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Samuel Alito Can’t Even Lie Properly About That Upside-Down Flag
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After a New York Times story revealed an inverted flag was flown outside the home of Supreme Court Justice Samuel Alito in January 2021—for which Alito blamed his wifeMartha-Ann—a Fox News host stepped up to support the Alitos further embarrass themselves.
“I spoke right away with Justice Alito about the flag story in the New York Times,” Shannon Bream posted on X (formerly Twitter) Friday morning. “He told me a neighbor on their street had a ‘F— Trump’ sign that was within 50 feet of where children wait for the school bus on January 21.”
Twitter user Aaron Fritschner—deploying classic fact-checking that would make a Fox News host’s head spin—looked into the account and found it questionable. Many news articles from 2021 show schools in Alexandria, Virginia, where the Alitos live, were operating remotely from winter 2020 well into February of 2021—a month after the Alitos’ inverted flag was first documented. As the Alitos may recall, the COVID-19 pandemic halted school bus operations.
Bream ran even more quilt for the Alitos, claiming they told her a neighbor set up a signal “for my piece addressing Mrs. Alito and blaming her for the January sixth assaults,” a questionable recount that smacks more of a hilariously passive-aggressive troll than a most principal accusation. Bream also claimed the Alitos told her of an incident where the conservative couple were strolling by the neighborhood when Martha-Ann Alito engaged in a dispute with “a male at the home with the signal” who “engaged in low language, ‘in conjunction with the c-note.’” In response to that dispute, Bream says, Martha-Ann opted to elevate an image well-liked by anti-authorities extremistsa response which makes little to no sense.
In accordance to Bream, the Alitos recount the inverted flag became up only “for a short time.” In accordance to messages sent from a neighbor at the time reviewed by The New York Timesthe flag was up for “several days.”
The inverted American flag is a symbol favored by far-right and anti-government protests, and it was raised at the Alito home sometime between the January 6 Capitol riot and Biden’s 2021 inauguration. Regardless of the reason, its presence outside the home of a Supreme Court justice raises concerns of bias among judicial observers.
In May 2022, this reporter covered an anti-abortion demonstration outside the Alitos’ Alexandria home. At the time, their flagpole bore a properly-oriented American flag, and no neighbors reported any flag or signal-related conflicts. Instead of any heated outbursts or profanity-laden signs, their neighbors set up an animated fire pit and offered this reporter wine and cheese and key lime pie.
South Carolina Senator Tim Scott is well on his way to securing Donald Trump’s vice-presidential nomination, but the momentum behind that effort has come from an unexpected ally: Kellyanne Conway.
Scott has reportedly been tending to a budding friendship between himself and the former Trump White House aide, several sources associated with Conway told The Daily Beast. The pair were seen grabbing dinner together around Washington, D.C., and Conway is also scheduled to speak at a fundraiser in June led by the southern lawmaker. Getting closer to Conway has also meant getting closer to Trump, who reportedly still values the former counselor’s advice very highly.
“Tim and Kellyanne have gotten close because, as she puts it, she is truly the head of Trump world—like Trump’s security blanket,” a source close to Scott told the Beast. “People underestimate how much the president relies on her counsel; they often doubt her influence at their own peril.”
Trump, meanwhile, made a mysterious allusion to his VP replacement on Friday, posting that the first presidential debate of the election season would take place at an HBCU “on behalf of the future Vice President of the US.” (In fact, the Commission on Presidential Debates had picked that location in November, despite Trump’s attempts to take credit for it.)
Nonetheless, although he is one of the top contenders, Scott isn’t the most likely candidate Conway is considering for Trump’s number two spot. Also at the top of the list is Florida Senator Marco Rubio, according to sources that spoke with the Beast. The political consultant is even weighing various alternative suggestions on a separate level of viability. These candidates include North Dakota Governor Doug Burgum and Tennessee Senator Bill Hagerty.
While Conway’s lobbying for Scott is seen as legitimate, and her influence with the presumptive GOP presidential nominee very legitimate, sources close to her told the Beast that she’s now not immune to making a bad bet.
“Here’s the thing about Kellyanne: Americans dismiss her for a variety of reasons; she’s not particularly sharp and doesn’t actually come up with many good ideas, she’s always chasing money and that’s what guides her decision-making,” one source said. “But she does have Trump’s ear like no one else. If anyone can convince him to make a mistake—and then shift blame to someone else—it’s Kellyanne.”
