Free Republic

<p>Elian Gonzalez, the young Cuban castaway whose international custody battle ended in his dramatic seizure from a Miami home five years ago, addressed a crowd of thousands Friday, thanking Cubans and Americans alike for fighting for his return to the island.</p>

MIAMI · The Little Havana home that sheltered Elián González during his five months in Miami is still scarred from the swift raid in which armed federal agents stormed the house to reunite the boy with his father. Elián's Miami relatives didn't repair the holes created five years ago today when authorities kicked in the bedroom door. It is a reminder to visitors that a Border Patrol officer confronted family friend Donato Dalrymple as he tried to hide in a closet with the boy, an image captured in a Pulitzer Prize-winning Associated Press photograph.

In his new book "Fidel: Hollywood's Favorite Tyrant," Fontova describes what he calls a staged interview Dan Rather held with Juan Miguel, father of Elian Gonzalez, the youthful lone survivor of a capsized Cuban boat which sank on its way to the U.S. The custody battle culminated in a dramatic, pre-dawn raid by machine-gun-toting federal agents to snatch the 6-year-old from his Miami relatives during Easter weekend and send him back to Castro's tyranny. Fontova also tells a heart-wrenching story of Cuba's execution of American businessman Howard Anderson. Anderson owned a chain of service stations and a Jeep dealership and...

CáRDENAS, Cuba · Elián González says he wants to be a gymnast when he grows up. But his grandfather, Juan González Sr., knows Elián's future career choices are as variable as any normal preteen's and could change next month. "I want him to be a good man, to do good deeds, not do anything he will regret. Everything else is all right," he said, sitting in his home in the coastal town of Cárdenas under a large photograph of a very young Elián. At age 11, the boy whose bitter custody battle stands as a symbol of the Cold War...

Hi, explain this to me. How was Janet Reno able to defy the 11th circuit court, but Jeb Bush wasn't. In 2000, the 11th circuit court ruled the U.S couldn't send Elian Gonzales to Cuba. He had to be in the U.S. What happened to Bill and Janet? NOTHING. They stated that the 11th Circuit had no jurisdiction and that the Florida Court had no jurisdiction. So why didn't Jeb do the same thing and send state troopers to get Terri into a hospital. Read this from April 2000. You'll see the 11th circuit court ruled Janet Reno couldn't send...

Liberals say state courts have the right to decide whether brain-damaged Florida woman Terri Schiavo lives or dies, but they held a different position in the case of Cuban refugee Elian Gonzalez in 1999. Writing in the Wall Street Journal, John Fund compared the two cases and found that liberals backed federal intervention in 5-year-old Elian's case. He said they supported the Clinton administration's decision to send heavily armed Immigration and Naturalization Service agents in an early morning raid to remove Elian from the care of family members in Miami. But, Fund notes, many of the same liberals don't believe...

Rush: The 11th Circuit Court had said "No" to Johnny Reno, but she went ahead and took custody of Elian anyway...........................

The sad case of Terri Schiavo has raised passions not seen since five years ago. Then another bitterly divided family argued in Florida courts over someone who couldn't speak on his own behalf: Elian Gonzalez. In both cases, those who were unhappy with the courts' decisions strained to assert the federal government's power to produce a different outcome. The difference is that in Mrs. Schiavo's case, Congress backed off after passing a bill that merely asked a federal court to hear the case from scratch, something that U.S. District Judge James Whittemore declined to do. By contrast, those who wanted...

For the second time in five years, government entities in this country are with brute force victimizing an innocent person during Holy Week, the week of Christ's Passion. The last time it was the Clinton administration's seizure of Elian Gonzales, of which I wrote at NewsMax: This country, which makes such a show of supporting the oppressed against the oppressors, treats [Elian's] Miami relatives in their modest bungalow home--these people who have nothing to stand on but their humanity and their sense of what is right--with contempt. This country, which gobbles up one Hollywood thriller after another in which people...

