"Einstein's Def. of Dental Advocacy"

Hi, my friends, hope you're all enjoying the nice weather and Easter week. Before I get to the titular topic, I wanted to thank all of you who came out for MOM in Ft. Myers. It was the first time I took part and it was very fulfilling. I did restorative and my better half did patient ambassador. I hope we can do as good a job when MOM comes to S. Fla. in 2021 as they did in Ft. Myers. I suggested to our GAO that we take tons of photos of the most bombed out, diseased patients we treated. These are the same folks who will show up to the govt. run dental settings and they have very serious problems that require very capable clinicians. We need to prepare PPS shows to use in the committee hearings so we can rub their noses in it. I wanna see the DHAT shills tell us these cases can be done by therapists!
The title refers to the way we've been doing our advocacy in Tallahassee and the lack of success we've seen the last few years.
 Let's start with this past session, there was one great accomplishment that came out of it-we stopped the DHAT issue (including that BS study) for this year! I know that's something to celebrate, though we also know these folks aren't going away. There are states that have been fighting this crap for 8 years! We can never rest on our laurels and assume we won't be dealing with this again, we will. Now let's look at what we didn't get.
 We failed to get loan repayment, which we know is a major part of the true solution to the access to care issue. We also didn't get funding for hiring 2 full time staff to vet and assign Donated Dental Services patients to we who treat them pro bono. In other words, the state won't fork over $150,000 to make it easier for us to give away $2 million in free care, incredibly stupid and very telling as to how much they really wanna solve access to care. I find the language in the last (Sine Die) Capitol Report a bit soft peddle, when it comes to the excuse they gave the useless RPOF. It read
 "Due to the tragedy in Parkland, the Legislature also had to reprioritize initiatives originally outlined in the budget and place additional focus on addressing issues surrounding school safety, mental health and gun regulations...". They didn't HAVE to do this, they CHOSE to, the same way they passed those ridiculous gun laws that won't make anyone any safer but will deprive lawful Floridians of some of their 2A rights. It's pretty pathetic when our elected representatives are so damned spineless that they rush to pass bad public policy to assuage a bunch of whiny teenagers who've been usurped as useful idiots by the anti-gun left! At the same time, look at how fast the lame stream media dropped the school shooting in MD, wanna know why? Because, it doesn't advance their anti-gun narrative, that's why! Unlike the Broward Cowards Dept., this SRO took initiative once notified about the shooter and took the shooter out! The difference was staggering, only 2 students shot, sadly the 16-year-old girl died, but it wasn't 17 dead like Parkland.
https://www.cnn.com/2018/03/20/us/great-mills-high-school-shooting/index.html
Contrast that to SRO Peterson standing outside of the very building where kids were being gunned down for 4 minutes. He lied when he said he thought the shooter was outside, as 911 audio of his voice proves.
https://www.bizpacreview.com/2018/03/09/new-recording-reveals-disgraced-broward-deputy-knew-shooter-was-inside-school-and-told-cops-to-stay-outside-611768#
 Maybe these young imbeciles running around DC and elsewhere with the "NRA blood on your hands" signs need a slight edit to read "SRO Scot Peterson, BSO & FBI- Blood on your hands!"
 If we look at our failures in the last 3 sessions, it's always something, isn't it? Last year we actually got loan repayment to the finish line, only to be vetoed by our idiot governor, the same one who hastily signed the bad gun bills. The year before that the RPOF, who can't find its own buttocks with both hands and a flashlight, failed to pass a budget, in a state with 1-party control of everything. This year it was "the children", always some excuse or another. Personally, I think we were screwed either way, shooting or not. I say that because the chair of the House committee that would have funded our bill has openly declared his opposition to the concept.  I'm glad Rep. Jason Brodeur is termed out this year and hope he does NOT get into the FL Senate.
 So, now let's talk about Einstein. I'm sure all of you know the definition, do the same thing over and over but expect to get a different outcome. That's the FDA and dental advocacy and it needs to stop! I know this was easily the nastiest session where a record number of legislators took our PAC $ and used our bills for Charmin. It also means we have no guarantees it won't keep happening. We need to STOP giving a single penny to ANYONE who we've supported and has betrayed us. I want the GAO to publish names, enough pussy footing around! If they don't wanna make a list and indicate it contains the names of the traitors, fine, there's another way to do it. We publish a list that's titled "the following legislators received FDAPAC support this legislative session". Then publish another list right next to it that's titled "the following legislators voted in support of our bills". If anyone whose name appears in column A ain't in column B, we know who they are and what they did. From that day forward, that turncoat doesn't get any more PAC $! The Capitol Report always has various lists for various purposes, these 2 new ones would have a great purpose and save us $ or allow us to give it to true allies.
 I was warned about doing this and unintended consequences in the form of members realizing we're ineffective and not contributing. For God's sake, WE ARE INEFFECTIVE and it's no secret! That's why more members don't chip in or only do so in small amounts, who can blame them? I'm not suggesting we discourage members from giving, we just let them know their $ won't be wasted on our enemies. That knowledge, if anything, should encourage more member contributions, not less. If the FDA won't do this, we have no one to blame but ourselves when members clutch their credit cards and we keep getting punked in Tallahassee. Enough, already!