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Not sure if this has been linked, but... Benghazi! Or not...
Yet another setback for Benghazi conspiracy theorists
Just so we’re clear, this is a Republican-led committee, with GOP members outnumbering Democrats, 12 to 9.
And according to the Chronicle’s report, the committee’s findings are consistent with everything reality has told us all along: “There was no ‘stand-down order’ given to American personnel attempting to offer assistance that evening, no illegal activity or illegal arms transfers occurring by U.S. personnel in Benghazi, and no American was left behind.”
What’s more, the Obama administration’s process for developing “talking points” was “flawed, but the talking points reflected the conflicting intelligence assessments in the days immediately following the crisis.”
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On August 10 2014 06:42 GreenHorizons wrote:Show nested quote +On August 10 2014 06:20 Yoav wrote:
Everybody's worried about the feds. No venture capitalist I know wants to touch marijuana because of the legal haziness. Sure, it's fine right now. Obama isn't going after this. But supremacy clause and all that, it's still illegal. So when the next administration comes in, no one knows what the status is. It takes exactly one federal officer to decide to enforce federal law to make a huge headache for the entire industry. It's really not a judgement on anything except the current legal status, but it does mean people don't want to touch it for fear of lost investment (and/or prosecution). "comes to consumption" I'm guessing you missed that?
No, it's just not relevant. Businesses need capital to get off the ground. The laws of economics have not been superseded by the magical power of cannabis. It may be safe and good and bring religious enlightenment (the potheads I know are generally intelligent, well-adjusted people and I have nothing personally against the drug, although it's not personally my speed). But selling cannabis is not just a question of having the idea and there being a market. Like selling anything, you need marketing and employees and property and supply. And in this case you need to cut into a large and established market. That's difficult, and it takes money.
And sure, there is some money floating around. Cannabis has a large fanbase, and some of them have a great deal of money. But it's just not a smart investment now because of the legal haze. One president who thinks cannabis regulation should be enforced could shut everything down and seize every asset. And the fact that this would probably eventually be overturned provides no comfort to those whose assets were taken or destroyed. Heck, anyone in federal law enforcement with a mandate concerning drugs could do it of their own volition, at any time, and it would be held up in court should anyone challenge it. Cannabis is illegal in the United States. Any states that have "legalized" it have not altered that status and won't as long as federal laws against it persist.
There needs to be federal legal clarity for the industry to really take off.
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On August 10 2014 12:09 Yoav wrote:Show nested quote +On August 10 2014 06:42 GreenHorizons wrote:On August 10 2014 06:20 Yoav wrote:
Everybody's worried about the feds. No venture capitalist I know wants to touch marijuana because of the legal haziness. Sure, it's fine right now. Obama isn't going after this. But supremacy clause and all that, it's still illegal. So when the next administration comes in, no one knows what the status is. It takes exactly one federal officer to decide to enforce federal law to make a huge headache for the entire industry. It's really not a judgement on anything except the current legal status, but it does mean people don't want to touch it for fear of lost investment (and/or prosecution). "comes to consumption" I'm guessing you missed that? No, it's just not relevant. Businesses need capital to get off the ground. The laws of economics have not been superseded by the magical power of cannabis. It may be safe and good and bring religious enlightenment (the potheads I know are generally intelligent, well-adjusted people and I have nothing personally against the drug, although it's not personally my speed). But selling cannabis is not just a question of having the idea and there being a market. Like selling anything, you need marketing and employees and property and supply. And in this case you need to cut into a large and established market. That's difficult, and it takes money. And sure, there is some money floating around. Cannabis has a large fanbase, and some of them have a great deal of money. But it's just not a smart investment now because of the legal haze. One president who thinks cannabis regulation should be enforced could shut everything down and seize every asset. And the fact that this would probably eventually be overturned provides no comfort to those whose assets were taken or destroyed. Heck, anyone in federal law enforcement with a mandate concerning drugs could do it of their own volition, at any time, and it would be held up in court should anyone challenge it. Cannabis is illegal in the United States. Any states that have "legalized" it have not altered that status and won't as long as federal laws against it persist. There needs to be federal legal clarity for the industry to really take off.
