Minting a monarchy

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Gold-plated Trump $1 coins enter circulation, contravening long-standing U.S. Code barring living figures appearing on currency. {WP 2 September}

https://wapo.st/4xKQCnq

As we have been discovering over the past decade, in a banana republic laws and traditions mean very little and do not apply to the political elite. —

FTA: The U.S. Mint said Wednesday that new golden $1 coins featuring President Donald Trump’s image are now in circulation, marking only the second time in U.S. history that a living president has appeared on U.S. coinage.

The Trump coins, intended to mark the United States’ 250th birthday, were first proposed last year and drew controversy and questions about their legality.

One side of the coin features an image of Trump’s face and is inscribed with “Liberty,” “In God We Trust” and “1776-2026.” The other side of the coin depicts an eagle holding an olive branch and arrows in its talons, along with a banner that reads “E Pluribus Unum.”

The U.S. Mint will begin selling the Trump coins on its website at noon Wednesday at a markup of more than 50 percent above their face value. Rolls of 25 coins will cost $61 and bags of 100 coins will cost $154.50, according to its website.

When the coins were first proposed last year, draft images showed Trump’s image on both sides of the coin. At the time, a bipartisan committee that reviews U.S. coin designs balked at taking up the proposal, with members saying that putting a sitting president on currency would break with democratic norms.

GOP and Democratic members of that committee — the Citizens Coinage Advisory Committee — also warned the U.S. Mint not to move forward with any plan to put Trump’s face on coins.

“The CCAC has not been presented with a Trump gold coin for review. If they make it without our review, it will be illegal,” Donald Scarinci, a Democrat whom Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-New York) named to the committee, told The Washington Post in June.

Mint officials argued that because the committee declined to consider the coin, the administration was not bound by its review, and pressed forward with the coin’s production.

Under a law passed in 2020, the Treasury Department can mint $1 coins during 2026 to mark the 250th anniversary “with designs emblematic of the United States semiquincentennial.”

However, according to U.S. Code, “[o]nly the portrait of a deceased individual may appear on United States currency and securities” — a law that sprung from a Colonial-era tradition against putting current presidents on American coins, to distance them from the British monarchy.

Treasury officials have defended the Trump coin’s design, noting that the image of President Calvin Coolidge appeared on a coin for the United States’ 150th anniversary.

In 2005, President George W. Bush signed the Presidential $1 Coin Act, directing the U.S. Mint to issue a line of dollar coins honoring past U.S. presidents in the order they served — but only those who had been deceased for at least two years. The U.S. Mint suspended issuing those presidential coins in 2011.

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Copyright 2026, Arthur Newhook.

The manufacturing of collapse in Trumpistan

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Columnist James Downie: Trump must be deliberately destroying the US economy. {Raw Story 26 August}

https://www.rawstory.com/donald-trump-economy-2677779664/

FTA: Rather than resulting from external shocks, the 80-year-old president's economic struggles stem largely from his own administration's decisions, MS NOW's James Downie argued Wednesday.

The column opens with Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent's exasperated response Monday, while announcing new sanctions on Iran, to the suggestion he might have deliberately damaged the economy: "Why would I want to blow up the global financial system?"

Downie argues he might have unwittingly made a reasonable point.

"Bessent may think that’s still a self-evidently ridiculous question," Downie wrote. "George W. Bush didn’t want a Great Financial Crisis, nor did Herbert Hoover seek to start a Great Depression. Surely no White House would deliberately hurt the global economy."

"Yet for the first time ever, that’s not the case," he added. "At home and abroad, the past few days have laid bare the extent to which President Trump’s troubles on the economy are self-inflicted."

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🪐💔 #QueSeraSera 𓅨 🕈

Copyright 2026, Arthur Newhook.

