The Big Picture – 
By Glynn Wilson – 

WASHINGTON, D.C. — Never in all my years of covering public affairs and the courts did I ever imagine a day when the Supreme Court in this country would be taken over by fascists and support an American dictator in overturning an election and attempting to halt the peaceful transfer of power.

Trump I saw coming. Not this, even though we knew he would pick Federalist Society judges hell bent on overturning Roe v. Wade and taking the court in a right wing nationalist direction.

On top of that, making it worse, no matter how many stories come out about the corruption on the Supreme Court, primarily Clarence Thomas, they seem to fall flat and have no impact at all, even though they inspire hours of commentary on cable TV news talk and hundreds of memes shared all over the world on millions of social media pages and posts.

What is going on?

Among other problems and threats to American democracy, has the power of the press gone the way of the Dodo bird? If so, democracy will not be far behind, dependent as it is on solid, accurate information for the public to be able to glean the truth and make wise decisions. Blame the rise of the conservative media for this, but the people share a responsibility for not being able to tell the difference.

Let’s see if this story will have any impact. I doubt it will.

The New York Times broke a story this week showing that a symbol of Trump’s “Stop the Steal” movement that culminated in the attempted insurrection and coup on Jan. 6, 2021 was flying outside the home of Supreme Court Justice Sam Alito in Alexandria, Virginia — after the election and after the Jan. 6 insurrection. (See above).

Neighbors got pictures of an upside down flag, historically a sign of distress for ships at sea, outside his home. Trump supporters fighting to overturn the election and insert Trump as America’s first dictator adopted the upside down flag as one of their key symbols, claiming the country was in “distress” because Trump lost the election.

While the flag was flying, the nation’s highest court was still contending with whether to hear a 2020 election case. Justice Alito ended up on the losing end of that decision. But in coming weeks — what’s taking so long — the court will rule on two climactic cases involving the storming of the Capitol on Jan. 6, including whether Trump has immunity from prosecution for his actions to incite the insurrection. The decision of the justices will shape how accountable he can be held for trying to overturn the last presidential election and his chances for re-election in November.

When pressed for an answer about this, Alito blamed it on a neighborhood spat between his wife and a neighbor.

“I had no involvement whatsoever in the flying of the flag,” Justice Alito said in an emailed statement to the Times. “It was briefly placed by Mrs. Alito in response to a neighbor’s use of objectionable and personally insulting language on yard signs.”

Objectionable why, because a neighbor supported a different candidate than Trump and opposed his efforts to derail American democracy by halting the peaceful transfer of power?

Confidence in this Supreme Court is at an all time low, according to Gallup and other pollsters, which is such an issue at the court that they recently developed ethics guidelines for the first time.

If the court wanted to avoid more controversy, bolster its public image and reputation and do the right thing legally for the country and democracy, all they had to do was refuse to take up the immunity case and affirm the profound decision of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia. It was the perfect language. It is hard to see how this Supreme Court could do any better. Chances are they will do much worse.

In the final, decisive paragraph, a three-judge panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia wrote this upholding the lower court decision that Trump does not hold immunity from prosecution for his crimes. In other words, he and any president is not above the law.

“We have balanced former President Trump’s asserted interests in executive immunity against the vital public interests that favor allowing this prosecution to proceed. We conclude that concerns of public policy, especially as illuminated by our history and the structure of our government compel the rejection of his claim of immunity in this case,” the judges ruled. “We also have considered his contention that he is entitled to categorical immunity from criminal liability for any assertedly ‘official’ action that he took as President — a contention that is unsupported by precedent, history or the text and structure of the Constitution. Finally, we are unpersuaded by his argument that this prosecution is barred by double jeopardy principles. Accordingly, the order of the district court is AFFIRMED. So ordered.”

Supreme Court Agrees to Hear Trump’s Immunity Appeal

But NOOOO!

Alito and Thomas wanted to hear the case, so they could monkey with the law some more, and they convinced other justices to go along.

Judicial experts said in interviews with the Times that the flag was a clear violation of the new ethics rules, which seek to avoid even the appearance of bias, and could sow doubt about Justice Alito’s impartiality in cases related to the election and the Capitol riot. The mere impression of political opinion can be a problem, ethics experts said.

“It might be his spouse or someone else living in his home, but he shouldn’t have it in his yard as his message to the world,” said Amanda Frost, a law professor at the University of Virginia. “This is the equivalent of putting a ‘Stop the Steal’ sign in your yard, which is a problem if you’re deciding election-related cases.”

Interviews indicate that the justice’s wife, Martha-Ann Alito, had been in a dispute with another family on the block over an anti-Trump sign on their lawn. But given the timing and the starkness of the symbol, neighbors interpreted the inverted flag as a political statement by the couple.

The longstanding ethics code for the lower courts, as well as the recent one adopted by the Supreme Court, stresses the need for judges to remain independent and avoid political statements or opinions on matters that could come before them.

