Cuba travel law not valid, Crist confidant says

Over the objection of many Cubans who came to Tallahassee in protest, Gov. Charlie Crist signed a bill making it even more difficult to fly to Cuba. The law, championed by Rep. David Rivera, is being challenged in federal court.

Look for it to get tossed, says Crist's former chief of staff.

George LeMieux had this to say in his online LeMieux Report: "Proponents of the law argue it is a homeland security measure that protects the state in the event of an incident related to the unstable nature of these countries. Realistically, the law is politically calculated to stop travel to these challenged states. Travel to foreign countries from the United States falls within the federal government's jurisdiction, and is therefore, beyond the reach of a state like Florida. Look for the federal court to come to that conclusion." 

Comments

when i went to cuba i just flew to toronto first. no one cared and the cuban's welcome you.

If he knew that, why did he let Crist sign it? Because he knew that.....

while this is not about Cuba travel, it is Crist defending his European Trade trip. This story needs to get out to MSM.

http://www.miamiherald.com/campaign08/story/601071.html

nice going... public services are cut back, and Crist and Carole go to Europe. Yes, she is paying her own way, but she will also be sleeping in those $1000+ suites that private investors and the STATE are paying for.

[Donald Lance]

The way I see it, this is about people who left their families and fled their country. Now they want to go back and visit them? They should have thought about that before they fled! How many millions of people fled their country with ZERO chance of ever going back?

Thank you Jeb, Crist, Ruio, Pruitt, Fasano, Webster, Alexander, Sansom, Homan, Atwater and all your Repiglican cronies:

BY FRED GRIMM
fgrimm@MiamiHerald.com

He's yours, you know, that pathetic foster child with an impaired mind and a diseased liver. If you live in Florida, he's your kid.

That makes it your ethical responsibility to make sure he doesn't die because the state's too chintzy to provide proper care.

When agents of the state rescue a child from his crackhead mom, responsibility for the kid automatically reverts to the rest of us. If he's sick, we're obligated to provide the same basic treatment we'd demand for one of our own children. It's our duty to pay his hospital bills. Find him a proper place to live.

That's the way it's supposed to work in a civilized society. Civilized folks don't indulge in a kind of backdoor euthanasia because our underfunded, overstressed foster-care system can't cope with a tough case.

Like I say, that's the way it's supposed to work.

In a civilized society.

In Florida . . . maybe not.

The Miami Herald's Carol Marbin Miller discovered that a 15-year-old foster child in Central Florida nearing the final, fatal stages of liver disease had been removed from the donor-organ waiting list. Administrators at Shands Hospital in Gainesville deemed him an unworthy transplant candidate because the state couldn't guarantee him a safe, stable post-op living environment necessary for a transplant patient's recovery.

By the way, that was your kid. Left to die the way primitive nomadic tribes once abandoned their sick and elderly.

Shands (employing some twisted medical ethics) concluded that our foster-care system was too inept to keep a fragile child alive. ''We truly believe the worst thing you can do is perform an organ transplant on a patient who has a high probability of an unsuccessful outcome,'' a hospital official told Marbin Miller.

What the hell does this say about us? That we're so negligent when it comes to sick, disabled, dying foster children that the very doctors who could save their lives shrug and ask, ``Why bother?''

Carol's story sent a wave of embarrassment through the system. There were indications that Jackson Memorial Hospital might intervene and save us from this particular ignominy. The kid reportedly was on his way to the Miami hospital on Wednesday.

But it's difficult not to suspect that without an outrageous story in The Miami Herald, the dying kid would have been shrugged off as just another fatal case of tough luck.

Of course, Florida does splurge on some children. Like Michael Hernandez. We'll spend plenty on Michael. Rather than contemplate a plea deal for anything less than 50 years, the Miami-Dade state attorney's office is going all-out with a first-degree murder trial for young Hernandez -- arrested one day after his 14th birthday for stabbing a classmate.

Because of pretrial publicity, his trial (along with a judge, defendant, prosecutors, witnesses, defense lawyers, bailiffs, etc.) must be moved to Orlando. No one has tallied the cost, but the Ocala Star-Banner reported last year that Citrus County spent an extra $574,000 to move child-killer John Couey's trial to Miami.

The Hernandez change of venue will top that, of course. But these are the expenditures that tell us who we are. We're glad to spend several million bucks to lock up a mentally unhinged teenager for the rest of his life.

But to save a foster child from a fatal disease? Hey. These are tough times. Got to teach these kids they can't have everything.

**************

Remember in November - and maybe, if this kid is still alive, something can be done.

[Omega83]

Donald Lance,

A truly limited government conservative feels that we should have the right to freely travel to/from wherever we choose.

This is big government - and sheer hypocrisy from the party that signed it into law.

This is coming from a lifelong Republican.

[tim]

Are these Cuban Nationals in Miami really that powerful of a voting block to make these politicians completely roll over and pander to them? These people fled their own country. They need to shut-up and get over it.

There is a difference between fleeing - and leaving at gunpoint

Another instance of Charlie doing something he didn't have the authority to do:

1) Seminole casinos;
2) Cuba Travel;
3) Silly envoronmental regulations.....

[Buzzard]

Charlie has joined the United States of Hyocrisy. The blood of 58,000 American men and women is soaked into the earth of Vietnam. Some believe there are still American MIA there. And the conflict is recent enough to be dredged up for movie fodder. But now you can freely visit Vietnam. There's even an official US/Vietnamese trade office. (http://www.usvtc.org/) And unless there's been a revolution I didn't hear about, they're still communists. Meanwhile, you can't even buy a cuban cigar, nevermind visit Cuba. Where's the leadership? Where, Charlie?

"Are these Cuban Nationals in Miami really that powerful of a voting block to make these politicians completely roll over and pander to them? These people fled their own country. They need to shut-up and get over it."

No. Not at All.

[terminator]

well if that's the case why did sun tan Charlie sign the bill?

also, don't see anyone banning Americans from traveling to Communist China for the upcoming Olympics.

Simpleton Charlie goes down again (in more ways than one)!

[tim]

Are these Cuban Nationals in Miami really that powerful of a voting block to make these politicians completely roll over and pander to them? These people fled their own country. They need to shut-up and get over it.

[tim]

Are these Cuban Nationals in Miami really that powerful of a voting block to make these politicians completely roll over and pander to them? These people fled their own country. They need to shut-up and get over it.

[tim]

Are these Cuban Nationals in Miami really that powerful of a voting block to make these politicians completely roll over and pander to them? These people fled their own country. They need to shut-up and get over it.

Alex Diaz de la Portilla is going to beat David Rivera for State Committee Man of Dade County and David will have to find a real job. You should have worked on that David instead of the stupid Cuba deal.