Justice Samuel A. Alito Jr., the Supreme Court’s most predictable conservative of late, is again battling complaints that some of his actions demand that he recuse himself from pending cases.

Alito has responded that he is a victim of unjust criticism.

Here’s a look at some of the recent controversies.

What is the upside-down flag incident about?

Last week, the New York Times published a photo showing an American flag flying upside down in front of Alito’s house on Jan. 17, 2021.

Neighbors reported seeing the flag flying for several days after supporters of outgoing President Trump had rioted at the U.S. Capitol.

For some, the upside-down flag became a symbol of the “Stop the Steal” movement.

How did Alito respond to complaints about the flag incident?

He blamed his wife, Martha-Ann, and his neighbors.

“I had no involvement whatsoever in the flying of the flag,” he told the New York Times in an email.

Speaking to a Fox News reporter, he said a neighbor had made vulgar comments to his wife.

Alito suggested it was unfair to criticize him for the upside-down flag because it was his wife’s idea and she had been provoked by neighbors.

He did not explain whether he was troubled by this display of the flag or why he did not insist immediately that it must come down.

Some liberal groups have demanded that Alito recuse himself from proceedings involving Trump. But there is no hint Alito will step aside from deciding the pending case on whether Trump can be prosecuted for “official acts” he took as president.

Are these the first calls for Alito to recuse himself?

No. Last year, Alito gave an interview to the Wall Street Journal complaining about the treatment of Supreme Court justices.

“We’re being hammered daily. And nobody, practically nobody is defending us,” he told two opinion page writers of the Wall Street Journal, which regularly defends Alito and the conservative court. “We are being bombarded. … This type of concerted attack on the court and individual justices” is “new during my lifetime.”

One of the writers, Washington attorney David B. Rivkin, had helped write an appeal petition asking the court to take up a major tax case and rule the Constitution forbids levies on undistributed corporate profits.

Two months later, when the court voted to hear the case, Senate Democrats and progressive groups called for Alito to step aside from ruling on the matter.

The justice fired off a sharp rejoinder. There is “no valid reason for my recusal in this case. When Mr. Rivkin participated in the interviews and co-authored the articles, he did so as a journalist, not an advocate. The case in which he is involved was never mentioned.”

The court is due to issue a decision in that case, Moore vs. United States, in the next few weeks.

How did Alito respond to complaints that some justices failed to disclose free trips?

Alito was upset last summer when he learned ProPublica was about to publish a story on a free fishing trip he took to Alaska in a private jet owned by hedge fund billionaire Paul Singer.

The nonprofit investigative group had earlier revealed that Justice Clarence Thomas had regularly taken free and undisclosed vacations with Texas billionaire Harlan Crow.

Like Thomas, Alito did not mention the luxury trip in 2008 as a gift on the required judicial disclosure report.

When ProPublica sent him several questions about the upcoming story, Alito refused to comment through a court spokeswoman and then sought to debunk the “false charges” in the Journal before the story could appear.

What he described as false charges involved whether he knew or should have known that Singer’s hedge fund was involved in appeals before the high court.

Singer’s hedge fund, NML Capital, had pursued an aggressive strategy of buying Argentina’s bonds at a discount when the country defaulted in 2001 and then fought in the U.S. courts to be paid in full. This 14-year battle between what the Argentines called the “vultures” and Singer’s hedge fund was featured often in the legal and financial press, including the Wall Street Journal.

Singer is a major Republican donor and gave Alito glowing introductions when he spoke to the Federalist Society and the Manhattan Institute.

ProPublica said Singer’s hedge fund was involved in 10 appeals that came before the court. In 2014, the justices agreed to decide a key issue and ruled 7 to 1 in favor of Singer’s hedge fund with Alito in the majority. Singer’s hedge fund was ultimately paid $2.4 billion for its bonds.

Writing in the Journal, Alito said he had no duty to recuse himself from ruling in the case because “I was not aware and had no good reason to be aware that Mr. Singer had an interest” in the cases involving Argentine bonds. When the court agreed to decide the case of “Republic of Argentina vs. NML Capital, Ltd., No. 12-842, Mr. Singer’s name did not appear” in the legal briefs, he said.

Yes, “he introduced me before I gave a speech — as have dozens of other people. … On no occasion have we discussed the activities of his businesses, and we have never talked about any case or issue before the Court,” Alito wrote.

At least four anti-Israel agitators were hauled out of a Senate Foreign Relations Committee hearing by Capitol police while Secretary of State Antony Blinken testified about his department’s budget on Tuesday. 

While Blinken began his opening statement, a man stood up shouting the name of a 6-year-old boy reportedly killed in Gaza. 

“Blinken, you will be remembered as the Butcher of Gaza,” the man yelled as officers pulled him out of the hearing room. “You will be remembered for murdering innocent Palestinians.” 

As other protesters started to speak up, Chairman Sen. Ben Cardin, D-Md., instructed an officer to remove the individual.

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Cardin warned that anyone who was speaking would be removed, but that did not deter an elderly woman who repeatedly shouted, “Stop the genocide,” while being escorted out by police. 

Blinken began his prepared statement again, when a woman suddenly rushed toward his table shouting, “Blinken is a war criminal. He is a war criminal. The blood of 40,000 people is on his hands.” 

“The blood of 40,000 Palestinians is on his hands,” she continued as Capitol police officers physically pulled her from the room. “He is a war criminal. He is a war criminal. Blinken is a war criminal.” 

A fourth person, another female protester, was then removed while shouting, “Blinken, you are funding a genocide in Gaza. There have been seven mass graves outside of hospitals.”

 “This is sick. This is deranged. You are a war criminal. Shame on you,” she yelled. 

