Samuel Alito’s wife claimed upside-down flag was ‘international sign of distress’

MicroWave@lemmy.world to News@lemmy.world – 291 points – Samuel Alito’s wife claimed upside-down flag was ‘international sign of distress’
theguardian.com

Senate Democrats seek meeting with Chief Justice John Roberts to discuss issue and seek Alito’s recusal on January 6 cases

The wife of US supreme court justice Samuel Alito reportedly justified the display of an upside-down American flag at the couple’s home by saying it was “an international signal of distress”, as senior Democrats have requested a meeting with the chief justice over the growing scandal.

Martha-Ann Alito made the comments to a Washington Post reporter, the outlet reported on Saturday, when the journalist visited the couple’s Virginia home in January 2021, not long after the attack on the US Capitol by extremist supporters of Donald Trump.

She reportedly told the Washington Post at the time that the flag had been run up their flagpole in that way in response to a neighborhood dispute.

Flying the Stars and Stripes flag upside down is acceptable as a rare distress signal, according to the official US flag code. But these days it is more often associated with activists making an extremist sign of protest, and at the time of the January 6 insurrection it had been adopted by some on the far right amid efforts, ultimately unsuccessful, to overturn Joe Biden’s 2020 election victory over Trump.

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Except as Alito said himself and she's repeating here it was in response to a political sign. Therefore the flag is by definition political statement and not a sign of distress. They've backed themselves into a corner. They're claiming they saw Democrat sign so they wanted to show their sign. They chose this one, a traitors flag. Believe people when they show you who they are.

Does that matter? Nobody can fire him or regulate his behaviour in any way. What does public opinion matter when you are a divine prophet of the law.

There's one way to hold them accountable, and they're pretty fucking aware of it:

https://www.reuters.com/world/us/us-supreme-court-seeks-security-funding-protect-justices-homes-2024-03-04/

You don't decide to ramp up security because people are happy with you. You do it when you know you're doing something incredibly unpopular and so you want protection from the target you put on your own back with your incredibly unpopular decision.

They know exactly what they're doing.

Edit: To be clear this is in no way an endorsement or suggestion regarding "holding them accountable." "Beware that, when fighting monsters, you yourself do not become a monster... for when you gaze long into the abyss. The abyss gazes also into you."

That quote is trash. There are no limits when fighting true evil. At worst it's zero sum and every other outcome is preferable.

If he's distressed, maybe he should retire. Save him and all of us some distress

Yes, that is exactly how radical right fascists define the upside down flag. What does she think this proves?

This has been a symbol among right wing anarchists and whìte nationalists for years that liberalism and immigration have placed the nation in peril. The fact that a supreme court justice believes that the US government needs to be dismantled should be immediate cause for dismissal.

My very first thought was the upside flag is a sign of distress. I don't hang with right wing anarchists or white nationalists. I did a search and found this:

It has been a widely recognized symbol of distress since the nation’s founding, when sailors turned the American flag upside down to signal that their ships were sinking, on fire or trapped in ice.

alternate link

Ah yes, the perfectly normal use case of “my house is sinking/on fire/trapped in ice please send help.”

God I hate when my house sinks.

I think right wing anarchist is an oxymoron.

AnCaps. I would argue it isn't anarchism if you want to be ruled by corporations, but whatever.

its not a totally international sign of distress to fly a flag upside down. half of all Japanese flags are flown upside down everyday.

Karen just had too much sangria and time on her hands. You know she’s on the HOA.

What was the distress? What was the conflict with the neighbors?

Turns out it was an”Fuck Trump” sign in the neighbors yard. So now it is just an Ouroboros, where the justification for the flag not being about Trump comes back to being about supporting Trump.

One of my neighbors flies an upside down flag like he’s making a statement. They also have Trump bumper stickers on their vehicles…we don’t talk much.

Sean Spice also wore his US flag pin upside down during a press conference.

Okay, I hate to play devils advocate for that cum encrusted sock puppet, but putting a pin on upside down is leaps and bounds easier to do mistakenly than removing your flag, flipping it upside down and running it back up the pole. There is legitimate plausible deniability in the pin thing, however unlikely.

Alito threw his wife under the bus and she smiled and said, "more, daddy!"

Guess he got his conservative tradwife.

Why would an upside down American flag be an International sign of anything?

It's naval tradition, if your ship is being hijacked by pirates or enemy forces, raising the flag upside down is a way to signal passing ships without alerting the hijackers.

The thing is, that's why the Jan 6 insurrectionists were using it as a symbol in the first place. Trump convinced them election was rigged so the upside down flag was used to signal that they believed the country was being hijacked.

Wow, so every nation keeps the USA flag around just in case? /s

Spoiler: I know what it means, but it absolutely isn't an international symbol, unless you believe America is the entire world.

It's international but every nation would obviously use their own flag. It's a practice that dates back to the times before the USA was even a nation.

So it was poor judgment. The motherfucker has one job to do, be impartial.