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-Great Cultural Revolution

UNC admissions will bar consideration of race, including in essays, after Supreme Court ruling struck down school's affirmative action policy

2023-08-09

[Daily Mail, where America gets its news] The board of North Carolina's flagship public university has voted to strictly ban the use of 'race, sex, color or ethnicity' in admissions and hiring decisions, including through the use of essays.

The Board of Trustees at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill approved the resolution after the US Supreme Court struck down their school's race-conscious admissions plan as violating the Constitution.

In a pair of decisions announced June 29, the court struck down affirmative action in college admissions, ruling against the measure at both UNC and Harvard University, respectively the nation's oldest public and private colleges.

'I'm confident that we're taking all the necessary steps to fully comply' with the court decisions, UNC Chancellor Kevin Guskiewicz said at the board's recent meting to pass the resolution, according to the News and Observer.

But while other schools are seeking out loopholes to boost student body diversity, UNC's new policy strictly bars certain measures, including the use of essays related to a prospective student's racial background or struggles with discrimination.

The board resolution at UNC promises not to grant 'preferential treatment' to any individual or group on the basis of race.

The school also must not establish 'through essays or other means' any process premised upon 'race-based preferences' in hiring and admissions, according to the resolution.

UNC's approach goes beyond that other schools, some of which seem to be seeking out ways to factor race in admissions decisions without technically violating the ruling.

In New York, Sarah Lawrence College now has an essay prompt asking applicants how they were personally impacted by the Supreme Court decision, according to Inside Higher Ed.

Harvard has also hinted that it may use essays about race to weigh applicants, in keeping with the court decision that schools can consider 'an applicant's discussion of how race affected his or her life, be it through discrimination, inspiration, or otherwise.'

At UNC, board member Ralph Meekins urged, without success, for members to postpone the vote, saying the resolution 'goes well beyond the Supreme Court ruling.'

Meanwhile, trustee John Preyer criticized how UNC handled the litigation brought in 2014 by a conservative group that accused the school's undergraduate admissions policies of discriminating against white and Asian students.

A trial judge in 2021 upheld the school's affirmative action policy, leading to appeals that eventually reached the Supreme Court.

'This is a moment of humility,' Preyer said. 'For nine years, we've spent in the neighborhood of $35 million to lose a high-profile case. Why did we do that? Was that the right thing to do?'

The trustees also discussed other ways to comply with the June court ruling, which found the school's consideration of race in admissions violated the Constitution's equal protection clause.

'What we´re trying to do is be proactive with this and make sure that we're in compliance and that we´re providing equal protection,' trustee Marty Kotis said. O

ne school administrator mentioned having an internal diversity, equity and inclusion audit but didn´t provide details.

Guskiewicz announced several weeks ago that the school would offer free tuition to students whose families make less than $80,000 annually.

The program, which could help expand diversity efforts, is being paid for with private funds.

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Science & Technology

VIDEO Emerges of Fauci and HHS Officials Plotting for ‘A New Avian Flu Virus' to Enforce Universal Flu Vaccination

2021-10-06

[GatewayPundit] Alex Jones of Infowars made a special broadcast on Monday night regarding an explosive video of Fauci with HHS officials and other health experts discussing how to enforce Universal Flu Vaccination in a summit organized by Milken Institute in Washington, DC last October 2019.

Alex Jones highlighted three clips from the hour-long video of the summit from C-SPAN which proved the COVID-19 pandemic was planned and the Big Pharma worked with the UN and other corrupt government officials to develop and release the COVID-19 virus ahead of ’Great Reset’.

The first clip featured Michael Specter, a journalist from The New Yorker and also an adjunct professor of bioengineering at Stanford University, Anthony Fauci, the director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, and Rick Bright, the director of HHS Biomedical Advanced Research and Development Authority (BARDA).

In this video, they conceptualized having a new outbreak of novel avian flu virus from China so they can bypass the method of FDA approval and enforce mRNA vaccine to the masses.

Here’s the transcript:

Michael Specter: Why don’t we blow the system up? I mean obviously, we can’t just turn off the spigot on the system. We have and then say, hey everyone in the world should get this new vaccine that we haven’t given to anyone yet. But there must be some way that we grow vaccines mostly in eggs the way we did in 1947.

Fauci: In order to make the transition from getting out of the tried-and-true egg growing which we know gives us results that can be beneficial, I mean we’ve done well with that. There must be something that has to be much better. You have to prove that this works and then you’ve got to go through all of the clinical trials: phase 1, phase 2, phase 3, and then show that this particular product is going to be good over a period of years. That alone, if it works perfectly, it’s going to take a decade.

Bright: There might be a need or even an urgent call for an entity of excitement out there that’s completely disruptive, that’s not beholden to bureaucratic strings and processes.

Fauci: So we really do have a problem of how the world perceives influenza and it’s going to be very difficult to change that unless you do it from within and save.. I don’t care what your perception is, we’re going to address the problem in a disruptive and in an iterative way because she does need both.

