Hair-raisingly

Snip from website of astrologer Marjorie Orr on 29 October, under the heading
Hillary’s private emails and the FBI – beyond rational understanding

“Do we actually know who told Hillary she could use a private email?” wrote close aide and transition team member Neera Tanden in a July 2015 note recently revealed by WikiLeaks. “And has that person been drawn and quartered? Like [this] whole thing is fucking insane.”
[Ms Orr}:....... nowadays we find out just how hair-raisingly bizarre/ill-judged/incompetent/arrogantly obstinate our erstwhile leaders are, almost immediately.

Ms Orr goes on to comment on the natal chart of Huma Abedin, another longtime close aide and friend of Hillary Clinton. Abedin has been at the centre of this weekend's news and noise. FBI director James Comey announced that the FBI is, once again, investigating the matter of Hillary Clinton's e-mails. New York Police Department, during their own investigation of Abedin's estranged husband, Anthony Weiner and his alleged misdeeds on the net, had reported that a trove of Abedin's e-mails were discovered on devices seized from Weiner relevant to their investigation. No need, I'm sure to regurgitate detail of the weekend's news, it's still all over the net and no doubt on TV and radio also.

I decided I'd throw in a 12 noon natal chart for Huma Abedin though, just for the record. Marjorie Orr's comments on the chart are at the above link to her website.

Lots of Leo! Lots of fixedness! I don't much like natal Jupiter a degree from fixed star Algol - the demon star! I wonder if her Moon is in Leo or Virgo? I'd guess Leo. Virgo Moon would have been more careful with each and every step when dealing with sensitive e-mail - especially with a husband like hers rampant on the net.

Some writers surmise that the laptop on which a huge trove of Abedin's e-mail has been discovered was once used jointly with her husband, disgraced former politician Anthony Weiner, he of the peinis pics and other unpleasantnesses. A Virgo Moon would have remembered that her mails had been stored on that lap-top, and would have dealt with the matter appropriately. When the inquiry into Clinton's private e-mail server began, a Virgo Moon would have disclosed that this laptop might hold relevant material. A Virgo Moon would not have "forgotten" or been surprised, or would "not know how it got there"! Goodness me!

The whole scenario is, as Marjorie Orr remarked above, "hair-raisingly bizarre". Ya couldn't make it up!

Season 2 of The Weiner Saga

Whenever, at the weekend, we switched on the TV in the motel room to see what the weather forecast was promising us, what did we see? On any channel? Various combinations of talking heads talking about.....Anthony Weiner and his escapades in cyber land.

This real life mini-series and distraction du jour is currently in its second season. In its pilot and first season's run the guy showed his abominable lack of judgement and good taste, but heck - politicians display abominable powers of judgement and lack of good taste all the time. Most politicians, because of other valuable skills and talents can ride out a single error of judgement and bounce back into the public's tentatively good books. We all do daft things at times, for a variety of reasons not always apparent to others, nor should they be. Where Anthony Weiner really "jumped the shark" (as they say) was in deciding to run as a candidate for the position of Mayor of New York, then doing a second season of the same daft things! His powers of judgement are proving to be not just weak but non-existent, or drowned out by another potent power: addiction.

Looking back among my archived posts I found a mention of Anthony Weiner in February 2010 in vastly different tone and circumstances. I even wrote, of one of his debate exchanges when he spoke up, firmly on the side of ordinary people: "This is what the USA desperately needs more of!" I pointed out then that he has Uranus (planet of the unexpected) conjunct natal Sun and other planets.

I wonder whether there's anything further astrological to be gleaned from this sorry tale? Is Pluto, or maybe Uranus, transiting a sensitive point or planet in Weiner's chart? Several astrologers have already investigated his natal chart in depth; typing "Ant. Weiner astrology" in the Google search box will bring up a selection of articles on the topic. But let's take another wee peek here at his chart, set for 12 noon as time of birth isn't known.

Transiting Pluto at 9 Capricorn is in harmonious trine to planets in his Virgo cluster; transiting Neptune at 4 Pisces has been in the vicinity of his 00 degree Pisces Saturn
for some time. Is Pluto loosening up Virgo via this trine? Is Neptune throwing a dreamy cloak of illusion around a normally level-headed Saturn? Remembering, too, that Neptune also represents addiction in astrology.

