Politics
The 'Appeal to Heaven' flag involved in Alito controversy evolved from Revolutionary War symbol to banner of the far right
U.S. Supreme Court Justice Samuel Alito is embroiled in a second flag controversy in as many weeks, this time over a banner that in recent years has come to symbolize sympathies with the Christian nationalist movement and the false claim that the 2020 presidential election was stolen.
An “Appeal to Heaven” flag was flown last summer outside Alito’s beach vacation home in New Jersey, according to the New York Times, which obtained several images showing it on different dates in July and September 2023. The Times previously reported that an upside down American flag — a sign of distress — had flown outside Alito’s Alexandria, Va., home less than two weeks after the violent Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the U.S. Capitol by supporters of former President Trump.
Some of the rioters carried the inverted American flag or the “Appeal to Heaven” flag, which shows a green pine tree on a white field. The revelations have escalated concerns over Alito’s impartiality and his ability to objectively decide cases currently before the court that relate to the Jan. 6 attackers and Trump’s attempts to overturn the results of the 2020 election. Alito has not commented on the flag at his summer home.
Here is the history and symbolism of the “Appeal to Heaven” flag.
What are its origins?
Ted Kaye, secretary for the North American Vexillological Assn., which studies flags and their meaning, said the “Appeal to Heaven” banner dates to the Revolutionary War. Six schooners outfitted by George Washington to intercept British vessels at sea flew the flag in 1775 as they sailed under his command. It was the maritime flag of Massachusetts from 1776 to 1971, he said.
According to Americanflags.com, the pine tree on the flag symbolized strength and resilience in the New England colonies while the words “Appeal to Heaven” stemmed from the belief that God would deliver the colonists from tyranny.
How has its symbolism changed?
There are a few reasons people fly “Appeal to Heaven” flags today, said Jared Holt, a senior analyst at the Institute for Strategic Dialogue, a London-based think tank that tracks online hate, disinformation and extremism.
Some identify with a “patriot” movement that obsesses over the Founding Fathers and the American Revolution, he said. Others adhere to a Christian nationalist worldview that seeks to elevate Christianity in public life.
“It’s not abundantly clear which of those reasons would be accurate” in this situation, Holt said. But he called the display outside Alito’s home “alarming,” saying those who do fly the flag are often advocating for “more intolerant and restrictive forms of government aligned with a specific religious philosophy.”
The “Appeal to Heaven” flag was among several banners carried by Jan. 6 rioters, who also favored the Confederate flag and the yellow Gadsden flag, with its rattlesnake and “Don’t Tread on Me” message, said Bradley Onishi, author of “Preparing for War: The Extremist History of White Christian Nationalism.”
“That’s the family,” he said.
What about Mike Johnson?
House Speaker Mike Johnson displays the flag in the hallway outside his office next to the flag of his home state, Louisiana.
Johnson, a Republican, told the Associated Press he did not know the flag had come to represent the “Stop the Steal” movement.
“Never heard that before,” he said.
The speaker, who led one of Trump’s legal challenges to the 2020 election, defended the flag and its continued use despite the modern-day symbolism around it.
“I have always used that flag for as long as I can remember, because I was so enamored with the fact that Washington used it,” Johnson said. “The Appeal to Heaven flag is a critical, important part of American history. It’s something that I’ve always revered since I’ve been a young man.”
He added: “People misuse our symbols all the time. It doesn’t mean we don’t use the symbols anymore.”
Johnson said he had never flown the U.S. flag upside down in distress, as Alito did, and he declined to assess the justice’s situation and whether raising the flags at his home was appropriate.
But he called the criticism of the “Appeal to Heaven” flag “contrived.”
“It’s nonsense,” he said. “It’s part of our history. We don’t remove statues and we don’t cover up things that are so essential to who we are as a country.”
Should Alito recuse?
