This story is just surfacing on the major media outlets.
According to early reports a package containing a substance that preliminary reports identify as ricin has been found in a Las Vegas hotel.
Initial information is so sketchy that it raises more questions than it answers. A little research raises even more. Turn the page to see why.
Ricin, according to the CDC, is a poison made from the leftovers of processing castor beans. It's highly toxic and was used in 1978 to kill Bulgarian writer Georgi Markov using an umbrella with a ricin-tipped needle in the end of an umbrella.
In 2005 Great Britain thwarted a ricin plot that was supposedly hatched in Afghanistan by al Qaida. The Guardian later printed a story that cast doubt on the Afghanistan/al Qaida report, which had been based on the uncorroborated tale of an Algerian candy vendor.
When the ricin story surfaced this morning there was little in it that made sense. There was no indication of whether the package had been mailed to the hotel, delivered there or just popped up out of nowhere. "Found" was all the police were willing to say.
I might've accepted this story at face value if I hadn't just finished watching Keith Olbermann's story on the nexus between terror alerts and politics. That story focused on the "coincidence" of terror threats being reported every time there was news that was unfriendly to the White House. It was amazing how often that happened, though not surprising given the current "administration".
Reading the first reports of the find in Las Vegas I thought immediately of George W. Bush's disastrous press conference yesterday. The president made a fool of himself in that appearance. Media outlets and bloggers are still chortling over his disbelief that gas could go over $4 this summer, never mind his head-in-the-sand denial of recession. With no way of spinning what were blatant examples of the president's stupidity, might the White House attempt to bury it in another terror threat?
This substance in Las Vegas was found at an Extended Stay America hotel. A little research finds that in 2004, Extended Stay America hotels were acquired by the Blackstone Group private equity firm.
The CEO of Blackstone is Stephen A. Schwarzman, a longtime supporter of Republicans and fellow Skull and Bones member with George W. Bush. Mr. Schwarzman is also a Bush Pioneer, having raised at least $100,000 for Bush during the 2004 campaign. Schwarzman's ties to Republicans are long and deep.
I've already been accused of tinfoil-hattery after posting my skepticism on the CBSNews website. I understand that completely. This story seems too convenient, however, to allow me to close my jaundiced eye completely. The timing of this "terror threat" is just too convenient.
UPDATE: This story gets curiouser and curiouser. Per a story on CNN, one man is reported hospitalized in a coma...since February 14. He'd stayed in the room where the ricin was found (no indication of the dates of his stay) and then reported breathing distress on Valentine's day, when he was hospitalized.
The ricin was found yesterday by a friend who said he had come to remove the victim's belongs from the room...two weeks later.
Las Vegas police report that a small vial of ricin and castor beans were found in the room. That might explain how they knew to test for ricin so quickly.