JUDICIAL DISTRESS: An upside down American flag, a sign of distress adopted by proponents of the “Stop the Steal” movement following the 2020 election, flew over the home of conservative Supreme Court Justice Samuel Alito in a signal of political opinion inappropriate for a member of the court.

  The NY Times confirmed the story through interviews with neighbors and pictures taken in January 2021 before Joe Biden was inaugurated. While the flag flew upside down at the Alito home, the court turned down an election case with Alito voting in the losing minority. Alito has heard arguments and is expected to vote on two cases involving the January 6^th insurrection, including whether Donald Trump has presidential immunity for his actions.

  “I had no involvement whatsoever in the flying of the flag,” Justice Alito said in statement emailed to The Times. “It was briefly placed by Mrs. Alito in response to a neighbor’s use of objectionable and personally insulting language on yard signs.”

  Martha-Ann Alito evidently had a dispute with a neighboring family over an anti-Trump sign on their lawn. Regardless of motive, it was a political statement.

  This makes Alito the second justice with a conflict of interest over 2020 election and political cases. Ginni Thomas, wife of Justice Clarence Thomas, was deeply involved with efforts to overturn the 2020 election but he has not recused himself from cases.

EXECUTIVE PRIVILEGE: With House Republicans threatening to hold Attorney General Merrick Garland in contempt, President Biden yesterday asserted executive privilege to stop the Republicans from getting their hands on audio recordings of the President’s interview with the special counsel investigating his private handling of secret documents. 

  The transcript of the interview is already public, but Republicans on the House Judiciary Committee want the audio for “oversight” purposes. The Democrats suspect the real reason is to cull embarrassing clips for use in the fall political campaign.

  The move shields Garland from prosecution for contempt for refusing to turn over the recordings. 

CONSUMER PROTECTION: The Supreme Court shot down a challenge to the way the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau is funded in a case that, had it gone the other way, would have crippled the CPB and advanced a goal of the conservative legal movement to limit the power of independent agencies.

The vote was 7-2, with Justice Clarence Thomas writing the majority opinion and Justices Alito and Gorsuch in the minority.

  The question was whether the way Congress funded the bureau violated the appropriations clause of the Constitution, which says that “no money shall be drawn from the Treasury, but in consequence of appropriations made by law.”

  Justice Thomas wrote that “An appropriation is simply a law that authorizes expenditures from a specified source of public money for designated purposes.”

  If the CPB had lost, every regulation and enforcement action it had taken in its 13 years of existence would have come under question and maybe even have been erased, including those covering mortgages, credit cards, consumer loans, and banking.

LIAR, LIAR: It was former lawyer and fixer Michael Cohen who became the accused for a day yesterday as Donald Trump’s defense lawyer tried to convince the jury in the former president’s hush money trial that you can’t believe a thing Cohen says.

  Lawyer Todd Blanche did his best to leave the jury believing that a man who lies once lies about everything. Cohen says he lied while he was working for Trump to protect his boss, but he’s telling the truth now about the scheme to pay for the silence of porn actress Stormy Daniels. Blanche played a clip from Cohen’s podcast to make him sound like he just wants revenge for being cast out of the Trump circle. In that clip Cohen says, “You better believe I want this man to go down and rot inside for what he did to me and my family.

  Cohen has testified that he paid off Stormy Daniels for her silence about a sexual fling with Trump and that Trump was aware of the reimbursement plan masked as a legal retainer.

  Cohen’s credibility is the Achilles heel of the trial. If the jury doesn’t believe him, it’s over. As one commenter said on CNN, “Cohen is a lying liar who lies about lying.”

THE SPIN RACK: Texas Gov. Greg Abbott yesterday pardoned a man convicted of murder in the shooting an armed protester during a Black Lives Matter demonstration in the summer of 2020. Daniel Perry always argued it was self-defense. — Aid has begun to flow into Gaza through a pier built by the US. — Jurors in the Robert Menendez corruption trial yesterday were shown the gold bars found by the FBI in the New Jersey US senator’s home. 

BELOW THE FOLD: Harrison Butker, the placekicker for the Super Bowl champion Kansas City Chiefs known for what he can do with his foot has put it in his mouth.

  In a 20-minute commencement address to the graduates of Benedictine College, a conservative Catholic school in Atchison, Kansas, the Christian kicker railed against “degenerative cultural values and media.” He rebuked President Biden for being a Catholic who supports abortion rights.

   Then for the extra points, Butker urged the young women graduates to forgo a career so that they can marry, have children, and support their man. He said his wife’s life “truly started” when she converted to the faith and married him. Butker said, “It cannot be overstated that all of my success is made possible because a girl I met in band class back in middle school would convert to the faith, become my wife and embrace one of the most important titles of all: homemaker.”

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