We Got Bin Laden; How About the Anthrax Killer?

by: vmars

Tue Jul 19, 2011 at 10:17:00 AM EDT

In 2008 Bruce Ivins, one of the prime suspects and a civilian expert on anthrax for the military, committed suicide and the FBI and Department of Justice said, "OK, it's over.  We got out guy.  Nothing to see here.  Move on!."

Only many people -- including one pretty smart dude named Rush Holt -- thought that this was a load of crap and demanded it be looked into.  Most in the media and government (those who were attacked) mysteriously yawned, which was particularly difficult because they also had their heads up their asses.

Well, looks like the DoJ decided to take theirs out, and it looks like they now think Ivins wasn't so much able to make the anthrax in those letters.

Shortly after Ivins committed suicide in 2008, federal investigators announced that they'd identified him as the mass murderer who sent the letters to members of Congress and the news media. The case was circumstantial, with federal officials arguing that the scientist had the means, motive and opportunity to make the deadly powder at the U.S. Army Medical Research Institute of Infectious Diseases at Fort Detrick, Md.

Now, however, Justice Department lawyers have acknowledged in court papers that the sealed area in Ivins' lab - the so-called hot suite - didn't contain the equipment needed to turn liquid anthrax into the refined powder that floated through congressional buildings and post offices in the fall of 2001.

That was the key thing, that Ivins used the Army's lab to weaponize anthrax so it could be inhaled and kill.  But now the government (who still says he did it) says he couldn't have done it at that lab.  And they are unable to explain how he could have accessed or built another lab they can't find or place him in to have made it.  

Which pretty much means he had to buy it at the local Wal*Mart, maybe during the Terrorist Device Sales Days of September 2001.

Or it means that the person who really murdered those five people, injured dozens of others and terrorized our country is still out there enjoying their freedom.

Culture Shock in the Newark Police Department

by: Deborah Jacobs, ACLU-NJ Executive Director

Thu Jun 09, 2011 at 07:06:18 PM EDT

In police departments, as in biology, a culture can decide the difference between something that saves your life and something that poisons you.

The culture of a police department determines the extent of misconduct, and this certainly applies to Newark, NJ. After decades of efforts to bring accountability to the long-troubled Newark Police Department, the ACLU of New Jersey last year documented widespread reports of police misconduct, including hundreds of allegations of false arrests, sexual assaults, excessive force and deaths in custody. That thick record of abuse helped bring in the U.S. Department of Justice, which announced in May that it would investigate the Newark Police.

Yet just tallying up the number of incidents fails to illustrate how significantly the attitudes of police brass can reinforce unethical behavior behind the precinct doors. The only way to see the corrosive effects of a dysfunctional culture is firsthand, in the day-to-day operations - such as the ones carried out in this confidential tape recording the ACLU-NJ received.

In this 30-minute recording, a former police officer calls the police department to report that his wife, a current police officer, was sexually assaulted by another member of the force. As we hear the officer who took the complaint report the incident to supervisors, the tone of the conversations range from callous to cruel, but never concerned.

more...

How Did Chris Christie Get Off The List?

by: huntsu

Fri May 18, 2007 at 12:37:42 PM EDT

The irony here is thick. We know now that Christie was almost fired by his fellow Republicans at the same time Democrats were criticizing him as a partisan hack -- during the 2006 election season.

Democrats were angry then because Christie had issued a subpoena seeking information on a real estate deal of Sen. Robert Menendez. His Republican opponent, state Sen. Tom Kean Jr., made that subpoena the centerpiece of his campaign. ...

The near-firing helps inoculate Christie against charges that he is a political servant of the White House. But his critics could just as easily argue that his friends in the White House protected him in the end.

If the fact was that Christie was placed on the list on November 1, 2006, then there might be two ways to look at it.  In fact, on a cursory look it might even be more likely that this would blunt suggestions that Christie acts in partisan ways while in a non-partisan office.

But today we find out that long before Christie dropped the subpoena on the North Hudson Community Corporation he was on the list to be fired.

Sources yesterday identified four other current or former U.S. attorneys included on a Jan. 1 list that grouped a dozen prosecutors into three tiers. They include current U.S. Attorneys Matthew Mead of Wyoming and Eric Melgren of Kansas and former prosecutors James K. Vines of Nashville and Michael G. Heavican of Nebraska. ...

The same Jan. 1 list includes U.S. Attorney Christopher J. Christie of New Jersey, who also appears on a Nov. 1 list, sources said.