The Media Research Center’s kneejerk defense of Supreme Court Justice Samuel Alito over his wife flying an upside-down American flag outside his house in a dispute with neighbors continued with Tim Graham’s whataboutism-laden May 20 podcast, under the snarky headline “Eek, The Alito Bandito Flies the Flag Upside-Down”:
The New York Times considered it front-page material that leftist neighbors snitched on Supreme Court justice Sam Alito. A flag flew upside-down in his yard in the days after January 6. This same Democrat rag published an assassination threat to Justice Kavanaugh two years ago on Page A-20.
Liberal or leftist neighbors of the Alitos showed their photos of the flag to the Times, and were rewarded with anonymity by reporter Jodi Kantor: “The half-dozen neighbors who saw the flag, or knew of it, requested anonymity because they said they did not want to add to the contentiousness on the block and feared reprisal.”
Wait — they didn’t want to “add to the contentiousness on the block” while they shared photos of their neighbors to The New York Times.
The networks launched critical stories. On PBS, NewsHour anchor Geoff Bennett brought it into their Friday night Week in Politics segment. That’s fascinating. Because on June 10, 2022, the NewsHour couldn’t devote that segment to assassination threat against Justice Kavanaugh!
Alex Christy continued the defense operation in comedy-cop mode in a May 21 post:
CBS’s Stephen Colbert reacted on Monday’s edition of The Late Show to the story that Supreme Court Justice Samuel Alito’s wife Martha-Ann flew an upside-down flag at their home in response to neighborly abuse by accusing the couple of being Nazis.
Colbert declared that “when it comes to January 6th cases argued before the Court, Alito has been highly sympathetic to the mob. That’s like when your couples therapist is wearing a shirt that says, “Team David.” There’s no possible justification for a Supreme Court justice displaying a symbol of insurrection at his home.”
There’s no evidence Alito has sympathy for the January 6 rioters’ cause, but Colbert rolled right along, failing to see the difference between blaming and explaining, “Which is why, when this photo was published, Alito immediately did the right thing, owned up, and blamed his wife, saying in a statement that he had ‘No involvement whatsoever in the flying of the flag.’ And ‘It was briefly placed by his wife, Martha-Ann.’ So he dropped a dime on his gal, citing the landmark case of Me Just Tryna Live My Life v. Ladies Be Crazy, Amirite?'”
Colbert did concede that there was context beyond January 6, “Crazy! Alito excused his wife’s desecration of the flag that our forefathers died for at Iwo Jima, because he says she only did it because a neighbor displayed a “[bleep] Trump” sign on their lawn, and when Mrs. Alito confronted the neighbor about it, they say the neighbor addressed his wife using vulgar language, ‘Including the C-word.’”
However, Colbert then took a leap into the logical abyss by trying to claim that the Alitos sided with the rioters as a way to get back at their neighbors, “Okay, that is not nice. But if someone calls you the C-word, putting up an insurrection flag is not the response. ‘Oh, you were rude to my wife? Well, we’re Nazis now.’ So, are you happy? So Martha-Ann runs up the January 6 flag, and then Sam comes home from work, sees it, and is like, ‘Honey, I understand you’re upset, but we have to take that down immediately. For Pete’s sake, I’m a justice of the Supreme Court,’ is what would have been nice to have happened.[“]
Christy further whined about Colbert doing a “clown nose on-clown nose off routine. He insists that Alito is essentially a Nazi sympathizer who is delegitimizing the Court, but he himself is a simple jester.”
Clay Waters whined that the upside-down flag raised legitimate questions about Alito in a May 22 post:
Taxpayer-funded PBS took another bite out of the Justice Alito flag controversy on Sunday’s edition of PBS News Weekend, interviewing New York Times reporter Jodi Kantor, who made the front page with her scoop that the American flag briefly flew upside down outside the home of Supreme Court Justice Samuel Alito in January 2021.
Laura Barron-Lopez, perhaps the network’s most biased reporter, was substitute anchor over the weekend and coincidentally or not, the usually sleepier Weekend shows were more ideologically charged than usual. The harder edge was apparent from Saturday’s show introduction, using the upside-down American flag that flew over Alito’s home in January 2021 to condemn the conservative Supreme Court.
