Tag archive: Washingtonia

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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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Losing Their Heads: The Mars/Uranus/Algol Conjunction and the Republican National Convention

The Republican National Convention begins on July 15th in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, and the timing couldn’t be more perfect.  That date just happens to coincide with the precise triple conjunction of Mars, Uranus and Fixed Star Algol, all at 26 Taurus, conjoined the 24 Taurus Midheaven of Donald J. Trump, who will accept the GOP 2024 presidential nomination during the convention.  Mars denotes resentment, anger, hatred and violence; Uranus suggests volatility, controversy, iconoclasm, fanaticism and insurrection; Algol forms the severed head of Medusa in the constellation Perseus, denoting both literal decapitation and metaphorically “losing one’s head.”  If you can think of a better celestial thumbnail sketch of the modern GOP and its felon champion, I’d like to hear it.

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Donald Trump’s 78th Solar Return: Restriction and Negation

Former US President, current presumptive GOP presidential nominee, and convicted felon Donald J. Trump turns 78 on 14 June 2024.  A chart cast for the moment when the Sun returns to its natal degree and minute can reveal much of what awaits in the coming year, a year which, for The Donald, is fraught, to say the least.  Before the twelvemonth is out, Trump is likely to find himself an occupant, either of the White House, or the Big House.  With sentence pending on his criminal conviction in New York state, and awaiting three more criminal trials, the stakes couldn’t be higher for the 45th president.

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As the Worm Turns: RFK Jr’s Doomed Presidential Bid

The New York Times broke a story on May 8, 2024 that might just explain the antics of presidential hopeful Robert F. Kennedy Jr, currently polling as much as 15-20% in some key battleground states.  While Kennedy is unlikely to reach his goal of the Oval Office sans major party affiliation, such numbers, should they materialize at the polls in November, could decisively swing the 2024 election one way or another.  The Times story revealed a statement made by Kennedy in 2012, where he alleged that the “brain fog” and memory loss he had experienced two years prior had been “caused by a worm that got into my brain and ate a portion of it and then died.”  Well, that explains a lot!

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Happy Birthday, SCOTUS!

The Supreme Court of the United States (AKA SCOTUS) just had a birthday!  Established by the Judiciary Act of 1789, the Court turned 235 on March 4, 2024 (and she doesn’t look a day over 200!).  The Court’s motto is “Equal Justice Under the Law,” but for much of its chequered history it may as well have been, “Often Wrong, But Never in Doubt.”  We don’t have to go as far back as the 1857 “Dred Scott” decision (which found that the U.S. Constitution did not extend American citizenship to people of black African descent) to find a real head-scratcher.  More recent examples include “Heller” in 2008, which confirmed the Second Amendment gun rights free-for-all; “Citizens United” in 2010, which granted corporations the same free speech rights as individuals regarding political spending; or the 2022 ruling in “Dobbs” which eliminated nationwide reproductive health rights (though to be fair, it was also SCOTUS that confirmed those rights, in 1973’s “Roe v Wade”).

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DeSantis DeParts

Florida Governor Ron DeSantis’ decision to suspend his campaign for the Republican presidential nomination on 21 January 2024 came as a shock to … no one, actually.  Following a dismal finish in the Iowa Caucus six days prior, with Donald Trump thirty points ahead of him and fellow contender Nikki Haley nipping at his heels, just two points behind, it seemed only a matter of time before he pulled the plug.  And with DeSantis polling in the single digits in the New Hampshire Primary two days hence, now was the time.

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