I’ve observed before that the Donald Trump odyssey that began in 2015 can be likened to the titles of the various movies in the Star Wars series.  First we had, A New Hope.  Then, in 2020, there was The Empire Strikes Back.  2024 brought us, The Return of the MAGA.  And now that he’s back in office, the Rebel Alliance is taking fire from a new enemy, unelected, life-tenured judges, who have usurped the authority of the Executive branch.  The next episodes in this series may be called, The Judicial Menace, and The Rise of the Robes.

In February alone, U.S. District Court judges imposed 15 nationwide injunctions on the Trump Administration to reverse, delay, or frustrate policy decisions.  These injunctions include two on the Executive Order challenging birthright citizenship, and orders restoring fired employees of the Executive branch to their jobs, preventing the firings of probationary employees, ordering the military to reinstate transgender members, ordering frozen USAID grant money to be paid, and most recently, D.C. Judge Boasberg’s verbal order that planes deporting violent gang members to El Salvador must return to the United States.

Each of these injunctions represents an intolerable intrusion by the judiciary into the workings of the Executive Branch.  The President’s authority derives from Article II of the Constitution, which is short and sweet.  “The executive power shall be vested in a President of the United States of America.” The authority of a president to supervise and remove executive officers, execute the laws and conduct foreign policy has been recognized by the courts for 100 years.

Leftist judges are attempting to flaunt Supreme Court precedent with orders and injunctions that seek to prevent the Executive from implementing the policies that caused a majority of voters to cast their votes for Trump.  This is a time-honored Democrat tactic.  Having lost the presidency, the House and the Senate, the Democrats’ go-to tactic is to get judges to order policies that would never pass muster with the electorate.  Simply put, that’s not the way it’s supposed to work.

In the Federalist Papers, the Founders envisioned the judiciary as the least powerful branch of the government.  Bolshevik Bernie Sanders and AOC (All Out Crazy) currently are touring the country denouncing Trump’s use of his executive power as the creation of an “oligarchy,” rule by a few people.  Once again, irony is lost on them.

77 million people put Trump into office.  Democrats now are relying on a couple of hundred liberal judges to undo the election.  In any case, Bernie and AOC know as much about oligarchy as they know about fascism.  Newt Gingrich this week published an article on this issue, entitled, An Intolerable Judicial Dictatorship.  In it, he quoted Thomas Jefferson’s statement that, making judges the ultimate deciders of law would “place us under the despotism of an oligarchy.”  That oligarchy has arrived.

Not content to accept the vesting clause of Article II of the Constitution that they swore to uphold, these judges have taken it upon themselves to carry out the functions of the various departments of the Executive branch, including immigration enforcement, Executive branch personnel staffing, and even the operations of the Department of Defense.

DOGE uncovered massive waste, including payments of millions of dollars to terrorist groups under the guise of foreign aid.  Trump froze disbursement of questionable grant spending pending a national security revue.  An Obama appointed judge ordered the monies paid.

Another Obama appointee enjoined the firing of an NLRB member, and the stripping of security clearances from the Perkin Coie Law Firm.  The judge denounced Trump as “A president who touts an image of himself as a ‘king’ or a dictator.”  The law firm has since capitulated, making concessions that settled the matter.

Biden appointee, and self-professed lesbian, judge Ana Reyes thinks she’s running the Defense Department.  Trump issued an Order banning transgender persons from the military.  Ignoring the fact that the judiciary has no authority to decide who is and is not fit to serve in the military, Judge Reyes has ordered them reinstated.  The order prompted Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth to observe, “Since ‘Judge’ Reyes is now a top military planner, she/they can report to Fort Benning at 0600 to instruct our Army Rangers on how to execute High Value Target Raids … after that, Commander Reyes can dispatch to Fort Bragg to train our Green Berets on counterinsurgency warfare.”

The worst example of judicial overreach is that of D.C. District Judge Boasberg.  ICE has been rounding up criminal illegal aliens from Tren de Aragua and MS13 for immediate deportation.  Such removals are are in accordance with immigration laws on the books.

In response to a hastily filed supposed class action lawsuit based on a newspaper article about deportations of criminals to El Salvador, Judge Boasberg conducted a hearing in which he issued a verbal order that the planes carrying the criminals were to be turned around and returned to the United States.