The House Democratic whip, Rep. Katherine Clark of Massachusetts, said in a statement that the display of the “Appeal to Heaven” flag at an Alito home was “not just another example of extremism that has overtaken conservatism. This is a threat to the rule of law and a serious breach of ethics, integrity and Justice Alito’s oath of office.”
She called for Alito to recuse himself from any cases related to Jan. 6 and the former president.
There’s a clear difference between the House speaker displaying the flag outside his office and a Supreme Court justice flying it and the upside down American flag outside his homes as the court is deciding cases involving issues those flags have come to symbolize, said Alicia Bannon, director of the Judiciary Program at the Brennan Center for Justice at New York University. Alito’s actions don’t “just cross the line,” she said. “They take you out of the stadium and out of the parking lot.”
Alito and the court declined to respond to requests for comment on how the “Appeal to Heaven” flag came to be flying and what it was intended to express. Alito has said the upside down American flag was briefly flown by his wife during a dispute with neighbors and that he had no part in it.
Another blow to the court’s reputation?
The Supreme Court already was under fire as it considers unprecedented cases against Trump and some of those charged for the attack on the Capitol.
An issue is that the high court does not have to adhere to the same ethics codes that guide other federal judges. The Supreme Court had long gone without its own code of ethics, but it adopted one in November 2023 in the face of sustained criticism over undisclosed trips and gifts from wealthy benefactors to some justices, including Alito. The code lacks a means of enforcement, however.
The federal code of judicial ethics does not universally prohibit judges from involvement in nonpartisan or religious activity off the bench. But it does say that a judge “should not participate in extrajudicial activities that detract from the dignity of the judge’s office, interfere with the performance of the judge’s official duties” or “reflect adversely on the judge’s impartiality.”
Jeremy Fogel, executive director of the Berkeley Judicial Institute at the UC Berkeley Law School, said the flag revelations lead to questions about whether Alito can be impartial in any case related to Jan. 6 or Trump.
“Displaying those particular flags creates the appearance at least that the justice is signifying agreement with those viewpoints at a time when there are cases before the court where those viewpoints are relevant,” he said.
A March AP/NORC poll found that only about one-quarter of Americans think the Supreme Court is doing a somewhat or very good job upholding democratic values. About 45% think it’s doing a somewhat or very bad job.
Fields, Mascaro and Amiri write for the Associated Press. AP writer Ali Swenson in New York contributed to this report.
Politics
Mike Kennedy advances past crowded GOP primary to secure nomination for open Utah House seat
Mike Kennedy on Tuesday won the Republican nomination for Utah’s 3rd Congressional District to replace outgoing Rep. John Curtis, R-Utah, becoming the immediate favorite to win the seat in November.
Kennedy beat fellow Republicans JR Bird, John Dougall, Case Lawrence and Stewart Peay in a packed primary pool for the district. Curtis is vacating his seat to run for U.S. Senate to replace outgoing Sen. Mitt Romney.
Kennedy, a state senator, had won the party’s nomination for the seat in April but faced challenges from other candidates who gathered signatures to be on the ballot. Peay had won the endorsement of Romney, who is also Peay’s wife’s uncle. Kennedy had won the endorsement of Sen. Mike Lee, who said he was needed to “fight against the Uniparty and help get this country back on track.”
‘SQUAD’ MEMBER FACES OUSTER FROM CONGRESS AS NEW YORK, COLORADO AND UTAH HOLD PRIMARIES ON TUESDAY
From left, JR Bird, John Dougall, Mike Kennedy, Case Lawrence and Stewart Peay, candidates in the Republican primary for Utah’s 3rd Congressional District, take part in a debate at the Eccles Broadcast Center in Salt Lake City on June 12, 2024. (Spenser Heaps/Deseret News via AP/Pool)
Bird, a mayor, emphasized his experience of running a small town as well as the importance of the energy sector and agriculture, according to the Deseret News.
Dougall, the state auditor, had run as an anti-MAGA candidate and had slammed some GOP legislation, including what he saw as an overly aggressive bill that tasks him with enforcing a ban on transgender-identifying individuals using restrooms that are inconsistent with their sex.
