At 12:48 today by a 52-48 vote, the Senate changed filibuster rules, now requiring only a simple majority vote to end filibuster of certain executive and judicial nominees. This change ended the requirement for 60 votes — 3/5 of the Senate — to end a filibuster on administration executive and judicial appointees, but will not affect any Supreme Court nominations, where 60 votes will still be needed to approve Supreme Court justice nominees.
As pedestrian and simple a news story as a person jumping over a low bar, today’s small procedural change in the way the Senate does business is a momentous change in how our republic operates. Since 2009 when Barack Obama became President, the obstruction of executive branch nominees to fill positions in key federal agencies has been unprecedented, as evidenced in the chart shown.
You might say what happened today has a Pholus-like feel: small event, big repercussions, like the push on the button that detonates a bomb. No wonder the filibuster rule change when first introduced in the earlier part of the last decade was nicknamed the “nuclear option.”
George W. Bush certainly did not worry about having his judicial appointees blocked. Even then the Republican Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist threatened a nuclear option when the then-minority Democrats were objecting to some of Bush’s appointees. But today we are in the era where the very structure of government is being challenged to the death. Daily.
We’ve seen this already, time and again, most recently with the House Republicans instigating the shutdown that closed down the government in October. Today, it’s exemplified by Harry Reid’s Democrats taking the nuclear option to the Senate’s time honored filibuster.
The filibuster was once a means to give the minority party a voice in decision-making, particularly the Senate’s advise and consent role in approving Presidential nominees for cabinet and judicial positions. However, consent has rarely been given for the Obama Administration, particularly judicial nominees, and the ongoing obstruction by minority party is severe enough to make you think there was no re-election of the President in 2012.
Add to that the opposition party is completely invested in making sure government does NOT work. And the racist undertones of the House of Representatives’ opposition to the Obama administration has furthered the rise in the spike of ignorance, racism and sexism in political dialogue since the 2010 midterms and the dawn of the Tea Party.
Because of this rule change, the Senate’s Democratic majority can proceed with approval of President Obama’s three judicial nominees to the DC Circuit Court: Patricia Millett, Nina Pillard and Robert Wilkins.
A friend of mine on Facebook said “I feel as though we are stuck in the middle of an hourglass — caught between the past and the future.” That rings so true, especially today, because we are caught dead center in the present with so much more to do.
It feels like the time has come to move, grain by grain, name by name, to pass through that tiny needle in the Senate towards the future. Gravity is leading us to trudge heavily onward, but trudge we must, even if it means it hurts having to lift our feet up, one at a time, to go over that low bar.
Thanks for your additional astrology astrodem. I’m intrigued by the Ceres/Pallas-Athene conjunction in Sagittarius in the Senate natal chart’s 6th house. It does imply the Senate’s “service to others” and “health of the body” functions include a combination of a nurturing (supportive) element as well as a strategizing (protective) element in a “new” (conjunction) and “broader” (Sagittarius) way. Their square from the Senate chart Mercury in Pisces inhibits this service. I’m assuming this is a chart for the present Senate body. Will transiting Pholus reach this natal conjunction before the 2014 election?
Something else about this New Rule’s effect might be attributed to the transit of Jupiter in the 20+ degree of Cancer. Due to his recent station retrograde he will be in this degree for a total of 35 days, which is pretty intense. This is the degree symbolized by a famous singer proving “her” virtuosity during an operatic performance. This degree adds a very subtle leaning toward the Yin factor that the two goddesses in the Senate natal chart’s 6th house also highlight. The whole reason for the change in the rules was to allow for “action” (yang) in the “service” of the Senate. Water (Cancer) needs to flow in order to not stagnate and transiting Jupiter in the U.S. Sibly chart’s 8th house of shared resources does a couple of things by parking in one degree for long period. First he has to break down the dam or restriction of flow.
Trans. Jupiter now squares both natal Juno in Libra and natal Chiron in Aries. At her worst, Juno manifests as jealousy and revenge (Pubs?) and she opposes Chiron whose method of getting attention usually includes pain (Dems?). By stepping between them, long transiting (and now retro) Jupiter in Cancer (and in the natal 8th house) is a powerful and emotional triggering device.
Jupiter’s transit also comes between the U.S. Sibly trine between Neptune and Vesta to form a sextile to both who are both in earth signs. Water (Jupiter in Cancer in 8th house) makes earth (Neptune in Virgo, Vesta in Taurus) more pliable, as does the New Rule for the Senate. Transiting Mars was trine the U.S. Sibly Vesta last Monday, sextiled trans. Jupiter on Tuesday and will conjunct the U.S. Neptune tomorrow. Trans. Mars also was quincunx (adjust or suffer) U.S. natal Chiron and semi-sextile (steady growth) natal Juno on Tuesday, the same day he sextiled trans. Jupiter. I’m thinking that’s the day when Reid was assured that the New Rule would pass.
This transiting pattern should allow the Senate chart’s Ceres/Pallas conjunction in the 6th house some breathing room until the transiting Sun conjuncts them next month.
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Astrodem, be and Len:
Amazing times we live in, aren’t they? The tragedy is that these rules weren’t changed in advance of the murderous hardball politics we’ve been up against these last ten years, I think since Iraq War 2. The gloves were taken off the “gentleman’s club” that was the Senate, and Congress itself.
The loss of thinking leadership and decline in political discourse has coarsened this republic. This is not helped by the fact that the Democrats have been playing badminton while the TP Republicans came to play rugby.
Thanks for covering this Fe! I said the same thing to Eric last night about how this feels like a Pholus event.
In the 12:10pm chart for the filibuster repeal vote, Pholus is at 21 Sag on the 11th House cusp making a square to Mars in Virgo.
In terms of transits to the Senate’s natal chart, transiting Pholus is approaching a conjunction to the Senate’s 6th House Ceres/Pallas conjunction, and squaring its 10th House Mercury in Pisces.
Bravo Fe, it really IS a Pholus moment, and true to myth, the wild and crazy centaur-like Pubs are shrieking their anger all across the airwaves because the Dems dared to pull the cork. It’s small things like this that have changed the course of the U.S. when nothing was working as it should.
Not surprisingly, the U.S. natal (Sibly) Pholus is conjunct the natal South Node, both at 6+ Aquarius. The South Node indicates what needs to be released in order to progress (to the North Node path) and one small step in that direction was taken today.
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Thank you, Fe. Excellent piece. Convincing, incisive, and out in front of nearly all the news media. My wish is that this piece (and you) will be recognized for being just as historical as the event itself. Still backing your presidential run, by the way.