Mainstream Media Is GASLIGHTING YOU Over Sam Alito’s ‘Appeal to Heaven’ Flag: Robby Soave

[Music] Robbie what's on your radar today well Samuel Alo has refused to recuse himself from upcoming cases relating to the January 6 Capital Riot the Supreme Court associate Justice told Congress last week that Democrats insistence that he does that he do so was unreasonable writing I am therefore Duty bound to reject your recusal request now why have so many Democratic politicians and media figures decided that Alo should sit out from January 6 cases well they believe that he has proven himself to be sympathetic to former president Donald Trump's efforts to overturn the results of the 2020 election and they cite as evidence two flags that were flown on alito's properties one was an upside down American flag and the other was a pine tree flag bearing the message an appeal to heaven now many in the media have abruptly decided that both Flags Telegraph agreement with the rights pro- Insurrection Camp CNN called the appeal to Heaven flag a symbol for supporters of former president Donald Trump the New York Times noted that both flags were carried by riers during the January 6 attack on the US capital MSNBC insisted that the pine tree flag was not just a pro- Insurrection flag but also a Christian nationalist flag and implied that Alo should recuse himself from abortion related cases as well watch this one of these two flags they're not just Insurrection January 6 Flags one of them is a sort of really well-known kind of Christian Insurgent nationalism fla flag this uh appeal to Heaven flag is no joke and so in addition to the January 6 cases that Harry notes are pending at the court we have two massive abortion cases pending at the court in which the rights of pregnant people are being subordinated to the desire of Physicians or States not to treat them in emergencies when they might die and so it's not just that this reflects on January 6 in the Insurrection and how Justice Alo has prejudged those cases I mean this letter is a prejudgment of those cases it also inflects on his willingness to fly a flag that is clearly aligned with a religious Viewpoint he says that in his letter that uh his wife flew it possibly for religious or political reasons the the idea that either the pine tree flag or flying the American flag upside down always and everywhere is an endorsement of Trump's election related malfant is ludicrous the American flag is commonly turned upside down by activists representing all sorts of issues and usually represents dissatisfaction with the current state of the country the appeal to Heaven flag has equally broad usage it originated during the Revolutionary War and quotes the philosopher John Lock in defense of rebellion against unjust Authority protesters have borrowed it for their own purposes throughout American history the black lives matter movement was using it just a few months before before January 6th now it is certainly true that some of the people who smashed the windows of the US capital and feuded with police were carrying this flag the gadon flag and other icons of Liberty including the American flag itself that does not mean these flags should be considered exclusively the Hallmarks of the far right in fact people ought to resist seeding Pro Liberty iconography to the far right indeed we should try to hold on to these beloved representations of Liberty when someone says the symbol of the Revolutionary War of the founding of America of opposition to monarchy and love for democracy that that symbol is hateful resist it say no it's not deny that the racists the demagogues and the authoritarians get to appropriate something that belongs to lovers of Liberty say that it's ours not theirs now Alo for his part says that he had nothing to do with the flags which were put up by his wife during a dispute with one of their neighbors is certainly possible that Martha an Alo is a supporter of the stop the steel movement could be so associate Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas's wife jinny Thomas certainly undoubtedly sympathetic uh as revealed by text messages from her but these flags are not compelling evidence of this nor would it necessarily mean that Alo should recuse himself from such cases would a liberal Justice be expected to recuse from a case relating to gay marriage if they flew the pride flag or a criminal justice related case if they had a black lives matter sign on their front yard of course not what's happening is that the appeal to flag is being retconned retconning you may know is a term from storytelling from film and TV especially when the writers or the authors change something about the story and pretend it was always that way uh good example is Buffy the Vampire Slayer suddenly having a little sister Five Seasons into the show with the Star Wars sequel Trilogy explaining the abrupt return of Emperor Palpatine who was killed in the original films with this classic line we've decoded the Intel from the first order spy and it confirms the worst somehow Palpatine returned you want more proof on this appeal to Heaven flag well for decades San Francisco's City Hall has flown that flag alongside other cherished patriotic banners now in response to the ELO controversy the city announced last week just last week that it was removing that flag again this is madness this is red conning that picture of a pine tree is not a right Wing symbol of hate unless you make it so cowards are turning it into one and we ought to resist that so for one Rob we talked about this at nauseum I'm just not going to agree with you um partially because Alo doesn't even make the argument that he doesn't know what that he um that these flags aren't what they're purporting to be about he does in his letter uh opposing recusal say that he wasn't familiar with the appeal to Heaven flag which I take him at his word he never argues that the upside down flag doesn't mean what we all have accepted the up upside down flag to mean in the context of January 6 moreover your analogy about are you not allowed to fly a pry flag absolutely I think if the court had a case pending up before it that went directly to the issue of whether or not gay right should be extended in some new way and let's say elanar Kagan who is gay herself threw a flag up into the air then I think that would be a pretty clear indication of how she was planning to rule in a case and should rightly be taken as a symbol of how she's going to Rule now other at other times in her life or other times in her personal life she's had a gay flag pin on when going to a gay conference or something like that just like that we the way we know that AO of course is conservative and Associates with conservative opinions and other kinds of scenarios and that's a very different kind of thing we not