That is their song

Sorry I missed Advent, but your traditional Advent music is yet another version of "Carol of the Bells". Celebrate the season in warmth and light.

The last few days have seen a flurry of international events that I haven't really been able to process yet. Assad is out of Syria, apparently to be replaced by an Al Quaeda leader once declared a terrorist enemy by the United States—but some say the US is responsible for what was not a natural, organic "revolution". For many, this is just a part of Israel's expansionist policies. Bashar al Assad is reported now to be taking refuge in Moscow.

South Korean president Yoon Suk Yeol declared martial law for no apparent reason, but it was over by morning. Some say that was thanks to the call of strikes from unions, but in any case the parliament managed to get inside to reverse him. Although that vote had cross-party support, the calls for impeachment did not and so far he has managed to avoid it, although everyone outside of his own party seems to be demanding impeachment or resignation. Much of the world was surprised to find out just how unpopular this guy is.

Meanwhile in France, Macron's antidemocratic decision to put a right-wing "centrist" in the prime ministership to defeat the left seems to have backfired, and now he's left with the choice of continuing his arrogance or doing what he should have done in the first place: "A more durable, and ethical, solution would be for Mr Macron to finally demonstrate the humility he should have shown after the chastening outcome of his summer gamble. The July snap poll was narrowly, but indubitably, won by the New Popular Front (NPF) – a leftwing alliance including the Socialist party and Jean-Luc Mélenchon's France Unbowed. Fearing that an NPF-led government would attempt to reverse parts of his legacy, including deeply unpopular plans to raise the retirement age, Mr Macron found reasons not to appoint a prime minister from the broad left." People are holding their breath to see if he will finally do it.

Back in the New York, the CEO of America's most rapacious health insurers was assasinated, and the lack of opprobrium from the public seems to be the real story here. "Brian Thompson's killing inspired rage – against the healthcare industry: The killing appeared so well-planned that at first glance many assumed it was a professional hit. The gunman who shot dead Brian Thompson, head of one of the US's largest health insurance companies, on a New York street before dawn lay in wait with a weapon fitted with a silencer, kept his cool as his gun jammed and made a nimble escape after ensuring that his victim had been fatally struck. However, within hours, an intense police manhunt turned up a trail of clues and possible mistakes, suggesting that while the killer had taken care to cover his tracks, he also made amateurish missteps that may yet lead to his identification and capture. But millions of Americans were less interested in the mechanics of what New York's new police commissioner, Jessica Tisch, called “a premeditated, pre-planned, targeted attack” than the possible motive. Despite the fact the killer's motive remains completely unknown, the death of UnitedHealthcare's CEO unleashed an eruption of anger from people mistreated, or untreated, by the US's rapacious medical industry and even a grim schadenfreude from some at Thompson's death."

"US House passes bill to punish non-profits deemed to support 'terrorism'." Well, we knew this was going to happen, but I still haven't seen the Free Speech Warriors speaking out against it.

Two unfortunate facts: One is that Bill Clinton signed some odious Republican legislation into law, and one of them allows the next president to overturn rules made in the last 60 days of his predecessor's term. The other is that Joe Biden did some rule-making in the last 60 days of his term that he really should have gotten to earlier. "The Biden Reforms That Will Be First To Go: Thanks to Republican deregulatory frenzy and Democratic gambles, many key consumer-protection initiatives could soon be wiped away. [...] The CRA's 'lookback period' only allows the law to be used to rescind rules established in the last 60 working 'pro forma' days of a lawmaking session and the subsequent remaining days of a president's term. Goldbeck said that the exact date is 'kind of a moving target,' but most experts agree that once Trump assumes office on Jan. 20, 2025, the CRA could be used to revoke any rules passed after Aug. 1, 2024."

"The War on Consortium News: From PayPal to Global News to anonymous hackers, there are forces that prefer you don't read Consortium News. In an age of growing censorship and suppression of news, Consortium News is not exaggerating when it says it has abundant evidence of efforts to marginalize or silence us."

Good news from Wisconsin! "Act 10 Overturned." This is Scott Walker's anti-union legislation from back in 2003. Everyone was horrified, but it has taken this long to get it to court, and the court said Act 10 didn't pass muster.

Stiglitz in the Guardian, "The message to Democrats is clear: you must dump neoliberal economics: As the shock of Donald Trump's victory sinks in, pundits and politicians are mulling what it means for the future of the US and global politics. Understanding why such a divisive, unqualified figure won again is crucial for the Democrats. Did they go too far left and lose the moderate Americans who make up a majority? Or did centrist neoliberalism – pursued by Democratic presidents since Bill Clinton – fail to deliver, thus creating a demand for change? To me, the answer is clear: 40 years of neoliberalism have left the US with unprecedented inequality, stagnation in the middle of the income spectrum (and worse for those below), and declining average life expectancy (highlighted by mounting “deaths of despair”). The American Dream is being killed, and although President Joe Biden and Vice-President Kamala Harris distanced themselves from neoliberalism with their embrace of industrial policies, as representatives of the mainstream establishment, they remained associated with its legacy."