I mean the generic nature of your argument is accurate, it just doesn't apply to Washington. We had more people trying to invest than we had opportunities to get in...
So again you miss that the federal criminality and uncertainty has only slowed politicians to the point of legislatively preventing more people from investing not creating a shortage of willing investors.
However the high barrier to entry has pushed the industry here into favoring 'big-box' type outfits instead of the medical industries 'mom and pop' type stores.
But again the uncertainty hasn't stopped literally dozens of medical stores from opening within 5-10 miles of my house or hundreds if not thousands across the state.
The federal law should be changed (as it makes lawmakers look even more moronic than they usually do) but the idea that there aren't more than enough people interested in investing despite the federal uncertainty is just a myth. Not to mention if investors wanted in they would have a better chance at changing the law than average citizens anyway.
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Bill Maher was right, she needs to stfu and disappear for 6 months. Take note this is exactly what the Obama Admin did and it would not have stopped ISIS, also she was SoS during said times.
President Obama has long-ridiculed the idea that the U.S., early in the Syrian civil war, could have shaped the forces fighting the Assad regime, thereby stopping al Qaeda-inspired groups—like the one rampaging across Syria and Iraq today—from seizing control of the rebellion. In an interview in February, the president told me that “when you have a professional army ... fighting against a farmer, a carpenter, an engineer who started out as protesters and suddenly now see themselves in the midst of a civil conflict—the notion that we could have, in a clean way that didn’t commit U.S. military forces, changed the equation on the ground there was never true.”
Well, his former secretary of state, Hillary Rodham Clinton, isn’t buying it. In an interview with me earlier this week, she used her sharpest language yet to describe the "failure" that resulted from the decision to keep the U.S. on the sidelines during the first phase of the Syrian uprising.
“The failure to help build up a credible fighting force of the people who were the originators of the protests against Assad—there were Islamists, there were secularists, there was everything in the middle—the failure to do that left a big vacuum, which the jihadists have now filled,” Clinton said.
Source
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Yeah im with Obama on this one. The civilians will always turn to experience regardless of how many weapons you give them, to do what Hillary claims would require boots on the ground.
And why the hell is she commenting on this indeed Oo. I don't see how it would help her presidential run and it can certainly harm it.
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If anything this points to the US needing to equip Assad to crush the rebellion.
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Her comments strike me as a sign she is feeling that feeling of inevitability. The nomination is still about 2 years out and she is already tacking to the right for the election. My guess is that this isn't a mistake she is making twice, but that she feels extremely confident (for good reason) that she has cleared the field so she wont have any legitimate competition for the Dem nomination (further makes me think she made a deal with Warren).
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Ugh, Clinton is a DINO, I hope she doesn't win the nomination.
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On August 11 2014 03:31 GreenHorizons wrote:
Her comments strike me as a sign she is feeling that feeling of inevitability. The nomination is still about 2 years out and she is already tacking to the right for the election. My guess is that this isn't a mistake she is making twice, but that she feels extremely confident (for good reason) that she has cleared the field so she wont have any legitimate competition for the Dem nomination (further makes me think she made a deal with Warren).
That is what sunk her in 08 and Gore eight years earlier.
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On August 11 2014 03:44 {CC}StealthBlue wrote:Show nested quote +On August 11 2014 03:31 GreenHorizons wrote:
Her comments strike me as a sign she is feeling that feeling of inevitability. The nomination is still about 2 years out and she is already tacking to the right for the election. My guess is that this isn't a mistake she is making twice, but that she feels extremely confident (for good reason) that she has cleared the field so she wont have any legitimate competition for the Dem nomination (further makes me think she made a deal with Warren). That is what sunk her in 08 and Gore eight years earlier.
Gore was sunk because the Clintons didnt throw their full support behind him, since they figured a crappy George w presidency would lead to a Clinton return in 04. But in 08 yep, the Clintons played the primary campaign both incompetently and arrogantly. And there is a decent chance that might happen to them again.
