US Politics Mega-thread - Page 6485

On December 31 2016 12:13 farvacola wrote:
Alan Dershowitz has threatened to quit the Democratic Party if Keith Ellison is chosen as chair, so let's go Keith!

On December 31 2016 20:40 xM(Z wrote:
there's no way they'll kiss and make up.

On December 31 2016 20:40 xM(Z wrote:
you people blow the Trump - Putin bromance way out of proportion. while Trump may have some infantile infatuation for Putin's personality cult, there's no way they'll kiss and make up.
you people need to wake the hell up. they might agree on some things and disagree on others but both will look for nr.1 in the end which is themselves, their interests.

On December 31 2016 12:51 LegalLord wrote:
It's a nice change of pace from "blame Russia for everything" at least.

On December 31 2016 12:51 LegalLord wrote:
It's a nice change of pace from "blame Russia for everything" at least.

On January 01 2017 00:01 Euphorbus wrote:



You are right. There is no way that someone who elbowed himself from being a KGB officer to restoring dictatorship, without bloodshed so far, has any respect for a reality tv star that became president only because the US voters wanted to throw a brick through the window.

And Trump will lose his nerve soon enough.

On January 01 2017 00:59 xM(Z wrote:
i'll say that Trump will keep people distracted with his twitter comments while making hideous behind the scenes plays and no one would notice or care.
if i may make an analogy: it'll be like the housing bubble all over again with Trump being the bankers.
people will think of him as either incredibly stupid or totally corrupt but it won't matter in the end; he won't lose, nothing will happen to him because again, people will pay the bailout.

stop looking at what he says and start looking at what he does then protest like you've never protested before else US is done for(pending ww3).

On January 01 2017 00:25 Doodsmack wrote:


Until you realize it's a change of policy that correlates with Trump's personal pride and financial interests.

And it is pride and vanity. It's about any slight suggestion that his win was anything other than a landslide that had nothing to do with Russia.

https://twitter.com/realDonaldTrump/status/815185071317676033

On December 31 2016 22:04 LegalLord wrote:

Trump might mess things up so bad that EE's might have to learn to get along with their more powerful neighbors without constantly calling for war against them.

On January 01 2017 01:40 kwizach wrote:

In which alternate reality are Eastern European countries calling for war against Russia, exactly? I'm pretty sure it's Russia that militarily occupied part of the territory of another sovereign state recently, and then outright annexed it in blatant disregard for international law. It's also Russia that has since then directed and supported armed groups to take over another region of the same country in order to destabilize and weaken it.

On January 01 2017 01:40 kwizach wrote:

In which alternate reality are Eastern European countries calling for war against Russia, exactly? I'm pretty sure it's Russia that militarily occupied part of the territory of another sovereign state recently, and then outright annexed it in blatant disregard for international law. It's also Russia that has since then directed and supported armed groups to take over another region of the same country in order to destabilize and weaken it.

This year’s election may have been dominated by Donald Trump, but it was also about marijuana. California, Massachusetts and Nevada made recreational use legal as a bunch of other states moved to legalize medical use. The victories weren’t all about getting high. The promise of marijuana is money – money for state taxes and for the bushels of small businesses that are being created in legal weed’s wake. Next year will be a big test for those businesses and, according to some, those promises are already going up in smoke.

Marijuana retail sales, both medical and recreational, could reach $4.3bn this year, according to the 2016 Marijuana Business Factbook, an annual survey of cannabis-related ventures conducted by Marijuana Business Daily. Access to a multibillion-dollar industry that could create new jobs is a prospect that appeals to voters otherwise uninterested in pot, but some of the aspiring entrepreneurs chasing that dream warn that weed is not an easy business.

When he was growing up Kevin’s parents – like many others – were not impressed by his interest in marijuana. “They were not cool with that shit at all, at least not when I was a kid,” says Kevin. Now in his 30s, Kevin has been smoking pot since high school and even worked for a weed delivery service in New York City in his 20s. (Due to the prohibition of recreational cannabis in New York the names of Kevin and his girlfriend have been changed.) His parents’ disapproval only added to Kevin’s astonishment when, in September 2015, his father approached him with a question: what did he think of opening a pot dispensary?

Kevin’s mother and father had heard that legalization in their home state of Florida was only a matter of time, and they thought that maybe with some seed money, Kevin would be able to start a dispensary there. His father, a veterinarian who does his own accounting, even offered to help Kevin with the bookkeeping.

