It seems perhaps disrespectful when an important person dies to drag him into the sordid topic of conspiracy theories, but the fault lies with the conspiracy theorist milieu rather than the prediction.
Scalia, age 79, died in his sleep during a visit to Texas. The birther crowd we deal with assumes that every evil in the world traces back to Barack Obama, so I expect they will be saying either that Obama wanted to get another “liberal justice” on the Court to protect his eligibility, or just that he wanted to prevent his executive orders from being overturned.
Given the high-profile status of Scalia, questions have begun to circulate regarding the decision [not to perform an autopsy] as well as the almost-immediate claim of no foul play.
— Alex Jones
— InfoWars
Update:
Yesterday on “Trunews,” End Times radio host Rick Wiles discussed “the possible occult connections” to the death of Justice Antonin Scalia, whom he concluded was murdered by President Obama and was a human sacrifice to mark the pagan festival of Lupercalia.
— Brian Tashman
— Right Wing Watch
Justice Antonin Scalia was found dead this morning. Let the conspiracy theories begin.
http://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/supreme-court-justice-antonin-scalia-79-has-died-officials-say-n518156
Oh, wow.
The person with the most to gain from Scalia’s death is not Obama, but the candidate for the presidency, a resident of the state where Scalia died, who, some say, could be found ineligible under Scalia’s originalist interpretation of the Constitution. This same individual, before the corpse is even cold, has proposed to block confirmation of a successor so as to paralyze the Supreme Court thus assuring no unfavorable decision. The court would not hear the case once this individual is installed in office, because there is no provision for removing a President already in office other than impeachment. This person will then appoint his own Justice to do his will in all cases that come before the Court.
See, I can play too…
I hope President Clinton nominates Bill Clinton with Alcee Hastings as backup.
This after President Obama has nominated Stephen Breyer and Sandra Day O’Connor, and one rescinds and the other is denied a hearing by Congress. I nominate Honorable Jack Lundy of Clewiston.
A Supreme Court nomination during an election year hasn’t happened often, but it’s worth noting that in modern times the Senate has never refused to confirm a nominee because it was an election year. William Howard Taft had a nominee confirmed in 1912 and Herbert Hoover had a nominee confirmed in 1932. Both Republicans, by the way.
The current crop of Republicans seem to be willing to leave SCOTUS with a vacancy until the spring of 2017. A tie vote by SCOTUS means that the Court of Appeals ruling remains in place.
I could have sworn that Nancy killed Justice Scalia after electrocuting Breitbart.
I feel a little embarrassed that the first place I found this out was from Orly Taitz’s site.
The last sentence in her post gave me a hearty laugh.
I hope GOP senate drags the confirmation of the next judge until January 21, 2017 when Trump becomes the next president.
Anything is possible…..
Some idiot in Dallas thinks Obama did it so he could nominate Eric Holder so it is beginning.
In Clewiston.
Article written 4 years ago today speculating on who Obama’s next SC appointee would be:
http://www.scotusblog.com/2012/02/the-court-in-a-second-obama-term/
Author Tom Goldstein was working under the assumption that a woman was being replaced (Ginsburg retirement scenario), and so he concluded the replacement would be a woman so as to preserve the gender balance on the Court. Surprisingly, the name he settled on is someone who has appeared in discussions on this blog, the arch enemy of Orly Taitz, California Attorney General Kamala Harris.
All the Republican candidates at the debate last night said Obama shouldn’t be allowed to nominate a successor to Scalia.
I know that when an obese 79 year old dies, the first thing any good detective thinks is “Yeah. Definitely murder.”
Obama should nominate himself. -“You want me out of office, boys, well, now’s your chance. Confirm me and I resign the presidency that very day.” Joe Biden can easily handle the duties for the remainder of the term. That might even tempt him to run.
I’ve seen someone speculating that with Scalia dead, they would wait until after the election to appoint a successor, and President Hilary Clinton will then appoint none other than Obama himself!
This being an Obama Conspiracy site, I thought that this speculation deserved a mention here.
Well, unless he died of a gunshot wound to the face and a certain ex-VP wasn’t in the state, then I’d be inclined to death by natural causes induced by bilious buildup and overload of the system. See, I can play too.
I thought Nancy WAS Antonin Scalia.
Good point.
And who else benefits? Every single person in the US. Unless that “person” is a corporation.