Bright: But it is not too crazy to think that an outbreak of novel avian virus could occur in China somewhere. We could get the RNA sequence from that.. to a number of regional centers if not local, if not even in your home at some point, and print those vaccines on a patch of self-administer.

More from Medical Kidnap:

Joining Fauci, Rick Bright, and Michael Specter at this event were: Margaret Hamburg, Foreign Secretary, National Academy of Medicine, Bruce Gellin, President, Global Immunization, Sabin Vaccine Institute, Casey Wright, CEO, FluLab.

In short, this panel discussion focused on what they perceived as the need for a universal flu vaccine, but they admitted that the old way of producing vaccines was not sufficient for their purposes, and that they needed some kind of global event where many people were dying to be able to roll out a new mRNA vaccine to be tested on the public.

They all agreed that the annual flu virus was not scary enough to create an event that would convince people to get a universal vaccine. And as we now know today, about 2 years after this event, that "terrifying virus" that was introduced was the COVID-19 Sars virus.

And so now we know why the flu just "disappeared" in the 2020-21 flu season. It was simply replaced by COVID-19, in a worldwide cleverly planned "pandemic" to roll out the world’s first universal mRNA vaccines.

This was always the goal, and previous efforts through various influenzas, AIDS, Ebola, and other "viruses" were all unsuccessful in leading to the development of a universal vaccine to inject into the entire world’s population.

Margaret Hamburg stated regarding getting a "Universal Vaccine" into the market: "It’s time to stop talking, and it’s time to act... I think it is also because we haven’t had a sense of urgency."

Michael Specter asked: "Do we need lots of people to die for that sense of urgency to occur?"

Hamburg replied that: "There are already lots of people dying" from the flu each year.

Bruce Gellin stated that basically people just are not afraid enough of the term "the flu."

There are so many things that are revealed about how Big Pharma and government health authorities think in this panel discussion. For example, they bemoan the fact that if they do too good of a job in public health, then they lose funding to develop products that fight viruses.

Michael Specter states: "It seems to me that one of the curses of the public health world is, if you guys do your job well, everyone goes along well and healthy."

So now when you come down with the super-special version of viral pneumonia they don't do all the things that they did for viral pneumonia in the past... like z-packs and antihistamines...

Hamburg: "And they cut your funding."

Rick Bright complains that the yearly distribution of flu vaccines is inefficient in terms of collecting data, and in the process actually admits that some vaccines just don’t work well:

"We distribute 150 million doses of the seasonal (flu) vaccines every year, we don’t even know how many people are being vaccinated from the doses that are delivered to the people, which doses they got, and what the real outcome was, so that we can learn from that knowledge base on how to optimize or improve our vaccine. So there are opportunities that we have today...

I think if we uncloaked the poorest performing vaccines in the market place today, it might be very revealing to tell us which of the technologies we have, and allow us to go deeper into those technologies to determine why they are more effective. There are vaccines licenses today that are more effective. I think that we’re just afraid to admit the truth."

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-Great Cultural Revolution

'1619 Project' Founder Rejects Her Alma Mater's Tenure Offer

2021-07-07

[PJMEDIA] Nikole Hannah-Jones, founder of the discredited "1619 Project," has rejected a tenured position at her alma mater, the University of North Carolina (UNC) Chapel Hill. Instead, she will join Ta-Nehisi Coates, a former columnist at The Atlantic, at one of America’s most prestigious Historically Black Colleges and Universities (HBCUs), Howard University. Hannah-Jones argued that the controversy over her hiring and tenure had more to do with racism and sexism than her outright lies about American history.

"It’s pretty clear that my tenure was not taken up because of political opposition, because of discriminatory views against my viewpoints and, I believe, because of my race and my gender," Hannah-Jones told Gayle King on CBS This Morning, the Raleigh News & Observer reported.

"It has to be made clear: I went through the official tenure process and my peers in academia said that I was deserving of tenure," the 1619 Project founder argued. "The board members are political appointees who decided that I wasn’t."

While opposition to Hannah-Jones’ tenured position was indeed partially political, the political dispute traces back to the 1619 Project’s shameless twisting of history.

In April, UNC’s Hussman School of Journalism announced that Hannah-Jones would become the Knight Chair in Race and Investigative Journalism, taking a Knight Chair professorship, endowed by the John S. and James L. Knight Foundation. The professorship brings top professionals to classrooms to teach and mentor students.

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Government Corruption

Fauci Caught in Massive New Scandal… Was Offered Money For it ALL

2021-06-22

Populist Press links to original National Pulse article

Fauci Lets Slip That Mark Zuckerberg Offered Him ‘Resources & Money’ In Redacted E-Mails.

