So just when Hunter is facing two criminal trials starting in a few weeks, he has no resources.

Oh... I so wanna see the right/well connected have to rely on a public defender.

there are concerns about how Biden will pay for expert witnesses to testify for him at his Delaware trial.

HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!

As the hearing opened, Lowell told Judge Maryellen Noreika that for the first time in his long career, he wasn’t ready for a trial to start. He noted the complexity of Biden’s legal situation: two trials looming within weeks of each other, and appeals proceedings already underway in both jurisdictions.

Come on... there's no way that this lawyer didn't see this coming and was just wanting to milk this cash cow for as long as possible (currently four years and counting).

Experts who testify for defendants at trials can bill $500 per hour or more for their work. They can rebut the analysis that government experts provide about evidence presented at trial.

Tell me what I want, what I really really want! I'll tell you what you want, what you really really want! You gotta pay, you gotta pay, you gotta pay, you gotta pay, You gotta pay me 500 bucks in USA now...

It’s not clear how much Lowell, or the other lawyers working on Biden’s cases, are charging for their services. In other recent cases, Lowell has sought fees of $855 per hour and over $1,500 per hour.

Hunter needs to get another job sitting on the board of a Ukrainian company, STAT!

Berges also told lawmakers he stopped representing Biden last year.

“From a business perspective, it hasn’t been the best decision for me,” he said.

Got that bag, time to split!

Fun USA Bug Fact:

In another month or two, the rate of First Class stamps is going to increase again to something like .73 cents a stamp. There was already price hike in January. I don't remember what the price increase for Priority/Priority Express and the Flat Rate Priority/Priority Express is supposed to increase to.

But the price of Bulk Business Mail (Junk Mail) isn't supposed to increase.

HAH!

I love how threatening "employment background checks" sound when you're filling out a multi-hour long job application and then you read stuff like this.

Where's the "40~60 wild hogs guy" when you need 'em?

Copyright troll businesses are a thing, so probably covering as much of their ass as they can.

History.

The government’s purchase of housing inventory can inject more liquidity to developers, who could then have more resources for housing delivery,” Larry Hu, chief economist at Macquarie, told CNBC

Except that real estate is one of the few things that is very finite. If all the best places to build have already been developed (cheap, accessible, desirable) then it will cost the developers more and more to try to develop less accessible or desirable places. Any that try will find that their ability to make a profit will be greatly reduced and it would have been more "profitable" for the developer to just take the money from the state owned enterprises and retire.

The People's Bank of China will provide 300 billion yuan ($42.25 billion) to financial institutions to lend to local state-owned enterprises (SOEs) so they can buy unsold apartments that have already been built.

This reads, to me, as China loaning money to state owned "businesses" (think the United States Postal Service in the USA) to buy up real estate that sits too long. It will keep a USA 2008 style crash from happening while moving more housing from private hands into public hands.

What happened in the USA in 2008 was that private enterprises got free money with no strings attached to cover their losses. And that was it. Federal/state governments could have forced banks to renegotiate mortgages with the people living in the houses, or used the free money to buy controlling shares of businesses, or required that all these businesses that got free money could either pay the loan back on a schedule or the owners would take what money they could and the businesses would belong to the state/federal government to run.

Ahh... another, "You better vote for Genocide Joe. If you don't, Genocide Donald is gonna eat ya!" article.

First: flood the Justice Department with stalwart conservatives unlikely to say "no" to controversial orders from the White House. Second: restructure the department so key decisions are concentrated in the hands of administration loyalists rather than career bureaucrats.

So basically do what any President already does.

Overhauling the Justice Department would allow the Trump administration to pursue conservative policy initiatives such as dismantling hiring programs meant to boost diversity in the workplace and ending federal oversight of police departments accused of racist practices.

So... the only change would be that the employee base would disappear if they were standing in front of a white wall. Its not like there's much the DoJ seems to be able to do to keep the police in check with their "oversight".

The general counsel provides legal advice to FBI employees regarding ongoing probes and other matters. Closing it would force the bureau to receive legal guidance from people closer to Trump's attorney general in the chain-of-command and limit the FBI's ability to conduct investigations without close political oversight, according to several Trump supporters and legal professionals with knowledge of the department's workings.

Or the FBI agents will just decide they don't have to ask anybody permission and act freely.

wow... that was a "yikes!" comment from kredditacc.

Passports stay in the captain's safe.

Diamond hands!

I'm imagining a "its just a phase" type of test. Pretty sure there's some elements of the "social contagion" somewhere in the assessment.

The one on the placebo will just "grow out of" wanting to be the opposite gender. It won't matter that puberty will be obvious, its not the physical characteristics the researchers are wanting to observe. Their testing whether or not a kid who says "I'm transgender" at a prepubescent age will still have those feelings when they hit puberty, are going through puberty, get to the other side of puberty.

How does a person who was born without the ability to see, or hear, or walk, want to do any of those things?

The difference being, If I was assigned "male" at birth and society categorized me as "boy/man" and treats me as boy/man but I don't "feel" boy/man and would like to be treated as girl/woman, what will that society do?

Somebody talking about a near death experience with God occasionally, probably won't get them lynched, denied housing, proper and dignified medical treatment, the ability to have a romantic relationship, etc.

A society deciding that its weird or uncomfortable to know that a hetero cis gender person marries a person who happens to be transgender, that's not being uncomfortable with "fickleness" that's drifting into bigotry territory.

Debating Gender

Insulting Trans People

New site tagline just dropped

Bayon-aint-a

I think "respecting the youth" is trying to figure out how the older generations view the younger generations.

In the USA, there is a pretty strong current of "anybody younger than me" is always inferior, lesser, worse. So a younger person's opinion is attacked or ignored by someone who is older no matter how correct a younger person's opinion may be.

It could be understood as, "When do the the older generations accept the younger generations as a peer?" or "When do the younger generations become accepted by the older generations as an equal?"