Cuba's Protests Are NOT About COVID-19 or the Embargo
by
Julio Gonzalez, M.D., J.D.


Sixty-two years. It's been sixty-two long years characterized by oppression, coercion, and the eradication of all property rights. Sixty-two years of being told what you can and cannot say, what you can and cannot do, and where you can and cannot go. Sixty-two years of being so intensely isolated for fear that you may learn of the riches and freedoms under which the non-communist world lives, that you have no idea what Miami, Florida, a mere 230 miles away, looks like, nor have you met any of your relatives living there. Sixty-two years of being told that in order to advance you have to join Cuba's Communist Party. Sixty-two years of your family's food being limited to one chicken a month and one gallon of milk. Sixty-two years of having your children abducted by the government to work in the tobacco and sugar cane fields of the country's interior so that they may produce for the government and be properly indoctrinated in the ways of La Revolución. Sixty-two years of being bartered like cattle to serve in far off lands where you know not the language nor the customs, just to bring in capital for El Régimen.

And now, after sixty-two years of failing to live a fully human existence, the Cuban people are raising their voices to ask the question, "¿Hasta cuando?" or "Until when?" And America's leftist media have the audacity to explain away the Herculean events they are witnessing with COVID-19 and the American Embargo!

On July 13, 2021, while Cubans were literally fighting for their lives, the leftist propaganda bureau, CNN, had the audacity to claim that the Cuban people were taking to the streets "to protest a lack of food and medicine as the country undergoes a grave economic crisis aggravated by the COVID-19 pandemic and US sanctions." The observation is as tone deaf as it is incredulous.

Ask CNN and the rest of the American socialists this: if the Cuban people are so oppressed and angered by the American embargo, then why is it the American flag they carry alongside the Cuban one while they chant for libertad?

No. The protests are not about the United States or its embargo. They are about the problem Cubans have with their own regime. And by the way, hasn't CNN been making the argument for years that the American embargo is ineffective? Yet now it's working?

Well, which is it?

As for COVID-19, the chronic humanitarian crisis in Cuba is so much bigger than an invasion of some Chinese-released virus. Let's not forget that the United States has the highest reported number of COVID-19 cases in the world and ranks thirteenth in number of cases per capita. Meanwhile, Cuba ranks 77th in total cases and 109th in cases per capita. But the reason for the political destabilization in the lesser-affected nation is COVID-19?

Similarly, according to the oft-repeated datum Cuba's healthcare system is superior to the United States, as it is ranked 37th best in the world compared to the United States at 39.

Once again, which is it?

There really is only one explanation for the appearance of mass protests amongst the Cuban people, and they are screaming it to anyone who may listen. That underlying cause is ¡LIBERTAD!

There is something in the human spirit that makes man long to achieve, to wonder, to believe. It is an instinct that drives him, that instills in him his attraction to greatness, but it is a drive that is totally and utterly repressed by communism.

For sixty-two years the Cuban people have been stripped of that basic human element by a dictatorial regime intent on making its subjects mere pawns in its quest to amass more power. Generation after generation of Cubans have been stripped of their abilities to grow, to achieve, and to thrive. Like puppets in some dystopia, ask a campecino who Jesus Christ is and he will answer that he has never heard of him.

Despite CNN's blindness to the matter, for the Cuban people, the time has long past for the oppression and dehumanization to stop. In fact, only two questions remain to be answered. One, will the Cuban people be able to pry themselves away from the godless grip of communism? And two, will the world listen?

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Dr. Julio Gonzalez is an orthopaedic surgeon and lawyer living in Venice, Florida. He served in the Florida House of Representatives. He is the author of numerous books including The Federalist Pages, The Case for Free Market Healthcare, and Coronalessons. He is available for appearances and book signings, and can be reached through www.thefederalistpages.com.

Rubio Hits It Out of the Park On Cuba
by
Julio Gonzalez, M.D., J.D.
 
Having to hastily leave one's country under the fear of death must be among the most harrowing human experiences.  In an instant, gone is your home, your possessions, and all the places and people you knew growing up.  Your language is no longer useful to you.  Your coins are worthless.  The stores you frequented become fading memories.  The smells you loved, the foods you craved, and the music that elevated your soul, all of them disappear, possibly for the rest of your life.  But flee you must, or face the consequence of imprisonment, torture, or death.  
 
Although most Americans have never faced such peril, the experience is not a rare one for people fortunate enough to inhabit the most precious country on Earth.  In fact, it is an experience survived by many Cuban Americans.  
 
The issue of Cuban oppression and the rank injustice of communism raised its ugly head this week when sources began reporting widespread protests in the enslaved island country calling for the end of its dictatorial regime.  Thousands rushed to the streets, many waving American flags, demanding a system of government where the point of a gun does not quash contrarian views and where debate and civil discourse flourish.  
 
American Leftists once again did its best to provide cover for the unabashed failure of the type of socialist regime they desperately desire to implement in the United States.  Some called the protests a reaction to COVID-19 while others posited that America's embargo was the true cause. The irony was that these are the same Leftists who claim that Cuba's healthcare system is superior to that of the United States and that the embargo should be terminated because, among other reasons, it is ineffective.  
 
The response by the Cuban regime is less laughable.  Reports abound of sudden and unexplained citizen disappearances.  Unarmed protesters were being shot by Cuban authorities, killing at least one, and countless arrests were made.  Dreadful as the developments were, they gave Senator Marco Rubio, the son of a Cuban political exile, the opportunity to once again bring attention to the plight of the Cuban people.  And since he made the case at the Senate much more eloquently than practically anyone else could, thefederalistpages.com presents his speech here.  We urge you to take the time to hear it.

The AMA Is Advocating for the Creation of a Communist State
by
Julio Gonzalez, M.D., J.D.
 
