Joe Biden’s son Hunter is on the White House guest list for a prestigious state dinner on Thursday, two days after he pleaded guilty to two criminal counts.

The American President has always publicly defended this son with a tormented past, who is repeatedly the target of his political opponents.

According to that list, Hunter Biden is accompanied by his wife, Melissa Cohen, who also includes his sister, Ashley, daughter of Joe Biden and his wife Jill Biden, and a granddaughter of US President Naomi.

This dinner honoring Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi will also be attended by Alphabet (Google) CEO Sundar Pichai, Microsoft Satya Nadella and Apple Tim Cook.

Hunter Biden is the only surviving child from the US President’s first marriage, which ended tragically in 1972 when Joe Biden’s wife and their young daughter died in a car accident.

Hunter Biden survived, as did his brother Beau, who died of brain cancer in 2015.

The youngest son of the American president has to appear in court on July 26.

Hunter Biden, whose history was marked by heavy alcohol and crack addiction, will plead guilty to a count of tax evasion.

Even in the event of a violation of the Weapons Act, he will reach an agreement with the public prosecutor’s office that amounts to an admission of guilt.

He is accused of acquiring a firearm in 2018 when he was addicted to drugs.

Joe Biden said again this week that he is “very proud” of his son.

Hunter Biden has also been accused of corruption by the Republican opposition.

Conservative parliamentarians accuse him of conducting dubious deals in Ukraine and China while Joe Biden was Vice President of Barack Obama (2009-2017), taking advantage of his father’s networks and name.

Federal judge blocks Ron DeSantis’ new law banning children from attending drag shows after ruling it was ‘unconstitutionally vague and too broad’ – after anti-Woke governor threatened to fire CPS at the to call parents

• The law, endorsed and signed by Gov. Ron DeSantis, banned children from attending “adult performances.”
• U.S. District Judge Gregory Presnell granted Hamburger Mary’s motion for a restraining order
• The law can no longer be enforced until the restaurant, which has hosted “family-friendly” drag shows for 15 years, has settled its litigation

By Alice Wright

Published: 04:16, 24 June 2023 | Updated: 4:17 AM, June 24, 2023

A federal court has blocked implementation of a controversial Florida law banning children from attending drag shows.

The law, endorsed and signed into law by Gov. Ron DeSantis, was challenged in court by Orlando restaurant Hamburger Mary’s, which has hosted “family-friendly” drag shows for 15 years.

The law can now no longer be enforced until Hamburger Mary settles the litigation in her case after a federal judge issued an injunction.

Hamburger Mary’s lawsuit alleged that the law prohibits “protected expression of opinion based on the identity of the speaker” and was vague and overbroad.

The state filed a motion to dismiss the case, but US District Judge Gregory Presnell denied the motion.

Hamburger Mary’s has been hosting “family-friendly” drag shows for 15 years and taking on the state

The injunction comes as a blow to Gov. Ron DeSantis, who campaigned for the law

Presnell agreed that the law was “unconstitutionally vague” and instead granted the restaurant’s request for an injunction to prevent regulators from enforcing the law.

“We are very excited about this first win,” said Melissa Stewart, a Memphis-based attorney representing the restaurant, in a statement.

“This law is unconstitutionally vague, overly broad, and clearly aimed at drag performers.”

“This injunction will protect the First Amendment rights not only of our clients, but of the LGBTQ community across Florida as we move forward with the next steps in this litigation,” she added.

The new law prevents venues from allowing children into shows, exhibits, or other presentations that are performed before a live audience and that depict or simulate, in whole or in part, nudity, sexual conduct, sexual arousal, or certain sexual activities. … indecent behavior or the indecent display of genital prostheses or imitations of genitals or breasts.”

Should venues be found to have broken the law, regulators could suspend or revoke their licenses.

Presnell, who was appointed to the bench by President Bill Clinton in 2000, said the so-called Child Protection Act was “specifically designed to stifle speech by drag queen performers” and that the state “already has laws in place that protect.” offer”. of obscene behavior.

The judge said the law was ill-defined and “prone to broad subjectivity.”

Melissa Stewart, a Memphis-based attorney representing the restaurant, said she was “extremely pleased” with the “first win.”

Transgender protesters in Florida have taken a stand against Ron DeSantis’ anti-drag law

“A fully clothed drag queen with prosthetic breasts flaunting her cleavage and reading an age-appropriate story to children may be considered ‘vicious’ — and thus ‘lewd’ — by some, but such a scenario would not be the kind of obscene constitute conduct prohibited by…” “The statutes” in previous case law, Presnell wrote in the 24-page judgment.

Presnell also drew attention to the problems that arise from focusing on “prosthetic or mock genitalia or breasts.”

He asked what implications this might have for cancer survivors with genital or breast prostheses.

Presnell said the law also conflicts with the Parents’ Bill of Rights and other laws.

“All parental rights are reserved in this State to the parent of a minor child,” he wrote, “including … the right to direct the upbringing and moral or religious upbringing of his minor child.”

A derailed tanker burns. A bombed-out military service office smolders. A hooded figure runs into the night, leaving a burning Molotov cocktail at the base of a bust of Lenin. These pictures are not from Ukraine, but from the little-known republics of Russia.

