On April 9th, 2021, Buckingham Palace announced the death of His Royal Highness Prince Philip, Duke of Edinburgh, husband of Queen Elizabeth II, at their home in Windsor Castle, just two months shy of his 100th birthday. Prince Philip and the Queen were married 73 years, and he was the longest-serving consort in British history. The couple have four children, eight grandchildren, and ten great-grandchildren, with another on the way, due this summer.
The shockwaves are still reverberating among royalty watchers worldwide from an explosive new interview with Prince Harry and Meghan, Duchess of Sussex, given to Oprah Winfrey on March 7th, which ranged from accusations of Palace racism to revelations of thoughts of suicide. Shades of Princess Diana! When I first profiled Meghan at the announcement of their engagement, I noted that her birth occurred within a week of Harry’s parents’ marriage, and mirrored much of the challenges of that union, as though the cosmos wanted a re-do, but the danger was that history might repeat itself.
Not since Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez in 2019 has a freshman congressperson made such a stunning impact in the House of Representatives as Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-GA), quickly emerging as an avatar for the extremist fringe of her Party. Greene latched onto the Trumpist base with all the furor of a Sarah-Palin-inspired “pit bull in lipstick”, hawking every conspiracy theory to come within range while endorsing the lynching of Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton, and the assassination of House Speaker Nancy Pelosi. Not surprisingly, Donald Trump strongly supported her candidacy, calling her “a future Republican star.” Since his departure from the Oval Office, he and Greene have exchanged phone calls frequently, with the newly minted Representative planning a visit to Mar-a-Lago soon, to kiss the ring: “Great news is, he supports me 100%, and I’ve always supported him,” tweeted Greene.
The recent Jupiter/Saturn conjunction of late December has brought on a rash of celebrity (Jupiter) deaths (Saturn), and as the Sun has come to conjoin this duo, highlighting this effect, famous people have begun dropping like flies. Three such recent departures are star baseball player Hank Aaron, broadcast legend Larry King, and the inimitable Cloris Leachman, one of the finest actresses of her generation, who all passed within five days in late January 2021.
On Tuesday 11 August 2020, presumptive Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden made his long-awaited choice for running mate in the 2020 election: US Senator and former nomination contender Kamala Harris (D-CA). I suggested Harris as a running mate for Biden in my January 2019 profile on her when she announced her candidacy for president, based not so much on astrological analysis as a gut feeling that this would make a winning team.
Harris’ chart shows a clear professional drive for the White House, and the connections between her and Biden suggest she’ll be an asset on the campaign trail, and a worthy successor when the time comes, should they win in November.
Despite a recent heart attack, Vermont Senator Bernie Sanders has maintained his slow and steady pace in his current bid for the Democratic presidential nomination, coming in reliably second or third in most polling. Bernie (I find it impossible to call him “Sanders”, so associated is he with his nickname) famously broke upon the national political scene when he challenged Hillary Clinton for the 2016 nomination, and while he failed in that attempt, he came remarkably close for someone with very little name recognition prior to throwing his hat in the ring. Bernie quickly became the darling of the progressive left, but also pulled from much of the same demographic of working class blue collar voters that fueled Trump’s grievance campaign. With fellow ultra-progressive Elizabeth Warren flailing of late, assuming Joe Biden stumbles and falls at some point early on in the process, Bernie Sanders would seem to be the man most likely to step into the breach. But would that be a winning choice for Democrats?
