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The Outer Loop, one of the four blogs at MiillersTime, is a place where I sometimes comment on local, national, and/or international issues and often link to articles that I think are worthy of your attention.
And as I relaunch MillersTime with a new design (but the same old 'editor'), I bring you two 'articles' that I suspect you have not seen.
Both authors are individuals who are new to me.
One is a life long Democrat who calls himself a 'country doctor,' and who believes Pres. Obama needs to be challenged for the nomination because he has failed overwhelmingly in what he said he would do. His name is Joe Mason, and he says he will run for the presidency himself in 2012 if Obama does not respond to questions about why he has not done what he promised.
The other is a retiring Congressional staff member who for 28 years worked on budget, defense, and security issues, primarily for Republicans in both the Senate and the House. His name is Mike Lofgren, and he's leaving the Hill and the party and tells why. He also is no fan of the Democrats.
I post them together, not because I am trying to be balanced (for those who have followed MillersTime since its inception, you know I was a strong supporter of Obama's candidacy and hoped he would be a terrific president). I post them both because sometimes the best insights come from within (a party, an organization, a group), and these two pieces clearly do that. Together, they not only describe our current political landscape but also put words to much of what I have been thinking and feeling about why our politics have become so dysfunctional.
When you have the time, I hope you will read Lofgren's long and well written statement, which was recently published in Truthout.org., and also listen to Mason's YouTube presentation (approximately 15 minutes). As always, please feel free to add your comment(s), respectfully.
The two 'articles':
1. Click Here for YouTube Presentation — Joe Mason for President
2. Goodbye to All That: Reflections of a GOP Operative Who Left the Cult
(Photo: Carolyn Tiry / Flickr)
Barbara Stanwyck: "We're both rotten!"
Fred MacMurray: "Yeah – only you're a little more rotten." -"Double Indemnity" (1944)
Those lines of dialogue from a classic film noir sum up the state of the two political parties in contemporary America. Both parties are rotten – how could they not be, given the complete infestation of the political system by corporate money on a scale that now requires a presidential candidate to raise upwards of a billion dollars to be competitive in the general election? Both parties are captives to corporate loot. The main reason the Democrats' health care bill will be a budget buster once it fully phases in is the Democrats' rank capitulation to corporate interests – no single-payer system, in order to mollify the insurers; and no negotiation of drug prices, a craven surrender to Big Pharma.
But both parties are not rotten in quite the same way. The Democrats have their share of machine politicians, careerists, corporate bagmen, egomaniacs and kooks. Nothing, however, quite matches the modern GOP.
To those millions of Americans who have finally begun paying attention to politics and watched with exasperation the tragicomedy of the debt ceiling extension, it may have come as a shock that the Republican Party is so full of lunatics. To be sure, the party, like any political party on earth, has always had its share of crackpots, like Robert K. Dornan or William E. Dannemeyer. But the crackpot outliers of two decades ago have become the vital center today: Steve King, Michele Bachman (now a leading presidential candidate as well), Paul Broun, Patrick McHenry, Virginia Foxx, Louie Gohmert, Allen West. The Congressional directory now reads like a casebook of lunacy.
It was this cast of characters and the pernicious ideas they represent that impelled me to end a nearly 30-year career as a professional staff member on Capitol Hill. A couple of months ago, I retired; but I could see as early as last November that the Republican Party would use the debt limit vote, an otherwise routine legislative procedure that has been used 87 times since the end of World War II, in order to concoct an entirely artificial fiscal crisis. Then, they would use that fiscal crisis to get what they wanted, by literally holding the US and global economies as hostages.
The debt ceiling extension is not the only example of this sort of political terrorism. Republicans were willing to lay off 4,000 Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) employees, 70,000 private construction workers and let FAA safety inspectors work without pay, in fact, forcing them to pay for their own work-related travel – how prudent is that? – in order to strong arm some union-busting provisions into the FAA reauthorization.
Everyone knows that in a hostage situation, the reckless and amoral actor has the negotiating upper hand over the cautious and responsible actor because the latter is actually concerned about the life of the hostage, while the former does not care. This fact, which ought to be obvious, has nevertheless caused confusion among the professional pundit class, which is mostly still stuck in the Bob Dole era in terms of its orientation. For instance, Ezra Klein wrote of his puzzlement over the fact that while House Republicans essentially won the debt ceiling fight, enough of them were sufficiently dissatisfied that they might still scuttle the deal. Of course they might – the attitude of many freshman Republicans to national default was "bring it on!"
It should have been evident to clear-eyed observers that the Republican Party is becoming less and less like a traditional political party in a representative democracy and becoming more like an apocalyptic cult, or one of the intensely ideological authoritarian parties of 20th century Europe. This trend has several implications, none of them pleasant.
In his "Manual of Parliamentary Practice," Thomas Jefferson wrote that it is less important that every rule and custom of a legislature be absolutely justifiable in a theoretical sense, than that they should be generally acknowledged and honored by all parties. These include unwritten rules, customs and courtesies that lubricate the legislative machinery and keep governance a relatively civilized procedure. The US Senate has more complex procedural rules than any other legislative body in the world; many of these rules are contradictory, and on any given day, the Senate parliamentarian may issue a ruling that contradicts earlier rulings on analogous cases.
The only thing that can keep the Senate functioning is collegiality and good faith. During periods of political consensus, for instance, the World War II and early post-war eras, the Senate was a "high functioning" institution: filibusters were rare and the body was legislatively productive. Now, one can no more picture the current Senate producing the original Medicare Act than the old Supreme Soviet having legislated the Bill of Rights.
Far from being a rarity, virtually every bill, every nominee for Senate confirmation and every routine procedural motion is now subject to a Republican filibuster. Under the circumstances, it is no wonder that Washington is gridlocked: legislating has now become war minus the shooting, something one could have observed 80 years ago in the Reichstag of the Weimar Republic. As Hannah Arendt observed, a disciplined minority of totalitarians can use the instruments of democratic government to undermine democracy itself.
John P. Judis sums up the modern GOP this way:
"Over the last four decades, the Republican Party has transformed from a loyal opposition into an insurrectionary party that flouts the law when it is in the majority and threatens disorder when it is the minority. It is the party of Watergate and Iran-Contra, but also of the government shutdown in 1995 and the impeachment trial of 1999. If there is an earlier American precedent for today's Republican Party, it is the antebellum Southern Democrats of John Calhoun who threatened to nullify, or disregard, federal legislation they objected to and who later led the fight to secede from the union over slavery."
A couple of years ago, a Republican committee staff director told me candidly (and proudly) what the method was to all this obstruction and disruption. Should Republicans succeed in obstructing the Senate from doing its job, it would further lower Congress's generic favorability rating among the American people. By sabotaging the reputation of an institution of government, the party that is programmatically against government would come out the relative winner.
A deeply cynical tactic, to be sure, but a psychologically insightful one that plays on the weaknesses both of the voting public and the news media. There are tens of millions of low-information voters who hardly know which party controls which branch of government, let alone which party is pursuing a particular legislative tactic. These voters' confusion over who did what allows them to form the conclusion that "they are all crooks," and that "government is no good," further leading them to think, "a plague on both your houses" and "the parties are like two kids in a school yard." This ill-informed public cynicism, in its turn, further intensifies the long-term decline in public trust in government that has been taking place since the early 1960s – a distrust that has been stoked by Republican rhetoric at every turn ("Government is the problem," declared Ronald Reagan in 1980).
The media are also complicit in this phenomenon. Ever since the bifurcation of electronic media into a more or less respectable "hard news" segment and a rabidly ideological talk radio and cable TV political propaganda arm, the "respectable" media have been terrified of any criticism for perceived bias. Hence, they hew to the practice of false evenhandedness. Paul Krugman has skewered this tactic as being the "centrist cop-out." "I joked long ago," he says, "that if one party declared that the earth was flat, the headlines would read 'Views Differ on Shape of Planet.'"
