Free Republic

The purpose of this site This site is not authored by anyone with direct access to confidential information. Rather, its purpose is to present to the public information that has been released, and to examine that information in a clear, balanced and intelligent light. The background of the information The information began to be released on 2 November 2005 by a retired senior official within the US Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA) who calls himself “Anonymous”. Until he chooses to make his name known, this is the way he will be represented here. Anonymous reports that he is not acting individually...

(CP) - The Toronto Blue Jays have inked closer B.J. Ryan in the first big free-agent signing of the off-season, the New York Daily News reported Friday. The 29-year-old Ryan, who had 36 saves in 41 opportunities for the Baltimore Orioles in his first full season as a closer, agreed to a five-year deal worth $47 million, according to a report on the newspaper's website. The Blue Jays said they have been in negotiations with Ryan, but couldn't confirm a deal was in place.

These press briefings with Scott McClellan have just gotten ridiculous. The White House press corps love to beat up on him because he has to come out there and talk to them every day. Meanwhile, the news networks have on policymakers who are actually in positions to give meaningful answers, yet rarely if ever ask the really tough questions because they fear they might not get the powerful pol back on the show. But since McClellan has to come back to the podium every day, these press briefings just become venting sessions for the press corps. In this latest example,...

Joanne Duetsch appeared in filmmaker Michael Moore’s “Fahrenheit 9/11,” during a scene filmed in Washington DC. In the film, Duetsch converses with Moore and his companion, Lila Lipscomb, the mother of a fallen soldier in Iraq. Duetsch claims she never signed a release form, seeks legal assistance, and wants to reveal how Moore edited the scene. She has come to me asking for a way to tell her side of the story. These are her responses to my questions which were given via email and an in-person interview. For those willing to help Mrs. Duetsch, legally or through media coverage,...

Frontpage Interview’s guest today is Ryan Mauro, the 19-year-old author of Death to America: The Unreported Battle of Iraq and the youngest hired geopolitical analyst in the country. He is an analyst for Tactical Defense Concepts and Northeast Intelligence Network and is the owner of WorldThreats.com. He will be speaking at the 2006 Intelligence Summit on his work in open-source intelligence. FP: Ryan Mauro, welcome to Frontpage Interview. Mauro: Thank you for having me. FP: You are quite a young fellow. It is quite exceptional for a 19-year-old to be an expert in geopolitical affairs. What got you involved in...

CHICAGO - The political strategist who helped engineer former Gov. George Ryan's rise to power took the witness stand Thursday and in testimony laced with wisecracks began telling a jury how Ryan doled out state contracts, leases and favors to the well-connected. Scott Fawell waved to spectators and grinned broadly as he took his seat. He nodded to Ryan, saluted a newspaper reporter and made no effort to disguise his disdain for the prosecutors who put him in federal prison for graft. Asked by prosecutor Patrick M. Collins why he agreed to testify against his former boss, the 48-year-old Fawell...

CHICAGO - The biggest corruption trial in Chicago in decades opened Wednesday with a federal prosecutor launching a blistering attack on former Gov. George Ryan, saying he betrayed the public's trust by taking cash and gifts to help insiders land lucrative state contracts. "The fix was in in Illinois government," said Assistant U.S. Attorney Zachary Fardon. The verbal pounding brought Ryan defense attorney Dan K. Webb to his feet to demand a mistrial the minute Fardon sat down. The request was denied. Ryan, 71, is accused of giving a lobbyist friend, Larry Warner, free rein to steer contracts to his...

CHICAGO - Former Gov. George Ryan arrived in court Monday to face charges stemming from a federal investigation that already has found his former campaign committee, campaign manager and chief of staff guilty of racketeering, Federal prosecutors have accused the Ryan administration of doling out big-money state contracts and leases to political insiders, resulting in charges being brought against 79 people, including many state employees. Ryan, who maintains he is innocent, did not speak as he made his way through security and defense attorney Dan Webb said they had decided not to comment publicly during the trial. "This is going...

