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"The natal chart is like a seed and progressions are the unfolding in time of that into the plant it is to become. Transits, are like a daily weather report. In political astrology, these three factors have to be taken into account!"
Unless otherwise stated, all data is rated A or AA from AstroDataBank
Recent NewsScope Articles
Jan. 5, 2015 - Will Hillary run? Bono's Chiron-Pluto opposition; Angelique Kidjo, Africa's premier diva.
Jan. 12, 2015 - Neptune's anxiety; France under attack; Pope Francis's exciting Venus return.
Jan. 19, 2015 - Court takes up gay marriage; Swiss Bank shocks system; Chris Kyle, American Sniper.
Jan. 26, 2015 - Deflategate: Tom Brady's footballs; February's top 5; Klay Thompson's best quarter.
Feb. 2, 2015 - Greece's Alexis Tsipras; Shake Shack's debut; Katy Perry at the Super Bowl.
Feb. 9, 2015 - Saturn in Sagittarius, Jill Stein's Green New Deal; Elvis meets Nixon.
Feb 16, 2015 - Jeff Jawer, astro-luminary; journalists in transition; Jeff and Scorpio Rising US chart.
Feb. 23, 2015 - Uranus enters the US sixth; Neonicotinoids and bees; Dr. Seuss is back!
March 2, 2015 - The Boris Nemtsov papers; March's top 5; David Tredinnick, the MP favoring astrology.
March 9, 2015 - Ceres into view, AAPL and solar energy; Chai Jing's "Under the Dome" goes viral.
March 16, 2015 - Britain's royal family under the Eclipse; Kate and William; Charles' progressed MC.
March 23, 2015 - Nuclear deal with Iran? April's top 5 astro-events; Krissi Brown remains in a coma.
March 30, 2015 - Andreas Lubitz, unfit for duty; Q&A - Richard III; Bas Lansdorp's Mars One mission.
April 6, 2015 - Obama and the Iran; NJ Senator Menendez indicted; Mad Men's Matthew Weiner.
April 13, 2015 - Hillary makes it official; Bill progressed Venus; Chelsea's prog Mars.
April 20, 2015 - Marco Rubio declares; Hillary and the Inequality bubble; Floyd Mayweather Fight.
April 27, 2015 - "Clinton Cash" and Clinton fatigue; Petrobras scandal; Bruce Jenner is a woman.
May 4, 2015 - Baltimore, a tale of two cities; May's top five astro-events; Marilyn Mosby's meteoric rise.
May 11, 2015 - Scottish independence; Ceres and the food revolution; the Hanneke Wrome.
May 18, 2015 - Rand Paul steps forward; re-thinking the U.S. Moon; Ben Affleck and Jennifer Garner.
May 25, 2015 - Ireland votes in favor of same-sex marriage; June's top five; American Pharoah.
June 1, 2015 - The FIFA scandal; Bernie Sanders, the authentic politician; Emma Stone's rising star.
June 8, 2015 - China hacking into American data; Martin O'Malley, the Dark Horse; MVP Stephan Curry.
June 15, 2015 - the Trans-Pacific partnership; Venus and Jupiter; Secretariat, the racing machine.
June 22, 2015 - Lilith and Pope Francis's historic encyclical; July's top five; Eris, the spiritual warrior.
June 29, 2015 - Obama secures his legacy; Minnesota top biz state; New Horizons nears Pluto.
July 6, 2015 - Greece and the New Moon; Donald Trump's remarks; fighting spirit of Eva Longoria.
July 13, 2015 - Mercury-Mars-Pluto alignment; China's bubble; Serena Williams and Roger Federer.
July 20, 2015 - Loretta Young date raped by Clark Gable? Wat happened in filming Call of the Wild?
July 27, 2015 - Uber and the "sharing economy; August's top five; SETI gets a $100 million donation.
Aug. 3, 2015 - Scott Walker and the plutocracy; Donald Trump and Rand Paul; JFK and Gene Tierney.
August 17, 2015 - Will Hillary win? Will Biden? The progressed Part of Fortune . Jen and Justin marry.
Aug. 24, 2015 - Pluto opposes the U.S. Sun; Jerry Brown, dark horse. Megan Fox files for divorce.
Reader feedback
re: NBA Finals - Great article on the NBA Finals. I love that you're an astrologer AND a sports fan! Hey, maybe you can start a website with astro insights for sports bettors like me! I love sports astrology, and you could really carve out a niche for yourself. NO ONE is doing it.
re: NewsScope - How can I get your news every week? I am a new reader.
