Free Republic

In the first public hearing on the fate of a 4-year-old girl whose father wants her to return to Cuba, a frustrated judge called for calm.The closed-door custody battle over the 4-year-old Cuban girl who ended up in foster care after her mother attempted suicide went on public display Wednesday, baring finger-pointing, raised voices and raw emotion. Crushed into a courtroom in Miami's dingy juvenile courthouse were about a dozen lawyers, four psychologists, social workers, guardians, an interpreter and a judge. They met in public after an appeals court ordered the hearings, which had been held secretly for more than...

LET'S BEGIN with the big lie—that Elian Gonzalez was separated from his father by his Cuban-American relatives living in Miami, and that father and son were reunited by Janet Reno's INS storm troopers. (What else can you call them, given their pre-dawn assault on a private home to snatch a child who was not a hostage, at gunpoint?) The entire premise of the Elian drama—that the Miami relatives have kept the boy from his father—is false. Elian was separated from his father not by Lazaro Gonzalez and company, but by Fidel Castro: the world's longest surviving and most sadistic dictator,...

"The Religious Left is far more “Left” than “religious” – they may look like a church on the outside, but on the inside, they’re a political organization advancing a leftist social agenda. And now, there’s hard evidence to back it up." NCC was a major player in the Elian Gonzalez criminal abduction, following are webpages I created throughout this illegal and disgraceful action on Easter Weekend 7 years ago...rto The Taking of Elian Elian Returns to Cuba

<p>FORMER PRESIDENT BILL CLINTON ON NOT CAPTURING BIN LADEN: 'At least I tried. That's the difference between me and some, including all the right wingers. They ridicule me for trying. They had eight months to try, they did not try. I tried. So I tried and failed'...</p>

With stories and photos of Fidel Castro's "personal health" bombarding us 24/7, I have given some second serious thought into my own involvement in the infamous Elian Gonzalez case. Once you hear the name "Elian", how can you ever forget this six year old boy and the media rampage that started in late 1999, and came full circle more than six years ago? Looking back, I have come to realize that in my advocacy to advance the concept of fathers' rights, I forgot to understand that young Elian was the wrong boy and the wrong case to champion in the...

http://abcnews.go.com/Video/playerIndex?id=2292911 Video at link above shows a women holding up a sign protesting the police when one of the police shoots her with a rubber bullet in the back of the leg.She then turns around and gets shot in the forehead(wich can and does kill people) then the video cuts to the police gathering around after the protests and laughing about shooting her and talking about giving out trophys for it

A little Cuban boy named Elian, who in 1999 was scooped up by a federal SWAT team in Miami and shipped back to Cuba, is in the news again for the get well card he and his family sent to communist dictator Fidel Castro. The youngster addressed the 79-year-old as my "Dear Grandfather" and wished Castro a happy 80th birthday. For those not familiar with this child's story or for those who've forgotten, Elian Gonzalez was the center of one of the biggest news stories during the Clinton Administration. Not as big as Monica, but close. While escaping the communist...

ELIAN Gonzalez, the Cuban boy who became the celebrated object of a 2000 US-Cuba tug-of-war wished Cuban leader Fidel Castro a speedy recovery from surgery. "We send you this letter so that you know that we are concerned about your health," Elian Gonzalez, now 13, said in a letter also signed by five other children in his family and published today in the official newspaper, Juventud Rebelde. A week ago, Mr Castro, 79, handed power "temporarily" to his younger brother, Defence Minister Raul Castro, while undergoing surgery for intestinal bleeding. In November 1999, Elian, who was six at the time,...

Sunday, July 2, 2006 ELIAN – Elian Gonzalez has never spoken before about the battle between the U.S. and Cuba that he was in the middle of five years ago when he was just 6. He does now in an interview with Bob Simon. Draggan Mihailovich is the producer. AL QAEDA’S TOWN – When terrorist insurgents led by Al Qaeda took over the Iraqi town of Tal Afar, the U.S. military had to devise a way of retaking it. Their methods have become a blueprint for the war on terror. Lara Logan reports. Josh Yager is the producer. FIRST...

I have a few thoughts for you in response to some letters of late. The voices now crying for the impeachment of Bush were silent during Waco, Elian Gonzales and the first World Trade Center attack, Ruby Ridge and the bombing of the U.S.S. Cole. Their favorite president presided over the the largest bubble burst in U.S. economic history (DOT.COM). China, India and Pakistan get nukes. The U.S. bombed Yugoslavia for weeks; hit the Chinese embassy and killed thousands of untold civilians. The U.S. did a lot of bombing from 30,000 feet because Clinton was afraid to lose one soldier....