From Aug 2 episode of Al Franken Show on Air America, featuring the country's youngest hired geopolitical analyst, Ryan Mauro. He also runs WorldThreats.com and is author of the upcoming book, Death to America: The Unreported Battle of Iraq. RM: Right, and a lot of that is based on the testimony of an Iraqi scientist, this was actually in a New York Times report, and he was saying that starting in the middle of the 1996, they were routinely moved into Syria when there weapons inspections and things of that nature. AL: Now was this an exile? One in the...

CHICAGO - A federal judge ruled Wednesday that former Gov. George Ryan cannot present evidence during his upcoming corruption trial about his efforts to change the state's death penalty system. "The court sees no meaningful relationship between Ryan's decisions regarding the death penalty and the offense conduct with which he is charged here," U.S. District Judge Rebecca R. Pallmeyer said. Ryan, who has been widely praised for his actions on the death penalty, has pleaded innocent to racketeering charges. He is accused of accepting free vacations and other perks while doling out favors such as lucrative state contracts to lobbyist...

The life of a prosecutor targeting public corruption does not get any more rewarding than the past few weeks have been for Patrick Fitzgerald, US attorney in Chicago. On Monday Mr Fitzgerald filed criminal complaints against two city officials in Chicago, alleging "pervasive fraud" at city hall and charging them with using political patronage to award jobs and faking tests for employees. The arrests marked the first time an 18-month corruption investigation had reached inside Mayor Richard Daley's office. Mr Fitzgerald was also shuttling to Washington as special prosecutor, investigating whether White House officials illegally leaked the name of a...

Township Teen Tracks Geopolitical Threats By Jessica Bruder Back in high school, Ryan Mauro said, the kids nicknamed him “Government.” He was often spotted nose-deep in a folder of mysterious, international documents, and the habit had a whiff of intrigue. Sometimes, amid streams of teenage slang, the affable, sandy-haired teenager would drop a word like “Wahhabism” or “Baathist.” “Oh, that’s government talk,” his classmates would tease. Last month, Mr. Mauro, 19, put high school behind him. But even before his graduation he was, by his own reckoning, the Youngest Hired Geopolitical Analyst in North America. Early success had its costs....

American Hiroshima: Old News Ryan Mauro - 7/18/2005 This week, the mainstream media seemed shocked when a number of news sources, including WorldNetDaily.com released a report about an "American Hiroshima" plot against the United States by Al-Qaeda The plot calls for Al-Qaeda to detonate nuclear weapons on American soil, having arrived over the Mexican border with the assistance of MS-13 gang members. The report claims Al-Qaeda has already obtained a large number of nuclear weapons currently being maintained by Pakistani and Russian scientists. Why the shock? In November 2002, this author provided similar and nearly identical information to the American...

Title and link only.

CHICAGO - Gov. Rod Blagojevich had the right to fire dozens of people appointed to state jobs by his predecessor in the final days of his administration, a state appeals court has ruled. A three-member panel of the Illinois Appellate Court ruled Friday that the four-year appointments made by former Gov. George Ryan in 2002 were illegal because Ryan did not follow guidelines for eligibility and veterans' preferences. "When the defendant employees were discharged, they were within the probationary period in effect previously, which was either four months or six months," Justice Michael Gallagher wrote in the 2-1 decision. Sixty-one...

Questions from the interview: RM: Humberto, how has the situation with Fidel Castro changed over the past decade or so? RM: Cuba appears isolated and weak. Why should the United States pay any attention to the rogue state? RM: Is there any evidence that Cuba is any sort of WMD or terrorist threat? RM: How likely is it that democracy will emerge in Cuba once Fidel Castro dies? RM: What can the United States do to promote freedom in Cuba that is not being done? RM: In your last Newsmax.com article, you wrote about an alliance between Iran and Cuba....

by Stephen Moore and Lawrence Hunter President Bush has been heroic in pushing personal investment accounts for Social Security. But he's still got the wrong marketing strategy. At his press briefing Wednesday, Bush again stated that personal retirement accounts are insufficient to make Social Security permanently solvent. With all due respect, Mr. President, you're wrong. The chief actuary of Social Security has scored four separate personal-accounts plans as achieving full solvency without tax increases or benefit cuts. The President makes this mistake because he is receiving bad economic and political advice. The misconception that personal accounts are inadequate not only...

