U.S. Fate 2016
Vincent Fort flips from Hillary Clinton to Bernie Sanders [Atlanta Journal-Constitution]
State Sen. Vincent Fort, the No. 2 Democrat in the Georgia Senate, flipped his endorsement on Tuesday from Hillary Clinton to Bernie Sanders. He instantly becomes one of the Vermont senator’s top surrogates in the South, where his campaign has picked up support from only a handful of black elected officials. (Another state legislator, Justin Bamberg of South Carolina, jumped the Clinton ship and endorsed Sanders in late January. Bamberg is the family lawyer for Walter Scott, who was killed by a police officer last April.)

Searching for New Politics [Jacobin]
The Democratic Party has a history of throwing up barriers to working-class organization that Bernie Sanders will find hard to overcome. I’m working on an article about the planetary cycle that began in the mid-sixties that reached a critical phase over the past three years. If the pattern of the sixties is any indication, the earth has stopped shaking, and next comes the tsunami.

The Sanders campaign is flirting with danger: The two big warning signs coming out of last week’s debate [Salon]
His long-shot bid is still cruising. But two recent errors, one stylistic, the other substantive, recommend caution

The Clintons really don’t get it: False attacks and failed strategies as Hillary repeats 2008 [Salon]
They’re distorting Sanders’ plans and ham-handedly using Obama and race. It’s a dangerous game and a losing plan. Hmmm … Clinton is playing a “dangerous game,” while Sanders is “flirting with danger.” Is this Salon’s idea of balanced coverage?

Back in April, when Hillary Clinton first launched her presidential campaign, New York magazine ran a story with all the comments on Twitter about her strange choice of a logo. But no one mentioned the strange resemblance to a button for Barry Goldwater in 1964. I don’t think it’s a big deal that she was a Goldwater Girl in her teens. But this is just too weird.

Speaking of logos, what was Ted Cruz thinking? Was this conceived by the same folks who hired the porn star for one of his ads?

The Death of the Republican Party, by Robert Reich
I’m writing to you today to announce the death of the Republican Party. It is no longer a living, vital, animate organization. It died in 2016. RIP. It has been replaced by warring tribes.

Pleasure Planet
Taylor Swift is everything that’s wrong with the Grammys and the music industry: Sanitized, self-congratulatory and safe [Salon]
Swift beat out Kendrick Lamar for Album of the Year—and his performance reminded everyone why he deserved to win

Phobos & Deimos
Netanyahu slams France’s ‘strange’ peace proposal [Middle East Monitor]
France has been preparing to hold a conference that would bring together Israelis and Palestinians as well as their American, European and Arab partners in order to revive the peace process. So is Bibi going to boycott the peace talks?

Ceres
Why We Need to Keep 80 Percent of Fossil Fuels in the Ground, by Bill McKibben [Nation of Change]
Physics can impose a bracing clarity on the normally murky world of politics. It can make things simple. Not easy, but simple.
“Bracing clarity” would be Saturn. “Murky” would be Neptune. In mundane astrology, Neptune rules oil, so there’s double symbolism here in not dealing with the reality that continued reliance on fossil fuels is like an alcoholic saying he’ll quit as soon as he finishes the last six-pack. The one he just bought on his way home from the racetrack.

Why Zika is ‘much more insidious, cunning and evil’ than Ebola [WaPo]

Red Pill

‘My demons won today’: Ohio activist’s suicide spotlights depression among Black Lives Matter leaders [WaPo]
This story articulates the dilemma of the Saturn-Neptune square, Saturn being the reality and Neptune being the delusion. How does one stay in reality without getting depressed to the point of self-destruction? Opting for the blue pill can be an act of self-preservation.

Blue Pill
The Kanye West Self-Confidence Generator [USA Today]
No one loves Kanye more than Kanye. Channel your inner Yeezus and become your own biggest fan with these self-loving quotes.