The deportations were based on the 1798 Enemy Alien Act, which the court claimed was inappropriately applied.  I also thought the use of the Act was a stretch, until I researched it.  The Act authorizes the summary removal of aliens where there has been a declared war, or where a president has proclaimed that the U.S. has been the victim of a “predatory incursion” by elements from a foreign government.

Trump issued such a proclamation, alleging that Venezuelan gang members were dispatched by the Maduro government to prey on the United States.  Judge Boasberg held a second hearing in which he berated the government, “Why was this proclamation signed in the dark on Friday, early Saturday morning, and then these people rushed onto the planes?  To me, the only reason to do that is if you know the problem, and you want to get them out of the country before a suit is filed.”

Boasberg is way over his head on this one.  First, there is no requirement that the Executive branch give 10 days notice  before taking action, so as to give every crook, nutcase, and anarchist a chance to throw a wrench into government operations.

Secondly, in 1948 the Supreme Court decided that the decision as to whether conditions enabling use of the Enemy Alien Act is justified, namely, whether there is a war or incursion, and whether or not it has ended, is a political decision invested in the president and is not subject to judicial review.

Thirdly, the Chief Judge of the D.C. District Court ought to know that, even a valid verbal order isn’t worth the paper that it’s not printed on.  A valid order must be signed and filed with the court before it’s in effect.

Boasberg’s actions have prompted calls for his impeachment.  I thought that was a bit much till I learned that Boasberg was the judge who signed the phony FISA court warrants that permitted the Obama Administration to spy on the 2016 Trump campaign, opening up the phony Russiagate investigation.

Then, when it became known that the evidence he was given was false, and that some of it was concocted by an FBI agent, Boasberg conducted the trial of the agent.  After being found guilty, Boasberg said the agent had suffered enough and gave him probation.  Most judges I know don’t appreciate being lied to, and when they learn the court was the victim of fraud, are in no mood to dispense mercy.

Boasberg then participated in the alleged reform of the FISA court regulations by appointing Obama DOJ veterans David Kris and Mary McCord to the job, both of whom helped to perpetrate the Russiagate collusion hoax.  On this evidence, I’d say Boasberg is Chief Judge of the Deep State.

The only workable solution for the Attack of the Robes is a strong opinion of the Supreme Court, reminding the judges of the separation of powers and prohibiting nationwide injunctions.

Two months into the Trump 47 Administration, and I’m amazed at the effect that one man has had on a Democrat Party which has managed to stay in business for 197 years.  Throughout all that time, no other Party or political leader has brought the Democrats to the brink of dissolution, no matter how bad conditions got.

The Democrat Party drove America into a Civil War that cost 600,000 lives.  Yet, aided by a crooked political deal after the 1876 election, it came back.

Between 1897 and 1933, Republicans held the presidency for 28 out of 36 years.  Aided by the Great Depression, Democrats came back.

War hero Dwight Eisenhower routed the Democrats in the 1950’s, but their Party endured.

The Democrats have habit of nominating candidates that are too far Left to be elected.  They did that in 1968, 1972, 1984 and 1988.  The utter failure of moderate Jimmy Carter ushering in Ronald Reagan, and 12 years of Republican rule.

Reagan was very popular, but he couldn’t break the Democrats.  They learned their lesson by nominating Bill Clinton, then successfully convinced America that Obama was moderate in 2008, which, with the aid of an economic fiasco, got him elected.

The point is that up to now, Democrats always realized that their success lay in bringing the Party back toward the middle, because that’s where most of the voters are.  Donald Trump has changed that equation.

I’ve long been telling you that Democrats suffer from a mass mental disorder that causes them to believe that whatever loony position they take is in the mainstream.  Democrats have been walking that fine line between lucidity and Bat Shit Crazy for some time now.  However, that delicate balance has shifted, and Democrats seem to have plunged over the edge.

How else to explain their positions?  Politics is the art of the possible.  A political Party must have the ability to detect changes in public opinion in order to keep itself viable.  Get too far off the beam, and you pay a heavy price.  Republicans learned that in 1964, and Democrats learned the same lesson in 1972.

