113TH Congress

The 113th Congress

January 6, 2013 starlightnews.com

For Congress watchers, angst is the new normal. Two-years of chronically stagnant “Do-Nothing” dysfunction is leading to fears of only worse to come. Already, there are rampant threats to trigger a global financial calamity by refusing to raise the debt ceiling. The Crazies are impervious to public opinion, rationality, and compromise.  Like the hostage takers that they are, they want their demands met or else. 

Meanwhile, there are land mines waiting to go off in the birth chart for the 113th Congress, set to detonate throughout the two-year term. As Pluto (9Capricorn25) moves forward to repeatedly conjunct the Congress Midheaven (10Capricorn31) in 2013 and the Congress Sun (13Capricorn29) in 2014, epic and extreme power struggles are likely unfold.  This process will be augmented by the sudden, transformative, and revelatory events promised by transiting Uranus in square to Congress Midheaven, from April 2013 through February 2014, and square the Congress Sun twice in 2014. 

Using a noon chart for Minority Leader of the House Nancy Pelosi, Mars is at 25Taurus58. Using a noon chart for Speaker of the House John Boehner, the Sun is at 25Scorpio01. These two will always manifest an aggressive contest of will due to the natal Sun opposition to Mars aspect between them. This angry pattern of conflict will be greatly heightened in 2013, however, by the very same Uranus and Pluto aspects to the Congress Midheaven. In other words, the Speaker’s Sun and the Minority Leader’s Mars stand in a minor hard aspect (semi-square or sesquiquadrate) to the Congress Midheaven (10Capricorn31) and, therefore the transiting Uranus and Pluto positions as well.  

Moreover, the identical transits of the powerhouse planets, Uranus and Pluto, will set off President Obama’s Uranus (25Leo16) at the same time. Uranus gains prominence by being the chart ruler of the president’s Aquarius rising chart, as well as indicating his most progressive and forward-thinking instincts. Thus, the clashes going on in the House in 2013 would seem also to involve the most progressive and ground-breaking elements (Uranus) of the president’s agenda. 

We are already in the midst of the first round of this partisan battle which will be most potent in January and most of February 2013.  The president is likely to be especially aggressive about pushing through his goals until February 7, due to the progressed Inaugural Moon moving to its exact square with natal Mars (20Aquarius13) in the first few weeks of the new term. In addition, the beneficial and expansive Jupiter station square to his natal Pluto (6Virgo59) will hold through February 19. With Nancy Pelosi also being particularly assertive and effective during this period due to transiting Uranus conjunct her natal Sun/converse Mars progression (5Aries53), as well as the Pluto sesquiquadrate to her Mars continuing to February 23, the first round may go to the Democrats. It is noteworthy that the Pluto transit to the Congress Midheaven, the progressed Moon square to Inaugural Mars, and the Uranus transit to Nancy Pelosi’s Sun all peak on or around February 7. Action in the administration and Congress is likely to be especially intense up to that point.

From April through December 2013, the conflict between Pelosi and Boehner seems to be almost ongoing, with Pluto sesquiquadrate Pelosi’s Mars and Uranus semisquare, while Pluto is semisquare Boehner’s Sun and Uranus is sesquiquadrate for much of the time. Pluto will cross the Congress Midheaven in May, June, November, and early December, perhaps focusing the clash more in the halls of Congress in those months than within any particular caucus.  Uranus will also quincunx Boehner’s Mars (11Virgo53) in May, June, July, and August, perhaps stiffening his spine in some as yet undetermined direction. 

The most stressful and potentially paralyzed times for Congress during 2013 will come during the Saturn semisquare to natal Moon (25Virgo30) from February 17 to March 27, a time likely to bring great distress, and during the Saturn square to natal Mars (6Aquarius48) from May 4 through May 17 and again from August 13 through August 28 (hopefully a recess). It is doubtful much will be accomplished during these times and there is likely to be much blood on the carpet from this ongoing family feud. 

