Alex's Asteroid Astrology

One standout in the 2023 GOP Congressional Freshman class is Representative-elect George Santos (R-NY), the first openly gay non-incumbent Republican elected to the House.  In November 2022 Santos managed to flip a redrawn district in metro New York from Blue to Red, adding to the slender House GOP majority.  But he did so under what seem to be increasingly false pretenses, with virtually no part of his life history and resume holding up to public inspection.

Santos’ record appears to be a synthesis of lies about his family history, education, criminal activity, charity work and career.  Six weeks after he was elected, the New York Times and other news outlets reported that most of Santos’ autobiographical claims appear to be fabricated.

Santos claimed that his maternal grandparents were Ukrainian Jews who fled to Belgium and then to Brazil to escape the Holocaust during World War II, but genealogical records and other records show that Santos’s ancestors have lived in Brazil for at least three generations; there is nothing to indicate they have any connection to Ukraine, have any Jewish heritage, or are Holocaust survivors.  Notwithstanding, in November 2022, Santos told “Jewish Insider” podcast that his “mother’s Jewish background beliefs … are mine”.

Santos embellished not just his own work history and career accomplishments, but his mother’s as well.  On his campaign website, Santos wrote that his mother was “the first female executive at a major financial institution” and that she worked in the South Tower of the World Trade Center and survived the September 11 attacks.  His mother’s actual occupation has been described as domestic worker or home care nurse, and there is no obvious connection to the World Trade Center. 

After obtaining a high school equivalency diploma, Santos spent time in Brazil, where he became embroiled in a check fraud scandal he now denies.  In his campaign he claimed to hold a bachelor’s degree in finance and economics from Baruch College, but the school has no record of this, and the period Santos said he was enrolled at Baruch overlapped with his time in Brazil.  He also claimed to hold a Master of Business Administration degree from New York University, but NYU has no record of his attendance.

From October 2011 to July 2012, Santos worked as a customer service representative at a call center for Dish Network in College Point, Queens, the region he will now represent.  During this time, Santos reportedly told acquaintances and coworkers that his family was wealthy and had extensive real estate holdings in the U.S. and Brazil, a claim he repeated during his 2022 congressional campaign, citing 13 rental properties in New York he or his family owned.  No such properties were listed on his campaign’s financial disclosure forms or in public records.

Santos has described himself as a “seasoned Wall Street financier and investor” and says he worked for Citigroup and Goldman Sachs, but neither company has any record of him.  Santos’ campaign website stated that Santos “began working at Citigroup as an associate and quickly advanced to become an associate asset manager in the real asset division of the firm”, but Citigroup sold its asset management division in 2005, when Santos was 17.  He later clarified to the New York Post that a subsequent employer had been in limited partnerships with those companies and his claim that he had been employed there was “a poor choice of words … I will be clearer about that.”

Santos claims to have founded Friends of Pets United, which he described as a charity for rescue animals, in 2013, and to have run it until 2018.  He asserted that the group was a tax-exempt charity, but the Internal Revenue Service has no record that the group was registered as a charity.  FPU held a 2017 fundraiser event for a New Jersey animal rescue group, but the organizer of that group said that Santos never gave it any of the proceeds.

In a November 2022 interview, Santos discussed the Pulse gay nightclub shooting in Orlando, Florida, where dozens of patrons were slaughtered, stating: “I happened to, at the time, have people that worked for me in the club … My company at the time, we lost four employees that were at Pulse.”  None of the 49 victims slain in the attack appear to have a connection to any of the companies named in Santos’s biography.  Later, in a December 2022 WABC interview, Santos changed his account, stating: “We did lose four people that were going to be coming to work for the company that I was starting up in Orlando”.

Seven weeks after he was elected, the New York Times published an article disputing various Santos claims on December 19^th, which was vigorously rejected by Santos staffers.  A week later, in an interview with the New York Post, Santos admitted to lying about his educational and employment history, and further admitted to falsehoods regarding his property ownership and his family history.  After originally claiming to have “Jewish background beliefs”, Santos later said:  “I never claimed to be Jewish … I am Catholic.  Because I learned my maternal family had a Jewish background I said I was ‘Jew-ish’.”  In fact, in a campaign position paper sent to Jewish groups, Santos said he was ” a proud American Jew” and claimed he had been to Israel multiple times.  It is perhaps unnecessary to add that there is no evidence of any such travel.

