#donald triumphant

[reality-detective]

Did JFK speak the truth to warn humanity?

Was he warning us?

Has humanity acknowledged the warning that he provided us?

In this speech JFK asked for the people's help just as Donald Trump did to be triumphant over the deep state stooges. 🤔

[huariqueje]

The Moon Triumphant - Donald Jurney

American, b. 1945 -

Oil on linen , 47 x 47 in.

[myfairkatiecat]

You deserve better anons but is this funny?

A Biden loving a Trump would be like pouring ink on a white dress. Or at least that was Jill's initial belief. No one had ever told her as such; likely because it was simply.... out of the question. But she still hesitated to dismiss herself. Still lingered on that odd possibility. There was something about Donald Trump. Jill knew that this was dangerous. But what was more criminal: dishonesty against the American people, or dishonesty about romantic feelings? One day Jill mindlessly blew Trump a kiss on the television. No one saw it, she barely realized what she was doing, and surely Trump wouldn't know- but he turned his head as soon as she blew it. And then grabbed his ear. And fell to the ground.

But then he rose. Triumphant, his fist in the air. He looked right at her, and shouted,

"Fight! Fight! Fight!"

Fight for their love?

Jill spent the night anxious and tearful. Was Trump okay? Was it her love that saved her love? She didn't sleep. She hid her feelings- her fear- from her family- until Joe spoke.

He was okay.

Jill broke down, crying in relief. Fortunately for her sake and for Don's, her husband took it to mean she was crying in anger- How could they miss? But they didn't miss, did they? She saw the blood on his ear.

And the love in his eyes.

H E L L O ?

What in the Romeo and Juliet au—

[jellogram]

Ngl Trump's assassination attempt becoming old news so quickly reeks of karmic justice. This man has spent his entire life begging to be in the public eye. He lives for that shit. He's like some kind of billionaire tulpa that needs nothing more than for everyone to be talking about him. He got elected pretty much solely by keeping himself in the headlines with his antics.

And now he gets handed what should be the news story of his life. Donald Trump survives gunshot wound. Donald Trump narrowly survives assassination. He even took that photo, a brilliant piece of on-the-fly campaigning, so that news stories would have something triumphant to showcase. His ultimate dream come true. An easy path to victory via media buzz once again.

And no one gives a shit. No one, aside from a few freaks that are already drunk on Trump's piss, actually cares. News sites moved on almost immediately. Social media moved on almost immediately.

It's like a fucking twilight zone episode.

[scotianostra]

1st September 1644 saw The Battle of Tippermuir and James Graham’s first victory over the Covenanters.

The Scottish Government, having embraced the Covenanter Cause and had entered the English Civil War, as a result, King Charles I appointed the ever loyal James Graham, 1st Marquis of Montrose, as his Scottish commander.

Montrose embarked upon a triumphant campaign in which he and his followers were often heavily outnumbered. Assisted by his Clan Donald henchman Alasdair MacColla and his Irish soldiers, he engaged with a substantial Government army near Perth and strategically routed the enemy, who were led by Lord Elcho and James Murray of Gask.

Only a few Covenanters died on the field but the rout that followed took two thousand of their lives. Perth belonged to Charles and the military genius of Montrose had brought triumph, despite the odds, for the first of many times.

Unlike most of our battles there is no memorial on this site, the pic shows the battlefield as it is today It is a shame there’s nothing to remember it as so many died here, although the numbers do vary by quite a bit, anything from 400 Covenanters to 2,000. Royalists casualties are quoted as “light"

[dishearteningmediocrity]

June 25th, 1937

Eighty-seven years ago, on June 25th, 1937, Colin Clive died in Los Angeles, California. This was a column that appeared in the Monday, June 28th edition of the Hollywood Citizen News, written by Edwin Martin--columnist, press agent, and acquaintance of Colin's. If I remember correctly, Gregory Mank quoted excerpts from this in his biography, but the article is worth reading in full. There's a poignant tribute underneath all the name-dropping.

Yeah, I know, not enough misery in the world these days, so it's time to dredge up more from the depths of the past. Still, it's an interesting glimpse into his life and death--and some of the people left behind.

