It’s worse than we thought. Alito must resign.

May 22, 2024

Yesterday, we learned that Justice Alito flew an insurrectionist flag over his residence for three days between the January 6 insurrection and Joe Biden’s inauguration. Standing alone, that lapse of ethics and shocking display of disloyalty to the Constitution required recusal and an impeachment investigation, at the very least.

Today, the NYTimes reported that Justice Alito flew a “Pine Tree” flag a.k.a. an “Appeal to Heaven” flag over his beach house. Per the Times, the Pine Tree flag

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.

In other words, the Pine Tree flag represents a MAGA trifecta: Support for Trump, insurrection, and Christian nationalism. See NYTimes, Another Provocative Flag Was Flown at Another Alito Home. (This article is accessible to all.) The photos showing the Pine Tree flag over the Alito beach house were taken over three months in 2023.

Justice Alito’s credibility is compromised beyond repair. Every day he serves as a sitting Supreme Court justice, he further erodes the court's rapidly diminishing credibility.

Contrary to the original story about the “Stop the Steal” flag where Alito blamed his wife, the justice has refused to provide a response to the Times. The Supreme Court’s press relations office also refused comment.

Out of loyalty to the Constitution, regard for the Court, and respect for the American people, Alito should resign. Anything less will perpetuate the open wound on the Court’s legitimacy.

There is also a role for Justice Roberts and the associate justices in addressing Alito’s ethical violations.

Roberts should call for investigation by the Judicial Conference. He should assure the American people that the Court is, in fact, “calling balls and strikes” for democracy rather than serving as a cheerleader for the partisan and religious agenda of the MAGA movement.

The associate justices should declare in their opinions, concurrences, and dissents that Justice Alito’s continued consideration of matters relating to Trump is a violation of the Supreme Court Code of Ethics.

Democrats in the Senate must also lead on this issue. To date, leadership in the Senate and on the Judiciary Committee have responded with a collective yawn. That is a perplexing response that reflects the insular politics of cynicism that infects Congress. Enough!  

The stories about Alito’s flags are not “gotcha” journalism run amok. Alito is signaling his partisan allegiance and Christian nationalism. As I wrote yesterday, we should take him at his word. If we do not, he will continue to vote for outcomes and write opinions that are antithetical to the liberties guaranteed in the Constitution.

Apart from demanding that the Court, Congress, and the media work to secure Alito’s resignation or impeachment, what can we do?

Re-elect Joe Biden.

On Wednesday, the Biden Administration announced that it had reached the milestone of appointing 200 federal judges. See WhiteHouse.gov, Statement from President Joe Biden on Confirming 200 Federal Judges. In his announcement, President Biden noted that 64% of his appointments were women and that 62% were to people color.

Amidst the disturbing revelations of Alito’s insurrectionist allegiance, President Biden wrote the following about his 200 judicial appointments:

Judges matter.

These men and women have the power to uphold basic rights or to roll them back.

They hear cases that decide whether women have the freedom to make their own reproductive healthcare decisions; whether Americans have the freedom to cast their ballots; whether workers have the freedom to unionize and make a living wage for their families; and whether children have the freedom to breathe clean air and drink clean water.

There are many issues that compel us to vote for Joe Biden. Reforming the Supreme Court just moved up in urgency and importance. We must adopt an enforceable code of ethics and enlarge the Court—both of which can be accomplished with majority votes in Congress and the signature of the president. Elect Joe Biden to reform the Court.

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Nikki Haley endorses Trump after saying he is unfit to hold a driver’s license

When Nikki Haley was running for the GOP nomination, Trump mocked her husband for not accompanying Haley on the campaign trail. Her husband was not on the campaign trail because he was deployed as part of the US military’s Southern Command in Africa. 

In response to the attack on her husband, Haley said:

He mocked my husband's military service. And I’ll say this. Donald, if you have something to say, don't say it behind my back. Get on a debate stage and say it to my face. If you mock the service of a combat veteran, you don't deserve a driver's license, let alone being President of the United States.

Haley also vowed never to “kiss the ring” to signal surrender to Trump. On Wednesday, Haley kissed the ring and surrendered to Donald Trump by announcing that she would vote for the man she said “Did not deserve a driver’s license.”

So, yeah. Nikki Haley is exactly who we thought she was: A spineless coward, just like every other Republican politician who has kissed Trump's ring. Is anyone surprised?

Kind of like Glenn Youngkin claiming that he was a moderate Republican. Ha! Read on!

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More on Trump's statement on banning contraception

Earlier this week, Trump said he was considering restricting contraception and emphasized that states could make their own choice about the legality of contraception. Hours later, he tried to walk back his statement, saying that the GOP would never ban contraception.

As Trump was claiming that the GOP would never ban contraception, Virginia governor Glenn Youngkin vetoed a bill that would have guaranteed Virginians access to contraception. The bill vetoed by Youngkin said that “health care providers have a right to prescribe contraceptives and that people have a right to obtain them.” See Virginia Mercury, Youngkin vetoes bills on contraception access.

So, Governor Youngkin doesn’t believe that “people have a right to obtain contraception.”

