I don’t dabble in collecting coins and I totally missed the release of the Chester A. Arthur $1 coin last January 5. There has to be a wonderful irony to our first post-founding-generation US President born to a British subject being commemorated on US coinage the same year that our second US President born to a British subject father is running for re-election. You can see the story below and click the image to go to the US Mint web site (where you can learn about other coins in the Presidential $1 Series).
The only reason I found this was that I was researching what forms the second part of the one-two punch from the government, this time what has to be the ultimate insult to the birthers. The story flashed by in one of those below screen scrolling things on CNN (that I have running in a window on the computer monitor) and I turned up the volume in time to catch the story. It appears that there has been a leak of information from the Treasury about a coin that wasn’t supposed to be announced until Summer.
CNN reports that the US Mint has already been minting and stockpiling the new $2 coin that features the White House on the front and the face of a “generic” African-featured male on the back. The design is by Randall E. Pershall, who has designed several other US coins as well as coins for Australia and New Zealand. A Congressional task force that began work in 2005 recommended the coin as the best way to commemorate the contribution of Africans slave labor in the construction of the federal city. According to the Associated Press:
Slaves were the largest labor pool when Congress in 1790 decided to create a new national capital along the Potomac surrounded by the two slave-owning states of Maryland and Virginia.
Over the next decade, local farmers rented out their slaves for an average of $55 a year to help build the Capitol, the White House, the Treasury Department and the streets laid out by city planner Pierre L’Enfant.
CNN says the Treasury will issue an NPRM for a new regulation to require mandatory acceptance of the $2 in all vending machines by June 30, 2016, so I guess this is not a one-time souvenir. A press conference is scheduled for Monday morning at 10 AM at the Treasury.
I flipped over to Fox news and they were almost apoplectic in their denunciation of what they called a “transparent pandering to shore up weakening African-American and other minority support in the 2012 election.” Remind me to keep all the radios off when Limbaugh comes on Monday.
Personally, I’m all for this. When I traveled to Peru they had coins that were worth enough to actually buy something. You could go down to the convenience store and get a bottle of water and a sandwich and not have to dig out your wallet. The guys down there all have leather coin purses on their belts. I was a big fan of the US $1 coin, but merchants kept looking at me funny when I tried to use them.
The birthers are going to hate it. Now every time they get change, they will be reminded of the country’s first African-American President.
I’m starting a contest for the best “nickname” for the new coin.
Learn more:
“CNN says the Treasury will issue an NPRM for a new regulation to require mandatory acceptance of the $2 in all vending machines by June 30, 2016”
If true, I find this decision bizarre. Just a few months ago, the Treasury ceased mass production on the Presidential dollar coins due to a lack of public interest. NPR’s Planet Money did a whole episode about the vault filled with bags and bags of millions of unwanted dollar coins. So now, the Presidential dollar coins are only being produced in amounts for the collector market.
So despite the heavy push, the dollar coin failed. Miserably. Just like it did a few years earlier with the Sacagawea dollar. And so I can’t fathom how the Treasury could turn right around and think that a TWO-dollar coin is going to be popular enough to merit forcing all vending machines to accommodate them.
Oh. I see.
Well played.
Sorry, Doc. I almost spoiled it. I do live in Australia you know.
It works in Canada. I don’t know what’s wrong with Americans. The longer-lasting coins would save money.
No doubt you noted the stylistic similarity due to the same designer.
Oh, yeah. I am a big fan of the Australian $1 and $2 coins, just as you are for the US coins.
When I go to the States these days, carrying a wad of almost worthless $1 notes around really p*sses me off. And nobody else likes them either, why else would everyone give me 18 $1 notes for change from a $20? It is down right 20th century!
dooooood…
When was the last time you were walking and heard a person changing behind you?
Exactly, we just don’t like carrying coins – hell, most of us don’t even carry paper money anymore, just plastic
Absolutely! I love staying up nights and stacking my glittering piles. I’m on track to retire with a vault full of’em … big enough to swim in.
I praise the historical accuracy of the design. Those dirty slavemasters wouldn’t give them shirts, demanded bare backs at all time to facilitate their twisted whipping fetishes. Of my ancestors I am terribly ashamed.
