State probes Michael Moore

[BrklynLiberal]

Source: Herald Sun Australia

ay 10, 2007 12:00am
Article from: Herald-Sun

ACADEMY Award-winning filmmaker Michael Moore and fierce critic of President George W. Bush is under investigation by the US Treasury Department.
Moore is being probed for taking ailing September 11 rescue workers to Cuba for a segment in his upcoming health-care documentary Sicko, The Associated Press has learned.

The investigation provides another contentious lead-in for a provocative film by Moore, an outspoken critic of President Bush.

In the past, Moore's adversaries have fanned publicity that helped the filmmaker create a new brand of opinionated blockbuster documentary.

Sicko promises to take the health-care industry to task the way Moore confronted America's passion for guns in Bowling for Columbine and skewered Bush over his handling of September 11 in Fahrenheit 9/11.

<snip>

More at
http://www.news.com.au/heraldsun/story/0,21985,21708113-663,00.html

Read more: http://www.news.com.au/heraldsun/story/0,21985,21708113-663,00.html

---

Gee. Wonder what took the Bushites so long....
I am surprised they did not try to shut him up long ago.

[ShortnFiery]

1. Welcome My Son, Welcome to The Machine!

:scared:

[MissMillie]

2. My bet is that if they're after him,

he's doing something right.

[Name removed]

10. Deleted message

Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[no_hypocrisy]

12. And there are American citizens who can go to Mount Sinai with the best health insurance

and still opt to have surgery in Thailand, known for its stellar medical care, hospitals, and low cost. This does not mean that if you can afford it, you can't get great care here in the States.

What's your point? Having Spain send medical expertise and supplies to Cuba does not necessarily prove the inferiority of the Cuban medical system.

[roody]

13. What does that have to do with our health care crisis?

[Sin]

15. So when he became.

an expert at Propaganda from the Soviets, was this before or after the aliens abducted you or did Jesus just tell you this Directly?

[proud2BlibKansan]

32. ROFLMAO! !

:rofl:

[BrklynLiberal]

34. Bwaah ha hah ha! ROTFLMAO!!!

[Javaman]

16. Hope you enjoy your stay freep.

bu-bye! :)

[Felix Mala]

18. Funny how the "victims" always play into Moore's wicked hands...

K-mart just happened to sell bullets that ended up in a Columbine student... How long did it take Moore to get that plot to take shape?


The media can't stop showing all the explosions in Iraq long enough to show the good things we're doing... Gee, did the Red Menace Moore plant all those IED's?


He's taking our sick 9/11 people to Cuba for care! If they were true patriots they'd quietly suffer to help their president! So Michael Moore finds a "show" hospital to help a poor person. What fiendish Commie plot has kept the U.S. from building at least one "show" hospital for people without insurance? I'm sure Moore put all that together.

[Tempest]

20. If there was evidence

You would have provided it.

Enjoy your short stay.

[Bridget Burke]

21. So provide a link....

To one of those "respected websites"....

[Barrett808]

22. Welcome to DU - oh, wait....

I mean,

"Countdown to tombstone: 3...2...1..."

[tavalon]

23. Um,

Non sequiter?! :eyes:

[tabasco]

24. Quick! Visit this link!

www.goarmy.com

Get your stupid coward freeper ass to Iraq!

[Zorra]

25. Don't worry. We have ways of making him talk.

:yoiks:

[Itchinjim]

26. Adios amigo!

[slampoet]

28. Other than USA products Cuba has better healthcare than Spain. Your racism is showing.

Doctors don't have to speak the same language as the countries they visit, like FREEPERS


My family has known Michael Moore since 1979 and this is an absolutely false accusation, slander and the talking point for Freepers.

No where from 1979 til the fall of the USSR in 1991 has Mr Moore had the means to complete a trip to Russia.

Please delete the original post please...


This rectal baby doesn't know the the world from shinola. The best part of him came from whorehouse linen.

[Honeycombe8]

3. I'm guessing the govt didn't just START investigating him....

I'm guessing that it's now the Treasury Dept's turn, after the FBI, various law enforcement offices, and other departments have already done so in the past and failed to find anything.

So they're going after him the way they got Capone...tax fraud.

