(CNN) — Officials from 14 states have gone to court to block the historic overhaul of the U.S. health care system that President Obama signed into law Tuesday, arguing the law’s requirement that individuals buy health insurance violates the Constitution.

Thirteen of those officials filed suit in a federal court in Pensacola, Florida, minutes after Obama signed the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act. The complaint calls the act an “unprecedented encroachment on the sovereignty of the states” and asks a judge to block its enforcement.

“The Constitution nowhere authorizes the United States to mandate, either directly or under threat of penalty, that all citizens and legal residents have qualifying health care coverage,” the lawsuit states.

Read more.

Good morning,

We’re now sending Planet Waves Monthly Horoscope for April to subscribers to Planet Waves Astrology News and Planet Waves Light. This month the monthly horoscope has a new feature — an audio overview, which covers the many super interesting events of April — the next-to-last Saturn-Uranus opposition; Chiron entering Pisces; and Mercury retrograde in Taurus.

A Swim by Via Keller / Studio Psycherotica.

For those who are not subscribers, just the April monthly is available for single-issue sale. In other words, you can purchase just this edition. Here is the link.

And we are introducing something else new today — extended audio birthday astrology. This is a 45 minute astrology reading providing a thorough, detailed overview of Aries astrology for 2010, plus a tarot reading by Eric using the Voyager deck.

All of these products are instant access — no delay, you will be reading and listening in a moment.

Thank you for your business, and thanks for tuning into Planet Waves.

Yours & truly,

Image above by Via Keller – Studio Psycherotica

Aries Confidential

You’re getting a lot of bold messages to be yourself, but you also seem to have way too many choices for who that self is. Beyond all the seemingly tangible possibilities is a chaotic realm where you simply don’t have the answer. Every time you seem to get a clue, something changes. We’re accustomed to plastering those unknowns over with labels and other assumptions, rather than leaving the question open. While a mystery like this can be uncomfortable to live with, I suggest you stay in a state of uncertainty for as long as you possibly can. Consider it a kind of meditation. Embrace the chaos of who you are, who you are not and who you might be. This is designed to help you have greater access to your potential rather than pretending it doesn’t exist. At the moment far more is possible than you’re likely to be aware of. As the next two months progress, you’re going to get a taste of what this potential is; yet in order to have this potential be real you need to keep your mind open and make sure you’re ready to change, adapt and go on a new adventure at all times. Stay loose. Notice the game of pretend that we’re all taught to play the moment we’re confronted with an unknown. Unknowns are your best friend right now and I suggest you keep them near and dear to your heart.

Aries Birthday Audio by Eric Francis is available here. The report goes into detail on the blossoming of self-awareness that is all over the Aries charts this year, and the question of whether your current work situation and personal relationships can withstand the energy. Bringing your personal life and professional life into alignment and a space of mutual support. The audio is about 45 minutes, followed by an Aries tarot reading using the Voyager deck. Use this link to sign up.

By Len Wallick

The cardinal point action that began with the Vernal Equinox this last Saturday continues this morning when the Moon makes its way into the sign of Cancer. The sign of its rulership. From there it goes on to form a loose but functional grand cross in the cardinal signs. First opposing the Ceres (newly in Capricorn) and soon thereafter, Pluto. At very nearly the same time Luna forms a square to Saturn in Libra and the Sun in Aries. Hence the first degrees of the cardinal signs are plucked again as they have been in a steady rhythm for four days now. This serves to encourage our awareness of rapidly progressing public events that relate to our lives. There is no avoiding or denying that the political is now continuously personal, not just once and a while. A new era is taking shape day by day.

The name Ceres is the Latin root for the English word cereal. Her astrological identity is hence linked to what is commonly referred to as the “staff of life” in western civilization, grain. She was called upon at a time of need. The Romans began to worship her as a deity over 2500 years ago when a drought threatened their nascent culture. She was revered by the plebeians. The poor but free citizens of the Roman Empire who made their meager living mostly as farmers. Her priests were women. Her cultural predecessor was the Greek deity Demeter, the mother of Persephone.

The myth of Persephone is an attempt to explain the procession of the seasons, a grand cycle of light and dark, warmth and cold that all of us are subject to regardless of where we live or how far separated we are from where our food comes from. Even if we do not all experience the same weather at the same time, the cycle of the seasons is one of the major things that connects all human beings as one with each other.

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Today’s Oracle takes us back to the Libra monthly of April 1, 2004

Relationships have a beginning, middle and end, and the stages of relationship do as well. It would appear that you are shifting stages now, rather than ending a relationship. Live the changes as consciously as you can. Most people are in near-total denial of this process and strive to preserve a perpetual state of romantic passion long after its time has passed. What you’re now experiencing in a close personal affair is like a lifetime within a hidden valley. Live it for all you’ve got, and let it change when that time arrives, with all faith that something daring, beautiful or at least truly meaningful awaits you on the other side. To get there, you need to cross the distance: live, to surrender and be willing to move past your temporarily limited understanding of life.

(The Daily Oracle is a random selection from one of 10,000 Eric Francis horoscopes. New horoscopes by Eric are published weekly plus twice a month in Planet Waves Astrology News and Planet Waves Light. The Oracle itself is a divination tool available to subscribers to either of these services.)

This is a repalcement of the HR bill passing, uptimed by 10 minutes. I got it wrong the first time, but the error does not significantly change the chart.

Part Two of a Few. One reader asked about why the American public was so divided on this. Part of that involves an indoctrination process — the media has not done a good job covering the issue; it’s been a propaganda war.