With handy stats and graphs: "Analysis: Kamala Harris Turned Away From Economic Populism: Pressed by influential corporate advisors, Kamala Harris ran away from a winning economic populist message and ended up losing a campaign. We have the proof. [...] The vice president's bid was premised on the risky bet that catering to moderate, college-educated voters would win more support than it would lose in working-class defections. That gamble backfired massively. Instead of expanding the Democratic coalition to bring in a larger share of the working-class vote in critical swing states where working-class voters make up a large majority of the electorate, Kamala Harris saw her only gains among college-educated white voters, and for the first time, Democrats received a higher share of votes from high- compared to low-income Americans. [...] Over the course of the whole campaign, Harris spoke less about economic issues and progressive economic policy priorities than Joe Biden had in 2020, and far less than Sanders had in the Democratic primaries that year. In this cycle, Trump addressed perhaps the most important issue for voters — prices and the cost of living — more than twice as often as Harris. "

RIP: Alice Brock - "The real Alice of Arlo Guthrie's 'Alice's Restaurant' dies at 83: The hippie-era icon who inspired folk singer Arlo Guthrie's epic, anti-establishment song “Alice's Restaurant” has died. Alice Brock suffered from health issues, including chronic obstructive pulmonary disease, and passed away at a hospice home in Wellfleet on Thursday. She was 83. Brock's longtime close friend Viki Merrick was with her when she died. Merrick said up until the end Brock remained poetic, hilariously funny, and full of puns. 'That's the way Alice has always been.' The timing of Brock's passing is poignant. It's long been a Thanksgiving tradition for radio stations across the country to broadcast Guthrie's 18-minute spoken word ramble that made 'Alice' famous."

Doctorow, "The far right grows through 'disaster fantasies': The core of the prepper fantasy: 'What if the world ended in the precise way that made me the most important person?' The ultra-rich fantasize about emerging from luxury bunkers with an army of mercs and thumbdrives full of bitcoin to a world in ruins that they restructure using their 'leadership skills.' The ethnographer Rich Miller spent his career embedding with preppers, eventually writing the canonical book of the fantasies that power their obsessions, Dancing at Armageddon: Survivalism and Chaos in Modern Times. Miller recounts how the disasters that preppers prepare for are the disasters that will call upon their skills, like the water chemist who's devoted his life to preparing to help his community recover from a terrorist attack on its water supply; and who, when pressed, has no theory as to why any terrorist would stage such an attack. Prepping is what happens when you are consumed by the fantasy of a terrible omnicrisis that you can solve, personally. It's an individualistic fantasy, and that makes it inherently neoliberal. Neoliberalism's mind-zap is to convince us all that our only role in society is as an individual ('There is no such thing as society' – M. Thatcher)."

In These Times, "Democratic Elites Blame Everyone But Themselves for Historic Collapse: Understandably, the blame game for who was responsible for this collapse is quickly underway. But, just like with the post 2016 recriminations, the very same people driving the narrative of who is responsible are themselves largely responsible—or at least in and of the same media and political class as those who are. As a result, with rare exception, those being blamed are not Democratic Party elites, liberal media institutions, or the corporate consulting world they operate in—but outside economic forces, transgender people, immigrants, and a host of either powerless minority groups or vague-to-the-point-of-meaningless generalities."

Matt Stoller at The Lever, "How Democrats Learned To Love Losing: The Democratic Party has embraced a cult of powerlessness — and now they're taking down hugely popular antitrust policy along with it. For the last few weeks, I've been mulling over a question that I think will bedevil all of us in the antimonopoly space for years, perhaps decades. Antimonopoly policy is immensely popular, and there hasn't been an administration as aggressive on antitrust in our lifetimes as there was under Joe Biden. Yet, voters soundly rejected his successor, Kamala Harris, and thrashed the party in power. And while antimonopoly politics sits uneasily in the Democratic Party, that is where it sits. Lina Khan, Rohit Chopra, and Jonathan Kanter will be out of power soon. So what happened? And why did Democrats lose so badly? I don't think the answer is simple, nor is it right to characterize the problem as solely one involving the Democratic Party. In 2006, 2008, 2010, 2014, 2016, 2018, 2020, 2022, and 2024, voters have voted against the incumbent party. If you look at the recriminations among Democrats, they reveal, unwittingly, a broad theme that I've noticed with roots that go back to the middle of the 20th century. And while these observations are focused on Democrats, people on the right will recognize in their institutions a similar set of challenges."

"U.S. officials who hated 'woke' investing won't stop buying Israel Bonds: Budget-strapped states and municipalities have accrued $1.7 billion dollars-worth of these dubious securities" They insisted it would be irresponsible to get involved with "woke" investments because they owed it to their constituents to make money for them, but that went out the window when they decided Israel was a deserving needy party.

Even the Cato Institute admits it, "Trump's Immigration Policies Made America Less Safe. Here's the Data."

Gratifying take-down of Yggy in Current Affairs, "Matt Yglesias Is Confidently Wrong About Everything: The Biden administration's favorite centrist pundit produces smug pseudo-analysis that cannot be considered serious thought. He ought to be permanently disregarded."

"Wildlife photographer of the year 2024 winners – in pictures"