Today’s Democrats have lost their way.  In the throes of their delusion, they’re no longer in touch with reality, and now believe that public opinion is whatever nutty crap they’re supporting at the moment.  It’s the only explanation for the Democrats to be clinging to the wrong side of just about every 80-20 issue.

80% of Americans favor the deportation of illegal aliens.  Democrats are against it.  80% don’t want biological men to compete against female athletes.  Democrats disagree.  A large majority favor ending the war in Ukraine.  Democrats say any communication with the Russians about a peace treaty means Putin is running our government.

Democrats can’t even adhere to the positions they’ve supported in recent years.  The reason for this can be summed up in one word.  Trump.  Democrats are so consumed with Trump Derangement Syndrome, that they’ve taken the Groucho Marx position from the movie Horsefeathers, “Whatever he’s for, we’re against it.”

Trump has figured this out, and is using the Democrat psychosis to destroy them.  Although none of this is a secret, and although any sane Party would take notice and change its tactics, the Democrat mania to reflexively oppose anything Trump supports has so far prevented them from saving themselves.

You would have thought Democrats had gotten the message that Trump hatred alone, coupled with persecution of Trump and anyone connected to him doesn’t work.  Since 2016, they spied on him, filed false affidavits to attack him, impeached him twice, sued him, prosecuted his supporters, tried to imprison him for life, and twice tried to kill him.  None of that worked.

Last Fall, Democrats spent billions trying to defeat him.  It didn’t work.  Democrats learned nothing from that experience.  Given the choice of supporting Israel, or the Hamas terrorists, most Americans choose Israel.  Not the Democrats.  Trump is deporting Hamas supporting aliens, and Democrats object.  The ACLU isn’t protecting the rights of Jewish students to peacefully attend classes at universities they pay $100 thousand a year to attend, but it is representing the 31 year old “student” who’s trying to stir up a new Jewish genocide.

For as long as I can remember, Democrats have preached that shutting down the government would bring on Armageddon.  Famine, pestilence, etc.  This year, after Trump got the votes to get his spending bill through Congress, Democrats are denouncing the Detestable Chuck Schumer for failing to convince his Party to shut the government down, for the simple reason that Trump wanted it open.

AOC (All Out Crazy) is calling for Schumer’s head, and likely planning to challenge him for election.  On the subject of AOC’s criticism, there’s no better proof of Democrat brain damage than the reaction of Democrat Senator John Fetterman, himself no stranger to brain damage.  “I’m going to stand on what I happen to believe is the right thing to do but ask her, ‘What’s the exit plan once we shut the government down?’  What about all the millions of Americans who are going to have their lives damaged?” “What about the ones that won’t have any paycheck?  She’ll have her paycheck, though.”  Bravo.

But the most conspicuous evidence that Democrats have lost their minds is the 180 degree change in their view of Elon Musk.  Musk once was the darling of the Left, the creator of the electric car, which fit into the Left’s fever dream of prohibiting oil and gas production.

Things began to change when Musk bought Twitter and had the audacity to read the First Amendment and actually protect free speech on the internet.  Then Musk supported Donald Trump.  That did it.  Democrats flipped.

The Musk led DOGE is ferreting out hundreds of billions of dollars of wasteful spending and outright fraud, monies that were the life blood of Democrat patronage and kickbacks.  Preventing Democrats from making payoffs to loony Leftist groups and taking kickbacks is akin to showing a vampire the Cross.

As this is written, Elon Musk is under enhanced security, having received multiple death threats.  Tesla dealerships, charging stations, and vehicles are being attacked, including instances of firebombing Tesla facilities.  Democrats are defacing Teslas and are selling their own Teslas, and replacing them with gasoline powered vehicles.

As a rule I don’t mention anyone with the name Kardashian, but I’ll break it.  Kim Kardashian, a darling of the Left, recently was photographed in and upon Tesla vehicles.  Her promotion of Teslas resulted in her being denounced as a Nazi, with the following comments:  “Cybertrucks do have more rights than women these days…;” “oh you in the cult;” “Kim KKKardashian strikes again;” “This is sick;” “N*zi Alert! N*zi Alert!;” “Satanist propaganda;” “Marie Antoinette vibes mixed with Eva Braun.”

