By Dustin Rowles | Politics | February 17, 2016 |
By Dustin Rowles | Politics | February 17, 2016 |
From a purely political standpoint, the death of Supreme Court justice Antonin Scalia seems like something that will benefit the Democrats, in that either Obama will be able to place a new liberal Supreme Court justice on the bench before his term ends, or the Democrats will be able to use the Republican’s obstruction efforts as a political weapon. Blocking an Obama appointment goes against the Constitution, and Antonin Scalia himself would agree.
It’s a tough spot for Republicans, but the right-wing conservatives have found a way out! They’re spreading theories that Obama had Scalia murdered to serve his and the Democrats’ agenda.
Yes, murder. Here’s radio host Alex Jones:
“‘Scalia found, it’s natural, nothing going on here, he just died naturally.’ before the body is even cold … 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. Are they going to kill Clarence Thomas? Maybe they’ll kill Donald Trump next. 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.”
Does it stop with a known conspiracy theorists? No, of course it doesn’t. Talk show host Michael Savage is running with the theory and, in fact, asked Donald Trump about it in an interview.
“Donald, I need to come back to the topic we’ve all been screaming about here, which is Scalia, was he murdered,” Savage said. “I know it’s pretty brutal to say that, and I’m not wanting to drag you into this, but this is going to be bigger and bigger and bigger.”“I went on the air and said we need the equivalent of a Warren Commission, we need an immediate autopsy before the body is disposed of. What do you think of that?” Savage asked.
What do you think Trump said? That it’s rubbish. That it’s a bullshit conspiracy theory designed to dig Republicans out of this hole?
No. This is Trump we’re talking about.
“Well I just heard today… you know I just landed and I’m hearing it’s a big topic.”“But they say they found a pillow on his face, which is a pretty unusual place to find a pillow,” Trump said. “I can’t tell you- I can’t give you an answer.”
In other words, he’s not dismissing the nutjob theory. He’s not dumb enough to cosign the theory (at least not yet), but he’s not going to shut it down. The fact that no autopsy was ordered on Scalia is only going to intensify the theories.