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Obama to Pick Eric Holder as Attorney General.

WASHINGTON - President-elect Barack Obama's aides have privately asked senators whether Washington attorney Eric Holder would be confirmed as the next attorney general, according to a person involved in the talks.

The talks suggest that Obama is deeply interested in Holder, who served as the No. 2 official in the Justice Department under President Clinton.

In the past week, Obama aides have asked Senate Republicans whether they would support Holder. In particular, the aides questioned whether Holder's confirmation would be delayed because of his involvement in the 2001 pardon of fugitive Marc Rich by President Bill Clinton.

Newsweek, quoting unidentified legal sources close to the presidential transition team, reported Tuesday that Obama offered Holder the job and he accepted. Newsweek said Holder still has to undergo a formal "vetting" review by the Obama transition team before the selection is final.

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In his final days with the Clinton administration, Holder was swept into the controversy surrounding President Clinton's last-minute pardon of fugitive and Democratic contributor Marc Rich.

Rich, of course, was the commodities trader who fled the country in 1983 to escape prosecution for tax evasion, racketeering, and trading with the enemy. Rich’s attorneys circumvented normal procedures, took the pardon to the White House attorneys, and gained pardon for their client, whose wife just happened to be a friend and major donor to the Clinton library, the Democratic Party, and Clinton’s legal defense fund. A firestorm ensued as did congressional investigations in which Democrats as well as Republicans excoriated the Clintons’ conduct.

Eric Holder also defended the extraction of Cuban refugee Elian Gonzales at gun point from his family in Miami and his return to Cuba with his father.
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The whole Elian Gonzales thing was a tempest in a teapot. Given no "moral failing" and general capability to give care, a child SHOULD be with his parents/parent. Custody of a child can not hinge on our approval of the parents politics, or the fact that the parent lives in Cuba. The child was used as a political football. He is with his father - where he belongs. If it were your child you would want the same thing.

The Mark Rich thing is not dissimilar to many presidential pardons. Holder is well regarded and qualified for the job. He will have few problems.
Holder was the one who authorized the use of GUNS when extracting Gonzales. The Rich thing is different that alot of other pardons. Most, if not all, pardons come after there has been some kind of punishment served. Rich ran from US, stole millions, etc and NEVER served a day. As far as Holder's appointment approval getting through Congress, I'm sure he will be appointed only because of Demoncratic controlled congress. I'm equally sure there will be folks from both sides asking Holder some tough questions.

Where is all the "Change" Obama promised? Deja vue all over again.

De Nile is a river in Egypt, not a state to live in.

ONLY 1449 DAYS LEFT UNTIL THE NEXT PRESIDENTIAL ELECTION.
mean i have to say i agree with you on that one. We here in America do not have the right to keep a child from its parent, unless that parent is unfit.Politics cannot be allowed to interfere with parental rights of persons who are citizens of another country. I am glad there were some politicians who saw it that way and returned the child to his father.
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Originally posted by redbull:
Holder was the one who authorized the use of GUNS when extracting Gonzales. The Rich thing is different that alot of other pardons. Most, if not all, pardons come after there has been some kind of punishment served. Rich ran from US, stole millions, etc and NEVER served a day. As far as Holder's appointment approval getting through Congress, I'm sure he will be appointed only because of Demoncratic controlled congress. I'm equally sure there will be folks from both sides asking Holder some tough questions.

Where is all the "Change" Obama promised? Deja vue all over again.

De Nile is a river in Egypt, not a state to live in.

ONLY 1449 DAYS LEFT UNTIL THE NEXT PRESIDENTIAL ELECTION.


I have been unable to find where Rich "stole millions". He was charged with Tax Evasion and even that charge is questionable. Scooter Libby was his attorney. I am just not all that concerned with Rich.

As for the approval of "GUNS" being used in the Gonzales case, if someone was holding my daughters to prevent them from being returned to my custody, I would want armed law enforcement on the scene to ensure the safety and certain return of my children. It happens all the time. I have attended several forced removals of children in my career. We were ALWAYS accompanied by armed officers - some with guns drawn.
Just FYI! Children in Cuba belong to the government, not their parents.

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Elián's Future in a Totalitarian State

by Berit Kjos


"All other things being equal, children belong with their parents. But all other things have not been equal in Cuba since 1959. All other things can never be equal in a country that treats children -- by law -- as political raw material to be exploited by the state. In the civilized world, parents are entrusted with the freedom of shaping their children's values and guiding their education. But in Castro's Caribbean paradise, parents who try to raise their children according to the dictates of conscience have been punished with impoverishment, imprisonment -- and worse." Jeff Jacoby, "If Elián Returns To Cuba, Misery Awaits."

