April 1959:
Fidel Castro does New York
May 29, 2015: US Drops Cuba From State Terrorism List, Paving the Way for Embassies
"..... “The Obama administration has handed the Castro regime a significant political win in return for nothing,” Boehner said. “Removing the regime from the State Department’s list of state sponsors of terror is just the latest example of this administration focusing more on befriending our enemies than helping our allies, but fortunately it will have little practical effect.”
Only Syria, the Sudan and Iran remain on the list.
Cuba was added to the terror list in 1982, accused by the U.S. of providing support to terrorist organizations in Latin America, including the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia, or FARC.
But the State Department admits those ties have "become more distant." Last December, President Obama announced the State Department would be reviewing Cuba’s designation and the president officially requested Cuba’s removal April 14, days after meeting with Cuban President Raul Castro at the Summit of the Americas...."
Dec 16, 2008:
Telling Nomination "........... Eric Holder has had a very impressive career. He graduated from Columbia Law School, served as a city judge in D.C., was a federal prosecutor, and then deputy attorney general under Janet Reno.
But two of his final acts at the Justice Department are simply unpardonable: the infamous pardons of Marc Rich and the FALN terrorists. The Justice Department Office of Pardon Counsel (OPC) evaluates requests for a presidential pardon. OPC considers evidence that the conviction was wrong or the sentence unjust, usually requiring a convicted person to have served five years of their prison sentence.
But Holder helped Rich evade that process. Marc Rich, a billionaire, had been indicted of 65 counts of tax evasion and arms-dealing with Iran. He fled to Switzerland, where he lived an extravagant lifestyle. Holder personally worked with Rich’s attorney to get the pardon directly to then-president Clinton. Holder made clear that he did not oppose the pardon, while Rich’s wife was giving over $400,000 to the Clinton Library. She also raised significant money for the Democratic party and Hillary Clinton’s Senate race. President Clinton granted the pardon.
The pardon looked far worse than a bad idea. It looked like corruption. It looked like malfeasance in office — selling out justice for potential personal gain.
As bad as that is, the FALN pardons where worse. Sixteen terrorists of the FALN group were imprisoned for felonies involving bombs, guns, robbery, and sedition. But in 1999, Eric Holder facilitated President Clinton commuting their sentences.
These were unrepentant terrorists. America is now at war with terror, and yet when we imprisoned over a dozen confirmed terrorists involved in bombings and other terrorist acts, the man who would be our top official against acts of terror helped convince the president of the United States to let them go. Whatever the consequences of that act may have been in 1999, in 2008 it should be political suicide.
But evidently Obama has decided it is not. And that tells us two things about our next president...."
February 2008: The Clintons' Terror Pardons
".....Hillary Rodham Clinton was in the midst of her state-wide "listening tour" in anticipation of her run for the U.S. Senate in New York, a state which included 1.3 million Hispanics. Three members of the Congressional Hispanic Caucus -- Luis V. Gutierrez (D., Ill.), Jose E. Serrano, (D., N.Y.) and Nydia M. Velazquez, (D., N.Y.) -- along with local Hispanic politicians and leftist human-rights advocates, had been agitating for years on behalf of the FALN cases directly to the White House and first lady.
Initial reports stated that Mrs. Clinton supported the clemencies, but when public reaction went negative she changed course, issuing a short statement three weeks after the clemencies were announced. The prisoners' delay in refusing to renounce violence "speaks volumes," she said.
The Clintons were caught in an awkward predicament of their own making. The president had ignored federal guidelines for commutation of sentences, including the most fundamental: The prisoners hadn't actually asked for clemency.
To push the deal through, signed statements renouncing violence and expressing remorse were required by the Justice Department. The FALN prisoners, surely relishing the embarrassment and discomfiture they were causing the president and his wife, had previously declined to accept these conditions. Committed and unrepentant militants who did not accept the authority of the United States, they refused to apologize for activities they were proud of in order to obtain a clemency they never requested.
So desperate was the White House to get the deal finalized and out of the news, an unprecedented 16-way conference call was set up for the "petitioners" who were locked up in 11 different federal facilities so that they could strategize a response to the president's offer. Two eventually refused to renounce their cause, preferring to serve out their lengthy sentences rather than follow the White House script......."