Source: Hollywood Citizen News, Monday, June 28, 1937. Accessed via www.newspapers.com.

Transcript below.

CINEMANIA by Edwin Martin

JOURNEY'S END

"Think of all the chaps who've gone already. It can't be very lonely there--with all those fellows. Sometimes I think it's lonelier here."

Night after night we had heard him deliver those lines, and they never failed to touch us.

On this day they came back to us again--more poignantly than ever.

A few of us had gathered for a round-table at our favorite spot in Travaglini's--it was also his favorite corner that we occupied.

Just a few weeks before we had sat at this same table with him and planned a radio interview.

Soon after, when he went to the hospital, came a note in this manner: "Must have this old pump repaired a bit. Sorry we'll have to postpone our interview until I come out. Keep the corner warm at Travaglini's."

We had known him for many years--known him and admired him since they first brought him from England to star in the picture version of the same play he had made famous on the stage.

Later, when the play was revived by E.E. Clive, we enjoyed a most pleasant association while handling the publicity on the show during its run here at the Hollywood Playhouse.

During this time we got a little closer to this quiet, rather lonely man, who made famous the role of the hard-drinking Captain Stanhope in the stage and screen productions of "Journey's End."

Few knew it, but all during the past few months, even when he made such a hit in his outstanding part in "History is Made at Night," he had been carrying on under the constant shadow of a long illness--an illness which was gradually eating his heart out...but he never complained.

Sometimes there was a faraway look in his eyes as he talked--just that--nothing more--he was Captain Stanhope to the end.

A few of us were keeping the corner warm for him at Travaglini's that day when we heard Colin Clive had reached his journey's end.

WALTER BYRON, another fine young British actor, was studying his lines at the bar for the splendid part he plays with Sarah Padden in "Chilikoot Lou," with which Miss Padden soon returns to the vaudeville stage.

Eric Blore, inimitable English comedian, still in make-up, was also there...and Larry Kent, Hollywood's wandering actor, just back from directing and acting in England, was telling about a picture he wanted to make in the South Seas...Eddie Lee, known as England's "Donald Novis," was resting from his triumphant opening at the Century Club...and we were listening to the gentle elder Mr. Travaglini tell about stirring days when as a young man he was an officer in the Italian army...while Tony Travaglini, Jr., looked over a radio script planned as a welcome home to Harry Langdon.

Into this crowd of men came a saddened figure--a lovely woman who had been a friend of Colin. She was the last member of that gay trio who often occupied this same table together...from which another splendid young British actor, John Buckler, had left one night only to meet his journey’s end in Malibou Lake in a tragic auto accident.

She was the last one left—and she dragged her weary self up to the bar and ordered a double brandy.

Everyone wanted to ask about his condition, but Larry Kent was the only one who had the courage… “How is he?” he asked.

“He is going,” the woman said. “When I left he was already in the oxygen tent. They wouldn’t let me see him,” she said, trying desperately not to break down.

Because she knew that even a friend of Captain Stanhope must face unknown adventures with head held high.

A phone rang—it was for her—she answered it. Somehow the ominous tone of that ringing let us know the message. “He’s gone.”

Silently the glasses were filled…then Eric Blore lifted his glass. “I give you Colin Clive,” he said simply, and a toast was taken in his memory…and eventually each man filed out and went his separate way.

Somehow we believed that Colin Clive would have liked to know that his journey’s end had been accepted with such a gesture…as he went to that last rendezvous with his old friend, John Buckler...and as we walked out into the sunshine we remembered that we had other things to do--other things to write--but the only words we could think of were his gallant words from "Journey's End."

"Think of all the chaps who've gone already. It can't be very lonely there--with all those fellows. Sometimes I think it's lonelier here"....we are keeping the corner warm for you--Adios, Colin Clive.

[angrybell]

I’m hardly the only person in America who is sick to death of a decade of braying anti-Trump hysteria. Trump’s Iwo Jima photograph conveyed a truth that many Americans were hiding from themselves: namely, that besides being funny, the man has the strength of a bull. For three years, Americans have been mentally conditioned by a series of kangaroo court trials held in Democratic strongholds before overtly partisan judges. They were conditioned not to see Trump as guilty—the trials and the verdicts being acknowledged as flimsy by Democratic partisans from James Carville to Andrew Cuomo to all but one of the Democrat-appointed judges on the U.S. Supreme Court. Rather, the point was to humiliate Trump and steal his chi.