 
On May 11, the American Medical Association published its misguided "Organization Strategic Plan to Embed Racial Justice and Advance Health Equity" where it essentially embraced critical race theory as a valid sociological model to explain disparities in healthcare. Unfortunately for its members, the totality of the piece is a fatally flawed instrument devoid of any objective scientific merit and serving only as a mouthpiece for Leftist political dogma designed to sow hatred and discontent amongst America's various ethnic groups and races. The negative repercussions of the AMA's position will be widespread, rippling well beyond the medical industry. And although its lack of scientific merit is sad enough, the treatise also goes on to conflate, perhaps purposely, the concepts of equality and equity.  With this erroneous start, the AMA dives into an intellectual quicksand pit filled with ill-conceived logic and conclusions from which it is unable to escape, taking with it everything Americans ought to hold dear.  Its misconceptions begin at the very basics: with its misrepresentations of equality and equity.
 
Equality
 
According to the AMA, "Equality means providing the same amounts of resources across populations."  This is exactly not what equality means. "Equality" is not a verb.  It is a noun. Providing to another is an action, making it verb and an impossible definition for the word.  The American Heritage Dictionary, deines "equality" as "[t]he state or quality of being equal"; a noun, not a verb.  There is no providing. There is no giving.  There is no taking in equality.
 
The concept of equality exists only in hypotheticals, mathematics, and engineering.  Humans are not equal to each other.  Thank God they are not.  They are endowed with different skills, life experiences, understandings, and insights that make each of the 7.8 billion people uniquely different.  This is why there are great artist, scientists, doctors, nurses, businessmen and women, inventors, writers, philosophers, theologians, and philanthropists.  
 
A pernicious and creeping mischaracterization of the concept of equality has been taking place in the United States over the past century. Like the AMA, many are confused into believing that equality means a manufactured situation where we must all be equal in our possessions and in our resources.  Thus we come across the AMA's dangerous conclusion equality necessarily means "having the same amounts of and types of resources across populations."  This concept is as absurd as it is hazardous to human existence.  Of course, we cannot, nor should we have, the same amounts and types of resources across the population.  Why in the world would I want to have an igloo in Florida, and why would an Alaskan desire a surfboard?  Advocating for such parity is simply stupid, yet this is what the AMA believes we should be striving for.  
 
One of the foundational reasons the United States is such an exemplary country is precisely because it neither assumes that there is parity amongst its citizens nor does it strive to achieve it.  The reality is that when we speak of equality in the United States, we speak of equality in the eyes of the law.   It is not up to the government to make sure we are all equally homogenistic and inhuman, but it is the responsibility of government to grant us equal access to redress, equal representation, and an equal freedom to pursue our own passions independent of government coercion or interference. 
 
The AMA actually dismisses the concept of governmental noninterference by deceitfully averring that "Seeking to treat everyone the 'same' ignores the historical legacy of disinvestment and deprivation through historical policy and practice of marginalization and minoritizing communities. It has generated an unequal society that traces back prior to the founding of the country."  
 
But once again, the AMA gets it patently wrong.  The concept of treating "everyone the 'same'" was born of two ideas recognized by the Founding Fathers.  First was the danger inherent to a government that fails to treat everyone the "same."  It is precisely because all were not treated the same that Catholics were beheaded in England, that Puritans were incarcerated, the Jews were oppressed, and that anyone who dared to disagree with the crown was persecuted, devoid of his property, and oftentimes, killed.  Despite the AMA's delusion, it is precisely because individuals were not treated the "same" that the United States had state sponsored slavery, repressed women, and the discriminated, in fact and in law, against immigrants.  Moreover, this despotic process has been repeated in every country where it has been tried.  See Hitlers treatment of gays and Jews.  Somehow, the AMA stupidly wishes to return to that situation in the name of a misrepresented and improperly defined "equality."  
 
Equity
 
The next concept the AMA fumbles is that of equity.  Here, the AHD defines the term as "the state if being just and fair."  As opposed to equality, equity requires active manipulation in order to be achieved.  If there is to be justice and fairness, there must exist some body to administer it.  
 
When it comes to equity, the AMA does not even attempt to define the concept, rather it employs a description delusionally put forth by the World Health Organization describing equity as the "absence of unfair and unavoidable remediable differences in health among social groups."  
 
There is a level of discomfort in knowing that the AMA would turn to the WHO, an organization that has twice ignored Chinese misconduct in the handling of major global pandemics when it attempts to define equity.  To the AMA, "equity can be understood as both a process and an outcome, it involves sharing power with people to co-design interventions and investing and redistributing resources to the greatest need–with explicit consideration for how racism, gender and class oppression, ableism, xenophobia and English language supremacy impact outcomes."  (No, I am not making it up.  This is actually what the AMA published.)  Thus we come to the centerpiece of the fatally flawed nature of the AMA's proposal and the naked truth behind the inherent threat from CRT.  
 
According to the AMA, resources are to be redistributed to those in greatest need.  Fewer, more direct comments in support of communism have ever been made by an American professional organization.  Note how similar the AMA's language jibes with the writings of Karl Marx: "From each according to his ability, to each according to his needs."  The AMA is making no secret of its advocacy for Marxism in healthcare. In short, what the AMA wants is to control the means of production and apply its products in the manner it sees most fit to rid the world of poverty and to make people "as healthy as possible."  What the AMA is doing, while substituting race for class, is calling for warfare and strife between American factions while the government administers whatever wealth is produced in the manner it sees most fit.  And it hides its destructive theories under the cloak of making all "as healthy as possible"!
 
And if its brush with communism and totalitarianism were insufficient take a look at the equitable goal to which the  AMA aimes when it proudly quotes Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg.  "People ask me sometimes, when do you think it will be enough?  When will there be enough women on the court?  And my answer is when there are nine." That is, when 100% of justices are women.  
 
Translated to healthcare, then, the AMA is signaling that its efforts at achieving "equity" will not be completed until 100% of all physicians are black, disabled, non-Christians, Latinx (whatever those are), and women. Does this sound equitable to you? Honestly, it strains credulity that AMA leadership would have ever allowed its staff to have produced such a vile and disgusting statement.  Yet it did
.
But of course, we are not done.  Next up, the AMA's deranged understanding of racism.  
 
