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US-Cuba Return of Boy, 8 Years Ago [Elian Gonzalez] Havana, Jun 28 (Prensa Latina) Elian Gonzalez, a Cuban child who was held illegally by distant relatives in the US for over seven months, was returned to the Island on June 28, 2000 after massive multilateral efforts. It all began when the minor was taken surreptiously from the Island by his mother on November 22, 1999 without his father's consent. Three days after his departure, Elian and another two people were rescued from the waters of the Florida Straits by fishermen as the only survivors of a boat-wreck in which...

Eight years after the furor over the repatriation of Elian Gonzalez to Cuba possibly cost Al Gore the state of Florida in his 537-vote loss to George W. Bush, the international custody saga has returned to haunt another Democratic presidential nominee: Barack Obama. Having two top advisers who played key roles in the episode — Greg Craig, who represented Gonzalez's father in Cuba, and Eric Holder, then a Clinton administration deputy attorney general when federal agents stormed the Miami home of Gonzalez’s relatives to remove the then-6-year-old and return him to Cuba — Obama now finds himself on the wrong...

Family members of Elian Gonzalez, the refugee boy rescued from the ocean but returned to his Cuban father during the Clinton administration, called a press conference to protest Barack Obama's visit to Florida and the candidate's hiring of two staff members who were involved in sending the boy back eight years ago. The capture of Elian Gonzalez The family specifically points to Obama's foreign policy advisor, Greg Craig, who represented Elian's Cuban father during the custody battle, and Eric Holder, a member of Obama's vice-presidential search committee, who served as deputy attorney general during the much-publicized affair.Delfin Gonzalez, Elian's...

Summoning a time of political upheaval in Miami, a great-uncle of Elián González plans Friday to publicly denounce two Barack Obama campaign advisors who helped send the boy back to his father in Cuba eight years ago. One day before the expected Democratic nominee addresses a conference of mayors in Miami, Delfín González will hold a 1 p.m. news conference outside the Little Havana home where Elián lived with relatives for several months in 2000. Earlier this week, CNN reported that Elián, now 14 years old, has joined Cuba's Young Communist Union. Obama was an Illinois lawmaker during the 2000...

Cuba: For a kid who once enjoyed Disney World, it's now the Union of Young Communists. That's the news from Elian Gonzalez and the propaganda he serves. Where are those who assured this wouldn't happen?Bill Clinton and Janet Reno assured the American public that the much-disputed Elian Gonzalez case was only a matter of a child who "belongs with his father," rather than a communist dictator's useful tool. The boy is now 14, and in his latest propaganda stunt, he's in a leading role for 18,000 young communists in the Union, a complete ward of the state. It didn't have...

"Cuban young militant Elian Gonzalez, right, accompanied by a fellow militant, smiles as he attends an event marking the 80th anniversary of the birth of the Cuban National hero, Argentinean Ernesto 'Che' Guevara in Havana, Saturday, June 14, 2008. Gonzalez, the Cuban boy at the center of an international custody battle eight years ago, has joined Cuba's Young Communist Union. Communist youth newspaper Juventud Rebelde quotes Elian Gonzalez as saying he will never let down ex-President Fidel Castro and his brother Raul Castro, who succeeded Fidel earlier this year."

HAVANA (CBS4) ― Eight years after a headline making international custody fight which ended with his return to his father in Cuba, Elian Gonzalez has joined Cuba's Young Communist Union. In an article in Cuba's communist youth newspaper, Juventud Rebelde, the 14-year old Gonzalez said he would never let ex-President Fidel Castro and his brother Raul Castro down. He joined more than 18-thousand others who joined the group on Saturday. In 2000, Gonzalez' mother was killed when a boat carrying them to the U.S. capsized in the Florida Straits. Elian, who was 6 years old at the time..........."

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....

Background: I've previously covered the "Elian Gonzalez II" case in Miami--a battle over a 4-year-old Cuban immigrant girl which pits her Cuban father, Rafael Izquierdo (pictured), against wealthy Cuban-American foster parents Joe Cubas, a well-known sports agent, and his wife Maria. Just as Elian's father Juan Gonzalez faced numerous unfair hurdles to get his son back, Izquierdo has been manhandled by the child welfare system, in part because of the system's anti-father bias. In 2005, the girl's mother brought the girl to Miami from Cuba. The Florida Department of Children & Families removed the girl from her mother's custody in...

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,...

In a recent poll, more than 250 college and university history professors placed former President Bill Clinton as the best president of the last quarter entury, Ronald Reagan as the second best, followed by Jimmy Carter and then the first President Bush. (The current president was excluded since his term of office had not yet ended.) The survey also asked the historians to rank the recent Secretaries of State and Supreme Court justices as well as the relative threat to constitutional liberties posed by presidential actions. Dr. Tim H. Blessing, Professor of History and Political Science at Alvernia College, Reading,...