The golden lie

image generated via Grok

Karl Rove advises Trump to stop gaslighting the public about the state of the economy. {The Hill 14 August}

https://thehill.com/homenews/administration/6030997-rove-criticizes-trump-economy/

The millions of #MAGA acolytes amongst us could not possibly remain oblivious to the fact that they are paying more for very nearly everything. As of now, they appear to be ignoring or tolerating Trump’s lies about the economy — ‘owning the libs’ being paramount among all other considerations — and they can always be induced to blame the Democrats for anything and everything. How much economic hardship must these people yet endure before they grow weary of this man insisting that two and two make three? Why, indeed, am I even asking? We are all of us well aware that they shall go on quite literally starving to death, and shall thank Mr Trump most fervently for the privilege of doing so.

FTA: Republican strategist Karl Rove on Friday criticized President Trump’s insistence that the U.S. economy is thriving despite rising prices amid the Iran war. 

Trump told reporters at Joint Base Andrews on Friday that the “economy was doing unbelievably from the standpoint of Wall Street.”

Rove told Fox News’s Gillian Turner that the president should “start by not gaslighting” the American public about the state of the economy. 

“The president made a mistake, in my opinion, last week in saying we’ve got the greatest economy in the history of the world and prices for groceries and gasoline and everything are coming down rapidly,” he said. “That’s not the experience of the American people.”

Rove agreed with Vice President JD Vance’s recent assessment that “throwing slogans at people about the free market” is not an effective counter from Republicans to the rise in socialism among candidates on the left. 

However, the GOP strategist added that he also had “a slight disagreement” with Vance. 

“I think he’s right: you do not need to call them names, you need to depict what is wrong with socialism,” Rove said. “But frankly, free markets is one of the reasons why we’ve been successful as a country and one of the reasons why socialism is a mistake.” 

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🪐💔 #QueSeraSera 𓅨 🕈

Copyright 2026, Arthur Newhook.

When debt becomes destiny

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The former United States pays the highest bond yields in twenty-five years as national debt nears $40 trillion and deficits soar. {The Telegraph 14 August}

https://www.telegraph.co.uk/gift/18f5ae5793fd4b3c

FTA: The US has paid the highest interest rate on newly issued bonds in a quarter of a century as the American national debt soars.

The treasury sold 30-year US government bonds at an interest rate of 5.216pc on Thursday, the highest borrowing cost seen in a debt auction since 2001.

It came hot on the heels of another auction on Wednesday, where 10-year US bonds were sold at an interest rate of 4.683pc, the highest since 2007 for Treasuries of that duration.

Washington is being forced to offer higher returns to investors as the US national debt pile nears $40tn (£29.6tn).

The US debt-to-GDP ratio stands at more than 121pc, and Washington now pays more to service its national debt each year than it spends on defence.

James Athey, a fund manager at Marlborough, said: “The US is running a record peacetime deficit while unemployment is low, and the economy is still growing at around trend.

“This is an incredibly worrying situation for a major economy to be in and strongly suggests that the economy isn’t as robust as many are making out. It also means that, should a recession occur, the deficit would blow out significantly, creating real challenges for government funding.

“This large deficit also means that the US government is having to raise a lot of funding each year, meaning more bond supply and further upward pressure on yields.”

Mr Athey also suggested that concerns about the credibility of the US Federal Reserve (Fed) were pushing up borrowing costs.

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🪐💔 #QueSeraSera 𓅨 🕈

Copyright 2026, Arthur Newhook.

The deficit of a dying empire

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US budget deficit soars to its highest level since March 2021; tariff refunds accounting for a fair portion of the increase. {CNBC 12 August}

https://www.cnbc.com/2026/08/12/us-budget-deficit-surged-in-july-to-highest-level-since-march-2021.html

FTA: The July shortfall totaled $432.3 billion, up some 48% from the same period a year ago and the largest monthly deficit since March 2021.

Medicare expenses for the month totaled $174 billion, up from $103 billion in June and now at $955 billion for the full year. It was the single largest expenditure in July, well ahead of the $141 billion spent on Social Security and $104 billion in net interest on the national debt.

Tariff refunds also hit the budget, costing $33 billion as the administration continues to provide rebates for levies that the Supreme Court ruled illegal. Additionally, the budget took a $99 billion hit because the first of the month was a nonbusiness day, accelerating various benefits outlays as well as Supplemental Security Income and Medicare payments.