This would be funny, if it weren't indicating of just how scary and corrupt our government is. Big Brother will get you, if you don't fall in line.

[HughBeaumont]

4. They can't out-and-out kill him, so they do this penny-ante crap.

Moore's opponents have accused him of distorting the facts, and his Cuba trip provoked criticism from conservatives including former Republican senator Fred Thompson, who assailed the filmmaker in a blog at National Review Online.

"I have no expectation that Moore is going to tell the truth about Cuba or health care," wrote Thompson, the subject of speculation about a possible presidential run.

"I defend his right to do what he does, but Moore's talent for clever falsehoods has been too well documented."

Freddie . . . once again . . . CITE ONE LIE IN Fahrenheit 9-11. STATE ONE, CAPTAIN JOWLBAG, PLEASE!!!! Goddamnit. I'm so unbelievably SICK of these fucking idiots that half-ass their shoestring arguments when it comes to a filmmaker, yet defend to the death a sub-moronic asshole who's bankrupted the country, sent thousands of our military personnel to fiery mangled deaths and bodily injuries in a corporate oil grab based on a lie, has scandal after scandal coming out of his kiester and has forever soiled the high office of this nation. Makes perfect sense to me.

Did anyone stop to think that maybe if THIS country's health care was WORTH a shit to anyone except the extremely wealthy, Mike wouldn't have to do such a thing to prove a point?

[displacedtexan]

5. Sounds like officials didn't know Moore actually went to Cuba...

... until way after the fact. How humiliating!

And a $75K-$90K fine is chump change.

And Fred Thompson is the one complaining?

What a (timely) crock (for Moore)!

These repukes just keep chomping the bait, don't they?

[zbdent]

7. except that, to go to Cuba ... you need clearance

from the State Dept., don't you?

[druidity33]

36. not if you go through another counrty... nt

[Mika]

53. Not true. Americans can't LEGALLY travel to Cuba from a third country.

Americans need a permit from OFAC, no matter where they depart for Cuba from.

[robinlynne]

27. used to be a fine. As of last year it is 10 years in jail thanks to Bush. That would be why they're

doing it.

[ribrepin]

42. They try to put Michael Moore in jail for ten years,

I guarantee he will be a martyr. They are just stupid enough to think a show of strength like this will prove a point.

Remember how they tried to show Joe Wilson who was boss? That worked out well! A one day story turned into a three year odyssey with convictions and stuff.

[OneBlueSky]

6. guess they want to guarantee "Sicko" a huge audience . . . n/t

[Sabriel]

43. Gee, I hope this publicity doesn't affect the gate!

Just like all the negative publicity about F9/11 made it tank at the box-office....

Can't this government go after the REAL criminals? Do they have so little to do that they need to investigate people like Moore?

[NJCher]

8. 75-90k might buy one respectable ad

in the NY Times. But this fine will assure Michael Moore of a story in newspapers across the country!

Plus it comes with the endorsement that the government is afraid of him.

Yep, they just keep chomping at the bait.



Cher

[formercia]

9. Free advertising disguised as news

Hey, wait, that's a GOP trick. :evilgrin:

[roody]

14. Hopefully, Moore will not pay any fine, rather

he will ask for an administrative hearing about breaking the civil code and going to Cuba without permission. I would love to watch such a hearing!! As Moore would love to report on it.

[The Count]

11. Oh, nooo! A US attorney came up with this? What are the odds???

[Catchawave]

17. Why is there an embargo of Cuba anyhow?

We trade with other communist nations (China, Vietnam) are they any better?

[EFerrari]

29. It may have something to do with BFEE ties to conservative

Cuban exiles in Florida and keeping them happy and also about being tough on a country that is so close to us and so autonomous. :)

[eridani]

41. You don't understand the difference between good Commies and bad Commies

The good Commies let US corporations profit from slave labor in their prisons, and the bad ones don't. Very simple.

[underpants]

52. The help at the hotels and casinos rose up

and that's a bad thing because instead of putting people we liked in charge of everything they put someone else in charge. There were some titling issues too.

[Mika]

54. Cuba doesn't run sweatshops that manufacture cheap goods for Walmart.

Every profession and vocation is represented by strong labor unions in Cuba.

