2017 Swearing In 1.20.2017 Likely GOP President

1.20. 2017  Inauguration (Friday)

12TH House - 6TH House Axis

Transiting Uranus @20 Aries conjunct USA Chiron @20 Aries

opposite

Transiting Jupiter @22 Libra conjunct USA Juno @20 Libra 

Over the past few years, as the Republican Party has gained control over more state legislatures than Democrats. And, it has turned redistricting into a finely-honed, well-financed project. That has virtually insured their control over the House. “While the Voting Rights Act strongly protects against racial gerrymanders, manipulating the lines to favor a political party is common,” the Rose Institute’s Redistricting in America website points out. LINK

ProPublica’s Olga Pierce, Justin Elliott and Theodoric Meyer recently reported, in a piece titled “How Dark Money Helped Republicans Hold the House and Hurt Voters,” that “Republicans had a years-long strategy of winning state houses in order to control each state's once-a-decade redistricting process,” That strategy helped the GOP put a hammerlock on its goal of creating safe Republican districts that would allow it to control of the House.

How Dark Money Helped Republicans Hold the House and Hurt Voters LINK


The Hidden Hands in Redistricting: Corporations and Other Powerful Interests LINK

Today’s story is the first chapter in an in-depth examination of how powerful players are turning to increasingly sophisticated tools and techniques to game the redistricting process, with voters ultimately losing.

For special interests, there’s a huge potential payoff from investing in such efforts.

“Reshaping a map is very powerful” for donors, said Spencer Kimball, a political consultant who is executive director of Boston-based Fair Districts Mass. “It’s a big opportunity to have influence at the state level and the congressional level not one race at a time but for 10 years.”

Saturn enters Capricorn  12/19/2017  - LINK

Saturn remains in Capricorn - until March 21, 2020 

Click on Chart - Larger Image

Capitol Building

2017 Transiting CIRCE @08 Gemini - First House (bias, only one way)
conjunct
USA Uranus @08 Gemini 


1.21.2013 Public Ceremony Inauguration President Obama

State Senate Republicans muscled a surreptitious redraft of Virginia’s 40 Senate districts to passage Monday by a single vote over bitter objections from Democrats who were blindsided by the surprise move. 

On a party line 20-19 vote after limited debate, Republicans won Senate passage of an amendment to a House bill that previously had made only minor technical corrections to district lines. 

A court fight is exactly what Republicans can expect, Democrats said.

LINK

Virginia Senate Sneaks Through Gerrymandering Bill While Country Watches Inauguration

ThinkProgress is reporting the following:

While the eyes of the nation were turned toward President Barack Obama’s second inauguration on Monday, the Virginia State Senate managed to hurriedly pass a bill that would redistrict the state’s senate seats. 

The vote, 20-19, would have been a tie had Democratic Senator Henry Marsh been present. Marsh, a civil rights leader, was in Washington, D.C., attending the inauguration. Had Marsh been present, however, the state’s Lieutenant Governor would likely have broken the tie. The bill was reportedly pushed through in a matter of hours. 

According to Virginia politics blogger Ben Tribbett, the move could potentially eliminate at least one Democratic seat, the 25th district, which currently belongs to former Democratic gubernatorial candidate Sen. Creigh Deeds (D).

Blue Virginia further reports that, according to a Virginia political analyst, "If VA Republicans were smart enough not to touch the already cleared VRA districts, the plan will likely stand. Dems are toast." 

The great Republican election rigging continues.

PA GOP Introduces Bill To Rig 2016 Presidential Electoral VotesJust like clockwork, it begins: 

On Monday, seven Pennsylvania Republican state representatives introduced a bill to make this vote-rigging scheme a reality in their state. Under their bill, the winner of Pennsylvania as a whole will receive only 2 of the state’s 20 electoral votes, while “[e]ach of the remaining presidential electors shall be elected in the presidential elector’s congressional district.” 

Pennsylvania is a blue state that voted for the Democratic presidential candidate in every single presidential race for the last two decades, so implementing the GOP election-rigging plan in Pennsylvania would make it much harder for a Democrat to be elected to the White House. 

Moreover, because of gerrymandering, it is overwhelmingly likely that the Republican candidate will win a majority of Pennsylvania’s electoral votes even if the Democrat wins the state by a very comfortable margin. Despite the fact that President Obama won Pennsylvania by more than 5 points last November, Democrats carried only 5 of the state’s 18 congressional seats. Accordingly, Obama would have likely won only 7 of the state’s 20 electoral votes if the GOP vote rigging plan had been in effect last year.

http://crooksandliars.com/...