The explanation for these reversals is clear.  Democrats worship government as their God.  Anyone who tries to limit the government is a heretic, and they treat them just as the Inquisition treated Galileo.

No matter how unpopular the Democrat Party gets (it’s down to 27% approval) the Progressives just keep doubling down on crazy.  The Party isn’t going away, but it’s liable to take some time for it to straighten itself out.  Let’s hope that in 2026 the Democrats keep singing that Paul Simon song.  Still Crazy After all these Years.

No, I haven’t taken to watching soap operas.  Frank’s first immutable rule of life is, “the world runs on bullshit, and the bullshit never runs out.”  And regardless of what happens here or abroad, the bullshit just keeps coming, its largely contradictory, and we just keep eating it up.

For instance, am I the only me who’s tired of hearing from so called experts?  If you’ve been paying attention, then you must have noticed that we’ve been getting contradictory “intelligence” from these fakes for decades.  To quote Paddy Chayefsky’s fictional character, Howard Beal, “they’ll tell you any shit you want to hear.”

Just for the record, what is an expert?  Well, X is an unknown figure.  And spurt is a drip under pressure.  So I guess you could say that an expert is an unknown drip who has been exposed to pressure.  In any case, the guidance from these hoaxers is maddening.  You can count on experts to be on every side of every issue.

Take the economic “experts.”  President Truman once said that if you put all the economists end to end, they’d point in all directions.  He was right.  How many times were we treated to Corrupt Demented Imbecile Joe Biden, telling us that dozens of Ivy League “experts” had decided this, that, or the other thing, all in support of whatever bullshit story he was selling at the time?

These economic experts predicted higher inflation, lower inflation, transitional inflation, no inflation, stagflation, and deflation, all at the same time.  And regardless of which way they were pointing, the message was clear.  Stick with Bidenomics.  And you saw what that got us.

Then there were the medical experts, railing about cholesterol.  First eggs were wholesome and good, then eggs were bad, because they raised the level of cholesterol.  Then eggs were good again, because they contained cholesterol, but didn’t necessarily raise it.  Then they were not so good, but better than carbs.

And what about the cholesterol?  Well, not all cholesterol was the same, because there was good cholesterol and bad cholesterol.  Limits were established for HDL and LDL, and whenever you exceeded them, the drug companies were right there to sell you statins.

But then some other experts (and lawyers) told us the statins were dangerous, but don’t worry, because they had other drugs to replace them.  Then more experts (and lawyers) told us the statin replacements were dangerous, but fear not, because they had supplements to sell you to undo the damage caused by the other drugs they had recommended, and you could sue them anyway.  Got all that?

Then there are the alcohol experts.  A hundred years ago, alcohol was the evil agent of family destruction.  We amended the Constitution and endured Prohibition for 12 years before sanity returned.  That interlude put organized crime firmly in control all over the country.  But J. Edgar Hoover and the experts at the FBI assured us there was no such thing as organized crime.  Uh huh.

But back to alcohol.  More experts weighed in.  Some pronounced alcohol bad.  It would shorten your life.  Later, other experts announced studies finding that moderate alcohol use actually allowed you to live longer.  A couple of weeks ago, another group of experts told us that each drink shortens your life by two months.  I say screw all the experts.  Cutting out alcohol doesn’t make you live longer, your life just seems longer.

Then we have the frying problem.  Standard medical judgment is that you should avoid fried foods.  Not a bad idea if you can swing it.  But America became the land of the fast food franchise, and all of them had deep fryers.  Medical experts browbeat the food industry into replacing beef tallow as the frying medium, and and instead using what they said were much healthier seed oils, like corn and soybean oils.  These are the same experts who sought to ban coconut oil as harmful to health.  Yet today, coconut oil is considered a health food.

Enter Robert F. Kennedy, Jr.  The Lord of MAHA, and new Secretary of Health and Human Services, who now cites expert guidance identifying beef tallow as a healthier frying agent.  Both sets of experts can’t be right, so what’s up?  Possibly what’s up is that the totally contradictory “expert” opinions we’re being fed are the products of whatever industry paid for these various expert studies.  Which is just another way to say, “the world runs on bullshit and it never runs out.”