Ryan Mauro of WorldThreats.com was asked to present his own State of the Union address for his high school American Government class. Here it is: Congressmen and fellow citizens: The state of our union is strong, confident and determined. Despite everything the "Blame America First" crowd said, freedom is expanding around the world and the War on Terrorism continues. Our successes in the past year are likely to change the world. For over a decade, the United States ignored growing threats, and preferred to believe that groups like Al-Qaeda acted alone. With every attack it becomes clearer and clearer that...

The Aviator on National Review Online E-mail Author Send to a Friend <% printurl = Request.ServerVariables("URL")%> Print Version February 25, 2005, 3:14 p.m. Howard Hughes's Last HurrahWhat The Aviator misses. by John Meroney Fifty-three years ago this week, Howard Hughes found himself locked in a battle against powerful political forces he believed were bent on undermining the free-market system. The billionaire industrialist, airplane manufacturer, and filmmaker became so passionate about the fight that he summoned all his emotional and physical strength to overcome a crippling fear of the public so he could make his case for what he saw as...

The leader of a Catholic watchdog group announced today that the formation of a clergy misconduct review board, while a good idea, would merit “no credibility” if it failed to include his organization on its committee. Stephen G. Brady, president of the Roman Catholic Faithful, Inc. (RCF) cited RCF’s investigation of former Springfield, IL Bishop Daniel Ryan in his organization’s ability to bring truth to the investigation. “RCF has been the only organization or individual with credibility in investigating Ryan and the clergy of this diocese since 1995,” Brady stated. “While the diocese repeatedly denied allegations against Ryan and belittled...

(AgapePress) - A group that exposes abuses within the Roman Catholic Church says the diocese of Springfield, Illinois, is a "hotbed" of homosexual perversion. Last month, Catholic priest Eugene Costa was found severely beaten and unconscious in a Springfield park that has a reputation as a hangout for homosexuals. Now the diocese has stripped Costa of his parish and his position as chancellor because of his history of lurid behavior. Stephen Brady, with the group Roman Catholic Faithful, calls the decision to remove Costa a "preemptive strike," and contends the diocese is doing damage control. "The diocese is removing Costa...

The party of Lincoln isn't what it used to be. Long before the Alan Keyes election debacle, long before George Ryan's troubles, the seeds for the party's downfall were planted. What would Abe say?State Rep. Angelo "Skip" Saviano was mad. His face red and his nerves frayed, Saviano glared incredulously at the political creme de la creme of the Illinois Republican Party arrayed around the horseshoe-shaped table in the Union League Club, Chicago's posh and historic rendezvous for the rich and powerful. The Illinois Republican State Central Committee once seemed as well suited to the Union League as the painting...

Bush Social Security Revolution? The Social Security Act was the signature accomplishment of Franklin Roosevelt's newly created American welfare state in 1935. It switched the American ethos from individual and community reliance to national government responsibility for personal security and welfare. Its early and apparently costless success provided the legitimacy for all of the expert-directed federal social programs that have followed to this very day. Yet, today, it and its entire supporting apparatus stand near bankruptcy.President George W. Bush has now raised a challenge to the whole justification of this historic substitution of bureaucratic for personal responsibility for the general...

By The Leader-Chicago Bureau (admin@illinoisleader.com) CHICAGO -- In the aftermath of a tumultuous political season, Illinois Republicans have begun searching for ways to reconstruct their party. They compare their plight to the Democrats at the national level.As the party rank-and-file meet in various venues throughout the state, one theme comes through loud and clear: there is an urgent need for Republican party reform in Illinois.Party reform has different meanings, however. For some it means finding a new party chairman to lead the party out of its mire. For others there is a growing consensus that the part of the...

MILNET: Those In The Know Interview with Ryan Mauro This briefing asks questions of the first analyst we have interviewed, Ryan Mauro, Ryan is a knowledgeable geo-political analyst in the commercial field (www.WorldThreats.com) whose expertise was recognized quite early in life... How would you interpret apparent U.S. Intelligence Community failures in light of information on WMD in Iraq? Intelligence on Iraq, as well as most foreign countries, was flawed. I do not think anyone can look at the present situation and be completely satisfied. Recognizing that, I have been amazed at some of the analysis regarding the WMD. First off,...

