Hey, here is one way to get more voter support

[kandrathe]

The justice department enforces the law, it doesn't decide it. They can accomodate the way the outcome is reached, but it is unconstitutional for them to override the courts' decision.

Wow. Rose colored blinders? Miami family court granted custody to Lazaro Gonzalez, and Janet Reno decided they did not have jurisdiction. Not a court, her. On April 19, 2000 the 11th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals granted a request by Elian's Miami relatives to block his return to Cuba. The Justice Department ignored the District Court and raided the Gonzalez residence on April 22nd. Juan and Elian were forced to stay in the US for 2 more months until the Supreme Court declined to hear the case.

My beef here is not that Elian was returned to his father. This was the proper decision, and the legal precedence abounds for custody to remain with immediate family unless they are found (by due process) to be unfit. This case gets gray because, as a refugee washing up on our shore, even a boy refugee, he should have the right to his day in court (for asylum). A judge should then apply the law, and he should have then been reunited with his father. But, all other consideration aside, Elian had dry feet, and so should have been processed as any other refugee. But, as I've said, the right decision would be that the boy should be returned to the custody of his surviving closet relative, unless that relative was found to be unfit (again, by due process). None of that due process was allowed to happen.

What do you mean, no due process? He was a minor. He is the ward of his parents, unless there is some reason to presume otherwise. The Miami relatives had their day in court to gain that authority, and they were rejected. They appealed, and the Supremes refused to hear the case. That's due process.

Being handled by various Federal and State bureaucrats and their conflicting interpretations of the law is not a due process. The family in Miami had many days in court (just not the right court) fighting for due process, but the decision to send him back was made by the US justice department in January. From this point forward (until June), they were avoiding getting egg on their face. If the family could have held off the Justice department until November, and Elian had been in the US for a year, due to the special status of Cuban refugees he would have automatically been granted US citizenship.

They were uncooperative. They didn't want this boy to get sent back to Cuba. How odd.

Uncooperative? They threatened US officials with armed violence. They started a riot. That's a good few steps above uncooperative!

You know that just because the police wear riot gear and launch tear gas into a crowd or into people homes that it's not actually a riot. A protest, even an illegal protest is not a riot. There were allegations of burning tires, and throwing rocks, yes. Different people have differing accounts of what happened, however, what is consistent is the use of force by the government against the people.

Back during the RNC held here in Minneapolis, groups of protesters dropped bags of cement from overpasses onto the buses carrying the conference participants. They had planned on bringing and tossing plastic bags filled with urine and feces onto them as well. Thankfully, the FBI raided a house and arrested 5 individuals making actual bombs. The crowd in Minneapolis was more belligerent than what I saw on the news that April in Little Havana, and they didn't call what happened here a riot (I'd call it an organized confrontation by modern brown shirts).

Now, this so-called riot occurred on April 23rd, the day after they came and raided the Gonzalez home while the Gonzalez family was in Washington still trying to get Elian back. I'm not sure how you conflate the Miami Gonzalez family with the protesting Cuban-Americans. Simply put, the Gonzalez family felt secure in defying the INS because the 11 Circuit Court had granted them a stay in sending Elian back pending their appeal, and for all intents and purposes, Miami had granted guardianship to Lazaro Gonzalez. No other form of due process had revoked his guardianship, and no court order required Elian to be given to his biological father. The due process you are claiming was that the US government has the right to deny due process when a 6-yr old with his dead asylum seeking mother washes up on our shore.

And, again I would ask, how did Elian's father, a poor Cuban, get such a prominent and powerful Democrat as his lawyer?
...
But, Greg Craig did get the Justice department to grant Asylum in the US for two Bolivians who are charged with crimes against humanity and extrajudicial killings, Gonzalo Sánchez de Lozada and Carlos Sánchez Berzaín.

Does it disturb your geopolitical conspiracy theory at all, that it was Evo Morales, committed socialist and Castro's 2nd closest ally, who demanded their extradition? That the killings they were to be extradited for were against left wing, rather than right wing protesters?

Greg Craig's profession is not "democrat." He's a laywer. I'm pretty sure if someone ponies up his fee, he's available for hire. It wouldn't surprise me if the Cuban government, through one channel or another, paid his bills. Or maybe just some of the million or so people sick of the Miami Exiles and their stunts.

It disturbs me that we deny asylum to a 6-yr old boy, but give haven to monsters. In this case, Evo Morales is right, and we should extradite them to Bolivia to face their legal system.

Greg Craig is much, much more than a lawyer. That is merely the access card that gets him into the power broker game. How many high priced lawyers become White House Counsel? And, if he is as you suggest, morally bankrupt for a price, then who better to counsel the President? And, you assume incorrectly that I distinguish much between the power elite that prop up our leadership whether it be Clinton, Bush, or Obama. Craig's defense of monsters may be just a high priced lawyer grubbing for blood money, or maybe it's about power. Perhaps Morales represents a moral clarity and a more pure democracy than what the powerful in this world will tolerate. How dare the Bolivians take control of their own countries resources. If it catches on throughout the world, who will be left to exploit? We need to look behind the monsters, to the Frankensteins who are creating them.

Closer to the original topic -- Jon Stewart nails it.