Inside-the-Beltway wise guy Chris Cillizza merely proves Krugman right in his Washington Post analysis of "winners and losers" in the debt ceiling impasse. He wrote that the institution of Congress was a big loser in the fracas, which is, of course, correct, but then he opined: "Lawmakers – bless their hearts – seem entirely unaware of just how bad they looked during this fight and will almost certainly spend the next few weeks (or months) congratulating themselves on their tremendous magnanimity." Note how the pundit's ironic deprecation falls like the rain on the just and unjust alike, on those who precipitated the needless crisis and those who despaired of it. He seems oblivious that one side – or a sizable faction of one side – has deliberately attempted to damage the reputation of Congress to achieve its political objectives.
This constant drizzle of "there the two parties go again!" stories out of the news bureaus, combined with the hazy confusion of low-information voters, means that the long-term Republican strategy of undermining confidence in our democratic institutions has reaped electoral dividends. The United States has nearly the lowest voter participation among Western democracies; this, again, is a consequence of the decline of trust in government institutions – if government is a racket and both parties are the same, why vote? And if the uninvolved middle declines to vote, it increases the electoral clout of a minority that is constantly being whipped into a lather by three hours daily of Rush Limbaugh or Fox News. There were only 44 million Republican voters in the 2010 mid-term elections, but they effectively canceled the political results of the election of President Obama by 69 million voters.
This tactic of inducing public distrust of government is not only cynical, it is schizophrenic. For people who profess to revere the Constitution, it is strange that they so caustically denigrate the very federal government that is the material expression of the principles embodied in that document. This is not to say that there is not some theoretical limit to the size or intrusiveness of government; I would be the first to say there are such limits, both fiscal and Constitutional. But most Republican officeholders seem strangely uninterested in the effective repeal of Fourth Amendment protections by the Patriot Act, the weakening of habeas corpus and self-incrimination protections in the public hysteria following 9/11 or the unpalatable fact that the United States has the largest incarcerated population of any country on earth. If anything, they would probably opt for more incarcerated persons, as imprisonment is a profit center for the prison privatization industry, which is itself a growth center for political contributions to these same politicians.[1] Instead, they prefer to rail against those government programs that actually help people. And when a program is too popular to attack directly, like Medicare or Social Security, they prefer to undermine it by feigning an agonized concern about the deficit. That concern, as we shall see, is largely fictitious.
Undermining Americans' belief in their own institutions of self-government remains a prime GOP electoral strategy. But if this technique falls short of producing Karl Rove's dream of 30 years of unchallengeable one-party rule (as all such techniques always fall short of achieving the angry and embittered true believer's New Jerusalem), there are other even less savory techniques upon which to fall back. Ever since Republicans captured the majority in a number of state legislatures last November, they have systematically attempted to make it more difficult to vote: by onerous voter ID requirements (in Wisconsin, Republicans have legislated photo IDs while simultaneously shutting Department of Motor Vehicles (DMV) offices in Democratic constituencies while at the same time lengthening the hours of operation of DMV offices in GOP constituencies); by narrowing registration periods; and by residency requirements that may disenfranchise university students.
This legislative assault is moving in a diametrically opposed direction to 200 years of American history, when the arrow of progress pointed toward more political participation by more citizens. Republicans are among the most shrill in self-righteously lecturing other countries about the wonders of democracy; exporting democracy (albeit at the barrel of a gun) to the Middle East was a signature policy of the Bush administration. But domestically, they don't want those people voting.
You can probably guess who those people are. Above all, anyone not likely to vote Republican. As Sarah Palin would imply, the people who are not Real Americans. Racial minorities. Immigrants. Muslims. Gays. Intellectuals. Basically, anyone who doesn't look, think, or talk like the GOP base. This must account, at least to some degree, for their extraordinarily vitriolic hatred of President Obama. I have joked in the past that the main administration policy that Republicans object to is Obama's policy of being black.[2] Among the GOP base, there is constant harping about somebody else, some "other," who is deliberately, assiduously and with malice aforethought subverting the Good, the True and the Beautiful: Subversives. Commies. Socialists. Ragheads. Secular humanists. Blacks. Fags. Feminazis. The list may change with the political needs of the moment, but they always seem to need a scapegoat to hate and fear.
It is not clear to me how many GOP officeholders believe this reactionary and paranoid claptrap. I would bet that most do not. But they cynically feed the worst instincts of their fearful and angry low-information political base with a nod and a wink. During the disgraceful circus of the "birther" issue, Republican politicians subtly stoked the fires of paranoia by being suggestively equivocal – "I take the president at his word" – while never unambiguously slapping down the myth. John Huntsman was the first major GOP figure forthrightly to refute the birther calumny – albeit after release of the birth certificate.
I do not mean to place too much emphasis on racial animus in the GOP. While it surely exists, it is also a fact that Republicans think that no Democratic president could conceivably be legitimate. Republicans also regarded Bill Clinton as somehow, in some manner, twice fraudulently elected (well do I remember the elaborate conspiracy theories that Republicans traded among themselves). Had it been Hillary Clinton, rather than Barack Obama, who had been elected in 2008, I am certain we would now be hearing, in lieu of the birther myths, conspiracy theories about Vince Foster's alleged murder.
The reader may think that I am attributing Svengali-like powers to GOP operatives able to manipulate a zombie base to do their bidding. It is more complicated than that. Historical circumstances produced the raw material: the deindustrialization and financialization of America since about 1970 has spawned an increasingly downscale white middle class – without job security (or even without jobs), with pensions and health benefits evaporating and with their principal asset deflating in the collapse of the housing bubble. Their fears are not imaginary; their standard of living is shrinking.
What do the Democrats offer these people? Essentially nothing. Democratic Leadership Council-style "centrist" Democrats were among the biggest promoters of disastrous trade deals in the 1990s that outsourced jobs abroad: NAFTA, World Trade Organization, permanent most-favored-nation status for China. At the same time, the identity politics/lifestyle wing of the Democratic Party was seen as a too illegal immigrant-friendly by downscaled and outsourced whites.[3]
While Democrats temporized, or even dismissed the fears of the white working class as racist or nativist, Republicans went to work. To be sure, the business wing of the Republican Party consists of the most energetic outsourcers, wage cutters and hirers of sub-minimum wage immigrant labor to be found anywhere on the globe. But the faux-populist wing of the party, knowing the mental compartmentalization that occurs in most low-information voters, played on the fears of that same white working class to focus their anger on scapegoats that do no damage to corporations' bottom lines: instead of raising the minimum wage, let's build a wall on the Southern border (then hire a defense contractor to incompetently manage it). Instead of predatory bankers, it's evil Muslims. Or evil gays. Or evil abortionists.
How do they manage to do this? Because Democrats ceded the field. Above all, they do not understand language. Their initiatives are posed in impenetrable policy-speak: the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act. The what? – can anyone even remember it? No wonder the pejorative "Obamacare" won out. Contrast that with the Republicans' Patriot Act. You're a patriot, aren't you? Does anyone at the GED level have a clue what a Stimulus Bill is supposed to be? Why didn't the White House call it the Jobs Bill and keep pounding on that theme?
You know that Social Security and Medicare are in jeopardy when even Democrats refer to them as entitlements. "Entitlement" has a negative sound in colloquial English: somebody who is "entitled" selfishly claims something he doesn't really deserve. Why not call them "earned benefits," which is what they are because we all contribute payroll taxes to fund them? That would never occur to the Democrats. Republicans don't make that mistake; they are relentlessly on message: it is never the "estate tax," it is the "death tax." Heaven forbid that the Walton family should give up one penny of its $86-billion fortune. All of that lucre is necessary to ensure that unions be kept out of Wal-Mart, that women employees not be promoted and that politicians be kept on a short leash.
It was not always thus. It would have been hard to find an uneducated farmer during the depression of the 1890s who did not have a very accurate idea about exactly which economic interests were shafting him. An unemployed worker in a breadline in 1932 would have felt little gratitude to the Rockefellers or the Mellons. But that is not the case in the present economic crisis. After a riot of unbridled greed such as the world has not seen since the conquistadors' looting expeditions and after an unprecedented broad and rapid transfer of wealth upward by Wall Street and its corporate satellites, where is the popular anger directed, at least as depicted in the media? At "Washington spending" – which has increased primarily to provide unemployment compensation, food stamps and Medicaid to those economically damaged by the previous decade's corporate saturnalia. Or the popular rage is harmlessly diverted against pseudo-issues: death panels, birtherism, gay marriage, abortion, and so on, none of which stands to dent the corporate bottom line in the slightest.
