Flying The Alito Flag: The Tapes

The Media Research Center had to move from defending Supreme Court justice Samuel Alito for displaying dubious flags to defending him over statements he made in secretly recorded conversations.

After spending a good chunk of May in kneejerk defense of Supreme Court Justice Samuel Alito after he (or his wife) was caught flying politically provocative flags outside their houses, the Media Research Center continued to be salty about it. Tim Graham huffed in his May 31 column:

It’s hard to believe, but our “news” media think Supreme Court Justice Samuel Alito’s wife hanging a flag upside-down outside their home for a few days is a much more serious matter than an attempted assassination of Justice Brett Kavanaugh in 2022. That story was quickly squashed.

Start with taxpayer-funded National Public Radio, which never managed to produce a single feature story on the foiled Kavanaugh assassination, but has provided multiple stories in the Alito Flag Frenzy. They use fake-neutral headlines like “Flag displays at Justice Alito’s homes concern judicial watchdogs.” Make that “Democrat law professors.”

NPR Supreme Court reporter Nina Totenberg, who tried to strangle the Clarence Thomas nomination in the crib, couldn’t muster any concern for Kavanaugh’s safety, but found the time for Alito-flag coverage. The idea that this slavish pal of the late Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg was going to furrow her brow about the bias of judges was a laughable matter.

Everyone with political eyes can see that the media are toeing the Democrat line that a Supreme Court with a conservative majority must be discredited. Forget all of their bleatings that Trump was undermining confidence in government. “Objective” reporters always undermine confidence in government when conservatives have a toehold. 

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This character assassination of Alito and Thomas as racist insurrectionists is considered weighty legal analysis on MSNBC. On the Left, anything that disturbs their domination of government is an “insurrection,” which is why they endlessly associate every conservative with the January 6 riot as much as they can. They are the ones who can’t stand dissent and an actual democracy where conservatives disturb their dreams of complete dominance. 

Graham doesn’t mention that his actual job is to shout down those who dissent from conservative ideology, thus disturbing his dreams of complete dominance. 

Tom Olohan played the Soros bogeyman card in a June 6 post:

A coalition of leftist groups published a dishonest attack on Supreme Court Justice Samuel Alito just prior to the announcement of the verdict in former President Donald Trump’s criminal trial last Thursday and in the midst of  the Supreme Court announcing numerous opinions this June and July — among them a case involving presidential immunity. A number of the involved groups received millions from leftist billionaire George Soros, not that the leftist media will care anyway. 

On May 29, 25 radical leftist organizations, including seven groups that have received at least $19,512,000 from Soros between 2016 and 2022, wrote a letter to Senator Dick Durbin (D-IL) calling for Justice Alito to be investigated for “recent conduct,” suggesting Alito “recuse himself from cases where the public has a clear reason to doubt his impartiality.” The letter used a distorted history of a flag from the American Revolution and a separate recent flag nontroversy to claim that Justice Alito should be investigated. 

Politico, which did cover the story, did not spare even one word about Soros’ generous financing of seven of the signatories. Instead, Politico legitimized the attack, referring to flags flown at Justice Alito’s house as the “latest ethics black eye.”

These radical groups ludicrously asked Durbin to investigate Justice Alito “for the public’s long-term faith in the rule of law,” but went on to rely heavily on a time Justice Alito’s wife flew the American flag upside down and a separate time when the family flew the “Appeal to Heaven” Revolutionary War flag. Their ridiculous argument dishonestly refers to a historical and patriotic flag as “another flag also closely linked to the January 6 attack.” On this absurd basis, the signatories claimed that “Justice Alito’s clear lapses in judgment call into serious question his ability to fairly judge cases concerning the 2020 election.”

That’s not a “dishonest” argument — the “Appeal to Heaven” flag was prominently displayed by Capitol rioters, and there’s nothing “absurd” about raising legitimate questions about Alito’s impartiality because of his display of those flags.

Bill D’Agostino smelled a conspiracy in a June 7 post:

The New York Times’s latest attempt at a manufactured scandal — that a few years ago, a Supreme Court Justice’s wife flew a flag upside down — is among the most desperate election-year media ploys ever seen. It’s obvious what this non-story is about: the corporate journalists are attempting to conjure up a pretense for the Supreme Court to be “reformed,” which, in this case, usually involves adding five or more new seats and immediately filling them with far-left ideologues.

Nobody’s buying it, because we know the media’s thoughts on the Supreme Court. As soon as Trump started nominating judges, they began questioning the court’s legitimacy and arguing that perhaps something needed to change.