Dr. Anthony Fauci has revealed what Mark Zuckerberg offered him in redacted portions of his recently released emails. The conversation, he admitted, included offers of “resources and money” from the Facebook founder who at the time same was ploughing cash into interfering in the 2020 election on behalf of Democrats.

Link

Government Corruption

Open Letter To America by Dr. Steven Hatfill

2021-06-10

Dear America,

This is the story of possibly the greatest corruption scandal in our country’s history.

This is the story of how petty bureaucrats and drug companies unjustly discredited an inexpensive FDA-approved drug that would have prevented COVID-19 hospitalizations and deaths for political spite and financial gain. These perpetrators, who now hold more significant positions in government, need to be held accountable for over 500,000 American deaths and the disruption of our economy.

This is the story of how a few key government officials failed to implement our well-formulated National Pandemic Plan and their weaponization of a dangerously complicit mainstream media.

I tell this story because we, the People, deserve answers — those responsible need to be held accountable for their actions. The COVID-19 pandemic was a proverbial "warning shot across our bow." Thus, we must forever prioritize pandemic preparedness as critical to our national security.

We deserve better. We deserve the truth. We deserve answers. We deserve JUSTICE.

I hope my words and timeline will help clarify what has happened, who is involved, and what action must be taken to protect our health and freedom.

My name is Dr. Steven Hatfill. I am a specialist physician, recognized Virologist and Bioweapons expert and I worked as an outside advisor to the Executive Office of the President of the United States from February 2020 through the inaugural transition period of 2021. My statements are not speculation because I had a front-row seat from the very beginning of the pandemic. My subsequent published papers and articles have been painstakingly referenced and fact-checked.

Some will tell you this is just another conspiracy theory, so I ask you to read on and judge for yourselves.

FACTUAL EVENTS

2005 — the United States creates its first-ever National Pandemic Plan, outlining the actions to combat a serious respiratory viral disease pandemic. This is based on the previous Biological Weapons Improved Response Plan.
2008 — President Obama closes the White House Global Health Security Office.
2013 — after the SARS and MERS outbreaks, Chinese virologists collect hundreds of samples from bats for study at the Wuhan Institute of Virology (WIV). Collaborative research begins on the Coronaviruses, including Gain Of Function (GOF) experiments (research which involves increasing the capacity of a pathogen to cause illness) in China and the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.
2014 — The West Africa Ebola virus outbreak occurs. Dr. Anthony Fauci MD promotes a single layer of gloves for nursing Ebola patients and other inadequate protective measures. His instructions endanger the lives of health care workers, and national guidelines for protection must be urgently updated.
2014 — United States’ Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) and the World Health Organization (WHO) ban GOF research. The ban was implemented for 2014-2017.
2015 — Chinese virologists and the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill conduct unauthorized GOF experiments on coronaviruses.
2017 — The 2005 Health and Human Services’ (HHS) National Pandemic Plan is updated. The specific responsibilities of local authorities, states, and the federal government have been clearly stated. The national plan is to use early, outpatient antiviral drug treatment, home quarantine, and case contact tracing to cover the "vaccine gap" (the time needed to develop a vaccine to coDear America,
December 2019 — Chinese authorities report the first outbreak of COVID-19 in Wuhan. On January 21, the first recognized case of COVID-19 occurs in the United States.
February 2020 — Dr. Steven Hatfill MD, a specialist physician and recognized Virologist, is brought into the White House as an outside medical advisor.

Some members of the COVID-19 Task Force are considering the use of Hydroxychloroquine (HCQ), a safe and effective FDA-approved drug, to control the rapidly spreading pandemic. The drug proves to prevent hospitalization if taken when early symptoms of COVID-19 arise. The drug is cost-effective at 60 cents per tablet with COVID-19 treatment consisting of 11 tablets taken over five days. The FDA considers HCQ to be a safer drug than Tylenol.
March 23, 2020 — The Director of BARDA, (Biological Advanced Research Development Authority) Rick Bright Ph.D., is instructed by his superiors to work with the FDA to establish an Investigational New Drug (IND) authorization for HCQ. The next day, the Director of Drug Evaluation and Research at the Food and Drug Administration (FDA), Dr. Janet Woodcock MD, contacts Rick Bright at BARDA.
March 24, 2020 — Dr. Woodcock wrongly advises Bright that HCQ is a dangerous drug requiring a EUA (Emergency Use Authorization). Its use should be limited to hospitalized patients. Bright and Dr. Woodcock promote this course of action, despite the early clinical data showing HCQ was the most effective in outpatients if given early during the initial infection, effectively eliminating hospitalization.
The FDA issues a EUA for HCQ — for hospital use only.
In a legal document, Rick Bright makes a blatant admission of insubordination to multiple layers of leadership, including the White House, HHS Secretary Azar, and Dr. Robert Kadlec, MD, the Assistant HHS Secretary for Preparedness and Readiness.

