Chief Justice Paul Newby's Flag Merely Confirms What We Already Knew About Him

Paul Newby, Chief Justice of the NC Supreme Court, waited just hours (it seems) after the 2022 elections gave him his conservative majority to reverse the Court's previous ruling that gerrymandering of legislative districts violates the equal rights of citizens. Newby's newspeak: It's perfectly all right for the Republican majority in the General Assembly to stack the deck however it damn well pleases. Short version: Newby is an enemy of democracy.

So it came as no great surprise that the same Christian nationalist/MAGA escutcheon, the "Appeal to Heaven” or Pine Tree flag, that got Samuel Alito into hot water, was flying over Newby's beach property in Cartaret County (a house technically owned by Newby's wife, so there's another "my wife did it" excuse in the making) as recently as May 23rd.

Picture and story, NewsAndObserver, June 27

Newby told the N&O in a statement that he was given the flag as a gift before Jan. 6, 2021, and flies it during national holidays such as Memorial Day. 

“Until recently, we had no idea of the association of the ‘An Appeal to Heaven’ flag with anything other than its actual history — a history that reminds us to pray for our nation,” he said. “At no point did we intend the display of the flag to be a political statement, only a statement of our faith.”

Uh-huh. So Newby -- wholly innocent of political intent -- runs a flag up his pole, the sign-of-the-times meaning of which is totally mysterious to him. May 23rd, just incidentally, is the day after the New York Times ran its story on Alito's flag, which became the news of the nation.

And please forget any enforcement of judicial ethics in Newby's case. The Judicial Standards Commission is totally under Newby's thumb. He appoints six of the 14 members himself, and another eight are appointed by Berger/Moore in the General Assembly.