@Thrifty’s comment on detectives & Notorial Dissent’s comment on ex-VP’s +1!
I pray that there IS NO future President Clinton. Go Bernie!
I like that. Everybody killed him. Just like “Murder on the Orient Express”.
Jack Lundy? The name does sound familiar.
Hey! Is that a spoiler? Terms and conditions, man. Terms and conditions.
Here are some of the comments from the regulars at BR:
Charles Mountain
Furtive
★FALCON★
Well I don’t know who of us killed him – if he was killed, but it’s certainly a benefit that he’s dead.
This reeks of braindead nitwitness.
Has there ever been a documented case of a President’s administration actually doing something like this?
The right wing is spinning like a gross of dime store tops. Alex Jones is sure it’s murder http://www.infowars.com
Piling stupid on stupid officials in the county where Scalia died decided not to do an autopsy despite the fact that the ranch owner says Scalia had a pillow over his face when he found him
http://tinyurl.com/hbhxohv
You can’t make this stuff up.
If Justice Scalia was Originalist how could he say , what he said just a few months ago about [Natural Born Citizen] as the picture and report indicated?
[Huh.. Ahhh.. Ummm.. I’ll have to research that?]
Really?
Two cases brought to his desk with a lot of info. 12-5276 14-9396 and he pretends Originalism? He portends conservatism?
That’s being as big a #Fraud as you can be in the face of God in a Seat of #SCOTUS.
THAT’S a scary seat to be in brother. You only have 1 higher Court and that is the Court of God.
If our Revolution was fought and won as President George Washington wrote by Divine Interposition, should we not believe it?
If our U.S. Constitution was Divinely Inspired, as the Supreme Law of the Land God has blessed and heard the cries over repeated a trillion times God Bless America, how are we to stop that?
We are puny in the Creators hands and its not my Ego sitting in the #SCOTUS seats.
Here’s the Report from a fellow Patriot
http://www.birtherreport.com/2015/05/report-patriotic-citizen-asks-scotus.html?m=1
Your welcome to read the #waronpoor #JusticeAntoninScalia was a part of Oct 5th 2015. If you think that noble behavior by Justices, your confused as well confused about damages to America directly attributed to the arbitrary malfeasance of Justice. I would vote for his impeachment. God took him before I could.
http://www.supremecourt.gov/search.aspx?filename=/docketfiles/14-9396.htm
As Conspiracy has Flooded this Post no one has suggested God wiped him off the face of the Map because he was perverting with hypocracy the Originalist Principle of [ natural born Citizen ie. Born in the U.S. to Citizen Parents]
As a Centered Principle I think it a very important one.
https://twitter.com/CodyRobertJudy/status/698927394053173248
And very interesting it happened the same day I got this back from the #SCOTUS Court.
https://twitter.com/CodyRobertJudy/status/698903430291558400
How many Justices would have to drop like a fly before they started to believe: The House of Justice and Liberty they occupy is God’s. .and perversions while tolerated have a limit?
I’m thinking 3. . then the others start really quaking in their shoes and I think you’d see Obama either thrown under the bus or flat out resignations in the fear of God. You’d also see people shaking their head “NO” when their nomination was expressed.
You see Obama is a side-show compared to the arbitrary malfeasance of those responsible for Covering Up Justice.
God is no fool -And Personal Lives Matter especially when it gets personal.
I told you that SCOTUS would not reopen your case. But you never learn, do you?
Well, what do you make of your “Court of God” then? Obama is still President while one of the staunchest conservatives ever to grace SCOTUS has been recalled. I would call that a strong indication as to how your fictitious “court of God” has ruled in the matter of Obama’s eligibility. 😛
Your forget your previous examples all occurred under a white President. The GOP Congress won’t even debate Obama’s budget, how do you think they will allow him to put a liberal judge on the court when they can delay it until Trump is President and can select a conservative judge? (Seen from their perspective.)
Because in their opinion it would be a worst case scenario to win the Presidency only to have a liberal majority SCOTUS overturn many of their President’s decisions.
Obama is a defacto president I refer as a usurping president based on his not being a Constitutionally Qualified Person in the Office failing the [ natural born Citizen] standard of Born in the U.S. to Citizen Parents that represents an unfractured allegiance as American.
Obama’s dual Citizenship conferred by Parents represents this fractured allegiance by Obama’s own declarations confirmed by the State of Hawaii and its officials.