Speculation is mounting (except, of course, among the “professional” press), as to the identities of six of the eight individuals included in the Libby subpoena to The New York Times (see Clarice Feldman’s piece here). The Times deemed the identities of only two of the parties worthy of release, former CIA director George Tenet and former White House Spokesman Ari Fleischer. The names of the other six remain elusive

That Oswald assassinated President Kennedy by himself and shot Kennedy and Governor Connally with one single, magic bullet. That President Clinton knew nothing about Janet Reno’s order that resulted in the massacre of 26 children at Waco, Texas. That Flight 800 was brought down by a spark in the fuel tank instead of by a missile that most of the witnesses saw.

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...

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,...

Prior to our preemptive incursion into Iraq, I overheard my teenage grandchildren spouting multiculturalism nonsense they had been taught in school. I wrote them the following letter as part of an attempt to overcome this brainwashing. It provided the starting point to what has now developed into a weblog called "From Sea to Shining Sea" that I launched one year ago. I have decided to republish this piece each year in July.

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...

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, now a seventh grader in Cuba who calls President Fidel Castro a friend and "father," would see his Miami relatives again, despite saying their treatment of him five years ago was wrong. Gonzalez is interviewed by Bob Simon for a 60 MINUTES report to be broadcast Sunday, Oct. 2 (7:00-8:00 PM, ET/PT) on the CBS Television Network. Gonzalez, 11, is a hero in Cuba after what happened to him when he was just 6 years old: His mother died at sea and he was rescued two miles off Florida, after which he was repatriated following a months-long tug...

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....

LITTLE ROCK, Arkansas (AP) -- The summer travel season is in full swing, the Clinton Presidential Library is drawing 2,000 visitors a day, and a new tourism phenomenon -- the "Billgrimage" -- is being seen 115 miles away in the town of Hope, Arkansas. "People are coming from the library saying they're making a Billgrimage to Arkansas; it's so cute," giggles Crystal Altenbaumer, director of the Clinton Birthplace museum in Hope. Among those on a recent "Billgrimage" was Ava Carter, a Democrat from Dallas, who convinced her Republican travel partner, James D. Stearns, to give their summer trip a Clinton...

Ex-President Bill Clinton said Monday that he had to assure world leaders that there was nothing seriously wrong with America after the Congress impeached him in 1998. "During that time, a lot of world leaders would ask, 'What is going on? Is this serious?'" he told New York magazine. "I kept assuring them that nothing bad had happened to America," he recalled, "but that we periodically went through spasms." Interviewed while traveling in Africa, the ex-president claimed, "Africans saw [my impeachment] for exactly what it was: an abuse of power." "They got it here," he insisted. The magazine noted that...

About four years ago, I became extremely disturbed at overhearing conversations my grandchildren were having at a large family gathering – conversations that were obviously being fueled by poisonous attitudes being inculcated in them about America by their public school teachers. I wrote them a letter as a first step in a campaign to try to undo the harm being done to them and to their country. That letter developed into an e-mail discussion group – and then into a weblog. To read the letter, go to my site and enter the words - to my grandchildren - in the...

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...

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...

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...

Janet Reno is out on the public speaking circut, making money and rewriting her legacy. She is due in Fort Collins, CO on Feb. 7th. The Colorado State University leftists are fawning all over her..............

MIAMI (AP) _ A federal judge has set a Monday trial date for the claims of a dozen people who said they were wrongly assaulted by federal officers during the raid that removed Elian Gonzalez from his family's home. The plaintiffs say they were innocent bystanders who were gassed and beaten outside the home during the early morning raid on April 22, 2000. U.S. District Judge Michael Moore set the trial date Friday. "I think the public's going to be surprised that elderly people were gassed while praying the rosary," said Tom Fitton, president of Judicial Watch, which represents 11...

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.

Elian Gonzalez: Get well, Fidel 23/10/2004 22:06 - (SA) Havana - Shipwrecked Cuban boy Elian Gonzalez, who reached US shores and triggered an international custody battle, on Saturday wished President Fidel Castro a speedy recovery from a broken knee. "Dear Commander," as Castro is known, "I want you to get well and to take care of your sick knee," wrote Elian, now 10. "I liked your message to the people and my family... and I were happy to know that you are better," said the boy's letter, which appeared in the official Cuban Communist Party newspaper Granma. "Get better soon....

4 years after return to Cuba, Elian a normal schoolboy BY MAKI BECKER New York Daily News Posted on Sat, Jul. 31, 2004 NEW YORK - (KRT) - Elian Gonzalez, now 10, hits the books in Cardenas, Cuba, where he lives with his father. Four years after little Elian Gonzalez was plucked from the seas off Florida's coast and sparked an international custody battle, the young boy is leading a sheltered and almost normal life back in Cuba. Elian lives with his father in their hometown of Cardenas and he still sports the same impish grin that captivated the world...

