There are so many topics that might be written about today that it’s like playing Whack-a-Mole to select one; just when you smack one down, another pops up. We could discuss the amazing clash of civilization playing out in response to the Torture Report, with Dick Cheney emerging from his hidey-hole to deliver scathing remarks to spider-friendly FOX News, while most of the CIA uses the same kind of duck ‘n cover defense used by foot soldiers throughout history: “I was just doing my job.”
By Judith Gayle | Political Waves
We might examine the new federal guidelines regarding racial profiling, which only applies to federal programs, not your local cop shop, or take a look at the call for further sensitivity training in the halls of law enforcement, which is a bit like putting lipstick on a pig (pun, no pun).
True, Obama is expected to issue executive orders regarding oversight of military equipment going to police, as well as requiring extensive training in its appropriate use, but that won’t impact the dark heart of racism that exists in small towns everywhere. Hopefully, it will at least put local bullies on notice that someone is watching.
If we’re worth a tinker’s dam as human beings, we’ll have found the level of state-approved sadism become visible these last weeks to be not just AWESOMELY (Colbert here and Stewart here) distracting but deeply disturbing. In the land of the free and home of the brave, cops are picking off black youth with impunity, tazing pregnant mothers and autistic kids, while Texas and Missouri feel free to execute retarded prisoners on death row despite federal guidelines that forbid it. Ohio has botched so many of these drug-induced procedures, putting the offender through Constitutionally-forbidden cruel and unusual punishment, that the ONION wrote a piece entitled, “Ohio Replaces Lethal Injection With Humane New Head-Ripping-Off Machine.” Sounds almost merciful, compared to what’s been going on recently.
We could even open the lid on some of the good things that are happening — rare as a liberal at an evangelical revival — because POTUS is using his executive power without much fanfare to try to balance the right-tilt, or we might review a recent decision by SCOTUS that makes the Supremes seem almost reasonable, given their own considerable list to the right (and, as an aside, don’t count on the continuation of either). We could look at any of those things, but today let’s try splashing our faces with the cold water of realism and tackle the big green elephant in America’s living room: unregulated capitalism complicated by an addictive level of consumerism that has led us to full-blown plutocracy.
After pre-Black Friday sales shooting an arrow through our Thanksgiving festivities, there was Black Friday itself, followed by pre-Cyber weekend and Cyber Monday, then Cyber week, which — presumably — ends on Friday. I’m not counting on it. As I live too far from amenities to forgo buying on line, I’m stuck. Unfortunately, this option carries a cost in privacy, and due to the dreaded ‘cookies’ of cyber life, I presume my in-box will immediately fill with whatever newest cyber-salesmanship comes next. Like the gutting of Thanksgiving traditions — and the appearance of Christmas paraphernalia even prior to Halloween — nobody asked me what I preferred. Money won this round.
Money is the Gawd we worship on these shores. That’s always been true to some degree, the founders having established the seriousness of America’s capitalism by dumping tea into Boston’s bay, but now the mandate of the corporate board room as the holy of holies has gone as viral as fears over Ebola. I fault the religious right for this escalation of valueless secularism. If they hadn’t re-created Christian philosophy to resemble some darkly-inspired Disney cartoon, droolingly simplistic and insultingly ignorant, many of us wouldn’t have tossed the whole of religion over the side to sink with the tea.
In the years that followed, many of us who considered ourselves spiritual-while-secular failed to realize that it takes a certain amount of education to keep a system of ethics without pinning it to habitual practice and religious philosophy. When we throw something overboard, we create a void that must be filled. Unfortunately, the nation filled its own ethical void with shallow thinking and ambition for money and power. Now, sandwiched between fear and paranoia among the elders and the lack of structured ethical values in the generations that followed, we find ourselves with only mammon to bow to.