Blinken is advocating before Congress for President Biden’s more than $60 billion budget request for the State Department and the Agency for International Development. Blinken is testifying before the Democrat-controlled Senate first, before the full Foreign Relations Committee, and later Tuesday, before the Appropriations subcommittee.

An anti-Israel agitator is hauled out of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee. (CSPAN)

On Wednesday, the secretary of state is scheduled to return to the Capitol to testify before the Republican-controlled House Foreign Affairs Committee and an appropriations subcommittee. 

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Police remove an anti-Israel agitator who interrupted Secretary of State Antony Blinken’s testimony. (CSPAN)

During Blinken’s testimony, Cardin, joined by Sens. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., Richard Blumenthal, D-Conn., Jeanne Shaheen, D-N.H., John Fetterman, D-Penn., Jim Risch, R-Idaho, Katie Britt, R-Ala., and John Thune, R-S.D., released a statement condemning the International Criminal Court (ICC)’s decision to pursue arrest warrants against Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and his defense minister. ICC prosecutor Karim Khan also accused three Hamas leaders of war crimes and crimes against humanity. 

“These actions by the ICC jeopardize efforts to bring about sustainable peace in the Middle East. It puts at risk sensitive negotiations to bring home hostages, including Americans, and surge humanitarian assistance,” the bipartisan group of senators wrote. “The application for arrest warrants also draws a false equivalence between Israel with its longstanding commitment to the rule of law, and Hamas’ theocratic, autocratic, and unaccountable rule over Gaza. To state the obvious: Israel is a functioning democracy, while Hamas is a terrorist organization.” 

Blinken told the Senate Foreign Relations Committee that the Biden administration would be willing to work with Congress to respond to the ICC’s decision to pursue arrest warrants against Israeli leaders. 

“The extremely wrongheaded decision by the ICC prosecutor yesterday, the shameful equivalence implied between Hamas and the leadership of Israel. I think that only complicates the prospects for getting such an agreement,” Blinken said, referencing cease-fire talks. “We’ll continue to forge ahead to to do that. But that that decision, as you said, on so many levels, is totally wrong headed. And we’ll be happy to work with Congress, with this committee on an appropriate response.” 

The Biden and Trump campaigns agreed to two presidential debates last week. Who among us can contain our excitement?

Well, it depends on what you mean by “us.” In my corner of the professional world — pundits, commentators, political junkies — there was much rejoicing. Watching the Sunday shows, you could be forgiven for thinking church bells must have rung out to celebrate the news across the nation, as if some medieval queen had given birth to a male heir. The debates are happening! The debates are happening! Huzzah!

Meanwhile, among normal people, that sound you didn’t hear was the great mass of humanity shrugging. A smaller segment of the population likely let out an involuntary groan of the sort you make when you find out you got a middle seat on an airplane.

I don’t have polling to back this up, but I suspect most Americans would regard the prospect of Donald Trump and Joe Biden yelling at each other like two old men squabbling over the check at a Denny’s with resigned exhaustion. Ugh, really? We’re doing this again?

Now, I understand why journalists and junkies are excited. For starters, presidential debates inflate the egos of journalists, giving them ample opportunity to talk grandly about the fourth estate’s important role in democracy. They’re also great for ratings: The first, thoroughly awful 2020 debate was watched by 73 million people.

The drama of politicians offering unscripted — though often rehearsed — answers to complicated questions has a Super Bowl-like quality for political nerds. That listening to either of the current presumptive nominees talk is like watching a race car driver behind the wheel of a vehicle without brakes just adds to the excitement. The prospect of a spectacular crash always has a certain dark appeal, and in a Trump-Biden matchup, crashes are assured.

Lost amid the hoopla over the latest debate agreement is the fact that pretty much all presidential debates are tiresome and counterproductive spectacles.

The arguments for debates are often somewhat tautological. We supposedly need to have presidential debates because we’ve always had presidential debates. But this isn’t true.

The first presidential debates, between John F. Kennedy and Richard Nixon, were in 1960 (when Biden and Trump were, respectively, 17 and 14 years old). All anyone remembers about the Kennedy-Nixon debates is the first one, which Nixon lost, according to lore, because he was without makeup, unshaven and sweaty. Again, according to lore, people who listened to the debate on radio thought Nixon won, while people who watched it on television were so impressed by Kennedy’s suave style and good looks that they thought he won. Nixon, who was underweight and exhausted during his first appearance, got some rest and good makeup and won the next two debates, which nobody remembers.

In other words, the lesson from the beginning was that style was more important than substance. It has ever been thus.

We think, partly because we are told as much over and over again, that televised debates convey important information to voters. But television makes certain information seem more important than it is, often subliminally. For instance, in most presidential elections, the taller candidate wins. Does height in some way correlate with superior policies?

There’s a reason FDR hid his wheelchair from public view. But while I have no end of substantive criticisms of Franklin D. Roosevelt, his having had polio is not among them.

Obviously, television presence is part of modern presidents’ job description. But televised presidential debates magnify that qualification beyond all reason. Yes, yes, presidents need to be good communicators. But at no point during their actual presidencies are they ever expected to bicker with a political foe for 90 minutes in front of millions of people.

The political skills we are testing for are not the political skills the job requires. The candidate who forcefully, confidently or amusingly lies is often rewarded by debates, while the candidate who tells the truth awkwardly, hesitantly or with appropriate complexity is often penalized.

The debate “highlight” reels the networks routinely run are full of one-liners, gaffes and falsehoods often treated as true by sympathetic journalists. But I’ve never seen a really thoughtful explanation of the national debt or another serious problem celebrated as a great moment in debate history.

The prospect of a Biden-Trump rematch is especially deserving of an “Ugh, really?” But the truth is that all presidential debates deserve the same.

@JonahDispatch