Just how valuable is the Biden family name? If you are a Democrat, I assume it is more valuable than it is to a Republican, but your mileage may vary. Perhaps the name value will remain elevated simply because Joe Biden is the current president and will one day (hopefully sooner than later) have the cache of being a former president.

It’s hard to imagine how the Biden name is golden, at least at this time. Joe Biden is deeply unpopular and has proven to be Jimmy Carter-level incompetent as president, left to manage one crisis after another of his own making. His alleged reputation as a politician who reaches across the aisle to work with everyone is damaged because that is not how he has operated as president. He even began using his own nickname for right-wing Republicans. Name-calling is not a unifying act. The rest of the Biden family doesn’t exactly cover itself in glory, either.

There is the Biden family business operated by brother Jim Biden and son Hunter Biden. Hunter’s problems are well-known, thanks to the information discovered on his now infamous laptop computer abandoned in a repair shop. One such discovery was his dalliance with a stripper in Washington, D.C. who gave birth to his daughter. Since her birth, Hunter has done his best to write the child off.

First Son Hunter is battling Lunden Roberts, age 31, over child support payments. He’d like them to be lowered. During this ongoing legal battle, Ms. Roberts asked Circuit Court Judge Holly Meyer to allow their daughter to take the Biden name. Roberts claims it would be to Navy Joan’s benefit because the name is “now synonymous with being well educated, successful, financially acute and politically powerful.” She’s looking down the road for her child’s future earnings potential, apparently. If other Bidens can grift off the family name, why not her daughter, too?

Roberts says the Biden name will open opportunities for the girl “just like it has for other members of the Biden family.”

She also claimed that the name change would make things right while her daughter remains “estranged” from the first family.

“To the extent, this is misconduct or neglect, it can be rectified by changing her last name to Biden so that she may undeniably be known to the world as the child of the defendant and member of the prestigious Biden family,” Roberts said in her filing.

The rest of the Biden family does not publicly acknowledge Navy Joan. You may remember mentions that there was not a Christmas stocking with her name on it in the White House this year among the others. She is not invited to special events, nor was she present at her grandfather’s presidential inauguration.

Hunter is a no-vote on the child taking the Biden name. At first, he denied the child was his, and then a DNA test proved otherwise. At the time of his relationship with Lunden Roberts, Hunter was also dating his older brother Beau’s widow. What a guy. Hunter wants Navy Joan to decide for herself later when “the disparagement of the Biden name is not at its height.” It’s open knowledge that Hunter’s troubled past has caused much family heartburn. Currently, he is under federal investigation for his tax returns and his dealings with Ukrainian energy company Burisma.

Hunter Biden calls Lunden Roberts’ motivation “political warfare” against the Bidens. He points to her efforts in 2019 to redact their daughter’s name and other identifying information from the public court record. It’s easy to understand why Roberts initially wanted to protect her child’s privacy. She is only four years old now. She was protecting a baby. After the treatment the family has given Navy Joan, and now that Hunter wants to cut his child support payments, who can blame her for getting more aggressive with him?

It’s not a great situation for the child, that’s for sure. The least Hunter can do is man up and support her. She lives in Arkansas with her mother, outside of the Washington, D.C. spotlight. Hunter has all but moved into the White House these days. We know his oldest daughter did before she was married. Hunter’s frequent presence is clearly being normalized, despite his well-known sleazy reputation.

One thing we may discover is how much Hunter sells his artwork for these days. It can come out in discovery as Roberts wants disclosure of all of Hunter’s financial records in the child support battle.

The court filing notes that Navy’s biological father has been “attempting to stifle discovery into his financial affairs while simultaneously reducing his child support obligation on the claim that he now earns less income.”

Roberts’s legal team has been pushing for disclosure of the financials of the president’s son, including a list of all of the places he has lived, his property, including vehicles, and any evidence related to his “well-established history of a lavish lifestyle.”

His court claims of income struggles come as he has publicly been selling new artwork in the range of $55,000 to $225,000 to anonymous buyers in the SoHo gallery of George Berges.

It’s difficult to feel much sympathy for a man likely making millions of dollars for artwork and claiming he needs to reduce his child support payments. He allegedly rents a large house in L.A. for many thousands of dollars each month. Perhaps he could do what other fathers do and cut back on some of his extravagances. That’s crazy talk, I know.