WATCH: THIS HOUSE PRIMARY IS MOST EXPENSIVE IN CONGRESSIONAL HISTORY
He has also been deeply critical of former President Trump. On Tuesday on X, he also questioned the “cavalier manner” of any official who swears to uphold the Constitution “then endorses Trump following January 6th.” He has advertised himself as “mainstream, not MAGA.”
At a debate this month, candidates split on the question of military funding to Ukraine as well as whether the federal government should explicitly ban abortion. Peay, Dougall and Case Lawrence – a trampoline park entrepreneur – had called on Congress to keep sending weapons to Ukraine to help it fend off the ongoing Russian invasion.
Bird and Kennedy disagreed, arguing that it was not beneficial to the U.S. to keep funding the Ukrainians, with the two calling for stronger sanctions and the seizure of Russian assets.
HEAD HERE FOR LATEST FOX NEWS REPORTING FROM THE PRIMARY CAMPAIGN TRAIL
Sen. Mitt Romney (Ting Shen/Bloomberg via Getty Images)
Kennedy will go on to face Democrat Glenn Wright in the November election, but the Republican is favored to win comfortably in a district that has voted Republican since 1997.
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Elsewhere in the state, Republican Gov. Spencer Cox, a major GOP Trump critic, held off a primary challenge from Phil Lyman, another 2020 election denier who easily won the state party convention.
The Associated Press and Fox News’ Paul Steinhauser contributed to this report.
California news publishers and Big Tech companies appear to be inching toward compromise on a controversial bill that would require Google and huge social media platforms to pay news outlets for the articles they distribute.
After stalling last year, Assembly Bill 886 cleared a critical hurdle Tuesday when it passed the state Senate Judiciary Committee. Several lawmakers described the legislation as a work in progress aimed at solving a critical problem: The news business is shrinking as technology changes the way people consume information.
“I do believe the marketplace is the best mechanism to regulate industry,” Sen. Tom Umberg (D-Orange), the committee chairman, said during a hearing on the bill.
However, he said, the demise of journalism harms democracy: “Thus, we have an obligation to find a way to support reasonable, credible journalism.”
The legislation, known as the “California Journalism Preservation Act,” would require digital platforms to pay news outlets a fee when they sell advertising alongside news content. It calls for creating a fund that the tech firms pay into, with the money being distributed to news outlets based on the number of journalists they employ. Publishers would have to use 70% of the money they receive to pay journalists in California.
Umberg noted that the bill does not specify an amount for the fund. He said it would be “a very elegant solution” for the parties involved to agree on what amount that should be.
Sen. Henry Stern (D-Calabasas) described talks as being “closer and closer to the place where we could actually land some kind of deal.”
In Canada, Google is paying $74 million annually into a fund for the news industry under a law similar to the one proposed in California.
Jaffer Zaidi, Google’s vice president of global news partnerships, testified against the California proposal during a hearing in which news executives from across the state lined up to express support for the bill, while tech industry lobbyists lined up in opposition. The bill is sponsored by the California News Publishers Assn., of which the Los Angeles Times is a member.
“The bill would … break the fundamental and foundational principles of the open internet, forcing platforms to pay publishers for sending valuable free traffic to them,” Zaidi said.
“It puts the full burden of support on one or two companies, while shielding many other large platforms who also link to news from California publishers.”
He said Google had shared a proposal for a different way to support journalism “through targeted programs” that would be funded by more companies than just the very largest platforms. The current version of the bill would apply only to Google and Meta, the parent company of Instagram and Facebook.
“We hope this can serve as a basis for a workable path forward together,” Zaidi said. “We remain committed to being here and constructively working towards an outcome.”
The bill’s author, Assemblymember Buffy Wicks (D-Oakland), said she is “aggressively trying to engage” with companies that oppose the bill in the hopes that the sparring sides can reach an agreement that will allow the news industry to thrive.
