The Twentieth Amendment to the US Constitution establishes the beginnings of both presidential and congressional terms. For the Congress, initial assembly of the body is mandated for noon on 3 January in odd-numbered years. So we can easily cast a chart for the incoming 116th Congress, which may prove to be one of the most consequential in American history, holding as it does the fate of the current President in its hands.
No, AAA isn’t branching out into porn or online dating. We’re doing a little current events twofer, specifically regarding American Media CEO David Pecker and US Representative Duncan Hunter, both of whom were in the news the week of August 19th (though where they found the oxygen for that is beyond me, as the Trump Show rolled on through its worst week ever). Pardon the pun, but there’s not enough meat here for two full articles, so we’ll just target the highlights.
Have you ever had a bad day? I mean, a really, really, REALLY bad day? Well, unless it involved bodily harm, it can’t have been much worse than Tuesday, August 21st, 2018 was for Donald J. Trump, when two of his closest associates were found guilty of fraud and criminal conduct. Paul Manafort, one of Trump’s Campaign Managers in 2016, was convicted of eight counts of bank fraud and tax evasion by an Alexandria, Virginia jury; and in New York, Michael Cohen, his long-time lawyer and fixer, pled guilty to eight similar charges, as well as campaign finance violations, implicating the President in the process.
On August 14th 2018 former “Apprentice” bete noire and White House aide Omarosa Manigault-Newman released “Unhinged: An Insider’s Account of the Trump White House”, her tell-all expose of nearly a year as Assistant to the President and Director of Communications for the Office of Public Liaison. Say that ten times fast. It’s a lot of words to identify a position that was difficult to define, but seems to have been related to her prior work with the Trump Campaign as Director of African-American Outreach.
The first of two trials of former Trump Campaign Manager Paul Manafort opened in Alexandria, Virginia on August 31st, with Manafort facing federal bank and tax fraud charges. Manafort joined the Trump campaign in March 2016 as a non-paid consultant, when the GOP nomination became a likely outcome; his expertise in politics was sought to derail a possible floor fight at the convention, smoothing Trump’s path by locking in delegates’ votes. Promoted to Campaign Manager in June, Manafort resigned under a cloud in August, allegedly because family members had become worried about the extent of his Russian connections.
Recently, some interestingly named asteroids came across my radar, thanks to a reader from Greece. With more than 17,000 named asteroids out there, it’s easy to miss a few! Some of these promise to be very useful going forward, but like anything new, they have to be tested. One of the best ways to do this is by putting them in charts the astrologer is familiar with, and seeing if they have a noticeable effect. Since I have, regrettably, been eating, sleeping and breathing Donald Trump for the past 18 months, it seemed a good place to start…
