“And he’s up there, what’s that? Hawaiian noises? Bangin’ on the bongos like a chimpanzee. That ain’t workin’, that’s the way you do it. Get your money for nothin’, get your chicks for free.” From “Money For Nothing” written by Gordon Sumner and Mark Knopfler.
Did you collect coins when you were a kid?
Coin collecting was a big deal when I was a small child. Of course, back then we actually used coins when we purchased stuff. We paid in cash — this was before MasterCharge, now MasterCard, and Bank Americard, now Visa. Many stores issued their own plastic and most adults carried over a dozen different cards, including one for each gas station we used.
You needed an expansive wallet to live in late fifties America.
It was a whole different world. Not wanting to live beyond their means, a great many adults actually preferred to use cash. That, alone, makes it a different time. Today, some places refuse to take cash at all, or give you a hard time when you try. If we didn’t live beyond our means on credit today, our economy would collapse. Seriously.
But if our President and felon-in-chief gets his way, all this might change — pun not intended. If not he’ll just throw another temper tantrum and his secretary of HHS will murder some more pets. Here is what has been done thus far.
A lot of people who don’t particularly like living in a dictatorship have questioned the legal validity of this effort. I think they are doomed to failure. According to Forbes Magazine:
“The Treasury’s move is in part due to bipartisan legislation passed by Congress in 2020, and signed by Trump in his first term, that the Treasury Secretary was given authority to issue one-dollar commemorative coins during the 2026 calendar year that would be “emblematic of the United States semiquincentennial.’”
Yup. This can really happen. Again, Forbes: “the renderings of President Trump’s one-dollar coin were confirmed by U.S. Treasurer Brandon Beach ‘These first drafts honoring America’s 250th Birthday and POTUS are real. Looking forward to sharing more soon.’”
Cool. Maybe they’ll put his brats Uday and Qusay on a commemorative penny.
Knocking out cheesy collectibles has been a major habit of our Great American Monster and his racket squad. I wouldn’t be surprised if there’s a White House showcase — covered in gold leaf, of course — that contains all his toys and action figures, each with a convenient QR code so his enthralled MAGAts can save themselves the effort of simply taking their money and flushing it down the toilet. The gold-leaf toilet.
Like all “collectible” schemes, I have no doubt this commemorative dollar will be up-priced to somewhere between $39.95 and $99.95. There probably will be “variant” editions showing ICE agents beating the shit out of old people and wrestling naked babies to the ground, fired government workers holding up banks, and medical research scientists swilling Thunderbird or Night Train.
Of course, the most obvious variant would follow the path of the artwork on the obverse side of the proposed coin. The most expensive variant coin should be minted on glass. I’ll bet he could charge at least a grand for that one.
And maybe they’ll throw in a copy of the equally collectible Trump Bible.
IMPORTANT WARNING: The author of this bit of impoliteness will be at the Baltimore Comic Con the weekend after next — October 19 – 20 — being held at (oddly) the Baltimore Convention Center on Pratt Street. He’ll be on six panels, hosting a few of them, and coyly insulting people who can write and certainly can draw much better than he can.