Could Dan Rather be in trouble again? A new book on Castro tells of a staged Dan Rather interview that was master-minded by a Clinton lawyer. In Fidel: Hollywood's Favorite Tyrant, author Humberto Fontova reveals for the first time how Dan Rather's "60 Minutes" interview with Juan Miguel (Elian Gonzalez's father) was stage-managed by former Clinton lawyer and friend, Gregory Craig. According to a Cuban-American translator from the U.S. Treasury Department: "The questions for Juan Miguel were actually fed to Dan Rather by Gregory Craig. After a taping session, Craig would call Dan over, give him some more instructions and...

http://www.therealcuba.com/index.htm

The kids wanted to watch a movie the other night; after much haggling we all settled on "Chitty Chitty Bang Bang". Now while watching it, something strange happened. Now, I'm a big movie buff. Much like Lieutenant Kinderman in "The Exorcist" I like to talk film, discuss it; but I'm really stumped on something. That hardly ever happens, film wise, so I hope I can call on all of your collective knowledge to help me through this. My problem is this: I think I've seen a whole third of the movie somewhere else, and I can't remember where. Was it...

Babalu blog's Val Prieto, who was profiled recently on the front page of the Miami Herald as a brilliant new voice of the often-dismissed Cuban-American community, has a striking update about the Elian Gonzalez case. Back in 2000, the rescue of the 6-year-old Cuban refugee by fishermen off the coast of Florida triggered a three-way tug-of-war between Cuban dictator Fidel Castro, the cowardly Clinton Administration, and the Cuban-American community over custody of the child. The Clinton administration resolved the question with a savage pre-dawn raid, grabbing the terrified child at gunpoint from his Miami relatives and delivering him straight to...

Captive of Castro By Sherrie Gossett | February 18, 2005 "The Cuban government installed what somebody described as a speaker phone" in the father's home in Cuba so that Cuban government agents could coach him on what to say. Elian Gonzalez's name is back in the news since a new trial related to the custody drama got underway in Miami the last week of January. He was the Cuban boy who came to America when his mother died to give him freedom.

Janet Reno came to Colorado Sate University tonight on her public speaking tour. FReepers and members of the Tyranny Response Team were there to remind the attending public of her legacy.........

This article mentions Agustin Blazquez's short "Dan Rather, '60 Minutes' an Inside View" that will be released this coming Spring as part of the Special Edition DVD of Blazquez's new documentary "The Rats Below." A retired Architect of the U.S. Treasury Department in Washington, DC, Pedro Porro, A.I.A. reveals what he found to be a serious manipulation of a segment of "60 Minutes" he participated in order to influence the conclusions of the audience. This interview with Mr. Porro was taped on May 18, 2003 - before the recent scandal on CBS about the "60 Minutes" Dan Rather segment criticizing...

Trial Opens Over Raid on Elian Gonzalez Mon Jan 24, 2:28 PM ET MIAMI - A trial opened Monday in a $3 million-plus lawsuit by 13 people who say they were injured or traumatized when federal agents seized a screaming Elian Gonzalez from his Miami relatives' home.   The opening witness was neighbor Maria Riera, who testified that she clutched her chest and thought she was dying when an agent doused her with tear gas during the April 22, 2000, raid to reunite the 6-year-old boy with his father in Cuba. The 13 neighbors and protesters are seeking up to...

The next time you meet a Cuban, say thank you. I am reading Ann Coulter's new book, How To Talk to a Liberal, when I came to her analysis on the Elián Gonzáles debacle. She devotes an entire chapter to this subject. I wondered why this injustice by the Clinton administration was any more significant than others about which she uses less space. Then I read the point of the chapter and realized why she saw the need to dedicate that much ink to the subject. In 1996, 40% of Cuban-Americans voted for Bill Clinton. In 2000, 77% of Cuban-Americans...

25nov04 1999 – Five-year-old Elian Gonzalez is rescued at sea after a boat capsizes during a voyage from Cuba to the United States, killing his mother and 10 others. Elian is turned over to his Miami relatives.

One prominent activist turned against the Republicans altogether when the Bush administration's Cuba policy failed to evolve beyond anti-Castro posturing. Joe Garcia, former executive director of the Cuban-American National Foundation (CANF) and once outspoken critic of the Clinton administration's handling of the Elian Gonzalez saga, now became the voice of the New Democrat Network's effort to court Cuban voters in Florida. In television ads aired in the state, Garcia decried what he called the demagoguery of Republican policy and pleaded for voters to “act responsibly." But it doesn't take becoming a Democrat to begin rethinking the Cuba strategy. Prominent Cuban-American...