Thus began Kevin and his girlfriend Elizabeth’s effort to open their own dispensary. It was an endeavour that they ultimately abandoned, mired as they were on all sides by seemingly insurmountable challenges – from securing a retail space, to meeting their capital needs completely in cash, to coping with the uncertainty of investing so much in a business that they could lose through the stroke of a legislator’s pen. Their experience is illustrative of the current business climate around legal cannabis, where regulation is keeping some small business owners from a multibillion-dollar market.

Kevin and Elizabeth’s hopes for their business were modest. A “very chic, minimal, cool dispensary with body products, edibles and lifestyle goods” is how Elizabeth describes their ideal operation, which she would have helped finance along with Kevin’s parents. “My ideal business model was just to be a small business owner, have a small shop and kind of play it by ear for the first year,” says Kevin. “Try to at least break even, make some profit, see how it goes.”

The first problem Kevin and Elizabeth encountered was finding a suitable storefront. Rather than anticipate legalization in Florida (where medical marijuana only just passed), the couple looked to Oregon, Elizabeth’s home state. Oregon was, at the time, still four months away from accepting its first recreational retail application, and Elizabeth’s father could help the New York-based couple meet Oregon’s in-state residency restriction for applicants. (The residency requirement has since been eliminated.)

Despite these advantages, securing a location proved nearly impossible. The couple considered renting storefronts in Portland, an hour’s drive south in Silverton and, finally, two hours north-west of Portland in Astoria. Portland was saturated with existing medical marijuana dispensaries and requiring new dispensaries be at least 1,000 feet from each other and schools. Landlords in Silverton made Kevin feel as if he was “the 500th dude to call” and either rejected his proposal outright or failed to return his calls. The couple were able to find one location for sale in the neighboring town of Warrenton but they didn’t like the location and there was another snag: the local government hadn’t yet decided whether or not it would opt out of legalization, which is possible under Oregon law.

Like any other small business, the couple’s venture was also limited by their available funding – but unlike other businesses, Kevin and Elizabeth weren’t able to turn to traditional sources of additional financing. Due to the federal prohibition of marijuana, dispensaries are unable to apply for government-backed small business loans; owners must instead provide all of the necessary capital themselves in cash, either from their own savings or from family, friends and other private investors.

According to the 2016 Marijuana Business Factbook, the national average startup cost of a dispensary is $325,000 and 72% of new pot businesses are backed primarily by their founders’ savings and debt. With only $100,000 from Kevin’s parents and Elizabeth’s retirement savings, the couple could have yet purchased the Warrenton property, paid $5,000 for state licensing, covered their lawyer’s fees and stocked their wares, but if anything went wrong, they would have nowhere to turn.

And many things can go wrong in the cannabis business as Tariq Alazraie, owner of the Bay Area Safe Alternatives (BASA) dispensary, can attest. “We’re kind of in purgatory,” Alazraie says of dispensaries. “Law enforcement doesn’t like us, and we’re attractive to the criminal element.” Since its founding in 2003, BASA has been threatened multiple times by the DEA, evicted 10 times and robbed a few times, as well as having its business accounts shut down thrice. All of these hardships are, in some way or another, connected to government regulations. Inspired by the federal prohibition of marijuana, the DEA not only threatens to raid dispensaries but also threatens landlords with forfeiture of their property unless they evict dispensary tenants. Federal prohibition also prevents dispensaries from having business bank accounts, meaning all transactions must be conducted in cash, which incentivizes criminals while leaving business owners with little sympathy from law enforcement.

On December 31 2016 10:58 Euphorbus wrote:
I am amazed why Obama decided to not veto. They vote on this and other Israel issues in the general assembly and the security council several times every year, and the US has been veto-ing everything for decades.

But now, just a month from Trump assuming office, and let's not forget Trump was elected in part by voters thought he was unqualified to be president (17%). So apparently these Trump voters wanted him exactly because they think Trump will make a terrible president (source: https://poll.qu.edu/national/release-detail?ReleaseID=2379). I guess in the same sense that the piratebay owner wants Trump to be president, as only that will blow up the system, but I digress...

So after a 8 year president, just weeks before Trump, Obama suddenly changes a decades long US policy to protect Israel from any veto.

Why?

On January 01 2017 02:58 Dan HH wrote:

Between this and saying Eastern European countries didn't want to join NATO but were forced into it, I'm seriously wondering where the hell he gets his information on EE from.