“At the end of the day, I want the best solution to the problem,” Wicks said.
She closed the hearing by talking about the role journalism has played in exposing problems that lawmakers wind up addressing in the Capitol, such as crafting new laws to extend the statute of limitations for sexual abuse lawsuits after The Times’ investigation revealed a pattern of allegations against former USC gynecologist George Tyndall.
The bill now advances to the Senate Appropriations Committee. It will go to Gov. Gavin Newsom if it clears both houses of the Legislature by Aug. 31.
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FACE OFF: Don’t miss the Fox News Simulcast of the CNN Presidential Debate on Thursday at 9 p.m. ET. Stay in the know for more updates here.
What’s happening…
-Calls for Biden to fire official for past anti-Israel tweets
-Trump urges drug test for Biden
-Whistleblower who exposed NPR bias finds new job
What can he say?
Judge Juan Merchan has partially lifted the gag order he imposed against former President Trump – weeks after the jury found him guilty on all counts.
Trump and his legal team have been fighting the gag order since it was imposed upon him at the start of the trial, but had ramped up their efforts when it concluded last month. The former president and presumptive Republican nominee’s legal team had argued the gag order should be lifted before the June 27 presidential debate.
Merchan’s gag order barred Trump from making or directing others to make public statements about witnesses with regard to their potential participation or about counsel in the case – other than Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg – or about court staff, DA staff or family members of staff.
Merchan on Tuesday partially lifted the gag order because the trial has concluded.
Trump is now able to speak about protected witnesses and jurors.
Trump is still blocked from commenting about individual prosecutors, court staff and their family members. That portion of the gag order will remain in effect until Trump’s sentencing on July 11.
Judge Juan Merchan imposed over Donald Trump (AP)
White House
‘JUST HORRIFYING’: Watchdog group calls for Biden to fire WH official for past anti-Israel tweets …Read more
Capitol Hill
‘OBSCENE’: House GOP lawmaker rips State Dept ahead of vote on U.S. dollars going to Taliban …Read more
U.S. Representative Jamaal Bowman (D-NY) speaks to the crowd while he campaigns in the Bronx borough of New York City, U.S., June 22, 2024. REUTERS/Joy Malone (REUTERS/Joy Malone)
Tales from the Campaign Trail
‘THEATER OF CONFLICT’: Democrat challenger slams Bowman tirade, says profanity-laced rally jeopardizes party ‘unity’ …Read more
JUST SAY ‘NO’: Trump urges drug test for Biden, says he’ll do same screening …Read more
EPIC CLASH: How to watch the CNN Presidential Debate Simulcast on the Fox News Channel …Read more
‘SUGARCOATING’ CONTROVERSY: California city keeps charged ballot language for non-citizen voting measure …Read more
CALL TO THE BULLPEN: Obama again serving as Joe’s closer ahead of 2024 Trump rematch …Read more
Trials and Tribulations
DAY 3: US v Trump: The afternoon public hearing ended with no decision from Judge Cannon Read more
Across America
NO ABORTIONS FOR MINORS: Tennessee sued over law banning adults from helping minors get abortions without parental consent …Read more
MOVING ON: Whistleblower finds new gig after exposing alleged liberal bias at NPR …Read more
NEW YORK PAYS PRICE FOR NAIVETY: Cuomo scorches Dems for migrant crisis: ‘We’re finding out, 200,000 people later, you needed a plan’ …Read more
GETTING AWAY WITH MURDER: This blue city that ‘Defund Police’ supporters call home has over 1,000 unsolved homicides …Read more
KENYAN EXPEDITIONARY FORCE: Kenyan police depart for Haiti to tackle rampant gang violence …Read more
ALL MUST SERVE: Israel’s Supreme Court rules ultra-Orthodox men must serve in military in unanimous decision …Read more
HUGE POPULATION: Houston area, an immigration hot spot, reeling from murder of Jocelyn Nungaray …Read more
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