Please support our ability to cover the events most important to you.   Click here to join The Founding Fathers Club or donate to The Federalist Pages.
 
 
Dr. Julio Gonzalez is an orthopaedic surgeon and lawyer living in Venice, Florida.  He served in the Florida House of Representatives.  He is the author of numerous books including  The Federalist Pages, The Case for Free Market Healthcare, and Coronalessons.  He may be contacted through his website: www.thefederalistpages.com.
 
 
 
 

The AMA's Primer on Equity Is Anything But
by
Julio Gonzalez, M.D., J.D.
 
Last I heard, the medical profession was still based on science.  If one proffers a theory or explanation, one must immediately find the supporting data to back it up.  In medicine, for example, one cannot simply say that amoxicillin is effective against strep throat, or that hip replacement surgery is amongst the most effective health improving surgeries out there.  One must gather the data and prove the point.  It follows then, that if one were to make an argument regarding medicine and the delivery of healthcare it should, at the very least, be based to some degree on scientific observation or analysis.  
 
On May 11, the American Medical Association, published "Organization Strategic Plan to Embed Racial Justice and Advance Health Equity" where it essentially embraced critical race theory as a valid sociological model to explain the disparities in healthcare. I immediately scorched the paperas divisive, hateful, and offensive.    But its abhorrence is only part of the problem. The AMA's white paper, as well as its position on race relations, is also devoid of any scientific support.  
 
Take its claims about equality, equity, and justice, for example:  
 
We operate in a carefully designed and maintained system that normalizes and legitimizes an array of dynamics—historical, cultural, institutional and interpersonal—over time that routinely advantage white (also wealthy, hetero-, able-bodied, male, Christian, U.S.- born) people at the expense of Black, Latinx, Indigenous and people of color (also low wealth, women, people with disabilities, non-Christians, and those foreign-born) and that is currently reinforced by policies that are blind to power (political and financial) imbalances and realities.   AMA, "Organizational Strategic Plan to Embed Racial Justice and Advance Health Equity," May 11, 2021, p. 11.
 
The statement, which sets the tone of the rest of the paper, speaks more about the AMA's mindset and tarnished soul than it does about any American sociopolitical reality.   
 
First, who is the "we" to which the AMA refers in its claim?  Is it the American people?  Is it American physicians only?  Or perhaps the AMA is referring to the whole world when it denotes a system in which we operate.  
 
Second, who "carefully designed and maintained" the system in which the AMA claims "we operate"?  Is it God?  The Founding Fathers?  The Romans? Abraham when he entered into his covenant?  Knowing exactly of whom we are speaking is extremely important because it informs the corrections that need be taken; yet the AMA does not identify the crafter of the decrepit system it describes.  Clearly, rectifying the work of the Founding Fathers requires a radically different approach than the correction of a problem dating back to the antiquities. And if the AMA is trying to take on God–which on issues like abortion and gender identification it clearly has–then count me out.  
 
Third, what in the world is a Latinx?  I ask this in earnest because if the AMA is claiming that Latinx(es)–is that even right?–are being disadvantaged, where does that leave me, an American-born, second generation descendant of Cuban exiles who would never call himself a Lat. . . (I apologize, but I cannot even finish the word in reference to myself; it is so offensive).   According to the Pew Research Center, only about 3% of Hispanics use the term Latinx when describing themselves, yet the AMA employs it to describe a whole sociopolitical subgroup within the United States?  Is it the three percent to whom the AMA is referring, or all Hispanics (my offense over to the use of the term notwithstanding)?  
 
I am a second generation, Cuban descendant whose family hastily fled to the United States in fear of communism, am I not included in the AMA's description of the disadvantaged?  It seems that I would be, but the AMA's white paper is so biased that it fails to capture me. I am an orthopaedic surgeon, lawyer, former state representative, author, and a former naval officer, am I still disadvantaged? Or did I lose the disadvantage because I achieved?  
 
How about Clarence Thomas, is he disadvantaged?  Or Condoleezza Rice?  Is she intersectionally disadvantaged or did she lose the title because she also achieved? If people like Thomas and Rice are disadvantaged, how did so many like them in race and gender become so successful? Alternatively, if the AMA no longer considers Thomas and Rice disadvantaged, then isn't its model for systemic injustice inapplicable since the characteristics of the disadvantaged can be shed? 
 
Let's have the AMA, which is so inculcated in pointing out the inherent injustices of the "carefully designed and maintained system" answer this inconvenient question:  In what other country, could we have a Condoleezza Rice, a Barrack Obama, a Clarence Thomas, a Sonia Sotomayor, or a Susan Rice, among countless others?  Does the AMA honestly believe that Obama could have ever been the President of Kenya?  Could Clarence Thomas have been able to rise from the darkest recesses of poverty and elevate himself to the pinnacle of his profession in Columbia?  Mexico?  Sweden? How about answering the same questions about second generation Americans like Ted Cruz and Marco Rubio?  
 
It seems then that there are serious gaps in the AMA's adopted model for interracial relations, but like any great non-scientist, it chooses not to address them. 
 
Here's another question the AMA fails to address: how does a system that disadvantages people with disabilities and "non-Christians" advantage white, wealthy, heterosexual, male, U.S.- born citizens?  I'm sorry, but I do not see the relationship between disadvantaged disabled non-Christians and white, male privilege, nor does the AMA point it out.  And relatedly, how is an individual's physical disability in any way the result or object of the machinations of the "we" the AMA fails to identify?  
 
Like the racist, hate-filled producers of the dogma the AMA is now trying to disseminate, they offer no scientific basis for their claims.  It does this purposely because its theorem falls apart under the weight of even the slightest scrutiny, yet it lays it out there as if these mischaracterizations and anti-American propaganda were accepted facts.  
 