In December 2022, Santos admitted to the Post: “I didn’t graduate from any institution of higher learning.  I’m embarrassed and sorry for having embellished my résumé … We do stupid things in life.”  Santos also admitted to the Post that the real estate investments claim was false and he owned no properties as of the end of 2022.

Such consistent self-aggrandizement, exaggeration, and outright deception!  Who does this guy think he is – Donald Trump?  Regardless, there is no mechanism for his removal from office for repeatedly lying to his future constituents, beyond an ethics review which will never be mandated by the House GOP Leadership, hanging on to their majority by a thread, nor censure from would-be Speaker Kevin McCarthy, for whom Santos is a reliable vote to attain the position he seeks.

Despite all evidence to the contrary, I am going to assume that there is one fact in evidence about George Santos’ life which may be true – his date of birth – and attempt to illumine his (lack of) character from what a chart cast for that date can tell us.

Given as 22 July 1988 (no time embellishment provided), that putative birthdate does seem like a match for what we know of Santos, particularly when compared to his “outing” as a serial liar by the Times on December 19^th of this year.

George Santos has described himself as “an out and proud gay Republican”, married to a man, but fails to mention a prior marriage to a woman, which ended in divorce just 12 days before he announced his first congressional run in 2020.  There is some support in the chart for his homosexuality, with a 0 Leo Sun exactly conjoined asteroid Antinous, named for the male lover of First Century Roman Emperor Hadrian.  The Sun is also exactly sextile asteroid Ganymed at 0 Libra, named for Zeus’ underage cupbearer and boy-toy lover.  So we’ll assume that Santos’ self-identity as “gay” is perhaps an “embellishment” of his actual bisexuality.

The remainder of his false claims can largely be summed up in a natal Grand Cross which incorporates many proper nouns relating to his deception.  Anchored by asteroid Santos-Sanz (closest to his surname), which is stationary and turned direct on the day of his birth at 14 Sagittarius, the pattern is remarkable for its specificity.  Santos-Sanz opposes asteroid Lie at 12 Gemini, and squares asteroid George at 17 Virgo, combining both names with the issue of the falsehoods with which he has populated his campaign.  Lying would seem to be an integral part of his makeup, all the more so as these points also interact with the Sun – Santos-Sanz in sesquiquadrate, George and Lie in semisquare – making them essential components of his character and self-identity. 

Tied to this pattern are asteroids Sachs (for Goldman Sachs, here he never worked, but claimed to) at 11 Virgo conjunct George, and Brasilia (named for the capital of Brazil, where he claims his family fled to avoid the Holocaust, but didn’t) at 14 Pisces, filling in the open leg of the Grand Cross.  Also associated are asteroids Karma and Nemesis at 19 and 22 Virgo, suggesting an inevitable exposure and comeuppance (Karma) for Santos, who is his own worst enemy (Nemesis conjunct George).  Lie also conjoins Venus at 19 Gemini – let’s just face it, Santos loves to lie!

But there’s a complicating factor:  asteroids Truth and Veritas (Latin for “truth”) also connect, with Veritas at 17 Gemini conjoined Lie and exactly squared asteroid George, and Truth at 13 Virgo conjoined it.  How can we reconcile these placements, suggesting honesty, with Santos’ apparent lack thereof?

It’s really quite simple.  Like Donald Trump, on some level, George Santos believes his lies.  They are “his” truth, if no one else’s.  In defining his lies as “embellishments”, Santos attempts to rectify this imbalance between his private reality and the one the rest of us have to live in.  These aren’t deceptions, these are the truth, as he sees it.