[no_hypocrisy]

19. Considering the questionable positioning of certain federal prosecutors,

they may want to rethink filing charges against Moore. His testimony would be quite damaging against both the American health system and the American "justice" system.

[anotherdrew]

30. he and they went to Cuba, that's a crime and they'll get him... they get people all the time on it..

we need to end this bullshit against Cuba. it's evil.

hopefully somehow MM will evade the law, but I don't see how his legal people let him do it, he must have said fuck it, we're going anyway. Well, hope he's prepared for the consequences from the shit heads.

[JitterbugPerfume]

31. I love muckrakers

and M M is the best

[proud2BlibKansan]

33. MM is no dummy

"After receiving the letter, Moore arranged to place a copy of the film in a "safe house" outside the country to protect it from government interference, said the person working on the release of the film."

[BrklynLiberal]

35. US Health care compared to rest of the world...

<snip>

First let’s take a look at the very young. How well does the US health care system take care of children and mothers, both before and after birth? The following table gives a few indicators:
______________________________________________________________________

______________________________________________________________________
Notes: Infant mortality rates from OECD, showing 2001 data; other data from the WHO, showing data for the year 2000.

The US does worst, or tied for worst, in every measure. The US health care system simply does not do a very good job in caring for the very young.

So how about the elderly? The following table gives details about the length and quality of life that senior citizens can receive in developed countries around the world.

_________________________________________________________________

_______________________________________________________________________
Note: Data from year 2001. Source: WHO.

Not only is the US’s life expectancy at or near the bottom of the industrialized world, but Americans spend more of their shorter lives in poor health (as defined by the WHO).
<snip>

http://angrybear.blogspot.com/2005/04/performance-of-us-health-care-system.html

<snip>

Meanwhile, according to author Terry Boychuk, the rest of the industrialized world, including many developing countries like Mexico, Korea, and India, viscerally understood that "private insurance would cover all necessary hospital procedures and services; and that even minimal protection beyond the reach of the poor, the working poor, and those with the most serious health problems." 1 Today, over half the family bankruptcies filed every year in the United States are directly related to medical expenses, and a recent study shows that 75 percent of those are filed by people with health insurance.2

The United States spends far more per capita on health care than any comparable country. In fact, the gap is so enormous that a recent University of California, San Francisco, study estimates that the United States would save over $161 billion every year in paperwork alone if it switched to a singlepayer system like Canada’s.3 These billions of dollars are not abstract amounts deducted from government budgets; they come directly out of the pockets of people who are sick.

The year 2000 marked the beginning of a crucial period, when international trade rules, economic theory, and political action had begun to fully reflect the belief in the superiority of private, as opposed to public, management, especially in the United States. By that year the U.S. health care system had undergone what has been called "the health management organization revolution." U.S. government figures show that medical care costs have spiked since 2000, with total spending on prescriptions nearly doubling. 4
<snip>

http://www.yesmagazine.com/article.asp?ID=1503

[superconnected]

37. Meanwhile the cheney, bush, condosleeza collusion of us tax dollars

gets ignored.

See what happens when the criminals are in charge!

[murdoch]

38. An Iron Curtain erected by the US government

When the DDR surrounded West Berlin with a wall, there was a hue and cry about that. Yet the Helms-Burton act is erected around an entire country. A country which has a US military base on it against the will of the government - and what is being done on that base now from the orders that have come down on high? Why is Cuba deemed unsuitable for travel, yet not some banana republic like Guatemala or Colombia? I guess because from San Juan Hill on, the Cuban people never let the idle class of the US exploit and dominate it like in so many Latin American countries.

[Bjorn Against]

39. God, you almost want to thank the Bushies for doing this...

They don't have a case that is likely to hold up in court and it is going to bring all kinds of publicity to this film and get Americans looking at the state of our health care compared to Cuba's. When people figure out who has the better system they are going to be pissed.

Remember what happened when FOX News sued Al Franken? We are looking at a repeat of that because right-wingers never learn. Moore and his lawyers have to be rubbing their hands in glee knowing the publicity this is going to bring them.

[BrklynLiberal]

40. ..from your keyboards to god/godesses' ears.