The Christocrats — read that Republicans, although the conservative base is a good deal more Wall Street than Church Street — have developed some very interesting ideas, force-fed to the home schooled and packaged for sale to those most nervous about things that go bump in the night. Capitalizing on that movement, the Koch brothers have spent years investing in research to discover how to capture the zeitgeist and harness it to their desires. They seem finally to have perfected their mojo with a data mining project that is, as Eric proposed in his subscription piece, a “sign of the times.” Do not be surprised, then, if an outlier presidential candidate surfaces with the K brand on his/her rump.
Combined with large donations to education providers that meet their prerequisites, the result of this kind of social engineering — smacking of the American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC) and its cohorts — can be seen in the latest bill to come before our lame duck Congress, the Omnibus Budget Bill. This is the trillion-dollar baby, the one that is close to passing while containing enough poison pill riders to give the average liberal a very bad case of agita.
If you’re a C-SPAN wonk, you might recognize this baby. It isn’t new, it’s been kicking around the House since 2013, closely matching, word for word, a proposal written by Citigroup. It turns back regulations and allows banks to do more high-risk trading: the same kind that all but burned down our fiscal house, which had to be bailed out by taxpayers. The already fragile Dodd-Frank financial reform act takes multiple hits in this proposal, while the five big banks that deal in derivative trading — Citigroup, JPMorgan Chase, Goldman Sachs, Bank of America and Wells Fargo — will benefit. Let Mother Jones fill in the blanks if you’re interested.
This Omnibus Bill, which will cost upwards of a trillion bucks and keep the nation from shutting down once again, contains something for everybody to bitch about. The Baggers object bitterly to the “moderation” included in this proposal, funding Obamacare and other “liberal” projects. They insist that the bill’s touted “bi-partisanship” shows that Boehner’s gone too soft by refusing to defund the dreaded “amnesty” offered by Obama’s immigration plan.
On the left, the bill is seen as a monument to triangulation, Obama giving in too quickly to the big money faction and selling progressive leadership down the river. It is, they insist, the same kind of short-sighted accommodation Clinton sought when he signed the repeal of Glass-Steagall, established the Commodity Futures Trading Act and completely redesigned welfare. Indeed, the bill itself — best referenced by Charles Pierce, I think, who named it “a veritable compost heap of Republican goodies” — seems to make no one happy but that infamous one percent.
Republicans aren’t good at looking back. It seems encoded in their DNA to let themselves off the hook while trolling for someone to blame things on. They depend upon the ignorance of the American public when it comes to politics. They only tortured because they had to and they’re only giving the store away to big business and banksters because jobs, jobs, trickle down, jobs (or, as Al Franken once titled a book, “Lies and the lying liars that tell them”). Their greatest skill, like baby quail running in lockstep behind their mother (but not nearly so cute) is unity. They do “hive mind” better than any other type of citizen here in North America. They all “get the memo” and abide by it, even though the information may not serve their best interests.
Democrats aren’t as good at herding their diverse kennel of cats, but at least they have the grace to look guilty when charged. The schism that’s finally being felt in the liberal party is shaking like an earthquake, thanks to the ascendency of big money, brought to us by clueless culture voters on the right and uninformed moderates in the middle this mid-term. It shouldn’t take long for a real sense of buyer’s remorse to set in when Wall Street pops its cork in celebration and the only thing that trickles down to the rest of the country will be slim pickings.
This current government funding bill has brought out the harshest judgment on party policy heard in years — referenced in the press as “a revolt” — and led by no less than House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi, who is not a member of the Progressive Caucus but is being supported in her criticism of this bill by over 70 members of that group. They are mostly House members that include dependable lefties like Barbara Lee, Maxine Waters, Raúl Grijalva, Alan Grayson, and accompanied by the ONLY Senator aligned with the caucus, Bernie Sanders.
To their credit, however, there are a number of mainstream Dems complaining about this bill and very reluctant to support the White House, which seems to want to just get this over with. the Prez relieved that the Pubs are making an attempt to do ANYTHING that smacks of compromise. It’s apparently time to throw the cards in the air and pick a side. And although they wouldn’t admit it, Pubs must be silently ruing the day they fought Obama’s desire to appoint Elizabeth Warren to the newly created and continually endangered Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, where her duties would have been limited.
