The justice's beach house displayed an "Appeal to Heaven" flag, a symbol carried on Jan. 6 and associated with a push for a more Christian-minded government.
Nobody Is Buying SCOTUS Justice Samuel Alito's Excuseswww.thedailybeast.com
Alito has been given every opportunity to deny his belief in Trump's Big Lie. But he didn't"and that's incredibly concerning for the future of American democracy.
Alito has since blamed both his wife and a neighborly dispute for the brewing scandal in a pair of interviews"but he hasn't once disavowed the symbolism behind the flag or even suggested that he didn't know what it meant.
It's a concerning response given the fact that election-related cases are still being heard before the High Court, according to The Atlantic writer and author Adam Serwer, who joins The New Abnormal this week to discuss the latest in a string of recent Supreme Court scandals.
"It's relevant that Alito might be sympathetic to the people who violently tried to overthrow the government in an attempt to keep Donald Trump in power illegally after he lost the 2020 election," he added. "Someone like that should absolutely be nowhere near the federal bench, let alone the Supreme Court."
So apparently the flag Alito flew outside his beach house is the same flag that Mike Johnson has hanging outside his office, and it's basically symbolic of Christian nationalist who want to remake America into a Christian nation, no separation between church and state. Many of these flags were flown at the 1/6 insurrections and there is a good reason why:
The Key to Mike Johnson's Christian Extremism Hangs Outside His Officewww.rollingstone.com
NOVEMBER 10, 2023
The newly elected House speaker has ties to the far-right New Apostolic Reformation--which is hell-bent on turning America into a religious state
The flag--which Rolling Stone has confirmed hangs outside his district office in the Cannon House Office Building--is white with a simple evergreen tree in the center and the phrase "An Appeal to Heaven" at the top. Historically, this flag was a Revolutionary War banner, commissioned by George Washington as a naval flag for the colony turned state of Massachusetts. The quote "An Appeal to Heaven" was a slogan from that war, taken from a treatise by the philosopher John Locke. But in the past decade it has come to symbolize a die-hard vision of a hegemonically Christian America. . . .
This is why, if you look closely at the panopticon of videos and pictures of the Capitol insurrection, Appeal to Heaven flags are everywhere. There are dozens, perhaps hundreds, of them punctuating the crowd, including even on the front lines of clashes between rioters and Capitol police officers . . . .
Hundreds of Christian figures supported Trump's effort to overthrow the 2020 election, but, having spent years researching and tracking the direct influences on Christians who actually showed up on Jan. 6, we contend that no single Christian leader contributed more to this effort to mobilize Christians against the very structures of American democracy than [Dutch] Sheets. One case in point: Sheets and his team were reportedly at the White House a week before the insurrection, strategizing with administration officials, as we reported on Jan. 6, 2023:
On December 29, 2020--eight days before the insurrection-- Sheets and his team of prophets were in Washington, D.C., staying at the Willard Hotel, the site of the various war rooms overseen by Rudy Giuliani and Steve Bannon. On that day, Sheets, along with 14 other apostles and prophets, had a multi-hour meeting inside the White House with Trump administration officials. Who exactly among White House Staff attended this meeting is unclear (and the Trump administration has made the White House Visitor Logs secret and invulnerable to FOIA requests until 2026). But members of Sheets' team posted photos of themselves (with White House visitor passes) both outside and inside the building.
The Appeal to Heaven flag was the banner of this mobilization, which brings us back to Mike Johnson and the flag outside his office. What does it signal that the speaker of the House of Representatives is purposely flying this symbol of Christian warfare?
It is simply untenable to think that Johnson is unaware of what the Appeal to Heaven flag signals today. It represents an aggressive, spiritual-warfare style of Christian nationalism, and Johnson is a legal insurrectionist who has deeply tied himself into networks of Christian extremists whose rhetoric, leadership, and warfare theology fueled a literal insurrection.
These true believers are dangerous and well organized. They think they are in some kind of religious war and see themselves as holy warriors. Remember Ginni's texts messages to Meadows:
The text messages, reviewed by CNN, show Thomas pleading with Meadows to continue the fight to overturn the election results.www.kcra.com Trump doesn't give a crap about any of this, but he cares about remaining in power and having total presidential immunity. He gives them what they want in terms of the courts, and they give him what he wants in terms of an imperial presidency. That's the quid pro quo that is going on.
