Ricin found in a Las Vegas hotel room, along with an anarchist book, guns, and no reason to consider terrorism? Oh, and by the way, we can thank George Bush for protecting us from terrorism for the past seven years... at least from knowing about it.
"Let's get something straight. You don't assume something is terrorism. You declare early on that it is not assumed to be terrorism."
I can picture new FBI recruits getting that lecture from their superiors, passing on the message that has come from on high. The best way to prevent reports of terrorism is not to call any acts terrorist acts. Right?
So we have this hotel room with people exposed to Ricin. The room's been empty for over a week, because its inhabitant has been in the hospital with respiratory problems. Hmmm. They're a primary symptom of exposure to ricin.
"Police and the FBI, which is aiding the inquiry, said they don't suspect terrorism. Ricin is also used in experimental cancer treatments. Castor beans, the key ingredient of the toxin, were found in the Extended StayAmerica hotel room, police said."
So all's okay with the world. Oh, there's a guy in a coma after exposure to the stuff. And Associated Press is reporting that "Firearms and an "anarchist type textbook" were found in the same motel room where several vials of the deadly toxin ricin was found, police said Friday."
But not to worry. There's nothing unusual happening here. And in all the articles, they keep talking about "the man" a 57 year old man. No name no info on where he's from. You think his name, or some info about who he is might be worth mentioning in an AP or Bloomsberg article. Remember those good 'ol journalistic questions? Who? What? Why? Where? When?
I guess the pros reporting on this story, and their editors forgot to ask that question, or even to mention that the information on WHO was refused by the police or FBI. Wouldn't want to get people's suspicions up if the name or origin of the man would raise suspicions of terrorism.
Oh, and CNN reports that days before the ricin was discovered, they had suspicions, so they searched the room, but didn't find anything. Then, later, someone who knew the victim in hospital raise the alarm.
That's when they found the anarchist book, guns... but still, no reason to suspect terrorism. And CNN doesn't mention who "the man" is, or the person who knew the man.
The Las Vegas police spokesperson reported, "There is no information to lead us to believe that this is the result of any terrorist activity or related to any possible terrorist activity," AP reports.
Maybe this goes back to my speculation on FBI instructions to new recruits. Maybe they don't want to see possible terrorist ties.
Me, when I think of Ricin in the news, I think of people killed in Japanese subways, terrorists plotting, ricin found in 2004 in the capitol.
But no, maybe the Ricin here accidentally fell in "the man" the unindentified man who also had an anarchist book, with the page on ricin bookmarked, maybe that book just accidentally showed up in the room.
Or, maybe, just as I don't trust the economic numbers the Bush administration dishes out, I don't believe it when they say there are no cases of terrorism in the US. Yep. I don't believe it when they say there have been no cases of terrorism because it has been clear that they wouldn't tell us if there were.
It would be nice if we could at least find out who the guy with the anarchy book bookmarked to the ricin page was.
And why, why isn't the mainstream media demanding to know. How about it. Any of our readers want to do a bit of journalistic digging?
Rob Kall is executive editor and publisher of OpEdNews.com, President of Futurehealth, Inc, inventor . He is a frequent Speaker on Politics, Impeachment, The art, science and power of story, heroes and the hero's journey, Positive Psychology, Stress, Biofeedback and a wide range of subjects. He is a campaign consultant specializing in tapping the power of stories for issue positioning, stump speeches and debates. He recently retired as organizer of several conferences, including StoryCon, the Summit Meeting on the Art, Science and Application of Story and The Winter Brain Meeting on neurofeedback, biofeedback, Optimal Functioning and Positive Psychology. See more of his articles here and, older ones, here.
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Isn't that Jane Harman-Joe Lieberman demon love child: The Violent Radicalization and Homegrown Terrorism Prevention Act of 2007 coming up for a vote soon? They are desperate now that the tipping point on the criminality of this whole sordid mess is coming soon unless there is an ability to magically transform bloggers and activists into agents of al CIAda.
I mean if you can't beat em at the polls then just arrest them, lock them up without a trial and beat them with sticks.
And why did those Anthrax letters only go to influential Democrats and media figures??
The endgame may be coming soon.
EE
by
Ed Encho (6 articles, 7 quicklinks, 54 diaries, 345 comments)
on Saturday, March 1, 2008 at 7:41:26 AM
And I smell "bull poop" in this article. Of course there has been no more terrorism because the terrorist has been caught -- Bush/Cheney! They know better than to do another "snow job" on the American people. They're not crazy.
And here you're trying to give them glory for not doing it again. How dare you! You are definitely a "talking face" saying nothing that is true. Keep up that rhetoric to those who don't know the real deal. All of us are not still in the dark ages.
