Politics
Upside-down flag controversy is the latest for Supreme Court Justice Alito
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.
Politics
Fetterman unleashes on ‘dirtbag’ wing of Dems after far-left victories: ‘Orgy of socialism’
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Sen. John Fetterman, D-Pa., unloaded on his own party on Sunday evening, blasting a series of victories for progressives he called “anti-America.”
“Big night for the dirtbag left,” Fetterman said, referring to New York’s recent primaries, where two members of the Democratic Socialists of America (DSA) won primaries.
“I’ve said the party is becoming an orgy of socialism. Clearly anti-America, anti-Western Civilization,” Fetterman said.
Fetterman’s striking calls give a rare look at how some moderates may view the developments on their far-left flank that have dominated the party’s momentum in recent months, sparking concern that their high visibility is dragging the party further and further left.
FETTERMAN WARNS DEMOCRATS ‘DRIFTING FIRMLY INTO COMMUNISM’ AFTER SOCIALIST PRIMARY WINS
Sen. John Fetterman, D-Pa., speaks to reporters outside the Senate Chamber during votes on Nov. 10, 2025, on Capitol Hill in Washington, D.C. (Andrew Harnik/Getty Images)
His comments come on the heels of a handful of key progressive victories.
In Maine, Graham Platner, a controversial Democratic candidate for U.S. Senate, has attracted controversy for denying knowledge of the meaning behind a Nazi-linked tattoo, for off-color comments about race and calling himself a “communist” in a deleted Reddit post.
In New York, one DSA member, Claire Valdez, won a primary on a platform of abolishing ICE and a Green New Deal-style approach to climate change. Similarly, Darializa Avila-Chevalier, another DSA candidate, beat out incumbent Rep. Adriano Espillat, D-N.Y., a high-ranking Democrat and the chair of the Congressional Hispanic Caucus.
WINNERS AND LOSERS EMERGE AFTER SOCIALIST EARTHQUAKE ROCKS NYC PRIMARIES
Graham Platner, Democratic Senate candidate for Maine, speaks at a primary election night event at the Blue Hill YMCA in Blue Hill, Maine, on June 9, 2026. Platner won the party’s Senate primary after a campaign marked by accusations of past misbehavior and voter concerns. (Graeme Sloan/Bloomberg via Getty Images)
Both Chevalier and Valdez had the backing of New York Mayor Zohran Mamdani, himself a socialist.
The wins have captured national attention and drawn criticisms from Republicans who have pointed to their success as emblematic of the direction of the Democratic Party.
Fetterman, who has not shied away from confrontations, has been one of the few Democrats to express alarm about the kind of candidates carrying the party’s banner.
“I mean, you look at some of the things that people have said. Abolish prison, abolish the border, abolish ICE, I mean these crazy people — I have colleagues in my caucus that refuse to even call this out,” Fetterman said.
FETTERMAN REACTS TO MAMDANI’S REFUSAL TO ACCEPT SUPREME COURT’S IMMIGRATION RULING
U.S. Sen. John Fetterman, D-Pa., walks through the Senate Subway during the Senate War Powers vote on April 22, 2026, in Washington, D.C. (Heather Diehl/Getty Images)
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“Between P-hustle in Maine and some of the other winners in New York, they should form their own party and run on all the things that they’ve had to delete on social media,” Fetterman said, referring to Platner.
“That’s where our party has moved,” he added.
Politics
Supreme Court limits police use of cellphone data to find crime suspects
WASHINGTON — The Supreme Court cast doubt Monday on whether police may obtain cellphone data to find crime suspects.
In a 6-3 decision, the justices said this location information showing where a cellphone user has traveled is personal and private and subject to the protection of the 4th Amendment’s ban on unreasonable searches.
Justice Elena Kagan said these “records serve as a personal journal of a user’s movements.”
She said the information “resembles other private materials — think of emails, documents, photographs, or calendars—that even if stored on Google’s servers, a user reasonably views as his own…and reasonably expects to be shielded from the inquisitive eyes of the government.”
Because an “individual has a legitimate expectation of privacy in his cellphone location data,” she said police investigators need a valid search warrant from a magistrate.
The court stopped short of deciding the proper basis for a search warrant in such cases. Instead, the justices sent the case back to judges in Virginia.
But the outcome casts doubt on “geofence warrants.”
In recent years, police have gone to Google and cellphone companies seeking tracking data on cellphones that were at a crime scene. Sometimes, they have had a warrant from a magistrate.
Civil libertarians say the use of this tracking data raises the specter of mass surveillance on innocent people.
Police and government lawyers say no one has a reasonable right to privacy when they are walking on a sidewalk or driving down the street.
The case before the court arose from the armed robbery conviction of a Virginia man who stole $195,000 from a credit union in a small town near Richmond.
By the time police arrived, the robber had fled. But surveillance cameras showed he was carrying a gun and a cellphone.
Lacking other leads, detective Joshua Hilton asked a judge to issue a special type of warrant seeking information from Google.
Referred to as a “geofence warrant,” it seeks data from phones in a particular area at a particular time.
The detective sought data on phones that were within 150 yards of the credit union within one hour of the late afternoon robbery.
After examining and paring down the data, the detective asked for the phone records of Okello Chatrie. Then, with a search warrant of his home, investigators found two robbery-style demand notes, a semi-automatic pistol and about $100,000 in cash.
A judge refused to suppress the evidence from an allegedly unconstitutional search, and Chatrie entered a conditional guilty plea.
The full 4th Circuit Court of Appeals split evenly on the legality of the geofence warrant, and the Supreme Court agreed to decide the issue in Chatrie vs. U.S.
Usually investigators obtain warrants to search the home or vehicle of a known crime suspect.
The new and disputed geofence warrants seek to find a suspect by examining data on the cellphones that were at the scene of a crime.
The FBI used this cellphone data in 2021 to identify suspects who broke through police barricades on Jan. 6, 2021, and pushed their way into the Capitol to disrupt the official counting of electoral votes.
Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr. and Justices Sonia Sotomayor, Neil M. Gorsuch, Brett M. Kavanaugh and Ketanji Brown Jackson agreed on the outcome in Chatrie vs. U.S.
In a 21-page dissent, Justice Samuel A. Alito Jr. said the court had “carefully set the stage for its planned performance: striking a pose as a great champion of privacy in the digital age. I cannot support this irresponsible escapade.”
Justice Clarence Thomas agreed.
Justice Amy Coney Barrett agreed in a one-paragraph dissent. “Chatrie had no reasonable expectation of privacy in data about his public movements that he voluntarily disclosed to Google,” she said.
Politics
Supreme Court Expands Presidential Powers to Fire Independent Regulators
The Supreme Court ruled 6-3 that President Trump could fire independent regulators for any reason. But the justices carved out an exception for the Federal Reserve, preventing the immediate removal of Lisa D. Cook, a Federal Reserve governor.
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