Tangle - The Samuel Alito controversy.

Starting point is 00:00:00 Based on Charles Yu's award-winning book, Interior Chinatown follows the story of Willis Wu, a background character trapped in a police procedural who dreams about a world beyond Chinatown. When he inadvertently becomes a witness to a crime, Willis begins to unravel a criminal web, his family's buried history, and what it feels like to be in the spotlight. Interior Chinatown is streaming November 19th, only on Disney+. The flu remains a serious disease. Last season, over 102,000 influenza cases have been reported across Canada, which is Chinatown is streaming November 19th, only on Disney+. yourself from the flu. It's the first cell-based flu vaccine authorized in Canada for ages six months and older, and it may be available for free in your province. Side effects and allergic reactions can occur, and 100% protection is not guaranteed. Learn more at flucellvax.ca.

Starting point is 00:01:00 From executive producer Isaac Saul, this is Tangle. Good morning, good afternoon, and good evening, and welcome to the Tangle podcast, a place we get views from across the political spectrum, some independent thinking, and a little bit of my take. I'm your host, Isaac Saul, and on today's episode, we're going to be talking about the controversy around Supreme Court Justice Samuel Alito, the upside-down flag story, what it means, some views from the left and the right, as always. Before we jump in, though, a couple notes. First of all, we just dropped the YouTube video from the day I spent at the Penn encampments observing the pro-Palestine, anti-Israel protests,

Starting point is 00:01:55 however you want to describe them. We heard about the encampments happening. Will, my editor from New York, came down to Philly. We got the cameras rolling. We went over. We talked to some students, to some counter protesters, basically just observed what was going on for the day, and I think put together a pretty interesting video about our experience that is now up live on our YouTube channel, Tangle News on YouTube, if you want to go look us up. Also, I want to give a quick heads up to podcast listeners that on Friday, I published a piece of writing that is entirely different from the usual Tangle day-to-day stuff. It was an essay I wrote about the summertime.

Starting point is 00:02:33 It went up as a Friday edition. I encourage you to go check it out and read it. People seem to really enjoy the break from the news. It is on our website, readtangle.com, and it's titled Something a Little Different. All right, John is on the West Coast today for a wedding, traveling back home, so I'm picking up the whole pod, old-school style, just Isaac today, and we'll kick things off with some quick hits. First up, Iran's President Ibrahim Raisi and their foreign minister died in a helicopter crash on Sunday. Number two, Texas Governor Greg Abbott pardoned Daniel Perry, a military veteran who was convicted of murdering a Black Lives Matter protester in 2020. Number three, Israel's popular

Starting point is 00:03:24 centrist politician Benny Gantz, a member of the country's war cabinet, threatened to resign if the government does not release a plan for post-war Gaza by June 8th. Separately, the International Criminal Court is seeking arrest warrants for leaders from Hamas and Israel's war cabinet, including Israel's Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. Number four, David DePapp, the man convicted of attempting to kidnap Nancy Pelosi and assaulting her husband Paul with a hammer, was sentenced to 30 years in prison. And number five, former Trump lawyer and New York Mayor Rudy Giuliani was charged with conspiracy, fraud, and forgery in a case surrounding electors who defied state voters in Arizona.

Starting point is 00:04:20 This morning, Supreme Court Justice Samuel Alito is under fire. The New York Times obtaining this photo of an American flag flying upside down reportedly at Alito's home in the days just after the January 6th riot. The New York Times reported that in January of 2021, an upside down American flag, an emblem now widely associated with the lie of a stolen 2020 election, was flying at the home of Supreme Court Justice Samuel Alito. The central question here is whether Justice Alito or someone from his family was trying to show solidarity with those who wanted to subvert the 2020 election results or even with those who stormed the Capitol on January 6th. On Thursday, the New York Times reported that shortly after former President Donald Trump

Starting point is 00:05:02 lost the 2020 election, an American flag was hanging upside down outside the home of Supreme Court Justice Samuel Alito for several days. Historically, an upside-down flag has symbolized many things, from a military SOS to left-wing opposition to the Vietnam War. In the wake of the 2020 election, pro-Trump groups and forums called on Americans who believed that the election had been stolen from Donald Trump to invert their flag as a sign of support. The Alito's flag was hanging upside down on January 17th, 2021, shortly after the riots at the Capitol and just days before President Joe Biden's inauguration. The revelation has raised questions of whether the act violated the Supreme Court's Code of Conduct, which restricts justices from political activity or internal court rules against displaying signs or symbols. After renewed public pressure, the Supreme Court adopted a new Code of Conduct in November of 2023, calling on justices to avoid any appearance of or participation in political activity. I had no involvement whatsoever

