Physician of Year Award for $1250 Republican Contribution

Physician of Year Award for $1250 Republican Contribution

ABC News: Are Honors for Physicians the New Political Diploma Mill?

Saw this on ABC last night and I want to applaud Dr. Rudolph Mueller for taking this to the news. Thank YOU, ABC, for starting to cover some of this stuff at last.

Mueller got a fax from a Washington congressman in Washington saying that he had been named “2004 Physician of the Year.” It turned out though, that there were a lot of people who got that award, and you needed to donate $1250 to the GOP to collect it.

“To actually buy your award and it’s not from your peers or from your patients or from the community that you serve, it’s really deceptive,”said Mueller.”

“It’s like the old diploma mills,” said Fred Wertheimer, president of Democracy 21, a government watchdog group. “It’s the kind of scam that we’ve seen congressional investigations look at when they take place in the private sector. But here, since members of Congress are doing it, we’re not going to see any investigation.”

Mueller went to the sessions around the award – lots of promotion of GOP ideas about marketing, lawyers and taxes. He was met with silence when he tried to raise the issue of the lack of affordable health insurance.

Bush even spoke at the NRCC dinner to thank the attendees for their “investment” in the party:

“You’re making a wise investment about the future of this country, an investment made upon principle, an investment made upon freedom, an investment that will help us stay a prosperous nation, and an investment that will allow each and every American to rise to his or her own God-given talents,” he said.

Doctors were urged to use the certificate for marketing purposes – even though it wasn’t granted by any peer-approval process or based on anything but a hefty donation to the party.

Sick.

How about this? Look for these physicians – a quick search will show who is using it for internet marketing. Look for “Physician of the Year” plus GOP or National Republican Congressional Committee or NRCC. I’m going to send a few “shame on you” emails myself.

I have sent an email to Dr. Mueller to thank him, and another to the American Medical Association protesting this. The AMA should consider this as an ethics violation. No physician should accept an award that is not based on merit or peer-review, but only on a political donation.

Send your own email to the AMA.

A physician who truly deserved a Physician of the Year Award would never donate money to a political party to get it.

Earlier coverage
http://www.ama-assn.org/amednews/2001/07/30/gvl20730.htm
http://www.hillnews.com/news/091003/money.aspx
http://indyweek.com/durham/2002-12-25/porch.html

Vote for Media Bigwig Hall of Shame

Vote for Media Bigwig Hall of Shame

Big Media Hall of Shame

Wow, that was a tough choice! I voted Lowry Mays finally – but it was really pretty much a toss-up. Go vote! The Hall of Shame “winner” will be announced on May 14 at a special awards ceremony at the National Conference for Media Reform in St. Louis – you can win a trip to attend when you vote.

Join me at the Big Media Hall of Shame to vote for the one person who has done his utmost to make the media the abomination it is today. Visit www.freepress.net/hallofshame

The Choices:
Michael Powell – Former Chairman, FCC

Ed Rendell – Governor, Pennsylvania, Verizon’s puppet

David Smith – Chairman and CEO, Sinclair Broadcast Group

Rupert Murdoch – Chairman and CEO, News Corporation

Lowry Mays – Chairman, Clear Channel Communications

Your Nominee
The write-in candidate with the most nominations will fill the final mystery frame.

Pope John Paul II

Pope John Paul II

Blogging the Saturday Slant

What does the passing of Pope John Paul II mean to you? (I urge you to click on the above to read the full blog entry that accompanies the question. It’s a good one.)

Pope John Paul II was the 264th Pope of the Roman Catholic Church, elected October 16, 1978.

First off, I’m not Catholic, so my feelings about the death of Pope John Paul II don’t have much to do with his role as a representative of God. I was also raised as a Jehovah’s Witness, so for many years I regarded the Catholic church as part of “Babylon the Great” – the worst of the world’s false religions. On the other hand, I do believe that God is in all of us – and this Pope did much to bring out the godspirit of lovemind and loveheart in many people all around the world. John Paul II did much to alter my original brainwashing about Catholicism (academic study, love of music and architecture, and several months living in Paris did the rest). I am also ambivalent for a number of reasons, some of which are a bit opaque to me in the immediacy of the event, so long expected but for all that, somehow surprising.

In the long history of Popes, I think that John Paul II was one of the better ones. I liked his spirit and I liked his face. Although Catholics in America didn’t seem to pick up on it much, the Pope was very much opposed to the Iraq war and its accompanying theory of unilateral preventive war. John Paul II did not think that all possiblilities for a peaceful solution had been exhausted before the American attack nor that there was even sufficient evidence of weapons of mass destruction.

