Hello to all of you, I hope all the moms out there had a great Mother's Day and spent time with your families waiting on you, for a change. My family met as usual and there were 3 generations of moms present. It's been a while, let's get to the first topic.
The movement conspiring to remove Trump from office is unprecedented and vicious beyond compare. I recall how many liberals I talked to about my concerns with Obama in 2009 told me he'd just been sworn in and we needed to be fair and give him a chance. Needless to say, the left has given no such quarter to President Trump and neither have those friends of mine- something I've rubbed their noses in mercilessly. The man's biggest sin was winning the election and the other side simply cannot and will not accept that. I've never seen a POTUS who's had to fight the media, opposing party and even the globalist, turncoat sellouts in his own party to this degree. All the while, Trump's implementing his agenda, dismantling Obama's disastrous policies here and abroad and making the USA a super power again that our enemies will respect and fear.
We see Americans detained in N. Korea coming home, black conservatives daring to speak out against the Democrat plantation and jobs we were told were gone for good back in record numbers.
https://www.nytimes.com/2018/03/09/business/economy/jobs-report.html
You know it's bad for the left when even the NY Slimes publishes this piece. Candice Owens is a breath of fresh air and serious threat to the poverty pimps who peddle race for votes.
https://townhall.com/notebook/bethbaumann/2017/12/20/black-conservative-drops-a-truth-bomb-about-racism-in-america-n2425320
We've withdrawn from the ridiculous, anti-american Paris accords and Obama Iran Nuke treason. That deal was never a treaty nor was it ever ratified or supported by most Americans. This is a long read but absolutely nukes (pun intended) the entire crock of BS that Iran deal was.
https://nypost.com/2016/05/05/playing-the-press-and-the-public-for-chumps-to-sell-the-iran-deal/?utm_source=facebook&utm_medium=site%20buttons&utm_campaign=site%20buttons
Notice, BTW, most of our European allies have been quick to jump onto our side? I guess they've realized siding with the world's most prolific sponsor of terrorism over us is not a good idea.
The FBI placed a mole in the Trump campaign and is getting busted for it.
https://www.zerohedge.com/news/2018-05-10/wsj-fbi-hid-mole-trump-campaign
The same exposure and debunking applies to the fake dossier, bought and paid for by the Hillary team, that was the excuse for this entire sham to begin with. The Dems wanted to drag all of this out, confident their willing accomplice media would give them cover. Now they no longer wanna do that as their internal polling and hacks are telling them to STFU about impeachment and Russian collusion. None of this will be dealt with anytime soon unless and until Trump replaces the hapless imbecile (more like DC Swamp Critter) he chose for AG, Jeff Sessions. It also gives me great pleasure to know that the NRA & Laura Ingraham Show boycotts organized by useful idiot David Camera Hogg and his merry band of flunkies is getting old, tedious and has backfired. Just ask Yeti coolers. Now about that report card.
https://www.dailywire.com/news/28958/istandwithlaura-backlash-builds-against-companies-james-barrett
Last post I described in detail my disgust with how flagrantly many legislators, including some we've been able to rely on in past sessions, smiled in our faces, took our PAC $ then royally screwed us. Most offensive of all was the 11th hour bomb in the form of the mandatory opioid course we can't even administer in house, like we do most other mandatory courses. I want nothing short of a ban on any contributions for any legislator who does this to us even once. I got some backlash about the message that might send to the grassroots members and the effect it could have on their willingness to chip in. I think nothing can have a more chilling effect on contributions than the fact we keep giving and they keep shafting us. This is especially true of members who don't follow the issues as closely as we in leadership do and are less likely to navigate the political weeds, devil in the details, etc. that we contend with on a regular basis. I'm sure all of you are familiar with some type of congressional report card, be it left or right organizations from Planned Parenthood to the NRA. If we wanna be extra careful and not just publish an excrement list with the names of those who betrayed us, great, I get it. Here's my proposal. We publish in every Capital Report during legislative session 2 lists, A & B. List A should read "The following legislators received support from FDAPAC during this session" List B should read "The following legislators supported the FDA's bills in committee during this session". If any legislator on list A does not appear on list B, they are cut off from any future FDAPAC $ until they prove they can be trusted again. I will be drafting a resolution for our FDA delegation to bring to the upcoming HOD. If we can't take a stand against this abuse from legislators, we deserve to get rolled every session.
Monday, May 14, 2018
Wednesday, March 28, 2018
"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!
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!
Sunday, March 4, 2018
"St. Valentine's Day Massacre- A Tale of Identity Politics"
It's been nearly 3 weeks since a monster whose name I will not repeat (I'll call him the shooter) took the lives of 17 innocent people. The original St. Valentine's Day Massacre was in 1929, for those of you with historical curiosity. That event, made famous in many old B&W movies, resulted in gangsters killing 7 rival gangsters, versus the 17 innocent students and faculty killed in Parkland.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Saint_Valentine%27s_Day_Massacre
I wanna go over the fallout from this recent event and talk about the many ways it could have and should have been prevented, as well as the ridiculous wrong targeting going on by the clueless on the anti 2A left, who think they finally got the act of barbarism (no, I won't call it a tragedy, that would be plane crash or fire) that's gonna serve their purpose to fulfill their true goal. That goal is the total prohibition of firearms & eventual confiscation of any in existence, a la Australia. I'll explain the identity politics in the title later on, I promise. The Aussie comparison is absurd, they have a much smaller, far more monolithic population than ours. It's not about picking which immigrant group or ethnicity commits more crime, it's purely a numbers deal. Every group has mostly decent, hard working folks who wanna improve their lives, as well as shiftless slackers and criminal vermin who come to new nations to either fleece the welfare systems or commit violent crimes. The US takes in more diverse groups and in higher numbers than any nation, which is why we have so much exposure to the negative parts of those immigrant groups wreaking havoc.
2 of the biggest lies parroted by the idiot students, their parents and the accomplice media are that the NRA is responsible for this shooting and they own Congress. No NRA member has ever committed a mass shooting and the NRA trains cops, has firearm safety programs and helps schools to better protect their structures and students, none of which these drones care one whit about. As for owning Congress, the NRA spent $200 million over 20 years, versus the $1.7 BILLION the lawmakers got last year, alone!
https://www.nytimes.com/2018/02/24/us/politics/nra-gun-control-florida.html
Contrary to the lies the left propagates, it is they, via their unions, who wield the big $.
http://freebeacon.com/issues/seven-unions-top-kochs-in-super-pac-spending-and-thats-just-the-money-we-know-about/
Let's start with the obvious, gun control has never stopped gun violence in America, see Chicago & Baltimore. Outlawing a particular firearm or magazine size doesn't work, either. The San Bernardino terrorist couple had pairs of 30-round mags duct taped together in a state that has already outlawed them years ago. Can you think of nations with tighter gun control than the UK, France, Germany & Belgium. There were more gun deaths from mass shootings there in 2015 than in the US during all of Obama's tenure!
http://www.foxnews.com/opinion/2015/12/03/facts-shoot-holes-in-obamas-claim-that-us-is-only-host-to-mass-killings.html
Another inconvenient truth is the USA ranks a paltry 11th in gun deaths per capita and most of the nations above us have very tough gun laws.
https://crimeresearch.org/2015/06/comparing-death-rates-from-mass-public-shootings-in-the-us-and-europe/
I won't go on with more facts, it makes no difference to the ignorant, agenda-driven left. They don't know what they don't know, they don't wanna know and they don't give a damn!
When I first heard the news in Parkland I was sad but not surprised. I figured it was some disgruntled student who should never have gotten that weapon, be it from a careless relative or an actual legal purchase, and I was correct. My sorrow and empathy for those poor students was short lived when I saw how quickly they were being made tools of the anti-gun left and their stupid parents, who should know better, were only too happy to allow it. When Kate Steinle was murdered by a POS who'd been deported 6 times, I don't remember her family making a media circus out of it, they made their appearances with quiet dignity. The same was true of poor little Jessica Lunsford, right here in FL, whose dad was nothing but gracious and polite. Contrast that to the Town Mob CNN (who else?) organized 1 week later. I commend Marco Rubio & Dana Loesch for taking the heat and standing up for common sense and the rule of law, more than I can say for the hapless, bumbling FBI, who were MIA. Those kids were disrespectful little pups and the parents who lost their kids were downright disgraceful, they didn't want any solutions, they just wanted to blame & humiliate those who had no fault in the act. To the father (Fred) who chastised Rubio over the "weapon of choice" (AR-15) I say this. There was a recent massacre in NYC where 12 cyclists in a bike lane were mowed down by an Islamic terrorist who used an SUV, there have been many more of these vehicle attacks with higher loss of life in Europe. Would Fred ban all SUVs? What about that hysterical mom who yelled at Dana Loesch about the fact we only had muskets when the 2A was first ratified? Well, if my math is correct, we had the 1A (which protects free speech) before the 2A. I'm pretty sure Al Gore hadn't gotten around to inventing the internet in 1789 and I'm really sure there were no cell phones, laptops, PCs or social media. Far more kids take their own lives from online bullying every year than die of gunfire, would hysterical mom ban the internet, cell phones and social media?
https://nobullying.com/bullying-suicide-statistics/
Now let's talk about the real causes of this atrocity. Aside from the guiltiest of all, the shooter, this was a massive failure on many fronts.
