Asteroid Astrology: Trump

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US Election 2024 Postmortem

And postmortem is a good word for it, with many Americans and others across the globe feeling like they’ve died and gone to hell.  For whatever reason, on November 5th, more than half the US voting electorate chose to once again turn over the keys of the White House to Donald Trump, a convicted felon awaiting sentencing on 34 criminal counts, with three more criminal cases pending, an individual adjudicated guilty of fraud, liable for sexual abuse and defamation, a serial sexual predator who has declared bankruptcy multiple times, who spews hate, racism, invective and misogyny with every breath.  And this time, Trump achieved a feat he hadn’t before – he won, not just by the antiquated machinery of the Electoral College, but with an outright majority of votes, having lost that measure by three million votes in 2016 and seven million votes in 2020.  Shame on us.

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Election 2024: Down to the Wire, and It’s All Trash-Talking Garbage

Do you smell what I smell?  That whiff of decay?  That odor of rot?  Is that America?  Or just Puerto Rico?  Or maybe, just maybe, it’s not a garbage smell at all – maybe it’s the cloyingly sweet smell of Democratic victory.

Donald Trump is making his closing argument to his countrymen in the final days of the campaign, promoting why he should be president again, and the best he can come up with is a plea for better waste management?  That’s the level we’ve sunk to, with the former squatter at the White House defining the nation he wants to lead as “a garbage can for the rest of the world” at his rally in Austin, Texas on October 25th.  Two days later, at a rally in New York’s Madison Square Garden that evoked memories of a Nazi rally held there in 1939, Trump’s opening act, a “comedian” named Tony Hinchcliffe, joked about a “floating island of garbage,” called “Puerto Rico,” in a performance that was vetted by the campaign beforehand, and hasn’t been disavowed by Trump since.

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On the Campaign Trail

AAA’s crack team of political reporters (me) has been digitally traveling coast to coast to check out conditions on the ground (and in the sky) as the 2024 US presidential election draws nearer.  There have been quite a few twists and turns, and several moments that highlight the state of the race.  This article will attempt to fill the gaps in our knowledge with an asteroid-eye view of where things stand, as the Above reflects the Below.

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Trump Assassination Attempt, Take Two

On 15 September 2024, history repeated itself with a second assassination attempt against former US president and current GOP presidential nominee Donald Trump, golfing at his Trump International Golf Club in West Palm Beach, Florida.  Shots were heard on the course at approximately 2 PM EDT, and Secret Service agents quickly whisked Trump out of harm’s way.  Details are still sketchy, but it seems the shots fired were from advance Secret Service agents, who noted a gun barrel protruding from a wooded fence line area as they scouted the course two holes ahead, roughly 400 yards beyond where Trump was playing.  Shots were fired at Ryan Wesley Routh, 58, who never actually saw Trump or discharged his weapon before he abandoned his AR-15-style rifle in the bushes and fled the course.  He was apprehended several hours later.

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The Trump/Harris Debate

From the moment she stepped on stage at the presidential debate held at Constitution Hall in Philadelphia, PA on September 10, 2024, Kamala Harris dominated, striding purposefully across the platform to force Donald Trump to shake hands with her as an equal.  Trump had been evading that moment (as indeed, he avoided even glancing her way throughout most of the debate), but she walked directly into his space and demanded compliance with the time-honored norm.

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Mr. Bowman Goes to Washington? JD Vance Revealed

OK, yes, somewhat redundant, because JD Vance has been in Washington for 18 months already, since his election to the Senate in 2022.  But you all know how much I love punning titles.  “Mr. Bowman” is a reference to Vance’s birth name, which was James Donald Bowman.  Vance has shifted identities over the course of his life with chameleon-like regularity, becoming James David Hamel as a toddler, after his parents divorced and his mother married Bob Hamel, who adopted him.  Vance shed his skin yet again, becoming James David “JD” Vance (his maternal grandfather’s surname) when he married wife Usha in 2014.  But the title also conjures images of that Americana utopia crafted by filmmaker Frank Capra, a land which never existed, but which Republicans still insist on trying to revive.

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