I like that Karol Józef WojtyÅ‚a was Polish (and Lithuanian) and not Italian like so many previous Popes. I admired that the “Pilgrim Pope” travelled so much and clearly cared about people. He promoted non-Europeans and non-Americans into positions of leadership in the church, and I think he handled the child abuse issue pretty well. He didn’t do much for women or for gays – but his version of the “culture of life” (did the far right steal the term from him?) didn’t limit itself to abortion and birth control issues. I actually get the sense – completely speculative – that he might have wished to allow birth control, but didn’t feel he could. After all, he had run a service that dealt with marital problems, from family planning and illegitimacy to alcoholism and physical abuse (Time magazine called it “perhaps the most successful marriage institute in Christianity”).

He opened the office to hear the voices of people from other religious traditions, and was particularly interested in helping to heal the long historical rift between Catholics and Jews. He grew up in Poland, remember. He was the first Pope to visit a synagogue, the first to visit the Holocaust memorial at Auschwitz. From his childhood to the present, he was a spiritual person who understood suffering, and it deepened him. I respect that. I also thought it helped the church that he enjoyed music, poetry and theater. He had been a gifted actor, singer, and athlete in his youth.

He was involved in Vatican II on issues of religious freedom and throughout his life he worked on a theology that advocated a Christian view intimately concerned with issues of peace, political freedom, human rights, and even economic issues. He had a deeply practical side as well. He has always been deeply concerned about poverty – as every Christian should be – and while his early years were concerned with the downfall of Communism (he had lived through the authoritarian regimes of the Nazis and the USSR) his latter years pointed out the accompanying problems of rampant materialism and the abuses of global capitalism that has become destructive to the earth itself and to the spirit and well-being of the people on it.

I think he took his role very seriously and he handled it well. In his own way, he spoke prophetically to the whole world and he had the authority to do so.

He was not, however, a liberation theologian. He was a disappointment in that regard. The voices of spirit that have given us tremendous insights for the last, say, 30 years or so at least – the diverse constructive theologies from Latin America, Africa, Black communities, the ecumenical impulse that was getting into high gear before Bush took office, the Feminist, Gay, and Environmental theologies – didn’t really seem to get his consideration. He may simply have lumped them all into Marxism without thinking it through, but he was smart enough that I would have thought he could have considered these perspectives, many of which have made significant differences in lives around the world. What got started with Vatican II stopped here, and the Pope did seem to surround himself in later years with “religious caterpillars” – toady devouts, or what we would call parasitic “yes-men.”

Still, I liked him. I felt that he was, overall, a pretty good Pope. There have been some pretty bad Popes, and I am grateful that he had a conscience and a sense of duty and that he prayed. I have the sense that he really prayed, unlike many so-called religious.

John Paul II was close-minded in some respects – but I admired him even when I disagreed with him. I feel that his own person was probably more progressive than the role he had to embody. The church had lost a lot of people when they made too many changes at once – I think he tried to restabilize things. I don’t know for sure whether it was firmness or stubborness that motivated some of his pronouncements – but I’m willing to give him the benefit of the doubt. He was a very intelligent and caring father of the church, and I will miss him. He has been the Pope for most of my life. I was in 8th grade when last the smoke rose. I grieve for the loss that so affects so many people all over the world.

Here are a few of my favorite quotations:

Do not abandon yourselves to despair. We are the Easter people and hallelujah is our song.

From now on it is only through a conscious choice and through a deliberate policy that humanity can survive.

The human creature receives a mission of government over creation to make all its potential shine.

It is perhaps appropriate at this point to recall the Church’s contribution to the defense and promotion of life through health care, social development, and education to benefit peoples, especially the poor.

Have no fear of moving into the unknown. Simply step out fearlessly knowing that I am with you, therefore no harm can befall you; all is very, very well. Do this in complete faith and confidence.

Humanity should question itself, once more, about the absurd and always unfair phenomenon of war, on whose stage of death and pain only remain standing the negotiating table that could and should have prevented it.

I have a sweet tooth for song and music. This is my Polish sin.

Pervading nationalism imposes its dominion on man today in many different forms and with an aggressiveness that spares no one. The challenge that is already with us is the temptation to accept as true freedom what in reality is only a new form of slavery.

Social justice cannot be attained by violence. Violence kills what it intends to create.

Science can purify religion from error and superstition. Religion can purify science from idolatry and false absolutes.

The historical experience of socialist countries has sadly demonstrated that collectivism does not do away with alienation but rather increases it, adding to it a lack of basic necessities and economic inefficiency.

An excuse is worse and more terrible than a lie, for an excuse is a lie guarded.

This people draws its origin from Abraham, our father in faith. The very people that received from God the commandment “Thou shalt not kill” itself experienced in a special measure what is meant by killing. It is not permissible for anyone to pass by this inscription with indifference.

To maintain a joyful family requires much from both the parents and the children. Each member of the family has to become, in a special way, the servant of the others.

Violence and arms can never resolve the problems of men.

Radical changes in world politics leave America with a heightened responsibility to be, for the world, an example of a genuinely free, democratic, just and humane society.

Man always travels along precipices. His truest obligation is to keep his balance.

Anything done for another is done for oneself.