1) When seconds count, police are minutes away, now add to that a school security cam feed with a 20-minute delay, WTF?!
http://www.sun-sentinel.com/local/broward/parkland/florida-school-shooting/fl-florida-shooting-coral-springs-video-20180222-story.html
My $25 camera in my front desk area is live, includes HD & audio and I can access it with my cell phone, for God's sake.
2) The same Chicago based Promise Program ( thank you Obama & Holder!) that failed to report the theft crimes of Trayvon Martin, who was allowed to travel to Sanford and get shot, was also instrumental in covering for this shooter. He'd been expelled for threatening his girlfriend's new boyfriend with a knife in school. She dumped him because he physically abused her. Had his record been made public, he would never have passed the background check to buy the rifle.
https://www.rushlimbaugh.com/daily/2018/02/27/promise-program-exposed-by-this-show/
3) There were 4 armed BSO officers at the school and they stood back and did nothing, as kids and faculty were getting gunned down! The most spineless of them all, SRO Scot Peterson, used the pathetic excuse that he did no wrong and waited outside the classroom because he believed the gunfire sounds were coming from outside, ridiculous! BTW, if he felt he did no wrong, why did he quickly resign?http://www.breitbart.com/big-government/2018/02/23/report-four-sheriff-scott-israels-deputies-waited-outside-douglas-high-school-shooting/
4) The hapless FBI ignored or failed to act on a deluge of calls and reports, even from people close to this monster who knew him well and what he was planning to do.
http://www.abc.net.au/news/2018-02-17/florida-parkland-shooting-fbi-failed-to-act-on-gunman-tip/9457414
https://www.washingtonpost.com/national/red-flags-warnings-cries-for-help-how-a-system-built-to-stop-the-parkland-school-shooter-broke-down/2018/02/23/3ccff52c-18d9-11e8-b681-2d4d462a1921_story.html?utm_term=.ebcfd936a1e7
If he'd made any threats on Obama, he woulda been rounded up in a jiffy. Look what happened to that idiot who made that awful online documentary the Dems dishonestly attributed as an excuse for Benghazi.
https://www.americanthinker.com/articles/2015/10/hillarys_worst_crime_was_against_the_filmmaker.html
The students and parents were organized and made into useful idiot tools by various left wing, anti-gun groups. Any sympathy they had is long gone and they've become fair game. The idea the left pushes that these kids and their Manchurian parents are grieving and therefore unassailable is total BS, I don't buy it for 1 minute and neither should any fair minded person.
https://legalinsurrection.com/2018/02/huge-leftwing-activist-groups-behind-supposed-teen-organized-march-for-gun-control/
Now let's talk about identity politics. I'm referring to the incompetent, lying BSO Sheriff, Scott Israel. He was in charge after the bungled procedures that led to the FLL terror attack in the baggage claim area.
http://www.sun-sentinel.com/news/fort-lauderdale-hollywood-airport-shooting/fl-airport-shooting-after-action-release-20170815-story.html
How did this buffoon ever get elected sheriff? The answer is identity politics, you have a district of NY refugee liberals and they elected another NY liberal as their sheriff. You see, my friends, identity politics can occur anywhere with a plurality of like minded people, not just da hood or el barrio.
So, what can we do to prevent or at least minimize future attacks of this kind?
1) Train and deploy armed guards for all our schools. Why is it I go to Whole Foods and see a Coral Gables cop there, aren't our kids more precious than over priced groceries?!
2) Make the school properties more resistant to forced entry. Is that an admission we live in a screwed up society? Yes, let's get over it!
3) Raise the age to buy an AR-15 to 21. I'm hesitant to do this because I know it'll be a precedent and way in the the anti-gun nuts to incrementally erode our gun rights. I would NOT make that age 21 requirement apply for all long weapons as they are not used is mass shootings and millions of Americans aged 18-21 hunt and target shoot with these rifles and shotguns.
4) Enforce existing laws. The govt. (both parties) has only prosecuted 49-50 of 80,000+ cases where someone whose record prohibited them from buying ANY firearm, knowingly tried to do so anyway, by lying on the federal application.
5) Standardize the databases and require all 50 states to report all their data to it. Right now there are still several states that don't.
http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/nationworld/ct-fbi-gun-background-check-system-missing-records-20171110-story.html
https://www.thetrace.org/2016/08/atf-ridiculous-non-searchable-databases-explained/
6) Expand the disqualifying red flags to include school suspension, posting photos or other threatening content online (including animal abuse or mutilation) and membership in or admiration for gangs, terrorist groups or other lawless entities. If our cops and FBI can't round up these nutjobs early and are forced to wait for them to kill innocent people, nothing will change.
7) Repeal the Promise program and build more reform schools, boot camps, etc. There are certain types of kids in our schools that are there only because society has nowhere else to put them. They impede the education of the good students, at best, and commit property crimes, assault and murder at worst.
I find it most ironic that the AR-15 was first introduced to the general public in 1989 and we had no crisis of mass shootings back then. Our course, we also didn't have social media anonymity & isolation, kids online for 5-6 hours a day, bloody, violent video games that are so lifelike they mimic the videos the military uses to prepare troops for war. Let's ask ourselves what's happened to American society and the nuclear family in 30 years?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Saint_Valentine%27s_Day_Massacre
I wanna go over the fallout from this recent event and talk about the many ways it could have and should have been prevented, as well as the ridiculous wrong targeting going on by the clueless on the anti 2A left, who think they finally got the act of barbarism (no, I won't call it a tragedy, that would be plane crash or fire) that's gonna serve their purpose to fulfill their true goal. That goal is the total prohibition of firearms & eventual confiscation of any in existence, a la Australia. I'll explain the identity politics in the title later on, I promise. The Aussie comparison is absurd, they have a much smaller, far more monolithic population than ours. It's not about picking which immigrant group or ethnicity commits more crime, it's purely a numbers deal. Every group has mostly decent, hard working folks who wanna improve their lives, as well as shiftless slackers and criminal vermin who come to new nations to either fleece the welfare systems or commit violent crimes. The US takes in more diverse groups and in higher numbers than any nation, which is why we have so much exposure to the negative parts of those immigrant groups wreaking havoc.
2 of the biggest lies parroted by the idiot students, their parents and the accomplice media are that the NRA is responsible for this shooting and they own Congress. No NRA member has ever committed a mass shooting and the NRA trains cops, has firearm safety programs and helps schools to better protect their structures and students, none of which these drones care one whit about. As for owning Congress, the NRA spent $200 million over 20 years, versus the $1.7 BILLION the lawmakers got last year, alone!
https://www.nytimes.com/2018/02/24/us/politics/nra-gun-control-florida.html
Contrary to the lies the left propagates, it is they, via their unions, who wield the big $.
http://freebeacon.com/issues/seven-unions-top-kochs-in-super-pac-spending-and-thats-just-the-money-we-know-about/
Let's start with the obvious, gun control has never stopped gun violence in America, see Chicago & Baltimore. Outlawing a particular firearm or magazine size doesn't work, either. The San Bernardino terrorist couple had pairs of 30-round mags duct taped together in a state that has already outlawed them years ago. Can you think of nations with tighter gun control than the UK, France, Germany & Belgium. There were more gun deaths from mass shootings there in 2015 than in the US during all of Obama's tenure!
http://www.foxnews.com/opinion/2015/12/03/facts-shoot-holes-in-obamas-claim-that-us-is-only-host-to-mass-killings.html
Another inconvenient truth is the USA ranks a paltry 11th in gun deaths per capita and most of the nations above us have very tough gun laws.
https://crimeresearch.org/2015/06/comparing-death-rates-from-mass-public-shootings-in-the-us-and-europe/
I won't go on with more facts, it makes no difference to the ignorant, agenda-driven left. They don't know what they don't know, they don't wanna know and they don't give a damn!