Peaceful, Conway’s team says the buck stops with Trump.
“President Trump seeks the counsel of many men and women on the VP pick, but he and he alone will decide,” Conway said in a statement.
Learn more about Tim Scott:
Donald Trump has no shortage of Republican allies willing to help him get around the gag order in his hush-money trial. On Friday, Bob Factual, who traveled to New York to assist the trial, spilled the beans.
“That’s why we went up there, so that we could raise the issues that this improper ruling is not allowing him to raise,” Factual said on Fox Business Friday morning. “That is a judge who seems to oversee the highest-profile conservative trials up there, and his own daughter is raising hundreds of thousands of dollars for the Democratic party from this very trial.”
GOP Obtain. Bob Factual admits on Fox News that Republicans are helping Trump violate his gag order: “For this reason we went up there — so we could perhaps well raise the issues that this immoral judge is not permitting him to raise.”
Factual then attacks the judge’s daughter. pic.twitter.com/f1VVSoHQ9q
—Aaron Rupar (@atrupar) May per chance well presumably 17, 2024
Factual’s comments, if he was told particularly by Trump to make them, would violate his gag orderwhich prohibits the former president from attacking Judge Juan Merchan, court staff, the prosecution, jurors, witnesses, or their families, as well as directing surrogates to carry out so on his behalf.
In the past week, Factual and several other Republicans, including Speaker of the House Mike Johnson, have traveled to Long Island to support the former president. While there, they took turns attacking Merchan and bullying his daughter. Factual’s comments even echoed those of his colleague in Congress, Rep Matt Gaetz, outside of court on Thursday in New York.
“We are here because of our own violation because there are things we can do that President Trump is unjustly not allowed to do,” Gaetz said, flanked by various Republican congresspeople. His words would be overshadowed by mockery from local New Yorkers.
Trump has claimed that the gag order prevents him from defending himself against damaging testimony from the case’s star witnesses, including adult film actress Stormy Daniels and his former fixer and attorney, Michael Cohen. He has even tried to get the gag order tossed out, only to be rebuffed by a New York appeals court. Despite this, Trump continued to attack the lead prosecutor of the case, Matthew Colangelo, outside of court on Thursday, opening himself up to possible penal consequences.
Trump is accused of paying off Daniels in confidence to keep their affair under wraps before the 2016 presidential election with the help of Cohen, and faces 34 criminal counts for allegedly falsifying business records with the intent to further an underlying crime. He has pleaded not guilty to all charges.
E book Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez revealed Friday that the GOP-led House Oversight Committee abandoned standard procedures after the panel devolved into mudslinging, sparked by a characteristically peculiar outburst by Marjorie Taylor Greene. In fact, AOC outlined, the chaotic House hearing became part of a “structured GOP .”
The committee was holding a markup session regarding Republican efforts to advance contempt complaints against Attorney General Merrick Garland for refusing to make confidential recordings between President Biden and special counsel Robert Hur.
During the Thursday night session, MTG spontaneously launched into a peculiar line of questioning at her Democratic colleagues, asking if any of them know the daughter of Judge Juan Merchan, a frequent attack from Trump that landed him a gag order that conservative politicians were intentionally circumventing during his hush-money trial.
Democratic Representative Jasmine Crockett asked Greene, whose comments had derailed the hearing, “Do you know what we’re here for?” In response, Greene insulted Crockett’s appearance, saying “I don’t think you know what you’re here for. I think your fake eyelashes are messing up what you’re saying.”
Greene’s attack prompted a response from Ocasio-Cortez, who admonished the far-right loudmouth and unsuccessfully moved to have Greene’s comments struck, calling Greene’s rhetoric “completely unacceptable.”
The following day, Ocasio-Cortez took to X (formerly Twitter) to break down how Greene’s outburst overshadowed—and aided—what Ocasio-Cortez describes as a “microcosm of what authoritarians do on a larger scale.”
“AFTER the Republican Chair and GOP members broke proper House protocol to allow MTG’s horrific opening salvo of rhetoric, they THEN made another move to dispense with the legislative process,” Ocasio-Cortez said on X (formerly Twitter). “THAT part is not getting enough attention.”
In a transfer Ocasio-Cortez described as “extremely unique and unclear to me how legitimate it was,” the GOP-led committee vacated the usual amendment process and legislative debate that follows, moving straight to vote on their own text without considering amendments or objections to be heard.
