The police say they have a suspect in the ricin mailing.
http://nation.time.com/2013/04/17/senator-police-have-suspect-in-ricin-mailing/#ixzz2Qihdobyt
. . . he’s going to have actual fans.
I don’t know if this guy could be in any more trouble than he’s already in, but he sure picked the worst possible time. Another suspicious letter was sent to Obama.
While I must admit that I wouldn’t be surprised if the bomber turned out to be a right-wing nutter (given the date and the city), I’m more inclined to expect some random asshole… primarily because nobody’s stepped forward to claim responsibility. It’s hard to make your act of terrorism send a message if you don’t tell anyone what the message is supposed to be.
What point is it you think I am trying to make? People have been citing terrorist acts and I wanted to share a reference I found that was apparently unbiased, succinct and complete.
My arbitrary selection of 1970 was predicated on my personal memory and a penchant for round numbers. I thought the list was evenhanded in its attribution, in fact it refrains from assigning blame when others might more readily do so. My only point was that there are homicidal nut jobs in the world and, being “extreme”, they sometimes gravitate to extreme causes. People, I think stupidly, try to use the actions of obvious extremists to indict adherents of moderate mainstream political (or other) beliefs. But hey, what fun is there in agreeing that homicidal maniacs are bad no matter what t-shirt they wear.
And while Ghengis Khan (I’m guessing you meant the Mongol, not Madeline’s boorish brother), was terrifying, I don’t think he was a terrorist. He actually conquered and governed territory amassing and administering an enduring empire. And if you survived the initial slaughter of conquest he was fairly tolerant as long as the tribute was paid on time.
ABC Radio News is reporting several suspicious letters addressed to various Congresspeople have been intercepted.
Does this guy actually have a mental image of a mailbox on the White House porch where Barack Obama personally picks up and opens envelopes?
That’s AP Radio News. My bad.
You’re probably right. The random nutter asshole would likely be sure that the organization that is shooting thoughts into his brain will simply KNOW what his message is.
Probably does already.
I’m sure any day Obama does not get poisoned hate-mail is suspicious, to the Secret Service. “I don’t like this, sir . . . It’s too quiet . . .” [arrow sprouts from chest]
If real.
But I’m left wondering whether or not testing congressional mail for ricin is SOP all the time or if testing was stepped up after the Marathon. If they ramped up mail testing after Monday, then there’s your correlation right there and a higher probability of a false positive. Time will tell.
Now there’s one addressed to the President.
And as far as I know, yes it’s SOP all the time. Why wouldn’t it be?
I don’t know. There is security all the time too, but after Monday security was significantly beefed up.
Looks like they’ve picked someone up for it.
They set up the system for screening mail after 9/11 (actually after the anthrax letters that came after 9/11). It wouldn’t make a lot of sense to stop doing it once the system has been set up. It’s too easy for someone to mail a toxic substance.
Just a few data points -
The person who sent the Anthrax Letters in the wake of 9/11 was never conclusively identified (the FBI had what they felt was a strong suspect, now deceased, but he was never tried or convicted and his guilt is not universally accepted.)
There were two ricin letters sent in 2003 by someone calling him or herself “Fallen Angel”.
The first letter - well, package, really - mailed in October, was found in a South Carolina postal facility with no address or return address. The second letter, mailed in November, was addressed to the White House and warned that if some new trucking regulation was passed by congress, DC would become a ‘ghost town’.
The trucking regulation passed in January 04. A month later, ricin was discovered on the mail sorting equipment in Bill Frist’s office (Frist was the Senate Majority Leader at the time, you’ll recall).
No clue to the identity of Fallen Angel or any tangible connection between Fallen Angel’s letters and the ricin in the mail room was ever discovered.
Meanwhile, back in present day - they appear to have arrested someone for the bombings:
AP Radio News is now reporting three questionable packages found in Senate buildings.
Thanks. That was very informative.
There are some photos on infowars (sorry, can’t link to them atm) that show who they think are suspects (the one guy is a white guy with a brown beard, another is a white guy in a baseball cap with sun glasses on). No idea how solid this stuff is, but it points to a right wing group doing this if it’s true. :mad: