FreeRepublic • Anthrax Investigation (2001 & 2006) • FBI • WTF?

[Beam Me Up]

An on-line friend just sent me this link. I'm not someone who has paid much attention to FreeRepublic so don't have much of a mental context in which to put this. I am aware of the whole Nick Berg / FR thing, which was really scary. I'm posting this because I'd like input from people here more knowledgeable about FR than I am. This is from: http://www.sianews.com/modules.php?name=News&file=article&sid=3029">FreeRepublic.com at Center of US Anthrax Scandal by Todd Brendan Fahey, November 13, 2006. Closing paragraphs:

What to conclude--of a former deputy director of public affairs, the Pentagon, and a solitary and, according to neighbors, unfriendly man being both highly active posters of FreeRepublic.com and both neck-deep in the anthrax equation? And of this writer being hounded out of a half-dozen publications and Web discussion fora for pointing it out?

Two so-called "conservatives" (or, neo-conservatives) are busted ("Torie" for lying about what the Pentagon knew and was doing; Chad Castanaga, for mailing what turns out to be bogus anthrax to media members and politicians); as far back as year-2001, the New York Post implicated, as being involved in the transmission of anthrax through the mails, a "popular West Coast right-wing organization"...as it turns out, FreeRepublic.com, a cheerleading bleachers populated and financed by high-level members of the Republican National Committee and GOP.

To cop a phrase: "I can't seem to get my mind around it."

What is known is, we are five years after the fact, and nobody--other than our own--is proven to have cultivated, tested, stored, traded or mailed anthrax bacilli. While we hunt for "terrorists" around the globe and create impenetrable layers of new bureaucracy and fill the walls with prying eyes, let us first consider that which the evidence suggests--as it does with the gamut of events and scenarios surrounding the World Trade Center and Pentagon of September 11, 2001: that something is rotten from within.

Edit: This is posted on a very right-wing site.

[RadiDem]

1. Thanks K&R

[nolies32fouettes]

28. There's this too:

http://www.progressiveu.org/153358-the-scare-over-fake-anthrax-sent-to-anti-war-people-similiaries-link-suspect-to-free-republic-blogger-likely-same-person

[LiberalArkie]

2. An extremely good read.. Thank you

[Jade Fox]

3. Why hasn't FR been shut down?

They are affiliated with at least one known American right-wing terrorist. Imagine what would happen to this sight in similar circumstances.

[napi21]

4. I also didn't know that the FR was funded by the RNC!

Maybe I've been living under a rock for a long time, but I never heard that!

[malaise]

6. During their last fundraising

I was laughing at the fact that they only reached 11% after several days and another DUer pointed out that they receive funds from higher up.

Bwaaaaaaaaaaah Freepers are in serious trouble. I am so shocked NOT

[Beam Me Up]

7. Yeah that caught my eye, too.

"FreeRepublic.com, a cheerleading bleachers populated and financed by high-level members of the Republican National Committee and GOP", is something I hadn't heard before. I'd like to know where that information comes from.

Todd Brendan Fahey has served as aide to Central Intelligence Agency officer Theodore L. Humes; to former Arizona Governor Evan Mecham and former U.S. Congressman John B. Conlan, and to the late Defense Intelligence Agency chief Lt. General Daniel O. Graham.

[CoffeeCat]

27. Wow..."populated"...

...so some FR posters are high-level members of the RNC and GOP?

It figures.

DU is run by Americans. We don't have fake posters who are planted to leverage agendas.

My God, is there any tangent of the Republican party that isn't PR hell on acid? It's all
frickin smoke and mirrors.

Take away their hot-air PR tactics and their vote stealing--and you've got next to nothing.

[Initech]

30. It should be pretty obvious, their members arent exactly the charitable type.

[chat_noir]

5. Castagna wasn't the only one: FReeper accused of BWI bomb threat

October 13, 2006


http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1719269/posts

This was the last post by Spicka aka George-the-Other


Spicka received two felony charges of making a false statement of a destructive device, which each carry up to a $10,000 fine and up to 10 years in prison. He also received one count of interfering with security procedures, which Green said is a lesser charge. It has not been decided if federal charges will be filed.

http://www.examiner.com/a-343007~Local_composer_arrested_for_sending_bomb_threats_via_e_mail_to_BWI_Airport.html

[EstimatedProphet]

18. Because FR is too important to the Repub echo chamber

They are one of the focus points of the right wing blogosphere. They won't ever be investigated while repubs have power.

[lumberjack_jeff]

8. I read the site, as well as the article.

I guess what they say about ideology being a circle is true. Much of what is written there could as easily be posted here.

http://www.sianews.com/modules.php?name=News&file=article&sid=3028

[Beam Me Up]

9. Yeah, that happens to me, too . . .

A lot of the issues that differentiate right and left are exacerbated by media and politicians and those who own them to keep us 'little guys' focusing on our differences rather than our common interests. Especially our common economic interests.

[ItsTheMediaStupid]

11. This is why we must maintain some kind of independent press

A lot of the issues that differentiate right and left are exacerbated by media and politicians and those who own them to keep us 'little guys' focusing on our differences rather than our common interests. Especially our common economic interests.

If the press did it's constitutional duty to ask questions, this collusion would be impossible.

[rosesaylavee]

10. Wow. What an interesting read.

Gives me hope that one of their own still has the ability to question and think independently.

K & R

[me b zola]

12. Great find, BMUS

What is the Nick Berg/FR connection? Geez, it just gets creepier & creepier.


recommended

[SoCalDem]

13. Didn't someone from FR "out" him?

I vaguely remember reading about something like that happening..

[EstimatedProphet]

17. Nick Berg

The Denver talk show host on KOA radio that was killed in the 80's by a right wing nut. Castagna (sp?) made a comment to the effect that liberals (Keith Olbermann especially) should remember what happened to him, and be careful of what they say.

[Beaverhausen]

19. Alan Berg was the DJ. Nick Berg was a contractor in Iraq...

who was beheaded.

Castaganga mentioned Alan Berg.

[blogslut]

24. Wasn't there something

about freepers going after Nick Berg's dad and in essence bringing atention to his son in Iraq - resulting in Nick's kidnapping and eventual murder?

[EstimatedProphet]

33. D'OH!

My memory isn't what it used to be...

[CONewRevolution]

20. Alan Berg/ Nick Berg

The Denver talk show host was ALAN Berg, not Nick.

Nick Berg was the businessman beheaded in Iraq, allegedly by al-Zarqawi.

[Beam Me Up]

26. Nick Berg • Aziz al Taee (aka Joe Aziz) • FreeRepublic • Gannon • etc.

History revival time:

Nick Berg wiki: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nick_Berg

I was searching in the archives but can't find any of the old threads I remember. It was quite something at the time. A lot of people very angry at FR because they'd created an "enemies list" naming Nick's family as members of International A.N.S.W.E.R. just a week or so before Nick was arrested in Iraq.

Nick was associated with Aziz al-Taee who was also associated with FR:



(picture of Aziz al-Taee speaking at a Free Republic pro-Iraq war rally in Washington DC, I believe in January, 2003)

February 19, 2005

Update: Our "Gannon" hunch was right...
"Gannon" did take part in the Jan. 18 Free Republic/Marines pro-war rally, the one where Aziz al-Taee may have spoken. http://www.theconservativeguy.com/NYT/NYTimes.htm">Here's a post about it <inactive link> from his original blog, theconservativeguy.com. Also, he refers yet again to living on Capitol Hill -- since he's not listed there on Autotrak, whom did he live with?

SIDEBAR: WHY I KNOW I'M RIGHT ABOUT THE TIMES

On the occasion of the January 18 anti-war rally in Washington, DC, I hosted members of Free Republic.com and MOVE-OUT (Marines and Other Veterans Engaging Outrageous Un-American Traitors) in my home on Capitol Hill. A reporter from the Washington Post assigned to cover their Patriots' Rally earlier in the day and their counter-demonstration at the Marine barracks at 8th & I arrived with them. In the course of my conversation with the reporter, I began my usual rant about the liberal media. I cited the New York Times as an example of a completely slanted publication. She was quick to remind me that the conservative William Safire writes for the Times. That's the point! Safire is so obviously a token at the Times that everyone can name him as a knee-jerk response to charges of bias but no one can mention another staff member who is a conservative.

Posted 07:42 PM | http://161.188.204.78/DNBlog/oldmt-comments.cgi?entry_id=1470">Comments (9)
----------------------

New proof of "Gannon"'s early WH access

Yesterday, former White House press secretary Ari Fleischer, in self-defense mode, http://select.nytimes.com/gst/abstract.html?res=F20910FF3A5E0C7B8DDDAB0894DD404482">claimed that he had suspicions about reporter "Jeff Gannon" and his ties to a group called GOPUSA, and that he stopped calling on him at White House briefings.

That may be so, but Campaign Extra! has unearthed proof that Fleischer called on "Gannon" for a softball question at a White House press briefing on March 4, 2003 -- some 25 days before the Talon News website http://reports.internic.net/cgi/whois?whois_nic=talonnews.com&type=domain">was registered.

What's more, "Gannon"'s "journalism" in early March of 2003 raises new questions about his role in the propaganda drive leading up to the invasion of Iraq. And, for the conspiracy minded among you, it also raises questions about the connection between the journalist, whose real name is J.D. Guckert, and one of the last known people to see Iraq beheading victim http://www.philly.com/mld/dailynews/8654371.htm">Nick Berg <link no longer active> alive.

The story starts in http://www.whitehouse.gov/news/releases/2003/03/20030304-13.html">the White House briefing room on March 4, when Fleischer, at the end of a long briefing, was asked this question:

This is about Iraq. On Saturday, I interviewed Aziz al-Taee, Chairman of the Iraqi-American Council. He detailed a compelling body of evidence about the holocaust being waged against the Iraqi people. Why hasn't the administration focused on this aspect of Saddam's regime to justify intervention without U.N. approval? After all, it was the Clinton administration that used ethnic cleansing as a pretext to bomb and send troops into Kosovo.

Sound a lot like slo-pitch champion Gannon/Guckert? It was.

Six days later, "Gannon" published this article <inactive link> on the GOPUSA News Web site, entitled: Saddam's History of Torture: The Other Case For Regime Change in Iraq A GOPUSA Special Report." The article includes this passage, which included the answer to that March 4 question quoted above:

When asked for a comment by GOPUSA News, White House Spokesman Ari Fleischer said, "This is something the President remarks about from time to time. What about the cries on the basis of human rights for the people of Iraq who are suffering under the hand of Saddam Hussein? That is an important issue for the world to face."

Many have long suspected that the timing of the sudden appearance of Gannon/Guckert at the White House was related to a pre-war propaganda push by the Bush administration. A key player in that push was al-Taee, the head of the Iraqi-American Council, a group with a number of crosslinks to the Iraq emigree community that was banging the war drums in 2002-03.

Al-Taee, also known as Aziz K. Aziz, also known as "Joe Aziz," criss-crossed the nation in the six months before "shock and awe" over Baghdad -- http://64.233.161.104/search?q=cache:K9ufleLjy9sJ:www.gopusa.com/news/2003/march/0303_dc_rallyp.shtml+%22gannon%22+and+%22al-taee%22&hl=en&ie=UTF-8">speaking at rallies <inactive link> sponsored by the pro-Bush radio giant Clear Channel Corp. and making frequent TV appearances on pro-Bush -- er, we meant "fair and balanced" -- Fox News Channel and elsewhere.

Gannon/Guckert's interview with al-Taee -- just a few days after the former gay prostitute declared himself a journalist -- has raised a lot of eyebrows at http://www.dailykos.com/story/2005/2/19/5447/15291">Daily Kos, which along with http://americablog.blogspot.com/">Americablog has been key in breaking this scandal wide open. It probably shouldn't, though -- because from reading the clips it looks like al-Taee met Gannon at the March 2003 outdoor rally and was simply talking to anyone with a microphone or tape recorder.

But they may have met even earlier. "Gannon" was reportedly a member of the D.C. chapter of Free Republic, the ultra right-wing Web site. And according to http://www.worldnetdaily.com/news/article.asp?ARTICLE_ID=30566">this article, that group sponsored a January 2003 appearance by none other than Aziz al-Taee. The other sponsor was a group called MOVE-OUT, which stands for Marines and Other Veterans Engaging Outrageous Un-American Traitors (Web site no longer exists). Isn't J.D. Guckert an http://www.pnionline.com/dnblog/extra/archives/001461.html">ex-Marine? Hmmmm.

But Gannon/Guckert and al-Taee had something in common: a http://www.philly.com/mld/dailynews/news/local/8684646.htm?1c">secret past <inactive link>. In the case of al-Taee, he failed to mention in his media appearances that he was a convicted felon for his role in a ring that distributed crack vials, that he's had other brushes with the law, and that the U.S. government was actively seeking to deport him.

But it didn't have to, because by the summer of '03, Al-Taee had left America for his native Iraq, where he had dreams of becoming a cell-phone entreprenuer. His partner in one of his ventures, called Babylon Towers, was none other than American Nick Berg -- the same Nick Berg whose May 2004 beheading, captured on videotape, caused a global outcry.

In fact, a number of reports had al-Taee as maybe the last known person to speak to Berg -- a fact that, given al-Taee's link to the Bush-backed propaganda campaign -- only fueled http://www.philly.com/mld/dailynews/news/local/8703219.htm?1c">the many conspiracy theories <inactive link> on the Web. And now we learn that al-Taee was in cahoots with "Jeff Gannon" -- where will this tangled web stop?

In fact, here's one more freaky coincidence. According to that same World Net Daily article about al-Taee speaking to the Free Republic chapter, both Free Republic and MOVE-OUT were reportedly closely monitoring the activities of left-wing anti-war group A.N.S.W.E.R. On March 7, 2003, around the time of the "Gannon"-al-Taee interview, http://www.apfn.org/NickBerg/right-wing.htm">a Freeper posted an online "enemies' list," that included Nick Berg's father Michael, who belongs to A.N.S.W.E.R, and Berg's business, Prometheus Methods Tower Service.

And here's yet one more bizarre and newsworthy thing we uncovered: After al-Taee left, or fled, to Baghdad in 2003, he pulled a "Jeff Gannon" of his own. On Aug. 7, 2003, the convicted felon gained access to a briefing by Lt. General Ricardo Sanchez and asked this question (sorry, no link):

Q My name is Aziz Al-Taee, chairman of the Iraqi-American Council, visiting from the States. Actually, I want to take the opportunity to express the thankful feeling among the Iraqi-American community for the great jobs has been done.
The question we have -- obviously, we are concerned about the casualties among the civilians, and also, among the U.S. soldiers and the coalition soldiers. How fast is in your plan to transfer the power and empower the Iraqi Governing Council and try to stabilize the security situation here?

Can this thing get any weirder?

Posted 01:16 PM | http://161.188.204.78/DNBlog/oldmt-comments.cgi?entry_id=1469">Comments (25)

The above is from: http://www.pnionline.com/dnblog/extra/archives/2005_02.html

I can't find the threads I was looking for but I did find these:

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=102x563009">EXECUTION: FOUR ARRESTED by Hexola, May 18, 2004


http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=132x1589943">I think I found the Key to the Gannon Scandal! by DoYouEverWonder, Feb 12, 2005


http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=104x3238821">Gannongate: I can link Iraq false intel, gay escorts, Nazis, Gannon, crack by HamdenRice, March 8, 2005

[Fleshdancer]

14. If DUers committed acts like this I would leave

I can't imagine wanting to be associated with a forum with people who commit acts of terror. :wtf:

[Horse with no Name]

22. Here talk like that buys you a Tombstone and a ban

At FR, it buys you "street creds".
At least until someone gets caught, they ban the user ID but I would almost bet he is elevated to hero status and given a sock puppet ID to use.

[Ksec]

15. Wow. Just wow.

The tentacles of GOP corruption are all over the place.

[bleever]

16. This article misses one important detail:

The New York Post also leaked info about one of Olbermann's anthrax letters, despite requests from the DOJ that no one publicize any aspect of an investigation that was in progress.

[The Straight Story]

21. Kicking - thanks for posting this! (nt)

[proud2BlibKansan]

23. WOW

Are we maybe seeing the end of FR??

[WillyT]

25. THANK YOU !!! - K & R !!!

:kick::yourock::kick:

[Liberty Belle]

29. Send a link to this thread to Conyers' office and ask him to investigate

FR. Perhaps they should be shut down.

[The Backlash Cometh]

31. I think there are right-wingers in government who have convinced themselves

that they are at war with us, and they take it upon themselves to do this kind of thing. I mean, there are apparently normal looking people who vote Republican who believe a war is a good thing for this country. But, of course, they work for the military defense or someone who supplies them. It means money in their pocket.

[Beam Me Up]

32. I suspect you are correct. What place has FreeRepublic served in this? n/t