Reprinted from NewsMax.com Saturday, Sept. 25, 2004 2:07 p.m. EDTKerry Taps Controversial Elian Attorney The Elian Gonzalez controversy was the single most critical factor giving George Bush the presidency in 2000. It may prove to be a critical factor this year as well – thanks to John Kerry who just tapped a key figure in the Elian controversy for his campaign. Kerry must have forgotten that after the Elian brouhaha record numbers of Cuban Americans in Florida voted against Al Gore – ceding the closely contested Florida race – and the presidency to George Bush. The Miami Herald reported Saturday...

When John Kerry prepares for his first presidential debate at the University of Miami, he'll have a sparring partner with at least a passing familiarity with Miami politics: Gregory Craig, the influential Democratic lawyer who represented Elián González's father during the custody battle over the Cuban boy. Craig, a Washington, D.C.-based attorney who earned the ire of much of Miami's Cuban-American exile community for his representation of Juan Miguel González, will play President Bush as Kerry preps for the debate scheduled for Thursday. Craig served as a top foreign policy advisor to Sen. Edward Kennedy and a senior aide to...

John Kerry, apparent Democrat nominee for President, is the more important person with the less important problem. Jamie Gorelick, member of the 9/11 Commission, is the reverse. So in explaining why each is unfit for the position he seeks and the one she holds, we begin with Kerry. We’ll use a version of a game we all played at an early age, “Pin the Tail on the Donkey,” to deal with Kerry and Gorelick. This week ABC came up with a videotape of Senator Kerry saying the opposite then of what he’s saying now about his “medals thrown over the...

New Clergy Group to Push Liberal Causes by Mark Tooley Posted Jan 9, 2004 Frustrated that they continue to be overshadowed by conservative religious leaders, a new association of politically liberal clergy has emerged. Mostly comprised of old National Council of Churches (NCC) types, the Clergy Leadership Network (CLN) will focus on opposing U.S. military action and fighting for a larger federal welfare state, while criticizing religious conservatives. Several of CLN's leaders were also formerly leaders in the Interfaith Alliance, another liberal religious group founded ten years ago with the nearly identical purpose of counteracting the "Religious Right." "We're reaching...

His goal is to get clergy behind the Democrats LEXINGTON MAN HEADS NEW GROUP PUSHING FOR POLITICAL CHANGE By Frank E. Lockwood HERALD-LEADER STAFF WRITER Most regular churchgoers want to re-elect President Bush. Most non-churchgoers plan to vote for the Democratic presidential candidate. That's the finding of a recent poll by the Pew Center for the People and the Press -- and it's a finding that Lexington's Albert M. Pennybacker hopes will change between now and November. Pennybacker, a former Lexington Theological Seminary professor, a Disciples of Christ minister and a lifelong Democrat, is chief executive officer of the Clergy...

Americans often are perplexed by what goes on in Canada, noted the late Robertson Davies, one of our northern neighbor's premier writers, because they forget that it is a socialist nation. A version of that observation can be applied to Cuba: Many Americans forget or are perversely indifferent to what goes on in that communist country. Indeed, the more squishy liberals actually admire it. Communism, now a vestigial faith in this world, is a political system that grinds and degrades individual dignity and denies the premise of liberty that private property represents. This is dramatically true in Cuba where Fidel...

Former Attorney General Janet Reno criticized the White House on Saturday, describing the Bush administration as filled with ``secrecy and silence.'' At a panel discussion on U.S.-Islamic relations at Nova Southeastern University, Reno said Americans should know the identities of the thousands of Muslims or Arabs detained after the Sept. 11 attacks. She compared it to the detainment of hundreds of thousands of Japanese-Americans after Pearl Harbor. ''I had the privilege as attorney general to send letters of apology and checks of compensation to Japanese-Americans. When the decision was made to intern them, there was no record that they were...

THE "ELIÁN GONZALEZ" RELIGIOUS MOVEMENT Quotation: "...Elian and Juan Miguel Gonzalez, son and father. The former is an innocent child, the latter a man whose boy was taken from him. Elian has behaved like a typical 6-year-old, Juan Miguel like a typical father. And most of the politicians like typical fools." Richard Cohen, Washington Post 3 About Elián: After seven miscarriages, Elizabeth Gonzalez of Cardenas, Cuba gave birth to a baby boy on 1993-DEC-6. They named him Elián Gonzalez. His name is a combination of his parents' names: Elizabeth and Juan.  After the parents separated in 1997, they shared...

