IL's George Ryan Renominated for Nobel Peace Prize

CHAMPAIGN -- Last week, former Governor George Ryan was re-nominated for Nobel Peace Prize by Francis Boyle, Professor of International Law and Human Rights at the University of Illinois.

"During the past year George Ryan has attempted to generate a wave of opposition to the death penalty all over the world. George Ryan has done more effective work against the death penalty than all of us American Abolitionists put together," Boyle said this week. "For these reasons I believe that George Ryan has, in the words of Alfred Nobel, 'conferred the greatest benefit on mankind.'

DuPage County State's Attorney Joe Birkett had a different view on Governor Ryan's nomination.

"What George Ryan did in the way he handled the victims and their families was an injustice," Birkett said. "He was not interested in the issue of abolishing the death penalty until he was faced with Operation Safe Road."

Birkett said that Ryan's record as governor indicates that his interest began around the same time he faced a federal investigation concerning offering drivers' licenses for bribes while he was Secretary of State. In December, Ryan became the 60th person to be indicted in Operation Safe Road on racketeering and mail fraud charges.

But while the Governor has been indicted on several counts, Birkett said there were other reasons not to support Ryan's nomination for the Nobel Peace Prize.

"George Ryan's abuse of power regarding the death penalty moratorium speaks for itself," Birkett said. "Why should he be recognized for that?"

Boyle acknowledges that although Ryan has been indicted on fraud and racketeering charges, he is innocent until proven guilty.

"It is the opinion of the Committee to Support Ryan's nomination that his work against the horror of the death penalty stands alone and apart from and transcends any alleged wrongdoing," Boyle said. "History will remember him for his solitary, brave and unparalleled contribution to the sacred cause of Abolition."

On the same day that Ryan was re-nominated, the Illinois Supreme Court upheld Ryan's constitutional right as Governor to commute these sentences.

"We believe that the grant of authority given the governor.. is sufficiently broad to allow former Governor Ryan to do what he did," Justice Bob Thomas wrote in the court's unanimous opinion.

Ryan and his family attended the Sundance Film Festival over the weekend to view the film, "Deadline," which lauds Ryan's moratorium on the death penalty and his decision to bestow clemency on 167 Death Row inmates.

"The death penalty system and the laws of this country need to be fixed," Ryan told a crowd gathered after the showing. "When we're talking about execution, if we can't have a perfect system -- which I don't believe we can -- then we shouldn't have a system like that in place."

What are your thoughts on the issues raised in this story? Write a letter to the editor at letters@illinoisleader.com, and include your name and town.

With all due respect -- WRONG.
In the republican primary I voted for Pat O'Malley, a conservative and supporter of the 2nd Amendment. Then after he lost I voted for Glen Poshard - a DEMOCRAT in the general election. Yes a dem, because Poshard was more of a republican in thought and actions that Ryan ever would or could be (fiscal conservative & supporter of the 2nd Amendment). And the kicker was that the Daley Machine was 'not-so-covertly' backing Ryan OVER Poshard the democrat. That alone should have been the red flag for the sheeple.

Now I realize you're in Texas so you don't know Ryan's 'history', but he's ALWAYS been a scum-bag power hungry crook. He hails from down state, Kankakee, and if the dems were the party in power he would have been a dem when he got into politics.

I'm PROUD that I've never, ever, voted for Ryan for state wide office, starting with his run for Lt. Gov. (a do-nothing job in IL). His abuse of that office and public money should have put him in jail then. Unfortunately corruption in IL is a bi-partisan affair so nothing was done.

It will take years to repair the destruction he and his cronies have done to the republican party here. A total and complete house cleaning is in order.

Kindly excuse that rant, but the mere mention of George Ryan gets me boiling. And for the record -- I HATE HIS GUTS!!

Some other things Francis Boyle has been up to:

Meeting Assembled By Conyers Mulls Seeking Bush's Impeachment Over Iraq
Drudge Report ^ | 3/13/03 | Drudge
Posted on 03/13/2003 7:46:22 AM PST by finnman69

Meeting Assembled By [John] Conyers Mulls Seeking Bush's Impeachment Over Iraq Thu Mar 13 2003 10:30:03 ET

House Judiciary ranking member John Conyers (D-Mich.) assembled more than two-dozen prominent liberal attorneys and legal scholars on Tuesday to mull over articles of impeachment drafted against President Bush by activists seeking to block military action against Saddam Hussein.