You asked, “What do you make of your Court of God? , and cited your opinion of Scalia being called back and Obama remaining in Office as an indication God has ruled in Obama’s eligibility.
I would say God has just made mince meat of a fake Originalist and a perverted standard barrier. You see, one thing I’ve always stood by is Republicans would lose especially if they did not stand up against Obama by and through the Constitution.
Mitt Romney was a perfect example of this. Ted Cruz and Marco Rubio show the blantant unorthodoxed concoction called very hypocritically “conservatism”.
This theory is not unknown in the history of my God. Many people’s who had the responsibility of Truth were wiped out by those who had less knowledge and were then accountable to less in judgement.
This of course articulates what is known as the burden of Truth , or shouldering responsibility by knowledge. There is no righteous judgement that condemns the innocent. Righteous judgement condemns those who knew better and should have shouldered the Truth they were given.
This doesn’t negate Obama’s paradoxical state of knowing he’s not Qualified but he’s kind a like the little pimp and Scalia was like the big fish drug dealer. God got the big fish first. Doesn’t mean Obama has got away he’s still in the Lord’s Big Pond.
We will watch and see who gets hooked next. I’m fine with [natural] causes for its rooted in -[natural born Citizen] and is fitting. .even fetching.
@Rickey
You think I’m suppose to learn something here? I posted that for your benefit. What did you learn?
You noticed first hand out of the #SCOTUS Court the corruption and arbitrary malfeasance. You saw what?
They [ The Clerks] attesting by their own signatures LIES. I don’t think there is a polite way to say it?
1- They stated the [Writ of Certiorari] was denied Oct 5, 2015.
Was that EVER a CONSIDERATION by the Court?
No it wasn’t. Only the MOTION for forma papers was. Their statement is a Lie. That is judicial corruption right in your face.
Do you wish to EXCUSE them for it , by stating they mis spoke, mis wrote, mis remembered a Docket Report right in front of their face?
The fact they would cite a FALSEHOOD that is needed to be presumed a Truth by you, to legitimize their citing a Rule that doesn’t apply to the FALSEHOOD is Corruption and its at the highest levels.
What do you learn from this?
Let’s get REAL.., You cannot Deny a Writ of Certiorari that has NOT been seen. The Justices of #SCOTUS have not SEEN my Writ of Certiorari.
We have to agree on at least that much don’t we?
They cannot entertain or see a Writ of Certiorari without [first] receiving or defering/waiving payment through a MOTION for forma papers.
That substantuates the Lie the Court Clerks just told you, yet you rehearse to me the same old crocked story of “I told you so”?
You don’t get it , when EVERYONE, I mean ANYONE could.. End can see it right in plain site.
That kind of blindness is serious impairment isn’t it?
How many motions did you file with SCOTUS, and you still can’t spell “in forma pauperis”? :-O
So now you claim the staunch conservative Scalia who has ruled against Obama in every case before him was somehow “worse than Obama” so your god recalled him first? You’re getting stranger by the day.
But not to worry, in all likelihood Obama will be recalled in 40-50 years as well. And I fully expect you to gloat how this was your god’s judgment on “the usurper from 50 years ago”.
I’m pretty sure the Constitution says that the president shall appoint a justice to the Supreme Court only when the Republican party says he can. Just ask Cruz, the constitutional scholar.
You are being too literal. Your cert petition was effectively denied when your motion for IFP was denied. And the clerk cited Rule 44, just as I predicted.
Every cert petition which is filed is read by SCOTUS clerks. As you know, many IFP motions are denied because the cert petitions have been found to be frivolous. In order to determine if a cert petition is frivolous, it has to be read first.
The Justices of SCOTUS personally see very few cert petitions. Roughly 8,000 cert petitions are filed every year. SCOTUS is in session for about 180 days each year. This means that SCOTUS receives 44 petitions every working day. That is why they have clerks, to separate the wheat from the chaff. Your SCOTUS filings have all been chaff.
Scalia wasn’t sufficiently originalist enough for Judy because even Scalia did not see in the U.S. Constitution Judy’s wholly imaginary two-citizen-parent “rule.”
Judy continues to blame the U.S. Supreme Court for his own inability to follow simple directions.
