Tag archive: Senator

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Virginia Vicissitudes: Northam & Fairfax (Oh, yeah, and Herring & Norment, too)

The first weekend of February 2019 wreaked havoc in the executive branch of the Commonwealth of Virginia. On Friday the 1st, the Democratic Governor Ralph Northam’s moral authority to govern was blown to smithereens by the release of a Medical School yearbook photo purporting to depict him in blackface, standing next to a hooded KKK clansman figure. At first, Northam admitted his fault, later retracting this admission, but copping to a “lesser charge” of having worn blackface during the same time period, when impersonating Michael Jackson in a dance competition. He was only dissuaded from demonstrating his version of Jackson’s trademark “Moonwalk” at a press conference by his considerably more level-headed wife, who whispered to him that these were “inappropriate circumstances” for such a performance.

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AAA Profile: Kamala Harris

On Sunday, 27 January 2019, Senator Kamala Harris (D-CA) officially kicked off her 2020 presidential campaign in her home town of Oakland, California, before a crowd estimated at some 20,000. Harris is the former Attorney General of California, elected to the US Senate in 2016. As a mixed race child of a Jamaican father and a Tamil Indian mother, Harris is the first potentially viable candidate who is a woman of color to run for president. Her candidacy will electrify liberals and promote progressive goals, such as universal pre-K, debt-free college, and Medicare for all, and a long career in law enforcement may help to remove the “soft on crime” sting that many conservatives will attempt to apply.

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Political Apprentice, Season Three: The Trump Administration’s 2019 Solar Return

Just when you thought things couldn’t get any worse … they do. We’ve seen how lousy a year this is shaping up to be for Trump personally. Now it’s the administration’s turn to feel the heat. Amazing how there are cycles within cycles with this stuff, from transits to Trump’s natal, the ongoing effects of his prior solar return, the transit sky’s interaction with his celestial referent, and now the administration itself. And all saying the same thing – you’re goin’ down, buddy!

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The Impeachment Congress?

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.

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Ted Cruz: Texas Toast?

Texas Senator Ted Cruz may be in the fight of his life for re-election this November. The one-term Republican Senator who famously shut down the government in 2013 with a filibuster comprised partly of a reading of Dr. Seuss’ “Green Eggs and Ham”, has made few friends and allies on Capitol Hill, having a reputation as uncompromising, caustic, and generally charm-free. Former House Speaker John Boehner (R-OH) once described him as “Lucifer in the flesh.”

 

Polls show he is now neck-and-neck with Democratic challenger Beto O’Rourke, a former punk rock band member who is currently US Representative for Texas’ 16th District. Cruz is so desperate, he has asked former 2016 GOP presidential nomination rival Donald Trump to stump for him. Trump, who during that campaign tagged him with the moniker “Lyin’ Ted”, insulted his wife as ugly, and accused his father of participating in the JFK assassination, is Cruz’ last best hope of retaining his seat. With friends like these…

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Aster-Obit: John McCain

On Saturday, 25 August 2018, Senator John McCain (R-AZ) succumbed to his battle with brain cancer, at his home outside Phoenix, Arizona, just four days before his 82nd birthday. The six-term senator, a former Republican nominee for president, had garnered a reputation as a maverick nonpartisan, a truthful, principled political actor who chastised his fellow Party members as freely as the opposition.

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