In a series of videos – from Bashkortostan, Buryatia, Kalmykia, Sakha, Tartarstan and Tuva – speakers appeal to their various compatriots to break out of the Russian army and return home and fight for the independence of their indigenous homelands.

Six 30-minute videos prepared by Ukraine’s UATV Freedom channel shed light on President Putin’s renewed concerns about the Ukraine war: a potential second front of secessionist movements in the world’s largest country by area. This comes as Russia’s mercenary boss calls for an armed uprising against the country’s defense minister.

During the Cold War, Moscow happily dissolved the British, French, and Portuguese empires by arming and training African liberation movements. Now the rulers of the last European empire face various national and religious minorities speaking the language of decolonization.

“The Russian Federation is not a federation but a colonial state,” says Tuvan activist Sholbaany Kuular in a video released yesterday. She claims that a Tuvan man is eight times more likely to die in Ukraine than a man from Moscow, saying: “Putin makes war with the hands of indigenous peoples.”

Political scientist Leyla Tatypova from Tatarstan says: “This is an absolutely criminal colonial war against sovereign Ukraine… We should not forget that we are also a colonized nation.”

From Bashkortostan, activist Aygul Layon says: “This is not our war… Putin is killing two birds with one stone.” He is destroying us while trying to expand the Russian empire into Ukraine and further into Europe.”

The reason for such radical rhetoric seems to be four factors: an unpopular draft targeting national and religious minorities; a demographic shift that has seen Russians fall into minority status in many republics; the feeling that resource-rich republics are subsidizing Moscow; and the growing belief that Ukraine’s resistance to Russia offers the best chance in a century for Russia’s myriad republics to achieve independence.

The national bill announced by Mr Putin last September came as a shock to many living thousands of miles from Ukraine. Maya Vasilyeva, an Evenkin from Sakha, remembers that military helicopters landed in remote villages, woke young men from their sleep and flew away.

The protests by women in Yakutsk, the Sakha capital, were so large – and the local police were considered so unreliable – that National Guard troops were dispatched to Moscow to quell the protests.

“Russia is an empire fighting with the armed forces of its colonies,” says Buryat activist Evgeniya Baltatarova. “They dare not attack Moscow. They dare not touch St. Petersburg.” Buryatia, Kalmykia and Tuva are the three historically Buddhist republics of Russia. Kalmyk activist Daaur Dorzhin says: “We are a peace-loving state.”

Three of the presented republics are net contributors to the budget of the Russian Federation. Bashkortostan and Tatarstan are major oil producers. With a population of just one million, Sakha is spread over an area four times the size of Texas and produces coal, gold and diamonds.

“Moscow is living at our expense,” says Sargylana Kondakova, co-founder of the Free Yakutia Fund.

The shock of conscription has unleashed the kind of discourse and radicalization that the Vietnam War provoked in America in the 1960s, although the resemblance is only of form. In the case of the Russian Federation today, activists willing to go in front of the camera seem to be the tip of an iceberg of dissatisfaction, fueled in part by the informal teaching of a revisionist history of the 17th-century conquests of “Moscowia”.

In apparent response to minority discontent, the Russian Duma passed a bill allowing the army to recruit prisoners and offer amnesty in exchange for military service.

With Russia’s army cut in half by the invasion of Ukraine, several militants say it’s the right time to sever ties with Moscow. Some say their republics should have rebelled in the 1990s, when Chechnya fought two wars for independence.

“If we had settled with Chechnya and Tatarstan, Moscow would not have had enough power against three republics,” a young Sakha activist, Nyurgun Antonov, told a Ukrainian interviewer in the Nations Project series. Another Sakha activist, Dmitry Pavlov, agreed, saying, “We should have left, we should have supported Ichkeria (Chechnya).”

In the revisionist history school taught underground in the republics, teachers warn that Moscow will always pursue a “divide and conquer” strategy and will inevitably break its promises of autonomy.

“If one day Putin croaks, Bashkiria will not gain its independence peacefully,” says Ruslan Gabbasov, an exiled activist from Bashkortostan. “The repression will continue unless there is a revolution from within and Russia crumbles.”

Each video in the series ends with an appeal to soldiers to defect from the Russian army to the Ukrainian army. The goal would be to learn military skills that could be used to free republics from Moscow’s control. For would-be independence fighters, viewers are told that some sort of subway takes men across Kazakhstan, Turkey and Ukraine.

“We will set up guerrilla groups and fight against the Moscow occupiers,” says the self-proclaimed “deputy prime minister of the Tatar government in exile.”

“Stop fighting Ukraine,” says Kalmyk activist Vladimir Dovdanov. “Ukraine will still win… We will form military units with which we will invade and liberate Kalmykia.”

For skeptics, talk of independence may be unworldly. In 1959, however, President Eisenhower signed into law “Captive Nations Week,” a time to commemorate 22 countries controlled by Communist governments.

Eisenhower said of Moscow: “Of course they don’t admit that there are captive nations. They have their own propaganda. They present to their own peoples, including the world, as far as they can, an image that we know is distorted and untrue.”

At the height of the Cold War, the prospects for these peoples seemed hopeless. Thirty years later, however, 14 of those countries escaped Moscow’s control. This year, Captive Nations Week takes place the week of July 11th.