[Hissyspit]

44. U.S. Queries Filmmaker Michael Moore On Cuba Trip For Movie ("Sicko")

Source: New York Times

U.S. Queries Filmmaker on Cuba Trip for Movie

By LAURA M. HOLSON
Published: May 11, 2007
LOS ANGELES, May 10 — Michael Moore, the provocative filmmaker who has made a career out of skewering automakers, gun enthusiasts and the Bush administration, is being investigated by the Treasury Department over a trip he made to Cuba for his new film, “Sicko.”

This month the department sent a letter to Mr. Moore saying it was investigating whether he had violated restrictions on travel to Cuba when he accompanied sick workers seeking free medical care as part of a documentary on America’s health care industry.

Treasury Department representatives did not return phone calls seeking comment. On Mr. Moore’s Web site, the film’s producer, Meghan O’Hara, called the department’s actions a “politically motivated investigation.”

The ailing workers shown traveling to Cuba in the film had helped clean up the World Trade Center site after the Sept. 11 attacks. The letter from the Treasury Department asked for detailed information about the trip, including evidence that Mr. Moore was employed as a journalist. Journalists can secure permission to go to Cuba.

The government also sought the name and address of the travel agent who made the reservations, and receipts, and the names and addresses of all of those who went on the trip. News of the letter was first reported by The Associated Press. Chris Lehane, who was press secretary to Vice President Al Gore and has been retained by the Weinstein Company, the film’s distributor, said the Treasury Department had been aware of the trip for a long time.

MORE

Read more: http://www.nytimes.com/2007/05/11/us/11moore.html?ex=1336536000&en=9503e2bbca21dcd7&ei=5088&partner=rssnyt&emc=rss

[Hissyspit]

45. .

[Mika]

46. Michael Moore faces U.S. Treasury probe

Source: Miami Herald

The Treasury Department's Office of Foreign Assets Control notified Moore in a letter dated May 2 that it was conducting a civil investigation for possible violations of the U.S. trade embargo restricting travel to Cuba. A copy of the letter was obtained Tuesday by the AP.

"This office has no record that a specific license was issued authorizing you to engage in travel-related transactions involving Cuba," Dale Thompson, OFAC chief of general investigations and field operations, wrote in the letter to Moore.

In February, Moore took about 10 ailing workers from the Ground Zero rescue effort in Manhattan for treatment in Cuba, said a person working with the filmmaker on the release of "Sicko." The person requested anonymity because Moore's attorneys had not yet determined how to respond.

-

The letter noted that Moore applied Oct. 12, 2006, for permission to go to Cuba "but no determination had been made by OFAC." Moore sought permission to travel there under a provision for full-time journalists, the letter said.
According to the letter, Moore was given 20 business days to provide OFAC with such information as the date of travel and point of departure; the reason for the Cuba trip and his itinerary there; and the names and addresses of those who accompanied him, along with their reasons for going.

Read more: http://www.miamiherald.com/862/story/102061.html

[soothsayer]

47. They play right into his hands, don't they! I smell an epilogue being tacked on.

[Warpy]

50. He couldn't buy better publicity!

These heavy handed government pricks will simply never learn, will they?

All they're going to do is publicize the fact that veterans have no access to medical care in their own country and had to go to an "enemy" communist country to get care.

This is going to play out very, very badly for the selfish pricks in Congress who have thrown us to the wolves for decades while the rest of the world has established single payer health insurance.

I mean, hell, even Mexico now has single payer. Makes you feel special, doesn't it?

[K8-EEE]

48. He couldn't buy this publicity -- GO MICHAEL!

The "freedumb" fighters want to persecute him for taking 9/11 heroes to get medical treatment? BRILLIANT....

[Rabrrrrrr]

49. The Cuba embargo is one of the biggest crocks going.

Just end the fucking thing, already. No reason for it at all. Yeah, Castro's a pinhead loon, but so what. We still allow travel to every other country, most of which are ruled by pinhead loons, and most worse than Castro. Like the US, for example.

Jeez.

[Hissyspit]

51. Dupe

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=102x2842285

[area51]

55. kick.

American healthcare is rationed based on wealth.

[One Sweet World]

56. good for him

I saw he published his letter to the Secretary of the Treasury on Kos today.
http://www.dailykos.com/story/2007/5/11/93540/9491