Is Hunter Biden’s private life a public matter?
Marjorie Taylor Greene is a morally bankrupt attention-seeker who seems to think her job as a congresswoman entails stirring up culture wars rather than representing her constituents. She’s become a household name thanks to her nonstop taxpayer-funded trolling.
Despite the fact that the Georgia Republican has set the bar for herself somewhere below a dungeon in hell, Greene still managed to hit a new low this week. On Wednesday she turned up at the House oversight committee with a large poster board sporting a montage of photos showing a nude Hunter Biden engaged in sex acts. Where on earth did she get these? Assuming the photos are authentic and not doctored, probably from the laptop Hunter Biden famously left in a repair shop back in 2019.
Greene demonstrated some restraint: there were black boxes covering genitals and the faces of the women involved. Still, the photos were graphic. They were accompanied with the caption: “Hunter recorded multiple sex tapes with a prostitute he had paid for out of his law firm’s bank account.”
While Greene warned that “parental discretion is advised” before showing this imagery to the entire room – and the camera crews in it – she didn’t explain that she was going to be exhibiting porn. That left the media outlets streaming the hearing with the awkward job of blurring out the poster boards as quickly as possible. The right is obsessed with the idea that liberals want to force ideas about sexuality on to children – yet they’re the ones beaming porn into unsuspecting living rooms around the country. And, not content with showing the pictures just once, Greene also included the images in her official email newsletter, whose subscribers may very well include minors. As well as potentially violating Georgia’s revenge porn statute (which defines nudity as including “the depiction of covered male genitals in a discernibly turgid state”), she might have broken federal laws that ban distributing obscene material to minors.
What was the point of this – potentially illegal – stunt? Apart, of course, from humiliating Hunter Biden, and his father, the president? Ostensibly, to provide “evidence” that Hunter Biden was involved in sex trafficking and committed tax fraud by deducting payments to prostitution as business expenses. The subject of Wednesday’s hearing, which featured two IRS whistleblowers, was whether a federal investigation into Hunter Biden’s tax crimes was unfairly lenient. The Republicans argued that Hunter, who has pleaded guilty to two counts of misdemeanor tax crimes, was treated with kid gloves during a five-year investigation into his dealings because of family connections. Democrats, meanwhile, argued the investigation, which was headed up by a Trump-appointed attorney, was extensive and thorough. Greene’s little show-and-tell, which wasn’t backed with any real evidence, added nothing of value to this discussion.
Hunter Biden is a tricky subject to discuss. Republicans are obsessed with his personal life and allegations that he made millions of dollars from foreign companies by trading off his last name. They spend an inordinate amount of time and resources trying to get his many scandals front and center in the hope it’ll help bring down Joe Biden. Or, at the very least, serve as a diversion from eyebrow-raising dealings on their side of the aisle. (Like, for example, the fact that Jared Kushner and Ivanka Trump made between $172m and $640m in outside income while working in the White House.) By focusing too much on Hunter Biden – a private citizen who doesn’t work for the government – the liberal-leaning media risks falling into the Republican’s narrative agenda. They also risk amplifying some of the conspiracy theories and unfounded allegations that Republicans have woven into legitimate ethical concerns about Hunter’s behaviour.
While these are very real concerns, some Democrats may have overcorrected when it comes to the subject of Joe Biden’s prodigal son. There are certain liberals who seem to think Hunter’s business dealings aren’t anyone’s business. He’s not in public office, one argument goes, so why should anyone care how he makes money? Whenever Hunter Biden is trending on Twitter, which is often, you’ll see a chorus of screeches of ‘WHO CARES….WHAT ABOUT JARED AND IVANKA?!’ from liberals.
This sort of hyper-partisanship isn’t healthy. The normalization of nepotism (and it’s hard to argue that nepotism didn’t play into Hunter’s art career and lucrative board positions) isn’t healthy. Hunter Biden may be a private citizen, but he’s still the president’s son. Like it or not, his behaviour, and allegations that he made money by trading on his last name, have an impact on people’s trust in government. And the way in which his behaviour is covered has an impact on people’s trust in media. He may not have a government position, but that shouldn’t shield him from scrutiny.
While there are certain aspects of Hunter Biden’s past that are tricky to discuss, I’ll tell you one thing that is inordinately clear: his sex life is nobody’s business. Unless there was criminality involved, nobody needs to know anything about what Hunter does in bed. Hunter doesn’t always come off as the most sympathetic figure – but absolutely nobody deserves what Greene just put him and his loved ones through.
Texas woman vomits due to trauma of testifying on impact of extreme abortion ban
A group of women are suing the state of Texas, after being denied abortions despite having nonviable or life-threatening pregnancies. The lawsuit, which was filed in March by the Center for Reproductive Rights, seeks clarification on what constitutes a “medical emergency” exception in Texas’s abortion ban. On Wednesday the women gave harrowing testimony that should be required viewing for anyone involved in creating abortion-related legislation. At one point, while explaining how she was forced to give birth to a baby who died four hours later due to a fatal birth defect, a plaintiff vomited from the stress of reliving that moment.
Four men arrested after women stripped naked and paraded in Manipur
Wherever there is conflict, you see rape being used as a weapon of war. Manipur, a region in north-eastern India that has been involved in an ethnic conflict since May, is no exception. A video of two women being stripped naked, publicly paraded and allegedly gang-raped has gone viral and sparked outrage. On Thursday arrests took place in connection with the assault. While that’s good news, it’s unlikely there would have been any consequences for the perpetrators without the viral video pressuring authorities to act. A police report was filed at the time of the incident in early May. No action was taken for more than 70 days.
Sexual violence against women and children reached all-time high in Brazil in 2022
“It would be hard to present a worse scenario in relation to violence against children and adolescents than that which emerged in 2022,” a disturbing new report states. Covid-19 lockdowns and the toxic influence of the ultra-conservative Jair Bolsonaro government may be to blame.
The Women’s World Cup has kicked off
And, I regret to inform you, it’s already spawned sexist commentary. During a match between Australia and Ireland, an Australian commentator marveled that motherhood hadn’t blunted the competitive instincts of midfielder Katrina Gorry.
Heba Saadieh has become the first Palestinian to referee a World Cup match.
“I hope I can open this door for others, for Palestinian women referees – and men also – to be selected in the future,” Saadieh said.
Male grooming is booming
Don’t worry, this is the good sort of grooming. As ideas about masculinity shift, more men are investing in decent moisturizer, CNN reports.
The week in podtriarchy
It doesn’t matter how big and bulky they get, male killer whales always need their mum: scientists have just discovered that post-menopausal orcas protect their sons from getting injured in fights with other whales. “You see adult males in their 40s and 50s swimming side-by-side with their mums, and the mums catching fish and feeding them,” one killer whale researcher told the Guardian. “They’re mummy’s boys through and through.”