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🪐💔 #QueSeraSera 𓅨 🕈

Copyright 2026, Arthur Newhook.

Freedom does not come with a reimbursement form

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J6 insurrectionists have cost the former United States of America $2.7 billion, and now they want more. {Citizens for Ethics 22 July}

https://www.citizensforethics.org/reports-investigations/crew-reports/january-6ers-cost-taxpayers-2-7-billion-now-theyre-seeking-secret-payouts/

Now they are out to fleece American taxpayers once again. And guess whose side the President and his Department of Justice are on? Certainly not yours — assuming, of course, that one is not a J6 insurrectionist. If any J6 insurrectionists are reading this, kindly remove yourselves from the gene pool, motherf**king thugs. 

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🪐💔 #QueSeraSera 𓅨 🕈

Copyright 2026, Arthur Newhook.

The slow suffocation of Lady Liberty

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‘The Treasury Department’s top tax policy official was forced out of his job after he warned that the White House was at risk of violating a federal law prohibiting senior officials’ involvement in IRS audits’. {WSJ 17 July}

https://www.wsj.com/politics/policy/top-treasury-tax-official-ousted-after-clashes-with-white-house-over-irs-audits-60d5b1df

This regime is not even trying to hide its corruption, it is wearing it as a badge of honour. Kenneth Kies, according to the Wall Street Journal, hath ‘been at the center of Republican tax-policy circles in Washington for nearly a half-century’, probably as partisan a creature as one is likely to find. Yet he retained enough sanity and common sense to warn these fascist reprobates not to violate federal law and become politically involved in IRS audits, and said reprobates responded like the petulant, belligerent individuals they are and forced him out.

How many times now have we seen people with a degree of competence and sanity try to work with Trump and the lunatics around him, and every single time they are driven away. From Tillerson to Mattis and Kelly to Fauci to Bolton to his own former VP, and literally hundreds in between, Trump eventually exhausts the patience of serious people. Always. This second reign of terror hath not seen as much turnover as the first, predominantly because Trump took care to put the real lunatics and loyalists in key positions, but even now we are seeing defections, in-fighting, and firings. For there is no pacifying such a chaotic individual. 

Electing Donald Trump president in 2016 was a mistake. Wilfully returning such a proven failure and conman to power in 2024 was a collective act of political arson from which white working-class America shall never redeem itself — even those of us who have opposed this madness all along are forever tarnished — and the country as a whole shall never recover from it.

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🪐💔 #QueSeraSera 𓅨 🕈

Copyright 2026, Arthur Newhook.

Mistresses of the chokepoint

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Crude oil prices begin to rise once more with the renewal of combat in the Strait of Hormuz. {MarketWatch 7 July}

https://www.marketwatch.com/story/oil-prices-rise-as-the-u-s-cancels-irans-license-to-sell-oil-030635fc

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🪐💔 #QueSeraSera 𓅨 🕈

Copyright 2026, Arthur Newhook.

The US Treasury is weighing the minting of a $1 coin in Trump’s honour—an act in direct contravention of federal law

via the US Treasury Department

{The Guardian 3 October} ‘US treasury considers special $1 Trump coin reading ‘fight, fight, fight’’

It is scarcely surprising that Trump should demand his likeness upon a coin. Yet what The Guardian omitted to note is that US federal law has long forbidden the depiction of living figures upon coinage. The statute traces back to the Civil War, when Treasury engraver Spencer Clark, given authority under a Congressional resolution to honour ‘Clark’—intended for the explorer William Clark—presumptuously placed his own portrait upon a fractional banknote. Outrage followed, and in 1866 an amendment to an appropriations bill forbade the appearance of living persons on currency.

That proscription has been reaffirmed in more recent times, most notably in the Circulating Collectible Coin Redesign Act of 2020, which authorised the semiquincentennial dollar coinage for 2026 while underscoring the prohibition. Yet, with a compliant Republican Congress that will not move to impeachment under any circumstance, one wonders what remedy would exist should the Treasury, at Trump’s obvious direction and encouragment, simply proceed with minting Trump coins regardless. And why stop there? His devotees in the #MAGA faithful have long fantasised about chiselling his countenance into Mount Rushmore itself. Idolatry is proscribed outright in scripture; yet in Trumpistan it is enjoined, even as its zealots brandish the cross and fancy themselves soldiers of Christ.