A. NewsScope is updated every Monday. Just bookmark this page in your favorite places, and come back early in the week to get in depth astrology perspectives about current events.
re: O'Malley - Being a resident of NH, I've met Martin OMalley several times. I think of him as running for Vice President. Seems to have a good technical grasp of how to govern, setting goals, measuring outcomes, analyzing results. Might be a good Al Gore to Hillary's Clinton.... Loyal reader
re: NBA finals - I have a sports related question for you because I know you're a big basketball fan/former player. Who do you think is going to win the NBA Championship? Cleveland or Golden State? Thanks so much. LOVE your column, keep up the great work.
re: Putin - For all the Western nations suspicions about FIFA and Its awarding Russia the World Cup competition, Putin seems more popular than ever at home. It seems every attack by the media only strengthens his standing. Maybe the media should back off their scandal search and move on! What astrological factors explain his longevity?
re: Bernie Sanders - It is obvious, as you point out, that all the Republicans are concerned with serving the plutocrats, and not the people. It seems the same is true with Hillary, except she is someone more in touch with the people. The exception is Bernie Sanders. He is way more in touch with Americans. NewsScope is still interesting and insightful after all these years!
re: U.S. Moon - Just a comment on your recent article about the US moon’s irrelevance with today’s politicians, Ted Cruz has natal Jupiter in Scorpio, 25 degrees 42, and the north node at 25 degrees 19. I was under the impression that having a planet at 25 degrees, regardless of the sign, is a huge plus in the political landscape and connecting with the public at large.
A. Yes, you're correct, I forgot about his Jupiter, though I mentioned it in NewsScope March 30, 2015. By secondary progression, his Mercury will be at 26 degrees Capricorn next year, and nearly conjunct the U.S. Pluto.
re: U.S. Moon - Your comments about the relevance of connections to the U.S. Moon in Presidential Elections are interesting. I still feel they are very relevant. My system is to count up the number of conjunctions of an individual's Chart to the U.S. Chart and compare them. Whoever has the most conjunctions generally wins the Election. It clocks out. Your way works good and my way works good. People who become very popular in the United States (Hollywood Stars, writers, etc.) generally have a high number of conjunctions to the U.S. Chart.
re: Gable-Young - Your analysis of Loretta Young's and Clark Gable's charts got me thinking about birth times, trends, etc. I seem to be part of a cohort of women who had their one and only child at 40, we being some of the women who came of age in the late 60s and early seventies. Any prominent aspects affecting my group over those time eras? We definitely all came through that time when women/girls no longer had the absolute expectation (either personal or society-imposed) to marry and have kids right after college, or to "settle down" in some woman-friendly career, like teaching. We were the first wave to live feminism/women's lib. So what happened with us, astrologically speaking?
A. The Pill happened, along with the radical Uranus-Pluto conjunction in the 1960s that opposed conventional Saturn. It's noteworthy that the four main asteroids were first introduced into horoscopes, making a kind of gender balance among deployed planets.
re: Minnesota - Thanks for your thoughtful defense in the matter of the Minnesota education system and "liberalism." Your weekly newsletter is always a treat. However this comment of yours hit one of my personal issues. We are all in this together. Any person's children and grandchildren deserve a quality education. In part because they will be taking care of the previous generations as we get older. But also because it is morally correct to provide opportunities for every human to find his/her unique gifts to share with the world.
re: Trump - Do you think Donald Trump has a chance? I think he touches a nerve in people. I think the political correctness has gone a little too far, we have all become a little mealy-mouthed.
re: Clark Gable - It is surprising how many male Hollywood stars have prominent Venus aspects. I wonder if the old label of "feminine planet" pertaining to Venus really has meaning. Now that male good looks, indeed beauty,
A. Actually, celebrities are said to be ruled by Venus. They attract attention, like Venus. We can see how well this works in Clark Gable's and Loretta Young's charts.
re: Loretta Young - Very good delineation..but one question remains for me unless I missed something. Who was in the role of Judy's father? Was Loretta married to someone else? Is there a physical resemblance to Clark? Is Judy still alive? By the way, I continue to be soooooo impressed by and with your skill at and capacity for, delineation!
A. Yes, the child is Clark Gable's. At one point, Loretta had her ears surgically altered because they stuck out so far, just like Clark's. Most everyone in Hollywood knew the truth. Loretta did get married to producer Tom Lewis in 1940, who took on the role of father, and they had two more sons. Loretta finally told her daughter in 1988 when Judy angrily confronted her, wanting to know the truth from her own mouth. Judy Lewis wrote a book, Uncommon Knowledge, about how it seemed she was the only one who didn't know her true parentage. She died in 2011.
re: Minnesota - In this week's NewsScope you have an article titled "Minnesota and the Jupiter-Uranus Cycle." You applaud the State's Governor for taxing the rich and raising the minimum wage, showing your liberal bias in interpreting mundane horoscopes, contrary to what you have said previously. BTW, what kind of jobs were created in Minnesota during those years? Serving patrons at McDonalds?