I don’t really like carrying change around for spending purposes. I keep quarters in my car to pay for parking meters and exact change toll booths, but for the most part I do all my cash transactions with 100% paper money. Change gets lost too easily. It can fall out of a pocket if there’s a hole in it, or if you lean back too far.
This isn’t to say that I hate coins. I usually only hang on to change for a short while until I get home to my change jar. I toss them in there. Eventually I dump the jar into a Coinstar machine and redeem it for an Amazon.com gift certificate (they waive the 9% counting fee if you do that).
About 2 years ago, I deposited $100 worth of quarters into my 1 gallon change jar every month, until it got full. When that happened, I had a giant jar full of quarters, which I turned in for $770 worth of Amazon.com credit.
I only carry coins. Pay for everything with coins. When I bought an iPad I used stacks of three dollar coins. i’ve been saving up for a car. The living room’s almost full.
The Change for Hope $2 coin.
I know what the Birthers will call the new coin. It rhymes with what the Canadians call their $1 and $2 coins. I will not say it though. If I did it might not make it through moderation.
I figured down South they’d be calling in a “niggle.”
Why, the “Jus Soli” coin of course.
You’re warm as to what mine was. It rhymes with”loonie” and “toonie”.
I spend much time in Canada and am used to loonies and toonies. Also, Brittan doesn’t even make paper one-pound notes anymore. Smallest bill is a fiver. Same with the Euro.
The introduction of a coin honoring a president who was not born of two citizen parents is part of the plot to legitimize Barack Obama. It is laying groundwork for the acceptance of the notion that you can be a natural born citizen even if one of your parents was not a U.S. citizen at birth. “Hey we even have a coin named after this president” they can say. Geesh this is just too transparent for words.
The Presidential $1 Coin Program was enacted in 2005. Like the State Quarters series, it will not end until every eligible subject has been honored.
See conspiracies often?
I knew what it was; I just couldn’t bring myself to type it. Mine was sort of a nod to Ricky “Motor Mouth” Santorum.
Get this through your head, Zach… There IS no plot to legitimize the President. There is only a plot to de-legimize him and weaken America, and you are part of it. I hope you are proud to betray America, the Constitution, and everything she stands for.
Like hearing their jeans and shirt ripping?
How about: “Racist 0b0t Token”
Since most of you are an off-shoot of the DemoRAT Left that caused the vast majority of the problems with race relations in America.
As Always,
Rambo Ike {riding roughshod over ignorance & deceit]
That plot reached its completion in January 2009 when Congress unanimously certified the electoral college votes of Barack Obama.
You’re projecting again. Aren’t “nappyhead” and “scary black man” your phrases of choice on the BadFiction blog?
“riding roughshod over ignorance & deceit”
There’s no shame admitting you’re a masochist.
And today is your special day! But isn’t every day your special, funny fool’s day?
Get loud. Stay proud, birther wonder.
I bought my first car with pennies. It was a brand new 2004 Saturn ION 1 sedan. It cost about $14,500. Well, actually it was closer to $16,000 when you factor in the cost of renting that truck, hiring a driver and a forklift operator to load and unload the crates of pennies.
As usual, you succeed in only demonstrating how much of a crass and worthless bomb-throwing troll you are… you truly have zero class and no clue.
Shouldn’t that be “riding roughshod ON ignorance & deceit”?
So true! That’s why I’ve been saving up the three dollar coins. Still a hunk of metal to cart around, but we do what we have to do. I think I might use these new $2 coins to save for my retirement, though. I have a feeling somehow they could become extremely rare in the near future. Just a feeling, mind you.
I’m surprised you’d go there and make a fool of yourself & fellow 0b0ts when everyone knows what has been forever the stock-in-trade of the Bad Fiction Blog.
You must be referring to this:
http://badfiction.typepad.com/badfiction/2012/02/dispatches-from-birtherstan-14-15-february-2012.html
Pinning coins to clotheslines seems risky, especially larger, multi-dollar coins!
Birthers are unsophisticated …. they’ll go with ‘Obama bucks’ (already in use).
They could get witty and go for something like ‘Commodity Medals’. ‘Quadroons’ keeps coming to mind, but that’s wrong. ‘Doubloons’ is more applicable, but sounds old.
