It didn’t take long after news broke that Justice Antonin Scalia had died at a Texas hunting lodge before conspiracy theorists came to the “logical” conclusion that the 79-year-old jurist with health problems had been murdered.
From the first moon landing to the the 9/11 attack on the Twin Towers to the slaughter that took the lives of 26 innocents at Sandy Hook — there is no shortage of skeptics in the U.S. who see nefarious actors behind every event big or small.
Even before My San Antonio reported that lodge owner John Poindexter said, “We discovered the judge in bed, a pillow over his head. His bed clothes were unwrinkled,” people began speculating online that Scalia had been murdered.
Leading the list of reasons was a backlog of cases involving abortion, affirmative actions, unions and the 2nd Amendment before the Supreme Court that could stall out with the loss of the court’s most conservative justice.
No discussion of conspiracy theories in America can begin without first checking in with Alex Jones of Infowars, who immediately posted a “emergency transmission” on his Facebook page Saturday night after news of Scalia’s death was announced.
According to Jones, Scalia had likely been murdered by President Obama in much the same manner the president killed conservative gadfly Andrew Breitbart, who died on a Brentwood sidewalk from a heart attack.
“You just get used to this, ‘Scalia found, it’s natural, nothing going on here, he just died naturally,’” Jones stated. “And you’re like, ‘Whoa. Red flag.’ Then you realize, Obama is one vote away from being able to ban guns, open the borders and actually have the court engage in its agenda — and now Scalia dies. I mean, this is hard core.”
Jones went on to suggest that Associate Justice Clarence Thomas — with a voting record nearly identical to Scalia’s — might “die of a heart attack next week.”
“Are they going to kill Clarence Thomas? Maybe they’ll kill Ron Paul. Maybe they’ll kill Donald Trump next. They all had heart attacks,” he continued. “How many more of these are we going to sit here and put up with? Or maybe their airplane blows up. My gut tells me they killed him and all the intellectual evidence lays it out.”
Conservative trendsetter Matt Drudge also jumped on the “Scalia murdered” bandwagon with a screaming red headline reading: “Scalia found dead with ‘pillow over head’.”
On YouTube, a man identifying himself as the NatureHacker pointed the finger at lodge owner Poindexter, noting he was a Vietnam era veteran who was awarded the Presidential Unit Citation by President Obama in 2009 in a nationally televised ceremony in the Rose Garden.
As usual, Twitter, was a bastion of reasoned thought, with the president the most likely culprit:
Since Justice Scalia was murdered, Obama is planning on finishing off America by appointing justice votes idealogy! pic.twitter.com/g0MTM3iTT9
— Barbara Ann (@daynutrition) February 15, 2016
Murdered Scalia set to rule on guns, sep. of church and state, immigration, Obamacare, climate change https://t.co/174pLrFUaX via @DrEowyn — Colleen 4 Trump (@colleenbrown711) February 15, 2016
US Supreme Court Judge #Scalia may have been murdered, and you all are acting as if it is a normal day.
The rot of socialism has set in.
— 3XT1 AJ Bains (@3XT1) February 15, 2016
@DocThompsonShow @skiplacombe #WhatILearnedToday Starting to think Scalia was murdered. This administration lies so much it is believable — Zac Bonesteel (@ZacBonesteel) February 15, 2016
The delightfully tongue in cheek “pourmecoffee” has all the evidence America’s “truthers” need:
I am working on Scalia conspiracies. It’s going to be a long night pic.twitter.com/nEH0Yrn6Hb
— pourmecoffee (@pourmecoffee) February 15, 2016
@emptywheel @TiredMemeCat First letters in last published opinion vertically spells “Obama murdered me.” — pourmecoffee (@pourmecoffee) February 15, 2016
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