Spokeswoman Victoria Nuland says Clinton is resting at home but is speaking with senior staff and is, quote, "sounding terrific, upbeat and raring to go."

She says Clinton looks forward to returning to her Washington office next week, although a date hasn't been set. Doctors have advised her to avoid international travel for now.

Clinton was discharged Wednesday from a New York hospital, three days after doctors diagnosed a blood clot during a follow-up exam stemming from a concussion she suffered in December. Doctors are treating the clot with blood thinners and say they expect she will fully recover.

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Yet, many of the health benefits are lost, Courtney says, when a patient ingests marijuana in the most typical way: by smoking it. Burning the plant kills off enzymes, which can diminish some of the curative properties. Juicing the entire plant, on the other hand, retains the enzymes and may be more medically beneficial. Plus, smoking the plant kicks the THC--and its psychoactive properties--into high gear, producing marijuana's high, which many find to be a curative effect in its own right, but is not always what the patient desires or wants.

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Starbucks CEO Howard Schultz wrote in a blog post on the company's website that “Rather than be bystanders, we have an opportunity — and I believe a responsibility — to use our company’s scale for good by sending a respectful and optimistic message to our elected officials to come together and reach common ground on this important issue.”

"It’s a small gesture, but the power of small gestures is what Starbucks is about! Imagine the power of our partners and hundreds of thousands of customers each sharing such a simple message, one cup at a time," Schultz writes.

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We were residents at a strict segregated rehab in Southern California, and communication between opposite sexes was extremely limited. This made the task of seducing Alicia all the more daunting, more exciting and more intense. I was a serious drug abuser: I’d do anything for intensity.

I started by violating the “sprinkler rule,” a strictly enforced regulation that forbids men and women from holding eye contact for more than three seconds—or around the time it takes for a lawn sprinkler to pass by a patch of grass. I ignored this rule. In fact, for a few days I sat in the lounge gazing intently at Alicia until she noticed. Somehow, she received my message without being creeped out—at least not entirely. But how could I be sure? We had never spoken a word.

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" Who could say no to a million kids? Not even Congress," suggested the One Million Child March Facebook group, which has already garnered nearly 3,000 "likes" within hours of its founding.

A highly tentative date for the event has been set for Feb. 17.

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In a letter to Gil Kerlikowske, the administration's director of the Office of National Drug Control Policy, Leahy wrote:

The Senate Judiciary Committee has a significant interest in the effect of these developments on Federal drug control policy. How does the Office of National Drug Control Policy intend to prioritize Federal resources, and what recommendations are you making to the Department of Justice and other agencies in light of the choice by citizens of Colorado and Washington to legalize personal use of small amounts of marijuana? What assurance can and will the administration give to state officials involved in the licensing of marijuana retailers that they will not face Federal criminal penalties for carrying out duties assigned to them under state law?

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Here’s the agenda:

…tax reform that goes way beyond individuals and rates; much deeper Social Security and Medicare changes than currently envisioned; quick movement on trade agreements, including a proposed one with Europe; an energy policy that exploits the oil and gas boom; and allowing foreign-born students with science expertise to stay here and start businesses.

Do this and there could be not an economic recovery — but a boom, many argue.

Really?  I gotta say, I don’t see it.  In fact, pretty much everything on that list is a) conventional wisdom in DC and b) largely a distraction from where I think the evidence is actually pointing, as I’ll stress in a moment.  To be clear, raising more tax revenues and slowing health care costs are critical in terms of getting our long-term debt situation under control, and immigration reform that provides a path for folks here to stay is also a great idea.  A domestic energy boom is already underway and trade agreements do squat for growth (which doesn’t mean they’re not worth it—but their growth potential is hugely overhyped).

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Last week, Savage lined up with other gay couples in the state to get their marriage licenses, after the state legalized gay marriage in November.

“It’s really a remarkable journey we’ve been on and such a remarkable sea change,” Savage told Seattlepi.com. “And not just for gay people, but straight people have changed, too. It’s gotten better for us because straight people have gotten better about us.”

Watch:

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Under federal law, recreational marijuana use is still illegal. But now that the American people (in two states, at least) have made it clear they support legal recreational marijuana use, the Feds have to make a choice about whether to lay down the law – the federal law, that is -- or respect voters' choices.

The New York Times had a story yesterday about this issue. It noted that “the Obama administration has been holding high-level meetings since the election to debate the response of federal law enforcement agencies to the decriminalization efforts.”