So it comes down to ….
Poltroons.
How dare you compare an aborigine to an african!
Besides I never can visuaize Obama with a beard!
But it was a good April 1 story
Canada just announced they are getting rid of the penny. They cost 1.6 cents each to make.
S&H Green Stamps would have been lighter.
Well, that was a first.
A delayed irony meter explosion.
But not real. Only coins are real. Then you have to weigh each one and acid test them. I hardly have time for this blog with all the verification I have to do to make sure my money is real. But it is worth it. At the end of the day, I rest my head on a sack of nickels and sleep the sleep of certainty.
Zachary Bravos:
“The introduction of a coin honoring a president who was not born of two citizen parents is part of the plot to legitimize Barack Obama.”
Please. More than 99 percent of the people will never make any connection betweween the new coin and Obama’s re-electoin campaign, so how does that help “legitmize” him.
Love CarlOrcas April 1 riposte to :Rambo Ike: “Shouldn’t that be “riding roughshod ON ignorance & deceit”?
Rambo sure set himself up for that one.
Listen, Roomba or whatever your name is… when you run roughshod over ignorance and deceit, you’re not supposed to stop, squat down over them and insert them like they were suppositories.
Rambo Ike, I suppose your comment about “riding roughshod” stands for your belief that you’re winning the argument hands down in this venue. Beats me as to what leads you to this conclusion.
In the real world, however, the folks who matter are pitching a triple-digit shutout against your side, you may have noticed. These are the judges and election boards that have handled this issue.
Can you enlighten us about what the game-changer will be for you birthers.? So far you haven’t persuaded even one trial court judge in your favor. If you think getting a birther bill actually enacted into law would change things, remember that such legislation would be subject to swift judicial review. Why would you think that the court that would rule on the validity of such a law would see it any different from the results of the 100+ birther misadventures?
Same applies to the unlikely event of a birther victory in a trial court. Why would that survive judicial review, given how judges have ruled to date?
Sheriff Arpaio’s posse? Where’s he going to go to actually prosecute the crimes he alleges that he suspects? I’m getting strong vibes that state of Arizona prosecutors wouldn’t handle it with a 20-foot pole. And I’m quite sure that with the feds, you can forget it.
Where’s the evidence that has not already been considered by courts and elections boards and found wanting?
I think everyone missed Zachary’s snark, though Poe’s Law comes into play here. Rambo Ike, on the other hand, is genuine birther.
I really like the UK’s one pound coins. The extra thickness makes them palpably different from other coins.
Ouch!!!!!!!!
Riding them bareback, perhaps.
“Ignorance and deceit, I wish I knew how to quit you!” -RamboIke
If that was a snark, I’m guilty as charged. I bought it, if he was spoofing.
And also, if so, my apologies to Zachary.
Damn you, Poe!
Hey folks – it was a joke. I was just diving into the mindset of the birther crowd.
And a terrific job you did, too. Again, my apologies.
Come on now , folk, did any of you notice that was not a black man on the coin, the picture is of a coin with an Australian Native, not an African.
And if you click on the picture is says “april fool”
And I would like to see some $100 gold pieces like that in my secure box.
Yeah, TJ. That’s called “humor.” The article is a “spoof”, AKA “satire.”
You should really get out more.
If a pile of coins is good enough for Uncle Scrooge, it’s good enough for me.
http://disneycharacterspictures.com/scrooge.jpg
Can’t get anything past you, eh?
I dare you to come to Australia and walk up to an Aborigine and tell him he is not black.
In Australian Aborigine Pidgin English, the terms are ‘black fella’ and ‘white fella’. They are very proud to quote James Brown: “I’m black and I’m proud”.
Wow! You do a great imitation! There really should be a satire font.
It’s “riding roughshod over”. There’s no argument to win. I just trying to understand what these ongoing ignorant & deceitful comments I see coming from the 0b0t forums are based on. Like this ongoing obsession with a person’s skin color. Sheesh! Your Party’s days of controlling people was eliminated decades ago. Get over it.
This Orwellian “blackwhite think” you keep applying to the Birthers is a contradiction of factual American history. The technique the 0b0ts use is right out of Hitler’s Mein Kampf: “Keep repeating the Big Lie and people will start to believe it.”
