The Reign of Trump

[Solauren]

How difficult would it be for Panama to ensure that the US can't take the canal intact ?

The 'canal' is 82 kilometers long. The important parts are the locks that raise the ships up from Ocean level to Gatun lake.
Blow those, and the canal is ruined, and Gatun lake will either be damned up, or spill into the oceans (depending on how it was blown).
I'll leave figuring out how to blow them to a demolitions expert.

If the locals want to get really nasty about it, the next step would be to put mines in the canal, so that US had to clear those out.
(And the bonus being you could keep supplies of mines hidden and just keep tossing them in).

Sinking a bunch of ships in the right spot would also fuck things up.


Of course, as a preventative measure, all Panama would have to do right now is close the canal to traffic, with the statement 'the canal is closed until the United States government, including Donald Trump et al, cease all discussion about retaking/reclaiming/stealing the Panama Canals"

The amount of international pressure that would bring on the United States, and economic chaos it would cause, should be enough to even make Trump back down.


... and really, that's all it should take to handle Trumps international stupidity. The entity being threatened by Trump going 'oh hell no, we're doing this unless he shuts down', and it being something that pisses off the international community.

Trump wants the Canal? Shut it down until he agrees to back off
Trump wants to level Giza and put up restort? The neighboring countries need to go 'oh hell no' and threaten open war if that happens.
Trump wants to slap Tariffs on China? China and it's allies need to slap Tariffs on the United States, or bare all trade with him.

[bilateralrope]

Closing the canal could get a lot of people angry at Panama at the chaos that caused in their attempt to get Trump to shut up.

It seems better for Panama to send a message that they will continue to operate as usual. Unless Trump tries to seize the canal, then they will make sure that all he can achieve is closing it to everybody. Then hope that there is someone close enough to Trump to convince him to hold off, even they can't stop him talking.

Trump wants to slap Tariffs on China? China and it's allies need to slap Tariffs on the United States, or bare all trade with him.

Yes. That seems to be what China is doing in response to the tariffs Trump inflicted.

[EnterpriseSovereign]

Our media is portraying it as a relatively restrained move on China's part, in the hopes that it will make Trump reconsider this course of action.

[Grand Moff Yenchin]

https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/c93q625y04wo

Musk to rehire Doge aide, Marko Elez, who resigned after his racist remarks were outed earlier

Vance and Trump actually called for his re-hiring before Musk made the announcement.

Funny how I was considering of posting the "resign" part yesterday and the not-so-surprising plot twist comes in so fast.

[bilateralrope]

I didn't see anything in that article about what Marko Elez wants.


Also, there are a lot of lawsuits against Trump's actions. So far it seems that every lawsuit is getting whatever it sued over blocked with a preliminary injunction with a lot of comments from judges about how the plaintiffs are likely to win. I recommend the podcast Serious Trouble if you want to keep track of them.

Yes, SCOTUS are going to be a problem when those cases reaches them. But that's years away.

[Grand Moff Yenchin]

I didn't see anything in that article about what Marko Elez wants.

You mean regarding racism or employment?

Regarding his racism the initial media report ("DOGE Staffer Resigns Over Racist Posts") was from WSJ and could be found on archive.ph, it mentions:

The deleted profile associated with Elez, who was embedded in the Treasury Department to carry out efficiency measures, advocated repealing the Civil Rights Act and backed a “eugenic immigration policy” in the weeks before President Trump was inaugurated.
“You could not pay me to marry outside of my ethnicity,” the account wrote on X in September, according to a Wall Street Journal review of archived posts. “Normalize Indian hate,” the account wrote the same month, in reference to a post noting the prevalence of people from India in Silicon Valley.

and

The user appeared to have a special dislike for Indian software engineers. “99% of Indian H1Bs will be replaced by slightly smarter LLMs, they’re going back don’t worry guys,” the user posted in December.
“Just for the record, I was racist before it was cool,” @nullllptr posted in July.
In June, the user weighed in on the conflict in the Middle East, offering some sympathy for Israel but also posting, “I would not mind at all if Gaza and Israel were both wiped off the face of the Earth.”

