Leftists recognize that their hold on absolute power is stymied by the Supreme Court. If at some point, the Supreme Court mirrors Biden/Schumer/Jeffries's view of the law and reverts to “penumbras,” made-up rights, and amorphous intentions flowing from the Constitution, we are lost. 

Media Matters, Newsweek, Vox, and a host of fellow muckrakers will be spending the next several months looking for something, anything to cast a cloud over the conservative side of the bench. Yesterday, I came across Stephen King’s X (Twitter) feed. He blathered:  

A Supreme Court justice—Samuel Alito—flying an upside-down flag outside his house, indicating Stop the Steal.
I have no words.

— Stephen King (@StephenKing) May 17, 2024

It was a new "gotcha" story. The left took to it like sharks to chum. The New York Times was the first to “break” this story. Unsurprisingly, the amateur photo of the upside-down flag was almost certainly taken with a cellphone 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.

The Grey Lady reported that the flag was put up 11 days after the January 6 Capitol riot. The Times ignored the attenuation. 11 days. 

The left’s attack dogs were unleashed. Samuel Alito responded in an email to the Times. He wrote: 

“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.”

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-laced messages pointed at Alito’s house. It is reasonable to assume that Alito’s wife had had enough. Not that it helped. It didn’t of course. The neighbor who took the photo apparently emailed a relative that it had been up for “several days.” Owing to the fact that only one grainy photo exists, I think pigs will fly before there is evidence of more than a brief time the flag was up. 

The Times wasn’t done conflating. 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. 

Judicial experts said in interviews that the flag was a clear violation of 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, the 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,” she said.

Interviews show 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.

Newsweek, a “news” magazine that was purchased for one dollar a few years back ran this headline: "Supreme Court Justice Blames Wife as New Scandal Casts Shadow on Trump Case." 

Facts never matter to hacks. They create headlines for people like Stephen King to grab onto and throw more chum into the water. This happened three-and-a-half years ago but with the old man in the White House fumbling his presidency, the left had to find a new “controversy.” 

The Fourth Estate is the Fifth Column.