“You always want to be proactive about the appearance of impartiality,” Jeremy Fogel, a former federal judge and the director of the Berkeley Judicial Institute, said in an interview. “The best practice would be to make sure that nothing like that is in front of your house.”

The court has also repeatedly warned its own employees against public displays of partisan views, according to guidelines circulated to the staff and reviewed by the Times. Displaying signs or bumper stickers is not permitted, according to the court’s internal rule book and a 2022 memo reiterating the ban on political activity.

Asked if these rules also apply to justices, the court declined to respond.

Clearly some members of this court don’t care. They flout their lifetime appointments as if they had a divine right to sit on the court forever and reverse decades of precedent — even though they all testified under oath before the Senate Judiciary Committee during confirmation hearings that they would abide by stare decisis and adhere to precedent in making their decisions.

They lied under oath. Is that not a crime?

The exact duration that the flag flew outside the Alito residence is unclear. In an email from Jan. 18, 2021, reviewed by the Times, a neighbor wrote to a relative that the flag had been upside down for several days.

Over the years, upside-down flags have been displayed by both the right and the left as an outcry over a range of issues, including the Vietnam War, gun violence, the Supreme Court’s overturning of the constitutional right to abortion and, in particular, election results. In 2012, Tea Party followers inverted flags at their homes to signal disgust at the re-election of President Barack Obama. Four years later, some liberals advised doing the same after Trump was elected.

During Trump’s quest to win, and then subvert, the 2020 election, the gesture took off as never before, according to the Times, becoming “really established as a symbol of the ‘Stop the Steal’ campaign,” according to Alex Newhouse, a researcher at the University of Colorado Boulder.

A flood of social media posts exhorted Trump supporters to flip over their flags or purchase new ones to display upside down.

“If Jan. 6 rolls around and Biden is confirmed by the Electoral College our nation is in distress!!” a poster wrote on Patriots.win, a forum for Trump supporters, garnering over a thousand “up” votes. “If you cannot go to the DC rally then you must do your duty and show your support for our president by flying the flag upside down!!!!”

Hanging an inverted flag outside a home was “an explicit signifier that you are part of this community that believes America has been taken and needs to be taken back,” Newhouse said.

This spring, the justices are already laboring under suspicion by many Americans that whatever decisions they make about the Jan. 6 cases will be partisan, according to the Times. Justice Clarence Thomas has declined to recuse himself despite the direct involvement of his wife, Virginia Thomas, in efforts to overturn the election.

Now, with decisions in the Jan. 6 cases expected in just a few weeks, a similar debate may unfurl about Justice Alito, ethics experts said.

“It really is a question of appearances and the potential impact on public confidence in the court,” Fogel said. “I think it would be better for the court if he weren’t involved in cases arising from the 2020 election. But I’m pretty certain that he will see that differently.”

If Justice Alito were on another court, Fogel said, the flag could also trigger some sort of review to determine if there was any misconduct. But because the Supreme Court serves as the arbiter of its own behavior, “you don’t really have anywhere to take it,” he said.

In other words, this Supreme Court believes it is above the law, so that makes it defacto above the law.

The Department of Justice has long contended that “no one is above the law” in this country, including the president of the United States. The Department of Justice does not condone investigating and seeking a grand jury indictment against a sitting president as too disruptive of the running of the federal government. Well, Trump is not president anymore.

Is this why the court took up the case, like it did with Roe, to overturn that long-established precedent too?

Why are they taking so long? The election is only six months away.

All of the reporting and sharing of news about Thomas seems to have no impact on him or his arch conservative, anti-democratic leanings. It is doubtful this story will change Alito’s mind, or the decision of this court. It will be up to Chief Justice John Roberts to stand up to this and form a coalition on the court to stop the next steal, slated for November.

Survey research shows that up to 20 percent of Trump supporters would drop their support if Trump is convicted of a felony, which seems likely in the Stormy Daniels hush money trial about to wrap up in New York.

That is, unless this high court decides to get involved in the appeal on that too.

If this corrupt court grants Trump immunity, and overturns his criminal conviction before the election, it will demonstrate one thing very clearly. The power of the press is dead in America. So much for checks and balances.

This is no “brave new world.” It is a cowardly new world, where money and power, racism and sexism, rule the day, where religion not science is at the center of all things — even in the formerly hallowed halls of the U.S. Supreme Court.

How many institutions must we lose before it all falls apart like a house of cards?

Are the American people really ready to be done with this experiment and go the way of Russia, China, Iran or North Korea, not to mention India, Argentina, Hungary and even Israel?

According to New York Times columnist David Brooks — no bleeding heart liberal or wild eyed blogger — “The central struggle in the world right now is between liberalism and authoritarianism.”

That is the central question for the presidential election of 2024. Where do you stand, and what are you willing to do to fight for democracy? Maybe by helping the press survive?

___

If you support truth in reporting with no paywall, and fearless writing with no popup ads or sponsored content, consider making a contribution today with GoFundMe or Patreon or PayPal.