Just wondering, besides going around FISA during the investigation of Aldrich Ames, did the Clinton Administration go around FISA during the investigation and deportation of Elian Gonzales?

THOSE EVIL AMERICAN TROOPS FRIGHTENING THOSE POOR IRAQIS Yesterday we noted that John Kerry was resorting to his old ways; bashing our men and women in uniform. On last Sunday's Face the Nation Kerry had this to say about the actions of American troops in Iraq: " ..... there is no reason, Bob, that young American soldiers need to be going into the homes of Iraqis in the dead of night, terrorizing kids and children, you know, women ...." Well, there you go. Now we have the Democratic Presidential candidate, The Poodle, applying the "T" word to our own troops...

LIKE WINSTON SMITH, Elian Gonzalez has learned to love Big Brother. CBS News loves him, too. Elian's excuse is that he is 11 years old and has been brainwashed by a totalitarian police state. What excuse is there for CBS? Last week, ''60 Minutes" aired an interview with Elian, the Cuban boat child who survived a desperate escape from Fidel Castro's island dictatorship in November 1999 only to be forcibly turned over to the Cubans by the Clinton administration the following April. The story was a shameless piece of agitprop. From correspondent Bob Simon's opening description of the Elian affair...

(CBS) In the annals of conflict between Cubans and Americans, there was the Bay of Pigs, there was the Cuban Missile Crisis and, in 1999, there was Elian Gonzalez. The last time we saw Elian, he was a 6-year-old in the eye of a storm in Miami, and possibly the youngest person ever to become the focus of an international crisis. Now, five years after he returned to Cuba with his father, you will hear Elian’s story from his point of view. 60 Minutes correspondent Bob Simon reports. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- At the age of 5, he survived an incredible sea journey...

Elian interview sparks Miami row Relatives in Florida of the shipwrecked Cuban boy Elian Gonzalez have criticised an interview with him to be shown on US television on Sunday. Cubans celebrated when Elian was returned to his father In excerpts from the CBS network's 60 Minutes show Elian, now 11, calls Cuban leader Fidel Castro his friend. He also accuses his family in Miami of trying to turn him against his father during a custody battle in 2000 which culminated in his return to Cuba. A spokesman for the Florida relatives said Elian had been brainwashed. Elian turned six soon...

Elian Gonzalez, 11, calls Castro 'friend,' 'father' MIAMI, Florida (AP) -- Elian Gonzalez, the Cuban boy at the center of an international custody battle five years ago, calls Cuban President Fidel Castro his friend and says he hopes someday to see his Miami family again. "Despite everything they did, it was wrong, they are (still) my family ... my uncles," the boy said in an interview with CBS's "60 Minutes." Excerpts were released Thursday for the program that airs Sunday night. Elian, now 11, set off a seven-month custody battle after he was rescued off the Florida coast in 1999...

Former U.S. Attorney General Janet Reno wowed the crowd at the Gay and Lesbian Medical Association's conference in Montreal on Sept. 24 with an impassioned speech on universal healthcare, wrapping up the GLMA's annual conference with an inspired bang. Reno stressed the importance of gay healthcare professionals to come out and work as a community as the best means of standing up to an increasingly conservative, homophobic culture and government. “By utilizing the professional bonds and friendships built up through your work, I believe you can build a system of healthcare delivery that will make us all proud,” said Reno....

Cuba's longtime communist leader said he was proud to be the friend of Elian Gonzalez, now 11, who graduated this week from Grade 6. "I have the privilege to be his friend," Castro said in speech that was published in Cuban media Friday, a day after the leader attended Elian's graduation ceremony.

Cuban President Fidel Castro said in a speech published Friday that he's honored to be a friend of Elian Gonzalez, the boy at the center of an international custody dispute five years ago. "I have the privilege to be his friend," Castro said Thursday night during Elian's sixth-grade graduation in the coastal city of Cardenas, east of Havana. The speech was broadcast on state television and published Friday in the Communist Party daily Granma. Elian, now 11, was the subject of a high-profile legal and ideological battle between his father in Cuba and family members in South Florida, both who...

Thirteen people who were tear-gassed during the raid to seize Elian Gonzalez five years ago lost a lawsuit Friday in which they had sought $3.25 million in damages from the government. U.S. District Judge K. Michael Moore issued a 19-page decision saying that the demonstrators and bystanders failed to show enough credible evidence that federal agents' use of force during the raid was "unreasonable under the circumstances." The 13 people claimed they had been sprayed at close range while on their own property or behind barricades. Three neighbors testified that an agent gassed them without warning from 2 to 4...