Ricin is the Weapon of Choice for Right Wing Nuts

BY JEFF STEIN, with SALLY FARRINGTON

In the dead of winter in 1997, I traveled to frozen central Minnesota to track down members of a "patriot" militia who had been convicted of conspiring to kill an IRS agent with ricin. I later wrote a story (for Gentleman's Quarterly, of all places) about the government's rudimentary preparations for chemical or biological attacks.  

It seems almost quaint now. Back then--before al Qaeda loomed large in our minds--ricin was all the rage with the anti-government militias and right wing nuts.  Some of their primitive newsletters even carried advertisements for booklets on how to make ricin, an incredibly lethal poison derived from castor seeds.

Beyond Minnesota, there were arrests over the years in Ohio, Georgia, Pennsylvania and elsewhere--almost all anti-government zealots.

In 2004, the office of Senator Bill Frist, R-TN, was allegedly targeted by a ricin-laced letter in 2004.  The ricin was found in the mail room but the letter itself was never found; neither was the sender.

Now envelopes suspected of being laced with ricin are showing up again in Washington, one directed at Sen. Richard Wicker, a Mississippi Republican who last week voted for having a debate on gun legislation, another at President Obama, a constant target of crazed, and often racist, fulminations from the extreme right.  

Update: Authorities on Wednesday night reportedly arrested Kenneth Curtis, of Tupelo, Miss., in connection with the case.

Of course, ricin has been employed by communist intelligence services and Central Asian terrorists, and one can’t rule out that some al Qaeda-linked group isn’t targeting us again. But if history’s any guide, it’s the rightwing nuts who are out in the garage again crushing castor beans.

Rightwing Extremist Groups Fear Scapegoating for Boston Bombs

BY SALLY FARRINGTON

Right wing extremist groups were generally slow to comment on yesterday’s horrific Boston Marathon bombing, but many visitors to them expressed fear and anger that President Obama would eventually blame white superiority organizations and try to confiscate their guns.

Stormfront, the premier “white pride” website, has the most populated forum on the attacks in Boston.  One user wondered, “how is Obama going to exploit this for political gain?” 

Many more commenters expressed fear that “the anti-gunners will use this to convince the sheeple [sic] that people that own guns are the same type of people that own bombs.” 

However, no Stormfront forum is complete without a reference to ZOG, or the Zionist Occupation Government.

A Cruz to Bear

It's hard to imagine a clearer demonstration of how whacked out the Republicans have gotten under tea party tutelage than the performances of Ted Cruz and James Inhofe during hearings to confirm Chuck Hagel as secretary of defense.

What planet are they from? Not since the last days of the booze-besotted, red-baiting Joe McCarthy has the Senate witnessed performances so wild, careening and conspiracy-minded that they wouldn't even make the final cut of The Manchurian Candidate.

As Foreign Policy aptly put it today: "Has freshman Ted Cruz jumped the shark already?

What's in Grover Norquist’s Private Files?

Thanks to Helen Gandy, the world never learned of the true reach of J. Edgar Hoover’s choke-hold on American politicians. According to a congressional inquiry and other sources, the notorious FBI director amassed secret files on the sexual and other peccadillos of politicians, entertainers, writers and officials, giving him immense blackmailing powers over his real and imagined enemies on Capitol Hill and elsewhere.

We'll never really know the whole story, because Miss Gandy, his longtime secretary, destroyed the files upon Hoover's death in May 1972.

It may turn out that tax maniac Grover Norquist also has his own Miss Gandy, primed to destroy the contents of his locked safe when the grim reaper comes. Until then, he's got the Republicans' cajones in his hands.

Norquist himself suggested his true grasp on power Monday night when he "took a pot shot at Rep. Peter King’s (R-NY) marriage,"  according to Raw Story's Arturo Garcia, after the Long Islander suggested he might abandon his no-taxes pledge after nearly two decades.

"I hope his wife understands that commitments last a little longer than two years or something,” Norquist fumed.

What other than the possession of embarrassing details on the private lives and messy business deals of Republican legislators can explain the right-wing lobbyist’s hammerlock on tax policy over the past quarter century?