Dear Friend and Reader:
The Pluto return of the United States was big news four years ago, then it seems everyone forgot about it. A ‘return’ is when a planet comes back to its natal position. It’s often used for the Sun (solar return) or the Moon (lunar return), neither of which I’ve found to be impressive.
Most people reading have experienced their Saturn return at age 29 or so, and that one almost always gets a result. The Chiron return happens at age 50 to 51 and that is difficult to miss. At both the Saturn and Chiron returns, there can be various shades of reset, upheaval, transition and transformation. These will all differ from person to person, though there are some common themes.
The return of a slow-moving planet is about starting a whole new phase of life. We’ve all experienced this, for better or worse.
Very few people or things live to 248 years old, the time that it takes Pluto (really, the marvelous six-planet cluster we call Pluto) to go around the Sun once. The United States is about to have that distinction, being at its Pluto return. But 248 years is quite a while, and for a diversity of reasons, a return of this magnitude can stretch out over many years.
However, Thursday, July 4, 2024 is the official 248th anniversary of the colonies declaring themselves states independent of the British monarchy: Independence Day. So we’ve finally arrived. The U.S. Pluto return is upon us.
A Small Technical Matter: Precession
Let’s get a bit of stellar technical stuff out of the way. The U.S natal Pluto is located at 27 degrees of Capricorn and 33 minutes, its tropical position on July 4, 1776 when the Declaration of Independence was allegedly signed. Tropical means the usual Western zodiac.
Pluto first returned to that position on Feb. 20, 2022, short of the 246th anniversary of the Declaration. How is that possible, if Pluto’s orbit is 248 years? The answer is that the tropical zodiac is gradually moving against the backdrop of the stars (called the sidereal zodiac). You are familiar with this bit from the ‘your zodiac sign has changed’ hoax.
Such movement is called precession. At the rate of about one degree every 70 years, in 248 years you get a bit over three degrees to adjust for. Hence Pluto’s position in the 248th solar return of the United States is one degree and change Aquarius — if you factor for precession.
The Wobble, The Wobble
Precessional movement is based on the Earth’s ever-so-slight wobble as it spins on its axis. For there to be a wobble, the Earth must be a rotating sphere. Please be assured that contrary to claims on the internet, I am not a shill for the Freemasons, the Illuminati, the Greys, the Federal Reserve, the United States Postal Service, the New York Mets or any other part of the New World Order.
I’m just your friendly neighborhood astrologer, and I do the whole rotating sphere thing.
Anyway, the wobble accounts for the difference in degrees, and tells a story of a rather stretched-out Pluto return. Of course, any event that happens based on a multi-century cycle is going to be protracted — not only with a time orb of more than 10 years, but also representing a significant before-and-after moment.
However, transits can act with extreme precision, and we might consider what happened just exactly as the United States turned 248, as we wobble our way into the future.
Before We Get to Trump v. United States
Even without the thing I’m about to explain, the State of the Union at 248 is a flying shit show. The country has so many simultaneous crises brewing that it’s difficult to pay attention to any of them. The rest of the world shares in many of these problems, but let’s talk about the United States, allegedly the richest and most powerful nation ever.
And this nation currently has as its chief executive someone who cannot finish a sentence, or walk off the stage without assistance. But that seems to be the least of our worries, if you don’t care about who is really running the executive branch.
Which brings me to the billionaire problem. There are currently about 2,782 billionaires in a game of musical chairs with about 100 seats. They seem to run everything and make all the important decisions (such as whether Biden should run for a second term). You do not really matter to any of them.
While this is happening, many among us are wobbling at the edge of their sanity, so tremendous is the pressure of just getting by. If you can get through the day in pretty good shape, you’re doing fantastic. Many, many people struggle immensely just to get through the day.
Meanwhile, money is losing its value rapidly due to the hidden tax known as inflation. What your money loses in worth the government gains by printing more of the stuff and buying more things (by which I largely mean wars, which means money for billionaires), which causes more inflation. People must increasingly choose between food and electricity.
Essentially, inflation is the government stealing from the people and converting the profits into warplanes and missiles and cargo ships full of ‘vaccines’ — that’s where those billionaires came from.
And the Rest of It
There’s the Fentanyl situation, homelessness, poverty and starvation — often set amidst opulence. There is the gang problem and the border crisis and the fact that if you want to hire someone who will come to work and do their job, speaking Spanish is an excellent reference (but still, hating such individuals is promoted).