The best coverage I saw was on the Daily Show. I agree that Olbermann and Maddow could have done a lot better breaking down the issue, though I saw a riveting special comment by Keith that blew the doors off of the issue. I’ll see if I can find it; I am sure it’s on his website: it was the one about visiting his father in the hospital.

Is anyone familiar with the old Bob Dylan song, “Only Pawn in their Game”? Here’s the song on Lala.com (you get one play) and here’s the page on Bob’s site (you get part of the song and the authorized lyrics). Here’s the germane part, which describes the class warfare created by conning poor white folk into thinking they have it better than poor black folk, to the detriment of both:

A South politician preaches to the poor white man,
“You got more than the blacks, don’t complain.
You’re better than them, you been born with white skin,” they explain.
And the Negro’s name
Is used it is plain
For the politician’s gain
As he rises to fame
And the poor white remains
On the caboose of the train
But it ain’t him to blame
He’s only a pawn in their game.

During the 2008 campaign the Republicans were raising hell about this idea that Obama was going to “spread the wealth around.” It really worked quite well, as far as it went: it was a fabulous fear tactic among the white poor. One day I heard my friend Dominick (of Dominick’s Cafe) talking to one of his older, conservative relatives who was upset about this. She was angry that the wealth was going to get spread around. He said to her: “Louise, you work in a hospital. You make $12 an hour. What are you worried about?” We both knew what it was.

This issue was one of Dominick’s favorite talking points during the campaign. He was astonished that anyone would fall for such bullshit.

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By Len Wallick

A girl can do what she wants to do and that’s what I’m gonna do
from “Bad Reputation” by Joan Jett and the Blackhearts

The hero’s journey of Venus in Aries continues with an applying conjunction to Eris, but first let’s review the last few days for some perspective on this aspect.

The weekend featured some prominent astrology in the cardinal signs. These four signs (Aries, Cancer, Libra and Capricorn) are defined by the fact that the season changes when the Sun moves into the first degree of any of them. There are corresponding geographical events as well. For example, when the Sun ingressed Aries on Saturday, it was stationed directly above the equator and everyone on our planet shared the personal experience of equal days and nights. This was something you could observe and feel on the physical plane. It was not an abstract intellectual metaphor. We actually lived through it; the world shared (and is still sharing) a common event.

From this sort of experience an astrological analogy is derived, the cardinal, or Aries, point phenomenon. When the personal and the common (or political) converge and become one with each other in some meaningful way. Take a look at news events of the weekend, reflect on the concurrent events in your personal life and see how that works with the idea of beginning a new season.

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This is a repalcement of the HR bill passing, uptimed by 10 minutes. I got it wrong the first time, but the error does not significantly change the chart.

Part One of a Few. I will post Len Wallick’s daily astrology piece at about noon Eastern Time. Fe Bongolan is in the kitchen cooking up a special edition of Fe-911. Stay tuned…

Good morning. Well, we finally have a chart to look at: a year of ‘debate’ (vicious infighting complete with kicking, biting and claws) is basically over, and the United States has entered a new era: one where our government does something besides take things from its people and drop bombs.

Let’s see what we can learn. As most know, the House of Representatives passed the Senate’s version of what is being called health care reform. Other coverage will get into the specifics; I will stick to the astrology for now, and cover it in a few parts today and tomorrow. Let’s get things rolling with an overview of the chart.

My first inclination was to call this the chart for the National Insurance and Gambling Exotic Instrument Reform Act of 2010. On its face, it looks like a chart about hedge funds. In truth it’s about the biggest hedge fund of them all — the health gambling racquet. One in six dollars transacted in our American economy changes hands doing something like paying for an MRI or chemotherapy or spleen removal or dialysis: what we call health care. One in six — probably more. It’s been like this for a generation; I know because I covered the medical industry (specifically, the AMA) in the late 1980s; it was an amazing fact then and it’s amazing now.

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Today’s Oracle takes us back to the Capricorn weekly of May 31, 2004

The crisis that passed recently has at least helped you sort out who is who and what is what. You may want to kick yourself for not seeing what was so obvious all along, but you can’t deny that you’ve been through a rather deep series of changes as a result of the ordeal. The best thing you can do for yourself is to figure out how not to go through it all over again, which is unlikely to happen any time soon, but this would be more than an academic exercise. The events of the recent past may have seemed predestined but they were not the product of fate. They were the product of choices, and those you make every day.

(The Daily Oracle is a random selection from one of 10,000 Eric Francis horoscopes. New horoscopes by Eric are published weekly plus twice a month in Planet Waves Astrology News and Planet Waves Light. The Oracle itself is a divination tool available to subscribers to either of these services.)

(CNN) National Organization for Women President Terry O’Neill issued a statement Sunday afternoon slamming President Obama, saying that he had broken his faith with women by agreeing to issue an executive order that prohibits federal funding for abortions.

“The National Organization for Women is incensed that President Barack Obama agreed today to issue an executive order designed to appease a handful of anti-choice Democrats who have held up health care reform in an effort to restrict women’s access to abortion. Through this order, the president has announced he will lend the weight of his office and the entire executive branch to the anti-abortion measures included in the Senate bill, which the House is now prepared to pass.

“President Obama campaigned as a pro-choice president, but his actions today suggest that his commitment to reproductive health care is shaky at best. Contrary to language in the draft of the executive order and repeated assertions in the news, the Hyde Amendment is not settled law – it is an illegitimate tack-on to an annual must-pass appropriations bill. NOW has a longstanding objection to Hyde and, in fact, was looking forward to working with this president and Congress to bring an end to these restrictions. We see now that we have our work cut out for us far beyond what we ever anticipated. The message we have received today is that it is acceptable to negotiate health care on the backs of women, and we couldn’t disagree more.”