-Now, with the biggest break in this unsolved case, hitting the papers on Thursay - Silence. Almost total silence!-

Yeah, well, give them a break, Chesterfield. The White House is struggling to develop it's own talking points but when they do they will distributed to the usual recipients through normally established channels.

If it is true that Jean Duley reported the threats Ivins made about his coworkers to Ivins' attorneys, and those attorneys helped Ivins secure his release from a mental insinuation, then I am going to really question the judgment and competence of that decision.

I understand what the role of a lawyer is, but helping your client commit suicide has got be be a gray area.

It certainly makes you wonder who they may have ultimately been working for.

-Let's see. Ivins is now, according to the M$M line, the only suspect in a terrorist event that killed five people and cost the country billions of dollars in lost productivity, even shutting down the Senate Office Building. He dies under less than straightforward circumstances and there won't be an autopsy? If this guy gets cremated before there is an autopsy, I'm headed to the tinfoil haberdashery.-

If I may add to that comment.....all that, and this is reportedly the first ever bio-weapons assault against civilians ever, if I recall the words I read somewhere earlier correctly. Certainly unprecedented on US soil, if not anywhere.

This reminds me of another extremely suspicious action by the government: The astonishing disclosure that all that forensic evidence was hurriedly shipped off of the continent shortly after the towers fell, also unprecedented. Along with any residual Bin Ladens in-country at the time, though even US Senators or Congressmen could not fly home to their own families for several days.

When virtually *any* plane crashes in the world, the attempt at reconstruction is methodical and as thorough as humanly possible by teams of experts, yet Bush resisted even the fake investigation by the GOP-controlled 9/11 Commission that he finally agreed to only after several years had passed and pressure was mounting to provide some answers.

These people are losing their touch. Do they really expect anyone to believe that a dangerous 'homicidal' person who roams the street looking for someone so they can 'stab them' would get a top level security clearance and be allowed to manufacture anthrax and anthrax vaccines in a top secret bio warfare lab? Come on. Surely you can do better than that. Remember the glory days when Nixon could find a microfilm inside a pumpkin and be believed. As I recall he ruined another man's life with a tissue of lies. Poor Ivins. He didn't see how he would get out of this situation alive since the Bush gang wanted the death penalty for him and the announcement(after years of harassment and the cat and mouse game goverments have the power to play with people)that he would be charged pushed him into despair and suicide. There can't be anything worse in this world than knowing you're innocent and that your own government is out to get you to cover up its crimes. It's just like being back in the USSR.

Hatfill was lucky: he proved his innocence and got compensation. Ivins was not so lucky.

Do they really expect anyone to believe that a dangerous 'homicidal' person who roams the street looking for someone so they can 'stab them' would get a top level security clearance and be allowed to manufacture anthrax and anthrax vaccines in a top secret bio warfare lab?

It is a simple extension of the Senator Kit Bond principle:

When the Government tells you to do something, I think you all recognize, uh, that that is something that you need to do.

When the Government tells you to believe something, I think think you all recognize, uh, that it is something you need to do.

-And to those who are yelling, "tinfoil hat time," please know that when the truth finally is out, you are going to feel awfully embarrassed. Might want to stock up on codeine-laced Tylenol yourself for that occasion.-

No, they will deny they ever said so or claim, 'What I *really* meant was....'

That is how they operate.

I find it hard to imagine Ivins in a group therapy setting. I wonder if I know any professional who would have recommended such a thing based on what's been disclosed.

I have a feeling that 10 minutes with Ms. Duley and I might be having postal thoughts myself.

The government snuff him out? This seems to be the only logical explanation of how all of these things fit together. Clearly Cohen and ABC have more to tell, if they would tell it.

with one answer. I must have missed this in the news reports. How did Mr. Ivins die? I keep reading suicide, but what was the method. Sorry if this is a distressful topic to anyone.

What was the method? The usual gunshot?

Having been through a similar situation, the Medical Examiner does only those tests which are necessary to definitively determine the cause of death. That means in this case that the autopsy stops when the liver failure is confirmed by blood tests and this matches the known ingestion of the tylenol+codeine pills. Don't forget this guy was treated in the hospital for 2 days before he died, there is much more medical information. What the police guy should have said is that there would be no further autopsy. They did conduct an examination called for in an abnormal death. My guess is that any other investigation (some of which is not done by the Medical Examiner, but by a detective) would center on signs of struggle, etc., if it was in dispute as to whether the drugs were self-administered. But they don't need to go further than confirming the drug overdose for the medical part.

The way they do these things balances what they need to know with the interests of the deceased's family, for whom, even if it weren't so high profile, a suicide and the subsequent investigation is a huge emotional blow. The media has spent a lot of space on the emotions of the anthrax victims' families, but there is one other family involved, as far as the authorities are concerned.