Starting point is 00:06:02 in the flying of the flag, Justice Alito said in an emailed statement to the New York Times. It was briefly placed by Mrs. Alito in response to a neighbor's use of objectionable and personally insulting language on yard signs. Subsequent reporting from the Times suggested the flag was turned upside down after a dispute between Martha Ann Alito, the justice's wife, and their neighbors, who had placed an anti-Trump sign featuring an expletive in their lawn. In the days that the flag was hanging upside down, the Supreme Court was hearing arguments on whether to consider a challenge to the 2020 election. Alito ended up in the minority of justices who wanted to take the case on.

Starting point is 00:06:39 The story is the second ethics controversy related to one of the Supreme Court's conservative justices in January 6th. Justice Clarence Thomas has faced calls to recuse himself from cases related to January 6th because his wife, Virginia Thomas, was directly involved in legal efforts to overturn the election results. Today, we're going to break down some arguments from the left and the right about the story, and then my take. We'll be right back after this quick commercial break. First up, we'll start with what the left is saying. The left views the story as further confirmation of the court's ethics crisis. Some say Alito's explanation for the indictment is unconvincing. Others question Alito's judgment,

Starting point is 00:07:31 even if the story was nothing more than a neighborhood dispute. In the New York Times, Jesse Wegman said Alito's inverted flag epitomizes the ethics crisis at the court. For a guy who earns his paycheck evaluating the quality of arguments, Justice Alito is remarkably bad at coming up with ones in his own defense. Even if he had no role in raising the flag, what stops him from taking it down immediately and apologizing profusely for his wife's intemperance, Wegman asked? Doesn't his failure to do so suggest tacit agreement, if not outright support, not only for a violent insurrection based on a demonstrable lie, but also for one of the litigants who was at time before his court arguing over the

Starting point is 00:08:11 election. This disregard for the appearance of bias is in line with how Alito and Justice Clarence Thomas, in particular, have long approached their job and the enormous power they wield, Wegman said. Yes, other justices have revealed their political biases over the years. In 2016, the Times editorial board called out Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg for referring to Trump as a faker, comments for which she quickly expressed regret. I'm not holding my breath for any comparable avowal of humility from Alito. In Slate, Dahlia Lithwick and Mark Joseph Stern called Alito the smallest justice who ever lived. We can certainly quibble, and Alito's defenders surely will, about whether an upside-down flag

Starting point is 00:08:51 really represents stop the steal, as reporter Jody Cantor's experts confirm, or some other message of peace and goodwill. We can and will debate over Alito's claim that his wife hoisted the flag because one of the neighbors hurt their feelings, so hashtag feminism. But the saddest and most arresting part of this endless downward spiral for the seven jurists who should know better and the two who do not is not that they don't care about what they are doing to the court. It's how pitifully, shabbily small these ride-or-die political battles really are. None of the Alito' explanations so far even attempt to explain why Martha Ann landed on this gesture out of all the possibilities to further upset and provoke her progressive neighbors. Readers are also left to guess at the true origin of the conflict. Are we really supposed

Starting point is 00:09:36 to think that the neighbors picked this fight unprovoked and the Alitos are completely blameless, Lithwick and Stern wrote? When Alito throws his wife under the bus, he's issuing another justification. He gets to break the rules because she was in a fight with the neighbors. He gets to break the rules because the seat on the plane was otherwise occupied. He gets to break the rules because the rules are always trying to trip him up and catch him out. In Bloomberg, Stephen L. Carter wrote, even if Alito is right, the upside-down flag was wrong. Even if we don't actually believe in the entire impartiality of the judiciary, we're still better off with the expectation that judges will behave as though they're not taking

Starting point is 00:10:15 sides. Thus, the newsworthiness of the initial interpretation by neighbors that the Alitos, by inverting their flag, were sending a pro-MAGA message, Carter said. Let's suppose that Alitos' tale is correct, and what was really happening was the suburban front lawn equivalent of an online flame war. Nevertheless, the inversion of the flag remains a problem. The burden that rests on the spouse of a public official is heavy, and the one that rests upon the spouse of a Supreme Court justice might be weightiest of all. Even if the significance of the inverted flag has been misconstrued, those restrictions remain the same, Carter wrote. Nobody's forced to serve on the Supreme Court, and members of the justices' families should know