Instead, she found a job in the Senate as the progressive voice of the Democratic Party, and she’s not afraid to use it. With rare clarity on the Hill, here’s what she had to say:
“I come to the floor today to ask a fundamental question — who does Congress work for? Does it work for the millionaires, the billionaires, the giant companies with their armies of lobbyists and lawyers? Or does it work for all of us?”
“A vote for this bill is a vote for future taxpayer bailouts of Wall Street. It is time for all of us to stand up and fight.”
This arrives on the heels of Warren’s loud protestation over the nomination of Antonio Weiss, Wall Street insider, to Treasury. This is an example of the “revolving door,” Warren asserts, supported by policies of both parties, but in service to no one but the one percent. A number of senators — Durbin, Franken, Shaheen and a conservative, Joe Manchin — are also opposing the nomination and for the same reason.
The Wall Street wing of the Democratic party is beginning to look a lot smaller these last few days, even though, as Robert Reich writes, “… the reason Democrats have pulled their punches with the financial sector for years is because it’s hard to punch the hand that feeds you.” As to Warren, this is not a woman to whom political maneuvering matters.
I believe her when she says she doesn’t want to be president. This is a senator who values the truth, within her purview. I’ve heard she is not supportive of various other issues progressives favor, like vanquishing the XL pipeline for instance. But what she does understand — feels she has a personal stake in — she puts herself on the line for.
By the time you read this, the bill will probably be in the can, awaiting a signature on Obama’s desk. At this point, Elizabeth Warren and her progressives are holding up a Senate vote on the poison pill that allows derivative expansion, and it’s important to understand that the principled stand she’s taken on this is not equal — as is being suggested by CNN as I write — to those held by Ted Cruz on the right. It’s taking a good bit of nerve to stand on that populist principle, to split her party and oppose her president. At risk today is closing down government, not a gamble for the faint of heart.
Still, this is just the opening shot on these kinds of heart-burns. In January, we begin a two-year brush with the wish-list of plutocracy, champagne glasses clinking in the ivory towers and the unaware below them bumbling along without a clue that life is about to get tougher. Not good news, but always best to bite the bullet before it bites you. Ultimately, we will manage it and it will inform the nation in ways we don’t yet appreciate.
And before I close, I want to do a little reminder of the “politics is personal” sort. I want to bring anything you’ve read here, buzzing around like abstractions, down to earth. This is the reason that the differences between Wall Street and Main Street are important:
A friend in her mid-seventies, who takes occasional work to try to flesh out her slim Social Security check, got caught by traffic cameras making a rolling stop this week. The system generated a picture of her failing to stop for the obligatory three-seconds, and sent a bill for $436.00; half of her monthly income. It seems to me that this is the kind of extortion that has kept Ferguson, and neighboring communities, in the cross-hairs. What was that example we reported? Some 1,800 residents and over 33,000 warrants? Warrants that citizens have no way to pay for or deal with? When the government feels free to consider the public a cash cow, it’s time to make changes.
A friend who has had chronic problems with arthritis was prescribed an 8 ounce bottle of topical cream that was helpful with pain. Covered by insurance, he was told his cost was $90.00, paid by his plan. As the yearly deductibles are due to kick in, he looked over the paperwork that is sent from time to time by his insurance carrier and discovered that the cream was charged out by the pharmaceutical house that offers it at $2,100. My friend called, indignant, and spoke to a representative, who said he’d have to speak to a pharmacist, who, you will not be surprised to learn, wasn’t available at that moment. Nor since. When these kinds of disparities are tolerated by the system, it’s time to make changes.