{alternate text for the above image} A monochrome sketch of a proposed US Treasury coin depicts Donald Trump rendered in heroic, authoritarian style. At its centre, he raises a clenched fist before a billowing American flag, his expression stern and resolute, the folds of his suit and tie drawn with deliberate gravitas. Around the rim, the word “FIGHT” is repeated three times, echoing the combative motif, while inscriptions at the base include “UNITED STATES OF AMERICA,” “E PLURIBUS UNUM,” and a denomination of “$1.” The composition recalls the visual language of propaganda medals, casting Trump as both emblem and rallying cry for a politicised vision of national identity.

Copyright 2025, Arthur Newhook. On X-TWITTER: @Sunking278 and @DollsFallen. REDDIT - https://www.reddit.com/user/SiberianKhatru278/. BLUESKY - @arthurnewhook.bsky.social. FULL LIST OF LINKS - linktr.ee/arthurnewhook. DONATIONS GRATEFULLY ACCEPTED on Cash App ($ANewhook), PayPal (paypal.me/Sunking278), and at https://tinyurl.com/ArthurNewhook.

President Biden, Speaker McCarthy both insist that the U.S. will not default on its debts

Joshua Roberts/Reuters

Neither very convincingly. Anybody on a fixed income, spend as little as possible right now, and prepare to be scapegoated on an epic scale. A projected seven million workers will lose their jobs, and will also be scapegoated. The country is going straight to Hell. {CNBC 5/17}

Copyright 2023, Arthur Newhook. @Sunking278 and @FloydEtcetera on TWITTER, and at the same handles on FACEBOOK. MASTODON - @ArthurNewhook@mastodon.world, and POST - @arthurnewhook.

The United States passes an ominous milestone: Gross national debt now exceeds $30 trillion, years earlier than expected

Andrew Mangum/NYT

Never will it be possible to pay this debt back in cash. Which means the debt will eventually be collected on by creditors using other means. Your children and grandchildren will either be speaking Mandarin Chinese, or living in caves and eating grass as nobody will be able to afford a home or anything else. Until then, I would suggest not listening to either of our political parties about how their opponents have been spending recklessly and they’re the responsible ones. Democrat or Republican, blood is on all of their grimy hands. Via the New York Times -  

WASHINGTON — America’s gross national debt topped $30 trillion for the first time on Tuesday, an ominous fiscal milestone that underscores the fragile nature of the country’s long-term economic health as it grapples with soaring prices and the prospect of higher interest rates. 

The breach of that threshold, which was revealed in new Treasury Department figures, arrived years earlier than previously projected as a result of trillions in federal spending that the United States has deployed to combat the pandemic. That $5 trillion, which funded expanded jobless benefits, financial support for small businesses and stimulus payments, was financed with borrowed money. 

The borrowing binge, which many economists viewed as necessary to help the United States recover from the pandemic, has left the nation with a debt burden larger than the entire economy, surpassing levels of red ink not seen since World War II. 

Some economists contend that the nation’s large debt load is not unhealthy given that the economy is growing, interest rates are low and investors are still willing to buy U.S. Treasury securities, which gives them safe assets to help manage their financial risk. Those securities allow the government to borrow money relatively cheaply and use it to invest in the economy. 

Yet the figures come amid renewed concerns in Washington over the nation’s fiscal trajectory and its ballooning budget deficit, which is the gap between what the nation spends and the revenue it brings in. Those worries helped stall negotiations over President Biden’s $2 trillion safety net and climate spending proposal, with Senator Joe Manchin III of West Virginia citing “staggering debt” as a reason he could not support the legislation. 

The lingering pandemic has slowed the momentum of the economic recovery, fueling inflation rates unseen since the early 1980s and raising the prospect of higher interest rates, which could add to America’s fiscal burden. (Read more)

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