A form letter that informs Judy — again — that his case is O – V – E – R. But Judy has no life other than crying over milk that has been spilt, dried up, cleaned up, and replaced with another carton.
Judy, ever the fan of wasting judicial resources, will surely “inform” the court that his cert. petition was not denied — because it was never properly before the court as Judy failed to properly complete his IFP application. None of this will, however, cause the court to reconsider its dumping of Judy’s frivolous lawsuit.
Because a 79-year-old man dying of a heart attack is so rare. (That was sarcasm, Judy: heart disease is the most common killer for men over 75 in the United States.) But Judy will continue to be a vampire and use others’ deaths to feed his ego.
Perhaps, as the saying goes, you don’t know WTF the word ‘originalist’ means AND you still, after all these years, don’t understand WTF the original idea of NBC actually WAS.
for shame — has this site forgotten freeper gulch’s resident intrepid, indefatigable & certifiably insane obama investimigator butterdezillion?
and the icing on this big fat crazy cake:
fortunately for butter’s sanity, she’s a believer.
Orly is on the “Scalia was murdered” train of course.
One of many things that doesn’t make sense about all this is motive. Barack Obama has only about 11 months left as President, with 2 of those as a “lame duck”. Why NOW? Why not, say, 4 years ago when his health care reform law was in the hands of the Supreme Court and offing a conservative justice would have done him some good?
At least birthers claim it is so no birther case (against whomever) will ever get a winning majority while he is still in office.
I’m sure it will come as great shock to hear that Trump has jumped on the “Scalia was murdered” bandwagon http://mediamatters.org/blog/2016/02/16/trump-joins-radio-ally-to-fuel-scalia-murder-co/208604
I suspect it was the jagged street lamp of doom that took down Scalia.
I dunno. Seems more like Michael Savage suggested it and Trump just kind of played along. While I wouldn’t put it past Trump to make demands of an investigation, it seems like he was really just giving the only answer he could. He didn’t have a choice. Trump’s entire game is to play to the extreme right crazies and if he said something along the lines of “there’s reason to believe the death of a 79 year old man was foul play”, it would’ve just pissed off his base. Playing it the way he did really costs him nothing. Like a political Pascal’s Wager I guess.
The conspiracy theorists have made a lot of hay over the fact that no autopsy was performed on Scalia’s corpse. But as I understand it, you usually don’t perform an autopsy unless
1) The dead person’s family allows it.
2) Police have a reason to suspect foul play.
Do I have that right?
Because it seems to me that performing autopsies on everyone who died would take a REALLY long time.
It was an “unattended” death…..no doctor within hundreds of miles. No paramedic to make the call. Just a county judge doing it over the phone.
Add to that his position and notoriety and you’re just asking for trouble without an autopsy.
Every state has its own laws but the few I’m familiar with generally require an autopsy in an unattended death.
If that’s the case, they probably should do the autopsy then… if that’s what the law dictates.
Not that it would do a thing to satisfy conspiracy theorists.
My dad died in his sleep at an assisted living facility at age 92. There was no autopsy. Besides his age, he was quite healthy except for early Alzheimer’s. The following web page gives advice about when an autopsy is “more strongly indicated” and when it “must be performed.” The closest “must” procedure for Scalia is:
“A sudden or suspicious, unexplained or unexpected death.”
http://www.americanautopsy.com/facts.html
As someone who worked with electronic death registration systems, I know that health officials HATE the diagnosis of myocardial infarction because it is often used when the physician doesn’t know the cause of death. Everybody’s heart stops beating when they die, no matter what the cause.
Doc,
I believe after talking to the family, the coroner was probably notified of Scalia’s medical history and determined that an MI may have likedly occurred. Did you mean to say “cardiac arrest” as that is the diagnosis indicating a heart that has ceased to beat while a “myocardial infarction” also commonly known as a heart attack is indicative of one or more of the arteries to the heart becoming blocked leading to a lack of oxygen to the heart.
Considering Scalia’s age and weight, the likelihood of him already having established coronary artery disease is probable. If he had been treated for this or his family was aware of it, it’s easy to understand their desire not to have an autopsy performed and a coroner being in agreement with the same. My father-in-law died in the same manner in his sleep, likely of an MI, due to CAD. He had been to his cardiologist just two days prior to his death and was considered stable at the time. We also chose not to have an autopsy done due to what we knew was likely the cause of death. I believe that because it was an out of state death, in order to satisfy the coroner, he must have been given details about Scalia’s medical history that would have led him to label the death a heart attack.