[Zwinmar]

Been seeing shit about this from rightwing people I know

Feb 7 ( link to Reuters) - Several major news outlets including Politico and the Associated Press have rejected unsubstantiated accusations by President Donald Trump and right-wing influencers that the U.S. Agency for International Development paid millions of taxpayer dollars to newsrooms in exchange for coverage favoring the Democratic Party.
Trump wrote on social media on Thursday: “LOOKS LIKE BILLIONS OF DOLLARS HAVE BEEN STOLLEN AT USAID, AND OTHER AGENCIES, MUCH OF IT GOING TO THE FAKE NEWS MEDIA AS A ‘PAYOFF’ FOR CREATING GOOD STORIES ABOUT THE DEMOCRATS.”
Prominent Trump supporters, including billionaire Elon Musk, amplified the narrative about USAID directly funding some news outlets including Politico and the New York Times.
The White House and USAID did not immediately respond to a Reuters request for comment about the claims
Trump on Thursday accused Politico, which he referred to as "the left wing 'rag'," of receiving $8 million from USAID. White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt announced a day earlier the government would cancel more than $8 million of subscription expenditure to the news organization.
Politico in a statement, opens new tab Thursday said the organization had never received U.S. government funding but that some government agencies subscribe to Politico Pro, a policy intelligence news platform. Politico did not disclose the amount its government customers spent on subscriptions.
"Government agencies that subscribe do so through standard public procurement processes—just like any other tool they buy to work smarter and be more efficient,” the statement said.
A spokesperson for the Associated Press, which also faced accusations from pro-Trump online accounts that it was funded by the aid agency, said it had not received any money from USAID.
“Our business is providing factual, nonpartisan news and information to customers worldwide,” the spokesperson said.
“The U.S. government has long been an AP customer – through both Democratic and Republican administrations."
A New York Times spokesperson on Friday told Reuters that USAID did not provide funding to the company. A day earlier the newspaper in a statement, opens new tab said, "Federal funds received by The Times are payments for subscriptions that government offices and agencies have purchased to better understand the world." It added that no federal grants were made to the news outlet.
The BBC’s finances came under scrutiny in early February after Musk shared a post that said USAID funds the broadcaster. Its charity wing BBC Media Action, which received funds from USAID and other donors, is independently funded and editorially separate from BBC News, a BBC Media Action spokesperson told Reuters.
A spokesperson for BBC News said it did not receive any funding from USAID and that it is editorially independent from BBC Media Action.
Reuters, which also faced online accusations it was funded by government agencies, said it didn’t have a contractual relationship with USAID. “As with all news agency customers, governments pay a fee for Reuters news services. No payments from any client, including any government entity, influence our news coverage, which is governed by the Thomson Reuters Trust Principles ensuring independence, accuracy and freedom from bias in all we do,” a spokesperson said.
The spokesperson added that Thomson Reuters Special Services, a separate legal entity operating independently from Reuters News, has provided software and information services to government agencies “across successive administrations for decades.“

[bilateralrope]

I didn't see anything in that article about what Marko Elez wants.

You mean regarding racism or employment?

Regarding if he wants to come back.

[bilateralrope]

Now for a story about a different DOGE employee:

Musk’s DOGE Teen Was Fired By Cybersecurity Firm for Leaking Company Secrets

Edward Coristine posted online that he had retained access to the firm’s servers. Now he has access to sensitive government information.

By Jason Leopold, Margi Murphy, Sophie Alexander, Jake Bleiberg, and Anthony Cormier
8 February 2025 at 8:41 am NZDT

Edward Coristine, a 19-year-old member of Elon Musk’s squad that’s criss-crossing US government agencies, was fired from an internship after he was accused of sharing information with a competitor.

“Edward has been terminated for leaking internal information to the competitors,” said a June 2022 message from an executive of the firm, Path Network, which was seen by Bloomberg News. “This is unacceptable and there is zero tolerance for this.”

A spokesperson for the Arizona-based hosting and data-security firm said Thursday: “I can confirm that Edward Coristine's brief contract was terminated after the conclusion of an internal investigation into the leaking of proprietary company information that coincided with his tenure.”