Thus far, I have concentrated on Republican tactics, rather than Republican beliefs, but the tactics themselves are important indicators of an absolutist, authoritarian mindset that is increasingly hostile to the democratic values of reason, compromise and conciliation. Rather, this mindset seeks polarizing division (Karl Rove has been very explicit that this is his principal campaign strategy), conflict and the crushing of opposition.
As for what they really believe, the Republican Party of 2011 believes in three principal tenets I have laid out below. The rest of their platform one may safely dismiss as window dressing:
1. The GOP cares solely and exclusively about its rich contributors. The party has built a whole catechism on the protection and further enrichment of America's plutocracy. Their caterwauling about deficit and debt is so much eyewash to con the public. Whatever else President Obama has accomplished (and many of his purported accomplishments are highly suspect), his $4-trillion deficit reduction package did perform the useful service of smoking out Republican hypocrisy. The GOP refused, because it could not abide so much as a one-tenth of one percent increase on the tax rates of the Walton family or the Koch brothers, much less a repeal of the carried interest rule that permits billionaire hedge fund managers to pay income tax at a lower effective rate than cops or nurses. Republicans finally settled on a deal that had far less deficit reduction – and even less spending reduction! – than Obama's offer, because of their iron resolution to protect at all costs our society's overclass.
Republicans have attempted to camouflage their amorous solicitude for billionaires with a fog of misleading rhetoric. John Boehner is fond of saying, "we won't raise anyone's taxes," as if the take-home pay of an Olive Garden waitress were inextricably bound up with whether Warren Buffett pays his capital gains as ordinary income or at a lower rate. Another chestnut is that millionaires and billionaires are "job creators." US corporations have just had their most profitable quarters in history; Apple, for one, is sitting on $76 billion in cash, more than the GDP of most countries. So, where are the jobs?
Another smokescreen is the "small business" meme, since standing up for Mom's and Pop's corner store is politically more attractive than to be seen shilling for a megacorporation. Raising taxes on the wealthy will kill small business' ability to hire; that is the GOP dirge every time Bernie Sanders or some Democrat offers an amendment to increase taxes on incomes above $1 million. But the number of small businesses that have a net annual income over a million dollars is de minimis, if not by definition impossible (as they would no longer be small businesses). And as data from the Center for Economic and Policy Research have shown, small businesses account for only 7.2 percent of total US employment, a significantly smaller share of total employment than in most Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) countries.
Likewise, Republicans have assiduously spread the myth that Americans are conspicuously overtaxed. But compared to other OECD countries, the effective rates of US taxation are among the lowest. In particular, they point to the top corporate income rate of 35 percent as being confiscatory Bolshevism. But again, the effective rate is much lower. Did GE pay 35 percent on 2010 profits of $14 billion? No, it paid zero.
When pressed, Republicans make up misleading statistics to "prove" that the America's fiscal burden is being borne by the rich and the rest of us are just freeloaders who don't appreciate that fact. "Half of Americans don't pay taxes" is a perennial meme. But what they leave out is that that statement refers to federal income taxes. There are millions of people who don't pay income taxes, but do contribute payroll taxes – among the most regressive forms of taxation. But according to GOP fiscal theology, payroll taxes don't count. Somehow, they have convinced themselves that since payroll taxes go into trust funds, they're not real taxes. Likewise, state and local sales taxes apparently don't count, although their effect on a poor person buying necessities like foodstuffs is far more regressive than on a millionaire.
All of these half truths and outright lies have seeped into popular culture via the corporate-owned business press. Just listen to CNBC for a few hours and you will hear most of them in one form or another. More important politically, Republicans' myths about taxation have been internalized by millions of economically downscale "values voters," who may have been attracted to the GOP for other reasons (which I will explain later), but who now accept this misinformation as dogma.
And when misinformation isn't enough to sustain popular support for the GOP's agenda, concealment is needed. One fairly innocuous provision in the Dodd-Frank financial reform bill requires public companies to make a more transparent disclosure of CEO compensation, including bonuses. Note that it would not limit the compensation, only require full disclosure. Republicans are hell-bent on repealing this provision. Of course; it would not serve Wall Street interests if the public took an unhealthy interest in the disparity of their own incomes as against that of a bank CEO. As Spencer Bachus, the Republican chairman of the House Financial Services Committee, says, "In Washington, the view is that the banks are to be regulated and my view is that Washington and the regulators are there to serve the banks."
2. They worship at the altar of Mars. While the me-too Democrats have set a horrible example of keeping up with the Joneses with respect to waging wars, they can never match GOP stalwarts such as John McCain or Lindsey Graham in their sheer, libidinous enthusiasm for invading other countries. McCain wanted to mix it up with Russia – a nuclear-armed state – during the latter's conflict with Georgia in 2008 (remember? – "we are all Georgians now," a slogan that did not, fortunately, catch on), while Graham has been persistently agitating for attacks on Iran and intervention in Syria. And these are not fringe elements of the party; they are the leading "defense experts," who always get tapped for the Sunday talk shows. About a month before Republicans began holding a gun to the head of the credit markets to get trillions of dollars of cuts, these same Republicans passed a defense appropriations bill that increased spending by $17 billion over the prior year's defense appropriation. To borrow Chris Hedges' formulation, war is the force that gives meaning to their lives.
A cynic might conclude that this militaristic enthusiasm is no more complicated than the fact that Pentagon contractors spread a lot of bribery money around Capitol Hill. That is true, but there is more to it than that. It is not necessarily even the fact that members of Congress feel they are protecting constituents' jobs. The wildly uneven concentration of defense contracts and military bases nationally means that some areas, like Washington, DC, and San Diego, are heavily dependent on Department of Defense (DOD) spending. But there are many more areas of the country whose net balance is negative: the citizenry pays more in taxes to support the Pentagon than it receives back in local contracts.
And the economic justification for Pentagon spending is even more fallacious when one considers that the $700 billion annual DOD budget creates comparatively few jobs. The days of Rosie the Riveter are long gone; most weapons projects now require very little touch labor. Instead, a disproportionate share is siphoned off into high-cost research and development (from which the civilian economy benefits little); exorbitant management expenditures, overhead and out-and-out padding; and, of course, the money that flows back into the coffers of political campaigns. A million dollars appropriated for highway construction would create two to three times as many jobs as a million dollars appropriated for Pentagon weapons procurement, so the jobs argument is ultimately specious.
Take away the cash nexus and there still remains a psychological predisposition toward war and militarism on the part of the GOP. This undoubtedly arises from a neurotic need to demonstrate toughness and dovetails perfectly with the belligerent tough-guy pose one constantly hears on right-wing talk radio. Militarism springs from the same psychological deficit that requires an endless series of enemies, both foreign and domestic.
The results of the last decade of unbridled militarism and the Democrats' cowardly refusal to reverse it[4], have been disastrous both strategically and fiscally. It has made the United States less prosperous, less secure and less free. Unfortunately, the militarism and the promiscuous intervention it gives rise to are only likely to abate when the Treasury is exhausted, just as it happened to the Dutch Republic and the British Empire.
3. Give me that old time religion. Pandering to fundamentalism is a full-time vocation in the GOP. Beginning in the 1970s, religious cranks ceased simply to be a minor public nuisance in this country and grew into the major element of the Republican rank and file. Pat Robertson's strong showing in the 1988 Iowa Caucus signaled the gradual merger of politics and religion in the party. The results are all around us: if the American people poll more like Iranians or Nigerians than Europeans or Canadians on questions of evolution versus creationism, scriptural inerrancy, the existence of angels and demons, and so forth, that result is due to the rise of the religious right, its insertion into the public sphere by the Republican Party and the consequent normalizing of formerly reactionary or quaint beliefs. Also around us is a prevailing anti-intellectualism and hostility to science; it is this group that defines "low-information voter" – or, perhaps, "misinformation voter."