Starting point is 00:10:55 what they're getting into. The rules are harsh, but we need them if there's any hope that the system will work. So whether the neighbors or the Alitos have the story right, inverting the flag was a terrible mistake. It shouldn't have happened. Alright, that is it for what the left is saying, which brings us to what the right is saying. The right defends Alito, calling the story a ginned-up controversy. Some criticize the left is saying, which brings us to what the right is saying. The right defends Alito, calling the story a ginned-up controversy. Some criticize the left for their politically-driven attacks on conservative justices, while others say the story has been blown out of proportion. The Wall Street Journal editorial board wrote that the left finds another reason to find fault with Justice Samuel Alito. 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

Starting point is 00:11:51 Justice Alito's enemies another excuse to beat him up. But the justice's explanation sounds plausible, the board said. The Times 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. 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, the board added. We don't like to highlight this about

Starting point is 00:12:29 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. Based on Charles Yu's award-winning book, Interior Chinatown follows the story of Willis Wu, a background character trapped in a police procedural who dreams about a world beyond Chinatown. When he inadvertently becomes a witness to a crime,

Starting point is 00:12:58 Willis begins to unravel a criminal web, his family's buried history, and what it feels like to be in the spotlight. Interior Chinatown is streaming November 19th, only on Disney+. The flu remains a serious disease. Last season, over 102,000 influenza cases have been reported across Canada, which is nearly double the historic average of 52,000 cases. What can you do this flu season?

Starting point is 00:13:19 Talk to your pharmacist or doctor about getting a flu shot. Consider FluCellVax Quad and help protect yourself from the flu. It's the first cell-based flu vaccine authorized in Canada for ages six months and older, and it may be available for free in your province. Side effects and allergic reactions can occur, and 100% protection is not guaranteed. Learn more at FluCellVax.ca. In red state, Jim Thompson criticized the left's attempt to smear Alito. The New York Times was the first to break this story.

Starting point is 00:13:51 Unsurprisingly, the amateur photo of the upside-down flag was almost certainly taken with a cell phone camera. It happened almost four years ago. At Samuel Alito's home, an American flag was raised on a flagpole upside down. I couldn't find any mention of this from January 2021. Not a word. It was clearly kept in the quiver for later use, like now, and the New York Times dutifully obliged. Alito's family has been harassed for quite literally years. His neighbors have shown allegiance to the nutty left and have been part of the mob harassing Alito and his family. Neighbors have created yard signs with invective lace messages pointed at Alito's house. It is reasonable to assume that Alito's wife had

Starting point is 00:14:30 had enough, Thompson wrote. It didn't matter that it was 11 days after the Capitol riot, clearly attenuated from that event. It didn't matter that Alito said he didn't have anything to do with the flag being raised. The Times found an ethics hack to speculate. In Reason, Josh Blackman described the incident as a neighborly spat elevated into a conspiracy theory. During Justice Kavanaugh's confirmation hearing, one of his former clerks was seated behind him, and on camera she made an OK symbol with her hands. Then came the outrage. Critics of Justice Kavanaugh charged that the OK jester was actually a symbol for white power. This suggestion was preposterous, Blackmun said. That background brings me to the latest

Starting point is 00:15:11 conspiracy theory involving a Supreme Court justice. The story goes on to explain how flying the American flag upside down was some sort of message for Stop the Steal. What is the proof? Random social media posts. Is there any evidence whatsoever that Justice Alito or Martha Ann Alito intended to fly the flag upside down as some sort of secret signal to overturn the election? Of course not. My guess? Mrs. Alito used an upside-down flag as a symbol of distress to clap back at her neighbors. Justice Alito indicated that the attacks were personal,

Starting point is 00:15:42 and his wife felt helpless to respond. In any other context, this sort of feud would, at worst, start a flame war on Facebook. But when you're married to a Supreme Court justice, the flat makes the New York Times three years later. All right, that is it for what the left and the right are saying, which brings us to my take. All right, first of all, I think both of these competing thoughts can be true. First, this was very likely a run-of-the-mill dispute between Martha Ann Alito, who may have not grasped the deeper meaning of the flag symbol and an anti-Trump neighbor. Second, even if Justice