Try again! Or, why don't you suggest giving them medals for not starting another false war? Now they deserve that!
Give us a break!
by
b2008 (4 articles, 2 quicklinks, 7 diaries, 43 comments)
on Saturday, March 1, 2008 at 7:59:36 AM
The central question Rob Kall seems to ask is why the government is supposedly not fear mongering enough. Somehow the government is "bad" for not scaring us more over the fact some guy had ricin because he also--HEAVEN FORBID--had a gun and probably a copy of the Constitution.
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Mark Anderson (8 articles, 2 quicklinks, 26 diaries, 46 comments)
on Saturday, March 1, 2008 at 11:30:19 PM
Without being on the inside, and knowing how BushCo. really thinks, it’s hard to say whether they want more terrorist attacks so they can clamp down further, or if they want to avoid them at all cost to keep their “protecting America” record clean.
They are probably torn between the polar opposites.
There have been an unprecedented number of refinery fires in the last few years which could be due to crumbling infrastructure (and a keen desire to turn aging plants into insurance cash), or some of them could have been due to terrorism that has been covered up.
Based on how much they didn’t pursue the anthrax killings, and tried to put that behind them, my guess is that they are operating on the assumption that they need to squelch all hints of domestic terrorism. I must admit, the “Homegrown terrorism bill” is very scary stuff, because it means they are intent on even more spying on citizens, and the Democrats are drinking the same koolaid. They must all think that there is reason to worry, even though I’m more worried about drunk drivers and tainted food than terrorists.
It will be interesting to see if this story disappears, or if we get any updates over the next few weeks.
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John R Moffett (78 articles, 14 quicklinks, 2 diaries, 591 comments)
on Saturday, March 1, 2008 at 9:01:24 AM
John Moffett says “Without being on the inside, and knowing how BushCo. really thinks, it’s hard to say whether they want more terrorist attacks so they can clamp down further, or if they want to avoid them at all cost to keep their “protecting America” record clean.”
May I suggest:
In between elections, keep the “ 'protect America' record clean" takes precedent. Coming up to an election, go with the fear mongering in any and every way possible. Use ads about crisis calls to the White House at 3 am; scatter ricin about. This fear mongering obviously favors McCain and, in my opinion, favors Hillary over Obama.
******
Wasn't the timing of the anthrax scare that it was brought up before the election, dropped afterwards?
by
Christie (0 articles, 0 quicklinks, 0 diaries, 145 comments)
on Saturday, March 1, 2008 at 2:50:16 PM
Dear Rob Kall
Thank you very much for writing such a fine article. We have been learning a lot from your writing. Just accept greeting from my side and millions of tribesmen living in rugged mountains on Pak-Afghan border.
by
Muhammad Khurshid (283 articles, 29 quicklinks, 168 diaries, 132 comments)
on Saturday, March 1, 2008 at 9:55:45 AM
As I recall, several years back, in 1998 I think, a so called member of the KKK or some other white supremacy group, a Mr. Larry Wayne Harris was busted in Vegas for claiming he had anthrax. He was a bio-chemist and not a very good one as the report said. He did in fact have anthrax on him, plenty of it but they called it benign, a veterinarian grade, whatever that is. In the end they let the guy go for lack of evidence, even though he bragged he had enough anthrax to wipe out a city. Now here is a guy who belonged to a homegrown terror organization and they let him go! Now we have this new guy, this so called anarchist with ricin in the same city and the news even went out of its way to mention that Frist and the white house got mail with traces of ricin. First they didn't find the ricin or the anarchy book in the alledged perps hotel room, then on a second search they found it! Hmm!
All of this reminds me of what happened when anthrax was mailed to Daschle and the congressional offices while coincidentally congress was presented the USA Patriot Act and signed it into law without even reading it. This creation of fear and panic(I remember the congress running out of the offices like a bunch of scared school children), along with the beltway snipers has led the way to the most blatant right wing takeover of government since Hitler and the Nazi Party! The FBI admitted the anthrax they received was of military grade and could have only been produced in one of our own military labs. Funny how those ricin letters arrived to the white house and Frist after the fact, as if to suggest both democrats and republicans were the targets! That tied that up quite neatly! And where were the suspects in that? They haven't found any! No names, no arrests, nothing! It's like the color coded terror alert charts we've been bombarded with where as Scott Ritter put it, essentially the government can dictate the level of fear. Where will it happen? They don't know! Who will do it? They don't know! When? They don't know! But be afraid, there's a terrorist around every corner! I'd like to point out that Ritter also wrote another article in Truthdig about neo-fascist groups embedded in our military.