The point of the Trump trials was never to put Trump in jail—though the thought was no doubt appealing to many Party operatives and donors, and is probably even more appealing today. But that was judged from the beginning to be both unnecessary and impractical. The point was the trials themselves, which would trap the ex-President in courtrooms at the mercy of judges and prosecutors, some of them helpfully representing key Party demographics. The blustering billionaire who had failed to hold onto power after forgetting that politics is a game with rules and seeing his team of third-rate losers outwitted at every turn by their better-credentialed opponents, the man who had threatened to jail Hillary Clinton, the arch-insurrectionist of January 6th, would now sit in the courtroom while his reputation and his fortune and even the privacy of his marriage were taken from him. Day after day, Trump would be forced to sit there and do nothing, as he became the Incredible Shrinking Ex-President and Convicted Felon. Trump would be shown to be weak, while the People’s Justice reigned triumphant.

Trump’s supporters, meanwhile, who made the mistake of trespassing on the grounds of the Capitol on January 6th, wearing headdresses with horns like teenage boys dressed up for Purim, would rot in prison, maybe forever—put there by vengeful Party judges. See? Trump will not and cannot protect you. He is a spent force.

Now one photograph, capturing a single charismatic moment, has destroyed all of that—the product of a state-of-the-art mind-shaping campaign involving the efforts of many thousands of dedicated operatives and costing many billions of dollars. An election that a week ago seemed to smart observers like a foregone conclusion was now a fair contest. Even with 15 million Democratic absentee votes already in the bank, it is now anyone’s ballgame.

Read the rest. It’s worth a couple of minutes.

[thebreakfastgenie]

Frank and Margaret are actually very well matched in the beginning. Margaret is attracted to power and authority; we see this in her interest in generals who pass through the camp, as well as her obvious attraction to Douglas MacArthur, which extends to calling Frank "Doug" in bed. She is attracted to a very rigid kind of masculinity--or at least she believes that's what she's supposed to be attracted to, and thus seeks it out--but Margaret does not have a submissive personality. Frank aspires to that same kind of masculinity, but he does not actually embody it. With Frank, Margaret can claim to be with what she sees as a real and worthy man, but actually remain in control. And though he can't admit it, Frank is just as happy to let her be in control as long as she handles his ego the right way. He fears the responsibility that comes with actually being the head of the household, just as he fears responsibility in the military and in medicine.

Margaret longs for a husband and children and a house in the suburbs and a car, but she would be miserable as a housewife. I think her desire for marriage and children is genuine; she's a lonely person who craves love and companionship. In some ways, Frank is perfect for her. She can put off getting married and she can blame it on Frank's refusal to divorce Louise. Frank's marriage is by all accounts loveless; his affair with Margaret gives him companionship without him actually having to take the initiative to do something about his marriage. There's a quote from BJ that always comes to mind, from The Price of Tomato Juice:

"They're all they've got, Radar. Two kind of beat-up people, who, when they get together, barely have one heart between them."

It's a shockingly honest and thoughtful take on Frank and Margaret and I love BJ for it.

Frank and Margaret are well suited for each other in the moment, but bad for each other in the long run. They enable the worst parts of each other. As Margaret grows as a person, she begins to recognize that. And then she meets Donald. Donald actually is the ideal of a man she has been trying to shape Frank into. He's wealthy, upperclass, and a high-ranking officer. But the cracks begin to show early. Margaret doesn't fit into the role of wealthy officer's wife nearly as well as she'd hoped. The social climbing is more awkward than triumphant, because she discovers that the Penobscotts and their social circle do not accept her. Donald is unfaithful.

I don't know if this is intentional, but I also get the sense that Donald's peers in the army and elsewhere regard him as rather dull and weird, and put up with him because of his rank and family connections. And there is definitely some tarnish on his brass; despite his dashing image, he requests a transfer to San Francisco, away from the action. I don't blame anyone for wanting out of the Korean War, but in Margaret's value system at this point in her life, it's not brave or honorable to run away from the fight. On top of him leaving her after promising to work on their marriage, he's leaving his wife in a war zone while he goes back to a cushy stateside assignment.

