On Monday June 4th, 2018, a much-anticipated ruling came down from the US Supreme Court. By a 7-2 majority, the justices upheld the right of a Colorado baker to refuse services to a gay couple, based in his religious beliefs. The case centered on a 2012 incident when David Mullins and Charlie Craig approached Jack Phillips, owner of Masterpiece Cakeshop in Lakewood, Colorado, and asked him to bake a cake for their wedding.
On Tuesday, May 22, 2018, Georgia State Representative Stacey Abrams became the first female African American to win a major party nomination for Governor, defeating opponent Stacey Evans in what became known as the “battle of the Staceys”. If she wins in November, she will be the first black female governor in the US.
There are two principal sources to which Trump Resisters look for relief from the malaise, corruption and chaos which is the current administration: Special Counsel Robert Mueller, leading the FBI investigation into Russian involvement in the 2016 presidential campaign; and lawyer Michael Avenatti, representing adult film star Stormy Daniels, with two civil lawsuits against the president. The two men could not be more different, but both present significant dangers to the completion of the Trump presidency.
There are once again new players in the ongoing shitshow that is the Trump administration. As Troemper came to station in late April, Trump announced a major shake-up in his legal team. On April 19, former New York mayor Rudy Giuliani, a close Trump confidante during the campaign who thus far had been frozen out of employment in the administration, joined the motley crew representing the president in his myriad legal difficulties. On May 2 Ty Cobb, lead counsel responding to the Mueller investigation, announced his retirement, to be replaced by Emmet Flood, formerly Bill Clinton’s counselor during his impeachment proceedings. I think we can all see where this is headed…
On Thursday, April 26, 2018, a jury of seven men and five women in Norristown, PA found comedian Bill Cosby Jr guilty on all counts in the retrial of a sexual assault case brought by Andrea Constand, who alleges that Cosby drugged and raped her in 2004. Cosby, known as “America’s Dad” for his eight year stint on the wildly popular “The Cosby Show” in the 1980s, is now 80, and has been accused by more than 60 women of similar behavior over the decades. Ms. Constand’s case was the only one still within the statute of limitations, and the first trial resulted in a hung jury in 2017.
On April 28, 2018, the rearward-traveling asteroid Troemper comes to a standstill in the heavens, turns, and resumes direct motion. Our celestial referent for Donald Trump, Troemper has been in retrograde motion since January 30th, when it stationed at 2 Libra, conjunct Trump’s natal Neptune at 5 Libra and squared natal Whitehouse at 4 Capricorn. This natal square says much about the ongoing muddle, disorder and deception proceeding from Trump’s Oval Office tenure, and the ensuing period has arguably been one of increased confusion, isolation and paranoia or perceived persecution (all Neptune keywords), affecting both the President (Troemper) and the administration (Whitehouse).
