s “stop the steal” campaign. The Justice says his wife “briefly” flew the flag in that fashion amid a dispute with a neighbor. “I had no involvement whatsoever in the flying of the flag,” the Justice told the Times.

Flying an inverted flag is appropriate only as a sign of dire distress or extreme danger. It was a particular mistake in this case given the political context, not least because it handed Justice Alito’s enemies another excuse to beat him up. But the Justice’s explanation sounds plausible. He speaks his mind but isn’t prone to emotional gestures. We’ve met his wife without knowing her well, but she is entitled to have an opinion about the 2020 election, or Donald Trump, or anything else.

The Times’s story teed up liberal ethicists to portray the episode as a grave judicial offense. CNN and other voices hostile to the conservative Justices piled on. The left wants to tarnish Justice Alito’s reputation, as well as cause him to recuse himself from participating in any case involving Mr. Trump.

No such recusal is necessary on ethical or any other grounds. The political views of spouses don’t dictate, or in our experience even influence, how a Justice will rule.

Keep in mind that it is the Biden Administration, with its prosecutions of the former President, that has thrown the Court into the Trump morass that the Justices we know would rather avoid. Justices are obliged to follow the law and Constitution as they see it, and they can’t win politically no matter how they rule on issues such as presidential immunity,

Keep in mind, too, the double standard that has long prevailed in Washington and in the press about the Court. No Justice in our memory was more overtly political than the sainted Ruth Bader Ginsburg, as recounted and criticized by the late, great D.C. Circuit Judge Laurence Silberman in these pages.

In 2016 RBG told the New York Times that “I can’t imagine what this place would be—I can’t imagine what the country would be—with Donald Trump as our president. . . . For the country, it could be four years. For the court, it could be—I don’t even want to contemplate that.” She apologized for that remark, but not for also interfering with Senate prerogatives by stumping for the confirmation of then Judge Merrick Garland to the Court.

We don’t like to highlight this about the late Justice, but the press was never up in arms about her political indiscretions. As for the current conservative Justices, they will never stop being targets of the political left, and so they will have to be careful even about how they fly Old Glory on the front lawn.

WSJ= Whataboutism Street Journal

I disagree. I think it actually answers TCT's initial question in the first part of the opinion about an Alito recusal. It finishes with the point of "if you think an interpretation of Justice's spouse is a problem, where were you when another Justice made an overt political statement?" As for Trump, I want him out of the picture as much as anyone else, but why give that clown any more unnecessary ammo to cry about a witch hunt?

[Rate This]

1st Amendment rights are only not at play here to the extent you are flat out calling Alito a liar.

And your little quip about the Constitution meaning little to me is utter BS.

The rubber will meet the road in 2028 if Trump lives that long and seeks a third term.

[Honeyman]

Even a closeted, kiss-ass, fuck up like Lindsey Graham knows Alito was wrong.

https://news.yahoo.com/lindsey-graham-c ... 36019.html

[km1125]

Really this shouldn't have anything to do with the justices personal stances, unless those actually affect their judgements on the bench. If they can't defend their decisions on the bench with logic on how their decision on a matter aligns with the standing law or the Constitution, then THAT is where a problem is. They should not make decisions using their personal judgements, nor should any other judge in any other courtroom. They are to evaluate the case and apply the law, whether that's in spite of their personal opinion or consistent with it.

[Honeyman]

https://www.yahoo.com/news/were-nazis-n ... 24405.html

[TC Talks]

If you recall, the ethical threshold at SCOTUS is an "Appearance of Bias". If he chooses not to pay attention to ethics and his job then maybe he needs to retire.

We now have a second flag to consider. This one unquestionably more biased than flying an American Flag upside down...

Last summer, two years after an upside-down American flag was flown outside the Virginia home of Justice Samuel A. Alito Jr., another provocative symbol was displayed at his vacation house in New Jersey, according to interviews and photographs.

This time, it was the “Appeal to Heaven” flag, which, like the inverted U.S. flag, was carried by rioters at the Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021. Also known as the Pine Tree flag, it dates back to the Revolutionary War, but largely fell into obscurity until recent years and is now a symbol of support for former President Donald J. Trump, for a religious strand of the “Stop the Steal” campaign and for a push to remake American government in Christian terms.

Three photographs obtained by The New York Times, along with accounts from a half-dozen neighbors and passers-by, show that the Appeal to Heaven flag was aloft at the Alito home on Long Beach Island in July and September of 2023. A Google Street View image from late August also shows the flag.
...
The disclosure about the new flag is troubling, several ethics experts said in interviews, because it ties Justice Alito more closely to symbols associated with the attempted election subversion on Jan. 6, and because it was displayed as the obstruction case was first coming for consideration by the court.

Judges are not supposed to give any impression of bias, yet the flag could be seen as telegraphing the Alitos’ views — and at a time when the justices were on the cusp of adopting a new ethics code. “We all have our biases, but the good judge fights against them,” said Charles Geyh, a law professor at Indiana University Bloomington. “When a judge celebrates his predispositions by hoisting them on a flag,” he added, “that’s deeply disturbing.”

[Rate This]

If you recall, the ethical threshold at SCOTUS is an "Appearance of Bias". If he chooses not to pay attention to ethics and his job then maybe he needs to retire.

We now have a second flag to consider. This one unquestionably more biased than flying an American Flag upside down...

Last summer, two years after an upside-down American flag was flown outside the Virginia home of Justice Samuel A. Alito Jr., another provocative symbol was displayed at his vacation house in New Jersey, according to interviews and photographs.

This time, it was the “Appeal to Heaven” flag, which, like the inverted U.S. flag, was carried by rioters at the Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021. Also known as the Pine Tree flag, it dates back to the Revolutionary War, but largely fell into obscurity until recent years and is now a symbol of support for former President Donald J. Trump, for a religious strand of the “Stop the Steal” campaign and for a push to remake American government in Christian terms.

Three photographs obtained by The New York Times, along with accounts from a half-dozen neighbors and passers-by, show that the Appeal to Heaven flag was aloft at the Alito home on Long Beach Island in July and September of 2023. A Google Street View image from late August also shows the flag.
...
The disclosure about the new flag is troubling, several ethics experts said in interviews, because it ties Justice Alito more closely to symbols associated with the attempted election subversion on Jan. 6, and because it was displayed as the obstruction case was first coming for consideration by the court.

Judges are not supposed to give any impression of bias, yet the flag could be seen as telegraphing the Alitos’ views — and at a time when the justices were on the cusp of adopting a new ethics code. “We all have our biases, but the good judge fights against them,” said Charles Geyh, a law professor at Indiana University Bloomington. “When a judge celebrates his predispositions by hoisting them on a flag,” he added, “that’s deeply disturbing.”

My dog hung it there will be his next excuse.

[TC Talks]

Again, king of the apologists BMW is nowhere to be found.

[tapeisrolling]

How soon people forgot about the Chief Justice's wife's gig...
Jane Sullivan Roberts, a legal recruiter, has earned “millions” in commissions for recruiting attorneys for jobs at law firms, which include firms that have cases before the Supreme Court.
Nothing to see here ... just move on...

[paul8539]

Using the arguments presented, that means that EVERY Supreme Court Justice will have to recuse themselves from any Jan. 6 cases.