It's no wonder, then, that Margaret's next relationship is with Scully, who is the polar opposite of that. Scully is rugged and manly, the very personification of a real soldier. He's also irreverent and disobedient. Margaret respects and values military authority and Scully doesn't. In some ways he's the perfect rebound; they have great chemistry and she has fun with him, but ultimately they're not compatible. Scully's attitudes towards women, which seem regressive to a modern audience and old-fashioned to the original audience but were fairly standard for the setting, also help Margaret better understand her own needs and desires.

Looking at Comrades in Arms with all of this in mind, it's striking that the morning after, Margaret starts behaving the way she behaved with Frank. While Hawkeye's reaction is mostly due to his own fear of what Margaret's expectations might be after their encounter, I think his rejection of this behavior is why they're able to become friends afterwards. Hawkeye knows Margaret well enough to know she's putting on an act and he doesn't respond to it. He likes her better when she acts like herself. I think he's one of the first people in her life to treat her that way.

Perhaps Margaret's most significant relationship is with the army. The army keeps her alone, but it also allows her to be independent. The lack of autonomy that frustrates and demoralizes the male draftees doesn't stand out to a woman in 1950s America. Being paid in scrip isn't nearly as humiliating if you aren't allowed to open your own bank account. Margaret ending the show single, but having forged strong friendships, is probably the best possible ending for her.

[justinspoliticalcorner]

Matt Gertz at MMFA:

Donald Trump’s presidency ended in chaos and disgrace, as a deadly pandemic ravaged the country and a violent mob stormed the U.S. Capitol. In the years since, he has doubled down on the “rigged election” lies that helped incite the insurrection and proposed a nakedly authoritarian vision for the country. He’s also been indicted four times, convicted on 34 felony charges, and ordered to pay $355 million in a civil fraud suit and $88.3 million after being found liable for sexual assault and defamation. But on Thursday night, Trump once again accepted his party’s nomination for president after a series of runaway victories in the Republican primaries. His meandering address to the Republican National Convention featured more than 20 falsehoods, ramblings about his assorted grievances, repeated lies that Democrats stole the 2020 election — and a vow that “we’re never going to let that happen again.”

Trump owes his party’s total capitulation in no small part to the fervent support he received from the right-wing media apparatus. Outlets like Fox News are a powerful force within the GOP, and they could have tried to move on from the former president after he left office — but instead they bent the knee and helped him glide past his legal calamities, steamroll his opponents, whitewash the January 6 insurrection, and return to power.

Rupert Murdoch, whose right-wing media empire includes Fox, the propaganda network that aided Trump’s political rise and served as an adjunct of his White House, privately signaled in the days following the January 6 insurrection that Trump’s time was over. “Fox News very busy pivoting,” he told a former network executive a few days later. “We want to make Trump a non person.” Murdoch instructed Fox News CEO Suzanne Scott: “Best we don’t mention his name unless essential and certainly don’t support him.”

This did not happen. Trump’s relationship with the network and the broader Murdoch empire went through a series of twists and turns over the next several years, including a reported “soft ban” from the Fox airwaves. But Murdoch never closed the door on a Trump revival — in the increasingly fractured right-wing media ecosystem, that would have left his outlets vulnerable to attack from rivals promoting themselves as more supportive of the former president. Instead, his network, in pursuit of the market share that Trump’s supporters bring, followed its competitors back into Trump’s fold. Rather than break with Trump, right-wing conspiracy theorists, led by then-Fox star Tucker Carlson, concocted a January 6 counternarrative in which the rioting Trumpists were gentle patriots who had been victimized by the deep state, the Democrats, and the media. This revisionist history ultimately won over the Republican base, demolishing the initial consensus that a violent attempt to overturn an election was unacceptable.

