Karma Archives - Page 16 of 32 - Alex's Asteroid Astrology

January 17th, 2021 at 08:14am by Alex Miller

The Political Deathwatch of Donald J. Trump

“That hymn you hear [playing in Congress] is ‘Just as I Am,’ and we’re open for deathbed conversions.” – Joe Scarborough, former Republican Congressman and MSNBC morning show host

Can you feel it? Impending political mortality is in the air. Trusted councilors leave the bedside, rats exiting a sinking ship; former shark allies mass in feeding frenzy, smelling blood in the water; media buzzards circle, waiting to pick the bones. US President Donald J. Trump is in extremis, with scant days to go before the end of his political career.

December 30th, 2020 at 01:34pm by Alex Miller

The Nashville Christmas Day Bombing

2020 went out with a bang in Nashville, Tennessee, when on Christmas Day 63-year-old Anthony Quinn Warner self-detonated a bomb in his RV in front of an AT&T network hub, killing himself, devastating the surrounding area and causing communications outages across the state. No motive for his destructive suicide has yet been established for Warner, a tech specialist conspiracy theorist whose writings express concern with “shape-shifting reptilian creatures that appear in human form and attempt world domination.” But Warner took pains to prevent additional loss of life, with the RV broadcasting warnings of the pending explosion and urging evacuation for 15 minutes before detonation. Despite these precautions, eight were injured in the blast.

December 28th, 2020 at 09:30am by Alex Miller

Trumping Death

Given Trump’s disdain for science, fact and expertise, coupled with a complete inability to take direction or follow sage advice and a propensity for reckless action, it was perhaps inevitable that he and the coronavirus would become personally acquainted at some point, sooner rather than later. So Trump’s 12:45 AM EDT Tweet on October 2, 2020 confirming that both he and Melania had been exposed and tested positive, was hardly a shock, but it was a thunderous admission regardless. With Trump’s age and corpulence, he was a prime candidate for a serious, if not deadly, COVID-19 infection, and with his re-elect pending just a month away, his turbulent campaign was thrown into a tailspin, while a shattered nation waited with bated breath for the outcome.

November 12th, 2020 at 09:18am by Alex Miller

Aster-Obit: Alex Trebek

On Sunday, 8 November 2020, gameshow fans the world over were saddened to hear of the death of Alex Trebek, host of “Jeopardy!”, after an 18-month battle with pancreatic cancer. Described as “the thinking man’s game show”, “Jeopardy!” inverted the traditional format by providing the answers to trivia questions, requiring contestants to phrase their replies in the form of a question.

The third longest-running gameshow on TV (after “The Price Is Right” and “Wheel of Fortune”), “Jeopardy!” has had several daytime and evening incarnations, but Alex Trebek has helmed the show for 37 years, since its latest version premiered in 1984. Its iconic final round theme is one of the most-recognized musical selections in the world, and the series has spawned several foreign-language versions in 32 countries including Canada, the United Kingdom, Germany, Sweden, Russia, Denmark, Japan, Spain, Australia, Turkey and Israel. Trebek continued working throughout his cancer treatment, until the bitter end, appearing in the studio to film episodes just 11 days before his passing.

September 3rd, 2020 at 08:54am by Alex Miller

A Tale of Two Nominations

Now that the Democratic and Republican conventions are safely behind us, and their nominees are official, we can take a look at the acceptance charts for those nominations, as a preview of what to expect for the campaign and the upcoming election in November.

Joe Biden confirmed his Party’s nomination by uttering “with great honor and humility, I accept this nomination,” at 10:49 PM EDT on August 20^th, 2020, from a largely empty school gymnasium in Wilmington, Delaware, with himself, his running mate, the spectators and crew observing current CDC guidelines on mask-wearing and social distancing.

Donald Trump’s statement that “with a heart full of gratitude and boundless optimism, I profoundly [? did he mean “proudly”?] accept this nomination” occurred on August 27^th at 10:28 PM EDT, in front of a crowd of 1500 people, largely without masks, packed check-by-jowl on the White House lawn.

July 14th, 2020 at 10:13am by Alex Miller

A Rolling Stone Serves No Time

We last checked in with Trump crony and political adviser Roger Stone eighteen months ago, in January 2019, just after his home was raided by FBI agents, and Stone arrested on seven federal counts of obstruction, making false statements and witness tampering. It’s been a long road for Stone, who was convicted on all counts in November 2019, then sentenced to forty months in prison on February 20, 2020, after William Barr’s Justice Department attempted to intervene and lighten his prison term, prompted by tweets from the President characterizing his friend’s treatment as “horrible and very unfair” and a “miscarriage of justice”.

Stone’s incarceration was due to start July 14, but was superseded when Donald Trump commuted his sentence on Friday, 10 July 2020. Short of a pardon, the commutation means that Roger Stone, for now, remains a convicted felon, but will never serve a day in prison for his crimes.