Just as importantly, the AMA fails to address the alternative scenario.  What if the system "blind to power (political and financial) imbalances and realities", is really the only way to administer justice and provide opportunities for all unencumbered by oppression, favoritism, and tyranny?   The AMA does not consider this possibility, yet it sells it as fact.  By ignoring the consequences of manipulating outcomes, the AMA also dismisses its perverted take on equality and equity.  
 
But the discussion on the conflation of equity and equality must wait for another, not-too-distant day.
 
 
Dr. Julio Gonzalez is an orthopaedic surgeon and lawyer living in Venice, Florida.  He served in the Florida House of Representatives.  He is the author of numerous books including  The Federalist Pages, The Case for Free Market Healthcare, and Coronalessons.  He may be contacted through his website: www.thefederalistpages.com.
 
 
 
 
 

Harris: Unfit for President if for No Other Reason Than This
by
Julio Gonzalez, M.D., J.D.
 
 
Sometimes, there are occurrences so significant, so revealing that they display the future direction we are to follow or avoid.  
 
Such was the case this weekend when Kamala Harris, the Vice President Designate, published her Memorial Day tweet.  It was as curt as it was revolting.  Quite simply, it read, "Enjoy the long weekend," and was accompanied by a photograph of Harris smiling while looking off into the distance.
 
Memorial Day is no mere long weekend.  As every other American should know, Memorial Day is a time designated to remember those who gave their lives in service to our country.  It is said that the practice began with southern women who decorated the graves of fallen soldiers following the Civil War, but in fact, the custom was observed in northern states as well and even predated the War.   It is a solemn time of reverence, sadness, silent pride, and profound appreciation that ought not be sullied by the flaunting of trips to the beach, picnics, and leisurely pursuits.  
 
It's been a long time since we've heard the press use the term "gravitas"; that virtuous quality of solemnity in demeanor heralded to be so important in presidential candidates.  The quality was lauded by the press when it broke out in a cacophony of the term as it made the argument that then Republican Presidential Candidate George W. Bush was lacking in it.  Bush may have lacked gravitas, but never did he, nor would he ever, be as trite and offensive as Harris was here.  One wonders in what secret drawer our press hid its Gravitas Memo when it failed to retrieve it this weekend. 
 
Harris's cold relegation of this most solemn weekend to a mere "long weekend" is an insult to all Americans, but especially to the loved ones of those who have died in recent wars and operations in support of what ought to be a grateful nation.  That she would do this as the designated vice president of the United States is revolting. 
 
Her followers would tell you that she tried to fix it, but even in this regard she failed miserably.  On Saturday, Harries released a second tweet that appeared to be aimed at fixing the offensiveness of the first. In it, Harris wrote, "Throughout our history men and women have risked everything to defend our freedoms and our country.  As we prepare to honor them on Memorial Day, we remember their service and their sacrifice."  
 
Except that's not what we do on Memorial Day.  Memorial Day is not a day where we remember those who "have risked everything to defend our freedoms and our country."  That's true for every living member of our armed forces and of every veteran.  On Memorial Day, we remember those who actually gave everything, specifically their lives, in defense of our country. The difference is as stark as the Vice President Designate's tweets are buffoonish.  
 
Finally, on Monday, Harris released a tweet properly observing the nation's holiday. It read, "We honor those members of our military who sacrificed their lives in order to defend our freedoms."  But, in an occult acknowledgment of her prior missteps and the heat she received for her ignorance and insensitivity, she microaggressively added, "We owe these heroes–and their loved ones–everything.  Not just on Memorial Day.  Every Day."  
 
Her words rang argumentative and insincere.  
 
They say that the Vice President is one heartbeat away from being President of the United States. In this case, Harris is but a few brain cells and a twenty-fifth amendment hearing away from assuming the office.  As President Designate, she would assume the role of the Commander in Chief of the United States.  Her role would be to serve as the moral voice, not only of the nation's military, but also for the whole nation.  Her goal ought to be to demonstrate the same dignity and clarity of purpose as did George Washington himself.  
 
Instead, this weekend, Harris demonstrated her complete inability to serve as the nation's leader.  She has shown herself, once again, to be revolting, insincere, insensitive, and unappreciative.  It will be a dreadful day indeed if she were ever to take charge of the White House.  
 
 
Please support our ability to cover the events most important to you.   Click here to join The Founding Fathers Club or donate to The Federalist Pages.
 
 
Dr. Julio Gonzalez is an orthopaedic surgeon and lawyer living in Venice, Florida.  He served in the Florida House of Representatives.  He is the author of numerous books including  The Federalist Pages, The Case for Free Market Healthcare, and Coronalessons.  He is available for appearances and book signings, and can be reached through www.thefederalistpages.com.
 
 
 

The Answer to the AMA's Feckless Disregard for its Physician Members.
by
Julio Gonzalez, M.D., J.D.
 
Yesterday, in an open letter to the American Medical Association, I called out the organization for its cavalier embrace of critical race theory, which it declared in a white paper entitled "Organization Strategic Plan to Embed Racial Justice and Advance Health Equity."  As I mentioned then, seldom have I come across a more destructive, divisive, and inflammatory document by a professional organization than the one published by the AMA earlier this month.  Truth be told, however, the "Organization Strategic Plan' is only the latest in a long series of Leftist forays undertaken by the AMA, but this one is different, as this is the first time the AMA has embraced a Leftist propaganda item absent any meaningful tether to healthcare.  
 
The AMA's Origins
 
It should be noted that the AMA began as a conservative, problem solving organization bent on improving the nation's quality of care and of the physicians who provided it.  Organized in response to the nation's first medical malpractice crisis in the nineteenth century, the American Medical Association made significant strides in the development of medical education standards and licensure requirements so that those holding themselves out to be physicians could be differentiated from the quacks, potion makers, and charmers passing themselves off as healers. Later, when America's socialists attempted to implement a near-universal government run healthcare insurance scheme, it was the AMA that defeated it, calling it communism.  In 1965, the AMA also opposed the implementation of Medicare, correctly foreseeing that eventually, the government behemoth would control physician earnings and the practice of medicine.
 
