M.L. Nestel joined Raw Story in 2023. An award-winning writer and editor, his work has been published in New York Magazine, Los Angeles Magazine and The Guardian, among other titles. He also produces and writes for true-crime genre TV shows. Prior to that, he served on the Newsweek masthead as a senior writer, wrote as a correspondent at ABC News and held the titles of West Coast bureau chief and senior writer at The Daily Beast. Priors also include working as senior national correspondent at The Daily Mail and investigative reporter at all three NYC tabloids: The New York Post,The New York Daily News and Newsday. He traveled around the country as a national correspondent at The Daily. M.L. published hundreds of stories about underground music and cinema — most notably as a critic for Box Office Magazine and the New York editor at Soma Magazine. He also headed development at Fountainhead Films. M.L. splits his time between Los Angeles and New York.
Justice Samuel Alito's excuse for why his wife hoisted an upside-down American flag at their home to respond to a tiff with neighbor was put into serious question by that neighbor.
Emily Baden appeared on CNN's "Out Front" with Erin Burnett to recount what prompted her beef with Martha-Ann Alito and call out the justice's challenged explanation.
"So at best, he's mistaken, but at worst he's just outright lying," Baden said.
After fallout of the inverted flag flying (a symbol of the "Stop the Steal" protest that turned deadly back on Jan. 6, 2021) that published in The New York Times, Alito attempted to blame the entire tit-for-tat incident on his wife.
“I had no involvement whatsoever in the flying of the flag,” Alito's statement read. “It was briefly placed by Mrs. Alito in response to a neighbor’s use of objectionable and personally insulting language on yard signs.”
“My wife is fond of flying flags,” Alito wrote. “I am not.” Those yard signs were placed on Baden's family home front yard.
Baden admitted the handmade glittered cursive-lettered sign that read: "F--- Trump."
But it's the dates that she contends contradicts the justice's explanation.
The provocation between Baden and Martha-Ann came to a head on Feb. 15 where she regrettably used the "C-word".
She said Justice Alito stood by silently as his wife "started screaming" at Baden and her husband using their full names. "I started yelling 'How dare you. You're on the highest court of the land... behaving this way. Shame on you!'"
In Alito's attempt to give context to the flag, he suggests his wife rose it in response to that confrontation.
Baden notes that it was flying weeks before it.
"I really want to hammer home the fact that that happened on Feb. 15, and their flag went up two or three weeks before that," she said. "So even if it were a valid excuse that they were having a dispute with a neighbor and that made them put the flag up — the timeline just disproves it, it just doesn't make sense."
That flag was brandished by supporters of former President Donald J. Trump who attended the “Stop the Steal” protest on Jan. 6, 2021.
Nonetheless, even after Alito's wife was found to have quietly been protesting from his home — he has refused to recuse himself on any of the pressing cases involving Jan. 6 and Donald Trump.
