Scalia's Death is Par for the Course

From my archived blog (February 2016) at donaldjeffries.wordpress.com

Note: This is another in a continuing series of previously published articles. Please subscribe to my primary Substack “I Protest” here: donaldjeffries.substack.com

I am certainly no fan of the recently deceased Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia. But the circumstances of his death remain so shrouded in mystery, that is it impossible for any observer of current events, let alone any “conspiracy theorist,” to ignore it.

We are told that Scalia died of either a heart attack or natural causes. He was indeed an overweight 79 year old man, so a heart attack would hardly be surprising. However, the first messy detail here is the fact he was supposedly found with a pillow over his head. That is not “natural,” no matter how you slice it.

Even the Washington Post acknowledged the controversy surrounding Scalia’s death, and published the comments of former Washington, D.C. homicide commander William O. Ritchie, who declared, “I am stunned that no autopsy was ordered for Justice Scalia.” As Ritchie astutely pointed out, “You have a non-homicide trained U.S. Marshal tell the justice of peace that no foul play was observed.” This justice of the peace evidently felt comfortable in pronouncing Scalia dead without having the benefit of being on the scene. There is also the question of why Scalia had supposedly declined a security detail, something which is routinely provided to Supreme Court Justices.

Scalia’s personal physician, Brian Monohan, refused to comment on Scalia’s health or the circumstances of his death, and in fact hung up on a reporter who was trying to question him. Scalia was discovered in bed by the owner of Cibalo Creek Ranch, where he was staying, one John Poindexter (not the same guy associated with Iran-Contra). Oddly, this Poindexter is allegedly a strong supporter of President Obama. Thus, it seems decidedly strange that an arch-conservative like Scalia would choose such a ranch to stay at; he was supposedly there for a group quail hunt. There are disturbing reports that Scalia requested cremation. This conflicts with the beliefs of most Catholics, but Scalia was so devout in his faith he didn’t accept much of Vatican II. It is unthinkable that someone with such conservative religious beliefs would request to be cremated.

One would expect that such a high-profile person, who died suddenly under cloudy circumstances, would rate an autopsy. Scalia was not given an autopsy, but this is part of a grand American tradition. When President Warren G. Harding died unexpectedly in 1923, his wife not only refused to permit an autopsy, she had her husband embalmed only an hour after his death. President Franklin D. Roosevelt also died unexpectedly in office, but again no autopsy was performed. The great populist leader Huey Long was not given an autopsy after being assassinated. Anti-communist Senator Joseph McCarthy died under very murky circumstances in 1957, but no autopsy was performed on him.

How many of us would be satisfied with multiple, conflicting causes of death for any of our loved ones? There are baffling doubts about the way many famous figures in our society died, and few people other than “conspiracy theorists” seem to care. Donald Trump called Scalia’s death “unusual.” Michael Savage and Alex Jones were just two of the well-known talk show hosts demanding answers to the multitude of questions hovering over this case. Even The Huffington Post was dubious.

What passes for the “left” today seemed grotesquely gleeful over Scalia’s death. Jess Dweck, a writer for the Tonight Show with Jimmy Fallon, tweeted, “Now Scalia will know what it’s like to have the government own his body.” Not only was that crude and inappropriate, it doesn’t even make sense. A managing editor for The New Yorker, Silvia Killingsworth, tweeted, “Wish I could be a fly on the wall for Scalia’s chat with the Devil.”

Again, I think the Supreme Court has done a horrible job for many decades, consistently overstepping its constitutional bounds, and thanks to a series of submissive Congresses, helping to destroy the checks and balances between the three branches of government. But the abrupt death of a Supreme Court Justice should command everyone’s attention. Regardless of Scalia’s beliefs or performance, it is disturbing that the person who found him stated that he had a pillow over his face. That smacks of mobster-style symbolism.

It has become almost impossible to accept any official narrative for any significant event now. The facts are ever-changing,  and are often so implausible that it is mind- boggling any Americans can swallow them. I would feel just as suspicious if a “liberal” Supreme Court Judge was found dead in such circumstances. We need to step outside this phony “left” and “right” paradigm and focus on the corruption that is seemingly everywhere and is responsible for the hopeless mess this country is in.

Reacting to Scalia’s death with crass, tasteless comments on Twitter is not the way to combat this systemic corruption. It just reinforces the burgeoning Idiocracy, and lowers the level of discourse even further. Scalia’s philosophy is irrelevant here; when someone that powerful is found dead with a pillow over his head, and the authorities immediately declare there was no foul play, we all ought to be skeptical, and frightened, and outraged.

Our political leaders, and our mainstream media, can pass off these impossible explanations because they’ve been doing it for a very long time without anyone other than “conspiracy theorists” protesting. They can report that Vince Foster’s body was discovered on the ground in Fort Marcy Park, when there was a Secret Service memo stating he was found dead in his car. They can report that Pennsylvania State Treasurer R. Budd Dwyer killed himself after reading a “rambling statement,” even though the statement was actually a detailed indictment against the sitting Governor Richard Thornburgh. The examples of this are endless. The public has proven that it will accept any official story, no matter how ridiculous it is.

Thus, it isn’t difficult at all for the increasingly dumbed-down public to swallow that a Supreme Court Justice was found dead of “natural causes” with a pillow covering his face. The majority would buy it if they reported he was found dead of “natural causes” from a bullet to the head. After all, they told us renegade journalist Gary Webb shot himself twice in the head, didn’t they? They told us “D.C. Madam” Deborah Jeane Palfrey hung herself after she publicly insisted she would never take her own life. They insisted that CIA figure John Paisley killed himself, when his body, with weights tied to it and a bullet hole in the head, was found in a river.

Antonin Scalia was no civil libertarian. But then again, what Supreme Court Justice has ever been a civil libertarian? At the very least, the official explanation of his death is an insult to the collective intelligence (or what remains of it) of the American people. We should keep questioning it, much as we should question everything.