http://www.wvgazette.com/News/201401170030

CHARLESTON, W.Va. -- Freedom Industries, the company that fouled thousands of West Virginians' water with a chemical leak into the Elk River last week, filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy Friday.

Freedom owes $3.6 million to its top 20 unsecured creditors, according to bankruptcy documents. The company also owes more than $2.4 million in unpaid taxes to the Internal Revenue Service, and the IRS has placed at least three liens on Freedom's property, demanding payment.

The unpaid taxes date back to at least 2000, according to a lien filed in 2010.

Under the bankruptcy code, Chapter 11 permits a company to reorganize and continue operating.

The filing also puts a hold on all of the lawsuits filed against Freedom Industries. Since the leak last week, about a mile and a half upriver from West Virginia Water American's plant in Charleston, about 25 lawsuits have been filed against Freedom in Kanawha Circuit Court. The company also faces a federal lawsuit.

more at link

http://billmoyers.com/2013/10/11/the-ten-hardline-conservatives-pulling-the-strings-of-the-gop-shutdown/

Much of the coverage of the government showdown has focused on a relatively small group of hardline conservatives within the Republican caucus who have backed their party’s leaders into a fight they didn’t want.
As Ryan Lizza noted in The New Yorker, these lawmakers mostly represent very safe, heavily Republican and disproportionately white districts that don’t look much like the rest of the country. Many of those on the front lines are recent arrivals to Capitol Hill, and they’re pushing a leadership they see as having been too willing to compromise with Democrats in the past.

It’s an important angle. Yet it also obscures what should be an obvious question: Since when do freshmen senators or one- or two-term reps push their congressional leadership around? Historically, it’s been the reverse. And since when does a newcomer to the Senate such as Ted Cruz (R-TX) have the right to tell House Republicans what to do? If there’s only a relatively small group of lawmakers who think defunding the law is a dandy idea, why has every budget resolution with such a provision won more than 200 Republican votes in the House of Representatives during the showdown? Why is this supposedly silent majority of Republicans so docile? Why don’t they push back?

More at link.

Be sure to click through to the interactive feature.

The President cannot give in.

<snip>

House Republicans have shut down the government and are threatening to keep the government shuttered not in order to delay further discussion on a pending bill, but rather in an attempt to rewrite the history of the legislature, to override a Constitutional law that has already been decided and judged constitutional before the Supreme Court.

<snip>

If we allow extremists to hold us hostage, they will continue to hold us hostage and we open the door to any extremist who disagrees with the majority.

If they are successful, then the very next use of this tactic will be its use to defund any portion of our civilization that the outvoted minority vehemently disagrees with, from abortion to immigration to energy to climate change to gay rights to evolution right on across the political spectrum to oil drilling and nuclear power to gun control to the military to law enforcement.

http://www.stonekettle.com/

LITTLE ROCK, Ark. (AP) - Arkansas Attorney General Dustin McDaniel has approved the wording of a proposal for next year's ballot legalizing medical marijuana.

McDaniel on Thursday certified the proposal submitted by Arkansans for Compassionate Care, clearing the way for the group to begin gathering the 62,507 signatures needed to place the proposed initiated act on next year's ballot.

The proposal would allow patients with qualifying conditions to purchase marijuana from nonprofit dispensaries or to grow their own marijuana if they don't live close to a dispensary. A competing marijuana legalization measure certified by McDaniel is nearly identical, but does not allow for patients to grow their own.

Arkansans for Compassionate Care was behind a medical marijuana proposal that voters narrowly rejected in November. Several other marijuana legalization proposals have been submitted to McDaniel's office.
http://www.ktts.com/news/Arkansas-Attorney-General-Approves-Medical-Marijuna-Ballot-Language-226392471.html

"repeal and replace Obamacare". However, I haven't heard any discussion of a Republican plan. Have I missed something?

http://www.stonekettle.com/2013/04/and-they-are-us.html?m=1

tell them what you have and that you would like to send them. I'm sure the family would love to have the pictures, but preparing them ahead of time would probably be appreciated. It's going to be a pretty emotional experience for them, I would suspect.

Mix together:

1 16 oz. can pumpkin
4 eggs
1 can sweetened condensed milk
pumpkin pie spices to taste

Pour into a 9 X 13 baking dish.

Distribute evenly over top:

1 box yellow cake mix (dry, straight out of the box)
1 cup chopped nuts
2 sticks melted butter

Bake at 350F for about 45 minutes, until top is nicely browned. Serve warm with whipped cream or ice cream.

This might be my newest favorite dessert.

I venture to suggest that patriotism is not a short and frenzied outburst of emotion but the tranquil and steady dedication of a lifetime.

Adlai E. Stevenson, American statesman (1900-1965).

This was printed in our local newpaper today.

I work with some really great guys, but they are very conservative and agree with much of what the Tea Party stands for. The discussion around the break table this morning included speculation about Romney’s choice of running mate. Someone mentioned that Condi Rice had been considered, but she had turned it down. I pointed out that they were trying to get the black vote and the women’s vote all at the same time just like last cycle when they tried to get the women’s vote by running Sarah Palin for VP.

That’s when it got interesting. These guys are convinced that Sarah was chosen for her intellect and no other reason. I asked “Have you ever really listened to her speak? She just connects a lot of words, but she never really says anything.”

Why, of course, they’ve listened to her. Apparently I haven’t or I would know how smart she is. They are really disappointed that I don’t recognize just how smart she is. She’s a lot smarter than “your President”!

!?!?!?!?!WHAT!?!?!?!?!

My reply: “Let’s see. It took Sarah 5 years to get a degree in sports journalism and “my President” was President of the Harvard Law Review.”

………….silence………….

“So, are you going to get that four-wheeler you were looking at?”