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Her (INS Agent Mill's) instructions: Locate Elian, get him safely into a waiting van, and stay with him and allay his fears until federal agents reunited him with his father, Juan Miguel Gonzalez, at Andrews Air Force Base in Maryland.After Elian was found in a closet, Mills told him in Spanish: ``I know this seems frightening to you now, but it will all be over very soon,'' said Russ Bergeron, director of media relations for the INS. ``She told him: `We're not going to take you to Cuba. We're not going to put you on a raft. We're taking you...

At the center of the allegations against Herman Cain is current Obama administration employee, who was also the spokeswoman for Janet Reno during the Elian Gonzales fiasco during the Clinton Presidency. For those unfamiliar with Elian Gonzalez, he was a young boy who survived an ill-fated trip to America in November 1999. Twelve Cubans set out for Cuba in an unstable boat, but only Elian and one other person would make it to America alive. Elizabeth Gonzales was attempting to do something that has been done more than a thousand times since Castro's revolution that brought communism to the...

  The Totalitarian Temptation David C. Stolinsky July 14, 2011 This revealing term is the title of a book by the late French author Jean-François Revel. An equally revealing title by Revel is “How Democracies Perish.” Democracies do perish because of the totalitarian temptation. They are in the process of perishing even as we speak. Do you really believe that freedom can survive, if the government seizes the power to: ● Raise taxes to confiscatory levels. Prominent Democratic Congressman Henry Waxman was asked at what level taxes would stifle economic activity. He was unable to name a specific rate,...

The New Black Panther Party threatened Philadelphia voters with billy clubs and Eric Holder’s justice department couldn’t be bothered. CAIR was accused of fundraising for Hamas, and Eric Holder shrugged. But back when Fidel Castro demanded the return of an escaped slave, Eric Holder snapped to attention, clicked his heels, and sprung to action. It is scrupulous legality, we’re given to understand by Mr. Holder, that prevents his Department from prosecutions against the New Black Panthers and CAIR. But regarding scrupulous legality, Fox News Andrew Napolitano had (then Deputy) Attorney General Eric Holder’s number way back in April 23rd...

Imam Feisal Abdul Rauf, chairman of the soi-disant Cordoba Initiative, has gotten all the attention he deserves for his astonishingly insensitive attempt to build a 13-story mosque and community center at the site of Ground Zero. Rauf has largely escaped attention for his efforts to build a sawed-off version of the same on the grounds of the venerable and historically Christian Chautauqua Institution in western New York State. Although the resistance to Rauf at Chautauqua has not made the news, it is deeply felt, and it is coming from both Christians and Jews. As shall be seen, the forced feeding...

Elian Gonzalez says he's not angry at his Miami relatives who fought to keep him in the United States during a nasty international custody battle a decade ago, and is thankful "a large part of the American public" supported him being reunited with his father in Cuba. Now 16, Gonzalez's first comments to foreign reporters in years came after President Raul Castro attended a state celebration Wednesday night marking the 10th anniversary of the famous ex-castaway's return to the island. "Even though they didn't help me in every way possible, they didn't help me move forward, they are still my...

Elian Gonzalez case - 10 years later When federal agents stormed a home in the Little Havana community, snatched Elian Gonzalez from his father's relatives and put him on a path back to his father in Cuba, thousands of Cuban Americans took to Miami's streets. Their anger helped give George W. Bush the White House months later and simmered long after that. Ten years later, the Little Havana home - for weeks the epicenter of a standoff that divided the United States - is a museum dedicated to Elian's brief time in this country, but visitors are rare. Almost no...

A decade later, however, there are new photos of a nearly grown-up Elian Gonzalez - and they present a very different kind of propaganda image. The new pictures show a serious-looking 16-year-old sporting a closely cropped haircut, wearing an olive-green military school uniform with red shoulder patches, as he attends a Young Communist Union meeting. The Cuban government press released the images under the none-too-subtle headline "Young Elian Gonzalez defends his revolution in the youth congress." Since winning Elian's return to Cuba in 2000, the Castro regime has closely tracked the boy and his father. (Indeed, Cuban State Security has...

HAVANA (AP) - Cuba has released photos of one-time exile cause celebre Elian Gonzalez wearing an olive-green military school uniform and attending a Young Communist Union congress. Gonzalez, now 16 with closely cropped black hair, is shown serious-faced with fellow youth delegates during last weekend's congress at a sprawling and drab convention center in western Havana. The images were posted Monday on Cuban government Web sites, then widely picked up by electronic, state-controlled media. When he was 5, Elian was found floating off the coast of Florida in an inner tube after his mother and others fleeing Cuba drowned trying...

Obama pick faces questions over bombers' clemencyBy PETE YOST Associated Press Writer Originally published Wednesday, January 14, 2009 at 2:05 PM WASHINGTON — New York police detective Anthony S. Senft's life changed forever when a bomb set by Puerto Rican separatists exploded, blowing him 15 feet in the air and blinding him in one eye. Now, he's angry that Eric Holder, who played a key role in awarding clemency to the bombers, is in line to be attorney general. Holder, as President Bill Clinton's deputy attorney general, worked closely with the Justice Department's pardon attorney to raise the possibility of...