Afterward, Coristine wrote that he’d retained access to the cybersecurity company’s computers, though he said he hadn’t taken advantage of it.

“I had access to every single machine,” he wrote on Discord in late 2022, weeks after he was dismissed from Path Network, according to messages seen by Bloomberg. Posting under the name “Rivage,” which six people who know him said was his alias, Coristine said he could have wiped Path’s customer-supporting servers if he’d wished. He added, "I never exploited it because it's just not me."

His comments, made in a Discord server focused on another competitor company, worried executives at Path Network, who believed there was no legitimate reason for a former employee to access their machines, according to a person familiar with the incident. The person asked not to be named, citing the sensitivity of the matter.

In response to his firing, Coristine, who is wearing a blazer and shorts in one undated photo that was posted anonymously online, wrote on Discord that he had done “nothing contractually wrong” while working at Path Network.

Several of Coristine’s online peers and former co-workers said they were surprised that the teenage friend they knew has been brought into one of the most high-profile teams in the Trump administration. His 2022 dismissal and the circumstances surrounding it add to questions about how he arrived in this new job with Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency and how he’ll handle the sensitive government information that comes with it.

“Giving Elon Musk's goon squad access to systems that control payments to Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid and other key federal programs is a national security nightmare," Senator Ron Wyden, an Oregon Democrat and a member of the Senate Intelligence Committee, told Bloomberg News about his general concerns regarding the DOGE team. "Every hour new disturbing details emerge to prove that these guys have no business anywhere close to sensitive information or critical networks.”

Earlier this week, Wyden and other Democrats on the Senate intelligence panel asked White House Chief of Staff Susie Wiles to explain how DOGE members were vetted and what steps the Trump administration has taken to ensure the classified and unclassified systems and records the DOGE team has accessed are safeguarded from disclosure.

Coristine didn’t respond to requests for comment. Attempts to reach his parents for comment through publicly listed telephone numbers were unsuccessful. The White House wouldn't comment directly on Coristine's employment, but an official who discussed the situation on the condition of anonymity to discuss personnel matters said all DOGE staffers under Musk were working as employees of relevant agencies with security clearances. Their employment is in compliance with federal law and they are not outside advisers, the official said.

The official acknowledged that DOGE’s operations were being viewed by some government employees as disruptive, but said the efforts were necessary to carry out Trump’s vision.

Coristine, who also interned at Musk’s Neuralink according to a cached online biography, is part of a core group of DOGE employees who are gathering datasets on government personnel, contracts and programs, according to people familiar with the matter. They asked not to be named because they don't have permission to discuss the matter publicly.

In meetings at the US Agency for International Development and the General Services Administration, for example, Coristine and other colleagues have discussed how they can use that data to potentially replace government employees with artificial intelligence and train chatbots to do the work.

Coristine regularly posted on both Discord and the messaging service Telegram in 2021 and 2022, when he was under 18. His posts are a mix of discussions about Path Network, coder-talk and lewd insults. Wired also reported earlier on some of Coristine’s history online.

On Telegram, he used language that suggested he was seeking a tool used in hacking, according to three people familiar with his online personas, a copy of the messages and two people familiar with cyber attacks. The people asked not to be named to discuss sensitive matters.

DOGE’s moves across US agencies have put a spotlight on how Musk, the world’s richest person with a $412 billion fortune, tends to operate without regard for norms or traditional boundaries. Coristine’s online postings and his termination from Path Network raise questions about how members of the DOGE team were vetted. Trump's administration has not provided detailed information on that process. The Wall Street Journal reported Thursday that a different member of the DOGE team had resigned after racist posts were discovered on his social media account.

People familiar with Coristine’s DOGE work said he would need a security clearance at least at the secret level to access the secure spaces that hold some of the information he and his coworkers are seeking. It’s unclear what clearance he has, if any, though Trump on his first day in office issued an executive order to grant top secret and sensitive compartmented information security clearances for six months to at least some individuals so they could “immediately access the facilities and technology” to perform their work.

