May 23, 2024

Doug Mastriano and the Appeal to Heaven Flag

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So much happening.

Let's start here:

Last summer, two years after an upside-down American flag was flown outside the Virginia home of Justice Samuel A. Alito Jr., another provocative symbol was displayed at his vacation house in New Jersey, according to interviews and photographs.

This time, it was the “Appeal to Heaven” flag, which, like the inverted U.S. flag, was carried by rioters at the Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021. Also known as the Pine Tree flag, it dates back to the Revolutionary War, but largely fell into obscurity until recent years and is now a symbol of support for former President Donald J. Trump, for a religious strand of the “Stop the Steal” campaign and for a push to remake American government in Christian terms.

Alito should recuse. 

But that's not why we're here.

This is:


You can watch the video here. See what's over Doug's left shoulder?  An "Appeal to Heaven" flag.

BTW, at about 2:50 in, Doug calls the events of January 6 "a form of terrorism" and "un-American."

He also says (3:28 in) that the violence was "a threat to the men and women in blue." He also said that instigating violence to push a political agenda is never acceptable.

Good to have heard him say it at some point, I suppose.

There's also this:

Whah??  But isn't "threaten(ing) the New Yorker journalist" um instigating violence to push a political agenda?

Then there's this:

In the prayer, he mentions an "Esther moment" and in his testimony to the Select Committee to Investigate the January 6 attach, Andrew Seidel explains Doug's use of the phrase:

Pennsylvania State Senator Doug Mastriano is a front- runner for governor in the 2022 race, having answered "God's calling" asking him to run. Mastriano and Saccone posed for a photo together outside the Capitol on January 6th. First elected in 2019, Mastriano humbly compared his political motivations to the biblical figure Queen Esther, who stopped the ancient Persians from massacring the Israelites. Mastriano reportedly stated that "if we get the call, we're not going to stand away from our Esther moment." The story of Esther ends with sons impaled on poles, 300 executions, and 75,000 enemies slaughtered, shading Mastriano's "Esther moment" with bloody violence. A day before the insurrection, Mastriano noted that Republicans "were in a death match" with Democrats. Nothing suggests that he personally entered the Capitol, but he was just outside the building and declared that he was "really praying that God will pour His Spirit upon Washington, D.C., like we've never seen before." He joined several public prayer calls after the election, including one to "pray that we'll take responsibility, we'll seize the power that we had given to us by the Constitution and as well by you providentially. I pray for the leaders also in the federal government, God, on the sixth of January that they will rise up with boldness."
But wait, Doug. I thought that using violence for a political end was never acceptable?

If you believe that, then what the hell are you going on about our "Esther moment?"


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