asking people to not deny who they are obviously this is a political process for them to get chosen for the court in the first instance but we're talking about very specific behavior here which is to raise a flag in the immediate context of a an attempt to take over the capital a failed and silly and half-witted attempt but attempt to but people believe that they could do an Insurrection in the capital and stop the counting of the votes and all of that kind of uh mishas and so yes this and it's not just limited this instance um Alo has declined to recuse himself uh over uh a case that involved someone who gave him a private jet you are very right I think to bring up the instances of um Clarence Thomas having enormous conflicts of interest with people who have matters before the court billionaires who have matters before the court who have in the last week articulated a desire for how he wants Claris Thomas and the conservatives to rule on the matters that are related to his own Financial well-being and so I think the broader question for the American public is whatever you think about these flags is really trivial in the grand scheme of the fact that we have billionaires openly courting Supreme Court Justices advocating for the appointment of certain kind of Supreme Court Justices so that can rule on cases in a way that benefit the billionaire class and are a detriment to you the voter and so whatever you think about this flag instance at the end of the day there's clearly an influence campaign going on between billionaires who have access to these folks and you who do not and you're losing out well where I do agree with you is that Financial being financially tied or in some way involved in a case being before The Supreme Court that I think can be in some circumstances certainly grounds for recusing oneself I've with respect to Elena Kagan i' I've actually wondered whether she should have recused herself over the Harvard affirmative action case because she had she was at one time paid by Harvard as a professor I would not right dean of the Harvard Law School I would not um but I I I do disagree with you I would not under the circumstance you uh outlined if she had a pride flag right before or right after or some iate rob it be inappropriate I do not take that view I think that's this is about like of conducts and ethics then earlier in your radar you mentioned why are democratic why are Democrats so up in arms about this well no it is legal ethicists who have been weighing in with pretty consistently saying that at very least even if you can't force anybody to accuse themselves it's about judgment and it's about judgment that you exercise to maintain The credibility of the court if Alo thinks it is healthy for the credibility of the court that already is so diminished in the eyes of the American public just like our government is so diminished in the eyes of American public to not be able to constrain his wife's behavior when he's in such an important valuable and public facing position to not just to refrain from flying political Flags in the months around surrounding an Insurrection or in the months leading up to important relevant cases to the kind of the symbology of the flag like what are we even doing here it's really the bare minimum here to ask people to have a a modum of decorum so that people trust that their judgments are based on the law in front of them and not their ideological priors again we I'm just I mean we just don't agree and that's fine I rejecting the idea that that flag is is is any different than putting up um uh the the the Bill of Rights or some other iconic aspect of our like the American flag itself we generally accept is not making a an impermissible or or improper political statement for a for a judge to fly that or to reference other legal documents and it is in that same spirit because I reject that this symbol can just be co-opted in fact it's being co-opted because the people objecting to it are making it so are associating it with the farri in their commentary about it it's not about being associated with the far right everything is context dependent if a black lives matter protester uses an upside down flag in the context of a protest where they're resisting authoritarianism from the state police officers killing black men in the street then yes it's a rebellious symbol if I if I throw if I fly a um the sorry the the other rebel Tree of Life flag or whatever it's called the Gadson flag the no no they got the second Alo flag with the tree on it the the appeal to appeal to Heaven flag and it of course it depends on what it is that I am it's a it's a flag that symbolizes Rebellion so of course it depends on what I personally am rebelling that of course is true there are ways in which an American flag can feel very subversive you know there's been a big debate over the past couple of months over uh Beyonce's appropriation of the American flag and a new country Al and whether or not that is her being kind of patriotic in a classic way that you know is in in contradiction with some of her political statements about black lives matter for instance or whether or not it is in fact her subverting the American Flag by reclaiming it for black people in a way that we haven't been allowed to be seen as Americans in the past and is in fact a progressive statement in and of itself and that's an ongoing debate but to Simply say a flag as a flag devoid of context ignores all of our lived experiences of how symbols get changed and and Modified by their context so you can you can make the case that you personally don't think that flying a flag is that big a deal I think that's a much stronger case saying was the wife it's not his fault that's a much stronger case than trying to impose your personal belief so about what that flag means on a broader cultural context where the flag yes there is an emerging pattern of it being used in these various ways to symbolize something in particular which is why I mean if and if you think it's not being used in that way then I think you have to answer the question well why do you think Al's wife was flying that flag what symbolism could it possibly mean for her to be flying that flag at that time you think it was just neutral and for you know for for for funsies she wanted to just throw those flags and know these things hold meaning to people yeah all right well tell us what you think in the comments we'll be interested to hear more Rising right after this [Music]

Channel: The Hill

Views: 14,379

Keywords: Rising, Progressive, Progressive Politics, Democrats, Democratic Party, Republicans, GOP, Republican Party, Robby Soave, Liberals, Alito, Flag Fiasco, Samuel Alito, SCOTUS, Justice Alito, Biden, Trump, Election 2024

Id: GveklW-a0Ew

Length: 12min 59sec (779 seconds)

Published: Mon Jun 03 2024