Online Chats
Two US law enforcement officials who investigate cybercrimes told Bloomberg they’ve been tracking online chat rooms that Coristine and others participated in for at least a year. The officials, who requested anonymity because they are not authorized to publicly discuss their work, said they first became aware of him, under the usernames “Rivage” and “JoeyCrafter,” while investigating an alleged hacker who Coristine was communicating with in an online forum. The officials wouldn’t identify the hacker or the case they were investigating.

In one message from November 2022 seen by Bloomberg News, the “JoeyCrafter” persona wrote: "Looking for capable, powerful & reliable L7." That message, posted in a Telegram group, refers to a type of cyber attack that knocks out websites with overwhelming internet traffic, according to three people familiar with that type of attack and its terminology, who asked not to be identified citing the sensitivity of the matter. It’s unclear whether he acquired or used the application.

Coristine’s presence in the forums and his chat history wouldn’t necessarily disqualify him from obtaining a secret-level clearance, said Brad Moss, a Washington-based lawyer who specializes in security clearances. That’s because that information likely wouldn’t show up during a preliminary vetting process, which includes speaking with an investigator and a background check, interviews with friends and neighbors and a scrubbing of public-facing social media platforms such as Facebook, X and Instagram.

Yet for a higher-level clearance, “it’s much more likely they would have had to submit to a polygraph and that kind of behavior would absolutely have come up, and it would have raised concerns,” Moss said. “There are mitigating factors though. How long ago was it? Was the person a minor? Is the person still engaged in it?”

Tesla.Sexy LLC
According to other people who have been online with him, Coristine has spent much of his teenage years on the Internet.

By the time he was 17, Coristine had started at least three limited liability corporations, all registered to the family’s five-bedroom house in Connecticut. Those include Mistdeck LLC, DiamondCDN LLC and — in a nod to Musk’s publicly traded electric carmaker — Tesla.Sexy LLC, an image hosting service. (Of the three LLCs, only Tesla.Sexy is still active.)

Edward Coristine also worked more typical teenage jobs. He was a camp counselor at a day camp and worked as a warehouse team member at his dad’s popcorn company, according to a since-deleted LinkedIn account under the younger Coristine’s name.

JoeyCrafter was a member of Telegram groups called “Kiwi Farms Christmas Chat” and “Kiwi Farms 100% Real No Fake No Virus,” both referencing an online forum known for harassment campaigns. Typically, the site has been used to share the personal information of a target, encouraging others to harass them online, in-person, over the phone or by falsely alerting police to a violent crime or active shooter incident at their home.

In online messages, the aliases that investigators said Coristine uses have regularly discussed free speech and internet providers’ role in keeping websites online, including one that hosted the neo-Nazi site the Daily Stormer.

Musk's hiring strategy seems to be the same one used by the sub building company from Oceangate. Hire people too inexperienced to know when they are asking to do something wrong.

[EnterpriseSovereign]

https://www.itv.com/news/2025-02-07/trump-sanctions-international-criminal-court-as-he-calls-it-illegitimate

President Donald Trump signed an executive order imposing sanctions on the International Criminal Court (ICC) on Thursday, accusing it of engaging in "illegitimate and baseless actions" that target America and "close ally Israel."

Trump also accused the ICC of abusing its power by issuing “baseless arrest warrants” against Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and his former defence minister, Yoav Gallant.

“The ICC has no jurisdiction over the United States or Israel,” the order states, adding that the court had set a “dangerous precedent” with its actions against both countries.

The ICC is a global court, which is able to bring prosecutions for genocide, crimes against humanity, and war crimes.

On Friday, the Hague-based court condemned the sanctions, saying the move was an attempt to "harm its independent and impartial judicial work."

"The Court stands firmly by its personnel and pledges to continue providing justice and hope to millions of innocent victims of atrocities across the world," the court said in a statement.

"We call on our 125 States Parties, civil society and all nations of the world to stand united for justice and fundamental human rights," it said.

It comes just days after Netanyahu's visit to the White House, during which Trump announced that he plans to relocate Gaza's residents and redeveloping the land into the "Riviera of the Middle East".