You didn’t think TJ knew or cared anything about other cultures, did you?
Well, you know, they all look the same, right? …. right?
Geeez. Why would an American slave be represented on a coin by an African? Did an African tribe come over and build the White House while on vacation? If so, what a beautiful gesture. Right.
It was built by Americans, Jackie-me-boy. Laborers, slave and free, mainly from Maryland and Virginia. The records of construction, including the payrolls, are still in the Nat’l Archives.
How many posts on viletweets.com are yours? Stormfront?
What party is that? There is an anti-birther political party? Seems like a very narrow platform.
You’re also implying you belong to a political organization (or more than one). Which one(s) and why?
Such as that President Obama was born in Kenya? I see… But wait, those are not 0b0ts… Weird…
Care to explain?
And by the way, Mr. History Genius, Hitler didn’t say anything about repeating the lie often enough, he talked about the magnitude of the lie. And in his text, it is even more obvious that it is the Birfers who use the technique:
“… they more readily fall victims to the big lie than the small lie, since they themselves often tell small lies in little matters but would be ashamed to resort to large-scale falsehoods. It would never come into their heads to fabricate colossal untruths, and they would not believe that others could have the impudence to distort the truth so infamously. Even though the facts which prove this to be so may be brought clearly to their minds, they will still doubt and waver and will continue to think that there may be some other explanation. For the grossly impudent lie always leaves traces behind it, even after it has been nailed down, a fact which is known to all expert liars in this world and to all who conspire together in the art of lying.
—Adolf Hitler , Mein Kampf, vol. I, ch. X[1]
And there is no more colossal lie than calling a democratically elected sitting President a “Usurper” with no evidence whatsoever.
The “a lie repeated often enough becomes the truth” line is loosely attributed to Lenin. The “a lie repeated often enough is believed” was Goebbels.
Who, if he were alive, would be an über-birther.
I don’t have a twitter account. You can bet your bippy the FBI is watching that site. That’s some bad stuff – even you guys don’t go that far. ~grin~ Probably some teenage 0b0ts pretending to be Tea Party members.
From you’re postings it’s obvious the majority here is out quite aways to the left of center. That would puts yas as progressives/leftist Democrats.
I don’t belong to any political party. Because the democrats have drifted so far left, by default I’m stuck voting a straight ticket for the sorry republicans at the national level.
Except that in “Mein Kempf” he wasn’t advocating the use of the “Big Lie.” He was accusing the Jews of using it.
So you accusing Obots of using the Big Lie is analogous to the anti-Semitism of “Mein Kampf.”
Funny. I would have said: “the Republicans have veered so far to the left that by default I’m stuck voting a straight ticket for the Democrats at every level.”
However, I think your remark is nonsense. Obama is miles right of Ted Kennedy.
You’re so funny but in the real world, most democrats are at best slightly left of center. It’s just that the Republicans have moved so far to the right that in comparison, Democrats appear to be far over…
Why you insist voting for a bunch of losers who have no respect for our Middle Class or our Nation is beyond me.
Australia’s top political
pornographerhate mongercolumnist, Andrew Bolt, was recently found guilty of racial vilification after accusing some Aboriginal activists of not being “black enough” to speak for their people.I believe he cost Rupert’s empire some parking money compensation to the tune of 6 figures.
So , we agree that the “black fella” is on the coin, and that he is not African, don’t we?
Now , what would he say if he was called an African ? Ooos , have to be careful as there are all races living in Africa now, Lots of Indians, and Chinese there.
Just like America.
I’m assuming that includes voting for the Republican presidential nominee, someone who hasn’t shown any birth certificate at all. So all this crap about Obama’s birth certificate is simply your ideological bias (note: no race card played). Your naked hypocrisy is exposed. But you will have plenty of commpany. I supect that most birthers will vote for the Republican nominee who has NOT and likely will NOT show a birth certificate, thus exposing what the “movement’ is all about.
He would figure out that Doc was pulling our collective legs. He would notice that you haven’t figured out that it is an April Fools joke, and conclude that you are ignorant and do not possess a sense of humor.
(From Wikipedia)
Doc (or someone) replaced the Southern Cross with the letters USA.