Have you heard about Mary Ann Morgan?

Probably not.

I just happened to stumble across a story about Mary Ann Morgan on Media Matters, which is odd, since she is not a media figure. As it turns out5, Mary Ann Morgan is a "sovereign citizen" militia nut from Alaska who was arrested at the Canadian border with an illegal firearm and detailed instructions on creating homemade  explosives and the bio-toxin ricin. Thank you, Canadian Border Patrol!

  

(artist's rendition)

This is the second ricin-related militia arrest this month, which would seem to make it a big story, but so far. . . not so much.

In fact, I did a Google-News search for Mary Ann Morgan, and this is what I got:

The Alaska Dispatch, the National Post, and TPM Muckraker. There were a few more, but no New York Times, no CNN, no ABC, CBS, or NBC. Shouldn't this be a bigger story?

Here are a couple details from the story:

Morgan told Canadian border guards she was headed for a meeting about the U.S. Constitution being held in Montana, according to Canadian law enforcement sources in the Yukon Territory.

She was bringing bomb-making instructions and ricin information to a militia-nut convention. In MONTANA! The militia-nut capitol of the world.

His motion to deny bail also takes into account a recent online posting to the Alaska Citizens Militia forum in which a "Mary Morgan" announced, "I am looking for 'combat training' that is not related to the military."


The motion identifies Morgan as secretary of the sovereign citizen Alaska Peacemaker Militia, part of a movement rooted in racism, anti-government extremism and bizarre conspiracy theories that is growing nationwide as part of an ongoing surge in right-wing militia activity. 

Now imagine if a Muslim person had been been arrested  with bomb-making instructions, anti-US-government literature, and information about producing ricin. And imagine this was several days after a group of four Muslims had been arrested while planning to kill a bunch of people in Georgia, also with ricin. Would you think that might be a front-page story? And well it should be. But as long as the perps are right-wing "Christian" Americans, apparently we're not supposed to be all that concerned about them. I guess they're more afraid of the teabagger backlash? Like after the Justice Department memo which warned about this sort of thing and for which they demonized Janet Napolitano.