Democrats and their allies in the liberal media launched a smear campaign against Supreme Court Justice Samuel Alito earlier this month in an effort to encourage him to step down from upcoming cases related to former President Donald Trump and the Jan. 6 protests.
Jodi Kantor, the leader of the effort at The New York Times, failed to land a decisive blow with her May 16 story on the flag; The Washington Post had dismissed it as frivolous a few years earlier. Eager to see results, Kantor decided to stoke concern about another flag: the “Appeal to Heaven” flag, also known as the “Pine Tree Flag,” which apparently flew over Alito’s New Jersey beach house last year.
That attack was similarly ineffective: Alito told Sens. Dick Durbin of Illinois and Sheldon Whitehouse of Rhode Island that he didn’t fly either flag and had no plans to resign, sending Democrats into a fit of impotent rage.
Democratic politicians’ sentiment and the remaining credibility of The New York Times were not the only casualties of this failed smear campaign.
The “Call to Heaven” flag in question was designed by an aide-de-camp to then-General George Washington, and has since been effectively transformed in the liberal public imagination from a patriotic flag flown by proud Americans into an abhorrent symbol of imagined evil.
“The proposal was then adopted by another group that does not represent the city’s values.”
The “Appeal to Heaven” flag was one of a collection of 18 flags reflecting different moments in American history that flew in the Civic Center Plaza outside San Francisco City Hall.
according to According to SFist, the flag was removed by the city’s Recreation and Parks Department after flying it “without controversy” for 60 years.
The flag’s fate appears to have been sealed not only by its presence among the countless banners that flew over the Capitol on January 6th, but also by its recent association in The Times with a Supreme Court justice that the left dislikes.
City Parks Authority
Said The San Francisco Chronicle said in a statement that the flag originally stood for “the pursuit of American independence” but “has since been adopted by other groups who do not represent the city’s values.”
The “Appeal to Heaven” flag was replaced with the American flag and was also flown at Justice Alito’s home and the Capitol on January 6th.
The removal of the flag came after social media users warned that the Democratic Party
They are, in effect, throwing stones at Alito from their glass houses. Months since the Palestinian flag was raised raised to a pillar At the Golden Gate Bridge.
according to According to the National Park Service, the Appeal to Heaven flag “became well known at sea as the flag of cruisers commissioned by General Washington and was featured in many British newspapers of the time.”
The office of Republican Illinois Representative Chris Miller
I got it. Years before the flag became controversial:
The pine tree has long been a symbol of New England, appearing on the New England flag that flew colonial merchant ships as far back as 1686. In the lead up to the Revolutionary War, the pine tree became a symbol of colonial anger and resistance. Colonists resented restrictions on timber for their needs and livelihoods. Prohibitions were ignored, and “Swamp Laws” were enacted to cut down pines as needed, regardless of the law.
In New Hampshire, the Pine Tree Riot of 1772 was one of the first powerful protests against British policies. The riot occurred almost two years before the more famous Boston Tea Party protests and three years before open hostilities began at the Battles of Lexington and Concord. The pine tree was also used for the flag raised by the colonists at the Battle of Bunker Hill in June 1775.
The flag was subsequently adopted by the Massachusetts State Navy and served until 1971.
Regarding San Francisco’s quiet removal, Sen. Mike Lee (R-Utah) I told a joke “Let’s not rush to make the insane masses understand that ‘A Flag Calling to Heaven’ is not a call for violent rebellion!”
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