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King County, the state's biggest county, opened the doors to its auditor's office in Seattle just after midnight PST to start distributing marriage licenses. But hundreds of people had lined up hours earlier, snaking around the downtown Seattle building on a chilly December night.

"We knew it was going to happen, but it's still surreal," said Amanda Dollente, who along with her partner, Kelly Middleton, began standing in line at 4 p.m. Wednesday.

Washington state now joins several other states that allow gay and lesbian couples to wed. Gregoire and Secretary of State Sam Reed certified the election on Wednesday afternoon, as they were joined by couples who plan to wed and community activists who worked on the campaign supporting gay marriage.

Because the state has a three-day waiting period, the earliest that weddings can take place is Sunday. Same-sex couples who previously were married in another state that allows gay marriage, like Massachusetts, will not have to get remarried in Washington state. Their marriages will be valid here as soon as the law takes effect.

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Marijuana legalization is a beginning, not an end.

When residents of Colorado and Washington voted to legalize the adult use of cannabis, it felt like a momentary rush of sobriety in a country dazed by decades of anti-marijuana hysteria. But what comes next?

The drug war edifice is cracking and the end of prohibition may be nigh. Or may not be. The way things play out is not preordained. Major strategic differences among legalization proponents are surfacing about how to proceed. Some drug policy reform leaders, fearing an official backlash, are urging a cautious, go-slow, approach: make it as easy as possible for the feds to back off and let the states do their thing. Other voices, claiming a pro-pot electoral mandate, are calling for bold, assertive moves to implement the will of the voters.

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For instance, Logan writes, the debate over Iran starts and ends with the assumption that the country must be prevented from acquiring nuclear weapons at all costs. It's almost impossible to find inside voices who question that underlying assumption, even though there’s plenty of evidence that it would be possible to contain a nuclear Iran at reasonable costs. Meanwhile, President Obama made few major adjustments to George W. Bush’s national security apparatus. Mitt Romney, who disagreed with Obama on just about everything, could find almost nothing substantive that he would do differently from Obama on strategic national security issues. On Israel, China, Russia or the need for a massive American military empire there is a clear, bipartisan foreign policy consensus; dissenting voices are dismissed almost out of hand as unserious, so most people who hold them stay quiet to stay on the inside.

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The ADF, formerly known as the Alliance Defense Fund, sent out legal memos to municipal clerks in the three states, which each legalized gay marriage on Election Day, telling them that they “can readily resolve this potential religious conflict” and avoid issuing the marriage licenses themselves, instead delegating to those who don't have such objections.

“No American should be forced to give up a constitutionally protected freedom, nor should any American be forced to give up his or her job to maintain that freedom,” said ADF senior counsel Austin R. Nimocks. “Religious freedom is paramount to every American, including those issuing marriage licenses. They can perform their job without violating their conscience.”

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It would be a mistake to call these ballot initiative victories "pro-pot." Most of those who voted in favor don't use marijuana; indeed many don't like it at all and have never used it. What moved them was the realization that it made more sense to regulate, tax and control marijuana than to keep wasting money and resources trying to enforce an unenforceable prohibition.

Whether or not the two state governments move forward with regulating marijuana like alcohol will depend on two things: how the Obama administration, federal prosecutors and police agencies respond; and the extent to which the states' senior elected officials commit to implementing the will of the people. The fact that federal laws explicitly criminalize marijuana transactions, and that the federal government can continue to enforce those laws, means that federal authorities could effectively block the initiatives from being fully implemented. But there are also good reasons why the Obama administration should, and may, allow state governments to proceed as voters have demanded.

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The problem, of course, is that the Obama administration may cite the 1970 Controlled Substances Act as statutory rationale to try to force states to continue an expensive and inhumane war on weed that unnecessarily arrests and incarcerates thousands of Americans each year.

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There are two “What next?” questions: What happens at the ballot box two or four years from now? And what happens in Colorado and Washington over the next year or two? Neither question has a clear answer, but the political developments may be easier to forecast than the operational ones.

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Marijuana legalization votes this week in Colorado and Washington state don't just set up an epic state-federal showdown on drug law for residents. The measures also open the door for marijuana tourism.

Both measures make marijuana possession in small amounts OK for all adults over 21. The measures affect not just state residents but visitors, too. Tourists may not be able to pack their bowls along with their bags, but as long as out-of-state tourists purchase and use the drug while in Colorado or Washington, they wouldn't violate the marijuana measures.

That's assuming the recreational marijuana measures take effect at all. That was very much in doubt Friday as the states awaited word on possible marijuana lawsuits from the federal government.

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