Furthermore, three others who went with him have already been placed under investigation by the Treasury Department. (There was a link to a news story, in the thread linked in the OP, but it seems to be broken now.)
Is that true? My understanding is that Americans are allowed to travel to Cuba for certain reasons, including journalism. Putting aside personal feelings for the man, he’s certainly a legitimate documentary filmmaker and he was in Cuba to make a documentary comparing American to Cuban health care.
I don’t watch Leno.
Most of the stories I’ve found say Moore told Leno’s audience that he"was informed of a subpoena" backstage.
The Reuters story on the matter has this to say:
You have to get permission, though, and perhaps Moore went without it.
I would suspect that Michael Moore didn’t get permission intentionally. Sounds like another movie brewing. I’m all for it! We can go to Vietnam and China but not Cuba? And why is that?
I heard a rumor that Freddy D. Thompson smokes the best cigars in town. Just sayin’. Even Jack Kennedy sent Pierre Salinger out to buy a good supply of Cuban cigars before declaring the embargo in 1962.
Mr. Bush, tear down this sandcastle!
Not to mention, even the rabidly anti-Castro Cubans have to be aware that (a) Castro is apparently dying, (b) his 76 year old kid brother Raul, who’s currently running the show, is noticeably less anti-U.S. than Fidel, (c) things in Cuba may start changing more rapidly once Fidel kicks off, and (d) those who’ve been making nice to Cuba before Fidel dies might be in a better position to influence what happens there afterwards than those that don’t.
I mean, I don’t expect them to care about the fact that the embargo has made exactly zero sense ever since the Soviet Union broke up, since Cuba by itself represents no threat whatsoever to America, but I’d think they’d have to see there’s a particular window of opportunity right now.
If Moore is willing to tolerate some legal trouble, it’s a great opportunity. “Oh, I had to show up? I thought Congressional subpoenas were optional now.”
(He’d be punished, and rightfully so, just as Miers should have been.)
I agree. I’ve already stated many times I believe Miers should be punished.
The tone of the OP, however, suggested to me that he felt Moore’s subpoena was less… worthy of being complied with.
Wrong again. The OP suggested that Moore’s subpoena was less worthy of being issued, that the reasons for doing it while ignoriing so many other violations just might have been, you know, selective. Nowhere was there any hint that he might ignore it - that’s your own creation.
But it looks like you have to get a license to do so first. Link. The original news story indicated that the Treasury Dept notified Moore that they had no record of him obtaining a license.
I’d like to see us remove the embargo (both for trade and travel), but if someone as prominent as Moore goes there under current law and flaunts that fact on the news media, it should come as no surprise that the feds will want to have a little chat with him. It’s win-win, though: The feds get to “send a message” to other scofflaws and Moore gets added publicity.
You mean buy a 120 inhaler here and send it, when they can get it for .05 ? 
Where can they (I supposed you mean Cubans), get these $.05 inhalers? I have friends and relatives in the island that would love to get this deal.
I’m assuming you know real details of this bargain.
I think Gigi is kidding. Correct me if I’m wrong Gigi, but I am taking her post to question WHY we would want to send them $150 inhalers, when they get them for 5 cents…the implication being that you can SAY an inhaler only costs 5 cents there, but if you can’t get your hands on one, what difference does the price make?
You’re wrong about what Gigi meant. It would all make sense if you saw the movie though. T’was a big point of the Cuban thing.
Whether it’s true or not is another thing. I doubt Moore himself would have been in on the fake (if that is what it is) as he would be almost certainly be found out on something so easy to either prove wrong or get someone to talk. There are a lot of people/organizations willing to happily pay for someone with real dirt on Moore.
By the by. RE: Cuban health care and what the Cubans think about it.
http://www.michaelmoore.com/sicko/checkup/
Yes they have the jackboot of opression on their necks but they do say that they show “Show Little Satisfaction with Opportunities and Individual Freedom” so maybe there is something in the poll.
So what WAS Gigi’s point? I figured it was something that came up in the movie, but what was Gigi’s point in bringing it up, do you think?
One of the 911 rescue workers had a burned airway from the conditions there and uses a $120 inhaler she pays for in the States. When they went to Cuba she could buy one for 3 pesos (?), or the equivalent of five cents. The pharmacist gave her the name of a doc who would write her a scrip for two inhalers. There didn’t seem to be a reason why a Cuban resident who had a regular prescription couldn’t get them for five cents, so I was wondering why anyone in the US would have to send them.
You would know better than I, but yeah, there would have to be a conspiracy going on in front of the cameras for this to not be available as they stated. She showed them her inhaler and said, did they have that and how much was it. They showed her the same inhaler and said, five cents.
Got it…I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to misrepresent what you meant at all…I just took it the wrong way. I don’t know about inhalers, but my father-in-law’s relatives in Cuba have always been very interested in getting medicine from here that wasn’t available to them there at any price.