Bachmann Opponent Bows Out, Alleged ‘Crack Mayor’ Won’t Quit, and More

Flood of Mail:

The FBI has questioned a Texas man whom agents have identified as a person of interest in their investigation into threatening letters addressed to President Obama and New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg. Of the three letters, two were sent to Bloomberg and groups he’s associated with and contained the deadly poison ricin; the last one was sent to Obama and is still being tested to determine whether it too shows traces of the toxin. Those letters all originated from Shreveport, La., and were postmarked May 20. The latest development into the ricin letter probe comes as authorities discovered yet another letter laced with the poison sent to Obama, this one coming from Spokane, Wash. Authorities say they intercepted that letter and have already made an arrest in the case. (Read more)

His Work Here Is Done: Jim Graves, the Democratic candidate who was mounting another challenge to Republican Congresswoman Michele Bachmann after coming close to beating her in 2012, has suspended his congressional campaign. Graves pulled out of the race in Minnesota’s 6th District just days after Bachmann announced she would not seek re-election for a fifth term. As Graves explained to MinnPost: “Basically, after all that’s gone on, and with Michele Bachmann now stepping down, I’ve been talking to my friends and family and frankly, the feeling is, ‘Mission Accomplished.’ She wasn’t representing the people of the 6th District appropriately, and now she won’t be representing them. There’s no way anyone could run and win who would be worse than Michele Bachmann. So we accomplished that task.” (Read more)

Ford Tough: Toronto Mayor Rob Ford, who’s been accused of appearing in a video in which he is purported to be smoking crack cocaine, has defiantly insisted he will not resign even in the wake of several staffers leaving his office amid the scandal. “I’m not stepping aside,” he said Thursday, even as his policy adviser on council relations and his executive assistant both quit that day, bringing the total number of aides who have resigned or been fired to five. Ford has repeatedly denied the allegations regarding the video, which has reportedly been seen by two Toronto Star reporters and an editor at Gawker, but has not been made public. However, Ford has yet to give a straight answer to whether or not he’s ever used crack cocaine. His response at the latest news conference in which he was asked that question: “Anything else?” (Read more)

The McConnell Mole: Curtis Morrison, a liberal activist from Louisville, Ken., has admitted to secretly recording a meeting between Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell and his aides at the Republican’s campaign headquarters in Kentucky and then leaking it to Mother Jones earlier this year. Morrison, who is currently under investigation by the FBI over the recording, revealed his motives and provided details of the bugging operation in a first-person account he wrote for Salon that was published Friday. “Since 2009, I’ve run a blog that hoped to fill a narrow void in Kentucky media by covering a ridiculous amount of public meetings, civil disobedience actions and political events, where I’m often the only person who shows up with a tripod. … I have a long-standing interest in improving the collective knowledge of Kentuckians. The more informed we are, the better decisions we make. But I have other interests as well. One of my goals is to unseat Mitch McConnell,” he writes. “I don’t personally dislike McConnell, but I believe he has failed Kentucky. He has prioritized his personal agenda du jour over the needs of Kentuckians for more than three decades of his so-called public service. It took the two years leading up to the 2012 election — during which his only aim was to sabotage President Barack Obama — for a wider audience to catch on to his disgraceful behavior.” (Read more)

Video of the Day: Fox News anchors Megyn Kelly and Greta Van Susteren were far from the only cable news anchors who delivered harsh criticism over the sexism displayed by the all-male panel that weighed in on a recent Pew study about female breadwinners on Thursday’s edition of the Fox Business program “Lou Dobbs Tonight.” Among the better responses: MSNBC’s “Morning Joe” crew, who was shocked that the “Lou Dobbs” panel took place on an actual news program and not on “Saturday Night Live.” “That was like caveman central!” host Mika Brzezinski said, adding later that it “was like pasty, white men central. What is going on?”