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RPM

Certifiably Surly
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  1. The Fokking cold open was great with DeNiro and Stiller. Jack Mulvaney's stand up was above average. Restaurant sketch was good but the end was kinda flat. High School kid w/boner was funny, Lobsters on Broadway was great. Jack White rocked. Weekend Update was very good. Kate killed as Laura Ingram so did Keenan as LaVar Ball. Hollywood Update sketch was funny. Horn removal was good. Jack White rocked some more. Real Intros of Reality Hills was funny.

    Pretty damn solid episode. Mulvaney was very good. A

  2. Texas Agriculture Commissioner Sid Miller in late 2016 appointed to the state’s Rural Health Task Force a former physician and Miller campaign donor who had his medical license revoked or suspended in three states.

    In Iowa, Rick Ray Redalen’s medical license was first suspended when he was convicted of perjury in a case involving his marriage to his 15-year-old former stepdaughter. The license was later revoked for good for failure to report a malpractice suit, medical board records show.

    Redalen, who calls himself “the Maverick Doctor,” said he was introduced to Miller several years ago by Todd M. Smith, a lobbyist who has reported making hundreds of thousands of dollars from Redalen’s company and is Miller’s longtime political strategist.

    Redalen, who donated heavily to Miller’s campaign months before his appointment, said he has used the unpaid task force position to advocate for expanded access to telemedicine — a service offered by one of his companies. Redalen said he never expected any favors in exchange for his contributions to Miller.

    Craig McDonald, director of the left-leaning ethics watchdog Texans for Public Justice, said the arrangement “looks like a pay-to-play situation.”

    “The good doctor — through Todd Smith, a lobbyist and a Sid Miller confidant — has given a lot of money to get a position on this advisory board to promote his own private company’s agenda,” McDonald said. “The whole tele-doc industry is mostly for-profit, and it has an economic piece in changing the policy on the extent to which we allow telemedicine to come into Texas.”

    Buck Wood, a lawyer who helped write many of Texas’ ethics laws, said the situation “sure stinks to high heaven.”

    Quest Global Benefits has paid Smith between $200,000 and $250,000 every year since 2015, according to lobbying activity reports filed with the Texas Ethics Commission.

    Redalen donated $5,000 to Miller’s campaign in January 2016 and $12,000 in July 2016. Miller appointed Redalen to the task force in December of that year.

    Redalen even joined Miller on the commissioner’s March 2017 trip to Israel, which made international headlines after Miller signed a declaration of cooperation with Israeli settlements in the West Bank that are not legally recognized by the United States or the United Nations.

    As a doctor, Redalen worked in emergency rooms and as a primary care doctor and has had his license suspended or revoked in Minnesota, Iowa and Louisiana.

    The disciplinary action against Redalen by Minnesota’s medical board was due to “psychiatric and drug problems,” according to a 1995 Des Moines Register article.

    Redalen’s legal troubles in Iowa stemmed from his relationship with his stepdaughter, whom he married in Tarrant County while on a trip to Texas in September 1988. He had been married to her mother, who committed suicide in 1987. In 1986, Redalen pleaded guilty to assault after authorities said he struck his wife with a rifle butt and pointed a gun at sheriff’s deputies, according to the Register article.

    Redalen did not answer detailed questions about his past, but he said that his problems in Iowa were invented by enemies who were jealous because he was the “most popular doctor in town.”

    After a 1989 court proceeding, Redalen told reporters, “Right now we seem to have a very enjoyable relationship that fulfills a large part of our lives since” the mother’s suicide.

    Redalen was arrested after returning to Iowa following the Texas trip and was eventually convicted of perjury for lying about his knowledge of the girl’s whereabouts, medical board records and news articles say. Although the case was not related to his medical career, the Iowa medical board suspended his license for two years because he had pleaded guilty to a felony.

    In 1995, after Redalen had moved to Louisiana, the medical board in that state revoked his license after accusations that he abused drugs and alcohol.

    https://www.mystatesman.com/news/state--regional-govt--politics/sid-miller-put-doctor-with-revoked-licenses-rural-health-panel/HrhVMVDYxSXl8A7GZo2a7M/

    newsEngin.21693022_des-moines-register-1

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