While watching TV the other night, I learned that there was a plot in Congress to eliminate the penny. A Congressional bill was introduced bipartisanly by Lisa McClain (R-Michigan) and Robert Garcia (D-California) two upstarts who evilly titled it the Common Cents Act. It calls for the end of minting pennies and requires cash transactions to be rounded up or down to the nearest nickel.

     All of this because last year the U.S. Mint said it lost $85.3 million on the over three billion pennies they minted (as it cost over three cents to print each one). Really? $85.3 million? The Navy just lost $60 million when one of their jets fell off a ship. And Senator Rand Paul reports that the Department of the Interior recently provided a $12 million grant for a 30-court pickleball complex in Las Vegas. Our government wastes money left and right and yet no one says that maybe we should be spending more on rails for Navy ships or maybe people ought to just take up jogging for exercise. $85.3 million? Besides, why should government get all the fun. Sure it’s waste but it’s OUR waste. It’s something we can touch, caress, and appreciate. I say those are pennies well spent.

     Well, ladies and gentlemen, I want the penny. It is the basis of the dollar. One hundred of them make up a dollar. Without the penny what will make up the dollar? One hundred dandelions? One hundred bumblebees? One hundred tarradiddles? A dollar without a base would be no dollar at all.

     The penny, or the ‘cent’ as some have decided to call it, is a historical device and was the first coin to be minted and circulated in the new country of the United States. This Fugio cent which came out in 1787 was purportedly designed by Benjamin Franklin and why wouldn’t it be as he designed a stove, bifocal glasses, swimming fins, and the lightning rod.

     Later on, in 1909, President Theodore Roosevelt put Abraham Lincoln’s visage on the front of the penny so that we might admire his full and robust beard. No longer did our coinage need be ashamed of facial hair.

     The noble penny has served us well. When we needed a coin to decide the outcome of a tied bet it was there, when we needed a quick replacement for a blown electrical fuse it was there. It has not ever complained of its lowly spot in the numismatic lineage and it proudly did its patriotic duty during World War II by allowing itself to be cast in smelly steel.

     Let us not forget that the penny is ever so useful when you’re pumping gasoline into your vehicle and you just barely, barely, go over the price you were aiming for. A quick check of your pockets and there is a penny or two in there waiting to make up the difference. Otherwise you’d have to leave the gas station while receiving a hard look from the attendant and feeling the searing shame of a person who’s defrauded Big Oil. Could one really live with that?

      This Common Cents Act is bad news. We need to keep our pennies. They are the most overlooked and useful of our coins. They have been with us since the founding of the Republic. They are our very history.

         © Clyde James Aragon

     I feel so much safer in Albuquerque these days now that our Governor,  Michelle Lujan Grisham, has sent the National Guard to help put down a virtual insurrection of crime throughout this city. Wow, the National Guard, a group so fearsome and lethal, she dared not send them to southern New Mexico to defend our border.

     While I’m not one to be manipulated by politically-inspired fearmongering, I see why it is so necessary that outside protection be brought in to keep us safe. We need to ensure that for every homeless vagabond who passes out on a sidewalk, three Albuquerque police officers can still be dispatched to watch his sleeping carcass. Any less would be a crime in and of itself.

     Though I had my trepidations when I heard of her plan, I was soon assuaged of my fears that an out-of-control militia would soon be roaming the streets upending garbage cans, firing semi-automatic weapons into the air, and drunkenly harassing old people on the way to the mall. But our intrepid Mayor Tim Keller stepped up to the microphone to calm our jittery nerves by telling us in no uncertain terms that our National Guard members would be wearing polo shirts and would NOT be driving around in large military vehicles. I breathed easier.

     For a moment there I thought we’d become Gotham City and badly needed Batman to come in and straighten things out.

     But as a worried citizen, may I make some suggestions to aid this show of force in a city which has defunded the police, elected bushels of liberal judges, and simultaneously become a sanctuary city/county/state/etc.?

     I think I express the obvious when I say polo shirts are a no-go when confronting criminals. If you’re going to propagate the fear and respect that has bald-headed felons hiding under their bed, you need muscle shirts. Black muscle shirts preferably with a pack of hard pack Marlboros rolled into their right sleeve. That means business in my book. Polo shirts? Are we trying to scare people on the golf course?

     Since the Mayor has said no large and menacing military vehicles would be used by our National Guard may I suggest they get around in the joyous Mini Cooper or the less formidable Smart car. Either one projects an aura of calm yet with a no-nonsense approach to law enforcement and global environmentalism.

     In all, I am glad our good Governor has taken pity on our plight and forcefully decided to do something about it. Albuquerque has so many hardened criminals these days, we’re almost a cement factory of evil.

     Finally, we can rest easy at night.

      © Clyde James Aragon

     New Mexico Republicans would be wise to walk away from the semi-open election primaries the majority legislative Democrats have shoved down their throat in this state. The Democrat Party excels at dirty tricks and you couldn’t get much dirtier than using this new technique to mess around with the election of their rivals.

     As an independent myself, I am not at all offended by not being allowed in either party’s primary. I chose that status and I can live with that. But as probably one of the few conservative independents in North Valley Albuquerque, and after having talked to many people here, I’d bet very good money that most independents in this city and state are liberal. It is so chic and modern to pretend you are above the fray when in reality you are as partisan as a poodle in a cat fight.

     No, next year the Republicans would be better off holding a nominating convention somewhere in the state or using mail-in ballots or Internet votes to decide who runs under the party’s banner. Let Republicans pick Republicans and Democrats pick Democrats.

     Having independents helping to choose Republican candidates would be like PETA driving by to select your dinner at a steak house. You'd be lucky if you got chocolate mousse for desert.

       © Clyde James Aragon

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