January 3—A record 520,000 aspiring immigrants to the United States, mainly from Venezuela, Ecuador, Haiti and China, made the perilous jungle journey between Panama and Columbia in 2023, fueling a humanitarian crisis in Panama and promising further chaos at the U.S. – Mexico border. Migration from the poorer coutries of the so-called global south to the wealthier nations of the temperate zones has become one of the defining phenomena of our times and will likely present further—and graver challenges—in the future.

January 3—The 9th Circuit Court of Appeals has overturned a ruling by District Court judge Cormac Carney, thereby allowing California's recently passed Senate Bill 2, which bans the possession of firearms in most public places, to take effect while an appeal is adjudicated.

January 3—The United States' debt obligations breached the $34 trillion mark for the first time on Tuesday. Amid a general consensus that the national debt—which equates to roughly the entire gross domestic product for one year, or $100,000 per each U.S. citizen—cannot safely continue on its present trajectory, Democrats and Republicans offer starkly divergent solutions.

December 24—Congress leaves DC for a holiday break with the tangled matters of immigration policy and aid for Ukraine which, along with standard budget fights, have occupied the bodies' energies, unresolved. President Biden wants more funds to help Ukraine ward off Russian aggression, with Republicans demanding tighter border controls as a necessary condition (Reuters article). With the "center of gravity" shifting on immigration (second AP News article) Biden looks willing to make a deal, but Democratic members of the Congressional Hispanic Caucus are voicing their displeasure (first AP News article): illustrating the hazards of negotiating a polity increasingly based upon ethno-racial identities rather than common political visions.

December 23—The Federal Reserve's skillful maneuvering has brought pandemic-spawned inflation down to 3 percent, with November being the first time in three years that prices have actually declined. The Central Bank has signalled that it will continue to keep interest rates high for now, but that 2024 will likely see a return to looser money.

December 23—A Biden administration initiative uses tax credits to incentivize the production of hydrogen with clearn energy sources

December 23—In a victory for democracy, the Wisconsin Supreme Court has ordered the State's Republican-majority legislature to try again at drawing Wisconsin voting districts, finding that the current maps, explicitly designed to increase Republican seats, are unconstitutional.

December 21—With three weeks to go in the open enrollment period, over 19 million Americans have signed up for affordable health insurance unrestricted by pre-existing conditions. This will be the third straight year that enrollments in the program, the key legislative victory of the Obama administration and the most significant advance of social democracy in America in decades, have broken previous records. The success of the program, providing healthcare for millions who otherwise might find the cost prohibitive, shows that social democracy can work for Americans when it is given a chance.

December 28—A U.S. District Court judge has enjoined the State of California from enforcing a recently enacted law which would ban guns in most public places, citing the Second Amendment and recent rulings from the Trump-era Supreme Court. Much social progress in the United States will depend upon Democratic congressional majorities large enough to remake the federal judiciary, especially the Supreme Court.

December 28—The Democratic mayor of Jacksonville, Florida, Donna Deegan, has used her executive authority in the face of a Republican-controlled city council to order the removal of a Confederate memorial from a city park. The move comes just after a federal court ruled the Army can continue its removal of another Confederate memorial, this one at Arlington National Cemetery. Mayor Deegan's remarks bear quoting: "Symbols matter," she said. "They tell the world what we stand for and what we aspire to be . . . . By removing the Confederate monument from Springfield Park, we signal a belief in our shared humanity. That we are all created equal. The same flesh and bones. The same blood running through our veins. The same heart and soul." Meanwhile Republican presidential candidate and former South Carolina governor Nicky Hally, when asked what caused the Civil War, pointedly declined to mention slavery—explicitly cited as the cause of secession in South Carolina's Ordinance of Secession and those of other Southern states—conforming to the current Republican tradition of falsifying history regarding the Confederacy.

December 20—The Democratic governor of New Mexico, Katie Hobbs, has ordered the New Mexico National Guard to the Mexican border in the face of unprecedented numbers of illegal crossings. The Biden administration's failure to control the country's southern border is a major weakness for the Democratic Party heading into the 2024 elections.

December 20—Numerous polls—including a recent Reuters sounding showing nearly equal support for President Biden and Donald Trump among voters ethnicized as "Latino"—challenges a key thesis of so-called "progressives": that "people of color" (all Americans not racialized as "white") share common interests and constitute a single political constituency. If the Democratic Party, and the American Left in general, is to gain prominence in the United States, it must promote a platform not based on racial-ethnic tribalism but on a broad championing of social democratic values and programs.

December 20—The Southwest Airlines Pilots Association, the union representing 10,000 Southwest Airlines pilots, appear to have ended three years of negotiations with the Dallas-based carrier with a new contract providing for higher pay and amended work rules. TSD take: Unions work for American workers!

December 20—Tech giant Google has agreed to pay $630 million to consumers and $70 million to state funds to settle charges that it overcharged consumers through restrictions on Android apps and excessive fees. The suit was brought in federal court by lead plaintiff Utah and joined by other states.

December 20—A bill just passed in the U.S. House of Representatives with bipartisan support will require healthcare providers to publicly post the costs of medical procedures.