But wait a minute.  That can’t be true.  Surely our government would protect us from being corrupted by mercenary experts whose opinions might be harmful to public health.  Seriously?  Don’t make me laugh.  Who do you think a lot of these experts are working for?

We’re talking about the same government that pumps out Public Service Announcements about rising levels of obesity, while at the same time passing out government subsidies to the sugar industry, and to the producers of corn and soybeans which are used to the produce the cheap seed oils, that the latest experts say are giving the whole country diabetes.

It’s the same government that subsidized oil production with tax breaks, then switched to electric vehicles and renewable energy, which it then subsidized, and in both cases, you paid the bill and the favored producers of the moment got richer.  No, the government isn’t the watchdog, it’s the lapdog of whichever industry can deliver the most money and votes.

The sad fact is that expert opinion is for sale to the highest bidder, and public safety be damned.  One need look no further than the debate over the legalization of drugs.

Drugs like cocaine and heroin have been illegal since 1914.  Beginning in the 1970’s, swarms of experts began preaching for drug legalization.  Well into the 1980’s I was getting drug cases in which medical experts argued that cocaine really isn’t a dangerous drug.  Then the experts teamed up with social scientists and race hustlers, and pronounced the war on drugs a racist scheme to imprison all minorities.

The drug legalization campaign began 25 years ago. Experts said if drugs were legal drug use would decline.  That led to the legalization of marijuana.  How good were the expert’s predictions?  In 2000 there were 17,000 deaths from drug overdoses.  In 2010, the death toll doubled to 38,000.  And now, with a weed dispensary on every street corner, we have more than 108,000 drug deaths a year.

I rest my case.  Not only does the world run on bullshit that never runs out, the bullshit can kill you.

They say that, when you’re in a hole, you should stop digging.  After the 2024 election, Democrats have found themselves in a hole, but they’re doing all they can to dig it deeper.  Case in point, President Trump gave his State of the Union address this week.  It’s never easy for the out-of-power Party to sit through one of those speeches.  There have been past instances of verbal outbursts, to be sure.  But Tuesday night, the Democrats tried to turn the event into a three ring circus.  Unsurprisingly, they provided the clown show.

The head clown in this circus was none other than Texas Representative Al Green.  Green has been in Congress for 20 years.  He’s a lawyer, who has the distinction of graduating from law school without ever earning an undergraduate degree.  The ABA accreditation standards say that is an “extraordinary” feat.  And Al Green hasn’t let them down as, if nothing else, he’s proven to be extraordinarily irritating to one John Donald Trump.

Hailing from the Party that likes to denounce Republicans as “election deniers,” Green is himself the quintessential election denier.  You may recall that he was the first Democrat to call for the impeachment of Trump.  And I’m talking about Trump 45, not Trump 47.

Green and Mad Maxine Waters started Trump impeachment talk after the 2016 election, even before Trump’s first inauguration.  It was February 2017 when Green filed his first impeachment articles based on Trump’s firing of James Comey.  Given that Green is such an extraordinary intellect, he should have known an impeachment for firing a Cabinet member didn’t work in 1868.  It didn’t work in 2017 either.

Democrats were still counting the 2024 votes when Green started talking impeachment for Trump 47.  This was before Tuesday’s speech.  On Tuesday, about five minutes into the speech, Green jumped up brandishing a cane and began yelling at the President, staging what might be called the Cane Mutiny.

That’s Adam Schiff (for brains) sitting in front of Green.  I was hoping he might get hit in the head by an errant swing.  Too bad.  Maybe Green was hoping to reenact the 1856 Capitol protest, when another Democrat, Preston Brooks, used his metal tipped cane to beat Republican Charles Sumner unconscious. In any event, Green never got the chance, as he was escorted from the Chamber by Sergeants at Arms.

And Al Green was only the center ring of the circus.  Democrat women attending the event all wore pink clown suits, because “pink is a color of power and protest.”

Well really, pink and some purple –

Boy, that’s telling him.  It looked like the bar room scene from Star Wars.

