Elian’s terrorist ‘defender’

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We know it’s not just concern for a 6-year-old boy inspiring those expatriate Cubans in Miami to hurl epithets and threaten violence should young Elian Gonzalez be returned to his father in Cuba. But at least one of the kid’s supposed defenders is evidently motivated by the CIA and an especially raw hatred of Fidel Castro.

The CONSORTIUM reports that one of of Elian’s staunchest defenders is an admitted, albeit erstwhile, anti-Castro terrorist. Jose Basulto, who frequently speaks on behalf of the Miami-based Gonzalez family, has proudly claimed involvement in the Bay of Pigs, as well as terrorist attacks in Cuba in the 1960s. Basulto also admits to collaborating with the CIA and the Argentine government in the ’70s and early ’80s when thousands of civilians were tortured and “disappeared” by a military junta.

We’re sure Elian will be much better off in such a wholesome crowd than at home with his father.

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DONALD TRUMP & DEMOCRACY

Mother Jones was founded to do things differently in the aftermath of a political crisis: Watergate. We stand for justice and democracy. We reject false equivalence. We go after, and go deep on, stories others don’t. And we’re a nonprofit newsroom because we knew corporations and billionaires would never fund the journalism we do. Our reporting makes a difference in policies and people’s lives changed.

And we need your support like never before to vigorously fight back against the existential threats American democracy and journalism face. We’re running behind our online fundraising targets and urgently need all hands on deck right now. We can’t afford to come up short—we have no cushion; we leave it all on the field.

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