The RWNJs at infowars aren’t raising the same stink about the unexplained death of Boutros-Ghali. Or Vanity. Or Adele who totally died at the Grammys.
At this point the conspiracy nutjobs will never be satisfied.
IANAP (pathologist) so I don’t know if an autopsy can provide much information after embalming but I do recall stories about bodies exhumed years after they were buried proving evidence.
I’m just amazed that officials allowed themselves to be pulled down this rabbit hole.
My mother died at 77 under similar circumstances except for bad COPD and, as I recall,they asked iff we wanted a post and we declined.
Here’s an article from HuffingtonPost written by a doctor that raises reasonable questions and makes the point that an autopsy would have been the reasonable thing to do:
http://tinyurl.com/hvlkogk
Yes, the unwanted diagnosis probably was “cardiac arrest.” For those interested in learning about cause of death coding, I commend this document:
http://www.cdc.gov/nchs/ppt/nchs2012/LI-14_MININO.pdf
Cardiac arrest or pulmonary arrest is a “terminal diagnosis” rather than a specific disease.
BTW my father’s cause of death was listed as Alzheimer’s, which I think very unlikely given the early stage he was in.
In my religion and tradition, we only wash and watch over and then bury our dead as quickly as possible–i.e., the same day or within one or two days, based on whether the immediate family is nearby or has to travel to be there. No autopsy. No embalming. Buried in a wooden box or no box at all, until the end of days and the resurrection of the dead. An autopsy is an affront to the dignity and modesty and integrity of the person who died, and only permitted if necessary to save another life.
I figure Scalia had his own religious and family traditions about death and burial, which should be respected.
I think too many people have become busybody information/disinformation junkies, with no respect for personal boundaries and no respect for the dead. I think some people make up conspiracy theories just as a cover for their bad habit.
How the times have changed.
When JFK was murdered in Texas there was a uuuuge battle between Texas and the secret service. Seems Texas was insisting that an autopsy be preformed (despite 1/4th of his head missing and brains on table) before the Presidents body would be released for transport back to DC.
Makes sense to me. See NPR story http://tinyurl.com/86f7f45
“From Feb. 13 to 15, the Romans celebrated the feast of Lupercalia. The men sacrificed a goat and a dog, then whipped women with the hides of the animals they had just slain.”
Happy Valentine’s Day!
Sluffy1 either does not understand or disregards the nature of the legal dispute in Dallas after the death of JFK. In ’63, killing the president was not a federal offense, Oswald was charged with murder under Texas law. Texas law required that in any homicide, an inquest be held in the county where the crime occurred. (In many states the coroner’s jury was required to physically view the body, although I do not recall if Texas had that requirement then.) More importantly, Texas had a “local expert rule”: only a physician or surgeon licensed in Texas was qualified to testify as an expert medical witness in a Texas court. (Most states had that rule at one time.) Consequently, had Oswald lived, the pathologists who did the autopsy in Maryland would not have been able to testify, and the report would not have been admissible, at trial. Yes, the Parkland doctors could testify that JFK died of massive brain injury consistent with a gunshot wound; and eyewitnesses could testify that they heard a report they believed to be a gunshot, then saw JFK’s head explode; and, from that, jurors could conclude that the cause of death was a gunshot wound. But, that is the long-way-round and presents opportunity for a good defense lawyer. In their grief JFK’s aides and Secret Service detail could have screwed up the prosecution — and DID leave straws for the conspiracy theorists to grasp at for 50+ years.
Yes, but Texas violated it own law and “local expert rule” and released JFK’s remains without preforming an autopsy …
… and as with Scalia a lowly Justice of the Peace was the principle which made that hasty ruling on the same day JFK was killed…. fast huh… hardly time to evaluate and gather solid evidence in either case. First impression would be Texas had a super police investigator…. but, Oswald was murdered while in custody on national television…. so…
The issue’s concerning you about Oswald not being able to be tried in Texas for Kennedys murder was of no concern to to the Secret Service, LBJ or the First Lady. Texas still had the Tippit murder they could’ve pursued…. if Oswald had lived.
A good, great or even an average lawyer wouldn’t have done Oswald a bit of good.
I’ll put myself in the disregards most of what Texas is about…