Santos’ pull toward politics is seen in the exact sextile from Jupiter at 0 Gemini to the Sun.  Jupiter further conjoins asteroids House at 4 Gemini, for the US House of Representatives, and Nassau at 1 Gemini, for New York’s Third District, which he will represent, and includes portions of Queens and Nassau County, Long Island.  Asteroid Queen’s at 8 Virgo conjoins George, providing another personal link.

When the New York Times expose calling out Santos’ deceptions ran on 19 December 2022, the Sun at 27 Sagittarius conjoined asteroids George at 20 Sag and House at 18 Sag, putting Santos (George) firmly in the spotlight (Sun) for his connection to Congress (House).  The Sun also exactly conjoins an exact pairing of natal Saturn and Uranus, which in itself suggests some level of controversy (Uranus) regarding career and family origin (both Saturn).

This ties to a combination of natal and transit factors which are particularly unfortunate for Santos’ quest to maintain his fictions.  The Sun squares a transit grouping of Neptune, asteroid Nemesis and Jupiter, at 22, 26 and 29 Pisces, and opposes a natal grouping of asteroids Goldman and Barucci, both at 25 Gemini.  The Pisces points depict ruin or downfall (Nemesis) of a political nature (Jupiter) due to dishonesty or deception (Neptune, planetary ruler of fraud).  The Virgo points identify two major points of contention – the nonexistent degree from Baruch College (Barucci) and the nonexistent employment history with Goldman Sachs (Goldman).  Of course natal Nemesis and Karma tie to this as well, at 19 and 22 Virgo, squared the transit Sun, perhaps an indicator that time is running out for the fabulist.

But the truly spectacular pattern, and one which warms my astrologer’s heart for its precision, is a Grand Trine Kite pattern, combining trines between asteroids Truth at 20 Scorpio, Goldman, Brasilia and Lie at 10, 16 and 18 Pisces, and Veritas at 17 Cancer, which exactly opposes Mercury at 17 Capricorn on the Kite’s String, guiding its manifestation.  We’re finally learning the truth (Truth, Veritas) about Santos’ false (Lie) statements (Mercury) regarding his work history (Goldman) and family history (Brasilia).  The fact that the Veritas/Mercury exact polarity exactly conjoins and opposes natal Mercury at 17 Cancer is just icing on the celestial cake!

Transit asteroid Santos-Sanz at 11 Libra opposes asteroid NOT at 9 Aries, indicating that Santos is not what he seems; this forms another Grand Cross with the Veritas/Mercury opposition, for a delicious bit of cosmic irony. 

Santos waited roughly a week before embarking on a listless apology tour, attempting to justify his “embellishments” with interviews for the New York Post, among others.  On December 27^th, Santos appeared on Fox News’ “Tucker Carlson Tonight”, doubtless hoping for acceptance and absolution from the primetime host noted for his rabid support for anyone calling themselves conservative.  But Carlson was away on holiday break; what Santos got for his trouble was a blistering indictment of his behavior from guest host Tulsi Gabbard, herself a former US Representative, and not at all amused by Santos’ antics.

Have I mentioned that Santos’ natal asteroid Fox at 26 Gemini squares natal Nemesis?  Or that transit Fox at 7 Cancer squares transit Santos-Sanz at 13 Libra, in a Grand Cross with transit Karma at 8 Capricorn, exactly conjunct natal Neptune, and transit NOT at 10 Aries?  So George Santos has just been given a major-league takedown on the conservative TV network of record. 

The moral of the story?  Don’t try to misrepresent (NOT) yourself (Santos-Sanz) and escape consequences (Karma) for your deception (Neptune), even with a media outlet (Fox) you assume to be friendly.

The story doesn’t end here.  GOP House leadership may be unwilling to take a stand on George Santos’ Pinocchio shenanigans, but federal, state and local prosecutors are now casting a baleful eye at such matters as his campaign’s financial statements, which may have broken multiple laws.

If arrested or unseated, there will be a special election held in Santos’ district to replace him, which is unlikely to return another Republican to Congress.  And remember, the Dems need to take back just five seats to regain the majority.  Is this the beginning of the end for Kevin McCarthy’s uncertain Speakership?