When I first heard the news in Parkland I was sad but not surprised. I figured it was some disgruntled student who should never have gotten that weapon, be it from a careless relative or an actual legal purchase, and I was correct. My sorrow and empathy for those poor students was short lived when I saw how quickly they were being made tools of the anti-gun left and their stupid parents, who should know better, were only too happy to allow it. When Kate Steinle was murdered by a POS who'd been deported 6 times, I don't remember her family making a media circus out of it, they made their appearances with quiet dignity. The same was true of poor little Jessica Lunsford, right here in FL, whose dad was nothing but gracious and polite. Contrast that to the Town Mob CNN (who else?) organized 1 week later. I commend Marco Rubio & Dana Loesch for taking the heat and standing up for common sense and the rule of law, more than I can say for the hapless, bumbling FBI, who were MIA. Those kids were disrespectful little pups and the parents who lost their kids were downright disgraceful, they didn't want any solutions, they just wanted to blame & humiliate those who had no fault in the act. To the father (Fred) who chastised Rubio over the "weapon of choice" (AR-15) I say this. There was a recent massacre in NYC where 12 cyclists in a bike lane were mowed down by an Islamic terrorist who used an SUV, there have been many more of these vehicle attacks with higher loss of life in Europe. Would Fred ban all SUVs? What about that hysterical mom who yelled at Dana Loesch about the fact we only had muskets when the 2A was first ratified? Well, if my math is correct, we had the 1A (which protects free speech) before the 2A. I'm pretty sure Al Gore hadn't gotten around to inventing the internet in 1789 and I'm really sure there were no cell phones, laptops, PCs or social media. Far more kids take their own lives from online bullying every year than die of gunfire, would hysterical mom ban the internet, cell phones and social media?
https://nobullying.com/bullying-suicide-statistics/
Now let's talk about the real causes of this atrocity. Aside from the guiltiest of all, the shooter, this was a massive failure on many fronts.
1) When seconds count, police are minutes away, now add to that a school security cam feed with a 20-minute delay, WTF?!
http://www.sun-sentinel.com/local/broward/parkland/florida-school-shooting/fl-florida-shooting-coral-springs-video-20180222-story.html
My $25 camera in my front desk area is live, includes HD & audio and I can access it with my cell phone, for God's sake.
2) The same Chicago based Promise Program ( thank you Obama & Holder!) that failed to report the theft crimes of Trayvon Martin, who was allowed to travel to Sanford and get shot, was also instrumental in covering for this shooter. He'd been expelled for threatening his girlfriend's new boyfriend with a knife in school. She dumped him because he physically abused her. Had his record been made public, he would never have passed the background check to buy the rifle.
https://www.rushlimbaugh.com/daily/2018/02/27/promise-program-exposed-by-this-show/
3) There were 4 armed BSO officers at the school and they stood back and did nothing, as kids and faculty were getting gunned down! The most spineless of them all, SRO Scot Peterson, used the pathetic excuse that he did no wrong and waited outside the classroom because he believed the gunfire sounds were coming from outside, ridiculous! BTW, if he felt he did no wrong, why did he quickly resign?http://www.breitbart.com/big-government/2018/02/23/report-four-sheriff-scott-israels-deputies-waited-outside-douglas-high-school-shooting/
4) The hapless FBI ignored or failed to act on a deluge of calls and reports, even from people close to this monster who knew him well and what he was planning to do.
http://www.abc.net.au/news/2018-02-17/florida-parkland-shooting-fbi-failed-to-act-on-gunman-tip/9457414
https://www.washingtonpost.com/national/red-flags-warnings-cries-for-help-how-a-system-built-to-stop-the-parkland-school-shooter-broke-down/2018/02/23/3ccff52c-18d9-11e8-b681-2d4d462a1921_story.html?utm_term=.ebcfd936a1e7
If he'd made any threats on Obama, he woulda been rounded up in a jiffy. Look what happened to that idiot who made that awful online documentary the Dems dishonestly attributed as an excuse for Benghazi.
https://www.americanthinker.com/articles/2015/10/hillarys_worst_crime_was_against_the_filmmaker.html
The students and parents were organized and made into useful idiot tools by various left wing, anti-gun groups. Any sympathy they had is long gone and they've become fair game. The idea the left pushes that these kids and their Manchurian parents are grieving and therefore unassailable is total BS, I don't buy it for 1 minute and neither should any fair minded person.
https://legalinsurrection.com/2018/02/huge-leftwing-activist-groups-behind-supposed-teen-organized-march-for-gun-control/
Now let's talk about identity politics. I'm referring to the incompetent, lying BSO Sheriff, Scott Israel. He was in charge after the bungled procedures that led to the FLL terror attack in the baggage claim area.
http://www.sun-sentinel.com/news/fort-lauderdale-hollywood-airport-shooting/fl-airport-shooting-after-action-release-20170815-story.html
How did this buffoon ever get elected sheriff? The answer is identity politics, you have a district of NY refugee liberals and they elected another NY liberal as their sheriff. You see, my friends, identity politics can occur anywhere with a plurality of like minded people, not just da hood or el barrio.
So, what can we do to prevent or at least minimize future attacks of this kind?
1) Train and deploy armed guards for all our schools. Why is it I go to Whole Foods and see a Coral Gables cop there, aren't our kids more precious than over priced groceries?!
2) Make the school properties more resistant to forced entry. Is that an admission we live in a screwed up society? Yes, let's get over it!
3) Raise the age to buy an AR-15 to 21. I'm hesitant to do this because I know it'll be a precedent and way in the the anti-gun nuts to incrementally erode our gun rights. I would NOT make that age 21 requirement apply for all long weapons as they are not used is mass shootings and millions of Americans aged 18-21 hunt and target shoot with these rifles and shotguns.
4) Enforce existing laws. The govt. (both parties) has only prosecuted 49-50 of 80,000+ cases where someone whose record prohibited them from buying ANY firearm, knowingly tried to do so anyway, by lying on the federal application.
5) Standardize the databases and require all 50 states to report all their data to it. Right now there are still several states that don't.
http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/nationworld/ct-fbi-gun-background-check-system-missing-records-20171110-story.html
https://www.thetrace.org/2016/08/atf-ridiculous-non-searchable-databases-explained/
6) Expand the disqualifying red flags to include school suspension, posting photos or other threatening content online (including animal abuse or mutilation) and membership in or admiration for gangs, terrorist groups or other lawless entities. If our cops and FBI can't round up these nutjobs early and are forced to wait for them to kill innocent people, nothing will change.
7) Repeal the Promise program and build more reform schools, boot camps, etc. There are certain types of kids in our schools that are there only because society has nowhere else to put them. They impede the education of the good students, at best, and commit property crimes, assault and murder at worst.
I find it most ironic that the AR-15 was first introduced to the general public in 1989 and we had no crisis of mass shootings back then. Our course, we also didn't have social media anonymity & isolation, kids online for 5-6 hours a day, bloody, violent video games that are so lifelike they mimic the videos the military uses to prepare troops for war. Let's ask ourselves what's happened to American society and the nuclear family in 30 years?
Friday, February 9, 2018
"Dentists Can Resist, Too!": Dentist Day Edition
Hello to all of you, I took a month off and wanted to wait till DDOH passed to post again. My title takes a shot at the asinine RESIST bumper stickers sported by those who think they're gonna overturn an election. I emailed the DHAT bill's sponsor early on and told him he'd face strong resistance, which he has. I hope you all enjoyed the Super Bowl, it was the first time I'd watched an NFL game all season. They wanna kneel, I won't watch, it's that simple. This sheriff said it best with this billboard.
It was a good game and seeing the "gargling with Drano" look on Bill Belichick's face was fun! Congrats to the Eagles and their talented upstart QB. That said, this was a "defenseless" Super Bowl. My God, I've never seen 2 SB teams with such pitiful pass defenses, it was a question of who's secondary got torched the most, LOL. The NFL got clobbered this season in the wallet, let's see what they do next year.
Before I get to DDOH, I just wanna touch on the Trump vs. coup plotters saga. As more and more facts are known, via things like emails between the traitorous conspirators that confirmed they knew the entire dossier ploy was a scam, the more this sham falls apart. The Left wanted to drag this thing into the Nov. midterm elections, maybe not so much now, eh? It's really quite simple, the Billary Machine hired an MI6 hack to fabricate a fictitious golden showers dossier and used it to obtain a FISA warrant to spy on the Trump campaign. To add insult to injury, it was renewed 3 times. Then there's the Lisa Page- Peter Strzok affair and tons of conversations about how determined they were to derail the Trump campaign.
http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2018/01/25/missing-text-messages-between-two-fbi-employees-have-been-located-according-to-department-justice-official.html
Clearly these egomaniacs didn't think Hillary could possibly lose and they figured when she won, all of this would be covered up and swept aside. Oops! Anyway, I think this will continue to unravel and fall apart. For me, simply having it go away is way too good the for the traitors. Many of these scumbags need to go to jail!
https://nypost.com/2018/01/10/the-trump-dossiers-credibility-is-collapsing/
Now let's talk about this Tuesday. I don't recall seeing the huge turnout we had for DDOH in many years, and we needed every one of them to show up. I'm pretty sure the S. Fla. turnout was a new record!
