Letters to the Editor: Stop panicking over the Alitos’ harmless, goofy flag hobby

To the editor: I think columnist Jackie Calmes has lost objectivity about Supreme Court Justice Sameul A. Alito Jr. (“The Supreme Court’s all-important Jan. 6 decisions will be tainted,” Opinion, June 2)

First, she shouldn’t conflate Alito’s wife with Justice Clarence Thomas’ to support her thesis.

Second, Alito’s explanation is reasonable. I’d probably do exactly what he did with respect to a wife who loves her slightly goofy flag hobby that’s 99% harmless: Don’t tell her what to do, don’t even look at or think about the flag, and keep the peace.

Third, most Americans had no idea that the “stop the steal” people had taken an upside-down American flag and the “Appeal to Heaven” pine tree flag as their symbols. I didn’t, no one I know did, and the San Francisco City Hall people who flew the pine tree flag for years didn’t either.

Finally, do we have to stop doing something we enjoy simply because kooks or haters have adopted it as their symbol?

Chuck Almdale, North Hills

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To the editor: Calmes’ column reads like a footrace between Alito and Thomas for the most biased, if not the most corrupt, Supreme Court justice.

Alito’s MAGA bias is so obvious and so open with his Fox News appearance, they could probably smell it in Siberia. It seems that he and Thomas — the justice with the insurrectionist wife and billionaire gifts — are in some kind of competition to be the most compromised and integrity-deaf justice.

Jim Hoover, Huntington Beach

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To the editor: Calmes believes Thomas and Alito should recuse themselves from the pending Jan. 6 cases based on their respective wives’ overt displays of support for conservative causes.

Using this reasoning, shouldn’t New York Judge Juan Merchan have recused himself from the recently concluded trial of former President Trump because his daughter was a Democratic political consultant?

Some consistency would be refreshing.

Mike Bennett, Rowland Heights