Bright states the following in his Whistleblower Complaint: "...instead of a Nationwide Expanded Access IND protocol. Implementing the EUA was a compromise position, to rein in HHS leadership’s initial campaign to make the drugs available to the public outside of a hospital setting".

Question: When is it EVER acceptable to "compromise" public health during a rampaging pandemic?
April 4, 2020 — Dr. Anthony Fauci MD, the member of the COVID-19 Task Force responsible for informing the President of the best course of action for pandemic control, appears to be unaware of the National Pandemic Plan. In a heated White House Situation Room meeting, Dr. Fauci refused to consider the use of HCQ for COVID-19 treatment. He dismisses the ever-accumulating HCQ efficacy reports from China, South Korea, and France as simply "anecdotal."
April 22, 2020 — Rick Bright is fired as BARDA Director for his insubordination. Before his dismissal, he falsely informed the press that HCQ is a dangerous drug.

Dr. Anthony Fauci, Director of NIAID, who is not a virologist, disregards the National Pandemic Plan, which included outreach programs with physicians using HCQ for outpatient treatment and prevention to bring the COVID-19 pandemic under control.

Dr. Fauci brushes off the accumulating evidence and diverts millions of federal funds into a program to test and manufacture an experimental drug named Remdesivir. Remdesivir must be administered via IV and can only in the hospital. Instead of early community treatment, as prescribed in the original pandemic plan. Dr. Fauci changes the plan to promote "Societal Lockdowns" and push the development of highly experimental mRNA vaccines by multinational pharmaceutical corporations.

NOTE: Members of Fauci’s Covid-19 treatment panel have ties to Gilead Sciences, Inc. (Foster City, CA), the company that holds the patent for Remdesivir.
May 16, 2020 — In Phase 1 clinical trials conducted by Gilead Sciences in cooperation with China and Japan, Remdesivir FAILED: "no statistically clinical effect, with severe adverse reactions."

NOTE: On October 16, 2020, the WHO concludes that Remdesivir is an ineffective drug and does not recommend its use to treat COVID-19.
May 20, 2020 — Shortly after becoming Senior Medical Advisor to the FDA Commissioner, Dr. Woodcock recused herself over future decisions concerning vaccines, citing a conflict of interest.
June 15, 2020 — Dr. Fauci ignores the data that HCQ works if the drug is administered during the first five days of infection. Its EUA is revoked, despite the overwhelming evidence of its effectiveness. The FDA claims that HCQ is causing fatal heart rhythms in hospitalized patients when the COVID-19 virus itself is the cause.
June 29, 2020 — Dr. Fauci recommends a 1.6-billion-dollar purchase of Remdesivir despite the drug’s Phase 1 failure in China.

Question: Why did Dr. Fauci discredit HCQ, leaving us defenceless, and order 1.6 billion dollars of an ineffective and toxic drug?

NOTE: Dr. Fauci’s actions pave the way for the fast-track development of experimental mRNA vaccines (and their subsequent patents), which can only receive a EUA if no other approved & effective medicines, like outpatient HCQ.

After widespread lockdowns and millions of global deaths, the experimental mRNA vaccines are granted a EUA and released to the public. As of the date of this letter, the pandemic still prevails, and there is no FDA approved outpatient treatment for COVID-19.

A CALL TO ACTION FOR PREVENTION, JUSTICE, AND REFORM

The actions of Dr. Anthony Fauci, Dr. Janet Woodcock, and Rick Bright, Ph.D., must be independently investigated, and they must be held accountable.

All conflicts of interest and the interactions between government officials and pharmaceutical companies, including the publication of faulty research papers in respected medical journals, must be investigated, and they must be held accountable.

Immediately reinstate HCQ as an FDA-approved drug for COVID-19.
The U.S. Pandemic Plan must be immediately reinstated as initially crafted.

Establish an outside independent United States Pandemic Response Department, with board powers including oversight.

On June 2, 2021, the distribution of my content was canceled by PR NEWSWIRE, and I have been banned from further distribution. Their action is a brazen attempt to censor and block the true story and silence our voice as citizens.

WHAT CAN YOU DO?

Contact your local, state, and federal representatives and demand answers. They would have you believe that you serve them, but you employ them. Hold them accountable.

Cancel biased media subscriptions. Your money fuels their disinformation campaigns.

Read the attached references and the complete, uncensored, and referenced articles at www.drstevenhatfill.com.

Please ACT NOW, and together we can create a better future for America and the world.

Sincerely,
Dr. Steven J. Hatfill

References
Oh, and please go to the link for the references. My hands hurt again. Further I do not wish to comment at this time.

Link

-Signs, Portents, and the Weather-

Ebola expert says CDC lied to the people and gives large indepth look at ebola

2014-10-29

Brilliant piece by James Hamblin in The Atlantic. Worth reading the whole thing. Here are some highlights
"I want to be pleasant through this whole thing," California Representative Darrell Issa said on Friday, unpleasantly, to a panel of medical experts at a congressional oversight-committee hearing. "But," he continued, scolding from his perch, "we have the head of CDC--supposed to be the expert--and he's made statements that simply aren't true."