The Constitution to the contrary notwithstanding, there is now a de facto religious test for the presidency: major candidates are encouraged (or coerced) to "share their feelings" about their "faith" in a revelatory speech; or, some televangelist like Rick Warren dragoons the candidates (as he did with Obama and McCain in 2008) to debate the finer points of Christology, with Warren himself, of course, as the arbiter. Politicized religion is also the sheet anchor of the culture wars. But how did the whole toxic stew of GOP beliefs – economic royalism, militarism and culture wars cum fundamentalism – come completely to displace an erstwhile civilized Eisenhower Republicanism?
It is my view that the rise of politicized religious fundamentalism (which is a subset of the decline of rational problem solving in America) may have been the key ingredient of the takeover of the Republican Party. For politicized religion provides a substrate of beliefs that rationalizes – at least in the minds of followers – all three of the GOP's main tenets.
Televangelists have long espoused the health-and-wealth/name-it-and-claim it gospel. If you are wealthy, it is a sign of God's favor. If not, too bad! But don't forget to tithe in any case. This rationale may explain why some economically downscale whites defend the prerogatives of billionaires.
The GOP's fascination with war is also connected with the fundamentalist mindset. The Old Testament abounds in tales of slaughter – God ordering the killing of the Midianite male infants and enslavement of the balance of the population, the divinely-inspired genocide of the Canaanites, the slaying of various miscreants with the jawbone of an ass – and since American religious fundamentalist seem to prefer the Old Testament to the New (particularly that portion of the New Testament known as the Sermon on the Mount), it is but a short step to approving war as a divinely inspired mission. This sort of thinking has led, inexorably, to such phenomena as Jerry Falwell once writing that God is Pro-War.
It is the apocalyptic frame of reference of fundamentalists, their belief in an imminent Armageddon, that psychologically conditions them to steer this country into conflict, not only on foreign fields (some evangelicals thought Saddam was the Antichrist and therefore a suitable target for cruise missiles), but also in the realm of domestic political controversy. It is hardly surprising that the most adamant proponent of the view that there was no debt ceiling problem was Michele Bachmann, the darling of the fundamentalist right. What does it matter, anyway, if the country defaults? – we shall presently abide in the bosom of the Lord.
Some liberal writers have opined that the different socio-economic perspectives separating the "business" wing of the GOP and the religious right make it an unstable coalition that could crack. I am not so sure. There is no fundamental disagreement on which direction the two factions want to take the country, merely how far in that direction they want to take it. The plutocrats would drag us back to the Gilded Age, the theocrats to the Salem witch trials. In any case, those consummate plutocrats, the Koch brothers, are pumping large sums of money into Michele Bachman's presidential campaign, so one ought not make too much of a potential plutocrat-theocrat split.
Thus, the modern GOP; it hardly seems conceivable that a Republican could have written the following:
"Should any political party attempt to abolish social security, unemployment insurance and eliminate labor laws and farm programs, you would not hear of that party again in our political history. There is a tiny splinter group, of course, that believes you can do these things. Among them are H. L. Hunt (you possibly know his background), a few other Texas oil millionaires and an occasional politician or business man from other areas. Their number is negligible and they are stupid." (That was President Eisenhower, writing to his brother Edgar in 1954.)
It is this broad and ever-widening gulf between the traditional Republicanism of an Eisenhower and the quasi-totalitarian cult of a Michele Bachmann that impelled my departure from Capitol Hill. It is not in my pragmatic nature to make a heroic gesture of self-immolation, or to make lurid revelations of personal martyrdom in the manner of David Brock. And I will leave a more detailed dissection of failed Republican economic policies to my fellow apostate Bruce Bartlett.
I left because I was appalled at the headlong rush of Republicans, like Gadarene swine, to embrace policies that are deeply damaging to this country's future; and contemptuous of the feckless, craven incompetence of Democrats in their half-hearted attempts to stop them. And, in truth, I left as an act of rational self-interest. Having gutted private-sector pensions and health benefits as a result of their embrace of outsourcing, union busting and "shareholder value," the GOP now thinks it is only fair that public-sector workers give up their pensions and benefits, too. Hence the intensification of the GOP's decades-long campaign of scorn against government workers. Under the circumstances, it is simply safer to be a current retiree rather than a prospective one.
If you think Paul Ryan and his Ayn Rand-worshipping colleagues aren't after your Social Security and Medicare, I am here to disabuse you of your naiveté.[5] They will move heaven and earth to force through tax cuts that will so starve the government of revenue that they will be "forced" to make "hard choices" – and that doesn't mean repealing those very same tax cuts, it means cutting the benefits for which you worked.
During the week that this piece was written, the debt ceiling fiasco reached its conclusion. The economy was already weak, but the GOP's disgraceful game of chicken roiled the markets even further. Foreigners could hardly believe it: Americans' own crazy political actions were destabilizing the safe-haven status of the dollar. Accordingly, during that same week, over one trillion dollars worth of assets evaporated on financial markets. Russia and China have stepped up their advocating that the dollar be replaced as the global reserve currency – a move as consequential and disastrous for US interests as any that can be imagined.
If Republicans have perfected a new form of politics that is successful electorally at the same time that it unleashes major policy disasters, it means twilight both for the democratic process and America's status as the world's leading power.
[1] I am not exaggerating for effect. A law passed in 2010 by the Arizona legislature mandating arrest and incarceration of suspected illegal aliens was actually drafted by the American Legislative Exchange Council, a conservative business front group that drafts "model" legislation on behalf of its corporate sponsors. The draft legislation in question was written for the private prison lobby, which sensed a growth opportunity in imprisoning more people.
[2] I am not a supporter of Obama and object to a number of his foreign and domestic policies. But when he took office amid the greatest financial collapse in 80 years, I wanted him to succeed, so that the country I served did not fail. But already in 2009, Mitch McConnell, the Senate Republican leader, declared that his greatest legislative priority was – jobs for Americans? Rescuing the financial system? Solving the housing collapse? – no, none of those things. His top priority was to ensure that Obama should be a one-term president. Evidently Senator McConnell hates Obama more than he loves his country. Note that the mainstream media have lately been hailing McConnell as "the adult in the room," presumably because he is less visibly unstable than the Tea Party freshmen
[3] This is not a venue for immigrant bashing. It remains a fact that outsourcing jobs overseas, while insourcing sub-minimum wage immigrant labor, will exert downward pressure on US wages. The consequence will be popular anger, and failure to address that anger will result in a downward wage spiral and a breech of the social compact, not to mention a rise in nativism and other reactionary impulses. It does no good to claim that these economic consequences are an inevitable result of globalization; Germany has somehow managed to maintain a high-wage economy and a vigorous industrial base.
[4] The cowardice is not merely political. During the past ten years, I have observed that Democrats are actually growing afraid of Republicans. In a quirky and flawed, but insightful, little book, "Democracy and Populism: Fear and Hatred," John Lukacs concludes that the left fears, the right hates.
[5] The GOP cult of Ayn Rand is both revealing and mystifying. On the one hand, Rand's tough guy, every-man-for-himself posturing is a natural fit because it puts a philosophical gloss on the latent sociopathy so prevalent among the hard right. On the other, Rand exclaimed at every opportunity that she was a militant atheist who felt nothing but contempt for Christianity. Apparently, the ignorance of most fundamentalist "values voters" means that GOP candidates who enthuse over Rand at the same time they thump their Bibles never have to explain this stark contradiction. And I imagine a Democratic officeholder would have a harder time explaining why he named his offspring "Marx" than a GOP incumbent would in rationalizing naming his kid "Rand."


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Young Afghan Lionel Messi fan threatened by Taliban, flees home
The picture of Murtaza in his plastic Messi shirt playing soccer went viral on social media two years ago. He met his hero in December last year.
Young Afghan soccer fan who shot to fame after he was photographed in a Messi shirt made from a plastic bag has been forced to flee with his family to the capital after criminal gangs and the Taliban threatened to kill or kidnap him, his mother said Friday.
Since becoming an internet sensation, Shafiqa Ahmedi said her now 7-year-old son Murtaza a fan of Argentinian soccer star Lionel Messi has not been able to attend school and now they are living in an unheated room in Kabul. She said the cold and the damp are making Murtaza sick.
"He is always cold," she said. Temperatures in Kabul hover around 11 degrees Celsius (52 degrees Fahrenheit) during the day.
The picture of Murtaza in his plastic Messi shirt playing soccer went viral on social media two years ago. He met his hero in December last year.