There has been threat after threat and hoax after hoax about anthrax, ricin and other biochemical weapons to the FBI(and coming for the most part from right wing extremist groups) since a Jewish center was mailed this red jelly looking substance more than a decade ago, which of course turned out to be harmless.
Now we have another event that appears to be real and involving an anarchist no less. But wouldn't this in reality point away from the far right? Anarchists of the turn of the century were not right wingers. They bordered on socialism and their targets were generally right wingers. Now we have someone sick in the hospital but who? If it was not an act of terror, was it an accident or did someone try to kill the guy? If its not a real threat, why aren't they releashing his name? Even if it was a threat why wouldn't they release his name? Why did they find the evidence the second time around?
I do smell something rotten in Denmark! It's the fear ticket! It keeps terror in our minds and on the forefront. It establishes misdirection. But more importantly, it allows Bush and company to continue to justify the trashing of civil liberties and to enhance the all ready far too draconian right wing system we are controlled by. It should also ask us why Chertoff failed to list right wing extremists on the top of the homeland terror threats web site and placed PETA, what some would call an anarchical animal rights group at the top of the terror chart. I expect the next play to be the media pundits in the pockets of the president declaring how important the Patriot Act and the ability to spy on us are and how anarchists rather than right wing extremist groups are the greatest homeland threat while the reality is the greatest homeland threat resides in the white house and the office of the vice president.
by
Michael Shaw (7 articles, 1 quicklinks, 1 diaries, 303 comments)
on Saturday, March 1, 2008 at 11:08:46 AM
There is a possibility that the reasons that this story is not being questioned in detail are two-fold. One, do we not know that our media is corporately controlled and thus subject to censorship? And secondly, past history has shown that it is entirely possible that evidence may have been planted by law enforcement in order spin a crime in a certain light for the purpose of instilling fear in the minds of the herd.
by
Angela Zayak (4 articles, 0 quicklinks, 2 diaries, 29 comments)
on Saturday, March 1, 2008 at 11:24:38 AM
Or, maybe the man with the ricin in the motel room was, himself, an intelligence asset, and was going to be taking part in a false-flag event, but the ricin got him first. In that case, the government would definitely want to conceal the man's identity.
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Mark Anderson (8 articles, 2 quicklinks, 26 diaries, 46 comments)
on Saturday, March 1, 2008 at 11:35:28 PM
One of those Vegas mafia dudes was just having a little trouble with his bowels so he had a bottle of castor oil (not to be confused with Castrol tm)and while he was in the cheap hotel counting his loot or conferencing with a crack ho he sat the bottle next to the table lamp, and the heat well sort of evaporated the oil and the residue was left, no smoking guns no CIA false flags, just constipation from the mafia dude eating too much spahgetti, that because he never paid attention to his dear mamma mia back east who always told him " eata you zucchini its a gooda for you vowels"
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john riggs (0 articles, 0 quicklinks, 0 diaries, 347 comments)
on Saturday, March 1, 2008 at 11:28:39 AM
Meanwhile, as police and even the National Guard converged on the Extended Stay America, guests were locked out with no place to go.
Eyewitness News talked with Dennis Clark, who was locked in his room for hours, not knowing what was going on.
"You have it blocked up here and you are letting me walk around here, and she says, "Well, we are not really. You either go back into your room or you have to leave." and I said, "You are sure it is safe to stay?" and she said, "Yes, it is not a problem. We only have it blocked off to here." He said.
Eddie Moreira did not get back to his room until 3 a.m., too. He works for an events company and had a large moving van parked nearby. He was upset no one from Extended Stay or the police told him what was happening.
"Are you in Russia or something? You can't have access to information and nobody can tell you anything," said Moreira.
As long as we skirt seeking the full truth re 9/11, this will go on. OpEd News should be more proactive on digging out the truth of 9/11, calling for a real investigation.
With Phil Shenon's new book, on top of the CIA concealing, then destroying its interrogation tapes, the time is riper than it has been in a long time. At least let's get the ten commissioners under oath and ask them to tell us what Cheney and Bush testified to.
Cheney, I am quite sure, lied to the commission and showing that can do more to move impeachment forward than 100 Wexlers and Kuciniches.
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Carl Weis (0 articles, 0 quicklinks, 0 diaries, 22 comments)
on Saturday, March 1, 2008 at 1:52:41 PM
And did we forget the "I 95 sniper(s)" who allegedly killed a CIA or FBI employee in a mall parking lot in Virginia and also killed in Washington state plus other killings along I 95 corridor. The 2 perpetrators in this group of killings have been disappeared, right?