But things changed in the AMA after the passage of Medicare.  There began an incestuous relationship between itself and government that would slowly erode the organization's allegiance to its members. 
 
The key lay in medical billing codes.  As it waded into the healthcare delivery business, the government needed a communication device that would define the services performed by providers and the conditions for which those services were administered.  The AMA became the point organization on the project adopting the International Classification of Diseases (ICD codes) and creating the Current Procedural Terminology codes (CPT codes). 
 
As the AMA's partnership with government increased, its unbridled fiduciary role to its members shrank.  Predictably, the AMA became more dependent on government-generated income while its negotiating abilities against it weakened.   
 
A Sharp Left Turn on a Slippery Slope
 
Things took a turn for the worse when the AMA openly endorsed elective abortions as a contraceptive procedure.  Prior to the 1960s, the AMA vehemently opposed abortions.  Largely because of the overwhelming consensus in opposition to the issue, abortion on demand was not one of the AMA's central priorities.  In fact, in 1969, a resolution from its left flank calling for the support of abortion as a contraceptive method was vehemently opposed by its House of Delegates and described as "extreme."  Just six months later, however, the AMA reversed its position despite the constancy of the anti-abortion opinion of its members.  In 1970, the AMA did not switch position on abortion because its members' opinions had radically shifted.  Rather, it openly did so for political and economic expediency.[1]
 
Whether it recognized it or not, abandoning the protection of the most vulnerable members of our society caused a seismic shift in the organization's psyche.  On the one hand, the AMA convinced itself that it was appropriate to act against its members' wills in order to protect its political and economic positions.  On the other, the AMA found it acceptable to abandon the zealous protection of all human life.  For the AMA, despite the language in the Hippocratic Oath ("I will not give a legal drug to anyone if I am asked, nor will I advise such a plan; and similarly I will not give a woman a pessary to cause an abortion."), it was now okay for physicians to kill the unborn.  
 
From there, the descent into socialism and the abandonment of its members' priorities rapidly progressed.  In 2009, the AMA agreed to support Obamacare, despite staunch opposition from a large swath of its members, in exchange for a mere promise by the Obama Administration of a $245 billion plan to permanently correct the formula determining how physicians were reimbursed by Medicare.  What physicians got in return was something even worse:  the Medicare Access and CHIP Reauthorization Act of 2015 (MACRA).  
 
Then, on April 26, 2021, the AMA blindly and irresponsibly supported the practice of gender transition-related care for minor patients.  Disguising its Leftist agenda with the cloak of preventing the "dangerous intrusion into the practice of medicine," the AMA told the National Governors Association that it opposed "state legislation that would prohibit medically necessary gender transition-related care for minor patients."  Mind you, its message was not a call for increased funding for research and improved access to non-surgical and non-pharmacologically-transitioning treatments for children, but rather a demand that such irreversible procedures, like the lobotomies of old, were not to be opposed.  
 
To this point, whether it was abortion, medical economics, healthcare policy, or the treatment of gender identity, Leftist as they may have been, the AMA's positions were closely tethered to issues directly related to healthcare policy or the practice of medicine.  But that has now changed.  
 
Just three weeks following its support of a controversial field lacking overwhelming consensus within the House of Medicine, the AMA now ventures into an increasingly radical position by embracing critical race theory and the contention that the United States is inherently and systemically racist.  This time it does this under the guise of improving healthcare access.  Make no mistake; there isn't a respectable physician in the United States who does not wish for the improved accessibility and affordability of healthcare.  There is no caring physician who doesn't want minorities and the poor to get the care they need in as easy a manner as possible. But these sentiments are a far cry from an embrace of the assumptions contained in critical race theory.  
 
Interestingly, in its "Organization Strategic Plan," the AMA claims that "[t]he origins of this strategic plan date back to the AMA's Annual House of Delegates meeting in June of 2018 where a time-limited Health Equity Task Force [was created to address] inequities in health care."  Despite this claim none of the AMA delegates with whom I have spoken this week recall there being a debate to consider embracing critical race theory or repaying previously oppressed groups for injustices committed against them in the distant past.  If there had been such a resolution, it would have never been adopted.  Yes, I am saying that the body creating this document acted without the authorization of AMA membership, as the AMA itself has done in the past.
 
What to Do?
 
It is clear that the AMA has become a Leftist organization driven by its affinity for socialism and the centralization of healthcare delivery away from the hands of the physicians it claims to represent.  It has recurrently and with increasing ease broken away from the desires of its members in pursuit of its own self-serving, protective agenda. As a result, physicians are left without reliable representation.  In the meantime, the practice of medicine continues to slide into a corporate abyss far distant from its origins and its intended ends.  
 
So what is one to do?  There really is only one answer.  
 
Schism. 
 
America's physicians, and their patients, are in desperate need of a medical organization designed to represent them; one that will protect physician independence and that will pursue medical education without government interference or meddling; and although there is the Association for American Physicians and Surgeons, which nobly provides a libertarian voice for some of America's doctors, the alternative needs to be broader. Medicine needs an organization that will lobby government for physician practices and for improvements in healthcare delivery and not advocate for vogue and misguided social causes outside the medical profession's sphere.  It needs a team that will promote legislation prohibiting the co-mingling of professional advocacy efforts and the provision of paid services to government. Such an organization must serve as the umbrella for its various state chapters and subspecialty societies and a haven for like-minded medical organizations seeking shelter from the hostile and reckless actions of the AMA.  
 
Until such time, all of America's physicians sit at the mercy of the next feckless act the AMA decides to undertake.

[1]The FMA did support a bill opposing late term abortions that year sponsored by then Congressman and now Florida Supreme Court Justice, Charles T. Canady, but the bill specifically addressed late term abortions.  The AMA appears to still oppose late-term abortions.


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Dr. Julio Gonzalez is an orthopaedic surgeon and lawyer living in Venice, Florida.  He served in the Florida House of Representatives.  He is the author of numerous books including  The Federalist Pages, The Case for Free Market Healthcare, and Coronalessons.  He is available for appearances and book signings, and can be reached through www.thefederalistpages.com.
 
