November 22—Pursuant to a provison of a signature Biden accomplishment, the Inflation Reduction Act of 2022, the Environmental Protection Agency has announced that it will award $2 billion in grants to help low-income communities mitigate the effects of disproportionate exposure to harmful pollutants, to establish clean energy infrastructures, and to cope with climate change.

November 21—A three-person panel of the United States 4th Circuit Court of Appeals, in a decision penned by Trump appointee Julius Richardson, has declared a Maryland law requiring firearm training and background checks to be in violation of the U.S. Constitution's 2nd Amendment right to bear firearms. Much social progress in the United States will be impossible until Democrats can forge majorities large enough to enable reconstituting the federal court system.

November 20—Three years ago this month Oregon took a large step toward decriminalizing pyschoactive substances, making possession of "personal use" amounts of all drugs, including opiods, a civil offense with penalties in the range of $100 per offense. The new measure, which was enacted after 58 percent of Oregon voters approved a referendum, takes a health approach to drug use and addiction, with new resources directed toward treatment. The state, now grappling with a burgeoning open-air drug use problem and surging opioid deaths, will be considering new legislation to address these issues. The Social Democrat considers it absurd to imprison people for being drug addicts and hopes Oregon can find a path toward providing substance addicts the help they need outside the prison system.

November 16—The Social Democrat considers solar power to be a no-brainer: energy from the sun is non-polluting, free, and for all practical purposes, limitless; and it is TSD's position that the roofs of all large buildings (and many small ones as well), especially in sun-intensive areas, should be covered with solar panels. The City of San Antonio will be taking a step in that direction this coming spring, when they will install solar arrays at 42 city-owned sites, on rooftops or as parking canopies or shade structures.

November 12—A federal appeals court has ruled that only the attorney general of the United States, not private citizens, can challenge gerrymandered voting districts under the Voting Rights Act of 1965.

November 12—Argentinian voters have elected right-wing populist and Trump admirer Javier Milei as the country's next president by a margin of 56 to 44 percent over traditional Peronist and current economy minister Sergio Massa. The nation of 46 million people has been beset in recent years by economic stagnation and roaring inflation.

November 20—3,900 UAW assembly line workers have reached an agreement with Mack Truck to include 36 percent in wage hikes over the next five years, adding to a string of union successes this fall. Meanwhile, white collar workers at two Wells Fargo branches (Albuquerque, Bethel, Alaska) have petitioned the National Labor Relations Board to hold an election to join the Communication Workers of America: more Wells Fargo branches are expected to follow.

November 20—The United States special envoy on climate change, former senator and secretary of state John Kerry, will be presenting, at the upcoming COP28 international climate conference in Dubai, a strategy to ramp up nuclear fusion energy to commercial viablity in the near future. Fusion nuclear energy, which does not result in radioactive waste, could become a virtually endless source of sustainable and non-polluting energy if it can be brought from the experimental stage to practical application.

November 17—In the first lawsuit of its kind, the State of New York has sued Pepsi Co, accusing the softdrink company of "contributing to a public nuisance" by generating plastic waste with its single-use plastic bottles. The suit, which also cites public health concerns, seeks to stop Pepsi Co from selling beverages in singe-use plastic bottles as well as damages for environmental cleanup.

November 16—The great ideological feud between House Republicans and a Democrat-controlled Senate over the size and reach of the federal government—and how to fund it—was kicked down the road as Congress approves, and President Biden signs, a temporary spending measure until the new year.

November 17—Speaking at a rally in New Hampshire on Saturday Donald Trump referred to his perceived ideological enemies with words—"communists, Marxists, fascists and the radical left thugs that live like vermin within the confimes of our country that lie and steal and cheat on elections"—that the Biden campaign has rightly called out for echoing the language of another accomplished hate-monger, Adolf Hitler. Most recent polls show Donald Trump leading Biden in a two-way match-up for the presidency next autumn.

November 15—A new poll from the Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research finds one-third of Americans racialized as "Asian" reporting experiences of verbal harrassment, racial slurs, physical threats or cyberbulling based on their perceived racialized category. The Social Democrat asks: "What's wrong with people?"

November 15—The U.S. government issued its multi-year National Climate Assessment on Tuesday, and it paints a sobering picture of a United States warming faster than the rest of the world, with warming-related difficulties affecting every part of the nation.

November 13—The U.S. Court of Appeals for the 4th District has givien the Louisiana legislature until January 15 to redraw the state's voting map, which a state court has determined unconstitutionally dilutes the influence of voters racialized as "black." The current map, drawn by a Republican legislature, results in five of six districts with majorities of voters racialized as "white," though voters racialized as "black" make up one third of the state's population. 

November 13—AP News offers a sobering assessment of some of Donald Trump's plans should he oust Joe Biden from the White House next fall. Most polls are currently showing Trump beating Biden in a head-to-head match-up, with the additional wildcard of potential third-party runs from the No Labels party, Joe Manchin, Robert Kennedy, Jr. and Jill Green.