During the tense four-hour session, the subcommittee challenged almost every element of the United States' response to its domestic Ebola cases so far. Most pointedly, chairman Issa criticized the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention's messages to the public.

"Doctor," Issa said, turning slightly to address Assistant Secretary of the Department of Health and Human Services Nicole Lurie, "You can get Ebola sitting next to someone on a bus if they, in fact, throw up on you, can't you? That's reasonable?"

Lurie responded deliberately, after a brief pause, "The way you get Ebola is by exposure to bodily fluids, yes."

This week I received a "monograph" for review from an unlikely, politically removed scientist. It was plainly titled "Summary of Ebola Virus Disease," and written in exhaustive scientific detail. The author was Steven Hatfill.
national hero
If the name rings a bell--I don't want to dwell on this, but it's germane to the context of his perspective I'm sharing here--it's because he was very publicly, very falsely accused of killing several people with anthrax in 2001.

One of the oddest things about the whole ordeal was that Hatfill knows relatively little about anthrax. Even though he was touted as an international expert with unique access and knowledge to the bacterium, he has always been primarily a student of deadly viruses. What he does know, at a depth that can rival any scientist's knowledge, is Ebola.

For one objection, Hatfill wants it known that, while it must be emphasized that airborne droplet and particle transmission between humans has not been evident in this outbreak, aerosol droplet transmission of Ebola virus has been shown in animal studies. "It is therefore irresponsible for government health officials to emphatically state that aerosol transmission does not occur," he writes. He also believes the argument against a national quarantine is "inexcusable in light of the size of the current West African epidemic."

There was one other Ebola outbreak in the United States, for which the country was well prepared. It happened in 1990, when a shipment of macaque monkeys from the Philippines fell ill in the laboratories of Hazelton Research Products in Reston, Virginia. The company sent tissue samples from the animals to nearby Fort Detrick, where tests showed antibodies to Ebola virus. The macaques were evacuated to Fort Detrick by its highly trained Aeromedical Isolation Team. There they were euthanized and studied. No humans there contracted the virus, despite handling the extremely contagious tissue.

Now infected materials have to be transported by a medical-waste company. That facility at Fort Detrick was the quintessential Biosafety Level 4 (BSL-4) containment lab. But it was shuttered in 2010, a casualty of what Hatfill understands to be imprudent budgetary cuts. The World Health Organization classifies the Ebola virus in the highest-risk category of infectious pathogens, Risk Group 4, denoting that infected people should be handled with BSL-4 precautions. But since its outbreak in the United States, Ebola guidelines from the CDC have treated the virus under the much less stringent BSL-3.

Many of the deadly emerging RNA viruses arise, as Hatfill makes clear in his work, from biodiversity hotspots--regions that house at least 1,500 species of vascular plants and have lost at least 70 percent of their vegetation. These biodiversity hotspots are home to more than half of the world's plant and non-fish animal species, as well as more than a billion of the world's poorest people. The regions also involve more than 90 percent of recent armed conflict. Refugees hunt for meat and build remote encampments, increasing pressure on local resources and interfering with wildlife, drawing people into the line of fire between the viruses and their animal reservoirs. And so it is there that Hatfill believes efforts to manage inevitable future outbreaks must focus.

Hamblin: So you're saying there is at least some evidence that a person could brush up against someone and contract Ebola virus?

Hatfill: People have touched the bed of a patient and caught this, after the patient died and was removed. They brushed up against the bed and caught it. [Ed: Such a bed would need to be grossly contaminated, according to the vast majority of evidence.]

Hamblin: You write that as few as 10 Ebola virus particles could cause human infection, though that number needs more research. Everyone is sticking very hard to the message that unless you've come in contact with the bodily fluid—

Hatfill: Here's the problem. You don't want to panic everyone. And [the CDC leaders] were at a loss that their [preventive] procedures didn't work and this happened and the leadership were shocked. You don't want to panic people, but people aren't stupid. You see people wearing semi-space suits taking these patients into hospitals, and everyone's telling you there's no aerosol transmission.

So we're talking about viral shedding, and the question is, how much virus is being secreted from what sites, what fluids? There are a lot of unknowns. Most particularly, when does viral shedding start?

Hamblin: And what we're hearing most commonly is that it's around when a person develops a fever.

Hatfill: Well, 12.5 percent of patients don't run a fever. In that New England Journal of Medicine study, where they just looked at several thousand of these cases in West Africa, the lead author of the paper is adamant. He says, I sat there, I monitored this patient's temperature myself until they died and they never ran a fever.

Hamblin: Travel-ban opposition is largely based on the claim that it would impede our ability to help stem the epidemic in West Africa.