Neither the US or Israel is a member of or recognises the court. But the order says the US will now impose “tangible and significant consequences” on those responsible for the ICC's “transgressions.”

Actions may include blocking property and assets and not allowing ICC officials, employees and relatives to enter the United States.

Human rights activists said sanctioning court officials would have a chilling effect and run counter to US interests in other conflict zones where the court is investigating.

“Victims of human rights abuses around the world turn to the International Criminal Court when they have nowhere else to go, and President Trump’s executive order will make it harder for them to find justice," said Charlie Hogle, staff attorney with American Civil Liberties Union’s National Security Project.

“The order also raises serious First Amendment concerns because it puts people in the United States at risk of harsh penalties for helping the court identify and investigate atrocities committed anywhere, by anyone.”

Hogle said the order "is an attack on both accountability and free speech.”

Like Israel, the US is not among the court’s 124 members. After the ICC issued an arrest warrant for Netanyahu last November, former President Joe Biden called the warrants an abomination. Trump’s national security adviser, Mike Waltz, has since accused the court of having an antisemitic bias.

Any sanctions could cripple the court by making it harder for its investigators to travel and by compromising US-developed technology to safeguard evidence.

However, this is not the first time Trump has sanctioned the ICC.

During his first term, he authorised sanctions and visa restrictions against ICC personnel after the court opened a probe into alleged war crimes in Afghanistan by US and Afghan forces, as well as alleged war crimes and crimes against humanity committed by the Taliban.

[Solauren]

Question - what can the ICC actually do to the United States?

[LadyTevar]

Question - what can the ICC actually do to the United States?

That is a damn good question. I don't know.

[EnterpriseSovereign]

Dammit, I screwed up posting the link...
Trump sanctions International Criminal Court as he accuses it of setting a 'dangerous precedent'

[Elfdart]

Question - what can the ICC actually do to the United States?

Not much -laws being like spiderwebs that can only trap the weak and tiny. However, all the detergents of Proctor & Gamble will never wash away the stain of being a known war criminal, or the scarlet letter of G for genocide.

The fact that Dickless Cheney to this day has to consult with lawyers before traveling abroad is a silver lining, though a very small one.

[bilateralrope]

Exclusive: Secret Service airing recruitment ad from Hollywood director Michael Bay during Super Bowl

By Whitney Wild, Jamie Gangel and Elizabeth Wagmeister, CNN
Updated 10:30 PM EST, Sat February 8, 2025

CNN
—
The United States Secret Service has tapped blockbuster movie director Michael Bay to create a recruiting advertisement that is expected to be unveiled in the stadium on Super Bowl Sunday, according to multiple NFL and Secret Service sources.

The ad cost an estimated $2 million for the Secret Service to produce, according to two sources familiar with the project — a hefty price tag that comes amid massive budget cuts and layoffs at other government agencies.

One source told CNN the estimated $2 million budget is about double what was spent on previous Secret Service recruiting ads.

The ad is expected to air during the pregame show on a jumbotron inside New Orleans’ Superdome stadium, according to a source close to the NFL. The ad time is being donated, so the Secret Service will not have to pay an additional fee. Ad buys during Super Bowl Sunday typically cost millions of dollars, with a 30-second ad airing on television costing up to $8 million this year.

The ad’s purpose of recruitment comes at a crucial time, as the Secret Service has been wracked with low morale, burnout, staffing and retention issues. The thrust of the ad showcases the Secret Service’s role in protecting the nation’s leaders and points out the very game the audience is attending is secured by the agency, according to sources familiar with the ad.

Through a spokesperson, Secret Service Director Sean Curran told CNN that he “empowered the team to identify a novel and expedient approach that leveraged one of the most recognizable Directors to produce a representation of the men and women behind the Secret Service within nine days while ensuring compliance with requisite rules.”

“As Director, my focus will always be to lean forward to meet the needs of our workforce,” Curran said through the spokesperson.

