A pro-Biden super PAC is making the largest single ad buy in U.S. history
Plus: Hunter Biden has sold his paintings for $1.5 million
Hello, in this issue we’ll look at…
A pro-Biden super PAC is making the largest single ad buy in U.S. history
Hunter Biden has sold his paintings for $1.5 million
Here’s the five women appearing on new quarters this year
Scroll to the end to see: what it might look like if Biden and Trump kissed.
A pro-Biden super PAC is making the largest single ad buy in U.S. history
President Joe Biden will be getting some major air cover from an outside group.
Future Forward, a political action committee supporting Biden’s reelection, said Tuesday it would begin reserving $250 million in advertising this week for later this year across seven swing states, according to the New York Times, which first reported the ad buy. It’s the most ever spent in a single purchase by a super PAC, the group said.
The ads are scheduled to begin running the day after the Democratic National Convention in August until Election Day, with $140 million going to television and $110 million going to digital and streaming. The ads will air in Arizona, Georgia, Michigan, Nevada, North Carolina, Pennsylvania, and Wisconsin, with more money being reserved for air time in Atlanta ($16 million) and Phoenix ($12 million) than any other TV market.
The super PAC’s ad buy is welcome news for Biden, who was hit with more attacks ads last year than any other candidate. Biden ended 2023 with a 39% approval rating, the lowest approval of any incumbent president the December before seeking reelection going back to Jimmy Carter in 1979.
Future Forward’s most recent ads for Biden were largely positive and boosted his record in office, like “Inflation Reduction Act: Clean Energy Jobs,” which aired last September. In the 30-second spot, the founder of an American battery manufacturer with visible pecs named Trevor says Biden’s “bringing manufacturing jobs back.”
Future Forward’s historic ad buy represents a 65% increase from the $151 million the super PAC spent on ads supporting Biden in 2020. America First Action, the top super PAC supporting then-President Donald Trump in 2020, was about evenly matched that year, spending $150 million.
Hunter Biden has sold his paintings for $1.5 million
First son Hunter Biden isn’t doing too bad for himself as a new artist.
Since signing with New York City gallerist Georges Bergès in Dec. 2020, Biden has sold his paintings to 10 buyers for $1.5 million, according to transcripts released this week of a House Oversight Committee interview with Bergès that took place earlier this month.
House Oversight Committee chair Rep. James Comer (R-Ky.) said in a statement in early January that the Biden White House “appears to have deceived the American people about facilitating an ethics agreement governing the sale of Hunter Biden’s art,” and accused Democratic donors of buying most of Hunter Biden’s art.
Three of Hunter Biden’s 10 buyers have been identified: collector and part-owner of Bergès’ gallery William Jacques, Democratic donor Elizabeth Naftali, and entertainment lawyer Kevin Morris, who’s been a financial benefactor to Hunter Biden. The rest are anonymous as part of Hunter Biden’s agreement with Bergès to attempt to shield the first son from accusations he sold his paintings for favors.
Bergès said in the hearing that the president’s son only found out Naftali had purchased his work from media reporting and that he found out about Morris from seeing his artwork in Morris’ home.
Being famous can certainly be helpful for building an art career — this drawing of the New York City skyline by Trump sold for nearly $30,000 in 2017 not for the quality of the artwork but because of the notoriety of the artist — but Bergès said there’s been drawbacks.
“I never expected the whole security issue or the death threats and people assuming political affiliation, which was completely wrong,” said Bergès, who donated to Trump during the 2020 campaign. Biden allies have also said some potential buyers were concerned that purchasing a painting could lead to a subpoena from House Republicans, according to the Washington Post.
There are just 12,080 fine artists working in the U.S., according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics’ most recent data, a category that includes painters, sculptors, and illustrators. Their mean annual wage is $69,870.
Here’s the five women appearing on new quarters this year
Historically, U.S. currency has been the domain of men, but the U.S. Mint is ever so slightly adjusting the gender balance this year with new quarters depicting American women.