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On August 11 2014 03:44 {CC}StealthBlue wrote:Show nested quote +On August 11 2014 03:31 GreenHorizons wrote:
Her comments strike me as a sign she is feeling that feeling of inevitability. The nomination is still about 2 years out and she is already tacking to the right for the election. My guess is that this isn't a mistake she is making twice, but that she feels extremely confident (for good reason) that she has cleared the field so she wont have any legitimate competition for the Dem nomination (further makes me think she made a deal with Warren). That is what sunk her in 08 and Gore eight years earlier.
For such the political juggernaut that the Clinton's are, I find it hard to believe they could be so stupid 2x in a row but politicians have done much dumber stuff so it is possible.
My suspicion is that Warren is the only person that could see the surge of public support that Obama did and actually beat her for the nomination. So this news in combination with Warrens repudiations of any/all of her own presidential support/ambitions, I feel like Clinton had to make her a deal in order to pen her up during this upcoming election and prevent her from pushing her lefty support further away from Clinton than her own statements.
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To be fair, Clinton's failure in '08 was less about her campaign's failure and more about the startlingly effective Obama campaign as contrast.
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On August 11 2014 03:36 Livelovedie wrote:
Ugh, Clinton is a DINO, I hope she doesn't win the nomination.
She is a real democrat. She is what democrats are.
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On August 11 2014 11:29 IgnE wrote:Show nested quote +On August 11 2014 03:36 Livelovedie wrote:
Ugh, Clinton is a DINO, I hope she doesn't win the nomination. She is a real democrat. She is what democrats are.
The Clintons are the prototypical non-progressive democrats.
So are y'all finally ready to consider that Clinton may not be the democrat nominee in two years?
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On August 11 2014 12:05 xDaunt wrote:Show nested quote +On August 11 2014 11:29 IgnE wrote:On August 11 2014 03:36 Livelovedie wrote:
Ugh, Clinton is a DINO, I hope she doesn't win the nomination. She is a real democrat. She is what democrats are. The Clintons are the prototypical non-progressive democrats. So are y'all finally ready to consider that Clinton may not be the democrat nominee in two years?
If something out of the ordinary happens sure, like a stroke or something to that extent. Otherwise no one has the brand name. I dont agree that Obama rode just his popularity past her, Obama's campaigning skills are unquestionably impeccable while Hilary's attachment to her loyalists is clearly her Achilles heel.
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It will be funny to turn around the jokes about how badly the Republicans didn't want Romney and use them on Clinton.
Like it or not, and evidently most people here don't like it, Clinton is the front-runner and the almost too obvious choice to make for Democrats. It would be pretty surprising if there was another serious contender out there who won't immediately poop the bed when they're hit full-blast with the national spotlight and America's schizophrenic politics for the first time in the primaries.
To be fair, things aren't much better for the Republicans.
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I get the feeling that the republican freakshow will overshadow the democrats :p
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Clinton isn't the perfect nominee, but we're not likely to find one anyways. She's not going to be as hawkish as the GOP nominee regardless (unless it's Rand, but he would signify an extreme shift in GOP politics anyways).
Honestly, the only issue I have with Clinton is the dynastic stigma that comes along with her. I don't want another Clinton, Reagan, Bush, Carter, Kennedy, etc. I want somebody new that isn't so far to one side to seem absolute, but there doesn't seem to be a candidate like that on the horizon.
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Unless someone comes out of the woodwork on either side Hillary is practically the incumbent. Warren is somewhat interesting but there's no way she could possibly win.
I have absolutely no idea what Republicans are going to do. Romney doesn't look so bad now...
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United States43610 Posts
They'll do what Labour in the UK did in the 80s. Double down on their core principles, lose again, have a very bitter civil war, lose again due to the civil war and eventually realign to represent the new consensus in politics in time to win against the complacent other party with the slogan "we basically agree with them on the issues that made you hate us in the past but we're not corrupt arrogant dicks because we've not been in power for 20 straight years now".
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EPT