It is quite possible the long Pluto station of early 2014 will bring us the cacophonous crescendo of this bitter partisan power struggle. Pluto stations not only on the Congress chart Sun (13Capricorn29), but quincunx Obama’s Sun (12Leo33) and opposite the US Sun (13Cancer19). One possibility is that a hyper-partisan Congress, incapable of getting anything done, begets an administration that takes more and more power unto itself in order to run the country and protect its interests. This would indicate more executive orders and other strategies for circumventing Congress, only deepening the viciousness of the partisan divide. It is also possible, and these are not mutually exclusive, that the wild events indicated by the grand cross in the spring of 2014 will create a power struggle with an outside enemy or natural catastrophe that will ignite the nation. No matter how it plays out, the early months of 2014 will be some of the most dramatic and transformative in US history. The ugly battles and tumult of 2013 will only be the prelude.

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LINK - Eric Cantor is a darling of that rightwing; popular with the Tea Party-backed politicians who swept into the House in the 2010 mid-terms and who still wield enormous power. Together with Mitt Romney's former running mate, Paul Ryan, and majority whip, Kevin McCarthy (who also voted no), Cantor co-wrote a 2010 book called Young Guns that sought to be a manifesto for an emerging generation of rightwing ideologues.

Cantor's high-profile "no" vote in the fiscal cliff debate now propels him to the front of the conservative movement. It is a bloc that sees Mitt Romney's failure to defeat Obama as an example of what happens when you run a moderate who has to espouse rightwing views he does not genuinely hold instead of a true conservative candidate.

It is a profound split in the party. While Boehner does not look immediately under threat when it comes to a fresh vote this week on his speakership, he does appear to now be in the minority in the House. Just 84 other Republicans joined Boehner in voting for the compromise bill to avoid the fiscal cliff, while 150 Republicans lined up behind Cantor in the no camp. "You have the whole notion of people who want to stand on principle and those who want to be more pragmatic," said Professor Tim Hagle, an expert in Republican politics at the University of Iowa.

The split also represents different ways of looking at where the party's focus should be. Boehner and the more pragmatic wing of the party see the Republicans' 2012 defeat as a sign that the party is losing touch with a younger and more ethnically diverse national electorate that can deliver a candidate to the White House. The party's conservatives, however, look to their own party's still Tea Party-infused base and gerrymandered congressional districts that too often provide safe seats to extremists.

As the 2014 mid-term elections hove into view, some observers believe that those backing Boehner could be punished for their 'yes' vote and further undermine Boehner's position. "Some of those Republicans who voted for this are going to lose their seats because of this one vote," said Mitchell.

That means Cantor's dissent could tie in with eventual ambitions to take Boehner's job. If Republicans in the House emerge from 2014 even more in the grip of conservative ideologues, he will be well-placed to launch a bid for the speakership himself. "Cantor is a shrewd political animal. He is incredibly ambitious. He will do whatever he needs to do to take control of that speaker's gavel," said Professor Cohen.


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sesquiquadrate: sesquisquare:

briefest key word description, or narrative of the aspect

1) square + semi-square = 135 degrees

2) put sesquisquare aspect into a familiar syntax of sentence grammar

'challenges, friction leading to action' sesquisquare acting as a ‘verb’

3) apply the aspect to various test charts and from historic precedent 

'need for endurance, persistence and patience; avoid overwhelming feelings of impatience and resentment; conditions of mountain-out-of-a-molehill can prevail with this aspect'

4) look at the nature of the planets involved in sesquisquare

Challenges, friction leading to action

USA Neptune @22 Virgo (Sibley Chart etc)

waning sesquisquare (137 degrees)

modern inauguration Ascendant @14 Taurus

Sunday 1/20/ 2013 legal required to have oath of office by noon – ASCENDANT @14 Taurus

Monday 1/21/2013 public inauguration ceremony

per Mary Plumb

The U.S. Sibly horoscope has Mars at 21º Gemini in the 7th house, square an elevated (closest to the 10th-house cusp) Neptune at 22º Virgo, sign of its detriment.

(Neptune @22 Virgo) As a nation, we have a collective storyline that includes both nebulous (or ill-defined) actions or motivations, and a susceptibility to propaganda or seduction, side-by-side with a guileless belief in altruistic action.

neptune-mars = propaganda