[...] By reinforcing Trump’s personality cult, his media allies helped make it impossible for his rivals to gain traction. When Trump began campaigning for president in March 2023, his core message was that he is an avatar of retribution against corrupt elites who are targeting him to get at his supporters, including the unfairly maligned J6 “hostages.” That aligned perfectly with what the Republican base had been hearing from the right-wing media for years, cutting off potential avenues that other candidates might have used to win over voters. Trump ended up crushing his primary opponents, who spent the final days of the primary complaining about how his dominance of the right-wing press had hamstrung their campaigns. And with Trump triumphant, Fox and the rest of the right-wing press returned to their roles as his propaganda force.

In the imminent aftermath of the January 6th Insurrection in 2021, Rupert Murdoch wanted to cut and bail on Donald Trump.

Seeing the threat of Newsmax, OANN, Lindell TV, and Real America’s Voice-- all of which were more strident than Fox “News” in their MAGA sycophancy-- eat into their ratings, Fox decided to stick with Trump instead come what may, and they are rewarded with it, as Donald Trump secured the nomination for the GOP.

[bloodcrownedking]

I hear my mum and brother losing their minds laughing over smth and i walk into the kitchen to see them watching brenna lee mulligan's donald trump impression. I feel so triumphant, my mum was like "oh! So thats the show you're always talking about! Thats hilarious"

[considerourknowledge]

Elon Musk's Chat With Trump Both Unwatchable and Unforgivable

At 8:35 p.m. Eastern time on Monday, a live audio stream on X of a conversation between the nation's two most insufferable narcissists, Elon Musk and Donald Trump flickered to life after a 35-minute delay. Happily, it was not the only glitch in what became a mind-numbing 2 hour conversation, a meandering mess that was as tedious as it was alarming. This conversation on X between Musk and Trump had been billed as a triumphant moment for the social media platform, but like all of Musk and Trump's ventures, was a snafu-filled disappointment. Musk claimed, without evidence, that a cyberattack caused the delay, but just like 90% of their conversation, it was a lie.

[starksvinyls]

Title: A Day Off Rating: Gen Pairing: None Tags/Warnings: Non-Sexual Age Play, Solo Age Play Summary: Peter spends a day off from classes and Spiderman and his internship recharging his batteries. Notes: for @ageplay-may and the Sugar prompt for day 5: “solo age play” AO3 Link

Peter set the note May had left him back down on the counter and grinned. Another double. He was a bit concerned for how much his aunt had been working recently, but he was also so glad for the time alone. His classes were kicking his ass, he actually had to do work in college, unlike high school were he mostly breezed through. It wasn’t like he hated it, the challenge for his brain was great, but between that, patrolling and his internship at SI (official and everything! He even got college credits!), Peter didn’t really have much time to relax. Having the apartment to himself until tomorrow morning meant that Peter could finally indulge himself and recharge. 

Scurrying back to his room, Peter couldn’t stop smiling. It had been so long since he’d been able to do this. He changed from his pjs into a pair of basketball shorts and a soft t-shirt, and then dropped down to the floor to pull the special box out from under his bed. It was a short, medium sized opaque plastic bin, and when he had it out, he undid the snap handles and pulled the lid off. Inside his treasures awaited. 

Peter pulled out his Donald Duck sippy cup and matching pacifier, along with a kids pencil box full of crayons and a couple coloring books. He clipped the paci to his shirt so he wouldn’t lose it, and then gathered up his things, making sure to snag his plush Donald Duck on the way back to the living room. 

He dumped his arm load onto the couch, taking a second to make sure Donald was sitting up and could see the TV, and then dug around to find the remote, making a triumphant noise when he located it between the cushions. Peter pulled up Netflix and started The Magic School Bus Rides Again before padding to the kitchen to pour himself some juice and get a bowl of cereal, humming along to theme song. Once back at the couch, sippy cup tucked into the crook of his arm, Peter plopped himself down and began shoveling Cheerios into his mouth, not caring about the milk dribbling down his chin. 

Cereal gone, Peter slid to the floor and pulled over his coloring books and crayons, setting them up on the coffee table. He laughed at a science pun that Miss Frizzle made on the TV as he flipped to the next uncolored picture in his book. It was an unlicensed Avengers coloring book he found on Etsy full of someone’s own drawings. It was fantastic, and whoever had drawn them managed to get a lot of details right. He pulled out the blue crayon to start on Captain America’s shield. 