ROLL CALL is reporting on Thursday.

The two-hour session, which featured former attorney general-turned-activist Ramsey Clark, took place in the downtown office of a prominent Washington tort lawyer. Participants said Conyers, who hosted the meeting, was the only Member of Congress to attend. 'We had a pretty frank discussion about putting in a bill of impeachment against President Bush,' said Francis Boyle, an Illinois law professor who has been working on the impeachment language with Clark.

Developing...

******

Given the company he keeps and the timing of that meeting hosted by Conyers, francis Boyle is probably involved with this group:

MARCH 21, 2003 : (PUBLICATION OF SILLY-ARSE PETITION AGAINST PNAC-- See ICTI, BERTRAND RUSSELL PEACE FOUNDATION, BRUSSELS TRIBUNAL {see RAMSEY CLARK, DENIS HALLIDAY, HANS VON SPONECK}, 'WAR ON CHENEY, RUMSFELD & WOLFOWITZ') "Let me [Belgian Lieven De Cauter] briefly evoke the history of our initiative. Just before the start of the war in Iraq a petition was launched. It was signed by some 500 artists, writers, intellectuals and academics. It called for moral and, if possible, legal action against the 'Project for the New American Century' [PNAC] and the authorities responsible for the war against Iraq. It was published on March 21st [2003] in two Belgian newspapers, De Standaard and De Morgen. It soon appeared that legal action was unlikely to succeed as the United States have consistently acted against any legal authority that would be liable to threaten them and still continue to do so.
Hence the idea to set up a 'Moral Court' or 'People's Court' to condemn the new American policy as well as the think tanks behind it (the latter always remain beyond the grasp of legal action). A broad platform composed of several Belgian cultural organizations was created to carry out the petition's first proposal: to set up a Brussels Tribunal, after the historical example of the Russell Tribunal." -----"THE PEOPLE VERSUS TOTAL WAR INCORPORATED" LOOKING BACK TO THE BRUSSELLS TRIBUNAL (Yokohama-testimony, 5th ICTI hearing June 6th 2004)http://www.icti-e.com/Lieven%20De%20Cauter.html

This Brussel Tribunal's target is anyone associated with PNAC and so far they seem to have a pretty good record at taking out their targets :

1997 : (PNAC IS FOUNDED ; LEFTWINGNUTS ABROAD 'HAVE A COW') In the spring of 1997 the neo-conservatives Robert Kagan and William Kristol of The Weekly Standard founded 'The Project for the New American Century' (PNAC). The most distinguished signatories of the mission statement are Dick Cheney, Donald Rumsfeld, and Jeb Bush (George W. Bush's brother), Francis Fukuyama, and 'last but not least' Paul Wolfowitz, a former Professor of International Politics and former Dean of the Department of International Politics at Johns Hopkins University. Its current director is Gary Schmitt-----"THE PEOPLE VERSUS TOTAL WAR INCORPORATED" LOOKING BACK TO THE BRUSSELLS TRIBUNAL (Yokohama-testimony, 5th ICTI hearing June 6th 2004)http://www.icti-e.com/Lieven%20De%20Cauter.html

These BRussell Tribunal nutjobs were inspired by the vietnam era CCI:

NOVEMBER 1969 : (CITIZENS COMMISSIONS OF INQUIRY (CCI) ARE FORMED IN RESPONSE TO THE CALL OF THE BERTRAND RUSSELL FOUNDATION IN NY --- SEE WPC {SEE IPS}) In response to a public call from the Bertrand Russell foundation in New York, Jeremy Rifkin and Tod Ensign launch a new organization called Citizens Commissions of Inquiry (CCI) to publicize American war crimes in Indochina. ------ From WinterSoldier Timeline , http://ice.he.net/~freepnet/kerry/index.php?topic=Timeline

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