But his popularity has turned into a nightmare for Murtaza and his family.
"I wish Murtaza had never become so famous," she told The Associated Press. "It has created a big problem for us and for him. For the last two years we have not been able to send him to school. I wish none of this had ever happened."
Criminals threatened to kidnap Murtaza after demanding money, assuming the boy's brush with fame somehow resulted in a windfall of money. Taliban insurgents stopped local school buses asking if anyone knew of Murtaza. They, too, had seen pictures of young Murtaza meeting Messi in the Middle Eastern state of Qatar, where he received a T-shirt from his hero.
Last November, when Taliban fighters launched attacks in their home district of Joguri in violent Ghazni province, the family fled to the relative safety of Bamiyan province in Central Afghanistan. But the threats continued.
The move to the Afghan capital three weeks ago has been painful. Murtaza is the youngest of five children and the family is paying the equivalent of about $90 a month for a room in the Afshar neighborhood in northwest Kabul.
Murtaza's uncle Asif Ahmedi said the family received at least 10 letters and several phone calls from a variety of criminal gangs threatening to kill Murtaza or kidnap him if they didn't give them money.
"Everyone thinks that because he became famous that we now have lots of money, but we are poor people," he said. "The gunmen in our area were saying, `You got lots of money from Messi and you should give us the money otherwise your son will be kidnapped."'
Criminal gangs roam freely in most of Afghanistan, which has been at war for 17 years. Most of the country's 38 million people are dirt poor and the country's police and army have been besieged by Taliban insurgents in near daily attacks.
Corruption is rampant in Afghanistan and many local police are in cahoots with criminal gangs.

subset: commoncrawl


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Contemporary Romance
A Heartbreaker Novel, Book 3
Published: October 16, 2018
Brent Keiser, a certified genius, and forensic accountant work for the FBI mostly because of their awesome retirement plan. Growing up homeless with a ditzy mother can make a guy be a little obsessive in the saving for the future department. But just once, he'd like to get out in the field, maybe actually fire a gun or chase after a bad guy like the other agents. Although, solving crimes with his calculator is statistically much safer, and he'd live to enjoy that house on the beach he saves for each payday.
Sara Chapman used to be a card-carrying member of the Hollywood rich kid pack, but after serving community service, she said goodbye to her spoiled friends. Seeing the plight of the homeless up close and personal gave her a new direction. But that doesn't deter the annoying paparazzi. Her parents were the famous ones, not her. Sara's only recent claim to fame was for having the most embarrassing public break up in the history of the entire world. Unfortunately, they don't give Oscars for those, so she is trying to keep her head down and to stay as far away from single men as possible.
But then Sara becomes unknowingly tangled up in Brent's money laundering case against her father. When it becomes hard to tell the good guys from the bad, she turns to Brent for help. While on the run for their lives, the built, nerdy accountant with magnificent abs, transforms into her personal superhero. Opposites in almost every way, will Brent see her as his Kryptonite or his Lois Lane?
Other Books in the Heartbreaker Series:
Seeing Double
A Heartbreaker Novel, Book 1
Publisher: Montlake Romance
Published: August 2017
Dani Botelli has vowed to step out of her demanding movie star mother's shadow and is determined to start a new chapter in her life. But two men vying for her attention are making for double the trouble. There's Jake, her police detective almost-ex who wasn't so hot as a husband but still has the hots for Dani. And as usual, he needs her intuition and visions to help him solve a crime. Then there's her high school crush, Michael, a former NFL pro who's now her mom's hunky lawyer.
Working alongside Jake, while keeping her special gifts under wraps, is proving to be more dangerous than Dani realized. She needs to stay out of harm's way—and out of Jake's flirtatious path—long enough to find out if Michael is the one. But will her hard-to-explain hunches be the secret that comes between them?
A National Reader's Choice Award finalist.
Dealing Double
A Heartbreaker Novel, Book 2
Publisher: Montlake Romance
Published: February 2018
Falling in love can leave anyone feeling a little exposed…
Archaeologist Gabby Knight has been living under an assumed identity to steer clear of her mobster father's enemies. But when she suspects her father of plotting to steal a priceless statue buried in New Mexico, she risks everything and sets out for the desert to beat him to it—and to save him from making a grave mistake. Breaking into a secluded cabin to wait out a blizzard, she's not worried about visitors. It's not like anyone would be traveling in this kind of weather…right?
Wrong. Detective Jake Morris has been ordered to take an overdue vacation, so he's looking for some quiet time in the isolated retreat. But getting clobbered over the head by an auburn-haired firecracker wielding a cast-iron pan wasn't the relaxing start he had in mind. Using a lot of charm and a little help from his prophetic ex-wife, Dani, he soon discovers who the sexy intruder really is.
Serving justice is in Jake's blood, so he can't help but join Gabby on her quest to protect the statue and catch a thief. To properly do his job, Jake knows he can flirt but better not fall. After all, what kind of future could a cop and a mobster's daughter hope to have?
Tamra Baumann is an award-winning author of light-hearted contemporary romance. A reality-show junkie, she justifies her addiction by telling others she's scouting for potential character material. She adamantly denies she's actually living vicariously in their closets. Tamra resides with her real-life characters—her husband, kids, and their allergy-ridden dog—in the sunny Southwest. Visit her online at www.tamrabaumann.com and on Facebook at www.facebook.com/author.tamra.baumann.
Contact Links
Purchase Link


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Kevin: From indie filmmakers Nick Petito & Ron Paglio Jr. comes "Halloween: Obsession," a 40 minute homage to John Carpenter's "Halloween" that tackles powerful subjects such as bullying, horror movie obsession, and the effect parents and peers can play on a teenage horror fan.
Steve: This film can relate to any of the horror fans out there on a number of levels. Horror fans, can at times, feel like the outcast like the main character Marco. With slashers taking a back seat to pretty much everything, we as horror fans feel the need to defend our love. We all have had the odd times dealing with parents and kids at school and this film brings that to the front in an eye opening, yet fun way.
Kevin: As the film begins, we meet Marco (played with sincerity by co-director Ron Paglio, Jr.) as he is tortured and tormented by the teens he goes to high school with. They tease him mercifully about his obsession with the Halloween series and his family at home is even worse. They continue the torment at home and all he has to look forward to is watching his favorite "Halloween" series to pass the time away. One day Marco says enough is enough and….well, this being a 40 minute short, I don't want to give away too many of the surprises.
Steve: The characters and acting in this film exceeded my expectations and I loved Marco's parents the most. The back and forth between the mom and dad had me laughing out loud and the acting was spot on for the this particular film. The bullies featured in the film were also solid and acted as comedic relief as well. The acting was very well rounded for a low budget film and it was a great surprise.
Kevin: "Halloween: Obsession" is a very worthy first feature that hits on a lot of sensitive subjects while, at the same time, staying very true to the independent horror genre. It isn't perfect, some of the sound is a bit muddled and the film is a little on the long side for a short, but it is very entertaining and I can't wait to see what these guys do next. The passion and drive shown here is exactly what independent horror needs.
Steve: Passion in exactly what these filmmakers have and it shows. Not only did they put in the work to create a film, but they revolved the film around what they love. With a few audio tweaks and a few cuts to trim the running time, I'm sure this flick can find itself in a festival near you.


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Terrier and tabbies up for adoption
Published 12:00 am Sunday, May 26, 2013
The following are among the animals waiting for adoption at the Rowan County Animal Shelter:
Rosie is a young adult, female terrier mix who is well mannered and already knows how to sit and shake. She is a sweet girl who would love to be adopted into your loving home. Rowan County Animal Control ID 54311.
Miles is a 2-month-old male silver tabby who arrived at the shelter with several of his siblings. They are all adorable and would love to find loving homes in the next few days. Rowan County Animal Control ID 54334.
Rowan County Animal Control Shelter hours are Monday-Friday, 11 a.m.-4 p.m.; Saturday, 8-11 a.m. The shelter is at 1465 Julian Road; 704-216-7768. Adoption fee is $70.


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Children aged between 5 - 12 years inclusive who are traveling without the supervision of a parent or guardian are classified as being an Unaccompanied Minor. To make a booking for an Unaccompanied Minor contact your Reservations team
Bookings for these children cannot be made online.