Starting point is 00:16:26 Alito had nothing to do with this act, it's still quite problematic. Dunking on the New York Times for their reporting in this case is easy, but it's a little too easy. Yes, this happened three years ago. Yes, this story relies on an anonymous tip and a single grainy photograph. Yes, the Times clearly sourced their quotes from a series of like-minded judicial ethics experts, none of whom seemed to raise questions about the significance of the story or Justice Alito's involvement. But it's actually the job of reporters to share these stories with us, and those criticisms only apply to the reporting itself, not what the story was reporting. The harder thing to do is to concede

Starting point is 00:17:05 that a flag flying upside down outside a Supreme Court justice's house actually is a big deal, however petty the story may sound. Under the best interpretation of the symbol, an upside-down flag signals danger to other Americans and is still a sign of distress. Under the worst interpretation, Alito is pledging allegiance to the theory that the 2020 election was stolen. Even taking into account Alito's excuse, I struggle to imagine a world where he saw the flag upside down for several days and didn't notice, which raises all sorts of questions on its own. I also sincerely doubt that one or both of the Alitos did not know the upside down flag symbolism at that time. They're both ensconced in

Starting point is 00:17:45 the conservative movement, and the upside-down flag was very closely associated with the Stop the Steal movement for Donald Trump in 2020. I find it implausible that they were trying to send a different message and were caught in an innocent misunderstanding. And, of course, the Alitos have never even suggested that. It's an excuse only their defenders made up. Does this rise to the level of an offense that should force Alito to recuse himself from certain January 6 or Trump-related cases? To me, no. I think recusals should be far more common than they are now, but paradoxically, I also think the bar for recusals should be high. Justice Clarence Thomas, whose wife Virginia Ginny Thomas was

Starting point is 00:18:25 intimately involved in extensive efforts to overturn the 2020 elections, actually met that bar, in my view, and should have recused himself from cases relating to the 2020 election. Similarly, I was glad to see Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson recuse herself from several cases early on in her tenure. As much as I think Martha Ann Alito knew what she was doing, I don't think her having a dispute with a neighbor that ended in an upside-down flag meets that bar. Still, this whole episode invites a good deal of scrutiny onto Justice Alito and the court in general. Remember, the Supreme Court's authority more than anything else rests on trust in the institution, and every, the political overtures from the

Starting point is 00:19:05 Supreme Court justices seem to worsen. Ruth Bader Ginsburg caught flack for it in 2016 when she called Trump a faker, comments she expressed regret for. Justice Sonia Sotomayor has faced her own ethics issues. Thomas and Alito have never been shy about their politics, though I wish they were, while Justice Brett Kavanaugh's ugly confirmation hearing seems to have turned him against the left. Americans see these controversies and leanings, and they judge the court to be increasingly divided along predictable political lines, eroding trust in the court more than ever. A wholly avoidable event like this only worsens the climate. For that, Alito deserves criticism and owes the country an apology. But I doubt anything he says now is going to calm the fears of Americans who believe

Starting point is 00:19:50 his jurisprudence is politically captured. We'll be right back after this quick break. break. All right, that is it for my take, which brings us to your questions answered. This one is from Jack in Philadelphia, PA. Jack said, I do not like Trump or Biden, but I will be voting for Biden on the grounds that he is the lesser of two evils. Would you ever write a piece on this concept? I'll elaborate. Would you ever write a piece on how Americans who don't like either candidate are deciding who to vote for? This is different than Americans who are undecided or don't care about voting either. This would be about Americans who dislike both sides that feel a duty to vote.

Starting point is 00:20:37 Okay, so I know you're asking if I'd ever write a piece about people who don't like either party and are choosing the lesser of two evils, not to just undecided voters. But to be honest, I think that's actually what an undecided voter is in this upcoming presidential election. In our podcast series, The Undecideds, we're following five voters who haven't made up their mind in the upcoming election. Those undecideds are an immigrant left-leaning voter in California, a retired centrist in Florida, a retired pastor in Pennsylvania, a recent college graduate in Florida, a retired pastor in Pennsylvania, a recent college graduate in Ohio, and a conservative Christian in North Carolina. They're all very different people that come from different walks of life and have different

Starting point is 00:21:14 political ideologies, but their perspectives all share one thing, a deep antipathy for the choices produced by the two major political parties this year. So, I could write that piece you're asking about, but I think you'd be better off just listening to that podcast. On top of whatever our undecided voters say in that podcast, I'll just add this quick thought. I think it is a totally reasonable choice for Americans not to vote for one of the two major candidates. And if you think another candidate better fits what you want out of a president, you shouldn't be afraid to give that person your vote. We recently released episode 3 of the Undecided's podcast series, and you can listen to it by going back a few episodes on our podcast channel here, and you should. Most of the reviews we've gotten so far have been pretty positive, and I think anyone who enjoys the Daily Tangle podcast will really enjoy that show as well.