That brings us to The Times’s latest non-story. Does anyone really believe the American news media, with all their criticism of America, flouting of norms, and scorn for tradition, are actually upset at the supposed mishandling of an American flag? It’s not like it was a pride flag.

Perhaps aware of their weak pretense, they tried to punch up their story with a new scandalous detail: the Alitos were also seen flying the “Appeal to Heaven” flag on one of their properties. You know, that flag commissioned centuries ago by George Washington. Apparently we’re meant to pretend it’s a symbol of January 6 or racism or something now.

Then the MRC had yet another Alito controversy to distract from. Nicholas Fondacaro complained in a June 11 post about “progressive activist Lauren Windsor, who conveniently just released highly edited audio she secretly recorded at the Supreme Court Historical Society’s annual gala last week. Audio she recorded while deceptively claiming to be a conservative Catholic. It was another excuse for the liberal media to continue their campaign to rip at the legitimacy of the U.S. Supreme Court.” He then rushed to dismiss the audio clip:

Ultimately, what she released was nothing of consequence, but that didn’t stop NBC’s Todayfrom framing it as “More controversy this morning surrounding Supreme Court Justice Samuel Alito and his wife,” as described by senior Washington correspondent Hallie Jackson. “Those recordings, getting a lot of attention this morning, capturing the outlook of Justice Alito who’s devoutly Catholic along with his wife and the chief justice,” she gawked.

But what did Alito say that was supposedly so controversial? Well, one side wins in political battles, and getting along is difficult:

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Congratulations liberal media! You caught Alito describing politics in a democracy. Truly groundbreaking.

Michael Wnek ranted about criticism of the audio in another June 11 post:

MSNBC’s Joy Reid devoted a significant portion of Monday’s night’s episode of The ReidOut to launching yet another attack on Supreme Court Justice Samuel Alito and his wife, Martha-Ann. Reid celebrated a secret recording by leftist Lauren Windsor attempting to expose and embarrass the Alitos as conservative crazies. 

Reid began with her standard, generalizing smear of conservative justices, alleging that they have become increasingly defiant and corrupt. “A number of these conservative justices have become emboldened and even self righteous, particularly Alito, whose power has grown alongside his public grievances with the secular direction of American society,” she proclaimed.

She rehashed Alito’s past offenses before turning to “blockbuster new audio” recorded by Windsor, whom she praised for the deceptive tactics she employed in attempting to elicit views that would incriminate Alito as partisan. In the audio, he stated the simple fact “one side or the other is going to win,” admitting that peaceful collaboration between both sides was possible, though necessarily difficult due to extreme polarization of values.

To Reid, Alito was a clearly biased, Christian nationalist for agreeing with Windsor’s outrageous suggestion that “people in this country who believe in God have got to keep fighting for that, to return our country to a place of godliness.” She juxtaposed Alito’s “shocking” response with that of Chief Justice John Roberts who maintained that “It’s our job to decide the cases as best we can.”

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Alito’s assessment of the media in the recording, then, undeniably rings true: “It’s easy to blame the media, but I do blame them because they do nothing but criticize us. And so they have really eroded trust in the Court.”

Intern Mary Clare Waldron did some guest hate-watching of “The View” regarding the audio:

Another week, another phony Supreme Court justice scandal covered by ABC’s The View. This one being especially, only Whoopi Goldberg tried to insist it was actually a scandal. On Tuesday morning’s segment, the group discussed a deceptive audio secretly taken in hopes of embarrassing both Justice Samuel Alito and his wife. The tape, being of no great consequence, only highlighting the justice’s faith, once again, sent Whoopi on a tangent, calling for the necessity of a class action suit! Surprisingly, many of the other hosts disagreed.

This secretly taped audio was taken by Lauren Windsor, a liberal activist, who specializes in the deception of politicians with her faux conservative persona and Whoopi wondered, “Why can’t we sue them in a class action suit?… I don’t know why you can’t pull a class action suit that says, listen, you are no longer doing the job you’re supposed to be doing. I don’t understand.”

Comedy cop Alex Christy weighed in when the audio was discussed on late-night TV:

CBS’s host of The Late Show, Stephen Colbert, and Comedy Central’s The Daily Show temp host Jordan Klepper tried to turn molehills into mountains on their Tuesday shows as they tried to claim that the secret recordings of Justice Samuel Alito and his wife, Martha-Ann, are proof of religious nuttery and even fascism.

Colbert claimed the recordings prove Alito’s critics correct, “Alito’s been in hot water lately for, among other things, flying multiple flags that support the January 6th insurrectionists outside of his homes. Now he has been secretly recorded saying what the flags only hinted at.”