News of the ad comes days after Bay — the Hollywood action director behind the “Transformers” movies and “Pearl Harbor” — was seen in White House pool footage shaking hands with Donald Trump as the president boarded Air Force One at Joint Base Andrews last week. Sources familiar with the project say Bay was shooting the recruiting ad on-site.

According to sources familiar with the ad, it includes images of Secret Service agents as well as former presidents, including possible historic footage of John F. Kennedy and Ronald Reagan. There is also expected to be an image of Trump from the day of last year’s assassination attempt against him in Butler, Pennsylvania. However, it is not clear what will make the final edit.

“I came up with the concept for the PSA that America was founded on the idea of freedom,” Bay told CNN in a statement. “Throughout our short but powerful history as Americans, we have always stepped forward in time of need. This was a spot to honor the true silent heroes who protect the leaders of our democracy.”

Trump will be at the game, and possibly on site when the ad airs in the stadium. Earlier this week, a White House official told CNN the president is expected to attend the game, which would make him the first sitting US president to attend a Super Bowl.

The Secret Service ad airing on Super Bowl Sunday comes after days of back-and-forth negotiations between the agency, Bay and the NFL.

CNN first learned last week that the ad would air on a jumbotron inside the stadium during the game. But by Friday afternoon — just two days before the game — a source close to the league told CNN the ad would not be airing. The source said the Secret Service submitted its request too late and programming on the jumbotron had already been locked.

Less than 24 hours later, CNN learned the NFL had found space to air the ad during the pregame. The NFL declined to comment.

There were also conversations regarding a possible televised commercial on Fox, two sources said, adding that the ad space would have been donated to the Secret Service.

The Secret Service will own the ad for five years and plans to use it on social media to drive future recruitment for years to come.

The spot came together in less than two weeks — a rapid timeline for a busy Hollywood hitter like Bay and typically slow-moving government agencies — indicating the importance of the ad to the Secret Service.

CNN has filed Freedom of Information Act records requests to determine the actual cost and budget for the ad campaign.

The security footprint at the game will be both massive and tight. Multiple high-profile leaders beyond Trump will be there, and the city of New Orleans is still reeling from the New Year’s terrorist attack that killed 14 people.

Anyone else wondering if Trump had some input into the ads script ?

A last minute Superbowl spot seems like something he would demand.

[Eternal_Freedom]

Isn't this precisely the sort of "government waste" that Musk's DOGE morons are supposed to be cutting?

[bilateralrope]

Only if you take Musk at his word.

[LadyTevar]

Trump Tells Treasury to Stop Minting Pennies

The US Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent has been told to stop minting one-cent coins, or pennies as they are widely called, by US President Donald Trump in an announcement on his Truth Social media account.

"Let's rip the waste out of our great nations budget, even if it's a penny at a time," Trump's post said, describing the move as a cost-cutting measure.

It comes after Elon Musk's unofficial Department of Government Efficiency (Doge) drew attention to the cost of minting pennies in a post on X last month.

The debate over the cost and usefulness of pennies has been a long-running one in the US.

"This is so wasteful," Trump's Truth Social post said.

"I have instructed my Secretary of the US Treasury to stop producing new pennies."

According the US Mint's 2024 annual report, making and distributing a one cent coin costs 3.69 cents.

US government officials and members of Congress have in the past proposed discontinuing the penny without success.

While its detractors have argued that the zinc and copper coin is a waste of money and resources, those who support it say that the coin keeps prices lower and boosts fund-raising for charities.

Right now there's probably enough pennies in circulation that we don't need to mint any more for a while, but it's going to be interesting seeing where this goes and if the Treasury takes it as the excuse to stop it'd been wanting.

I will be amused if there's a sudden 'run on pennies'.

[bilateralrope]

The withdrawal of low denomination coins is a thing worldwide.

The US keeping them for so long seems unusual.

[Mr Bean]

So I can speak to this because I lived somewhere (Diego Garica) were there was a explicit rule about not shipping in Pennies or Nickles. Being a remote island they don't like shipping in coinage for the service people there so they made that rule that nickles and pennies were banned. Every register on the island had a last dime tax and most of the goods were priced to be .90 instead of .99

This was FYI way back in 2006 aka almost 20 years ago.