And then, in the third ring, were the stupid little signs.For a while there, it looked like the Democrats thought they were at an auction.  I was waiting for Trump to point the gavel at them and say, “Sold, to the lunatic with the purple hair.”

If Democrats thought that this nonsense would revive their  Party’s flagging popularity, it failed.  At least in the sane world.  MSNBC’s only complaint was that more Democrats didn’t follow Al Green’s lead, and rise up to be expelled one after the other, “to inspire their base.”  But inspiring their base isn’t the problem.  Their problem is that their base is down to below 25% of the electorate.

In the land of the living, Trump’s speech was wildly popular.  A CBS poll found 70% of viewers thought it “inspiring.”  77% supported his stands on cutting waste and on immigration.  More than 70% supported his remarks on ending the war in Ukraine, and 65% agreed with his stand on tariffs.

Such numbers would be a grim reality check if only the Woke Resistance actually was in touch with reality.  They’re not.  To the Left, Trump is still Hitler.  When you try to tell them how rare it is for nearly 80% of Americans agree on anything, it falls on deaf ears.  They give you Liberal Answer #1 – “That’s not true,” and then intone, “anyway, Trump is Hitler.”

And although the Democrat Party is being described as “out in the wilderness,” even by the few remaining sane Democrats, the loony Left base is firmly convinced that the “Trump is Hitler” meme is their path to salvation.  Although nobody asked her, and although few either knew or cared that she was still alive, actress Mia Farrow sounded the alarm online – “If we have 6 months of democracy left I’ll be surprised.  I’m guessing 3-4 months – unless we do something.”

She didn’t explain what the “something” was that she wants to be done.  She concluded, “Trump is a monster- loathsome.  All these fawning people know better.  I would never be in the same room with him.”  Don’t sweat it Mia, I’d lay odds you won’t be in the same room with the President anytime soon.

The point is, although Farrow may be a nut, she’s a nut with 200,000 followers.  Poll numbers indicating the will of the electorate mean nothing to such people.  And many of them happen to be Members of Congress.  These are politicians, who are supposed to be adept at feeling which way the winds are blowing, and turning changes in public opinion to their advantage.  Not this bunch.

Faced with issues on which 8 of 10 Americans disagree with them, they just keep doubling down on crazy.  So wedded are they to the continuation of unbridled illegal immigration, they object even to the deportation of violent criminal aliens.  Here are remarks from New Mexico Democrat, Melanie Stansbury, “It’s total bullshit.  Absolute bullshit.  They are not making America safer and what they are doing is terrorizing immigrant families.”

When Trump acknowledged the families of women murdered by illegal aliens, Democrats sat silent.  When he recounted outrageously wasteful spending, they sat silent.  They couldn’t even stand in sympathy for a 13 year old cancer patient, whose only crime was wanting to be a police officer.  Simply put, Democrats went out of their way to prove themselves worthy of the sign Representative Stansbury bravely sported Tuesday night.

No, Melanie, it certainly is not.  And not to be outdone, Mad Maxine Waters burnished her “election denier” persona.  Maxine boycotted the speech because she didn’t want to listen to “that bullshit.”  Afterward, Mad Maxine cornered the market on bullshit, suggesting  that “Elon Musk’s high technology ass” might had rigged the election for Trump.

With every breath they take, and every move they make, Democrats only seem to dig themselves deeper into their hole.  My message to Democrats is, keep digging.

Elon Musk and his DOGE boys once again have swung their mighty budget axe.  They now are seeking to chop down a familiar part of Americana.  The penny.  To many, in this age of tapping debit and credit cards and Venmo, the penny is just a nuisance to be well rid of.  But I’m old enough to appreciate the penny.

Once upon a time, people said, “Find a penny, pick it up, and all the day you’ll have good luck.”  Now people are too lazy to bend down.  In my youth there were things that you could buy for a penny.  Penny candy comes to mind.  There were candy stores with endless supplies of wax teeth, jawbreakers, and edible flying saucers.  Now they’re all but gone, at any price.  7-11 and WaWa stores now sell single tootsie rolls for 39 cents each.  So much for penny candy.