"The problem is that Cuban laws criminalize free speech and free assembly and undercut defendants’ rights to a fair trial.” Human Rights Watch, October 1998.

“Cuba took firm action against nonviolent government critics as the year progressed with surveillance, harassment, and intimidation.” Human Rights Watch, December 1998

"Law No. 88... is so restrictive that a Cuban could now be imprisoned for up to five years for merely writing a letter abroad complaining about food shortages." Human Rights Watch, October 1999

To people who have never known tyranny, it makes sense to "send the child back to his father." Few realize that the traditional American view of what’s "best for the child” doesn’t apply in Elián Gonzales’ native land. In totalitarian countries such as Cuba, parents and children have only one right: to follow the government plan. They must learn Communist ideology, obey oppressive rules, and serve "the state" -- an impersonal and heartless system that enforces absolute compliance.

In a practical sense, Elián’s guiding “father” would be Fidel Castro. His atrocious human rights record show that Cuban children belong to the state, not to parents. Elián’s biological father would be forced to participate in Castro’s primary political plan for the little boy: to purge every trace of capitalist, anti-communist sentiment from his mind and heart and make him a compliant little communist -- one who willingly echoes Castro's hatred for the free world.

This is no empty threat. In the article "Education In Elián’s Cuba: What Americans Don’t Know," Agustín Blázquez writes:

"The education that children like Elián González receive in Cuba from kindergarten on is geared to create a new type of human being. Implicit in the 1976 Cuban constitution is an all-encompassing structure to educate and mold children. Parents do not have the authority to deviate from this structure....

"Beginning in preschool, children are taught songs and poems praising the revolution and Castro, establishing a personality cult around his figure. Also, belief in God is discouraged. They are taught instead, to believe in Castro....

"Compositions and essays, primarily of political content, at the fourth and fifth-grade level concentrate on 'Yankee imperialism' and on denouncing Castro's 'enemies,' fostering intolerance and extreme hatred toward anybody who wants democracy."

This brainwashing process demands punishment for non-compliance, and children who refuse to conform are used as examples to intimidate others. If parents dare to express their displeasure, their children suffer. Mr. Blázquez cites an incident that shows how a child suffered because a grandmother dared report her observations about Cuba:

"Pura Castilla, a Cuba Free Press independent journalist, recalls with bitterness that nine years ago, when her grandson became 7 and Castro’s regime automatically stopped giving him milk, he commented, 'Mother, the only milk left was for my little brother. The milkman said that there is no more milk for me.'"
So, let us remove children from parents who happen to have been unlucky enough to have been born in an opressive land? We send illegal immigrants back home to Cuba with great frequency. Children included. This politically charged incident is only one child among thousands. Odd that this one is the ONLY one we are discussing. According to the reasoning of some, we would send the parents back and "save" the children.
MARC RICH, 2001

In 1983, financier Rich was indicted for evading more than $48 million in taxes, and charged with 51 counts of tax fraud, as well as running illegal oil deals with Iran during the 1979-1980 hostage crisis. During his last week in office, President Bill Clinton pardoned Rich, who had fled the U.S. during his prosecution and was residing in Switzerland. Clinton's eleventh-hour move, along with pardons of his half-brother, Roger, and former business partner Susan McDougal, outraged Republicans and Democrats alike. The Rich pardon sparked an investigation into whether it was bought by the hefty donations Rich's ex-wife, Denise, had given to the Clintons and the Democrats. In the end, investigators did not find enough evidence to indict Clinton.
During hearings after Rich's pardon, Lewis "Scooter" Libby, who had represented Rich from 1985 until the spring of 2000, denied that Rich had violated the tax laws but criticized him for trading with Iran at a time when that country was holding U.S. hostages [4]. In his letter to the New York Times, Bill Clinton explained why he pardoned Rich, noting that U.S. tax professors Bernard Wolfman of Harvard Law School and Martin Ginsburg of Georgetown University Law Center concluded that no crime was committed, and that the companies' tax reporting position was reasonable [5]. In the same letter Clinton listed Libby as one of three "distinguished Republican lawyers" who supported Rich's pardon. His pardon was curiously supported also by the king of Spain, Juan Carlos I. Speculation about another rationale for Rich's pardon involves his alleged involvement with the Israeli Intelligence community [6].
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Originally posted by LMM:
quote:
Originally posted by meanasasnake:
So, let us remove children from parents who happen to have been unlucky enough to have been born in an opressive land. That makes sense.
His mother died getting him away from that oppressive land, that means nothing to you?