It is time to make your opinion known at the FCC. In recent days there has been more liberal whining and crying and now these children are going to act out against the movie Saving Private Ryan which aired on ABC networks. Take a moment to make your opinin known at the FCC (fccinfo@fcc.gov). Also take a moment to write your local ABC Station and thank them for their courage in showing "Saving Private Ryan" Here is the email I sent to the FCC ----- To whom it may concern: I am writing to express my opinion on the airing...

CHICAGO -- Two sides of former Gov. George Ryan's life -- vocal opponent of the death penalty and indicted suspect in a racketeering case -- were on display in two very different settings Friday. Standing where nearly two years ago he made headlines around the world with the announcement that he was emptying the state's death row, Ryan spoke to Northwestern University law school students and others about his historic decision. Blocks away, lawyers appeared before a federal judge in one of the many hearings that take place in a corruption case against someone of Ryan's stature. Ryan has maintained...

Fitzgerald: Ryan should have stayed in race Pantagraph staff BLOOMINGTON -- Outgoing Sen. Peter Fitzgerald believes it would have been difficult for Republican Jack Ryan to win next week's election for Fitzgerald's seat against Democrat Barack Obama -- but wishes Ryan would have stayed in the race. Ryan dropped out in June after records of his divorce from actress Jeri Ryan were made public. In those, the actress claimed her husband took her to sex clubs and asked her to engage in sexual activity in front of others. "I don't think Jack had to step aside," said Fitzgerald, during a...

CHICAGO (AP) -- Former Gov. George Ryan's right-hand man wiped away tears Thursday as he told a federal judge he does not want to testify against his former boss but will help prosecutors to keep the woman he loves out of prison. "My love for Andrea outweighs my disdain for this system," Scott Fawell testified as his fiancee, Andrea Coutretsis, smiled at him. Fawell was called as a witness at a hearing to determine whether Coutretsis should get a break when she is sentenced for lying before a grand jury about corruption in the Illinois secretary of state's office under...

The True Origins of Terrorism: Interview with Dr. Joseph Douglass By: Ryan Mauro tdcanalyst@optonline.net RM: What countries were the most involved in the creation of the current terrorist threat we face? JD: The most important nation, the granddaddy of terrorism, is Russia. Russia adopted international terrorism as a strategic intelligence operation in 1955. It organized schools for terrorists, terrorist training camps, coordination conferences and much more. Next to Russia is China. Although not so prominent, nevertheless China was one of the major actors on this stage. There is hardly a communist or former communist nation that was not involved. North...

CHICAGO — In football terms: With his back to the goalposts, limping with injuries and the clock running out, the Illinois GOP’s quarterback faded back hurriedly and threw a long, spiraling pass far over the heads of the players to a lone receiver whose arms were extended in a seemingly hopeless attempt to receive it. It was, in fact, truly a "Hail Mary" pass brilliantly completed. Who was the quarterback? An amalgam of several all-but-faceless Republican committeemen. Yes, I know, like you I wince whenever sports commentators refer to last desperation tosses as "Hail Mary." Or when Gen. Norman Schwarzkopf...

Illinois senate race, Version 2.0 Random observations as we now move onto the real contest: Much will be made about Alan Keyes not being an Illinois resident. It’s a little late to whine about that. For a couple of hundred years, the U.S. Constitution has simply required a senatorial candidate "be an Inhabitant of that State for which he shall be chosen." Dr. Keyes didn’t force himself on Illinois. He was asked to run. The carpetbagger talk and Keyes’ criticism of Hillary will fade quickly as the public’s focus moves on. One thing the Alan Keyes selection made painfully apparent...

BELOIT, WI — U.S. Rep. Paul Ryan (R-WI) issued the following statement today: "Kerry will talk down America's growing economy during his visit to Wisconsin, but he's not going to mention that he has voted at least 98 times for tax increases totaling more than $2.3 trillion and has voted at least 126 times against tax cuts totaling more than $5.3 trillion. "Another thing we won’t hear him mention is that by any estimation, John Kerry’s campaign trail promises simply don’t add up. Out of his 129 new spending proposals, John Kerry has yet to explain how he will pay...