It wasn’t until 1979 that the Susan B. Anthony Dollar became the first U.S. circulating coin to feature an American woman, and her predecessors were at first far and few between. The Sacagawea Golden Dollar Coin was issued in 2000 and Helen Keller appeared on Alabama’s state quarter in 2003. In 2022, though, the Mint got busy. The bureau’s American Women Quarters Program became its first circulating coin program dedicated exclusively to women. The four-year series, which has already featured depictions of Eleanor Roosevelt, Maya Angelou, and Sally Ride, will have introduced 20 new quarters into circulation that show women by the time the program wraps in 2025.
This year’s designs include depictions of the “Queen of Salsa,” Celia Cruz, and Dr. Mary Edwards Walker, the only woman to receive the Medal of Honor. Cruz, the Cuban-American salsa singer, is shown on her quarter with her signature catchphrase “¡AZÚCAR!,” or Spanish for “sugar!” while Walker, a Civil War-era surgeon, is shown in hers wearing her medal.
Patsy Takemoto Mink, the first woman of color to serve in Congress, was a coauthor of Title IX, and she’s depicted in her quarter design wearing a lei with documents representing her signature legislation in front of the U.S. Capitol.
Reverend Dr. Pauli Murray, a civil rights activist and lawyer who cofounded the National Organization for Women, became the first Black woman to be ordained as an Episcopal priest in 1977. Her quarter shows her portrait inside the letters “HOPE” and features a line from her poetry, “A song in a weary throat.”
The quarter for Zitkala-Ša shows the Native American writer and activist wearing a traditional Yankton Sioux dress holding a book. The bird in the distance represents The Sun Dance, the first opera by a Native American, which opened in Vernal, Utah, in 1913.
The first quarter of the series this year will be Murray’s, which is scheduled to be available beginning Feb. 1. The obverse or heads portion of the coins all depict George Washington as sculpted by Laura Gardin Fraser for Washington’s 200th birthday and the text “Liberty” and “In God We Trust.”
The final quarters, coming out in 2025, will depict journalist Ida B. Wells, Girl Scouts founder Juliette Gordon Low, astronomer Dr. Vera Rubin, tennis player Althea Gibson, and Stacey Park Milbern, who was an activist for people with disabilities.
This news item was first published in Fast Company.
Have you seen this?
Taylor Swift broke Fox News. “We have had enough of Taylor Swift for now,” said one guest. [The Recount]
Kawasaki’s first-ever Super Bowl ad is a glorious ode to the mullet. Over the centuries, one particular hairstyle has gone by many names. Now motorsports brand Kawasaki is celebrating the mullet in its first-ever Super Bowl ad. [Fast Company]
FT Weekend Magazine used a fake image of Biden and Trump kissing on its cover. The cover story, about “fakes, forgeries, and the meaning of meaning in our post-truth era,” was illustrated with the image of 45 and 46 smooching. It pays homage to the work of Tibor Kalman and Oliverio Toscani, who showed faked images of world leaders kissing for the United Colors of Benetton “UnHate” campaign in 2011. Before that, Dmitri Vrubel depicted the very real image of Leonid Brezhnev and Erich Honecker locking lips in a socialist fraternal kiss in “My God, Help Me to Survive This Deadly Love” (1990), a graffiti artwork on the Berlin Wall. Kissing the homies goodnight. 😘 [yellopolitics/Instagram]
The Van Gogh Museum in Amsterdam has fired four workers over the chaos surrounding last year’s collaborative exhibition with the Pokémon Company. Of the fired workers, one had stolen a box of limited-edition Pikachu with Grey Felt Hat cards, modeled on Van Gogh’s 1887 self-portrait but featuring the beloved Pikachu character. [Artnet News]
🔒 The best of YELLO:
History of political design
“Unidos Con McCain” button (2008). The slogan was used on John McCain’s Spanish-language web site during his 2008 presidential campaign, according to the Smithsonian. McCain brought the slogan back in 2015 as the name of the Latino business leader coalition for his Senate reelection campaign the following year.
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