Oh, and when the House GOP caucus introduced its proposed budget priorities for 2024, guess what it said about contraception? Yep! Their bill would “gut funding” for contraception for low income and uninsured women. See House Republicans Endorse a National Abortion Ban with Zero Exceptions in Latest Budget | The White House

Here’s the point: Don’t believe Republican double-talk about not banning contraception. You can’t believe a word they say. You can’t believe Donald Trump. You can’t believe Nikki Haley. You can’t believe Glenn Youngkin.

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Quick note about the NYTimes / Siena poll

More evidence is accumulating that the NYTimes / Siena poll of last week was a botched outlier. Ignore the polls, but if you can’t, Josh Marshall explains why a new slew of polls suggest that the NYTimes / Siena poll was off base—by a lot. See Talking Points Memo, Clarifying Polls - TPM – Talking Points Memo.

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Trump's most recent lie about President Biden

Trump posted a claim that President Biden authorized the FBI to “shoot to kill” Trump during the Mar-a-Lago search for classified documents. Trump is lying. See The Guardian, Trump falsely claims US justice department was ready to kill him | Donald Trump.

The true facts are:

• The FBI coordinated the search with Trump's lawyers to ensure that Trump would not be present at Mar-a-Lago during the search.

• The basis of Trump's “shoot to kill” claim is that the search warrant included a standard form “use of force” policy statement that is attached to every search warrant obtained by the FBI! In fact, the same “use of force” policy statement was attached to the search warrant that the FBI obtained for Joe Biden’s home in Delaware. The “use of force” policy statement was not an order or authorization to shoot either Trump or Biden.

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The changing character of RFK Jr’s support

Over the last six months, support for RFK Jr. has consistently decreased. But his support among various subgroups has changed at different rates. As noted by Nick Field, RFK’s greatest support previously came from Hispanic voters. Six months later, it comes from white voters with no college education. Hence, Trump's recent attacks on RFK Jr.

Moreover, Nick Field also notes that the six-month trend shows that RFK Jr’s support among “moderates” and “independents” has decreased by 5%. Another good sign for Biden.

While Democrats cannot dismiss the effect of an RFK Jr candidacy, there is reason to believe that Kennedy’s candidacy will damage Trump's prospects to a greater degree than Biden’s.

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Opportunity for Reader Engagement

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Focus for Democracy on Thursday evening

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Join Grandmothers for a Brighter Future in postcarding for US Senate candidates!

The Grandmothers For a Brighter Future are once again writing cards for U. S. Senate candidates in the coming election, and we welcome more people—not just grandmothers!—to join us. This time, we have started early, planning to mail the completed cards in mid-September. 

Our model is to email lists of women over the age of 65 who are registered as Democrats or Independents, along with a template and instructions to those who wish to write cards.  The writers then take the template to a copy shop to be printed. We have already written nearly 70,000 cards for Congressman Ruben Gallego in Arizona which will be mailed close to the election.  We are now writing cards for Senator Sherrod Brown in Ohio, who is running for reelection.

We hope your readers will go to our website, GrandmothersForABrighterFuture, and sign up!

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Concluding Thoughts

It’s not your imagination. The extremist MAGA bombast has become even more extreme over the last few months. That trend is likely to continue. As Trump loses support, his counterintuitive instinct to run further to the right will kick into hyperdrive. By using Nazi terminology, claiming that Joe Biden ordered the FBI to “shoot to kill” during the Mar-a-Lago search, and attacking Judge Merchan based on his birth nationality, Trump has added brass knuckles to his prior bare knuckles approach to campaigning.

Trump’s followers have dutifully fallen in line, repeating his ludicrous statements even as they become ever more violent, ugly, and fascistic in nature.

Several readers have written asking whether I am concerned about a violent reaction or widespread resistance if Trump loses. I am not.

Of course, we live with the ever-present possibility of violence by sick individuals. And we did just experience the trauma of January 6. So, we must remain vigilant.

But Trump has repeatedly called for his followers to stage large demonstrations outside the Manhattan courthouse where he is standing trials. On most days, there are less than a dozen Trump supporters outside the courthouse. See Salon, Trump's courthouse clown show can't hide it: There's barely any MAGA support in the streets.

Trump is reportedly furious over the pathetic show of support. He should be. If ever there was a time when Trump's supporters should show up to support Trump, it would be during a “rigged” trial where he has been “gagged” in a case that will go to the jury where there is “no evidence” of his guilt.

We should always take Trump's fascist talk seriously. But we should maintain perspective about the number of people who are engaged in such speech. It is Trump, his flock of VP hopefuls, Steve Bannon, and the most extreme elements of the House GOP. And there are probably tens of thousands of Trump cultists who repeat and post those statements online. In a nation of 320 million people, all those people aggregate to a rounding error that approximates zero.

The problem is that they dominate the airwaves and your consciousness. Don’t let them. Don’t give them permission to create needless anxiety about an illusory menace. The most reasonable measure of the size and scale of potential violence is represented by the half dozen misfits and attention-seekers standing in front of the Manhattan courthouse.

We have real problems to worry about—political realities that could change the basic freedoms of hundreds of millions of Americans. Let’s focus on stopping those threats. If we can do that—and by overwhelming margins—the issue of political violence will recede even further into the background.

Talk to you tomorrow!