It's not a bad thing, inflation had made the penny a worthless item most of the time, we make so many and we only use them for change. Making a universal round to the nearest dime along with pricing rules could solve the penny/nickle issue with minimum fuss, don't want to do nickles? Then just round things to nearest nickle and change the local tax laws to round up for cash transactions.

[LadyTevar]

https://www.congress.gov/bill/119th-con ... -bill/1161

H.R.1161 - To authorize the President to enter into negotiations to acquire Greenland and to rename Greenland as "Red, White, and Blueland".

Sponsor: Rep. Carter, Earl L. "Buddy" [R-GA-1] (Introduced 02/10/2025)
Committees: House - Foreign Affairs; Natural Resources
Latest Action: House - 02/10/2025 Referred to the Committee on Foreign Affairs, and in addition to the Committee on Natural Resources, for a period to be subsequently determined by the Speaker, in each case for consideration of such provisions as fall within the jurisdiction of the committee concerned. (All Actions)

Yes. It's a real House Resolution.
This is NOT the ONION, but I'm sure the Onion is kicking themselves for not thinking of it first.

[Tribble]

Trump Tells Treasury to Stop Minting Pennies

The US Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent has been told to stop minting one-cent coins, or pennies as they are widely called, by US President Donald Trump in an announcement on his Truth Social media account.

"Let's rip the waste out of our great nations budget, even if it's a penny at a time," Trump's post said, describing the move as a cost-cutting measure.

It comes after Elon Musk's unofficial Department of Government Efficiency (Doge) drew attention to the cost of minting pennies in a post on X last month.

The debate over the cost and usefulness of pennies has been a long-running one in the US.

"This is so wasteful," Trump's Truth Social post said.

"I have instructed my Secretary of the US Treasury to stop producing new pennies."

According the US Mint's 2024 annual report, making and distributing a one cent coin costs 3.69 cents.

US government officials and members of Congress have in the past proposed discontinuing the penny without success.

While its detractors have argued that the zinc and copper coin is a waste of money and resources, those who support it say that the coin keeps prices lower and boosts fund-raising for charities.

Right now there's probably enough pennies in circulation that we don't need to mint any more for a while, but it's going to be interesting seeing where this goes and if the Treasury takes it as the excuse to stop it'd been wanting.

I will be amused if there's a sudden 'run on pennies'.

This just proves the rule that even a broken clock can be right twice per day.

Canada hasnt had pennies minted since 2012, and quite frankly no one misses them. Hell, the majority of transactions these days aren’t even in cash. I always keep a $20 bill in my pocket and a few more bills at home just in case but that’s about it.

[bilateralrope]

https://www.congress.gov/bill/119th-con ... -bill/1161

H.R.1161 - To authorize the President to enter into negotiations to acquire Greenland and to rename Greenland as "Red, White, and Blueland".

Sponsor: Rep. Carter, Earl L. "Buddy" [R-GA-1] (Introduced 02/10/2025)
Committees: House - Foreign Affairs; Natural Resources
Latest Action: House - 02/10/2025 Referred to the Committee on Foreign Affairs, and in addition to the Committee on Natural Resources, for a period to be subsequently determined by the Speaker, in each case for consideration of such provisions as fall within the jurisdiction of the committee concerned. (All Actions)

Yes. It's a real House Resolution.
This is NOT the ONION, but I'm sure the Onion is kicking themselves for not thinking of it first.

Would you prefer that the Republican controlled congress spends time on this, or on something that would actually hurt people ?

[Lost Soal]

How about what they would do if a Democratic President decided to ignore congressional appropriations and hold him to account, you know before they suddenly find themselves stripped of all power by an egotistical maniac with a God complex.

[bilateralrope]

How about what they would do if a Democratic President decided to ignore congressional appropriations and hold him to account, you know before they suddenly find themselves stripped of all power by an egotistical maniac with a God complex.

Yes, that's what I'd prefer. But I can't see it happening.

Right now the only hope for a response to that is the courts.