I'm puzzled. I somehow doubt that Weiner has always been prey to this type of addiction. Would he have progressed as far as he had done in his profession without discovery? He was a congress critter before season one, remember. The kind of behaviour we've seen recently from someone with heavy emphasis on the sign of Virgo runs exactly opposite to what astrology would usually lead us to expect, even for someone with natal Moon in showy ol' Leo.

If Weiner remains in the mayoral race, the final verdict on his career path will rest with the voters of New York - and their powers of judgement.

USA: The Uncaring State of America.

The disgraceful saga that is the debate on health care reform in the USA trundles on interminably. To someone like myself who lived for many, many decades in a country where socialised (not socialist) health care is the norm, the debate appears ridiculous - the result ought to have been a foregone conclusion. How can a country, priding itself as a world leader, allow hundreds of thousands of its citizens to live without access to adequate levels of healthcare ? How can the population have been sitting idly by for so long when even those citizens who have dutifully paid their health insurance premiums for years are told, when serious illness befalls them, or a family member, that "you are not covered for that", and either bankruptcy or further suffering - or death - must ensue?

Is there something inherently immoral in the American citizenry, that they have not long ago - decades ago - demanded that something be done about this parlous state of affairs? It can only be that a large proportion of the population does not care about their fellow-men and women - and children. Simple as that. And this is a country which prides itself as being A Christian Nation. Please.

People of the USA would like to think of themselves as compassionate, friendly and forward-looking, and tend to advertise themselves as such. This isn't always the picture onlookers see. Although I'm now an American citizen myself, I'm still really an outsider, an observer of much that's alien. Some attitudes I notice here are more foreign to me than those I suspect I'd encounter among the inhabitants of of some lost tropical jungle.

If I'm feeling kindly, I could put it all down to the fact that the USA is a very young country, as compared with the countries of Europe. Some western states, in particular, are not much more than a century from the days of The Wild West, when it really was every man for himself. How long will it take for the minds, and hearts, of people in the United States to catch up? Too long.

Insurance Corporations have a stranglehold on things now, the country is being run by what may as well be termed mercenaries, verging on sociopathic, but the people, over time, have allowed this to happen. Their votes have been sending successive lawmakers to Congress and to the White House. Successive administrations have in their turn allowed the disgraceful situation to continue and worsen. At root, the people themselves are to blame - for their carelessness.

This post originally ended at that point - but then I read something at Think Progress which lifted my spirits a bit. New York Rep. Anthony Weiner spoke up clearly on the side of the people yesterday, when the House of Representatives debated the Health Insurance Industry Fair Competition Act, legislation that would repeal the 65 year exemption health insurance companies have from anti-trust regulations.

Speaking on the House floor, Rep. Anthony Weiner (D-NY) lambasted Republicans for being “a wholly owned subsidiary of an insurance industry,” prompting an offended Rep. Dan Lungren (R-CA) to lodge a complaint:

Transcript:

WEINER: You guys have chutzpah. The Republican Party is the wholly owned subsidiary of the insurance industry. They say this isn’t going to do enough, but when we propose an alternative to provide competition, they’re against it. They say we want to strengthen state insurance commissioners and they’ll do the job. But when we did that in our national health care bill, they said we’re against it. They said we want to have competition but when we proposed requiring competition they’re against it. They’re a wholly owned subsidiary of the insurance industry. That’s the fact!

LUNGREN: Mr. Speaker I ask that the gentleman’s words be taken down.

WEINER: You really don’t want to go there, Mr. Lungren. [...] Make no mistake about it. Every single Republican I have ever met in my entire life is wholly owned subsidiary of the insurance industry. That is why —

LUNGREN: Mr. Speaker I ask that the gentleman’s words be taken down once more.

WEINER: Look, the point is very simple, there are inequities in the present way we distribute insurance. There are winners and there are losers. The winners are the insurance industry. [...] There is not bipartisanship on this particular issue. The people who sit on this side, at the risk of offending anyone, generally support the idea of standing up for the American people in their battle against big insurance. And the people generally speaking who sit on this side of the chamber and specifically speaking as well in a lot of cases, simply won’t permit that to happen and haven’t for a generation. Well, that is going to end now. [...] Enough of the phonyness. We are gonna solve this problem because for years our Republican friends have been unable to and unwilling to. Deal with it!” (applause).

Bravo Mr. Weiner!

A quick look at his natal chart reveals that he has rebellious Uranus conjunct Sun, Mercury and Pluto all in discerning Virgo.

This is what the USA desperately needs more of!