Glenn, your choice of following this news story is terrific. Read Dr. Naff's outstanding article about the problems with the FBI's 'story' about Dr. Ivins, and agree with your comment that every journalist doing a story on Dr. Ivins needs to look at Dr. Naff's article. Clearly, we are not going to get to the bottom of this until we have a Congress that is willing to stand up and fight, including issuance and enforcement of subpoenas for testimony under oath. One of the worst things that happened during the Clinton Administration was the expiration of the Special Prosecutor Act, which, at the time, I supported because of the blatantly political witchhunt that Clinton endured during his Administration. This has left the Bush Administration free to commit crime after crime with impunity. The "Anthrax poison letters of 2001" needs to have an independent commission, like the 9/11 Commission. I am going to write my Congressperson and Senators about this. Let's get the truth out!

Was Bruce Ivins a Roman Catholic Christian Zionist, like Rick Santorum or Sam Brownback?

Christian Nation Express?

Evangelical Christians?

Conservative Christians?

The laws of this nation should be compatible with the Gospel?

By blood and faith, Jews are God's chosen, and have no need for "dialogue" with any gentile?

There is a great deal of intersection here with Christian Zionist ideology.

I'm still trying to figure this out.

http://www.fredericknewspost.com/sections/news/display.htm?StoryID=78274

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Conservative Christians now feeling their oats

Originally published November 21, 2004

I would like to comment on the letter to the editor, "Wants off Christian Nation Express," of Nov. 12.

I am certainly pleased that the writer is dedicated to service in the love of God, even though I find her theological focus on agony and suffering rather than the hope, joy and salvation of the resurrection to be puzzling.

Whether Americans like it or not, the results of the presidential election have propelled charismatic and evangelical Christians into new heights of political power. Many of those individuals would agree that the laws of this nation should be compatible with the Gospel, if not actually based upon it.

Whether we're on the "Christian Nation Express" or not, we all need to be ready for a wild political ride these next four years through a landscape of issues deemed important by conservative Christians.

END QUOTE

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All aboard!

Originally published November 09, 2004

I read Deborah Carter's column of Nov. 7, "Election blues," and I have three comments for the good woman, and for everybody else, as well.

First, it's clear that views like hers would put Jesus on that cross again. Second, thy loom and churn best be still, come the Sabbath. Third, you can get on board or get left behind, because that Christian Nation Express is pulling out of the station!

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"The letters were mailed from Princeton on two specific dates between specific times. At minimum the FBI should have set out in the affidavit that on those dates Dr Ivins's work records showed he checked in at such and such a time and out at such and such a time thus leaving him time to go from his work site to Princeton. This is easy. Why is it missing?"

I'll take your word that it isn't in the released material. I haven't checked it myself.

In his summation at the press conference yesterday, Taylor didn't include any mention of the trip to the mailbox. During the Q&A after his summation a reporter brought it up: (my comments in parentheses)

QUESTION: Can you tell us Dr. Ivins was able to get the anthrax out of the lab and how he did not get sick himself? Also, were you able to place him at the mailboxes in Princeton?

MR. TAYLOR: With respect to your first question about getting the anthrax out of the site, Dr. Ivins ­­ and correct me if I'm wrong, Ken ­­ had vaccinated himself against anthrax.

With respect to the mailbox, as I laid out before, (as I said, Taylor made no mention of this in his summation) there is ample evidence in this case pointing to Dr. Ivins as the individual who drove to Princeton to mail those letters. He had the hours in the hot seat during the relevant times.(This has nothing to do with placing Ivins at the mailbox).

We looked at the records when he was at work and when he would have had time to drive to Princeton, New Jersey. And it's clear from those records that he had time on the relevant occasions to drive to Princeton, mail the envelopes, and come back.(If true that's a window of opportunity)

There's also evidence I'll refer you to in the affidavits concerning where that mailbox was located in Princeton, New Jersey in relation to some obsessive conduct on his part with regard to a sorority.(This is circumstantial evidence based on the FBI's theory of why Ivins might have chosen that particular mailbox. It is not an answer to the reporter's question, "were you able to place him at the mailboxes in Princeton?" and doesn't furnish the proof of Taylor's claim that Ivins "drove to Princeton to mail those letters." Claiming that you have reason to believe why an individual might have chosen a particular site is entirely different than claiming you can prove that he drove there.)

Again, it's a chain. It's a chain of evidentiary items that, assembled together, leads to one reasonable conclusion, and that is Dr. Ivins mailed that anthrax in those envelopes from that mailbox in Princeton.(What an outlandish leap. Actually if you reread it, the reasonable conclusion is that after stating that there was "ample evidence in this case pointing to Dr. Ivins as the individual who drove to Princeton to mail those letters", Taylor offered only a window of opportunity to drive to the mailbox as evidence and offered no supporting documentation of that window.)

Yes?

QUESTION: Is there evidence like a gas receipt that shows that he was there, I mean, that actually proves that he was in that area?

MR. TAYLOR: We don't have that piece of direct evidence you mentioned. (Or any other direct evidence it seems.)

Here's the press conference transcript:

http://cfc.wjla.com/external.cfm?p=amerithraxtranscript0806