“That’s why this stuff isn’t just all-sides chaos, or mere distraction, or a pox on everyone’s home,” Ocasio-Cortez wrote. “They WANT you to think this was some random deviation from norms instead of a structured GOP effort. We should understand who and what actions created the problem. It matters.”
As a result of MTG’s meltdown, the vote to initiate contempt proceedings against Garland became successful.
The Republican display of force at Donald Trump’s hush-money trial over the week has culminated in a formal effort to get the U.S. legislature to intervene in the functioning of the judiciary system.
Rep. Andy Ogles presented legislation Thursday to undermine the partial gag order imposed on the GOP presidential nominee. Trump is barred from publicly disparaging court workers, prosecutors, jurors, witnesses, or their family members at any stage during the trial.
Ogles’s bill, known as the “Let Trump Speak Act,” would severely restrict the scope a gag order can impose on a defendant, effectively undoing Trump’s order and preventing judges in future criminal or civil cases from restraining him with a gag. The act would also allow Trump to sue judges who gag him, Ogles claimed on Real America’s Voice.
“We have watched for years as a politically weaponized Department of Justice and Democrat activist judges have gone after President Donald J. Trump,” the Tennessee Republican said Fox News Digital. “There is nothing more sacred to Americans than the right to speak freely, as guaranteed in the First Amendment.”
Trump has claimed the restriction amounts to “election interference,” effectively arguing that being unable to publicly attack participants in the trial is unlawful because it has hampered his reelection campaign.
A slew of Trump’s allies showed up to his hush-money trial this week in a collective display of support for the criminally charged former president. Among the politicos who trekked to New York include House Speaker Mike Johnson, Representatives Matt Gaetz and Eli Crane, and Senators Tim Scott, and Senators Tim Scott, J.D. Vanceand Tommy Tuberville. Members of the House Oversight Committee, including Representatives Andy Biggs, Lauren Boebert, and Anna Paulina Luna, also made the trip Thursdayto this point in order to reschedule a contempt markup for Attorney General Merrick Garland so that they could repeatedly be in the background of Trump’s trial.
On Tuesday, biotech investor Vivek Ramaswamy, RNC co-chair Lara Trump, Eric Trump, and two Republican representatives showed up at the New York courthouse in matching suits and ties for a low-budget fundraising ad that attempted to portray Trump as a candidate unjustly confined within the courthouse.
Uncover about Republicans attending Trump’s trial:
Democratic Senator Dick Durbin, the chair of the Senate Judiciary Committee, is urging Supreme Court Justice Samuel Alito to recuse himself from cases related to the 2020 election and the January 6, 2021, Capitol riot.
Durbin’s request comes after reports that an upside-down U.S. flag flew outside of Alito’s home in Alexandria, Virginia, as rioters stormed the Capitol in an effort to overturn the 2020 election.
“Flying an upside-down American flag—a image of the so-known as ‘Close the Lift’ circulate—clearly creates the appearance of bias,” Durbin talked about to The Hill. “Justice Alito will comprise to easy recuse himself genuine away from cases associated to the 2020 election and the January sixth get up, in conjunction with the quiz of the old President’s immunity in U.S. v. Donald Trump, which the Supreme Court is for the time being pondering.”
The U.S. flag is frequently flown upside down in instances of harm, such as in the case of an SOS. In recent years, it has been adopted by the far right, as well as Trump supporters, to promote “Stop the Steal” regarding the 2020 election. While Alito blamed his wife for placing the flag, such an act in January 2021 would still appear to violate the Supreme Court’s new judicial code of ethics adopted last November, which recommends avoiding political statements and avoiding the appearance of bias. Durbin mentioned the code in his statement.
“The Court is in an ethical crisis of its own making, and Justice Alito and the rest of the Court need to be doing everything in their power to regain public trust,” Durbin said. “Supreme Court justices should be held to the highest possible ethical standards, not the lowest.”
The senator from Illinois was slow to respond to recent ethics scandals at the Supreme Court, despite having subpoena power. In November, Durbin backed off a vote to subpoena Harlan Crow and Leonard Leo, two major conservative donors linked to Justices Alito and Clarence Thomas. This time, will Durbin’s call be backed up with action?