Hatfill: You know, I went for a Department of Defense interview years ago. They wanted a scientist down at the Pentagon that could invent stuff that would support presidential policy. They just wanted a spokesperson that could kind of come up with a plausible explanation to explain a higher-up directive. And I think this is the same thing.

Hamblin: I'm wondering what is driving—

Hatfill: There are no cases in Kenya.

Hamblin: And they have a travel ban?

Hatfill: Yes.

Link

Home Front: WoT

Who Was the Real Anthrax Mailer?

2010-03-28

Perhaps the kid in the office down the hall w/Al Q. connections

See if you can tear apart this possibility. Regardless, I'm glad the anthrax attacks were not the spectacular success the planners hoped.

(Editor's note: The intelligence spending bill is now in a conference of the House and Senate. The House version includes an amendment sponsored by Reps. Rush Holt and Roscoe Bartlett calling for the intelligence community's inspector general to examine a foreign connection to the post-9/11 anthrax attacks. The Senate version of the bill does not include such a provision. Please call your Senators (202-224-3121) and encourage the re-opening of the case so that the evidence implicating al Qaeda in the attacks can be thoroughly examined and that the implications of the FBI's mishandling of the problem can be seriously addressed).

There's a gaping hole in the FBI's argument that U.S. Government scientist Bruce Ivins was the anthrax mailer.

In addition to the 100 scientists with access to virulent anthrax from Ivins's flask whom the FBI claims to have ruled out, one unauthorized individual had a special kind of access-the kind you get when you steal something. Hovering in proximity to an unlocked refrigerator with the anthrax at George Mason University was Islamic ideologue Ali al-Timimi, who in early 2001 was studying for a Ph.D in computational biology. Al-Timimi has since been arrested and sentenced for inciting Muslims in Virginia to travel to Pakistan to fight against U.S. forces.

(Note: The GMU researchers used what is known as Delta Ames.)

Al-Timimi's office was right around the corner from the offices of Charles Bailey and Ken Alibek, co-principal investigators on a Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA)-funded anthrax project. Bailey was a former deputy commander of USAMRIID at Fort Detrick, Maryland, where he had been a boss of Bruce Ivins. Alibek was the former deputy director of the Soviet biowarfare program. Bailey and Alibek had partnered on a patent application for a method of preparing anthrax that would closely resemble the sophisticated preparation in the letters mailed to Senators Daschle and Leahy.

As a computer expert, al-Timimi presumably knew how to access Bailey's poorly secured computer to obtain this application.

All these details and more have been worked out by attorney Ross Getman, a leading researcher on the anthrax mailings case. Getman found several other labs where al Qaeda may have gained access to the anthrax, but the presence of al-Timimi and the patent application make GMU by far the most likely location.

Al-Timimi does not show up in FBI's report on the case, which dismisses the possibility that any foreign entity was involved in the anthrax mailings.

And he is not the only key player who does not appear.

Handing Off the Anthrax

Assuming that al-Timimi indeed stole the anthrax and the instructions, here is what then seems to have happened.

Al-Timimi provided the anthrax to a scientist who sympathized with al Qaeda and who had a lab somewhere along the Canadian border (according to the isotope ratios in the water used to prepare the anthrax). When it was ready, al-Timimi gave it to Mohamed Atta. Atta and his group of intending hijackers in Florida unsuccessfully sought to obtain a cropduster, and they evidently handled the anthrax themselves, infecting themselves in the process.

As September 11 neared, Atta contacted Abderraouf Jdey in Montreal. Jdey, a Canadian citizen of Tunisian origin who had trained in Afghanistan, had been designated first as an alternate hijacker, then as a part of the second wave of attacks. He returned to Canada in the summer of 2001 and was detained by FBI and INS together with intending pilot Zacarias Moussaoui. Jdey was carrying biology textbooks.

Atta appears to have handed over the vials of anthrax to Jdey in Portland, Maine on September 10, which powerfully explains Atta's otherwise anomalous trip to Portland on the day before the September 11 terrorist attacks. Jdey, whose modus operandi involved travelling to sites in the northeastern U.S., wrote and mailed the anthrax letters in September and October. In November he left his apartment in Montreal, drove to New York, boarded American Airlines Flight #587 on November 12, and brought it down with a shoebomb. His role as shoebomber was subsequently related to interrogators by al Qaeda detainee Mohammed Mansour Jabarah and leaked in a 2004 Canadian news report.

The Cover-up

The FBI seems to have learned of Jdey's likely role as the anthrax mailer in 2004, when this writer contacted the Bureau about Jdey. Investigating further, FBI appears to have found confirmatory evidence. But then-because Jdey was a terrific embarrassment-it suppressed the information it had developed, removed the note in his online biography that he had studied biology, listed him as one of the terrorists it was still hunting for, and searched for a new anthrax mailings suspect.