Part 1 - Update On Deep Water Megalithic Stones and Structures Near Western Cuba © 2003 by Linda Moulton Howe   Northeast of Cabo San Antonio, marked in yellow, and down about one-half mile off the westerntip of Cuba are large stones in rectangular and pyramidal shapes. There are also huge unidentified structures that have 90 degree corners and are spread along straight corridors on the white sea floor sand.     Original high resolution side scan sonar images of large structures a half mile down on the white sand sea floor off the western tip of Cuba, received...

Black Sea Trip Yields No Flood Conclusions By RICHARD C. LEWIS Associated Press Writer July 30, 2004, 2:06 PM EDT PROVIDENCE, R.I. -- Four years ago, scientists thought they had found the perfect place to settle the Noah flood debate: A farmer's house on a bluff overlooking the Black Sea built about 7,500 years ago -- just before tidal waves inundated the homestead, submerged miles of coastline and turned the freshwater lake into a salty sea. Some believed the rectangular site of stones and wood could help solve the age-old question of whether the Black Sea's flooding was the event...

Ramsey, three others in tight race for state House, poll shows By JOHN FLESHER The Associated Press 7/28/2004, 5:23 p.m. ET TRAVERSE CITY, Mich. (AP) — John Ramsey is running neck-and-neck with three other Republicans for the state House less than a week before the primary election, according to poll results released Wednesday. The survey by Lansing-based EPIC/MRA shows that many people in Michigan's 105th House District have an unfavorable impression of Ramsey, father of slain child beauty queen JonBenet Ramsey. But it also suggests he is benefiting from the crowded field, pollster Ed Sarpolus said. "It's your typical divide-and-conquer...

Justifying the War in Iraq Raymond Brown - May 4, 2004 Bowbe4me11@aol.com Following the events of September 11th, America found herself in awe and shock. Americans watched the smoke rise from the Twin Towers as people jumped from the building out of desperation and plummeted to their death. With the fall of the towers, American life changed forever. America was attacked on her own soil for the second time, the first being the invasion of Pearl Harbor. America now found herself at war with a new enemy, one that wears no uniform, that has no country of origin, but is...

The Case of the Missing POWs: Interview with Dr. Joseph Douglass By: Ryan Mauro tdcanalyst@optonline.net Joseph Douglass Jr., PhD (Cornell University, 1962), has 35 years experience in national security matters as a researcher, author, and frequent speaker. He is a recognized authority on U.S. and Soviet nuclear strategy, chemical and biological warfare, Communist decision-making, and Soviet strategic intelligence operations. Over the past twenty years his work has focused on the international narcotics trafficking and the war on drugs, the leading role of Russian intelligence in international terrorism and organized crime, chemical and biological warfare agents for use in political and...

Salvi vs. Obama? Wednesday, July 21, 2004 By The Leader-Chicago Bureau CHICAGO -- Chicago Public Radio is reporting that Al Salvi is telling colleagues he is rested and ready for another run at the U.S. Senate. According to reporter Carlos Hernandez-Gomez, the former state representative and 1996 GOP U.S. Senate nominee is waiting for State Senator Kirk Dillard (R-Hinsdale) to make his decision before going public. Gomez reports that Salvi will commit $1 million of his personal fortune to 'jump-start' his campaign. Reports have been swirling for days that Salvi has been in contact with national level politicos, including Speaker...

Hinsdale legislator may face ObamaDuPage chairman considers GOP bid By Rick Pearson Tribune political reporter Published July 19, 2004 State Sen. Kirk Dillard (R-Hinsdale) said Sunday that he is "warming" to a bid to replace Jack Ryan as the state's Republican U.S. Senate nominee and has received the encouragement of his ex-boss, former two-term Gov. Jim Edgar, for making such a run. Edgar "gave me a lot of ideas," Dillard said. "He convinced me that someone with my type of profile and experience, and especially with my uniqueness in the way that I line up against my friend and colleague,...