The powers that be have been trying to get rid of the penny for many years.  The latest attempt came when the DOGE boys announced that each penny we mint costs 3.7 cents to produce.  DOGE is doing good work, but that really wasn’t a revelation.  It’s cost more than one cent to make a penny since the 1970’s.  In fact, in 1974 the Mint experimented with an aluminum penny.  They were never produced for circulation.  I’ve handled aluminum coins.  They are the very embodiment of cheap crap.

Over the penny’s 232 year history, metal shortages and increases in metal values have caused numerous changes in the penny’s composition.  The penny was the first coin produced by the U.S. Mint in 1793.  From 1793 to 1857 the penny was the large cent, almost the diameter of a half dollar. Up to 1837 it was 100% copper.   In 1837, in the midst of a financial panic, the composition changed to 95% copper, 5% zinc and tin.

In 1857, the small cent was born.  This one (the Flying Eagle) was 88% copper and 12% nickel, giving the coin a white appearance.  A shortage of nickel during the Civil War changed the 1864 penny to bronze (95% copper, with zinc and tin).

That composition endured till World War II, when shortages of copper and tin caused the Mint to produce zinc coated steel pennies in 1943.  They lasted one year.  From 1944 to 1946 pennies were brass (95% copper, 5% zinc).  From 1947 to 1962 the bronze alloy returned.  From 1962 to 1982 they again were brass, the tin being removed.  Since 1982, pennies have been 97.5% zinc, with copper plating.

But now not even zinc is cheap enough to make minting pennies pay.  Congress unsuccessfully tried to cancel the penny in 2017.  Numerous other proposals to end the penny have been met with resistance.  Vending machine companies complained the loudest.  About the only machines that take pennies today are the supermarket self-checkouts.

Another defender of the penny is a man named Mark Weller, who represents an organization called Americans For Common Cents.  Is he fighting for the penny for its historical value or because he’s a coin collector like myself?  Hardly.  Mr. Weller is a lobbyist for the company that sells the Mint the zinc used to make the pennies.  So much for sentiment.

Until last year we were producing about 7 billion pennies a year, at an annual cost of more than $100 million over face value.  I can’t argue that that’s not a wasteful misuse of government money.  President Trump has ordered the Mint to stop producing pennies this year.  It would take an Act of Congress to cancel the penny altogether.

If pennies are no longer minted for circulation, they still could be produced for collectors.  New pennies could join the list of other coins we mint that few people ever see or use.  We minted 58 million Kennedy half dollars in 2023 and 37 million in 2024.  Ever get one in change?

Every year we mint millions of dollar coins in two varieties (Sacagawea and Presidential).  Only coin collectors ever see them, which is a shame, because if Americans would use a dollar coin, which lasts 20 years, we could stop printing $1 bills, which last 18 months.

But back to the penny.  It is estimated that there are 250 billion pennies in circulation.  That’s enough to give every American about 800.  And if you’re paying cash, how many do you need for the rare purchases requiring 3 or 4 pennies?    The Mint has produced over 150 billion pennies in the last 20 years, and pennies last from 20 to 30 years, so there have to be a lot more than 250 billion usable one cent coins out there.

The question is, where are all the pennies?  With fewer Americans using cash, are they in piggy banks or jars somewhere?  The point is, we need not cancel the penny outright.  We can just halt production while we make use of  the billions of coins already produced.

We need to enlist the American public to bring their pennies to banks to get them back into circulation.  During World War II there were metal and rubber drives.  Why not a penny drive?  If Trump and Musk ask Americans to help them save the government money it could work.  And there is precedent for such a plan.

Remember that I said the Mint experimented with aluminum pennies in 1974.  That’s because the price of copper caused people to melt pennies for the copper value.  There was a  penny shortage.  The Mint ramped up production, minting more than 100 billion pennies in 10 years.

In 1974 the U.S. Treasury Department called for pennies to be cashed in at banks to ease the shortfall.  Then Mint Director Mary Brooks put out the call for pennies, telling Americans “There are plenty of pennies.  But they are in the wrong places.”  For every $25 in pennies turned in to banks, the Treasury issued a Certificate of Appreciation.  I got one.

The same situation exists today.  There are plenty of pennies out there, but just in the wrong places.  I think I’ll give Treasury Secretary Bessent a call.