Dem
51
GOP
49
Given that his job is ostensibly to uphold democracy as best he understands it, Associate Justice Samuel Alito earns a lot of the sort of headlines that don't really seem to go with his job description. So it was late Thursday, when the news broke that, after the 2020 election, a U.S. flag was hung upside down outside of Alito's residence. This was a common symbol for people who believed the election was stolen.
When Alito was asked about the upside-down flag by reporters, he bravely... blamed his wife. The Justice told a tale in which one of his neighbors put up a F**k Trump sign, Mrs. Alito had words with that neighbor, and then to fight fire with fire, hung the upside-down flag. The Justice also claims that the flag only flew that way for a short period of time (and yet, enough time for people to get pictures... hmmm).
We don't especially believe Alito's version of events. But even if he's telling the truth, he gave a very tone-deaf response. The correct response goes something like this: "Ah, yes. I understand entirely why this looks problematic, and I was horrified when I learned of the upside-down flag, so I had it removed promptly. You can be certain that nothing like this will happen again, as I remain mortified."
As you can probably guess, there have been many calls for Alito to recuse himself from any future cases involving Trump. And as you can certainly guess, he's already said there is no way in H-E-double-hockey-sticks that he'll do so. And so, the Court's reputation erodes just a little bit more. (Z)