"Help This Great President stand firm, Mark!!! ... You are the leader, with him, who is standing for America's constitutional governance at the precipice. The majority knows Biden and the Left is attempting the greatest Heist of our History," Thomas wrote on Nov. 10, 2020.
Thomas regularly checked in with Meadows to encourage him to push claims of voter fraud and work to prevent the election from being certified. Meadows often responded. On that same day as the previous text, he wrote: "I will stand firm. We will fight until there is no fight left. Our country is too precious to give up on. Thanks for all you do."
On Nov. 24, 2020, Meadows promised he wasn't done battling on Trump's behalf and evoked his faith as a source of strength.
"This is a fight of good versus evil. Evil always looks like the victor until the King of Kings triumphs. Do not grow weary in well doing. The fight continues. I have staked my career on it. Well at least my time in DC on it."
Leonard Leo flies the Appeal to Heaven flag as well:
Andy Kroll
@AndyKroll
It's not just Justice Alito.
Here's the "Appeal to Heaven" flag flying outside of conservative powerbroker Leonard Leo's home in Maine.
Photo taken by a nearby resident who shared it with @ProPublica and gave us permission to publish it. 1/x
As @ProPublica reported, Leo played a key role in Alito's confirmation to the Supreme Court, just as he did for the court's five other conservative justices.
Leo and Alito are said to be close. They've dined and traveled together. propublica.org 2/x
Last year, @ProPublica revealed that Leo had helped organize an Alaska fishing vacation that included Justice Alito and billionaire Paul Singer.
Singer later had a major case come before SCOTUS, which ruled 7-1 in his favor, w/ Alito in the majority 3/x
Why Is Mike Johnson Flying a Christian Nationalist Flag Outside His Office?
A new report confirmed that the House speaker is displaying an "Appeal to Heaven" flag outside his door.
House Speaker Mike Johnson has three flags hanging outside his office: the American flag, the Louisiana state flag, and a flag representing a movement that wants to turn the United States into a religious Christian nation. . . .
The flag was originally used as a banner during the Revolutionary War, but over the past decade, it has been embraced by a sect of Christianity called the New Apostolic Reformation, or NAR. A central tenet of NAR's belief system is that it is God's will for Christians to take control of all aspects of U.S. society--including education, arts and entertainment, the media, and businesses--to create a religious nation.
The flag has appeared in photos of far-right politicians and election deniers such as Doug Mastriano, the Trump-endorsed candidate for Pennsylvania governor. Mastriano lost to Democrat Josh Shapiro.
Again emphasis mine:
EVIDENCE STRONGLY SUGGESTS TRUMP WAS COLLABORATING WITH CHRISTIAN NATIONALIST LEADERS BEFORE JANUARY 6THreligiondispatches.org
Just a couple weeks before the 2020 election, Trump was presented with an ATH [Appeal To Heaven] flag by one of Wagner's apostles, Paul Marc Goulet, while visiting a church in Las Vegas. This Appeal to Heaven vigor about Trump and revival dovetailed with hundreds of prophecies from the NAR and other networks of charismatic prophets echoing that God had destined Trump to win the 2020 election. In the helter-skelter season between the 2020 election and the January 6 attempt to forcibly interfere with the result, the Appeal to Heaven flag had become a ubiquitous symbol adopted by charismatic Christians to exhibit their faith in these Trump prophecies.
For his part, Dutch Sheets became a one-man Trump propaganda machine after the election was called for Biden. He undertook an ambitious swing-state prayer and prophecy tour with a band of prophets and prayer warriors to try to push the spiritual dial toward Trump, leading huge rallies with hundreds of thousands following on YouTube. Sheets also, through his popular daily YouTube broadcasts (receiving 200,000+ views each day in December 2020) and myriad charismatic media appearances in the leadup to the Insurrection, was one of the foremost Christian Big Lie enthusiasts with masses of charismatic Christians tracking his commentary.
But, sure, it's just a coincidence that Johnson, Altio and Leo all proudly fly the ATH flag.
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