More on Alito’s upside-down flag:
Mission 2025 associates shared new runt print Friday about their plans for an colossal immigration crackdown—in conjunction with mass deportations—under Trump. The team of workers’s level of curiosity on immigration seeks to comprise executive orders and policy memos ready for exhaust on day one of a 2d Trump presidency, undoing portions of Biden’s immigration insurance policies and setting the stage to relish Trump’s would really like to mass-deport as a lot as 20 million americans
According to details shared to The Wall Street Journal, Trump allies have found one of their most important sources of inspiration for the large-scale deportation campaign: the U.K. Rwanda agreement. The team is working to identify countries that would accept immigrants deported from the U.S., much like a similar arrangement between the U.K. and Rwanda, which is currently entangled in legal challenges.
Trump allies are also exploring ways to expedite asylum hearings to accelerate deportation eligibility and eliminate deportation protections established by Biden that would affect hundreds of thousands of people.
These new print of Mission 2025’s agenda were revealed by The Wall Street Journal simultaneously with similar revelations shared with Reuters about Mission 2025’s aspirations to undermine the Department of Justice’s fair investigative authority and convert it into a conservative attack dog. Combining its efforts to alter the Department of Justice with legally dubious mass-deportation initiatives would perhaps well create an authoritarian dynamic that removes factual impediments to achieving its deportation targets.
Mission 2025 is a coalition effort of conservative teams that seek to dismantle long-standing frameworks of democracy to turn the U.S. into an ultranationalist, hyperconservative, authoritarian society. While its focus prioritizes a Trump presidency, the coalition operates independently from the Trump campaign. Main Mission 2025 is the Heritage Foundation, a heavy hitter in conservative policymaking, and the America First Policy Initiative, a newer group that has been described as “little more than a grift.”
Trump’s marketing campaign has denied associations with efforts being crafted on behalf of the presumptive Republican presidential nominee, with Trump senior advisers Susie Wiles and Chris LaCivita telling each Reuters and The Wall Street Journal: “Except a message is coming genuine away from President Trump or a licensed member of his marketing campaign team of workers, no aspect of future presidential staffing or policy bulletins desires to be deemed legit.”
LaCivita and Wiles recount runt print made public of Mission 2025’s efforts to streamline Trump’s conservative agenda earlier than the election are “an effort to prevent a 2d Trump administration.” Neither adviser rebuffed the aspirations within the support of Mission 2025, which would be being crafted primarily primarily based fully on Trump’s public statements concerning mass deportations and the Department of Justice.
Unfortunately Extra on Trump:
Donald Trump skipped the final day of his hush-money trial to attend his son Barron’s high school graduation, and actually managed to show up for his youngest son Friday morning. But don’t worry—he has plans to leave shortly right after.
Trump, his wife, Melania, and Melania’s father, Viktor Knavs, were among the guests in the audience at Oxbridge Academy’s commencement ceremony in Palm Beach, Florida, Friday morning.
The former president posted a truly rapid message on Truth Social announcing his attendance Friday morning: “Going to Barron’s High School Commencement. Great student, wonderful boy! Very exciting!!! DJT.”
Trump had complained that the judge in his hush-money trial, Juan Merchan, was preventing him from attending the ceremony, when in fact New York state law requires criminal defendants to be present at all of their trial proceedings. Reportedly, Melania was not pleased with the former president mentioning their son’s graduation in court and drawing unwanted attention to their son. The former president’s attorneys asked Merchan for a recess, which was later granted.
Oxbridge Academy stated that its commencement ceremony this year was private and invitation-only, and asked the press not to attend.
After Barron’s commencement ceremony, Trump will be flying to St. Paul, Minnesota, to speak at the Minnesota Republican Party’s annual Lincoln Reagan Dinner in the evening, which means that any graduation day plans Barron has will likely not include his father.
“We are pleased to welcome President Trump to Minnesota to headline our Lincoln Reagan dinner, an annual tradition that reminds us of the roots of our party and the leaders who were most impactful in promoting our American values. I cannot think of anyone more fitting to be a part of us this year than President Trump,” Minnesota GOP chair David Hann said in a statement.
As far as post–high school plans, Barron was selected as an at-large delegate for the Republican National Convention but had to pull out due to prior commitments, according to a statement from his mother. He plans to attend college but is reportedly still deciding where to go.
Unfortunately Extra on Trump:
President Joe Biden’s decision to invoke executive privilege to shield White House Republicans from obtaining audio recordings of his controversial interview with special counsel Robert Hur has apparently turned into a fundraising opportunity for some of the lawmakers leading his impeachment inquiry.