 

An Open Letter to the American Medical Association
by
Julio Gonzalez, M.D., J.D.
 
Dear Sir and Madam,
 
I read with great disgust your "Organization Strategic Plan to Embed Racial Justice and Advance Health Equity."  Seldom have I read a more destructive, divisive, and inflammatory document by a professional organization, and I have never been more ashamed of being associated with the American Medical Association at any time in my career.  
 
The suggestion that our country owes anyone "equity" because of "past injustices" is revolting.  My family arrived in this country in 1961.  We have not been a party to any of the injustices that occurred so many decades ago, yet you hold my family, my colleagues, and me in the same light that you hold the cruelest slaveholder.  How dare you say that I, a person who is forced to answer on a census form as being white/Caucasian, but who on a different question answers Hispanic/Latino/Cuban, should be in anyway held responsible for those who traded slaves and the African chieftains who willingly sold their tribesmen and women to the Europeans four hundred years ago?  
 
How dare you say that I, and every one of my colleagues who have spent our lives treating the poor, minorities, majorities, and anyone else who may stumble into our emergency rooms, legally or not, without bias or favor, and without any chance of being reimbursed for our training and our efforts, should be thought of as members of an oppressive consortium designed to inflict evil or inequity to those who we selflessly treat?
 
How dare you join the countless number of camouflaged communists who furtively and purposely try to confuse those around them by conflating equity with equality? Ours is a nation built on the premise of equal standing under the law and only that.  Everything else is to be achieved through excellence, dedication, training, and hard work.  
 
Equity, on the other hand, is achieved by fiat, by taking from some and giving it to others at the point of a gun.  Few better ruses exist for the state control of the means of production than through the illusory promise of achieving equity instead of equal standing under the law. This is a dangerous track you are entering from which you and the social system you seek may never be able to return. 
 
You claim that we live in a land that was taken from Native Americans hundreds of years ago.  That may be so, but you neglect that the same is true of all other civilizations on earth. The Babylonians invaded Israel. The Norwegians invaded England. The Visigoths invaded Rome.  Rome invaded Egypt and North Africa.  The Turks invaded Constantinople.  The Mongols invaded Europe.  The Germans invaded Russia.  The Russians starved their people.  The Germans committed holocaust upon the Jews.  The Calusas ransacked and sacrificed their neighboring tribes.  The Caribes attacked and imprisoned the Taínos.  The Mayans continuously conquered each other and tore their victims' hearts out while they were still beating.  Mao starved 69 million people and the People's Republic of China killed millions with their latest virus.
 
Every single civilization, even those in Africa and the Far East, have conquered and been conquered.  It is a fact of life and a staple of history.  Your skewed and biased view of the events that took place between the Europeans and Native Americans while ignoring every other injustice carried out throughout history upon the very groups against which you point an accusatory finger is ignorant, hypocritical, and insulting to the 100% of us living Americans who played no part in the invasion nor were victims of the conquests.  
 
You have abused your position as the self-proclaimed purveyor of the medical profession to promote a self-proclaimed social(ist) agenda against the will of so many of those whom you falsely claim to represent.  
 
I will oppose you with all my being, all my strength, my intellect, and my voice.  I will oppose you from here to the ends of the earth.  I will oppose you because of your disgusting abuse of the great privilege that has been bestowed upon you, and because of the great insult you asperse upon me by suggesting that I carry anything other than love, charity, and good will towards every human being that I meet and have treated in my 30 years of practice as a physician.
 
There is a magnificent document whose signers pledged their Lives, their Fortunes, and their Sacred Honor to a cause much greater than themselves.  Today, I pledge the same in opposition of you.  
 
Here's to seeing the end of your filthy, disgusting, and vile organization.  
 
Julio Gonzalez, M.D., J.D.
Former Florida State Representative
Former Congressional Candidate
 
 
Please support our ability to cover the events most important to you.   Click here to join The Founding Fathers Club or donate to The Federalist Pages.
 
 
 
Dr. Julio Gonzalez is an orthopaedic surgeon and lawyer living in Venice, Florida.  He served in the Florida House of Representatives.  He is the author of numerous books including  The Federalist Pages, The Case for Free Market Healthcare, and Coronalessons.  He is available for appearances and book signings, and can be reached through www.thefederalistpages.com.
 
 
 

The Many Reasons Why Republicans Should Kill the Jan 6 Investigation Committee 
by
Julio Gonzalez, M.D., J.D.
 
On Wednesday, the House of Representatives passed a bill calling for the creation of a bipartisan, independent investigatory committee to evaluate the events of January 6.  The bill still needs to get through the Senate to become law.  
 
Democrats, who have admittedly compromised down from the original bill's proposal, call the bill "fair and necessary."  In reality, the commission, regardless of its outcome, is a Democratic political stunt and ought to be stopped by Republicans in the Senate. 
 
Congress is a joke.  It can't tell its head from its backside even if equipped with the latest GPS locating technology.  It is a dysfunctional body overwhelmed to the point of paralysis by its partisanship and tribal allegiances.  To think that Congress is capable of "finding the truth," as House Speaker Nancy Pelosi claims is the prospective committee's objective, displays either a shameless level of disingenuousness or a pathologic delusion about the legislative body she claims to lead.  
 
Additionally, "getting to the truth" is not Congress's role.  Except in one glaring situation, Congress never serves as a tribunal.  It is the country's legislative branch, not its judiciary.  Therefore, the purpose for a congressional investigation is always in support of legislation designed to address an issue affecting the nation. Congress's investigatory powers specifically do not exist for the purpose of either searching for truth" or " holding someone accountable." A congressional investigation is a means towards a legislative or regulatory end, and never as an end to itself. 
 
