Today's Opinions: Melania Trump and the art of the NFT grift

Friday, January 7, 2022

Chicago and its fights with teachers have exhausted parents like me; Omicron is not a reason to keep schools closed; Why we need a new approach for the omicron phase of the pandemic; Biden is right: Trump's wounded ego was the main reason for Jan. 6; Last Jan. 6, our institutions held — except the media; On Jan. 6 anniversary, Republicans plumb new depths; Biden's Jan. 6 speech sets the stage for a battle for truth and democracy; The U.S. is on the verge of a major health-care achievement, and no one seems to have noticed; Biden wants to turn Ukraine into a porcupine; Why it matters that Pence and his aides may cooperate with the Jan. 6 committee; Biden tells the truth in the best speech of his presidency; Stephanie Grisham is organizing against Trump. Good luck! ; The insurrectionists' roll call; Hospitals are crushed once again. But there are glimmers of hope.; With a perfect storm bearing down, Virginia officials led a horrifically imperfect response; Former president Trump embraces a kindred spirit in Hungary; Kazakhstan reminds Putin what he really needs to fear; Putin can't afford crises in both Kazakhstan and Ukraine; Canadian intellectuals worry about the U.S. becoming a dictatorship. Maybe they should worry about Canada.; Biden's efforts to build alliances against China are bearing fruit

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By Mark Lasswell
Associate op-ed editor

Melania Trump apparently didn't get the memo from that noted artist Hunter Biden: You're supposed to cash in on your presidential family ties while the guy is still in office. She might be late to the party, but the former first lady is monetizing with a gusto worthy of, oh, brewmaster Billy Carter.

"On Tuesday," Helaine Olen writes, "Melania Trump announced she would sell to the highest bidder the widely admired hat she wore when French President Emmanuel Macron" — he of the potty-bouche — "visited the White House in 2018." Trump is also flogging both a watercolor of herself wearing the hat and a non-fungible token by the same artist. (If the watercolorist is one H. Biden, fetch my bidding paddle.)

Here's the catch ... it's the Trumps, there's always a catch: Transactions will be "conducted not in dollars but in cryptocurrency — specifically SOL, the currency of the blockchain platform Solana," Olen writes.

Given that "the blockchain is where no small amount of the get-rich-quick of the past year is residing," and given that "taking advantage of the rubes has long been a Trump family specialty," Trump's post-White House crypto avidity could be interpreted as a cynical SOL-grab. They thought of that. Trump's announcement included the heartwarming aside that "a portion" of the proceeds — Olen notes that bidding begins at the crypto equivalent of $250,000 — will go to computer science and technology scholarships for individuals who have been in foster care.

How much is that "portion"? Maybe this is the moment to wonder when Trump is going to put that "I REALLY DON'T CARE, DO U?" jacket up for auction.