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.