(Michael) Moore's Cuba crew fires back: feds 'sicko'

[kskiska]

Three 9/11 workers who traveled with polemic filmmaker Michael Moore to Cuba for free health services said yesterday they were enraged by the government's investigation into the trip.

"The issue here is not about Cuba," said Bill Maher, 54. The New Jersey man devoted time on weekends to helping clean up Ground Zero and now has severe health troubles. "It's about what this country has done for health care and 9/11 responders."

(snip)

First-responder Reggie Cervantes, 46, formerly of Queens, said she couldn't afford treatment for her mounting health problems in the U.S.

"I didn't have the money to get the medical care," said Cervantes, an EMT who helped set up triage units at Ground Zero and now suffers from damage to her lungs and kidneys. "I would have gone to the moon" to get free treatment.

Former EMT John Graham, 45, of Paramus, N.J., who also suffered lung and kidney damage after working at the World Trade Center site, can't understand why the workers are being investigated for seeking help. "We're just fighting to live," he said.

more…
http://www.nydailynews.com/gossip/2007/06/23/2007-06-23_moores_cuba_crew_fires_back_feds_sicko.html

[pacalo]

1. Making an issue out of the visit to Cuba is just another huge misstep by the boy king.

Attorney Martin Garbus, who plans to represent the three workers if they are charged, said the maximum penalty for violating the embargo is a $100,000 fine and up to 10 years in prison.

What jury of these three 9/11 workers' peers would vote against them?

[Missy Vixen]

3. Do we have an address for Mr. Garbus?

I don't know about anyone else here, but I would be thrilled to contribute to that defense.

Please, please let this get picked up in the national press. The average American needs to read about this.

Julie

[pacalo]

12. Apparently, he's "legendary"...

http://www.martingarbus.com/

Martin Garbus, a partner in the law firm of Davis & Gilbert LLP, is one of the country’s leading trial lawyers. He aggressively represents his commercial and criminal clients in both the courts and the public media. He has appeared before the United States Supreme Court as well as trial and appellate courts in the nation, in over 100 cases.

Business Week, in 2007, called him "legendary" and a "ferocious litigator"; it said that Time Magazine had previously named him "legendary, one of the best trial lawyers in the country." Fortune Magazine called him, in 2007, "one of the nation's premier First Amendment attorneys," "legendary," while Newsweek and the National Law Journal had called him "America's most prominent First Amendment lawyer" with an "extraordinarily diverse practice," "one of the country's top ten litigators." The media has also characterized him as a "pit bull" and a "powerful American lawyer."

Super Lawyers states that, based on a poll of his peers, he has been designated as one of the 15 “Superlawyers.” New York Magazine, for the last eleven years, named him both as one of America’s best trial lawyers, and one of America’s best Intellectual Property lawyers. Los Angeles Magazine has done the same.

Mr. Garbus as a trial lawyer has earned his distinguished reputation as a result of his courtroom skills. He is an expert at every aspect of litigation and trial, from jury selection to cross-examination to summation. His cases have established new legal precedents in the Supreme Court and courts throughout the country.

[pitohui]

6. it doesn't usually go to jury is the problem

i think what usually happens is the person who goes to cuba gets this bill in the mail for $20K or so

[Squatch]

9. PLEASE let this go to court. PLEASE!!!

I will personally contribute $$$ to their defense.

[2Design]

16. at least in prison they would get good health care unlike they

get otherwise in usa

[dkofos]

2. Scream long and loud, but don't expect help from the M$M!!

[soothsayer]

4. ok, i haven't seen it, but did he go to cuba or did he go to gitmo?

cuz isn't gitmo a little bit of the US in cuba? Or did he really go to castro's cuba and get them help?

[chelaque liberal]

7. That was the point MM made on Democracy Now interview.

Didn't go to Cuba, went to US Gitmo.

[BlooInBloo]

8. After failing to receive treatment as good as we give "the terrorists" at gitmo...

... They moved on to Cuba proper, where they received treatment for free. The woman's reaction when hearing the prices is one of the more poignant moments in the movie.


EDIT: Clarified subject.

[soothsayer]

10. oh, ok, cool! thanks for the clarification. I'm looking forward to seeing it.

(the film, and also...cuba! but not gitmo, lol)

[John Q. Citizen]

13. He went to Cuba and had Cuban Doctors help these people. Why would he go

to Gitmo? Unless he wanted to torture the first responders or something.

Edited to add- I haven't seen the movie yet, and didn't realise he went via Gitmo as per other better informed posters.

[Canuckistanian]

15. He was making a point

The point being that detainees at Gitmo were getting good, free healthcare - while 9/11 workers got squat.

[pitohui]

5. that's a shame, i thought medical services were okay

pre-bushco even tho you weren't supposed to go to cuba, there were lots of exemptions, for example you could go as a "journalist" or go as a "student" with a study group, lots of birders went on fact-finding trips to help find the last three ivory bills (gone now)...

one of my friends even went, without spending money, because a trip to china was canceled by the usa state dept and the travel industry offered her a free trip to cuba in exchange, she had to push to get it, but she did get it

not sure if getting medical care was an exemption but why not if writing a durn newspaper article was?

but all these seemed to vanish as bush gets more and more dictatorial

[John Q. Citizen]

14. US policy towards Cuba has been stupid, no matter which party held the

White House.

Freedom to travel is supposed to be one of the hallmarks of a free society. We live in an increasinly totalitarian society.

[supernova]

11. Good for them!

I was wondering if these folks were going to speak out. :thumbsup:

[Triana]

17. Why the HELL is this story in thr GOSSIP section?!

This is NOT "gossip". It is fact. It is NEWS and important news at that.

It OUGHT to be on the FRONT page of every paper in the country - NOT in a fvcking gossip column!

Disgusting.

[SeattleGirl]

18. Because the "news" has been replaced by gossip.

It's absolutely disgusting.

[Flabbergasted]

19. K R