A few weeks ago I spoke to the Latin dental study club here and sounded the alarm. They were incredulous as to the procedures a high school grad with 3 years of vocational training could perform and with only general supervision, i.e. the dentist is playing golf. We've had many years of dud issues or housekeeping but there's nothing like a true threat to the way we practice and the detrimental effect on patients to rally the troops! 2 weeks ago, this DHAT bill was first heard in a House Healthcare subcommittee and the sponsor (Miami's own newly elected Rep. Daniel Perez) was already backpedaling. He knew he didn't have the votes to pass such a draconian invasion of our profession by people who even admit they are totally clueless about any aspect of it. So Perez did a strike all, which is basically drawing a line through every word of his original DHAT language, and amended it to be funding for a study to determine the causes of lack of access to care for the demographic of interest here. As if we haven't known those causes and their solutions for decades! They had people from Pew Foundation going up and even the former dean of UFCD, sellout shill, Frank Catalanotto, pleading for this bad piece of public policy. He talked about 168,000 visits to FL's emergency rooms for dental pain and how many of them were potentially life threatening infections. My counter to that is that there's no way in hell a DHAT is trained or equipped to treat this level of dental disease. These low access patients have some of the worst, most difficult dental problems to treat, not "simple" fillings or "simple" extractions. The amendment barely passed with the committee chair, Rep. Jason Brodeur, voting to break the tie. More on him later.
This Tuesday was DDOH and a large number of us crowded into the committee room to hear the House Health Appropriations Committee consider whether or not to fund the sham study Perez kept in as a lifeline. Testimony and debate went long, hot and heavy. In the end, there were still not enough votes to pass the bill, so the committee chairman, Jason Brodeur, called for a T.P. (temporary postponement) and got it unanimously. What should have happened was taking a vote and this turkey killed for this year's session, not this stay of execution. Yes, it's a win to force these ridiculous maneuvers from the opposition because they have no other option, but it still leaves the issue dangling. It became clear to me Chmn. Brodeur is not our friend. The snide remark he slipped in about loan repayment, the true solution to placing dentists where the neediest poor patients are (which 45 states are currently doing) left no doubt. Brodeur remarked that he was against it and the marketplace should take care of this issue. Newsflash, Jason, the marketplace has already spoken loudly and clearly about this patient group. Medicaid pays crap, few of us wanna work for 30% of UCR, and these people are without a place to get their dental care! This guy can't possibly be so obtuse, I think it's pure cynicism and another factor. That factor is Brodeur's occupation is healthcare consultant. Look at his profile and it's clear why he's in favor of DHATs. This is a guy with a resume that's deep into managed care and Big Pharma!
https://www.linkedin.com/in/jason-brodeur-0057b67
Have any of you wondered why all this fervor for DHATs and what's really behind it? Aside from govt. and regulators sinking their meat hooks into dentistry, I believe there are some major McDentist big players who stand to get hefty, lucrative contracts if this thing ever becomes law. This reminds me of 15 years ago when ADI got a sweetheart deal for Medicaid pts., screwed over those few dentists who did treat Medicaid and gave a no-bid gift to Mike Fernandez- disgusting! But we're always admonished not to come off as self serving. Is there anyone more self serving than conflicted politicians? The Dem. Ranking Member, Rep. David Richardson met with us and told us he'd planned to vote the bill up. Anyone who'd heard the grilling he was giving Perez would have concluded the complete opposite. This is the BS Kabuki theater that many politicians often engage in, they say one thing but mean another. Richardson also told us when all we can do is send up a bunch of dentists to do nothing but oppose in unison, it looks very self serving. I wonder if David sees 2 committee hearings on a bad bill that lacks the support to pass, yet keeps getting bailed out, as self serving? I say this because it's well known that legislators don't like to humiliate one of their won. I guess they'd rather foist a bad law on unsuspecting Floridians than upset a green horn rookie who's clueless and out of his league.
I can only hope this study dies without passage. At least the original DHAT language is DOA for this session. I've been reassured that they can't stick that language onto some new bill. I hope that's correct because Richardson told us he wouldn't be surprised if that happened. It's clear to me this issue isn't going away and we're gonna be fighting it for many years. BTW, the only state (lower 48) where DHATs practice is MN and in 10 years there are only a few in rural areas. Most are concentrated in Minneapolis- St. Paul. This bill has nothing to do with access to care and we must fight it with our last breath!
Before I get to DDOH, I just wanna touch on the Trump vs. coup plotters saga. As more and more facts are known, via things like emails between the traitorous conspirators that confirmed they knew the entire dossier ploy was a scam, the more this sham falls apart. The Left wanted to drag this thing into the Nov. midterm elections, maybe not so much now, eh? It's really quite simple, the Billary Machine hired an MI6 hack to fabricate a fictitious golden showers dossier and used it to obtain a FISA warrant to spy on the Trump campaign. To add insult to injury, it was renewed 3 times. Then there's the Lisa Page- Peter Strzok affair and tons of conversations about how determined they were to derail the Trump campaign.
http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2018/01/25/missing-text-messages-between-two-fbi-employees-have-been-located-according-to-department-justice-official.html
Clearly these egomaniacs didn't think Hillary could possibly lose and they figured when she won, all of this would be covered up and swept aside. Oops! Anyway, I think this will continue to unravel and fall apart. For me, simply having it go away is way too good the for the traitors. Many of these scumbags need to go to jail!
https://nypost.com/2018/01/10/the-trump-dossiers-credibility-is-collapsing/
Now let's talk about this Tuesday. I don't recall seeing the huge turnout we had for DDOH in many years, and we needed every one of them to show up. I'm pretty sure the S. Fla. turnout was a new record!
This Tuesday was DDOH and a large number of us crowded into the committee room to hear the House Health Appropriations Committee consider whether or not to fund the sham study Perez kept in as a lifeline. Testimony and debate went long, hot and heavy. In the end, there were still not enough votes to pass the bill, so the committee chairman, Jason Brodeur, called for a T.P. (temporary postponement) and got it unanimously. What should have happened was taking a vote and this turkey killed for this year's session, not this stay of execution. Yes, it's a win to force these ridiculous maneuvers from the opposition because they have no other option, but it still leaves the issue dangling. It became clear to me Chmn. Brodeur is not our friend. The snide remark he slipped in about loan repayment, the true solution to placing dentists where the neediest poor patients are (which 45 states are currently doing) left no doubt. Brodeur remarked that he was against it and the marketplace should take care of this issue. Newsflash, Jason, the marketplace has already spoken loudly and clearly about this patient group. Medicaid pays crap, few of us wanna work for 30% of UCR, and these people are without a place to get their dental care! This guy can't possibly be so obtuse, I think it's pure cynicism and another factor. That factor is Brodeur's occupation is healthcare consultant. Look at his profile and it's clear why he's in favor of DHATs. This is a guy with a resume that's deep into managed care and Big Pharma!
https://www.linkedin.com/in/jason-brodeur-0057b67
Have any of you wondered why all this fervor for DHATs and what's really behind it? Aside from govt. and regulators sinking their meat hooks into dentistry, I believe there are some major McDentist big players who stand to get hefty, lucrative contracts if this thing ever becomes law. This reminds me of 15 years ago when ADI got a sweetheart deal for Medicaid pts., screwed over those few dentists who did treat Medicaid and gave a no-bid gift to Mike Fernandez- disgusting! But we're always admonished not to come off as self serving. Is there anyone more self serving than conflicted politicians? The Dem. Ranking Member, Rep. David Richardson met with us and told us he'd planned to vote the bill up. Anyone who'd heard the grilling he was giving Perez would have concluded the complete opposite. This is the BS Kabuki theater that many politicians often engage in, they say one thing but mean another. Richardson also told us when all we can do is send up a bunch of dentists to do nothing but oppose in unison, it looks very self serving. I wonder if David sees 2 committee hearings on a bad bill that lacks the support to pass, yet keeps getting bailed out, as self serving? I say this because it's well known that legislators don't like to humiliate one of their won. I guess they'd rather foist a bad law on unsuspecting Floridians than upset a green horn rookie who's clueless and out of his league.
I can only hope this study dies without passage. At least the original DHAT language is DOA for this session. I've been reassured that they can't stick that language onto some new bill. I hope that's correct because Richardson told us he wouldn't be surprised if that happened. It's clear to me this issue isn't going away and we're gonna be fighting it for many years. BTW, the only state (lower 48) where DHATs practice is MN and in 10 years there are only a few in rural areas. Most are concentrated in Minneapolis- St. Paul. This bill has nothing to do with access to care and we must fight it with our last breath!
