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Friday, Oct. 28, 2005, revised Saturday morning.

Note to subscribers -- a link to the Friday horoscope is on the subscriber homepage at the blog on that page. We have also emailed the link directly to all subscribers. The full newsletter has gone out by email but due to an Internet problem on our end, some people may not receive it until I resend it Sunday.

AS OF 12:30 pm Eastern Time, the world -- those who know, those who care, and those who happened to be watching television -- were on edge, waiting for the release of documents charging one or more members of the Bush administration with crimes relating to the buildup to the Iraq war, and the revenge against the wife of someone who dared to speak the truth.

It was an extremely tense week for those who have been following the Valerie Plame issue, its connection to the lies leading to the Iraq war, and the sordid history of the Bush administration.

The news is now in. And from the look of things, CNN and I am sure other networks are in furious backspin node, attempting to keep control of a story they really lost control of in 2003. CNN is telling us over and over again that Libby is innocent until proven guilty, and Bush himself repeated this line -- yet this is not a standard they, not the government and not particularly the media -- have held for the sake of others. The policy under the Cheney-Bush administration, in the US prison at Guantanamo Bay and elsewhere, has always been guilty even if nothing is accused. Nobody is making this connection.

Perhaps Libby should be sent to Guantanamo Bay or Abu Gharib to await his trial.

We need to remember that the real crimes of Bush administration conspirators would properly be tried at the International Criminal Court (ICC) in The Hague, because they are crimes of torture of prisoners, murdering civilians, genocide, and an illegal war against a sovereign leader. It does not matter who or what Saddam Hussein was; the answer is not to bomb his people in retaliation for him harming them. And it is painful to think that anyone believes that.

But it's not possible to have a war crimes trial over Iraq in The Hague because upon George W. Bush taking office, the United States removed its name from the Rome Treaty, which grants the ICC jurisdiction over member nations, their soldiers and their leaders.

It is worth mentioning that from the standpoint of political chess, it's highly advantageous to We, the People that the damage is being centered on Cheney's office. It is simply not safe to remove Bush from office if Cheney is still vice president. The prospect of having Dick Cheney be president makes George W. Bush look like a picnic without ants.

Even if Cheney has not personally been accused of committing a crime, this is an extremely severe blow to his credibility (assuming he had any to begin with), and we may see see him resign from office on some excuse like "health reasons" -- as is suggested by the upcoming conjunction of his progressed Moon to progressed Chiron.

His transits also suggest that with Pluto squaring his Pisces Moon, he is now at one of the biggest turning points of his life. His absence from Washington was notable yesterday. He spent the day doing political fundraising in Georgia even as his very chief of staff faced criminal indictment.

And we need to consider this little notion that ought to be hanging over the head of the remaining members of the Neocon cabal. Scooter Libby is now a White House outsider, whose main job in life is to save his own skin. The White House and the Neocon movement that occupies it needs to consider the possibility that he could turn "state's evidence," reveal what really happened, and take a plea bargain, saving himself spending the rest of his life in federal prison. We can only hope.

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INDICTMENTS WERE HANDED UP to the judge by the Grand Jury at 12:37 pm in Washington DC, and their contents were announced at 12:44 pm. Capricorn was in the ascendant. The Moon's next aspect was a sextile to Pallas Athene in Scorpio, and then a trine to retrograde Mars in Taurus.

There was an extremely close conjunction of Venus and Pluto, to which the Virgo Moon was applying. This aspect was lingering in the 12th house, one placement signaling that there is a great deal yet to come out.

The Sun and Jupiter were close to the MC. Leo is the ruler of the 8th house of secrets, and the Sun, its ruler, and the universal significator for the king or the president, was highly visible on the MC -- meaning that we will really see an airing out of state secrets as part of this process. Jupiter, interestingly, appeared as ruler of the 12th house -- a secret player in this situation, perhaps the "flipper" referred to the past week or so. It it appears to be someone quite close to Bush himself. As Jupiter in Scorpio, we have the image of a corpulent, uncle-like figure who is shrewd and in possession of many secrets. As someone who appears behind the scenes in the 9th house, we are dealing with a high ranking key player but one who is not usually seen on the front lines of politics.

All of the crimes Libby has been charged with are associated with his conduct within the Valerie Plame spy leak investigation itself. He was not charged with leaking classified information to the press. Apparently the 1982 law which forbids intentionally leaking the name of a covert agent is very difficult to prove a violation of, and from what I am hearing passing classified information itself may not be a crime.

When questioned about his conduct in the Plame affair, Special Prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald said that Libby lied to federal investigators and the Grand Jury repeatedly. Indeed, in his testimony, he allegedly fabricated an entirely false version of how he initially heard about Plame -- claiming to have heard it from a journalist when he had seven prior discussions about Plame with White House staff and other high-ranking government officials prior to that phone call with the journalist -- a call in which Plame was not even discussed.

Why did he lie? When fraud of any kind is committed, this is always the operative question. The facts beneath the lie are usually the real issue. And from the look of things, we will be learning quite a bit as this develops in the remaining three years of the Bush administration. Let's hope people care, because this is so painful that the instinct not to care is understandable enough.

The charges are:

    1 obstruction of justice count
    2 perjury counts
    2 making false statement counts

All are felonies...the investigation continues...the wording of the indictment is damning. Libby faces 30 years in jail and rather large fines if convicted.

This development has been in the stars for a long time. There are other more serious ones brewing, with a particularly deep moment coming in late March 2006. Here is how I reported it in August 2004, in Chronogram magazine. The reference to "nine months" from the Inauguration takes us to late October 2005 when the media start to get a clue. This segment refers to the chart of the Inauguration of Bush and Cheney earlier this year.

The [Chiron in] Capricorn era, which so far spans the Bush presidency (post 9/11), has brought an astonishing diversity of scandals that have forced many millions of people to pay attention to boring politics, to see what a "corporation" is, and to have their illusions about politics destroyed.  This is Chiron the iconoclast, shattering the idol of denial.

Taurus is rising.  That makes Venus the second planet to symbolize the new president.  We find Venus in the 9th house (spirituality, international affairs) conjunct Mercury.  Given that this is conjunction in Capricorn in the 9th, we have an image of religiosity and piety.  Venus, however, is opposed by Varuna, a planet beyond Pluto (discovered in 2000), in Cancer. Varuna is the equalizer.  Mythically, this is a deity who was deeply concerned with the punishment of liars, and also one designated with the protection of water.  He is often depicted carrying a noose.  In eras past, Varuna was the supreme creation deity, whose name still evokes reverence in Vedic cultures.  Somebody who often talks about God (Venus in Cap) has an actual meeting with the guy (Varuna in Cancer). And Varuna is not laughing.

One last note.  The 8th house of this chart has a conjunction of Mars and Pluto in Sagittarius.  Given that the 8th, Mars, and Pluto are all images of passion, power, and power struggles, that the 8th is about money and death, and that Sagittarius is the sign of religious ideals, there is more than a whiff of jihad to this chart-though it doesn't manifest right away.  But the values are all in place, and the game is set.  The early Gemini Moon will slide along for about nine months before the media really figure out what is going on.  But they will get it, guaranteed.