A family member could not afford a non-generic of a med she used every day, but the generic option simply didn’t do the trick. Although she only sees her (expensive) specialist when necessary, she contacted him because of her symptoms and he insisted she get the real stuff,” hundreds of dollars worth a month. When she told him she couldn’t afford it, he wrote her a script and gave her the name of a Canadian pharmacy where she now spends pennies on the dollar for the exact same meds in question, delivered promptly to her door by her mail carrier. When we have to go outside our own borders to get our needs met, it’s time to make changes.
It’s time to make changes, because we’re being victimized. Time to decide where we stand because the culture war has just been given a green light. Time to support those who support us and let the others fall by the wayside. In the wake of near-genocide of young black men, a close look at terrorism through the lens of an inquisitor, and a coming handover of power to the business class that considers us all a demographic to be squeezed and wrung out until dry, it’s time to take these politics very personally.
The “Justice for All” march in WaDC is on C-SPAN right now! Very cool, indeed!
The Omnibus is still in play and won’t be decided ’til next week. Huffy has a good piece on wee Lindsey Graham calling Elizabeth Warren “the problem.” I hope Jon Stewart isn’t on hiatus this week — I love it when he channels Lindsey as Aunt Pittypat from Gone With The Wind. (“I declare, I think I have the vapors!”) Here’s the link and here’s the quote de jour:
Warren took to the Senate floor earlier to skewer Citigroup for infiltrating Washington and influencing policy with the budget bill provision. “I agree with you, Dodd-Frank isn’t perfect,” she said in comments directed at the banking giant. “It should have broken you into pieces.”
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/12/12/lindsey-graham-elizabeth-warren-problem_n_6318512.html
And speaking of Comedy Central, this is a heckuva time, Brownie, for Colbert to close up shop and move to mainstream late night. Good on him, but what will we do without that myth-busting, hypocrisy-stabbing commentary? Wow, amazing times indeed!
Well now Jude, it takes time for these new-fangled ideas to register in the minds of Washington folks, to grasp something like the head-ripping-off machine (an obvious IS idea) shows promise of spreading through to other states though. Hey, so many great lines (thoughts) you serve up here it’s hard to pick just one, but your call on Eliz. Warren rings true to me. She doesn’t want to be Prez and she’s not an authority on everything, but she DOES know her stuff and speaks out. Nobody is going to buy her vote. There are still a few (fairly high-profile) others we can count on like Al Franken who serve for the right reasons, but I fear that corruption has infected the majority of Congress. Or maybe that’s just what transiting Neptune in the U.S. Sibly 3rd house wants us to believe.
I’ve wondered how far back in history I would need to go to see charts that would reflect some recognition by The People as to how much power they had given away. Your comments such as “the ignorance of the American public” suggests that the triple conjunction of transiting Neptune, Jupiter and Chiron to the U.S. Moon + Pallas back in 2009 might be a starting point.
From there, I found the first square Jupiter made to Neptune after their conjunction with Chiron in Aquarius. It happened on June 25, 2012. It was the day after Saturn’s station direct at 22+ Libra (and semi-sextile Juno at 22+ Scorpio who was sextile the U.S. Sibly Neptune at 22+ Virgo who was trine transiting Vesta at 22+ Taurus, the same degree where, in 2000, Jupiter and Saturn began the 20 year cycle we are in now). It was also the day after the first of seven squares transiting Uranus would make to transiting Pluto. Ah hah!
Transiting Jupiter would go on to square transiting Chiron the following month, just as Jupiter was making his first conjunction to the U.S. Sibly Uranus at 8+ Gemini, putting both of them into a sextile with transiting Uranus at 8+ Aries. Jupiter would return in retro fashion to 8+ Gemini that December 21, 2012, the infamous winter solstice that the Mayans supposedly saw the end of the world (in so many words) happening. That time, at the winter solstice, it was transiting Jupiter and the U.S. Uranus who were at the focal point of a yod with the transiting sextile between Saturn at 8+ Scorpio and Pluto at 8+ Capricorn. It’s always been part of the plan; this seeming chaos, and we absolutely must trust that the Universe is guiding us to a better place.