Please note: In the interests of the safety of the child, children under the age of 5 years will not be carried unaccompanied on any Sharp flight.
Booking the Flight
At the time of booking we will require the parent/nominated guardian who is checking in the child to complete an Unaccompanied Minor Form. Once completed, details must be sent to the Reservations Office
At the Airport
Unaccompanied minors must arrive at the Sharp Airlines Terminal at least 60 minutes prior to departure. This will allow ample time for check-in procedures.
When the minor arrives at the Terminal, the parent/guardian will be asked to fill out a Sharp Unaccompanied Minor Form. Please ensure that you have photo identification as this will be checked against the information provided to Sharp on the Unaccompanied Minors Form
In The Air
Unaccompanied Minors are supervised by Sharp Airlines crew from boarding time until landing. He / she should be able to travel without constant supervision as flights operated by Sharp do not carry a flight attendant. A child must be able to sit upright unaided in the purchased seat, with the seat belt adjusted securely without any slack around the waist.
Special Notes
Encourage your child to take a favourite toy or doll on the flight. Please explain that they will have the responsibility of looking after it throughout the journey. This will help your child feel more secure and 'at home.'
Please note that there are no toilet facilities on Sharp Airlines Aircraft. Ensure that the young person has attended the toilet facilities at the airport prior to boarding.


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Keeping Babies Safe Inc. Privacy Policy
Keeping Babies Safe Inc ("us", "we", or "our") operates https://keepingbabiessafe.org (the "Site"). Our Company is dedicated to protecting your privacy when you visit or communicate with our site or personnel. The Privacy Policy offered here, offers an explanation regarding any personal data you may provide to us or that we garner from you.
By using the Site, you agree to the collection and use of information in accordance with this policy.
To operate our website it is essential to collect or process certain data and information.
Personally identifiable information may include, but is not limited to your name ("Personal Information").
The data may include information such as your computer's Internet Protocol ("IP") address, browser type, browser version, the pages of our Site that you visit, the time and date of your visit, the time spent on those pages and other statistics.
Forms filled out on our website allow us to collect information about you regarding registration you make.
Any data collected from communications to us from you, for any reason.
The personally identifiable information we collect from you allows us to provide you with the Services and to enable users to navigate and enjoy using the Site. We will also use your personally identifiable information to develop, improve and advertise the Site and Services. We may also use your personally identifiable information for internal purposes such as auditing, data analysis and research to improve our Services and customer communications. We may also use the data collected for the following:
We may use data you provided in order to offer you the information you asked for from our site, in direct relation to our services or products. We may also send information on products we feel might interest you, as long as you have consented to such communications.
Any commitments we made to you may require the use of your information, used only to fulfill your request.
We may use your information to explain any changes our website has undergone such as structural or service/ product modifications, which could affect our service to you.
An existing customer may require contact regarding goods or services that were a subject of an earlier sale.
We may use your data or allow third parties to use the data, in order to give you information about unrelated goods or services you may find of interest. We may contact you about these services or goods if you consented to the contact.
A new customer may be contacted by us or a third party if you have consented to such communication.
If you do not wish communication from our website or a third party you will be given the opportunity to decline said communication. We will not allow your information collected while you were on our site to be used by us or a third party if the consent is withheld.
Please understand that we do not share information that is going to identify you to our advertisers. However, on occasion, we may provide them with statistics about our site's visitors.
It is possible that we may gather information regarding your computer for our services. This collection of data is used for statistical analysis about our website. Any information shared will not identify who you are, but rather be mathematical data about our visitors and their use on our site. The data does not give out any personal details.
Cookies may be used to gather this general internet data. When used, cookies are downloaded to your computer without prompting. The cookie file is stored on your hard drive, where files are transferred to. This information helps us improve our site and services to you. All computers can block cookies by activating proper browser settings. There is a place to enable you to decline cookies under the options menu. Please note if you decline cookies you may experience limited access to certain areas of our site.
Advertisers can use cookies, which we do not control. If cookies are used they will be downloaded if you click on any advertisement we have on this site.
If applicable, we may share your personal information to any group member. This will include subsidiaries or holding companies we may work with, as well as their subsidiaries if any.
Personal Information may be shared with third parties:
- If we sell part or all of our business or assets we may share personal information to a third party.
- When legally requested, we may share your information.
- Fraud protection and to minimize credit risk may require a sharing of your information.
Third Party Links to websites on our website are not included in our privacy policy. You will need to check their privacy policy regarding data. We do not accept liability or responsibility for third party links and their privacy policies.
You have the right to access any information we may collect and store about you. If you wish to have access to this information it may be subject to a handling fee, used to cover our costs regarding the information you requested. If you wish to access this data please provide contact details below.
The security of your Personal Information is important to us, but remember that no method of transmission over the Internet, or method of electronic storage, is 100% secure. While we strive to use commercially acceptable means to protect your Personal Information, we cannot guarantee its absolute security.
We reserve the right to update or change our Privacy Policy at any time and you should check this Privacy Policy periodically. Your continued use of the Service after we post any modifications to the Privacy Policy on this page will constitute your acknowledgment of the modifications and your consent to abide and be bound by the modified Privacy Policy.
If we make any material changes to this Privacy Policy, we will notify you either through the email address you have provided us, or by placing a prominent notice on our website.
We are happy to receive any queries, comments, or requests you may have regarding our Privacy Policy. Do not hesitate to get in touch.


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Confused by how much weight you can actually carry on top of your vehicle? Don't worry, it might seem confusing at first, but this helpful guide to calculating load ratings should help.
Fitting Kit K172
Clamp Mount fitting kit. Prorack Smartfoot fitting kits are interchangeable and fit both through and flush styles. Thousands of fitting kits are available to plug into the Smartfoot system. All roof types are covered by Prorack Smartfoot Technology.
* Price quoted is the recommended retail price (RRP) and does not include freight or installation. Refer to specifications, installation and safety advice before use.
- Prorack Smartfoot technology
- Clamp Mount fit
- Designed to suit specific vehicle/s – find your car to get the right fitting kit
K172 Fitting Kit K172
Safety & Warranty
All Prorack products come with a 3 year limited warranty
For more information, refer to our warranty page. Safety is paramount in all Prorack products, and our engineers go the extra mile to
ensure the bars can withstand the harshest treatment. The final step is up to you – so be sure to read all instructions provided with your
product and use it safely.
How much weight can I actually carry on top of my vehicle?
Prorack has changed! Tell me more?
The company that's always brought you simple, reliable, great value rack solutions now has a fresh, modern look. You're going to love it! Click here to learn more.
Do you offer a fitment service for your roof racks?
We have a range of authorised dealers who offer fitment services. Please see our store locater to find a retailer in your area.


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Spa Maintenance
Cleaning Your Spa
Soak in your spa's sparkling clean water by following these simple cleaning tips.
- For the whole spa: Use a mild non-abrasive, non sudsing cleaner and a soft rag or nylon scrubber to remove dirt build-up.
- For minor surface cleaning: Use common baking soda to clean small surface areas.
- For a shiny look: Apply FreshWater Spa Shine to your clean and dry spa shell.
- For spa pillows: Follow the instructions in your Owner's Manual to remove and clean your spa pillows.
- For vinyl cover: First remove the cover and spray it lightly with a garden hose to loosen any dirt or debris that might have built up. Then, using a mild soap solution (1 teaspoon dishwashing liquid with 2 gallons water) or baking soda, scrub the vinyl in a circular motion with a large sponge and rinse with a garden hose. Rinse the bottom of the cover without using soap, and wipe it clean with a dry rag. To condition the cover after cleaning, apply a thin film of Hot Spring Cover Shield™ product.
Helpful Hint: To keep detergent and soap residue out of your spa water, shower without soap before soaking in your spa, and instead of washing your bathing suit use the rinse cycle.
Clean Your Spa Filter Cartridges
Because mineral particles or calcification from hard water can clog any water filtration system, we recommend following these light cleaning tips each month to keep your spa's water flowing properly.
- Spray cartridges: Spray each cartridge with a garden hose, rotating while spraying to thoroughly remove any debris between filter pleats.