Tuesday, December 5, 2017
"What Has Organized Dentistry Done For Me Lately?"- Millennial Edition
Yes, that's right, this one's for all you young dentists, at the request of a young dentist. Don't worry if you're an older dentist, like me, I think you'll find this issue relevant and useful for your dealings with our younger colleagues. I hope my young readers will share this piece with your same aged pals.
It turns out your ADA & FDA have done plenty for you in the past 20 years, much of which often goes unheralded and remains unknown to our grassroots members. Those accomplishments have been both things we've supported and (in some cases) even made law as well as opposed and successfully shut down. For those of you who see DDOH and wonder what the heck it is, it's Dentist Day on the Hill and it takes place every year during the legislative session in Tallahassee. I've attended every one but 2, where a last minute airline strike and a nasty storm resulted in cancelled flights. Most dental legislation is not federal, it's state law and must be fought at the state level. I'm gonna give you examples of what a strong dental association can accomplish and what happens in states with weak ones.
The first ever DDOH was in 1996 and the issues we faced included mandating all dental offices to hire a "medical director" for the small fee of ~$50,000 annual salary. Obviously, that salary would be much higher 21 years later. We shut that one down slam dunk and most dentists have no idea it ever happened. These types of asinine bills usually come up because some vested interest who stands to benefit from its passage into law will approach legislators with a large political contribution in exchange for their support. The other issue that year was denturism, I wonder how many of you young members even know what denturism is? I'll tell you, it's your denture lab tech being legally allowed to see pts. in a dental op they have in their denturism practice, taking impressions, doing the try-ins, finishing and delivering complete and partial dentures to people who used to be our pts.! This bill came about due to a nice lady in the FL House whose mother was frustrated with her difficulty finding a Medicaid dentist to make her nice, cheap dentures. We shut that one down, too. States like MT, UT, AZ, CO, OR & ME were too weak to stop it and it became law. From what I researched, MT & UT have repealed it, good for them! I don't have to tell you once a bad law sinks its claws into a state, it can be very tough to repeal. So, these are 2 we stopped.
Another issue we passed was coverage for partial dentures for Medicaid pts. Sounds like a no-brainer, but Medicaid used to only cover complete dentures. That meant dentists often found themselves removing perfectly good teeth for the sole purpose of the pt. getting his dentures! Can any of you imagine yourselves (with a non-Medicaid pt.) going before the BOD in a disciplinary hearing with the board members showing your pt.'s FMX or Pano on a big screen and asking you why you removed 5-6 teeth that were strong and free of caries? That was the talking point I used on legislators, I told them "if I were to do to my patients what your law mandates I do, I'd lose my license!". It worked and we got coverage for partials.
Next on our hit list was another effort to mandate every dental lab in FL to hire a CDT. Never mind that it would have taken 3-4 years for all the vo-tech programs in FL that produce CDTs to graduate enough for the 1,200 (legal) labs, it was a ridiculous, self serving effort by the FDLA, who gave $ to a FL legislator to push this. We demolished it in the first healthcare committee hearing!
More recently, there was an effort (2005) by a group called FIDA (Fla. Intl. Dental Assn.) to allow foreign dental grads to sit for the ADEX without any US dental training. Aside from the fact there's an enormous difference between what's taught in US dental schools, vs. Latin America, it was a kick in the teeth (pun intended) to young US dental grads with staggering loan debt. These folks don't have such a debt burden. would work for peanuts and cut you out of the marketplace. A Colombian dental grad who has US training and did things the right way, accompanied me to Tallahassee to meet with FIDA's Pres., a Rep. they were appealing to and their lobbyist. This clueless legislator felt what we did was no big deal and could be taught to these foreign dentists in a setting like plumbers or air conditioning technicians! We educated him and it went no further. The other big foreign dental grad issue has been around since 2010 and is always looking to surface again. That's from 50+ Cuban dental grads who practice under public health permit in CA but wanna come to FL and sit for ADEX sans US dental training. We've fought this for many sessions and always prevail. In 2011, they hired a former FL Rep. as a lobbyist and his sitting FL Sen. brother got it heard in committee. We stopped it right there and I was both validated and relieved when I heard 2 of those Senate committee members reading from the talking points I'd sent them, verbatim.
The current issue we face is that of DHATs (Dental Health Aide Therapist), which are currently legal in 4 states and operating in 2. Let's just call them dental therapists for simplicity. These are not super assistants, my friends, these are high school grads with 3 years tech training and they can inject anesthesia, do fillings, pulpotomies and extractions! They are promoted as the equivalent of a nurse practitioner, which they are not. Nurse practitioners have far more education and training, but they don't perform the irreversible and invasive procedures DHAT's do. There is power and big $ at play here and both the Pew and Kellogg's Foundations are heavily invested in getting this issue to pass in FL. They are aided and abetted by the former dean of the UFCD, Frank Catalanotto. This movement has a nationalist agenda, believes all healthcare (us included) should be delivered in a public health, one-size-fits-all model and have no problem with foisting lesser trained persons on unsuspecting patients. The DHAT model originated in New Zealand and has been a dismal failure in preventing dental disease, which remains rampant there. It's a well known reality that we cannot drill, fill & pull our way to dental health. Without prevention and education, nothing can improve.
The DHAT proponents cite lack of access to care as the reason for a non-dentist to do dental procedures but the true solution does not lie there. With 3 FL schools cranking out dentists and dentists who come to FL from other states, we do not have a lack of dentists, we have a maldistribution of dentists. The most successful model to put dentists where the low income, limited access pts. are is loan repayment. That's where a new dental grad agrees to work in a low access setting and the state gives them a financial return to help pay off their debt. It has worked very well in other states and we finally (after many years of trying) got it passed in FL last session, only to be vetoed by Gov. Rick Scott. Since he's gonna be running for U.S. Senate in 2018, I don't think he'll be dumb enough to veto it again, but one never knows with Rick Scott. The good news is we do have both a House & Sen. version of the loan repayment bill for this session. The bad news is we also have a newly elected Rep. Daniel Perez who's filed a bill that would allow DHATs to operate in FL. If he withdraws it, we'll treat it like a rookie mistake and move on. If he does not, he will face vigorous opposition! There are other issues we've dealt with successfully, of lesser impact, but these are big.
So, in closing, let me share with my young colleagues some things I've learned over 22 years of fighting in the political weeds:
1- Legislation will either be done FOR us or TO us, it all depends on how involved and engaged or disconnected and apathetic we choose to be. (I coined this one, myself)
2- We are either at the table or on the menu.
3- Party affiliation means nothing when it comes to our issues. We are the Tooth Party when in Tallahassee or DC, no Rs or Ds.
4- Historically, our issues have been both advanced as well as opposed by both parties. I'd have to say we've had more interaction with Republicans because of their majorities in both legislative chambers. Case in point, all the bad bills mentioned above were sponsored by GOP legislators. All you young dentists are threatened like no dental generation before you ever has been. We're told not to be perceived as self serving in the eyes of legislators, which is quite ironic when you consider they can be some of the most self serving people there are, LOL. In advocacy for one's profession and the benefit of the citizens (i.e. our pts.) it can sometimes get heated, tense and downright ugly. My advice to all of you is get involved, get tough, never give up, don't allow the opposition to intimidate you and always take the fight to them. Life is never fair and practicing good dentistry is a part of life.
It turns out your ADA & FDA have done plenty for you in the past 20 years, much of which often goes unheralded and remains unknown to our grassroots members. Those accomplishments have been both things we've supported and (in some cases) even made law as well as opposed and successfully shut down. For those of you who see DDOH and wonder what the heck it is, it's Dentist Day on the Hill and it takes place every year during the legislative session in Tallahassee. I've attended every one but 2, where a last minute airline strike and a nasty storm resulted in cancelled flights. Most dental legislation is not federal, it's state law and must be fought at the state level. I'm gonna give you examples of what a strong dental association can accomplish and what happens in states with weak ones.
The first ever DDOH was in 1996 and the issues we faced included mandating all dental offices to hire a "medical director" for the small fee of ~$50,000 annual salary. Obviously, that salary would be much higher 21 years later. We shut that one down slam dunk and most dentists have no idea it ever happened. These types of asinine bills usually come up because some vested interest who stands to benefit from its passage into law will approach legislators with a large political contribution in exchange for their support. The other issue that year was denturism, I wonder how many of you young members even know what denturism is? I'll tell you, it's your denture lab tech being legally allowed to see pts. in a dental op they have in their denturism practice, taking impressions, doing the try-ins, finishing and delivering complete and partial dentures to people who used to be our pts.! This bill came about due to a nice lady in the FL House whose mother was frustrated with her difficulty finding a Medicaid dentist to make her nice, cheap dentures. We shut that one down, too. States like MT, UT, AZ, CO, OR & ME were too weak to stop it and it became law. From what I researched, MT & UT have repealed it, good for them! I don't have to tell you once a bad law sinks its claws into a state, it can be very tough to repeal. So, these are 2 we stopped.