But then, you already knew that Jude. Why else would you come back week after week? Your closing paragraphs today noting personal stories of the great awakening among The People, one incident at a time, will have the desired effect. At some point the masses will become involved in how and by whom our government’s decisions are made. Next September, between the two eclipses, transiting Jupiter in Virgo will oppose transiting Neptune in Pisces (and transiting Chiron in November). Mark your calendars so you will know that what’s happening is because of the triple conjunction of Neptune, Jupiter and Chiron to the U.S. Moon and Pallas.
be
The bill passed. Harry Reid forced a weekend session and got the vote through. Ted Cruz tried some fancy footwork to kill the bill which backfired, ended up confirming 24 of Obama’s outstanding nominations that might otherwise have died in the lame duck session. Good for them, not good for the rest of us, but … expected.
I think you nailed it on 2009, Miss be — I remember freaking (and ranting) over the ridiculous speculation and outright delusion offered in the Glenn Beck circus act, including that of an ambitious Sarah Palin and other wing-nuts on parade. In 2009 Media Matter for America named Beck “Misinformer of the Year.” That energy escalated through the 2010 mid-terms, with newly created Baggers throwing fits in public places, orchestrated through the paranoid strains of Beck’s calliope music. Beck recently apologized for getting a little over the top. Too late, Glenn — you can’t unstrike a match, can you!
And our educational system — reflecting the ‘values’ of fifty different states, a good many of them subject to Koch inspired rewrites of history — has as many holes as a block of Swiss cheese. Bill Nye the Science Guy — who held that much scrutinized debate with creationist, Ken Ham — has charged evangelicals with creating a generation of kids who haven’t been taught to question things, who …
” … can’t think” and who “will not be able to participate in the future in same way” as those who are taught evolution. “They will not have this fundamental idea that you can question things, that you can think critically, that you can use skeptical thought to learn about nature. These children have to suppress everything that they can see in nature to try to get a world view that’s compatible with the adults in who they trust and rely on for sustenance.”
Looking at history, I suspect corruption has always had its adherents, but just lately the system itself has lost all meaning other than financial. The root of all evil lives and breathes in the concept “for profit.” When that’s at the heart of everything — prisons, schools, medicine, religion — there IS no liberty or justice in the equation, and clearly no compassion or statesmanship.
We can tell how hungry the public is to hear the populist message when you notice how the sparks fly when someone like Warren speaks. We all know: this is what we’re supposed to be working toward, those who are discovered to be corrupt booted out — but it’s upside down, now. Those who work toward equality and justice are the ones targeted as troublemakers.
Couple of links to shore up topics discussed here. Was interested in this article about the manufacture of new “disease” by Big Pharma, created to take advantage of meds they’re trying to schlep to the masses. Our tendency toward hypochondria makes us vulnerable to thinking a “magic pill” can solve all health issues and Big Pharma’s is happy to provide not just the pill but a rationale to buy it.
And here’s a link to any excellent read on public vs. private enterprise, using USPS as an example of something the Pubs are itching to dismantle and privatize. Makes me pucker up to think about! When I order things on-line, I try to stay with those who ship through the US Postal Service. The rules imposed upon them by conservatives hot to ruin them have put them in jeopardy; the Dems should have done something to protect them while they could! Interesting information on the pendulum swing, and possibilities ahead in this piece.
It’s all part of the dance, which requires us to learn how to move gracefully with one another. And so it goes …
Thanks for the chat, be — always a pleasure.
Have just seen Elizabeth Warren’s chart and from that (sans minor planets, etc. and time of birth) have concluded that she is in partnership (consciously or not) with President Obama.
Yes! They both have Jupiter at 0+ Aquarius, thus associated with the new cultural-societal cycle beginning at the end of 2020 with the conjunction of transiting Jupiter and Saturn at 0+ Aquarius. Ms. Warren’s chart has a Sun-Uranus conjunction at 0+ Cancer (an Aries Point) sextile her natal Saturn at 1+ Virgo, making her natal Jupiter (and Obama’s) the focal point of a yod. This is big. Ms. Warren’s Sun-Uranus is conjunct Mr. Obama’s Venus.