He had a father who wanted him - does tha mean nothing to you?
Knowing that the father was only taking him back to make a name for himself with Castro, not really. Add to that, his parents were divorced and mom had custody.



Too little is publicly known about Elian's state of mind for mental health experts who have not been involved in the case to say anything about him as an individual. Nor do most feel comfortable speculating about people they have never interviewed.

But Dr. Terr and others said any child who has gone through what Elian has gone through needs time to recover, time that might begin now that he has been reunited with his father and the crowds and television have gone away.

And many experts emphasized that while Elian might have been frightened and confused by the raid, the most profound, and potentially damaging, trauma he has experienced was his mother's death.

The loss of his mother, especially in such a traumatic fashion -- she drowned when the boat carrying them from Cuba sank -- will have an impact that endures throughout his life, the experts said, and may perhaps make him more vulnerable to depression, and intensely sensitive to other losses.

In addition, the fact that Elian's parents divorced when he was small, and that he has experienced a series of abrupt separations, most recently from his cousin Marisleysis and his great-uncle Lazaro Gonzalez, are added stresses, they said.

How well Elian copes with these experiences, the experts said, will depend in large part on the assistance he receives from adults, who must provide a secure and safe place for him to mourn his mother and help him sort through what has happened and put it in some context.

The earlier children who have endured traumatic experiences get treatment, the better, Dr. Terr said.

Some of that help appears to be already taking shape. A person familiar with Elian's situation said that a child psychiatrist met with Elian yesterday, to evaluate him and see if he was showing symptoms of distress.
LMM-You're discussing this with people who appear to fundamentally believe the communism is A Good Thing. It would be a different discussion if you shared a frame of reference. It would be the same thing as returning a west african female child to relatives who wished to practice female circumcision on her. The rights of the parents to do things like that don't trump fundamental human rights, unless you happen to be an acolyte of The Chosen One or his close disciples. If so, decency is situational.
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Originally posted by Top Down Beemer:
LMM-You're discussing this with people who appear to fundamentally believe the communism is A Good Thing. It would be a different discussion if you shared a frame of reference. It would be the same thing as returning a west african female child to relatives who wished to practice female circumcision on her. The rights of the parents to do things like that don't trump fundamental human rights, unless you happen to be an acolyte of The Chosen One or his close disciples. If so, decency is situational.


I do not find "Communism a good thing". I find a child being with his parent/parents a good thing. That is not contingent upon my full agreement with their politics.

We send Cuban children back home with great regularity. Odd that this one child is the only one who charms you. Its politics practiced by reactionaries who just lost an election.
quote:
Originally posted by LMM:
Hi Top Down,
Have not seen you in a while.
What you said is true. Child protection services take children away from abusive parents everyday, but since this one hit the political agenda, nobody cared. The poor child was a pawn in a game of political 'chicken', and the US turned first.


We send them home every day for various reasons. Most Cuban refugees are sent back before they even get to land - children included. The boy is with his biological father. Strange how "family values" do not extend to parents who live in Communist nations.
quote:
Originally posted by meanasasnake:
quote:
Originally posted by LMM:
Hi Top Down,
Have not seen you in a while.
What you said is true. Child protection services take children away from abusive parents everyday, but since this one hit the political agenda, nobody cared. The poor child was a pawn in a game of political 'chicken', and the US turned first.


We send them home every day for various reasons. Most Cuban refugees are sent back before they even get to land - children included. The boy is with his biological father. Strange how "family values" do not extend to parents who live in Communist nations.


Perhaps THIS is why we don't send them back to communist countries.

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redbull, you beat me to it. I was going to look him up later. Notice that daddy got to be a member of the government in exchange for his part. Elian was used and is still being used, by his father and Cuba.
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CBS News correspondent Kelly Cobiella reports Elian has spent the past eight years living in Cuba with his father, now a member of the Cuban National Assembly.
Eric Holder signed an amicus brief presented to the Supreme Court in the D.C. v. Heller case, which supported the District of Columbia's handgun ban, and argued that the 2nd Amendment does not protect the rights of individuals to own guns. While working for AG Reno, he lobbied congress in attempt to outlaw and prohibit gun shows.

With anti-gunner Rahm Emanuel lined up as Chief of Staff, and Holder as AG, there is absolutely no doubt as to Obama's anti-gun platform, and that his campaign claim to support the Second Amendment was nothing by lies.
quote:
Originally posted by LMM:
More change from Obama, another Clintonite. Go Obama!

The dems should have picked Hillary and eliminated the middle man! Big Grin



I was thinking the same thing. Heck, Clintons all over again. I guess Obama just wanted to be the first black dude to be president, let the Clintons run the show while he gets the credit for their work. Wink

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