Here, there is no legislative purpose for the proposed investigation.   Not a single supporter of the January 6 investigatory committee has suggested any potentially legislative solution to the events that took place on that day.  There were many laws broken when a group of thugs penetrated the Capitol to achieve whatever ill-conceived goal they aimed to accomplish.  There is no new law that could prevent the event from taking place, and there is no statute providing the federal government with powers it lacked to appropriately address the situation.  The inadequacy of the response to the assault on the nation's Capitol was not statutory; it was one centered on poor leadership and personnel incompetence, beginning with the person responsible for overseeing the Capitol Police, Speaker Pelosi herself.
 
This brings us to the one time when Congress's investigatory powers serve a judicial purpose and the most glaring reason for opposed to the January 6 investigatory committee.  The only time Congress is called to an investigatory position is when it is conducting an impeachment proceeding.  In fact, Congress actually did this in late 2020 and into 2021 when it impeached President Donald J. Trump due to his alleged role in the January 6 melee. This was the time and the proceeding through which Congress was to "seek the truth" and "hold someone to account."  It refused to do so.  Instead, the House of Representatives, led by the same party that holds it now, decided to forego all hearings, all inquiries, and any semblance of investigation so as to send its poorly supported, single-article-impeachment to the Senate.  In so doing, the House conceded its opportunity to conduct an investigation that would not only afford the President of the United States his due process rights, but it would also allow for a better understanding of exactly what transpired that day and during its run-up.  Now, Congress wants a second bite at the apple it had previously hastily discarded' only this time it wants a second look without a legislative and constructive purpose.  
 
Although the Democrats (and some Republicans) don't recognize them, there are reasons why our nation's governmental departments are hindered by checks, balances and separations of power.  In short, it is to control the overly zealous and unconstrained application of power. What the Democrats seek here is the salacious use of its investigatory powers for the pure partisan purposes of forwarding the political agenda of the majority while frivolously harassing the minority.  This type of behavior is reminiscent of those displayed by King George III, Fidel Castro, Hugo Chavez, Nikita Khrushchev, among countless others, and distinctly antithetical to our American political structure.  
 
In terms of searching for the truth, the fact is that there are already extensive criminal probes investigating this issue and as these culminate in trials, they will reveal "the truth" and hold the criminal who coordinated this event.
 
In short the pursuit of a congressional committee to investigate the events of January 6 is a mere, prurient political stunt designed to hurt, maim and destroy.  It specifically will not serve to develop any productive insights on an issue affecting the whole nation.  Republicans ought therefore to oppose such an open display of purposeless political harassment at all cost and hold the Democrats to account for pursuing it. 
 
 
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Dr. Julio Gonzalez is an orthopaedic surgeon and lawyer living in Venice, Florida.  He served in the Florida House of Representatives.  He is the author of numerous books including  The Federalist Pages, The Case for Free Market Healthcare, and Coronalessons.  He is available for appearances and book signings, and can be reached through www.thefederalistpages.com.
 
 

CDC: From Bad to Worse
by
Julio Gonzalez, M.D., J.D.
 
Admittedly, the CDC's announcement that vaccinated individuals no longer need to wear masks except under certain circumstances was met with great jubilation by many.  However, in reality, the decree is not only nonsensical, but it may have opened the door to the widespread use of vaccine passports.  
 
In the latest incarnation of its continuously evolving recommendations, the CDC is now saying that fully vaccinated individuals are "free" to engage in practically any indoor activity without a mask.  Notable exceptions include traveling in public transport and commercial airplanes, visiting one's doctor, and entering hospitals and nursing homes, where masks are still "required" according to the CDC.  
 
Leaving the issue of commercial airlines and healthcare facilities aside where its universal masking recommendations still apply, the CDC has now placed every business in America in a precarious situation. What is the movie theater owner supposed to do with these two new classes of individuals?  Will he allow all to enter without masks, instilling fear amongst many (rational or not)?  Will he continue to require full mask compliance, in which case its attendance will continue to remain low?  Or will he reach for the proverbial "vaccine passport," which will offend many?  
 
The differing opinions on how to handle such inconsistent recommendations have already caused confusion and controversy.  Since the CDC's update on Friday, I have yet to visit a single restaurant where mask use is required.  (Remember, I live in Southwest Florida).  Additionally, my trip this weekend to a medical conference in Tampa was quite revealing.  The hotel (a large one) still had its signs up indicating that masks were required in all public areas, yet I observed only about 20% of people wearing masks.  In the second floor conference area where the doctors' conference was being held, I saw two people wearing masks out of a few hundred people in attendance.  Interestingly, they were both young physicians.  
 
In the corporate arena, Walmart, Trader Joe's, and Costco have announced they are dropping their mask mandates, while Target, Macy's, and Starbucks will continue to observe theirs.  Meanwhile, I still have not seen or heard of a business establishment allowing only proven vaccinated individuals to access its facilities without a mask.  Additionally, Bishop Frank Dewane has rescinded all masks mandates in all churches within his Venice diocese while continuing them in its catholic schools
 
The path moving forward seems unavoidable.  First, most Americans are all-too-happy to get rid of their masks.  Vaccinated or not, the overwhelming majority will ditch their masks in practically all public settings.  Returning to mask mandates will be a very difficult task indeed as Americans look back at the futility of their masking efforts, particularly in light of a healthcare system that does not appear to be particularly overwhelmed. Second, businesses will find themselves in the awkward situation of not knowing what to do about the barrage of unmasked individuals visiting their establishments.  Those holding on to the mask mandates will eventually capitulate, as customers either fuss or move to their competitors.  Increasingly, the mask mandates will become a thing of the past with only healthcare facilities and airlines holding out.  
 
The overall effect of the public's reaction to this confusing and unverifiable mask "mandate" is to obfuscate the CDC's decision.  The beleaguered organization, already riddled with inaccurate information, questionable opinions, and obvious conflicts of interest will largely be ignored, and America will head into the inevitable "next pandemic" less sure of its public health leadership than it was before.  Overall, this has been a poor showing by the CDC.  A poor showing indeed.
 