Inquiry accused Senate prospect of 'lewd' behavior By Ken Guggenheim The Associated Press Published July 15, 2004, 8:21 AM CDT WASHINGTON -- A potential Republican candidate for the Senate seat from Illinois -- where the party's nominee withdrew over sex club allegations -- engaged in "lewd and abusive behavior'' while she served as a top official in the White House drug policy office, an internal inquiry found last year. In front of her staff, Andrea Grubb Barthwell made repeated comments about the sexual orientation of a staff member and used a kaleidoscope to make sexually offensive gestures, according to the...

FLASH: Former Chicago Bears coach Mike Ditka will announce this morning at 9:30am he intends to run for senate in Illinois, says well-placed source...

Ditka tells GOP he's gameSome see draft of Da Coach as sign of party's desperation By Rick Pearson Tribune political reporter Published July 13, 2004 Bill Reese says if his high-end clothing firm just had a bit more warning, it would add a new shirt to next month's planned rollout of the Mike Ditka Hall of Fame Collection of casual wear. "How about `Vote for Mike' shirts?" Reese, the president and chief operating officer of Nashville-based Eagle Dry Goods Co., asked Monday. "At least he's getting his name out there at the right time for us." To be sure, when...

Husband accused her of having an affair The bitter divorce battle between "Star Trek: Voyager" siren Jeri Ryan and her politico husband wasn't just about trips to sleazy sex clubs, it was about money -- big money! Court papers filed in 2000 reveal that Jeri pocketed $20 million worth of stock in her settlement with investment banker Jack Ryan, who dropped out of the race for the U.S. Senate from Illinois just days after the couple's scandalous court papers became public. But in the papers obtained by The ENQUIRER, Jeri said what her husband "did not disclose to the court...

CHICAGO (CBS 2) Jack Ryan's campaign flameout over sex club charges has left state Republicans in political paralysis. With the election just four months away, no big names are coming forward to face-off against popular Democrat nominee Barack Obama. Former four-term Illinois Governor Jim Thompson, former Lieutenant Governor Corinne Wood and current corruption-busting federal prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald are just some of the names being thrown around in a desperate search by Republicans for a candidate willing to run for the U.S. Senate. Investment banker Jack Ryan's resignation last Friday leaves a likely suicide mission for whomever volunteers to pick up...

ILLINOIS REPUBLICANS LIKE 'BIG JIM' AS REPLACEMENT FOR JACK RYAN * Illinois Republicans, asked which of *4* prominent Republicans would make the strongest replacement candidate for Jack Ryan, pick former IL Governor Jim Thompson, according to SurveyUSA poll of 253 Republicans statewide conducted 6/26. 44% of Republicans pick Thompson. 22% of Republicans pick Jim Oberweis 17% of Republicans pick Steve Rauschenberger 4% of Republicans pick Ron Gidwitz 14% would pick another or are undecided.

IT may not be illegal for a man to ask his wife for sex in front of strangers in a nightclub with cages and whips suspended from the ceiling, but it is inadvisable if he is considering a run for the US Senate. Jack Ryan, an improbably tall, dark and handsome candidate for a Senate seat in Illinois, twisted in the wind for days last week, unwilling to admit he had done anything wrong after the release of divorce papers in which his former wife, a steely blonde Star Trek actress, described how he had taken her to “explicit sex...

Per Fox News

CHICAGO -- Illinois Republican Senate candidate Jack Ryan pressured his wife, actress Jeri Lynn Ryan, to have sex in clubs while others watched, she charged in divorce documents released Monday. The "Boston Public" and "Star Trek: Voyager" actress said she angered Ryan by refusing. She did acknowledge infidelity on her part, which she said took place after their marriage was irretrievably broken. In the documents, Ryan denied the allegations, saying he had been "faithful and loyal" to his wife. At a press conference Monday night, he expressed disappointment with the precedent set by the court order to release the documents....

WASHINGTON (AP) - Illinois Republican senatorial candidate Jack Ryan, his candidacy in turmoil over sex club allegations, decided to quit his quest for Congress on Friday. "I am today withdrawing from the race," he said in a statement prepared by his campaign. "What would take place, rather, is a brutal, scorched-earth campaign - the kind of campaign that has turned off so many voters, the kind of politics I refuse to play." Politics is a cruel mistress. If Jack Ryan were a masochist instead of an exhibitionist, he might be having the time of his life right now. The 44-year-old...