There is also no mention of the postal worker and elderly lady who were both killed by the anthrax. Case disappeared. The bad biologist story also disappeared.
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zephyr (0 articles, 0 quicklinks, 0 diaries, 44 comments)
on Saturday, March 1, 2008 at 2:01:37 PM
The reason this incident is being downplayed is likely presure from the Chamber of Commerce. A biochem threat in Vegas would kill the tourist trade figuratively like a biochem attack would kill it literally.
The US has plenty of potential home grown terrorists who begin young with mindless vandalism but never amount to anything for lack of ideology and organization.
The greatest potential source of homegrown terror was the militia movement of the 80's, but that was cut off at the knees by the OKC bombing which was carried out to politically castrate the movement. Waco and Ruby Ridge were also successful attempts to liquidate organized anti-government activity. The FBI then sponsored the '93 WTC attack and blamed it on the Blind Sheik to initiate the "clash of civilizations".
Terrorists must be Moslems motivated by Islamofascist ideology, otherwise they distract from the program.
Genuine anti-government homegrown terror scares the bejeesus out of those in power, which is why Bush is so determined to carry out surveillance in the "homeland". His war on terror is a text book paranoid self-fulfilling prophecy.
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Joseph Danison (0 articles, 0 quicklinks, 0 diaries, 7 comments)
on Saturday, March 1, 2008 at 5:39:35 PM
There are some events that I do not chalk up to terrorism -- like the bridge collapse in Minneapolis, or all the campus / mall shootings. But, there are other events which could be terrorism, but no follow up occurs in the news media. It seems to me that in recent months, not one but TWO sugar factories exploded. What's up with that? And, wasn't there another explosion in Florida awhile back? --These were in the news on the day of the event, but I haven't seen any follow up.
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John Kusumi (32 articles, 0 quicklinks, 13 diaries, 50 comments)
on Saturday, March 1, 2008 at 5:58:05 PM
The rule of the whole Bushite NeoCon-job cabal has been nothing BUT Terrorism Terrorism Terrorism, two-four-seven-three-six-five.
"Terrorism" is the one-trick-pony of the MIC - it's about as far as their limited imaginations can take them and they drove that wreck off the road and into the weeds long ago.
We need someone with a backbone to stand up and explain the facts of life to these creeps: "Look folks your whole NeoCon agenda has been one big effing failure after another. Just pause a moment to look around you at the catastrophic mess everything (EVERYTHING) you tried has become. There were NO weapons. You were NOT greeted as liberators. YOUR market-driven trickle-down economics drove the country into an economic crisis. Your police-state jack booted police have undermined respect for law enforcement. Your misguided foreign policies have made the US THE most hated nation on earth... The list goes on and it is a litany of abject failure from end to end. So, why don't you cut your losses, take your loot, go home and effing retire now, before its too late?"
(And NOW - Ricin in Las Vegas? - we should wait for more info on that story before we draw any conclusions.)
Whatever the explanation, one thing IS certain: ANY new terrorism related event will be a sure sign of the FINAL FAILURE of the Bushites. After all their macho posturing, color-coded wiretapping, torture, renditions sturm und drang, they were completely inept and unable to stop it? FAILURE on a massive scale! "Hey creeps, QUIT while you're ahead!!!"
by
mrk * (0 articles, 0 quicklinks, 0 diaries, 294 comments)
on Saturday, March 1, 2008 at 6:28:49 PM
Bush incompetent... Can't they protect us? Another failure. My god, yet another terrahist incident ... how many are they not telling us about? Oh my!
Given the evidence of obvious psyops going on all over the place, to imagine that this is real simply stresses credulity.
Common folks, try to imagine why somebody(s) would want these memes (anarchy, guns, terror, etc., ) to be on the public plate right now? Let's try not to be so naive.
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richard (0 articles, 3 quicklinks, 0 diaries, 662 comments)
on Saturday, March 1, 2008 at 9:49:18 PM
I don't think it is so much neglecting to inform us of "terrorism" as much as it is trying to remind us constantly of terrorism in order to fear monger. The very tactic of reminding us that there is "no indication of terrorism links" ITSELF reminds us of this...terrorism that we need the government to "protect" us from.
The story about the "firearms" and "anarchist type" textbooks means absolutely nothing. This is more fear mongering, and it is downright evil to be suggesting that firearms ownership is tantamount to "terrorism." Yet that is that subtle implication in the reporting. Everybody with a gun and a copy of the Constitution is now a "terrorist."
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Mark Anderson (8 articles, 2 quicklinks, 26 diaries, 46 comments)
on Saturday, March 1, 2008 at 11:23:19 PM