Eventually, the FBI focused on capable, dedicated, patriotic, and psychologically vulnerable Bruce Ivins. Ivins was a pianist at his church, taught children juggling, was married and the father of two adopted children, was involved in many research projects, was entrusted with the anthrax, and had developed a promising vaccine for anthrax. This is the profile of an active contributor to his community, hardly of a ruthless anthrax mailer. The FBI, however, has tried to use his various quirks and obsessions to make Ivins out to be an intrinsically evil person.

Under the pressure of FBI questioning and surveillance, Ivins became unhinged and committed suicide. Then the FBI accused him of having perpetrated the anthrax mailings, produced a collection of circumstantial evidence, and closed the case on February 19, 2010.

FBI Director Robert Mueller told a 2008 Senate committee that he thought Ivins was guilty "beyond a reasonable doubt."

Beyond a reasonable doubt? Given the weak evidence and the widespread skepticism among experts and the public, this is an extreme statement that lacks any credibility.

In fact, the key people in the anthrax mailings were not Bruce Ivins or Steven Hatfill, his predecessor as the FBI's target. Instead, they appear to have been Ali al-Timimi and Abderraouf Jdey. And the key person in the investigation was FBI Director Robert Mueller himself.

Kenneth J. Dillon is a retired foreign service officer who writes books on science and teaches history as an adjunct at Marymount University. A detailed discussion of the roles of al-Timimi, Jdey, and FBI in the anthrax mailings case can be found at scientiapress.com

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Home Front: Politix

DOJ to Settle With Scientist Scrutinized in Anthrax Attacks

2008-06-28

The DOJ has agreed to a multimillion-dollar settlement with former Army scientist Steven Hatfill, whom the government called a person of interest in the 2001 anthrax attacks.

In 2002, the FBI and then-Attorney General John Ashcroft described Hatfill, a former Army scientist, as a person of interest in the investigation into the post 9/11 anthrax attacks, which killed five people, sickened 17, and to this day remain unresolved. Hatfill sued the government for violating his privacy by leaking information to the press. In a statement Friday, his lawyers said: As an innocent man, and as our fellow citizen, Steven Hatfill deserved far better.

Could this be good news for Toni Locy? Back in March, Judge Reggie Walton, a D.C. district court judge, held Locy, 48, a former USA Today reporter, in contempt in this case for refusing to name her sources for a story she wrote about Hatfills possible role in the 2001 anthrax attacks. Walton issued a contempt order fining Locy $500 a day for seven days, $1,000 a day for the following seven days, and $5,000 a day for the seven days after that if she continued to refuse to cooperate. He also barred USA Today, or any other individual or news organization, from helping Locy now a West Virginia University journalism prof pay the fines. Last we heard, just hours before the fines were going to begin accruing, the D.C. Court of Appeals rang the bell, ordering that Locy didnt have to pay the fines while her lawyers fought Waltons contempt ruling.

According to the AP, on Friday Locy said: I hope this means that this ordeal is over and that I can get on with my life. She said: I am pleased that Dr. Hatfills lawyers are now saying they no longer need my testimony, but I dont know if my appeal is moot or if the contempt order against me will be lifted because I dont have anything at this point from the Court of Appeals or Judge Walton that says Im in the clear.

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Home Front: Politix

Judge Dismisses Anthrax Libel Case

2007-01-13

McLEAN, Va. (AP) -- A federal judge on Friday dismissed a libel lawsuit filed against The New York Times by a former Army scientist once identified as a person of interest in the 2001 anthrax attacks.

U.S. District Judge Claude Hilton in Alexandria dismissed the case a week after lawyers for the Times argued that Steven Hatfill should be considered a public figure under libel law, which makes it much more difficult for a public figure to win a judgment than a private citizen. The judge did not explain his ruling in the order issued Friday.

Hatfill's lawyers had argued that even if Hatfill qualified as a public figure, they could still prevail at trial because they had uncovered serious flaws in the reporting of columnist Nicholas Kristof.

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Fifth Column

Schadenfreude time: N.Y. Times may not use undisclosed notes in libel defense

2006-11-19

A federal judge has ruled The New York Times may not rely on information from a columnist's confidential sources in its defense against a libel lawsuit filed over the newspaper's coverage of the 2001 anthrax attacks.

U.S. Magistrate Judge Liam O'Grady issued the ruling Friday as a sanction against the newspaper for refusing to disclose the identities of two confidential FBI sources used by Kristof. O'Grady had earlier ruled that Hatfill needed "an opportunity to question the confidential sources and determine if Mr. Kristof accurately reported information the sources provided."

Former Army scientist Steven Hatfill, once identified by authorities as a "person of interest" in the anthrax mailings that killed five people in late 2001, is suing the Times for libel for a series of articles written by columnist Nicholas Kristof.

The Times had cited FBI sources in reporting Hatfill was one of a limited number of people with the access and technical expertise to manufacture the anthrax and that he failed lie-detector tests. Hatfill was a physician and bioterrorism expert who worked at the Army's infectious disease laboratory at Fort Detrick, Md., in the late 1990s.