Another issue we passed was coverage for partial dentures for Medicaid pts. Sounds like a no-brainer, but Medicaid used to only cover complete dentures. That meant dentists often found themselves removing perfectly good teeth for the sole purpose of the pt. getting his dentures! Can any of you imagine yourselves (with a non-Medicaid pt.) going before the BOD in a disciplinary hearing with the board members showing your pt.'s FMX or Pano on a big screen and asking you why you removed 5-6 teeth that were strong and free of caries? That was the talking point I used on legislators, I told them "if I were to do to my patients what your law mandates I do, I'd lose my license!". It worked and we got coverage for partials.
Next on our hit list was another effort to mandate every dental lab in FL to hire a CDT. Never mind that it would have taken 3-4 years for all the vo-tech programs in FL that produce CDTs to graduate enough for the 1,200 (legal) labs, it was a ridiculous, self serving effort by the FDLA, who gave $ to a FL legislator to push this. We demolished it in the first healthcare committee hearing!
More recently, there was an effort (2005) by a group called FIDA (Fla. Intl. Dental Assn.) to allow foreign dental grads to sit for the ADEX without any US dental training. Aside from the fact there's an enormous difference between what's taught in US dental schools, vs. Latin America, it was a kick in the teeth (pun intended) to young US dental grads with staggering loan debt. These folks don't have such a debt burden. would work for peanuts and cut you out of the marketplace. A Colombian dental grad who has US training and did things the right way, accompanied me to Tallahassee to meet with FIDA's Pres., a Rep. they were appealing to and their lobbyist. This clueless legislator felt what we did was no big deal and could be taught to these foreign dentists in a setting like plumbers or air conditioning technicians! We educated him and it went no further. The other big foreign dental grad issue has been around since 2010 and is always looking to surface again. That's from 50+ Cuban dental grads who practice under public health permit in CA but wanna come to FL and sit for ADEX sans US dental training. We've fought this for many sessions and always prevail. In 2011, they hired a former FL Rep. as a lobbyist and his sitting FL Sen. brother got it heard in committee. We stopped it right there and I was both validated and relieved when I heard 2 of those Senate committee members reading from the talking points I'd sent them, verbatim.
The current issue we face is that of DHATs (Dental Health Aide Therapist), which are currently legal in 4 states and operating in 2. Let's just call them dental therapists for simplicity. These are not super assistants, my friends, these are high school grads with 3 years tech training and they can inject anesthesia, do fillings, pulpotomies and extractions! They are promoted as the equivalent of a nurse practitioner, which they are not. Nurse practitioners have far more education and training, but they don't perform the irreversible and invasive procedures DHAT's do. There is power and big $ at play here and both the Pew and Kellogg's Foundations are heavily invested in getting this issue to pass in FL. They are aided and abetted by the former dean of the UFCD, Frank Catalanotto. This movement has a nationalist agenda, believes all healthcare (us included) should be delivered in a public health, one-size-fits-all model and have no problem with foisting lesser trained persons on unsuspecting patients. The DHAT model originated in New Zealand and has been a dismal failure in preventing dental disease, which remains rampant there. It's a well known reality that we cannot drill, fill & pull our way to dental health. Without prevention and education, nothing can improve.
The DHAT proponents cite lack of access to care as the reason for a non-dentist to do dental procedures but the true solution does not lie there. With 3 FL schools cranking out dentists and dentists who come to FL from other states, we do not have a lack of dentists, we have a maldistribution of dentists. The most successful model to put dentists where the low income, limited access pts. are is loan repayment. That's where a new dental grad agrees to work in a low access setting and the state gives them a financial return to help pay off their debt. It has worked very well in other states and we finally (after many years of trying) got it passed in FL last session, only to be vetoed by Gov. Rick Scott. Since he's gonna be running for U.S. Senate in 2018, I don't think he'll be dumb enough to veto it again, but one never knows with Rick Scott. The good news is we do have both a House & Sen. version of the loan repayment bill for this session. The bad news is we also have a newly elected Rep. Daniel Perez who's filed a bill that would allow DHATs to operate in FL. If he withdraws it, we'll treat it like a rookie mistake and move on. If he does not, he will face vigorous opposition! There are other issues we've dealt with successfully, of lesser impact, but these are big.
So, in closing, let me share with my young colleagues some things I've learned over 22 years of fighting in the political weeds:
1- Legislation will either be done FOR us or TO us, it all depends on how involved and engaged or disconnected and apathetic we choose to be. (I coined this one, myself)
2- We are either at the table or on the menu.
3- Party affiliation means nothing when it comes to our issues. We are the Tooth Party when in Tallahassee or DC, no Rs or Ds.
4- Historically, our issues have been both advanced as well as opposed by both parties. I'd have to say we've had more interaction with Republicans because of their majorities in both legislative chambers. Case in point, all the bad bills mentioned above were sponsored by GOP legislators. All you young dentists are threatened like no dental generation before you ever has been. We're told not to be perceived as self serving in the eyes of legislators, which is quite ironic when you consider they can be some of the most self serving people there are, LOL. In advocacy for one's profession and the benefit of the citizens (i.e. our pts.) it can sometimes get heated, tense and downright ugly. My advice to all of you is get involved, get tough, never give up, don't allow the opposition to intimidate you and always take the fight to them. Life is never fair and practicing good dentistry is a part of life.
Saturday, November 4, 2017
"American Coup, Terrorism & A Needless Electoral Loss"
Wow, have things been happening in the last 5 weeks! The coup I refer to is the deep state plot to remove Trump and the asinine complicity of not only his own party's RINOs, but even his inept AG. Yes, it was Jeff Sessions who recused himself from the Russian BS scam, hoping to appear fair and be liked by his enemies-yes, enemies. When will stupid Republicans ever learn that they will never be liked or admired by those sworn to the destruction of our nation's culture, heritage and future?! I expect that kind of spinelessness from RINOs in blue states but not a good ol' boy from a deep red state who had the nads to openly support Trump from the get go. By recusing himself, Sessions opened the door to his deputy lackey to then appoint Bob Mueller, a deep state hack and Obama butt boy, to destroy a political opponent. This was the kind of thing you'd expect if the Dems were in charge of House & Senate, which they're not. Sessions needs to grow a pair and start investigating the Clinton Foundation and the treasonous Russian Ur deal. Trump had the good sense to use DC outsiders for his most crucial cabinet posts but he really screwed up with DC insider Sessions. This farce will all go for naught but waste plenty of time. As long as our jobs and economy continue to improve, the voters will have little use for this side show and its fully invested clowns.
We've seen terror attacks in Vegas, from a deranged WASP who was on anxiolitic meds and never should have gotten that arsenal, as well as a maniacal sub human who came here from an Islamic toilet nation to kill innocents in NYC and brag about it. In Vegas, there was more than one shooter, which the media has totally ignored. See for yourselves.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IdoQq5bn7b4
This is yet another govt. false flag operation and Paddock was probably a patsy who likely did some of the shooting but was also assisted. There have also been "crisis actors" seen in more than one mass shooting event in different times and locations, what a coincidence. Wake up, my friends, our govt. cannot be trusted!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B3OkjZ9Deos
If any of you do even a basic search, you can find many of these cases and none of them get media coverage. There's a reason that Mandalay Bay security guard disappeared on the day he was booked for several interviews, was sequestered for 2 days and his family warned not to comment on the Vegas shootings.
https://www.reviewjournal.com/crime/shootings/mandalay-bay-security-guard-skips-tv-interviews-after-las-vegas-shooting/
The POS in the NYC terrorist attack last week is yet more proof of why the Diversity Lotto program must be trashed. Can't blame this one on Barry, though he did do his level best to load the nation up with jihadists in his 8 years. This suicidal policy was enacted during the time of Bush 41, a useful idiot and globalist if ever there was one. Why does America have this crazy obsession with aggressively enticing people who hate our culture and way of life into coming here?! When I came from Cuba, it soon became my dream to become an American and I love this country like no other. On many occasions I've seen ungrateful Cubans (more recently arrived) who speak ill of this great country, as well as other Latinos. Sometimes they look at me and think I don't habla, so I don't know what they're saying. Well, I can assure you the verbal barrage they get from me is swift and strong. I tell them them they're damn lucky to be here, they should thank this nation and will not be missed if they so dislike the USA that they return to their dysfunctional native countries. The reason I bring this up is we DO NOT see that in the Muslim enclaves. They have neither the moral fiber nor courage to take on the terrorist elements within their ranks and even aid and abet them when they try to avoid the authorities after an attack. This was plainly seen in Brussels after the Bataclan & stadium attacks, they hid the ringleader for weeks.