Affecting many more people than financial poverty is the spiritual and social paucity that has many wondering what the heck they’re doing on the planet and why they have no friends — if they even know to wonder. Many people in our society are living as if ‘left behind’.
There are the families ripped apart and the swelling population of prisons with the wrong people incarcerated. There are the relationships strained under the pressures of unhappiness and the mendacity necessary to maintain the pretext of most marriages.
There are the kids on a wide diversity of psych meds and getting shot full of Gardasil even as Merck faces a massive federal trial for turning so many of them into zombies. The most dangerous aspect of the environmental crisis is not heat but the flooding of the human biome with artificial hormones from plastic, pesticides and EMFs.
But we’re all supposed to be optimistic about the future. Hey, cannabis is now legal — let’s get really, really high and imagine a better world.
Now Let’s Talk About Trump v. United States
The Supreme Court ruled Monday on a case called Trump v. United States. As I understand it, this decision places any president even further above the law than he or she was in the past. The (former) president who brought the case has been through two impeachments, was convicted of 34 (bullshit) felonies in New York and is facing many more criminal charges.
In Trump v. United States, the former president (meaning his lawyers) argued that telling people (including public officials) to interfere with certification of the election he lost is an official act. He was indicted for felonies by a grand jury, but asserted presidential immunity as his defense.
The DC-circuit appellate panel (the judicial level right below the Supreme Court) in December 2023 held unanimously that there is no presidential immunity for crimes.
That went to the Supreme Court, which this week held in a 6-3 partisan decision that the president is indeed immune from criminal prosecution for anything he does related to the duties of office — that is, official acts.
“A great deal of what the president does is untouchable. What does the president do that’s not an official act?” asked Steve Bergstein, a constitutional lawyer in New York.
The case has now been sent back to the federal trial court with these scant guidelines. There is no factual record since there was never a trial. The Supreme Court was ruling in theory only. But it would seem that the trial court is being told they must dismiss the case.
What the Justices Wrote — Majority Opinion
Chief Justice Roberts, writing for the majority, held: “Under our constitutional structure of separated powers, the nature of Presidential power entitles a former President to absolute immunity from criminal prosecution for actions within his conclusive and preclusive constitutional authority. And he is entitled to at least presumptive immunity from prosecution for all his official acts. There is no immunity for unofficial acts.”
Any airplane the president is aboard is designated Air Force One, even if it’s your uncle’s single-engine Cessna. So by that measure, anything the president does is presidential.
Trump is the one who said he could shoot someone on 5th Ave. and people would still vote for him. As one familiar with the principles of Gestalt Therapy, I take that statement as a threat.
So, what if he shoots someone on 5th Ave.? I would not be asking this if he had not said it. What would happen then? Is that an official act, for which he is immune from prosecution? Must he say, “As president, I officially shoot you”? Or is that presumed?
Sotomayor Dissents, Joined by Kagan and Brown
The vote went along party lines. Associate Justice Sonia Sotomayor wrote a blistering dissent, joined by Elena Kagan and Kentanji Brown Jackson. With two additional judges on her side, her dissent would have been the decision. Three of the judges who voted for Trump’s immunity were appointed by Trump.
“Setting aside this evidence, the majority announces that former Presidents are ‘absolute[ly]’, or ‘at least . . . presumptive[ly]’, immune from criminal prosecution for all of their official acts,” Sotomayor wrote in her dissent.
“The majority purports to keep us in suspense as to whether this immunity is absolute or presumptive, but it quickly gives up the game. It explains that, ‘[a]t a minimum, the President must . . . be immune from prosecution for an official act unless the Government can show that applying a criminal prohibition to that act would pose no ‘dangers of intrusion on the authority and functions of the Executive Branch’.
“No dangers, none at all. It is hard to imagine a criminal prosecution for a President’s official acts that would pose no dangers of intrusion on Presidential authority in the majority’s eyes.”
The President’s Safe Space
For the United States’ 248th birthday — and its official Pluto Return — the president gets a space safe from prosecution for crimes committed in office. This ruling is saying there is no such thing. If the president does it, then it’s legal. Anything that interferes with his official powers, even a little, is verboten.
Yes, this is the gift we are all getting for America’s birthday. For this momentous anniversary declaring our independence from a king, we get a king.
I will leave you with one quote from the Declaration:
Oh god, what a pain in the ass. Throwing off utter despotism? It’s easier to keep hitting your vape. And none of this matters anyway, right?
PS — I have a question. Does this ruling apply to every “chief executive” everywhere in the United States?
With love,