The chasm between those who want President-elect Barack Obama to produce his birth certificate to verify his eligibility to hold the nation's highest office and those who simply support the Democrat is widening. "The Constitution means what we today decide it means," opined one participant on a new WND forum that offers readers an opportunity to express their opinion on the birth certificate dispute.

I spent several years of the Clinton administration writing about one scandal or controversy after another. There was, of course, the Whitewater affair and the fight over the independent counsel, Kenneth Starr. There was the Lewinsky matter. Travelgate. The bitter controversy over Elian Gonzalez. The furor over Bill Clinton's last-minute pardons. And more. It seems like so long ago. So why am I suddenly hitting the search feature on my laptop ten times a day, looking for old articles? Why am I looking for names like Eric Holder, Gregory Craig, Rahm Emanuel, and John Podesta? Because change has come to...

President-elect Barack Obama is expected to name two attorneys to his administration who helped return Elián González to Cuba, angering some Miami Republicans. Two veterans of the Elián González saga are expected to be named to top posts in Democrat Barack Obama's administration, infuriating some Cuban-American Republicans who haven't forgotten the 6-year-old boy seized in Miami and sent back to the communist regime. The Associated Press is reporting that Obama's top choice for U.S. attorney general is Eric Holder, who served as deputy attorney general during the 2000 raid in Miami. Greg Craig, who represented González's father in the custody...

Obama Appoints Castro's Lawyer as White House Counsel By Humberto Fontova Among the throng of Clinton regime retreads recruited for the Obama administration we find Gregory Craig. Craig served as Obama's advisor on Latin American during the campaign, and was appointed last week as chief White House Counsel. The MSM has mentioned Craig's role as Bill Clinton's impeachment lawyer, but mostly has omitted mention of Craig's role as chief facilitator for Fidel Castro's shanghaiing of Elian Gonzalez. Officially Craig served as attorney for Elian's father, Juan Miguel Gonzalez. This humble man worked as a hotel doorman in a nation where...

Gregory B. Craig, a well-known Washington lawyer who quarterbacked President Bill Clinton’s impeachment defense, has been chosen White House counsel by President-elect Barack Obama, according to Democratic officials. Craig is intimately familiar with the president-elect’s record because he played the role of Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) in debate preparations. The officials said Obama has settled on Craig but were not sure when the appointment would be announced. The choice gives the president-elect both experience and loyalty. During the primaries, Craig was an early Clinton alumni defector to Obama. Columnist Robert D. Novak reported back in the winter of 2007 that...

HAVANA, Cuba (AP) -- The Cuban boy at the center of an international custody battle eight years ago has joined Cuba's Young Communist Union. Elian Gonzalez said he will never let down ex-President Fidel Castro and his brother Raul Castro, according to the Communist youth newspaper Juventud Rebelde. Raul Castro succeeded Fidel as president earlier this year. Now 14, Elian was 6 when his relatives in Miami, Florida, lost their fight to keep him in the United States and he was returned to Cuba in mid-2000 with his father. Elian had survived a boating accident off the Florida coast that...

Early Elián Gonzalez raid was planned BY WILFREDO CANCIO ISLA Before the forced removal of Elián González from his relatives' home in Little Havana eight years ago, federal agents had another plan to return the child to his father in Cuba. But an order from Washington canceled it at the last minute. According to statements by James Goldman, then head of operations for the U.S. immigration agency in Miami, federal agents had been instructed to seize Elián during a meeting in Miami Beach with his grandmothers at the home of Sister Jeanne O'Laughlin, then-president of Barry University, in January 2000....

Cuba's Useful Idiot By Humberto Fontova FrontPageMagazine.com | 4/16/2008 Last month Dan Rather’s new gig as host of HDNET's “Dan Rather Reports” found him, as so often during his CBS days, “reporting” from Cuba. From Dan we heard of “dramatic changes” down there, of a “remarkable transformation.” “The door (to the U.S.) is open, “explained Dan. “The best time to talk is now.” Dan was chanting a familiar tune, one we've heard almost nonstop from the MSM's pet “Cuba Experts'” for the past 21 months. As usual when dealing with Cuban matters, a sober look behind the carefully constructed and...

Just a reminder that Elian turned eight years old today for all of those of you cared for his freedom. I want to wish him a happy birthday despite his circumstances.

MIAMI - A Cuban father allowed his young daughter to emigrate legally to the United States with her mother to find a better life. But months later, the mother has become incapable of caring for the girl and the father wants to take the child home. It would seem a simple case, especially since the mother agrees her daughter should return to Cuba. Yet on the eve of the trial, a judge has warned that it could "inflame the community," where the battle over Elian Gonzalez nearly eight years ago divided the city and became an international incident. Testimony is...