Warren’s north node at 23+ Aries is conjunct transiting Eris at 22+ Aries retrograde. Eris creates discord. In the October solar eclipse, Eris was quincunx Saturn at 22+ Scorpio who was sextile the U.S. Sibly Neptune at 22+ Virgo. This created a lasting (eclipse is effective for at least 6 months, usually longer) yod with Eris (and Warren’s NN) as the focal (apex) point. Elizabeth is doing what Barack can’t do without destabilizing the government. Elizabeth Warren will be the agitator (Eris) who will jump-start the progressive revolution. There’s more.
Not only is Warren’s Sun conjunct Uranus on a cardinal (Aries) point, her Mars is conjunct the U.S. Uranus, both at 8+ Gemini. Her natal Mercury at 10+ Gemini is also conjunct her Mars. She reminds me of Joan of Arc with glasses.
Elizabeth has a natal Neptune at 12+ Libra which at this very moment is opposed by transiting Uranus (does the woman ever get to sleep with all this Uranus energy?) and squared by transiting Pluto. She is our gift from the Universe. Her birthday is June 22, 1949 in Oklahoma City, time unknown. Rejoice.
be
Warren has been the bright spot on my radar for awhile now, so it’s good to get a confirmation that she’s on-target with the new energies. She fans my n-fire trine (Sun, Mars, Eris) in a very positive way. I have a bumper sticker that sez, “I’m an Elizabeth Warren Democrat” … which will do, here in the Pea Patch, where you only get a couple of political choices and EW is waaaaay to the left of any of them (but not … yet, anyhow … as left as I’d like her to be.)
It surely says something that Warren was ushered into a leadership role a few weeks ago by Harry Reid, sparking speculation that it would tame her fire-breathing populism … and it didn’t.
The push for her to run for Prez is troublesome to me. One of the Sunday Pundits (talking about the jungle drums that put Jeb in line for 2016 despite the ambitions of Ted Cruz) mentioned that Hillary needs a “tune up,” the kind she could get if Bernie Sanders ran, putting her through her paces — but she didn’t need the kind of challenge Warren could bring. And as attractive as her candidacy sounds to me, you don’t geld a warrior. As you say, Obama has limits, and if he’s shown us anything through this presidency it’s a realistic picture of what the office can accomplish without congressional support.
Wall Street is in more trouble than it knows, I think, and income inequality is finally getting the attention it deserves. That will require a LOT more amperage in the next few months, but I trust Warren to provide her share! Barbara Walters is interviewing David Koch tonight on ABC, by the way, along with nine other “most fascinating people of 2014.”
And speaking of sleep, you’re a night owl, my dear, according to your time-stamp. Unless you’re a member of the “Three O’Clock Club,” as one of the channelers I favor calls the nightly wake-up that so many of us endure at some point or another.
Very little structure in my life regarding time-of-day anymore. I get on the internet when (1) some impulse motivates me, and (2) if/when my computer will provide access to it. In this case, my adrenalin lasted just long enough to get out the above observations!
Looked at a chart for the 6th Uranus-Pluto square in a few hours from now, and when set for Washington DC, the Moon is near the ascendant at 0 Libra 35. Other than the importance of “the People” during this period (through March 17), Washington has the advantage of a Moon sextile Saturn, although out-of-sign at 29+ Scorpio, it would seem to keep a lid on any emotional actions or reactions. The fact is that once again we are talking about a cardinal point or Aries Point (like Warren’s Sun-Uranus (which this Moon squares) and that mean action. It is a degree that trines the 0+ Aquarius of the future Jupiter-Saturn conjunction, so that’s a hopeful sign too.
Most of the energy in this chart is below the horizon regarding the major planets, with Jupiter above the horizon, near the cusp of the 12 house and retrograde and Uranus in the 7th house, also retrograde. Looks like any volatility stemming from this square would be kept fairly private.
