Day 1193 Rollercoasters, Pelosi, Warren

Day 1193 Rollercoasters, Pelosi, Warren

Tuesday December 30, 2019

312 Days until the 2020 election and 393 days until the Inauguration

We’re watching the game. Virginia Tech is about to score. Shelby’s phone rings. It’s Claire, our niece.

She’s on a rollercoaster at King’s Dominion. She’s with her friends and the park is open late and they are going to stay all day and into the night. The rollercoaster is going up. She’s screaming. Screaming with joy and exhilaration. Tech scores a touchdown. Shelby missed the actual play because Claire is describing her time on the rollercoaster.

Which brings me to the end of year shows and Nancy Pelosi (come on that’s a natural segue.) Actually, they were end of the decade shows. By that I mean they reviewed the past ten years in pictures and interviews. Talk about the good, the bad, and the ugly. 

Two pieces really struck me. They were on Elizabeth Warren and Nancy Pelosi. 

There was an interview with Elizabeth Warren that they replayed. I’m a Warren supporter for President. I like her because she is talking big transformative change. She is addressing the big problems we have, and she has plans for how to do those changes. One thing she mentioned was that it didn’t matter who was in charge as President the person running the Fed was from Goldman Sachs. Bill Clinton, George W. Bush, Barack Obama, Donald Trump – didn’t matter. The person running the Federal Reserve was from Goldman Sachs. She pointed out that in the latest round when Trumo was coming in he appointed the chairman of Goldman Sachs. Sachs gave that guy 250 million dollars on the way over to run the Fed. They didn’t have to do that. Why do you give someone $250,000,000.00 when you don’t have to? Interesting question. 

Warren has the knowledge and the experience, backed up by a record of success when it comes to taking on big business and making them play fair. I like her. She mentioned that the first thing the Trump administration did when they took office was to pass legislation that let big business off the hook, and they didn’t say a word about it. 

It was the precursor to Goldman Sachs that wrote the original legislation that set up the Federal Reserve. So this is a sweetheart deal that has been going on for decades if not since the very beginning. Now, don’t get me wrong, I think any modern country needs a strong central bank system headed up by an institution that controls it. If you don’t have that you end up with a private firm doing it. Think Fisk and Gould or J. P. Morgan (the man, not the bank). Then as now, these men, these people will not bet against their own self interest. What we need is a strong central bank and regulations backed up by laws that allow the economic system to automatically put controls in place when certain thresholds are met, without having to get politicians involved. The problem with politicians getting involved is that they act too slowly and by the time they do they are out of sync with the economic conditions. They end up voting in fixes that exacerbate the system rather than make it better.

Warren, better than any other candidate understands this and many other economic problems that we face: both as individuals and as a nation. She has fixes. But they are big changes. Businesses will squeal. They already are. When asked who she would have as a running mate, if she could pick anyone from anytime, she didn’t hesitate – Teddy Roosevelt. He had the balls to take on big businesses and he stopped their chicanery. Business is back with more chicanery and it is high time to stop them.

Claire called back. She was on another rollercoaster. This one moved a different way. Sideways somehow. Who was she there with and who brought them? So and so and so and so’s mom. She was screaming in delight. Virginia Tech scored another touchdown and Shelby missed the actual play, but that was okay because her niece was having such a good time at King’s Dominion. It was special because her niece had decided to include Shelby, her aunt, in the fun. 

Then there’s Nancy Pelosi. There was all the yelling about her being too old, too this, too that. Those critics have pretty much all admitted that she has admirably steered this Congress and her majority in the House with skill and finesse. Outmaneuvering Donald Trump at every turn. It’s really not outmaneuvering; it’s standing up for truth, for what you believe in, and doing the right thing. 

The picture of her standing up across the table from Trump is classic. All the others in the photo, all the men, are sitting there while she is standing up to the bully in chief. The hand clapping at his State of the Union speech was another moment. Her speaking about not hating Trump, how she prays for him, is something he doesn’t comprehend. He can’t imagine it. Lastly, when she banged the gavel on the measure passing the impeachment resolution and her side started to cheer: one look, one wave of her hand and there was silence.

Hey Donald, you want to see real power? Real authority? Real restraint? You want to see an iron fist wrapped in a velvet glove? Watch that video.

We didn’t get anymore calls from Claire.

Tech lost by a point. (One more call and we would have won.)

Shelby texted her brother Ben, Claire’s dad. She and her brother often compare notes on the game. Shelby mentioned Claire’s being at King’s Dominion and didn’t know she was going that day.

“King’s Dominion?” Ben texted back. “She’s in the backyard on her swing.”

312 Days until the 2020 election and 393 days until the Inauguration

PS The happy couple at midnight (in bed with champagne).*

*Okay, I set up a camera on tripod starting around 11. It took until 11:45 or so to figure out how to use the easy to use app to connect the camera to the phone and take a picture and then transfer it to the phone so we could put it on facebook. But we managed to hit the upload button at midnight!

Happy New Decade!