Starting point is 00:22:10 All right, that is it for your questions answered, which brings us to our under the radar section. The United States and Saudi Arabia continue to quietly discuss a security deal that would include the normalization of Saudi relations with Israel, weapons deals between Saudi Arabia and the U.S., the ability for Saudi Arabia to enrich uranium in pursuit of a potential nuclear weapon, and the establishment of a Palestinian state. According to members of the kingdom, a semi-final proposal was put on the table by both sides, and National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan just met with Saudi Arabia's Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman. Saudi Arabia has historically called for an independent Palestinian state, with Israel's 1967 borders and East Jerusalem as its capital, a plan that seems unlikely with

Starting point is 00:22:54 Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in power. Times of Israel has the story and there's a link to it in today's episode description. Alright, next up is our numbers section. The number of years Alito has served on the Supreme Court is now 18. Alito's net favorability rating, according to a February 2024 survey from Marquette Law School, is zero. The percentage of Americans who said they favored Alito's confirmation to the court in 2006 was 54%, according to Gallup. The percentage of Americans who said they favored Alito's confirmation to the court in 2006 was 54%, according to Gallup. The percentage of Americans who believe Alito's views on important issues were in the mainstream in 2006 was 52%. The percentage of Americans who believe Alito would not vote to overturn Roe v. Wade in 2006 was 44%. Between 2006 and 2023, the percentage increase in Americans who say the Supreme Court

Starting point is 00:23:46 is too conservative is plus eight. The percentage decrease in Americans who say the Supreme Court's ideological leanings are about right is negative one from 2006 to 2023. All right, that is it for our Under the Radar story, which brings us, last but not least, to our Have a Nice Day section. Short-term rentals, or STR, have given plenty of convenience to travelers finding places to stay in different cities, but often at the expense of livability in the neighborhoods that host them. Many U.S. cities are finding ways to control the trend. In September of 2023, New York City implemented new requirements that capped the total number of short-term rentals and required STR operators to be primary homeowners. The changes

Starting point is 00:24:31 aren't only working in New York, but have been found to work all across the country. Research points to dramatic positive impacts policies like these can have, including lower rents and the promise of a sustainable tourism economy. Reasons to be cheerful has the story and there's a link to it in today's episode description. All right, that is it for today's podcast. As always, if you want to support our work, you can go to readtangled.com and become a member. We'll be back here same time tomorrow with John back on the mic for a big chunk of the podcast. I'll see you guys then. Have a good one. Peace. Our podcast is written by me, Isaac Saul, and edited and engineered by John Wall. The script is edited by our managing editor, Ari Weitzman, Will Kedak,

Starting point is 00:25:21 Bailey Saul, and Sean Brady. The logo for our podcast was designed by Magdalena Bokova, who is also our social media manager. Music for the podcast was produced by Diet75. If you're looking for more from Tangle, please go to readtangle.com and check out our website. The flu remains a serious disease. Last season, over 102,000 influenza cases have been reported across Canada, which is nearly double the historic average of 52,000 cases. What can you do this flu season? Talk to your pharmacist or doctor about getting a flu shot. Consider FluCellVax Quad and help protect yourself from the flu. It's the first

Starting point is 00:26:10 cell-based flu vaccine authorized in Canada for ages six months and older, and it may be available for free in your province. Side effects and allergic reactions can occur, and 100% protection is not guaranteed. Learn more at FluCellVax.ca. Based on Charles Yu's award-winning book, Interior Chinatown follows the story of Willis Wu, a background character trapped in a police procedural who dreams about a world beyond Chinatown. When he inadvertently becomes a witness to a crime, Willis begins to unravel a criminal web,

Starting point is 00:26:39 his family's buried history, and what it feels like to be in the spotlight. Interior Chinatown is streaming November 19th, only on Disney+.

Tangle - The Samuel Alito controversy.

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