Please support our ability to cover the events most important to you.   Click here to join The Founding Fathers Club or donate to The Federalist Pages.
 

Dr. Julio Gonzalez is an orthopaedic surgeon and lawyer living in Venice, Florida.  He served in the Florida House of Representatives.  He is the author of numerous books including  The Federalist Pages, The Case for Free Market Healthcare, and Coronalessons.  He is available for appearances and book signings, and can be reached through www.thefederalistpages.com.
 

Unless I See the Mark of the Nails in His Hands. . . 
by
Julio Gonzalez, M.D., J.D.
 
When Jesus heard of Lazarus's illness, he was shaken.  He loved Lazarus.  Lazarus was from Bethsaida and the brother of Mary, the woman who had anointed Jesus with oil and had dried his feet with her hair.  According to John, upon hearing the news of Lazarus's illness, Jesus remained where he was for two days, after which time he decided to go back to Judea to attend to Lazarus.  
 
For Jesus, aware of Lazarus's death, their trip to Judea was for the purposes of resurrecting Lazarus "so that you may believe."  For the apostles, the idea sounded more like a suicide mission since Jesus had already been nearly stoned there a short time earlier.  Their skepticism was voiced by St. Thomas the Apostle when he uttered what had to have been a sarcastic and disrespectful remark, "Let us go, that we may die with him."  Jn. 11:16.  
 
This flippant remark is the first we hear of Thomas, the twin, in the New Testament, but it is emblematic of the three expressions in the Bible he is recorded to have said.  
 
Thomas's second utterance takes place in John 14:5 during the Last Supper.  Jesus had just washed the apostles' feet, announced the impending betrayal by Judas, and given the greatest commandment of loving one another as he had loved them. Jesus had also just prophesied Pete's betrayal.  There must have been a strong sense that something big was about to happen, which was heightened by Jesus's announcement that he was going to leave to his Father's house and how there would be a place there for them as well when they arrived.  
 
It is at this point that Thomas, insensitively, if not stupidly, asked, "Master, we do not know where you are going; how can we know the way?"
 
One can only imagine the frustration Jesus must have felt upon hearing the comment.  His apostles, the ones responsible for taking the New Covenant to the world, on the night before his death, were still claiming not to know what he was talking about!  Or perhaps Jesus knew that their necessary insight would not develop until after Pentecost.  Regardless, Jesus turned the situation into yet another teaching moment when he patiently responded, "I am the way and the truth and the life.  No one comes to the Father except through me."  
 
Philip, not to be left behind, followed up with, "Master, show us the Father, and that will be enough for us."  It is at this point that Jesus finally lets his frustrations show, asking, "Have I been with you for so long time and you still do not know me, Philip?"  He continued, "Whoever has seen me has seen the Father.  How can you say 'Show us the Father'?  Do you not believe that I am in the Father and the Father is in me? The words that I speak to you I do not speak on my own.  The Father who dwells in me is doing his works.  Believe me that I am in the Father and the Father is in me, or else, believe because of the works themselves.  Amen, amen, I say to you, whoever believes in me will do the works that I do, and will do greater ones than these, because I am going to the Father.  And whatever you ask in my name, I will do, so that the Father may be glorified in the Son.  If you ask anything of me in my name, I will do it."
 
But it is his third and final utterance for which Thomas is most famous.  After Jesus's resurrection, while the disciples were cowering in a locked room, fearing for their lives, Jesus appeared to them, exclaiming, "Peace be with you."  He came to them that Sunday evening with the express purpose of sending them to the world, as the Father had sent him, and breathed upon them the Holy Spirit.  When Thomas heard of what had transpired in his absence, the whole event seemed so unbelievable to him that he arrogantly answered, "Unless I see the mark of the nails in his hands and put my finger into the nail-marks and put my hand into his side, I will not believe."
 
As we now know, Thomas was in for a great surprise when Jesus appeared to the disciples the following Sunday, this time with Thomas present.  It was there that one of the most powerful and telling scenes in the Bible took place when Thomas was humbled by being forced to place his finger in the Lord's hand and his hand in the Lord's punctured side.  Thomas's only retort was to famously exclaim, "My Lord and my God!"
 
But Jesus's reprimand was not finished saying, "Blessed are those who have not seen and have believed."
 
Despite Thomas's arrogant start, he turned out to be one of the Lord's greatest fishers of men.  Tradition holds that Thomas traveled all the way to northern India, arriving in 52 A.D. where he converted numerous families and set up at least seven churches.  Additionally, there are a number of apocryphal works bearing his name.  One is the "Gospel of Thomas" depicting the infancy of Jesus Christ. It paints a picture of what modern readers would describe as an immature, hyper-reactive, emotionally unstable, superhuman character with extraordinary powers he cannot control.  The Gospel of Thomas, which dates back to the fourth century, reads so unbelievably and is so inconsistent with Jesus's character, that it is impossible to identify any elements of truth within it, making it unhelpful in the understanding our Lord. 
 
The other is the "Acts of Thomas," detailing the life of Thomas while in India in fantastical style.  It too is unhelpful because of the exaggerated narrations, although there are a number of accounts within it still upheld within the eastern traditions.
 
Despite the unreliability of the "Acts of Thomas", appears that the twin did indeed proselytize in India, where he was martyred at St. Thomas Mount in Chennai on July 3, 72. His relics were brought to Ortona in Abruzzo, Italy in 1258 where they still rest at the St Thomas's Basilica.  The relics themselves have a remarkable history, having survived the Muslim siege on the city in 1566.  The relics also miraculously survived World War II having been coincidentally moved from the Basilica's bell tower just weeks prior its destruction by the liberating Allied Forces.  
 
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Dr. Julio Gonzalez is an orthopaedic surgeon and lawyer living in Venice, Florida.  He served in the Florida House of Representatives.  He is the author of numerous books including The Federalist Pages, The Case for Free Market Healthcare, and Coronalessons.  He is available for appearances and book signings, and can be reached through www.thefederalistpages.com.