Mercury, ruler of the Gemini MC (and the Virgo ascendant) at 26 Sagittarius 55 is very near the IC and a very busy little god, getting input from the Galactic Center. The Sun at 23 Sagittarius 08 has just passed his square with the U.S Sibly Neptune at 22+ Virgo and is trine the retro Jupiter, so I’m hoping this means the New Year will deal with realities regarding foreign affairs and other Jupiterian/Sagittarian issues. It is a period of transition, in more ways than one.
Please do report back on the Barbara Walters interview with Mr. Koch. I couldn’t bear to watch it and will be on a marathon viewing of Downton Abby re-runs, so great is my need for escape.
be
David Koch, the younger of the brothers, was asked about his quest to finance a conservative coup (my words, not Barbara’s) and he told Walters that he gave within legal limits to candidates he favored — she didn’t push him on the estimated 400 million the brothers reportedly dumped into PACs this last election cycle, or the think-tanks and educational movements they fund. When asked to give a glimpse of his political beliefs, he called himself a libertarian who is very … did I say VERY … fiscally conservative and socially liberal — i.e., pro-choice, pro-gay marriage. (A lot of “oh yeah sure,” and “put yer money where yer mouth is” commentary about that in the blogosphere right after the interview aired.)
Walters went easy on him, although when she pushed into politics all of his answers were pat and practiced and — as the blogger who posted the following link mentions — his ticks and winces speak volumes. There was a brief flash when I think you get a glimpse of the oligarch behind the mask. When Walters mentions that the radical conservatives he backs do not share his “socially liberal” agenda, there is a reaction (“that’s THEIR problem”) and a look (like the shark in Finding Nemo who smells blood in the water, eyes momentarily darkened) that cracked the hologram for me. I don’t think he was expecting that question, having already asserted his VERY strong devotion to fiscal conservatism above all else, and didn’t have an answer at the ready so had to repeat himself. Kinda scary.
The Koch’s upbringing, knee-deep in John Birch Society rhetoric and principles; in competition for their distant father’s attention; and very aware that profit was the prize, created them as who they are and David seems to regret not a bit of it, having whitewashed his version for the interview.
His good works (there are many) appears to be the price his conscience pays to make sure the world continues to owe him a damned good living. You can catch the whole (short) interview here, if you can bear it, and the background stuff is pretty good.
http://crooksandliars.com/2014/12/barbara-walters-cuddly-interview-david
By the way — two little girls were born yesterday, one in Arizona and one in Ohio, at 10:11. That makes them 10:11 … 12/13/14.
Have a great week, everybody!
Many thanks Jude. Few of us are cut totally from whole cloth (as in integrity), but those who consist of multiple layers of synthetic cloth will itch and twitch, causing that look of “smelling blood in the water”. He may fool himself, but he fool’s fewer and fewer every day.
Further examination of Elizabeth Warren’s chart makes me wonder if she might enter the fray over the pollution of water and/or other tree-hugger concerns. Her natal Ceres (Mother Earth) and natal Saturn, both at 1+ Virgo (Virgo!!) which sextile her Sun-Uranus at 0+ Cancer forming that yod with her natal Jupiter at 0+ Aquarius (as is Obama’s, and where the Jupiter-Saturn conjunction takes place) makes Jupiter the apex/focal point.
Moreover, her natal Sedna and her north node, both at 23+ Aries (where transiting Eris is), along with her natal Juno (12+ Cancer, conjunct U.S. Sibly Sun at 13+ Cancer) squaring her natal Neptune (the Sea) retrograde, pushes the possibility of her defending the defenseless.
About four weeks ago transiting Neptune stationed direct in square to her natal Chiron a 4+ Sagittarius. Transiting Saturn will conjunct her Chiron less than 4 weeks after the New Moon that will conjunct her Jupiter in January. It could mean a lot of things, but, hey, she’s got an Earth Moon. Just sayin’.
be