Pickin' and Grinnin': College football goes to the courts June 12, 2003 The unthinkable has happened. College football is now mirroring society. Let's all officially welcome the group entering through the back door, with their shiny suits and plastic hair and their arguments for the sake of argument. Ladies and gentlemen, lawyers and politicians have their slithery sights set on our sacred game. The problem: They were invited by five jilted and jaded girlfriends from the Big East, who can't understand why The Bachelor didn't pick them. Officials from Virginia Tech, West Virginia, Pittsburgh, Connecticut and Rutgers have filed suit...

29 April 2002 Fidel Castro and Yasser Arafat: Partners in TerrorBy Agustin Blazquez with the collaboration of Jaums SuttonIn 1941, as a student at a Catholic school run by Spanish Jesuit priests who were sympathizers of Fascism at that time, the young Fidel Castro was looking for his ideology.Displaying a fascination with power, war and domination since childhood, Castro discovered Fascism -- and promenaded around campus with a copy of Adolf Hitler's Mein Kampf in his armpit.According to many fellow students, "the crazy," as he was nicknamed, mimicked the speeches of Hitler and Mussolini speeches in front of a mirror,...

Cuba’s REAL Rebels – and DuncesHumberto FontovaSaturday, Feb. 15, 2003Mayor Ed Koch’s recent article jolted me from my seat. It reminded me that Kurt Waldheim was persona non grata in the U.S. because he’d been a Nazi functionary in the Balkans and either participated in or "had knowledge of" Nazi executions of partisans. Actually, that’s fine with me. Even before those revelations, Waldheim always struck me as a sleazy liar, an obfuscator and a rat. No wonder he rose so high so fast at the U.N. He was the perfect U.N. secretary-general. But let me get this straight: "Having knowledge"...

HAVANA - If name recognition is everything in politics, then this candidate should do well: the father of Elian Gonzalez. Juan Miguel Gonzalez, the father of the Cuban boy at the center of an international custody battle in 2000, will be on today's ballot for parliament, as will Cuban President Fidel Castro. Candidates run unopposed, leading some to complain elections in the communist nation are meaningless. News Wire Services

Elian's Father Up for Election in Cuba 2 hours, 55 minutes ago By ANDREA RODRIGUEZ, Associated Press Writer HAVANA - The father of Elian Gonzalez, President Fidel Castro, an Olympic track medalist and a popular folk singer are on the ballot for Cuba's parliament in Sunday elections. Candidates for the 609 seats run unopposed, leading critics to complain elections on the communist Caribbean island are meaningless. A recent pro-democracy petition, signed by thousands of Cubans, requested election reforms but was ignored by the government. Castro — a member of the unicameral National Assembly along with being president for 44 years...

MIAMI (AP) - The Immigration and Naturalization Service settled a lawsuit alleging its Miami offices fostered anti-Cuban and anti-Hispanic sentiments and retaliated against an agent who aired bias accusations after the armed raid to seize Elian Gonzalez. Friday's settlement came just days before the federal whistle-blower lawsuit, brought by INS agent Ricardo Ramirez, had been scheduled to go to trial. Most terms of the settlement are secret, but the court will monitor its enforcement. Ramirez, a 17-year veteran of the agency, claimed he has been the target of about 20 internal complaints since he spoke out after the armed...

MIAMI - Immigration agents in Miami won't have Elian Gonzalez to kick around any more, or they'll risk a contempt charge. An immigration agent settled on Friday an anti-Hispanic discrimination and retaliation lawsuit against Attorney General John Ashcroft on Friday. The suit included allegations a trash can bearing Elian's photo and the caption "Kick Me" was placed in an INS hallway. Most terms of the settlement are secret, but the court will monitor its enforcement, and violators can be charged with contempt of court. Ricardo Ramirez, an Immigration and Naturalization Service agent assigned to the Miami district, became a...

Greta Van Susteren just did a "news alert" that Janet Reno's run for Fla. govenor is over. She suffered a "big defeat" at the hands of opponent Bill McBride.

BOCA RATON · Democrat Bill McBride whisked his campaign back and forth across the state Thursday, dipping into South Florida repeatedly with the goal of eroding Janet Reno's support in her political base. Making stops in southern Palm Beach and Broward counties, McBride touted the message that his campaign for governor has peaked in the critical final week of the Democratic primary race, bringing with it a slew of new endorsements from key local officials and an onslaught of campaign contributions.

...She is an uninspiring campaigner, pathetic fundraiser, and outcast from the party leadership. But she is — as her campaign press secretary puts it — "a rock star" who attracts free press. She's leading Democratic primary polls, when all indications say she shouldn't be. The question for the Democratic party is whether this rock star candidate can perform as well against the incumbent governor — who is a fundraising machine and the son and brother of presidents. Welcome to the strange gubernatorial campaign of Janet Reno....