- Use filter cleaner: Use either FreshWater® Instant Filter Cleaner or FreshWater® Filter Cleaner to keep your filters clean and in good operating condition.
- Replace filters: While cleaning your filters will help keep water running smoothly, you should replace your filters every three years with genuine Watkins replacement filters.
Replacing Your Spa Water
While following spa water cleaning tips will keep your water fresh longer, soaps and detergents can build over time in your spa to cause residue. Know how to replace your water with these steps:
- Drain and refill tub: Following the instructions in your Owner's Manual, drain and refill the water in your spa to clear detergent and soap residue that may have accumulated over time.
- Get pre-filter: For sparkling clean water right from the start, use the CleanScreenTM; Pre-Filter when filling your spa.
- Attach pre-filter: When using the CleanScreenTM: Pre-Filter, attach it to an ordinary garden hose to remove organic contaminants, metals like copper and iron, and tannins from your new water.
How To Winterize Your Spa
Your Hot Spring spa is designed for year-round use in all climates. Ensure maximum energy efficiency in your spa any time of the year with these steps.
- Buy a Winter Blanket: Keep your spa hot year-round, even in areas with freezing temperatures, by purchasing a Winter Blanket from your local Hot Spring spa dealer.
- Install the Winter Blanket: Install the vinyl-covered, fiberglass insulated Winter Blanket inside of the equipment compartment door, adding additional precaution against partial freezing to some of your spa's components while maximizing energy efficiency.
- Look for wear and tear: Check that your cover is at peak performance level by looking for signs of wear and tear.
- Check the seal: Make sure the seal is still tight and intact so heat doesn't escape.
- See if you need a replacement: If you see signs of sagging, fading or cracking, get a replacement cover for your spa.
- Remove snow and ice: Regularly brush snow off of your spa cover and splash warm water on ice rather than prying it off.
- Stay maintained for vacation: If you plan to leave for few days during the winter months, keep your spa maintained with these tips:
- When you return: Upon your return, balance the pH and sanitize the water prior to using.
If you plan to be away from home a week or longer, call your local dealer for more tips on winterizing your spa, or check your Owner's Manual for additional instructions.
Keep your spa water clean from algae, bacteria and other unwanted impurities by maintaining a safe amount of sanitizer. With too much sanitizer in your spa water, your lungs, skin and eyes may become irritated.
Refer to your Owner's Manual for sanitizers approved for use with your spa. DO NOT USE tri-chlor chlorine, any type of compressed bromine or chlorine, acid or any type of sanitizer not approved for your spa. If in doubt, please contact Hot Spring Spas Customer Service Department.
Hot Spring Spas support is here to help make your spa maintenance as easy as possible. For additional information about the care and cleaning of your spa, refer to your Owner's Manual.
For any special questions, or any technical or customer service questions, please contact our Customer Service Department or call 1-800-999-4688.
Spa Water Products
Accessories To Help Maintain Clean, Sparkling Water
Water is the essence of your spa, so it should be fresh, clean and ready to enjoy. Hot Springs offers two accessories to keep your water clean and your care routine easy.
Hot Spring MPS Chlorine-Free Oxidizer To eliminate unwanted impurities accumulated in you spa water, this chlorine-free oxidizer increases sanitizer efficiency and enhances water clarity. The Hot Spring MPS Chlorine-Free Oxidizer is compatible with bromine, chlorine and most alternative sanitizers. It is also recommended for use with the EverFresh® water care system for the best quality water possible...fresh, safe, and free of odors and irritation.
Hot Spring Spa Vac The Hot Spring Spa Vac cleans dirt, gravel, leaves and other debris without draining your spa. This self-contained, simple-to-use water vacuum requires no pumping, batteries or water hook-ups, while the telescopic aluminum pole makes it easy to remove debris from hard-to-reach areas. You can also it on your swimming pool steps and in fountains.
Questions About Your Spa?
Contact us today and our expert consultants will be happy to assist with any questions you may have.


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Fall To Pieces :
- – We are a good month into the fall season here; leaves change colors, collect on the ground; weather gets colder.
- – But right around the corner, Daylight Saving goes away; can't wait to get back to standard time; wish we were like Arizona and Hawaii and just get rid of the twice year time change.
- News – Story 1: No albums released this year have gone platinum
- News – Story 2: HBO Go web only subscription coming in 2015
- News – Story 3: Marriage equality is now legal in 32 states
- RANT: "You'll Never Believe what happened" stories/links that make you click through
- SHAMELESS PLUG: Love the music of Miniature Tigers
- Ending
- Email Feedback
– 10 months into the year and not a single album released in 2014 has gone platinum – 1 million copies sold in the US; the closest album that was actually released in 2014 is Eric Church "Outsiders" which is approaching 750k; Lorde and Beyonce have sold a bit more than 750k, but they were albums that were released in 2013, of which Justin Timberlake's "The 20/20 Experience" and 4 other releases crossed the platinum mark; the number one seller this year is the Frozen soundtrack, also released in 2013, has moved 3.2 million copies, making it the only album to have sold more than 1 million copied in 2014; record sales are a sad state, if you base it on sales numbers; or if you are Taylor Swift, who might just be the first to the million seller with her new album "1989".
– Link to article: No one has a platinum album in 2014
– almost 2 weeks ago, HBO made news that their popular online service will be available outside of a cable TV subscription; currently, you need to obtain HBO from your cable provider in order to use the HBO Go app/service; the number of cord cutters has grown in the last few years and more people subscribe to Netflix, Hulu Plus; the list is growing with CBS recently announcing it's own service; I want HBO, but don't care to pay the $20 a month to my cable company; I'm trying to find ways to reduce or remove cable TV, but not quite there yet; glad to see HBO finally making it possible to cut their cord from the cable companies on their stranglehold requirement for having a separate subscription just to use the app; I hope HBO doesn't charge more than $20 a month; I'm hoping it's closer to $15; can't wait.
– Link to article: HBO GO Available To Non-Cable Subscribers In 2015
– thanks to the US Supreme Court not wanting to hear the appeals cases before a few weeks ago, marriage equality (same-sex marriage) is now legal in 32 states; Kansas, Texas, Florida and Michigan have pending stays and legal action keeping the ban on SSM until they can pull their collective heads out of their asses; Utah, surprisingly enough, lead the way last December; the state spent over $600,000 fighting marriage equality; your taxes at work; Some day, it will be legal nationwide; for now, the fight is pretty much over in the states that allow it; nothing bad has happened, no opposite couple marriages have fallen apart; it's just a fact of life that those who wish to marry their partner, should have the legal status without a bunch of nanny state religious freaks denying it at every turn; in the end, equality wins. It just takes time.
– Link to article: Marriage Equality Arrives In Wyoming
– you see these on Facebook all the time; it shows some picture and then "you won't believe what happens next" then nothing until you click; once you do, you usually see the conclusion to the story, but with a page filled with ads and tons of extra links; the term is called "link bait" and it's pretty common on most social media sites; I can't stand these links, let alone any site that uses an unlimited bevy of pop up ads; these stories have some type of intrigue to them, enough where there's many links all over the web; next time you see one, don't click, regardless how curious you are.
– my daughter turned me on to them when they came through Utah back in 2008; they played this little club called Kilby Court – holds maybe 200 people tops; I've seen them many times over the years, including 3 times this year; Their latest album "Cruel Runnings" is polished alternative with that pop crossover; I've gotten to know the band members: Charlie, Rick, Algernon and Brandon that they recognize my daughter and I when we walk into a venue; they just finished their tour and are taking a holiday rest; can't wait to hear what they have for us in 2015.
iTunes link: Banal Leakage


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Employer reviews
(257 reviews)
Employer review details
Apprentice reviews
(44 reviews)
Apprentice review details
Provider overview
Derby College Group is judged by Ofsted to be good with outstanding features. These features include the way we engage with employers, in particular to design & deliver our curriculum; the involvement of employers helps us deliver high quality learning experiences & helps us develop students' behaviours & equip them with strong employability skills. We have been at the forefront of delivering Government's new skills agenda & was one of the first providers to deliver T Levels. We are a partner in the East Midlands Institute of Technology with a focus on L4 & L5 programmes. Derby College offers a wide range of apprenticeship programmes across varied occupational areas, the largest of which are construction, engineering, health and social care
Courses offered
View all 73 courses offered by this provider
Select a course to view locations, training options and contact details.