The left is wild about background checks for me and you when we try to lawfully buy a firearm, which is fine by me. I'd add the same level of scrutiny to ANY Muslim wanting to buy or rent a truck! Check all their internet activity and issue them a permit, only after they've been vetted. It's not perfect but will prevent many attacks. Is this profiling? Damn right it is! When the FBI was going after the Mafia they profiled Italians, in Miami the drug wars had profiling of Cubans and Colombians. Scotland Yard certainly profiled Irish when fighting IRA terror. Spain did the same with Basques when fighting ETA. The FBI & DHS know where the Wahabi mosques are that radicalize these losers, yet nothing is done to shut them down or eavesdrop on them. Di Blasio even suspended programs that helped ferret out terrorists, but he probably has no fear of losing an election. No numbers of American lives lost to terrorist scum are acceptable losses. See the price of PC: http://ussanews.com/News1/2017/11/02/bombshell-bill-de-blasio-ended-surveillance-of-mosque-the-nyc-terrorist-attended-video/
This nation either extricates its head from the terminus of its alimentary canal or we go on accepting the "new normal".
Rounding out our terror list of late is a TX white trash monster who gunned down 50+, killing 27, in a church with an AR-15 he should have never been able to legally obtain. Much like the 9-11 terrorist hijackers did not violate any of the rules at that time for carrying box cutters on board, this POS passed a background check because the USAF failed to report his bad conduct discharge for domestic battery, arrest and jail time. WTH is going on in our PC military these days??!! Sorry if I offend any of my readers who served with honor, but it seems we now have a military run by PC desk jockeys and rules that allow a deranged jihadist to carry an Army issued business card that read S.O.A. (Soldier Of Allah) who went on to murder 14 of his fellow soldiers in Ft. Hood, dubbed "workplace violence" by our former Disgrace-in-Chief, Barry. Now we have a monster whose criminal past was kept secret by our military, murdered dozens of innocents, prompting the Air Force to "look into it".
https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/checkpoint/wp/2017/11/06/the-air-force-says-it-failed-to-follow-procedures-allowing-texas-church-shooter-to-obtain-firearms/?utm_term=.bf1a26b429ec
I wanna close with the needless loss in a recent special election. On Sept. 26, there was an election to fill the Sen. seat vacated by the resignation of Frank Artiles. We lost a true friend and long time ally when Rep. Jose "Pepi" Diaz lost to a virtual nobody named Annette Taddeo, who catapulted from 4-time loser non entity to FL Sen. This should never have happened when there were weeks of unopposed steady mailers from Diaz, as well as his signage blanketing the district. I saw none of that from his opponent whose claim to fame was a foundering business and no record to run on. So, how did this happen? It was a perfect storm of factors, made all the worse by Gov. Scott's insistence in not postponing the election a few weeks due to Irma.
1)Simply mailing it in only reinforces your existing voters and does little to attract new ones.
2) This larger Sen. district has many Trump hating Hispanics and Taddeo tied Diaz to Trump.
3) Many GOP voters were either angry at Tallahassee for its slow response to post-hurricane recovery, apathetic to go vote because of no electricity, mounds of debris, etc. or both.
4) Diaz, despite his stellar record of accomplishments, was easy to tie to the Tallahassee Establishment and people reacted to it.
5) SoH, Corcoran, tied Diaz down with votes that could later be used against him and motivate his opposition.
Either way, what's done is done and Pepi has many talents and does not need to be a career politician. I also pin this loss squarely on the narrow shoulders of Chmn. Blaise Ingoglia and the hapless RPOF, who failed to factor in the demographic changes in parts of Dade and turn out the GOP base. Even though Taddeo will do nothing in a Senate where the GOP has a solid majority, it's a foot in the door. I believe this is a harbinger of bad things to come for FL, much the same as I saw in CA 30 years ago. I think Miami is the next L.A. and FL is the next Mexifornia. If we don't seal our borders and stop the uncontrolled influx of any and all unskilled, poorly educated Hispanics, the Miami & Orlando portions of the state will swell to a point they will outnumber and outvote the rest of FL, flipping the already purple state to blue. By then I'll be retired and live elsewhere, thank God!
We've seen terror attacks in Vegas, from a deranged WASP who was on anxiolitic meds and never should have gotten that arsenal, as well as a maniacal sub human who came here from an Islamic toilet nation to kill innocents in NYC and brag about it. In Vegas, there was more than one shooter, which the media has totally ignored. See for yourselves.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IdoQq5bn7b4
This is yet another govt. false flag operation and Paddock was probably a patsy who likely did some of the shooting but was also assisted. There have also been "crisis actors" seen in more than one mass shooting event in different times and locations, what a coincidence. Wake up, my friends, our govt. cannot be trusted!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B3OkjZ9Deos
If any of you do even a basic search, you can find many of these cases and none of them get media coverage. There's a reason that Mandalay Bay security guard disappeared on the day he was booked for several interviews, was sequestered for 2 days and his family warned not to comment on the Vegas shootings.
https://www.reviewjournal.com/crime/shootings/mandalay-bay-security-guard-skips-tv-interviews-after-las-vegas-shooting/
The POS in the NYC terrorist attack last week is yet more proof of why the Diversity Lotto program must be trashed. Can't blame this one on Barry, though he did do his level best to load the nation up with jihadists in his 8 years. This suicidal policy was enacted during the time of Bush 41, a useful idiot and globalist if ever there was one. Why does America have this crazy obsession with aggressively enticing people who hate our culture and way of life into coming here?! When I came from Cuba, it soon became my dream to become an American and I love this country like no other. On many occasions I've seen ungrateful Cubans (more recently arrived) who speak ill of this great country, as well as other Latinos. Sometimes they look at me and think I don't habla, so I don't know what they're saying. Well, I can assure you the verbal barrage they get from me is swift and strong. I tell them them they're damn lucky to be here, they should thank this nation and will not be missed if they so dislike the USA that they return to their dysfunctional native countries. The reason I bring this up is we DO NOT see that in the Muslim enclaves. They have neither the moral fiber nor courage to take on the terrorist elements within their ranks and even aid and abet them when they try to avoid the authorities after an attack. This was plainly seen in Brussels after the Bataclan & stadium attacks, they hid the ringleader for weeks.
The left is wild about background checks for me and you when we try to lawfully buy a firearm, which is fine by me. I'd add the same level of scrutiny to ANY Muslim wanting to buy or rent a truck! Check all their internet activity and issue them a permit, only after they've been vetted. It's not perfect but will prevent many attacks. Is this profiling? Damn right it is! When the FBI was going after the Mafia they profiled Italians, in Miami the drug wars had profiling of Cubans and Colombians. Scotland Yard certainly profiled Irish when fighting IRA terror. Spain did the same with Basques when fighting ETA. The FBI & DHS know where the Wahabi mosques are that radicalize these losers, yet nothing is done to shut them down or eavesdrop on them. Di Blasio even suspended programs that helped ferret out terrorists, but he probably has no fear of losing an election. No numbers of American lives lost to terrorist scum are acceptable losses. See the price of PC: http://ussanews.com/News1/2017/11/02/bombshell-bill-de-blasio-ended-surveillance-of-mosque-the-nyc-terrorist-attended-video/
This nation either extricates its head from the terminus of its alimentary canal or we go on accepting the "new normal".
Rounding out our terror list of late is a TX white trash monster who gunned down 50+, killing 27, in a church with an AR-15 he should have never been able to legally obtain. Much like the 9-11 terrorist hijackers did not violate any of the rules at that time for carrying box cutters on board, this POS passed a background check because the USAF failed to report his bad conduct discharge for domestic battery, arrest and jail time. WTH is going on in our PC military these days??!! Sorry if I offend any of my readers who served with honor, but it seems we now have a military run by PC desk jockeys and rules that allow a deranged jihadist to carry an Army issued business card that read S.O.A. (Soldier Of Allah) who went on to murder 14 of his fellow soldiers in Ft. Hood, dubbed "workplace violence" by our former Disgrace-in-Chief, Barry. Now we have a monster whose criminal past was kept secret by our military, murdered dozens of innocents, prompting the Air Force to "look into it".
https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/checkpoint/wp/2017/11/06/the-air-force-says-it-failed-to-follow-procedures-allowing-texas-church-shooter-to-obtain-firearms/?utm_term=.bf1a26b429ec
I wanna close with the needless loss in a recent special election. On Sept. 26, there was an election to fill the Sen. seat vacated by the resignation of Frank Artiles. We lost a true friend and long time ally when Rep. Jose "Pepi" Diaz lost to a virtual nobody named Annette Taddeo, who catapulted from 4-time loser non entity to FL Sen. This should never have happened when there were weeks of unopposed steady mailers from Diaz, as well as his signage blanketing the district. I saw none of that from his opponent whose claim to fame was a foundering business and no record to run on. So, how did this happen? It was a perfect storm of factors, made all the worse by Gov. Scott's insistence in not postponing the election a few weeks due to Irma.