A. One of the reasons CNBC awarded the state the best place to do business is their excellent education system, to which an unusually large portion of the tax proceeds go to. As economists know, those with better educations get better jobs. That's why MN is at the top, not because the govt provides many low wage jobs.
As for my liberal bias, I wonder if you consider Warren Buffett to be a liberal? He has long supported tax reforms that share the burden more equitably. See his editorial on the subject here: nytimes.com/super-rich. I have also frequently written about the unfair leverage that the top 0.1% of the elite have over American politics, esp since the 2014 Supreme Court decision McCuthcheon vs the FEC allowed unlimited campaign donations. See neptunecafe.com/plutocracy
MN's plan works against this downward spiral into a Plutocracy, which is now the most unbalanced since 1929. If you consider that we are all connected psychically, socially, ecologically, and if 40 percent or more of the population is suffering financially, then that's a recipe for economic disaster. The federal government was designed to allow the states some self-determination, and if something works in one state, it can be replicated across the nation.
re: Jim Webb - I'm kind of looking for someone other than Hillary for the Democrats and have a spark of hope re Jim Webb, who's just thrown his hat into the ring. The only data I have on him is Feb. 9, 1946, St. Joseph, Missouri, no time…but that does give him some strong connections (at least so it seems to me at first glance) with reference to the Scorpio Rising USA Horoscope. Complex sort of duck, but maybe…What do you think?
re: racism - The question I want to ask is what astrological transits correlate African American. I love reading your blog -- sorry your webpage -- but I have yet to see a column on the massacre that happened in Charleston South Carolina. The question I would like to ask is can you do an astrological chart on this prevalent racism going on, can you do an analysis on why African Americans are having a hard time? Is there any coincidence to this events they may respond too it is a astrological explanation of these tragic in current events?
A. I do have a chart that describes African American relations with the rest of the country. I wrote about it last December and the chart is also there. See nsc120814
If you do the transits and progressions to that EP chart, you can see how active it is now. Mars at 22 degrees Aries is being activated very powerfully soon by transiting Uranus, and currently, transiting Pluto is conjunct the natal Mercury-Venus. Thanks for your email, and perhaps we can update this soon...
re: U.S. economy - Isn't it a little ironic that the series of Uranus/Pluto squares is now over: ending in Spring 2015. Yet now, the economy starts to look shaky again with China's slowdown. Apparently 10 years of Federal Reserve intervention has its limits. It is almost like Uranus partially offset the Pluto opposition to the USA Sun but is no longer helping.
A. Uniquely in the U.S., Uranus has been a minor player in the Uranus-Pluto square. Most likely, the reason is because in the U.S. chart, the progressed Ascendant has been aligned with natal Pluto, emphasizing this factor. You can read about this in more detail at plutocracy.
re: Pluto - You wrote: "However, the times are changing and elections may be decided by the Pluto factor." Thinking about this at a people level makes me cringe. A connection to the U.S. Moon used to be of the utmost importance. As a candidate, you have to connect with the people. You serve them. They vote for you. But now, it's all about power. The people don't matter anymore. SIGH
re: Pop Quiz - In answer to your Pop Quiz in your weekly Neptune Cafe newsletter, it looks like Donald Trump's progressed Part of Fortune is at zero degrees Scorpio. Will it be at 15 degrees Scorpio come election? Love reading your column each week!!
A. No, you're doing something wrong. His Part of Fortune (progressed) is currently at 2 degrees Virgo. Do you have astrology calculation software? It'll be at 19 degrees Virgo in Nov 2016, which squares his 10th house Uranus. This describes a disruptive force more than an election win.
NewsScope for August 31, 2015
By Michael Wolfstar
China-U.S. Trade Relations
Economists predict that over the next two years, U.S.–China trade will surpass U.S.-Canada trade as the largest in the world. The growing financial links between the world’s #1 and #2 economies represent a quantum leap toward the creation of our global community with the vast Pacific Ocean no longer operating as a formidable obstacle to cultural interactions. Astrologically, the ties are intense and strong.
Over the past few years, the transiting Uranus-Pluto square has activated both China’s and the U.S.’s natal planets in the 13º-14º range, increasing their economic interdependence. Uranus has moved on but Pluto remains in this degree area, and will turn direct in late September at 13º Capricorn. This station squares China’s Mercury-Neptune-Ceres triple conjunction in Libra, and opposes the U.S. Sun, intensifying all cultural, political and economic interactions.
