Gobbledygook

"You have a Supreme Court Justice who died, not in attendance of a physician. You have a non-homicide trained US Marshal tell the justice of peace that no foul play was observed. You have a justice of the peace pronounce death while not being on the scene and without any medical training opining that the justice died of a heart attack. What medical proof exists of a myocardial Infarction? Why not a cerebral hemorrhage?"
"As a former homicide commander, I am stunned that no autopsy was ordered for Justice Scalia."
William Ritchie, (former) head, criminal investigations, District of Columbia police

Justice Antonin Scalia at the Supreme Court. Larry Downing/Reuters

A sudden, unexpected death. And with that death of a famously popular and influential, decidedly conservative Supreme Court Justice of the United States, came accolades and political agitation. Who will replace him? And how will the current left-right split in the Court play out? Fond reminiscences of the man take centre stage for several days. And then, into the news creeps a critique that reads suspiciously like a conspiracy theorist's dream scenario.

A Facebook posting reveals that Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia's death certificate was understatedly unorthodox. Found dead in his room at a hunting resort in Texas, much was assumed, and much more was overlooked. After his death, hours passed before authorities found a justice of the peace to pronounce that death was due to natural causes. This, without any kind of physical examination; and nor was an autopsy ordered.

Supreme Court Justices are supposed, in theory, to be under U.S. Marshals Service security, but Justice Scalia is said to have dismissed his watchers on this occasion, while at the resort. The county judge stated that she had declared the Justice dead satisfied with information she had received from law enforcement authorities on the scene informing her "there were no signs of foul play". So that, presumably, was that, and under Texas state law all of this is permissible.

And now, from the United States to its nemesis (or one of them, discounting China), Russia:

In the last quarter of 2015, a commission of the World Anti-Doping Agency accused Russia's anti-doping agency of masking doping by leading Russian athletes, to the point where the Russian agency alerted their athletes when surprise tests were being planned, and they also permitted athletes who were banned to continue competing on the world stage. This culminated in a great embarrassment for Russia when the International Association of Athletics Federations decided to suspend Russia's track and field program from competition globally. They will be missing at the Brazil Olympics.

FILE - In this Tuesday, Nov. 10, 2015 file photo, Nikita Kamaev, then, managing director of Russian Anti-Doping Agency RUSADA, talks to press at the agency headquarters in Moscow Tuesday, Nov. 10, 2015. The former executive director of the Russian Anti-Doping Agency has died, two months after leaving his post amid Russia's doping scandal. Kamaev's death came less than two weeks after another former RUSADA figure, founding chairman Vyacheslav Sinev, who left the agency in 2010, died on Feb. 3, according to RUSADA, which didn't elaborate. (AP Photo/Alexander Zemlianichenko, File)

Then came news yesterday that the second of two members of Russia's anti-doping agency (RUSADA), suddenly died two weeks apart, both in their early 50s. Death said to have occurred as the result of a heart attack. The first to die, on February 3, was RUSADA founding chairman Vyacheslav Sinev, who left the agency in 2010. He was followed by former executive director of the Russian Anti-Doping Agency Nikita Kamaev, on Sunday.

Mr. Kamaev acted as head of RUSADA operations from 2011 until he resigned in December. Directly following on the World Anti-Doping Agency commission's report accusing RUSADA of a doping coverup, he vehemently defended his organization as an effective force battling drug use. He also claimed that the commission had produced a biased report based on unreliable testimony from athletes who had been caught doping.

"Some of the issues have a particular acuteness and are, if you like, politicized." He characterized as the product of an "inflamed imagination" charges that Russia's FSB security service had agents infiltrating the doping laboratory in service to Russia's ambitions for the 2014 Sochi Winter Olympics, Russian President Vladimir Putin's big bash welcoming the international sports community and sports enthusiasts to genial, kindly, glad-handing Russia.

So what's with the Justice Scalia death? Surely there are no whispered suggestions that outgoing President Barack Obama sought to enhance his short-term legacy by an appointment that would give more clout to the liberals on the U.S. Supreme Court? That kind of unseemly skulduggery is par for the course with Russia which merely had to shift from targeting journalists temporarily toward sport officials; just due for embarrassing Russia/Putin.

This is not the type of thing that the U.S./Obama engages in. Is it?