"Tale of 2 Cities & Bashing Bashar"

Hi, everyone, let's get right to it! We had 2 lobbying events in as many weeks, due to new scheduling. 2 weeks ago we were in DC for the Leadership Conf., which is now called Lobbying Day and includes ASDA members. It's 4 weeks before the old early May event, so it's right before DDOH. We had a great turnout, 950 dentists and dental students! It was great to see even D-1s step up and join the process. I'd been away from DC since 2012 and little has changed. The most pleasant change for me, of course, was knowing Obama is outta there! We had a tailgate reception on opening night and I saw young & old Trojan dentists there, nice to meet classmates from many decades. The atmosphere and food were terrific and it was a great way to launch our new event model. There was also a not so good innovation which I hope goes away for next year. ADPAC hired an outfit known as Prime Advocacy to book all our appointments, instead of the traditional practice of attendees doing their own. It was an unmitigated disaster! Our own group had a Senate appt. offer rejected by them without our approval and 1 of the Congressman's staff members had no record of ever being contacted. Consequently, we had to meet with their staff in a small, noisy reception area table and the hallway, respectively, ridiculous! I understand this chaos was not limited to our group and there were many problems with a service for which ADPAC paid a high price. I will not return to this event if they use the same service. Paying someone handsomely to muck things up and cause us stress is not an option for me. That's simply not what I'm expecting when I take 2 productive days from my office. I did have some fun on the day we heard from speakers, namely the WaPo's Eugene Robinson. Mr, Robinson, true to his uber lib self, was gloating about the GOP's Obamacare repeal fiasco, 4 days earlier. He said it was a defeat for Ryan and the Dems should be sitting back, smoking a celebratory Cohiba. Check out my reply to Gene. He tried to follow up with the usual liberal spin, i.e. the "20 million newly insured" which I squashed like a bug by reminding him they have insurance they can't use, for the sky high deductibles. That part's not on the video. Please forgive the poor sound and video, it was recorded on an iPhone, LOL. Yes, Galaxies have much better video, sorry.

Despite Prime Advocacy's bungling Cesar, Arabelys and I decided to go to Rubio's office on our own. Turns out we nabbed him at the perfect moment!

As for DDOH, I missed it! No, it wasn't my fault, AA cancelled my 5:30 flight 90 minutes before departure, due to bad weather in Tallahassee. The flights before and after mine were okay, just my luck. I was willing to go home, have dinner and go back to MIA for the 9:45 flight. But it quickly filled and all AA could offer me was to drive to FLL the next morning and take a 5:05 a.m. to Charlotte, then another flight from there to Tally. You won't need to use your imagination to guess what my response to that absurd offer was! I did stay in touch with my pals who did make the trip to coordinate the appts. In all, they met with the 3 Senators we needed to, but only 1-2 Representatives. The fault here lies squarely with their legislative staff and the way these lawmakers allow them to operate. They didn't return calls to book an appt. a few days in advance and it was next to impossible to get one. In past years the excuse was it was the very hectic Dade County Days, budget committee hearings, etc. It's always something but it seems no matter what sandwich they're making up there, we dentists are chopped liver! IMO, I think no amount of calendar juggling can fix this. If we called and told them we had a $10,000 check to hand the Senator or Representative, they'd not only make time for us, they'd be on bended knee. After 22 years of DDOH, I've run out of any desire to go back. Let the younger dentists do it and good luck to them. I'm also tired of covering for too many LCDOPOs (Legislative Contact Dentists On Paper Only) who are listed but have never attended DDOH. Enough is enough!

 One good thing that came out of DC is we FINALLY (after 21 years of effort) got the House to pass our repeal of McCarran-Ferguson, a law that has allowed Big Insurance to collude, price fix and otherwise do the very things for which dentists can get fined by the FTC or yelled at by our by our legal staff. While that's a great milestone, we're told it probably has no chance in the US Senate. If we're gonna need another 21 years for that, forget it, I'll be riding my bike somewhere in the mountains.
 On the political front, there have been more Islamic terror attacks, no surprise, and some payback issued to evil doers. The new sheriff is kicking ass and taking names, particularly Bashar Al-Assad's name. My only regret is Trump left him any air power at all. Between Basher and Mushroom Head (aka Kim Jong Un) it'll be interesting to see what they do in response to the U.S. showing resolve (Un) and a rapid punishment (Assad). I also believe the collapse of RINOcare was a blessing in disguise and prevented the GOP from really screwing things up. If Trump & Co. don't get a repeal and replacement in the next few months, I truly believe they could easily lose the house in 2018. GOP should be able to take 7-9 Sen. seats, but never underestimate the capacity and penchant these spineless idiots have for snatching defeat from the jaws of victory. For all the abuse Trump's been taking, he did hit a grand slam last Friday. say hello to SC Justice Neil Gorsuch, long may he rule!! In closing, a little humor. Many of you probably remember the kerfuffle over Bill O'Reilly likening Maxine Waters' hairdo to a James Brown wig. Well, judge for yourselves below. Happy Passover & Happy Easter to you all!
http://www.jibjab.com/view/XX8sFmvJTNyhYva0D6mAiQ