I hope to have communion with the people, that is the most important thing.

Thanks Daniella! Goodbye, dear spiritual father, blessed Ojciec.

Per aspera ad astra, requiescat in pace.

Without DeLay

Without DeLay

Demand that Tom DeLay resign – sign the petition, then send it to your congressperson.

DeLaw used Terry Schiavo as a posterchild for his own purposes. If he cared about these matters, it would be reflected in his public policy stance. To the contrary, the republicans have been first in line to cut Medicare and Medicaid, mess with Social Security, increase poverty – and all sorts of other things to PREVENT the care of the ill and disabled. I find it highly ironic that some people actually buy the idea that he cared one bit about Mrs. Schiavo or any of the other thousands like her in this country.

Interestingly, Jesse Jackson was the only liberal brave enough to walk into this nightmare. I wish they hadn’t taken a hands-off approach. They should at least have turned attention to the policies that make life harder for the disabled. Seeing Jackson interviewed side by side against the domestic terrorist Randall Terry is something I won’t soon forget. I actually agree with what Jackson was saying. However, the whole case was intended to advance two agendas: Most importantly, it was selected in order to divert attention from DeLay’s ethical shortcomings – he himself called her “a gift from God” to protect him against “his enemies.” The second agenda, and it is becoming more obvious and blantent – confirming my first impression – is to incite hatred against those in the judiciary who enforce the law as it is their job to do, without regard for special pressures from the other branches. I applaud the judges for their courage. Since DeLay threatened them and called them “out of control” it seems once again that the “culture of life” is really about a culture of deceit, hate-mongering, and incitement to murder. Randall Terry is a great example of this – I almost lost my dinner when I saw him on television at my grandmother’s house. He is so pro-life that he announces the names of doctors to be killed, encourages harassment of women, and the bombing of family planning and abortion clinics. He should be in jail, not on tv. A couple of Randall Terry quotations:

“I want you to just let a wave of intolerance wash over. I want you to let a wave of hatred wash over you. Yes, hate is good…Our goal is a Christian nation. We have a biblical duty, we are called by God to conquer this country. We don’t want equal time. We don’t want pluralism.” (Randall Terry, The News Sentinel, Fort Wayne, IN, Aug. 16, 1993)

“When I, or people like me, are running the country, you’d better flee, because we will find you, we will try you, and we will execute you. I mean every word of it. I will make it part of my mission to see to it that they are tried and executed… If we’re going to have true reformation in America, it is because men once again, if I may use a worn out expression, have righteous testoserone flowing through their veins. They are not afraid of contempt for their contemporaries. They are not even here to get along. They are here to take over.” [Randall Terry, founder of Operation Rescue, at the Aug 8, 1995 U.S. Taxpayers Alliance Banquet in Washington DC, talking about doctors who perform abortions and volunteer escorts]

“Our enemies would throw the tough cases up in our face and say, ‘Do you actually mean you would support the stoning of a rebellious teenager?’ I fear God and I think that we would have a heck of a lot fewer rebellious teenagers if a law like that existed in America today.”

He was “consulting” for the Schindler family. I only hope that these Schindler’s are not related to the branch made famous by the movie “Schindler’s List.”

Even Republicans are finally beginning to see that DeLay is a dangerous and off-kilter character – something that liberals and progressives have known for some time.

There is a very good list of facts and offences of Tom DeLay at http://www.pcactionfund.org/withoutdelay/facts/

Please sign the petition or write directly to your congressperson. While you’re there, oppose the “nuclear option” which would end filibuster. They’ve already changed the ethics rules to protect DeLay – and he’s only gotten worse. He calls judges “out of control” for adhering to the law – what shall we call him for breaking them?

Here’s a short top ten reasons for him to resign, but go to the site for the details.

10 reasons why Tom DeLay should resign from Congress

1. Tom DeLay violates ethics rules at will, making him a national embarrassment. Indeed, he has earned four formal ethics violations, a truly rare achievement, as only five Members of Congress have been chastised by the committee in the last six years.

2. Tom DeLay embodies the worst of pay-to-play politics – he puts big donors like Enron ahead of the rest of us.

3. Tom DeLay abuses his position as House Majority Leader to trample on the legislative process and stretches the rules of campaign fundraising far as he can.

4. Tom DeLay accepted travel expenses from a registered foreign agent, in apparent violation of House rules.

5. Tom DeLay used illegal corporate contributions to disenfranchise hundreds of thousands of Texas voters with his anti-democratic re-districting scheme.

6. Tom DeLay uses tax dollars and government resources for partisan political gain.

7. Tom DeLay opposes any reasonable campaign finance laws, even disclosure of donations.

8. Tom DeLay shakes down small business owners for campaign contributions.

9. Tom DeLay received all expenses-paid junket from a lobbyist accused of bilking tens of millions of dollars from six Native American tribes.

10. Tom DeLay believes he is above the law.