Last week we saw how Pluto’s partile (exact) square to China’s Mercury led to its stock market plunging, and created a chain reaction in the U.S. since transiting Pluto also was exactly opposite the U.S. Sun. A transiting Sun-Jupiter conjunction gave a few days bounce back, but this aspect has faded and the Pluto aspect remains in effect over the next few months. Pluto in Capricorn is transiting through China’s 12th house where it suggests the secret meetings and plans that the government is forming to manipulate the economy.
Fortunately for China, transiting Pluto is also trine natal Saturn, and its progressed Sun is sextile the Mercury-Neptune-Ceres stellium. Both configurations lead to positive effects in China’s overall economic well-being, and suggest that the government’s massive intervention will succeed if panic (T PL squ ME) doesn’t sabotage their efforts. The outer planet activation of connections between China and the U.S. will increasingly determine the state of the global economy. We’re in the midst of such a dynamic phase right now.
September’s Top Five Astro-Events
1. Venus turns direct on the 6th in magnificent Leo. After spinning your wheels in the love department for the last 40 days, expect the heat to turn up, especially since the amorous duo Venus and Mars will be traveling together for the next two months. Through October 6, Venus remains in Leo, an excellent time to enjoy the arts, fine dining, and other extravagances with someone special.
2. A Solar Eclipse takes place on the 12th at 20º Virgo where it opposes Chiron and is quincunx (150º) Uranus. Watch for sudden developments in health issues, either personally, or in people close to you. The eclipse chart features Uranus at the Midheaven in Washington D.C., which suggests the need for military intervention, especially since the eclipse is very near Obama’s Mars. Look for the rapid decline of a few presidential candidates as a select few begin to rise in the polls.
3. Mercury turns retrograde on the 17th while forming an octile (45º) to Saturn. These two planets remain in this aspect from the 11th through 21st which, for many, will lead to some serious thinking, major research, and a deeply cautious –even pessimistic – outlook. This interval is not a time to take unnecessary risks. Mercury’s hard aspect to Saturn can lead to the breaking down of mechanical or electrical devices. In Libra, Mercury also leads to re-thinking many assumptions about relationship patterns.
4. The Lunar Eclipse on the 27th in the Aries-Libra polarity tends to mark a culmination in relationship dynamics. The Libra Sun conjoins Juno, the marriage asteroid, emphasizing partnership needs. On the other side, the Aries Moon conjoins independent Vesta, doubling up on the need for personal space. This eclipse spotlights self-interest versus cooperation, what “I” want versus what “We” want.
5. Mars squares Saturn on the 25th as Pluto turns direct, marking an exceptionally dangerous astro-event that can lead to all kinds of conflicts and confrontational incidents. Mars is also adversely aspecting Uranus and Pluto from the 18th through month’s end, when we may anticipate a spike in terrorism, violent accidents, rising tempers, aggressive actions, and irrational brutalities. Avoid petty disagreements, but fight where you must; choose your battles wisely. Expect a rise in self-righteous morality from many politicians.
Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg
Back in the 1960s, media guru Marshall McCluhan coined the term “the global village” and predicted an electronic worldwide web. He told us that “the medium is the message”, meaning that new communication technologies shape society more than the content that they carry. Last week, Mark Zuckerberg announced that, for the first time ever, one billion people used Facebook in a single day.
Astrologers associate the internet with the arrival of the Age of Aquarius. Individuals moving the collective away from the faith-based Age of Pisces into the networking, information-based Age of Aquarius tend to have Uranus or Aquarius prominently placed. McCluhan, for example, had his Cancer Sun exactly opposite Uranus. Zuckerberg was born with Aquarius Rising (May 14, 1984; 2:10 am*; White Plains, NY), and Uranus placed at his Midheaven.
Zuckerberg launched Facebook from his college dormitory on February 4, 2004 when transiting Uranus was near his Ascendant and forming an empowering trine to natal Pluto. Also at this time his Sun had progressed to 12º Gemini where it was perfectly aligned with Uranus at his Midheaven. In essence, his ambitious little project became the medium that shaped the global village.
Currently, Zuckerberg’s progressed Midheaven AND transiting Pluto are conjunct his Jupiter, which resides in the 11th house of friends, social networking, and the larger community. Jupiter here gives the CEO a cutting-edge philosophical approach to what Facebook is all about. The Facebook community “stands for giving every person a voice, for promoting understanding and for including everyone in the opportunities of our modern world,” he wrote.
* His birth time is unknown. The time is rectified by the author and should be considered speculative. It varies by a few minutes from the time previously given here.