After noting the recordings were taken by a “liberal activist” pretending to be a conservative, Colbert played an audio clip of Alito declaring that “One side or the other, one side or the other is going to win. I don’t know. I mean, there can be a — a way of working, a way of living together peacefully, but it’s difficult, you know, because there are differences on fundamental things that really can’t be compromised.”

What Alito said is simply true. Either Republicans win the election or Democrats win the election. Either the plaintiffs win the case or the defendant wins the case. Either abortion is murder or it isn’t. It is also not Alito’s job to appease Colbert’s feelings by way of some political compromise disguised as law. However, Colbert spun this to suggest Alito is irremediably biased, “You’re a Supreme Court justice. You’re not supposed to be thinking about what side someone is on. You’re supposed to decide cases. Impartial. That’s why lady justice has a blindfold and a scale, not 3D glasses and a popcorn bucket!”

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Meanwhile, Klepper began his musings by also declaring that the recordings prove Alito’s critics right, “it turns out that the guy who overruled Roe v. Wade is a bit of a religious nut. But what was much more interesting is that this activist also recorded Alito’s wife, Martha-Ann Alito. She’s already been in the news for flying an upside-down American flag at their house after Trump lost the 2020 election, and then for flying a far-right Appeal to Heaven flag at their beach house. And if you thought two flags was a lot of flags, this lady is just getting started.”

After a clip of Martha-Ann expressing her desire to fly a Sacred Heart of Jesus flag in response to Pride Month, Klepper replied, “So, Martha-Ann got so mad after seeing a Pride flag that she’s planning to put up a whole bunch of Jesus flags to combat it.”

Extending his middle finger, he added, “Because everyone knows Jesus is the ultimate symbol of ‘[bleep] your love!’ And also, if she runs out of flags, don’t worry: She’s thinking up more flags in her head!

It’s ironic that these MRC writers dismiss Windsor as a “leftist” partisan and that her audio was “deceptively” and “highly edited,” given that the MRC had no problem with those same tactics used by right-wing activist James O’Keefe in his Project Veritas stunts, or when anti-abortion extremists did the same thing in an attempt to smear abortion providers.

Tim Graham whined about the audio in a June 13 post that began with whining about the purportedly insufficient coverage of Hunter Biden’s trial that the MRC had been obsessed with for days:

Taxpayer-funded National Public Radio didn’t think Hunter Biden’s three guilty felony verdicts were a big deal. NPR.org has an online listing of story order on their news programs. On Tuesday night, All Things Considered put the Hunter Biden verdicts at….number nine. Guess what was #1. “Secret audio raises new questions about Supreme Court Justice’s impartiality.”

This drew six minutes and 11 seconds. The Hunter Biden guilty verdicts lasted 3:52. NPR reporter Ryan Lucas recounted all the family hugs and hand-holding, but left out ANY Republican commentary.

Co-host Mary Louise Kelly oozed: “A woman who describes herself as a documentarian and liberal activist secretly recorded audio of two Supreme Court justices at an exclusive gala. Lauren Windsor released the edited audio on X and shared it with Rolling Stone.”

Graham was forced to address the O’Keefe-sized elephant in the room when his work was brought up:

You KNOW someone’s seriously leftist when they’re “liberal” to NPR. Naturally, media reporter David Folkenflik was brought on:

FOLKENFLIK: Right now she’s operating in a kind of – well, shall I say, a bit of a cowboy mode. It’s almost as though she sees herself as an antidote to James O’Keefe, the conservative, really right-wing provocateur who used undercover videos. He often went after sort of ancillary figures to try to discredit larger institutions or liberal figures. In her case, she’s really gone after folks who are really at the top, in this case, of the federal government and also, in some ways, the conservative establishment, if you think about these two justices.

To his credit, Folkenflik suggested this was an ethical issue, that NPR wouldn’t stoop to this. He did NOT recall for his listeners that O’Keefe staffers punked NPR in 2011, leading to several resignations. But how is Windsor the “antidote”? She’s the opposite, but she’s doing the same apparently poisonous thing.

There’s definitely a dishonesty in secret recordings, especially when people pretend to be something they’re not. But it’s rich for NPR to pose as guardians of judicial propriety, when NPR reporter Nina Totenberg and her pal Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg broke all the rules about ethics together. 

Of course Graham played whataboutism with it — that’s what he does. Also, we don’t recall him or any other MRC employee dismissing Project Veritas’ work as “dishonesty” when the MRC was enthusiastically promoting that same work — indeed, the word “dishonest” appears nowhere in the 2011 MRC post to which Graham linked touting the NPR stunt because it forced the NPR president to resign. Note that Graham didn’t similarly cheer that Windsor “punked” Alito.