By the time Peter was done with the picture of Cap, he had gotten through two episodes of the show. He was hungry again, so he got up to get another bowl of Cheerios. Ever since the spider bite, his appetite had been off the charts, and Peter had felt bad eating so much when he was in high school and unable to financially help his aunt with the grocery bills. Now, with his internship, he had some money coming in and was able to help with the groceries, which made eating until his tummy was happy a lot easier and guilt free. 

After a second bowl of cereal, Peter was back on the floor, this time coloring a picture of himself, well his spider themed alter ego. He giggled as he colored in the panels of his suit. He was in a coloring book! How freakin’ cool was that?! Eventually, Peter got bored of coloring and Netflix and wandered back to his room to get out his legos. He had a whole box full of miscellaneous pieces, that he could play with when he was feeling little. 

He sat criss-cross apple sauce on the floor and began to rummage through the box to find pieces adequate enough for his rocketship. Peter added pieces and rearranged pieces, then added more lego pieces. Finally his creation was complete! He had a mini rocketship in Iron Man’s colors and Peter smiled as he made it zoom around him, complete with sound effects. 

Peter’s phone buzzed where he left it on his nightstand, and he leaned over to grab it. It was a text from Ned begging to hang out to “save him from death by studying”. Peter snorted and then shot back a text in the affirmative. He was feeling better, not so tense, not so stressed. Having just a couple hours to himself, a couple hours to regress and not have to think or worry about anything else other than what color crayon to pick, or which lego piece to use, was such a nice way for him to recharge. 

[onlinekhabri]

As the sun dipped below the horizon on a Saturday evening, the Butler Farm Showgrounds hummed with anticipation. Former President Donald Trump arrived amidst deafening cheers and the triumphant strains of "God Bless the USA." The crowd, brimming with enthusiasm, fervently waved their flags, ready to witness their charismatic leader take the stage. However, fate had a sinister twist in store.

[dreaminginthedeepsouth]

Steve Brodner

* * * *

LETTERS FROM AN AMERICAN

May 17, 2024

HEATHER COX RICHARDSON

MAY 18, 2024

Yesterday, the Dow Jones Industrial Average rose above 40,000 but then dropped back below it; today it closed above 40,000 for the first time in history, ending the day at 40,003.59. This extraordinary performance means investors have confidence the Federal Reserve will get inflation under control without throwing the country into a recession. It is a triumphant vindication of the financial policies advanced by President Joe Biden and Secretary of the Treasury Janet Yellen.

In comparison to the breathless coverage of the stock market during Trump’s administration, this milestone is getting very little coverage. Under Trump, the stock market had the highest annualized gain of any Republican president since Calvin Coolidge in the 1920s, but at 11.8%, that annualized gain was lower than the annualized return under Democratic presidents Barack Obama (12.1%) and Bill Clinton (15.9%). Biden’s annualized return passed Trump’s in April 2024, as well. 

The stock market’s performance is being ignored partly because Democrats tend to underplay the role of the stock market as an indication of economic health because they recognize it is not the only important way to think about the economy. But since he took office, Biden has also had to contend with the constant stream of outrageous news coming from the radical right. 

Today is no exception. Indeed, today’s news is among the most shocking that we’ve had since Biden took office.

Yesterday evening, Jodi Kantor of the New York Times reported that in the days before Biden’s inauguration, an upside-down American flag flew in front of Supreme Court justice Samuel Alito’s home. A U.S. flag flown upside down is a universal symbol of distress. In the days after the January 6, 2021, insurrection, Trump loyalists flew the upside-down flag as a symbol of “the impending death of the nation and a call to arms,” according to American studies professor Matthew Guterl.

Leading scholar of the American right Kathleen Belew explained on social media that the upside-down flag was “not just signifying that the election was ‘stolen.’ The inverted flag means the country has been overthrown (to many, if not most, on the right). This is a profound act of symbolism and appalling at the home of a Supreme Court Justice.”

For Alito to fly it was an indication that he was part of the insurrection. 

In September 2021, Trump loyalist lawyer Sidney Powell, who was part of the team trying to get the results of the 2020 presidential election overturned, told a right-wing talk show host that while rioters were attacking the Capitol, she and her team were trying to get an emergency injunction to prevent Congress from certifying Biden’s victory. 