1)Simply mailing it in only reinforces your existing voters and does little to attract new ones.
2) This larger Sen. district has many Trump hating Hispanics and Taddeo tied Diaz to Trump.
3) Many GOP voters were either angry at Tallahassee for its slow response to post-hurricane recovery, apathetic to go vote because of no electricity, mounds of debris, etc. or both.
4) Diaz, despite his stellar record of accomplishments, was easy to tie to the Tallahassee Establishment and people reacted to it.
5) SoH, Corcoran, tied Diaz down with votes that could later be used against him and motivate his opposition.
Either way, what's done is done and Pepi has many talents and does not need to be a career politician. I also pin this loss squarely on the narrow shoulders of Chmn. Blaise Ingoglia and the hapless RPOF, who failed to factor in the demographic changes in parts of Dade and turn out the GOP base. Even though Taddeo will do nothing in a Senate where the GOP has a solid majority, it's a foot in the door. I believe this is a harbinger of bad things to come for FL, much the same as I saw in CA 30 years ago. I think Miami is the next L.A. and FL is the next Mexifornia. If we don't seal our borders and stop the uncontrolled influx of any and all unskilled, poorly educated Hispanics, the Miami & Orlando portions of the state will swell to a point they will outnumber and outvote the rest of FL, flipping the already purple state to blue. By then I'll be retired and live elsewhere, thank God!
Saturday, September 23, 2017
"Canada, Weather & Stupid Kids"
Hi folks, I hope all of you in FL are either back with power on or damn close to it. What a mess! No need to further delve into the what ifs than we got hit and it coulda been far worse. I feel sad for Puerto Rico and the other smaller islands that got all but erased by Irma. It's encouraging to see the amount of mobilization and its benefits to those whose lives were up ended. The 10 deaths in the Broward nursing home is a nightmare come true that will have many tentacles and hopefully end with much needed changes and some people in jail. It's disgusting that our legislature and then Gov. Jeb Bush failed the people of FL back in 2006, when the issue of mandating generators capable of handling A.C. in any facility was killed in the Sen. Thank you, Senators Ken Pruitt & Jim King, for your lack of leadership and selling out to the Big Ins., ALF and Long Term Care lobbies! Even today, it's difficult for a prospective pt. or their family to vet such facilities. The same AHCA that always manages to meddle in our profession also covers for bad actors in the elderly care industry by redacting the reports to remove negative details and specific words.
http://www.miamiherald.com/news/health-care/article174709051.html
Any smart challenger running against any incumbent GOP legislator, should be pounding this issue 24/7.
Now to Canada. In 2015 we took a delightful cruise that stopped in Nova Scotia & Prince Edward Island, among other places. It was so beautiful, we made it a point to return in a slower, land based trip where we had an SUV and could drive around, stay in cabins and B&Bs, etc. It was a great vacation and a learning experience for me. Here's what I learned about our friendly neighbor to the north.
Canadians are wonderful, friendly people! They went out of their way to help us with even the smallest detail, like getting me 2 plastic cups (when I forgot to pack our water bottles) from the bank's lunch room when we went to change $, so we could drink our spring water in the SUV. BTW, the U.S. $ got us anywhere from a +18.5-22.5% in exchange rates! Things are expensive in Canada, so it took some of the edge off. Not every bank will do it for non-account holders but BiMo (Banque de Montreal) did, my new fave. French is not just prevalent in the province of Quebec, it's also widely spoken in NS, PEI & NB. Virtually everyone we encountered in any service with the public spoke French. Canada is pretty safe, they don't lock things up or worry much about petty theft and violence. I wore my N.R.A. fleece jacket a few times (not in any airport, of course!) and got some looks, even a short conversation from a very pleasant waiter and hostess. They were intrigued about our 2nd amendment rights and told me they agreed with it. Seafood is king! I lost track of the times we had seafood chowder, seafood pizza, fish & chips and haddock, yum! I'm glad we took along our little espresso maker, an Italian made Bialetti. Otherwise no espresso in our cabins! NS has a wine region and they are top notch places with great wines and delicious food. Canada is a socialist nation and they've accepted it much like the slowly boiled frog that doesn't jump out of the water cuz it can't notice the slow heat increase metaphor. I was shocked to find out the P.M. is the one who chooses the members of the Senate! They have a parliamentary system and their House of Commons is like our Congress, but the Sen. is a total sham. I take that to mean Canadians are too damn nice and willing to accept a P.M. who thinks he knows best and says screw them and their right to determine who governs and represents them in Ottawa- outrageous! The nice lady who told me this was a retired police dispatcher and when I commented, "So, you guys don't really have a true democracy", she replied, "No, we don't!" with a look of resignation. People get the govt. they deserve, even in Canada.
http://o.canada.com/news/national/senate-nominations-a-patronage-guide-for-prime-ministers-and-the-public
Another thing I learned is Canada can be somewhat anti-capitalist, they forbid Uber in most provinces, the only exception being the largest cities. I remember in Quebec City (2015), there was no Uber, nor in either NS, PEI or NB on this trip. The govt. controls most of the liquor commerce and taxes are twice what we pay. Gasoline is about $3.50-3.75 (in US$) a gallon! The dispatcher lady told me that the high booze and gas prices by no means stop DUI in Canada, LOL. I also learned that not all the tourist places and rentals of things like bikes, kayaks & canoes stay open and accessible the same length of time, especially NB, which I dubbed the bumpkin cousin of NS & PEI. Never mind the fact NB pretty much closes down after Labor Day, which the other provinces don't do. I was calling and emailing since June and never got any reply from any NB outfitter. All that said, Canada's a great place to visit and I'd do it again. It's just interesting to see the freedoms we often take for granted which even some advanced nations don't enjoy.
I'll end with stupid kids, which have now morphed into potentially very dangerous kids, especially in our so called "institutions of higher learning". America is reaping what it sowed when we allowed the far left to completely take over academia, much like the price dentistry is paying for allowing the ADA to lose influence and power in CODA and other regulatory bodies. Anarchy has metastasized to outright violence. The young & stupid call those of us with conservative views fascists, yet it is they who invite and support ANTIFA, a truly fascist goon squad that acts just like the goose stepping brown shirts of Hitler's 3rd Reich. When the mob can decide what is or isn't acceptable speech and either intimidate, threaten or physically attack a speaker like Ben Shapiro (yet embrace speakers on such wholesome topics as man-boy love and bestiality), we no longer have a 1st Amendment, we have Mao's Cultural Revolution or Orwell's Big Brother!
http://elitedaily.com/news/politics/millennials-stop-control-free-speech/1383987/
Don't think universities, nowadays more like Marxist indoctrination centers, aren't paying a price in enrollment & donations, they are!
http://www.euvolution.com/futurist-transhuman-news-blog/free-speech/editorial-heavy-price-for-stifling-free-speech-on-campus-stltoday-com.php
http://www.foxnews.com/us/2016/03/14/mizzou-may-pay-price-for-campus-protests-as-enrollment-plunges.html
I disagree with the Euvolution author that all students shouldn't be punished. If they can't get a handle on the vermin infesting their schools, they're a silent, intimidated enabler and part of the problem. The same applies to deans and local police chiefs who order campus and city police to stand down and do nothing. If they won't protect law abiding citizens, someone else will. We cannot allow these criminals to intimidate us or shut us down. A whopping 30% of the young & stupid believe violence is okay if it stops what they call "hate speech". If violence is all they've got, look for ANTIFA to be confronted and whooped by bikers or militias, it's coming! Here are a few examples from my no-spin glossary of liberal idiocy terminology:
1)Hate speech- Any speech that's truthful and points out unflattering and/or dissenting facts about liberals, their beliefs & agenda, those they spin as victims, the afflicted, snowflakes, enviro zealots, etc.
2) Micro aggressions- Any factual commentary, statistical reporting, etc. about any non-white groups that exposes anything negative, i.e. incarceration, illegitimacy, illiteracy rates or disproportionate criminality.
3) White privilege- Success achieved by a white person as a result of hard work, sacrifice and determination. Obama's asinine "you didn't build that" comments, fully embraced and parroted by Fakeahontas, are a good example.
4) Safe space- An imaginary place where the young & stupid think they can hide out and escape reality. This is especially true if the snowflakes have never heard the word "no", worked for a $ or otherwise done anything for anyone but themselves.
5) Snowflake- A pampered, snot nosed adolescent or young adult who was told all their life they're "special", faultless, and the world owes them everything they want, without having to earn it. These kids got meaningless "participation" trophies, never experienced loss and never worked for even an allowance. They also manipulated their parents into never telling them anything they didn't wanna hear, which is why they're now intolerant collegians.
I'll leave you with some amusing cartoons you'd never see on campus, LOL.
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