House Oversight Committee Chair James Comer leveraged the fiasco in a campaign email Thursday afternoon, asking constituents whether they would consider donating money to his effort over the issue.
“This could be the final blow to Biden with swing voters across the country,” the email read. “You and I know he’s not up for the job, but the mainstream media’s refusal to report on it is the most plausible thing keeping him in the race.”
That would be a fitting line for Comer, since the chairman spent months pursuing a baseless and unsuccessful impeachment inquiry into the president, largely based on the claims of an indicted former FBI informant who has since reportedly admitted the scheme was concocted by senior Russian intelligence officials.
Yet Comer did not appear eager to campaign on other recent instances in which a president used executive privilege to conceal his actions, as Trump did regarding the Mueller report or to avoid consequences for taking several thousand sensitive or classified documents from the White House—even though some of those actions led to legal charges.
Biden’s transfer to keep the interview tapes under wraps came at the request of Justice Department official Merrick Garland, who warned that complying with the GOP demand could jeopardize future investigations and witnesses’ willingness to participate in them. In his letter to Biden, made public Thursday, Garland said that lawmakers’ efforts “are clearly insufficient to outweigh the harmful effects that producing the recordings would have on the integrity and effectiveness of similar law enforcement investigations going forward.”
White House counsel Ed Siskel also questioned the motives of Republicans seeking the tapes when they already have a lengthy record and full transcript of the interview, accusing the caucus of trying to “pick them apart” and “distort” the recordings for “partisan political purposes.”
Democratic Florida Representative Jared Moskowitz was quick to call out Comer about the fundraising email, sharing a dramatic reading of the message during an Oversight Committee hearing late Thursday.
Moskowitz’s dramatic reading of Comer’s fundraising email is definitely worth watching pic.twitter.com/nyPqw3w7l9
— Acyn (@Acyn) May per chance well presumably 17, 2024
Why Biden invoked executive privilege:
Fresh runt print comprise emerged of plans by Trump allies to dismantle democracy under a 2d Trump administration by packing the Department of Justice with Trump loyalists and disturbed the fair scope of the FBI. The plans, as detailed by Reuters, detect to craft a DOJ to advance conservative agendas, heavily curtail civil liberties, and impede investigations into corruption by Trump and his allies.
The plans laid out by Trump allies to convert the FBI genuine into a politically charged conservative assault dog attain from the authoritarian aspirations of Mission 2025a sprawling network led by conservative converse tanks that comb by unique law to search out loopholes and precedent for Trump—or any conservative president—to entire uncouth just correct-soar insurance policies and consolidate vitality at a moment’s see.
Trump allies plan to eliminate consent decrees, a form of contractual oversight agreement between the Department of Justice and local police departments, to curb civil rights abuses. They are also attempting to limit the FBI’s access to the attorney general, instead making the FBI director report to two politically appointed assistant attorneys general.
Steve Bradbury, who served as transportation secretary under Trump and who spoke with Reuters about these plans, claimed in a backward fashion that the DOJ performing independently from the president’s needs poses a “recipe for abuse of power.”
“Whenever you might well have power centers … that comprise significant property, coercive power and investigative tools at their disposal, they are typically presumed to be free of any influence down the chain of command from the president, which would perhaps well be a recipe for abuse of power,” Bradbury told Reuters.
Conservatives have long known as to dismantle the FBI following investigations into Russian collusion with Trump’s 2016 campaign and indictments by the DOJ of participants in the January 6 Capitol riot. Trump allies are attempting to diminish the scope of the FBI’s investigative authority, leaving the division to focus solely on “major crimes and threats to national security,” from which uprising and sedition by conservatives are, naturally, excluded. A January report by the National Institute of Justice found that far-right extremism has continued to outpace all other forms of domestic terrorism since 1990.
Plans to dramatically alter the DOJ to behave as an extension of conservative ambitions rather than a fair agency apply a similar pattern to Trump’s overhaul of the Supreme Court and packing conservative judges all around the federal circuit as president—adjustments that ended in the overturning of Roe after Trump left office and a continuation of assaults on LGBTQ+ freedoms and civil rights at the present time. If reelected, Trump’s allies would replicate that route at the Department of Justice.
Unfortunately Extra on Trump:
Originally reported by newrepublic.com. Adapted for our readers.