[…]Barron-Lopez relayed Justice Alito’s explanation that his wife placed the flag upside down in response to a neighbor’s display (a sign with a four-letter insult of Trump). Always a willing partisan, Barron-Lopez used the controversy to tar another conservative justice through something his wife did.
The MRC, of course, has been a huge defender of fellow right-wing justice Clarence Thomas, even though wife Ginni’s far-right activism, even if it didn’t feel liked defending her at one point.
Jorge Bonilla, meanwhile, smelled a conspiracy:
Tonight’s ABC and CBS evening newscasts aired reports in furtherance of the ongoing campaign to pressure a sitting Associate Justice of the United States Supreme Court, Samuel Alito, into recusing himself from upcoming opinions that have a direct effect on the ongoing federal prosecutions against former President Donald Trump.
[…]Both ABC and CBS’s items touched common points. Both reports follow the lead of Jodi Kantor’s reporting in The New York Times. Both reports note that Alito flew another “problematic” flag at one of his properties, that the flag is adjacent to January 6th, and that Democrats want Alito to recuse ahead of Supreme Court opinions on obstruction and presidential immunity, which will affect many J6 cases in addition to the Trump federal prosecutions.
But this goes beyond just reporting.
The release of these items, timed a month before the current Supreme Court session ends and with it the publication of landmark and/or controversial opinions, has a twofold purpose. The first, to pressure Justice Samuel Alito into recusing himself from the aforementioned matters. This is no different from the smear campaign against Justice Clarence Thomas (and also Alito), or from the carefully orchestrated character assassination op against then-Judge Brett Kavanaugh in the midst of his confirmation hearings[.]
Barring that, the publication and TV dissemination of these articles is intended to gin the leftist mobs into a frenzy such as we saw ahead of the Dobbs opinion, wherein they conducted illegal protests at the homes of conservative justices.
The only evidence Bonilla provided of his conspiracy theory is coincidental, not based in fact — you know, like most conspiracy theories. But he stuck to the conspiracy anyway: “This strategically-timed reporting on flags must be regarded as an attack against the independent judiciary, and therefore, against Democracy itself. The Regime Media, once again, engaging in election interference.”
On a side issue, Sarah Butler defended Alito as part of her employer’s obsession with hating Dylan Mulvaney in a May 21 post:
On Monday, former Biden White House flack turned MSNBC host Jen Psaki pushed a wild conspiracy theory that U.S. Supreme Court Justice Samuel Alito sold his shares of Anheuser-Busch in solidarity with a boycott of Bud Light all because of a mysterious tweet. Of course, she made these allegations without a shred of evidence; she didn’t even show the tweet.
In April of last year, a trans social media influencer Dylan Mulvaney posted a video with Bud Light cans a part of a March Madness ad campaign. The video went viral and Bud Lights sales dropped almost immediately as a national boycott ensued, causing Anheuser-Busch’s stock price to drop.
According to Psaki, four months later, and unidentified “anti-LGBTQ influencer” allegedly posted a “pre-transition photograph” of Mulvaney (she huffed that the post “disgustingly referred to her as ‘a dude’”). It was that tweet that supposedly triggered Alito’s sell off.
[…]Psaki provided no evidence that this tweet was the reason Alito sold his shares. She couldn’t prove he ever saw the tweet; he doesn’t even have a X account.
A more reasonable explanation for Alito’s sell off? Bud Light was suffering from an ongoing boycott. Sales were down because people were adamant about not buying from Bud Light but they wanted their financial support to go somewhere that would hurt Bud Light. Because of this, people became more interested in buying beer from Molson Coors – Bud Lights biggest competitor. People wanted to support Coors as a way to financially hurt Bud Light even more. This lead to Coors having global net sales that amounted to $11.7 billion.
The reason for Justice Alito selling his shares was probably more related to the fact that Bud Light had lost over $1.4 billion in sales. If an individual’s stock drops then they sell that stock and usually buy a rising stock that is projected to do better than the stock they originally had.
Very few people would want to buy or keep stock of a company that was being boycotted and actively losing money.
Butler didn’t explain why Bud Light deserved to be targeted for destruction for not hating transgender people enough.