Painter and decorator (level 2)
71% achievement rate (out of 80 apprentices)
53% national achievement rate
Explain achievement rate
DCG's training options
Head office
Roundhouse Road, Pride Park, Derby, DE24 8JE
Apprenticeship location
Check DCG's training options for the apprenticeship location.
Contact this provider about this course
- Telephone
- 01332 387424
DCG is 1 of 72 training providers for Painter and decorator (level 2).


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The Dugout by Meghan Quinn
Release Date: September 19th
Genre: Contemporary Romance
Add to Goodreads: https://bit.ly/2lRZDMK
FREE in Kindle Unlimited!
AMAZON US: https://amzn.to/30v08us
AMAZON CA: https://amzn.to/2kSRIP0
AMAZON UK: https://amzn.to/2mpG92d
AMAZON AU: https://amzn.to/2mjMPyF
Let me ask you a question:
If someone is vying for your spot on a team and just so happens to injure you during practice, would you believe it was on purpose?
Word around campus is . . . it was no accident.
That injury has cost me everything; my starting position, my junior year—and the draft. Now, I'm a senior fresh off recovery, struggling to find my groove, until the day I run into a nervous, fidgety, girl with freckles, in the dining hall.
They call Milly Potter The Baseball Whisperer, The Diamond Wizard, and The Epitome of All Knowledge. She believes in baseball. She breathes it. She's the queen of an infamous dynasty, but no one actually knows who she really is, and she plans to keep it that way.
One mishap in the panini line, one miscommunication in the weight room, and many failed attempts at an apology equal up to one solid truth -- Milly Potter never wants to speak to me again -- no matter how good my forearms look.
Little do we both know, she's about to become more than just my fairy ballmother.
Everyone knows me as the easygoing, fun-loving guy without a care in the world. You know who I'm talking about, right?
The guy who cheers when a couple kisses, who says stupid shit like YIPPEE when he's excited, the guy who has no shame in shimmying his bare, bright white ass to his friends just to make them laugh.
I'm also the guy who is magically smart, can lead an entire bar to harmoniously sing any Taylor Swift song, lucks out in everything he does, and has impeccable taste in clothing—despite wearing a baseball hoodie every Monday. A dude must make himself feel better when the Monday blues hit and a hoodie does just that.
But have you guessed it? Do you see where this is going?
I'm not that guy anymore.
Easygoing and fun-loving? Not anymore.
I spit venom at whoever dares to be in my presence. You know the old man who throws endless piles of shoes at the street youths as they walk by? That's me, minus the incontinence problem and mothball smell. My days of singing Taylor Swift with a crowd are over.
Instead—if I even make it to a bar—I bury myself in a corner and sneer. Oh boy, do I fucking sneer. I sneer at anything and anyone that even attempts to look at my face.
That impeccable fashion sense I was boasting about? Gone. I think I've been wearing the same pair of athletic shorts for a month—not really—but maybe it's a little true.
And the guy who lucks out in everything he does? Ha, my luck was cut short at the beginning of the season thanks to the square ass, dirty dick named Kirk Babcock, also known as Kirk BADcock by my team.
What did this Badcock do, you ask?
If you're thinking he poked me with said bad cock, you need to get your mind out of the gutter.
What he did was even worse than winging his willy around on the baseball field.
So bad that you might need to brace yourself . . .
He committed a sin against all baseball etiquette.
The cardinal sin.
The biggest sin of all sins.
Are you sitting? I don't want you to faint from the blasphemy I'm about to share.
Deeps breaths, everyone . . .
He . . . damn it, he slid late . . . at practice.
Gasp, I know.
I told you it was bad . . . my balls are shriveling up into my taint just thinking about it.
The dumbass freshman, who had too much juice in his junk, decided to book it to second during a practice game while Holt and I were fleshing out a double play. The dingleberry slid into second base two seconds too late.
Why is this a problem?
For those of you who might not be in the know—don't worry, I won't hold it against you—back in 2016, the gods of baseball developed a new rule; all players sliding into second must hit the ground first before touching the bag to avoid injuring the opposing players.
Layman's terms: don't be a dickhead and hurt people.
Apparently, Badcock didn't get that memo, because the little turd nugget charged second base like an out-of-control steam train . . . just as I slid my foot across the base for the out. His dirty slide took my leg out, twisting me in the process, and tossed me to the ground.
As I fell, I heard a resounding snap that would make any grown-ass man throw up into his lap, followed by an immense amount of pain shooting up the back of my leg.
The motherfucker—stenchy bad cock—ruptured my Achilles tendon.
Like Achilles himself, I buckled to the ground and wallowed in pain while holding my leg, as if I let go, it would detach from my body and float right on up to heaven where it belongs for the many good years it gave me.
Badcock proceeded to fling his helmet off his head, get in my face, and apologize profusely, making up some excuse about tripping over his own damn feet. Yeah, okay, fart breath.
I'd like to see the tape for a full review, because I'm questioning the shit out of that statement. Tripped, my left nut.
If I was a freshman and got hurt, I wouldn't want to rip the skin off Badcock's scrotum, maybe just give him a swift lodge of my foot up his ass. But ripping scrotum skin, nah.
But guess what? I'm not a goddamn freshman.
I'm a fucking junior, and if you know anything about baseball, you know being a junior in college is one of the most important times in a guy's life.
Because that's the year you're eligible to be drafted.
Brentwood University is known as a breeding ground for exceptional baseball players; it's where the scouts come to find their next top prospects. If you want to play professional baseball, you either choose to go into the draft right after high school or be recruited by Brentwood. I chose an education so I had a possible career to fall back on in case something happened to me . . . like rupturing my Achilles tendon.
Can you guess where this is going?
Strike up the violins, because a sob story is coming your way.
I was ushered off the field and straight to the state-of-the-art training room where, after an excruciating physical exam, I had an ultrasound. It was then confirmed I'd be out of commission for the season. I underwent surgery, had the stupid thing stitched back together—let's take a moment to be physically ill over the thought of that—and then put through an extensive rehab, missing my chance to be drafted.
You read that right, I was not drafted. My best friends were . . . I was not.
Because no one wants an injured player, even if he has tons of promise.
Even if he was the best second baseman in the country.
Even if he was supposed to be drafted in the first round.
Not one single team wanted to take the gamble to see if I could make a full recovery.
Isn't that just peachy?
So needless to say, Kirk BADcock stays as far away from me as possible. As for me, I'd like to say I'm not a bitter man with a chip on his shoulder, but that would be a massive lie.
I have the biggest damn chip on my shoulder, so big that I named him Aloysius and I high-five him every morning, agreeing that we're going to try to make at least one person's life miserable that day.
My suggestion, if you see me around campus? Steer clear, run away, duck and hide, because I'm a polluted motherfucker with an equally rotten Aloysius on my shoulder ready to raise hell in your life.
Carson Stone is out for vengeance thanks to one moronic badcock.
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I am totally a Carson fan!
This book of Carson & Milly's story was soo good.
Milly and Carson's chemistry was a fun one to read.
I enjoyed the slow build up of these two characters and how they challenged one another.
The emotions had me reeling and tearing up.
Was funny, loving and had me smiling like a fool at the end.
Go One Click this book!
This book of Carson & Milly's story was soo good.
Milly and Carson's chemistry was a fun one to read.
I enjoyed the slow build up of these two characters and how they challenged one another.
The emotions had me reeling and tearing up.
Was funny, loving and had me smiling like a fool at the end.
Go One Click this book!
**ARC kindly provided in exchange for an honest review***
5 Cherries Popped
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About the Author:
USA Today Bestselling Author, wife, adoptive mother, and peanut butter lover. Author of romantic comedies and contemporary romance, Meghan Quinn brings readers the perfect combination of heart, humor, and heat in every book.
Connect with Meghan:
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/authormeghanquinn/
Twitter: https://twitter.com/AuthorMegQuinn
Website: http://authormeghanquinn.com
Amazon: https://amzn.to/2LitE4x