“We were filing a 12th Amendment constitutional challenge to the process that the Congress was about to use under the Electoral Act provisions that simply don’t jive [sic] with the 12th Amendment to the United States Constitution,” she said. “And Justice Alito was our circuit justice for that.” 

The plan was thwarted, she said, when then-House speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) reconvened Congress and certified Biden’s win that night. “[S]he really had to speed up reconvening Congress to get the vote going before Justice Alito might have issued an injunction to stop it all, which is what should have happened,” Powell said. 

Senate Judiciary Committee chair Dick Durbin (D-IL) said today that “Justice Alito should recuse himself immediately from cases related to the 2020 election and the January 6th insurrection, including the question of the former President's immunity in U.S. v. Donald Trump, which the Supreme Court is currently considering. The Court is in an ethical crisis of its own making, and Justice Alito and the rest of the Court should be doing everything in their power to regain public trust.”

House minority leader Hakeem Jeffries (D-NY) also called for Alito to recuse himself from cases involving the 2020 election and Trump. 

The potential for Alito to destroy our country in order to restore Trump to the presidency has continued. Along with Supreme Court justice Clarence Thomas, whose wife Ginni was in both sympathy and communication with the others trying to overturn the results of the election, as well as the three extremist justices Trump appointed, Alito has been part of a court that has delayed its decision about whether Trump can be tried on criminal charges for conspiring to overturn the results of the 2020 presidential election for so long that Trump likely has won his gambit to avoid trial before the 2024 election.

When Trump claimed last October that he could not be prosecuted, U.S. District Judge Tanya Chutkan, who is overseeing his trial, rejected the argument in December. Trump appealed, and Special Counsel Jack Smith asked the Supreme Court to decide the case immediately. The Supreme Court refused. Then, after a three-judge panel of a federal appeals court unanimously affirmed Chutkan’s ruling in a February 2024 decision that legal observers praised as “thorough and compelling,” Trump appealed to the Supreme Court. The Supreme Court then accepted his appeal and scheduled oral arguments for late April, more than a month after the original trial date set by Judge Chutkan. 

The result of all this delay, former federal prosecutor Ankush Khardori wrote in Politico last month, is “that a question whose answer was obvious back in December is unlikely to get that answer from the Supreme Court until its session ends in June.” “If the Court hadn’t intervened, we would already have a verdict in the January 6 case,” political strategist Michael Podhorzer wrote, “and we don’t know whether the Court would have decided to intervene without Thomas and Alito.”

When the story of Alito’s misuse of the flag broke, the justice explained himself to Fox News Sunday host Shannon Bream. He blamed his wife, Martha-Ann Alito, for flying the flag, saying she had hung it up in response to a “F*** Trump” sign that was “within 50 feet of where children await the school bus in Jan[uary] 21.” He said that the neighbors are “very political” and had had “words” with the Alitos that had upset Mrs. Alito. 

While Justice Alito blamed his wife for the flag, he could hardly have missed seeing it above his house. Former Chicago Tribune editor Mark Jacob wrote: “When I was an editor at the Chicago Tribune, I would’ve been in trouble if I’d let my wife put a political bumper sticker on our car. But a Supreme Court justice’s home can fly a flag of insurrection and he’s still allowed to rule on whether the head insurrectionist has immunity.”

The deputy chief of staff for Representative Don Beyer (D-VA), who represents the town in which the Alitos live, noted that the local schools were all remote in January 2021 because of the pandemic. “No children were waiting for buses,” he noted. Legal analyst Elie Mystal added: “Sam Alito running to Fox News to explain how…he’s not politically motivated at all…is an under-appreciated part of this ongoing ethical disaster.” 

It would be bad enough for a Supreme Court justice to announce a partisan preference. But, as David Kurtz wrote this morning at Talking Points Memo, Alito’s embrace of the insurrectionist flag “was a bold declaration of affinity for and alignment with the smoldering insurrection led by a president of the same party that had just been put down but which still loomed as a threat to civic order, the peaceful transfer of power (which at that point had still not yet happened), and the rule of law.”

The call is coming from inside the house.

LETTERS FROM AN AMERICAN

HEATHER COX RICHARDSON