In its filings, the Times has suggested Kristof had numerous sources for his stories. He initially refused to identify five sources but later disclosed the identities of three, saying they had released him from his pledge of confidentiality.

The judge said Hatfill's right to move forward with his lawsuit outweighed the limited immunity Virginia gives reporters from disclosing sources. A trial in the case is scheduled for Jan. 29.

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Home Front: Politix

McKinney has more 9/11 conspiracy theories

2005-09-24

Rep. Cynthia McKinney was involved Friday in a new series of conspiracy theories concerning the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks, but this time she let others do most of the talking.

The Georgia Democrat hosted a forum at the Congressional Black Caucus' legislative conference entitled, "The 9/11 Omission: What the Commission Got Wrong." Most of her panelists had written books on the attacks, some of which accuse the Bush administration of a coverup if not actually being coconspirators alongside al Qaeda.

McKinney, who four years ago made controversial remarks on a radio talk show that Bush had prior warning of the attacks and profited by them, was mostly silent this time. However, she nodded vigorously as many of the panelists spoke and concluded one panel by signaling her agreement with some of the charges.

"We had four significant failures on one day of a trillion-dollar military and intelligence infrastructure," McKinney said. "I don't think that is certainly a possible thing to have happened. It's quite a coincidence, if it is."

One of the speakers, David Ray Griffin, labeled as "a 571-page lie" a report produced by an independent commission that investigated the events leading up to the attacks. Griffin's most recent book, "The 9/11 Commission Report: Omissions and Distortions," suggest there must have been pre-planted explosives inside the World Trade Center to topple the steel towers after the airplanes hit.

Another author, Barbara Hatch Rosenberg, suggested a Pentagon initiative may have been complicit in the anthrax attacks on Washington several months after Sept. 11, 2001. She also suggested a former government worker the FBI has targeted for years may indeed have been involved.

Former Army scientist Steven Hatfill was once labeled as a "person of interest" in the investigation, but Rosenberg refused to say whether she meant him because of legal concerns.

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Home Front: Politix

Appeals Court Reinstates Hatfill Suit Vs. Times

2005-07-29

McLEAN, Va. - A federal appeals court has reinstated a libel suit against the New York Times filed by a former Army scientist who claims one of the paper's columnists unfairly linked him to the deadly anthrax mailings in 2001.

Steven Hatfill sued the Times for a series of columns written by Nicholas Kristof that faulted the FBI for failing to thoroughly investigate Hatfill for the anthrax mailings that left five people dead. The initial columns identified Hatfill only as "Mr. Z," but subsequent columns named him after Hatfill stepped forward to deny any role in the killings. Federal authorities labeled Hatfill "a person of interest" in their investigation.

Last year, a federal judge tossed out Hatfill's lawsuit, ruling that the columns did not defame Hatfill and accurately reflected the state of the FBI's investigation.

But the 4th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in Richmond overturned the rule Thursday on a 2-1 vote, saying that Kristof's columns, taken as a whole, might be considered defamatory. "A reasonable reader of Kristof's columns likely would conclude that Hatfill was responsible for the anthrax mailings," wrote Judge Dennis Shedd in an opinion joined by Chief Judge William Wilkins. The ruling sends the case back to U.S. District Court in Alexandria for trial.

Thomas Connolly, a lawyer for Hatfill, said that "Dr. Hatfill is pleased with the ruling and looking forward to his day in court." A physician and bioterrorism expert, Hatfill worked in the late 1990s at the Army's infectious disease laboratory at Fort Detrick, Md.

Toby Usnik, a spokesman for the Times, said the newspaper was disappointed with the decision, "but we remain confident in our case." "Mr. Kristof's columns were fair and accurate, and we continue to believe that newspapers need to be able to comment on how investigations â especially one as important as this â are being conducted."

Thursday's ruling acknowledged that Kristof's columns included assertions that Hatfill enjoys a presumption of innocence. But Kristof also included charges that Hatfill failed polygraph examinations, that bloodhounds responded to Hatfill and his apartment, and that Hatfill was a prime suspect within the biodefense community itself. "In describing all this evidence, Kristof's columns did not merely report others' suspicions of Hatfill; they actually generated suspicion by asserting facts that tend to implicate him in the anthrax murders," the ruling said.

The ruling disputed the lower court judge's assertion that the articles accurately reflected the state of the government's investigation, saying there is no evidence thus far to determine whether the columns were in sync with the FBI probe.

Circuit Judge Paul Niemeyer dissented from the decision. "Nowhere does any column accuse Dr. Hatfill of committing the murders," he wrote. "The columns' purpose was to put into operation prosecutorial machinery that would determine whether Dr. Hatfill committed the crimes."

Hatfill also has filed a defamation suit against former Attorney General John Ashcroft and other government authorities. The suit is awaiting trial.

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