Nothing in neoliberal policy making is about affordability. Wild to just slip that in. Efficiency is often used to legitimize privatization in neoliberal policy. And fiscal discipline certainly is a core of municipal level neoliberal policy (though not at the federal level). But affordability?
The foundation of neoliberal political economy is that you should actually care about efficiency, affordability, and fiscal discipline — it’s the bipartisan decision to abandon that which has landed us here.
December 15, 2025 at 9:28 PM
Nothing in neoliberal policy making is about affordability. Wild to just slip that in. Efficiency is often used to legitimize privatization in neoliberal policy. And fiscal discipline certainly is a core of municipal level neoliberal policy (though not at the federal level). But affordability?
Some great suggestions here and I would add eliminating off year election cycles.
I am often asked what laws I would recommend blue states adopt. While there is no one-size-fits-all approach, there are seven changes every state could adopt right now, for virtually no cost or administrative burden. www.democracydocket.com/opinion/seve...
Seven Voting Laws Every Blue State Should Enact Right Now
Read more here.
www.democracydocket.com
December 15, 2025 at 1:10 AM
Some great suggestions here and I would add eliminating off year election cycles.
Reposted by David Sparrow
Just published online - ‘I can lean on all of you’: teacher leaders cultivating pedagogical resistance by Naomi Fair. More information @ bit.ly/3LKUFgH
‘I can lean on all of you’: teacher leaders cultivating pedagogical resistance
Without critical professional development opportunities, teacher leaders can sustain the exclusion and marginalisation of disabled students, particularly those who experience marginalisation at the...
bit.ly
November 18, 2025 at 7:35 AM
Just published online - ‘I can lean on all of you’: teacher leaders cultivating pedagogical resistance by Naomi Fair. More information @ bit.ly/3LKUFgH
Reposted by David Sparrow
I keep thinking about how terrible it is that so many people will be losing their health insurance in January due to costs and cuts. I was rejected from insurance once before the ACA [preexisting conditions]. I was hospitalized that year and it almost bankrupted me. We need universal heathcare ASAP.
December 12, 2025 at 2:21 AM
I keep thinking about how terrible it is that so many people will be losing their health insurance in January due to costs and cuts. I was rejected from insurance once before the ACA [preexisting conditions]. I was hospitalized that year and it almost bankrupted me. We need universal heathcare ASAP.
Reposted by David Sparrow
Our co-founder @prisonculture.bsky.social is co-organizing a toy drive. If you can, please support and share with others! If you are based in NYC, you can also drop off toys and gifts in person on 12/18 and 12/19.
Check out the donations list for:
🎁Teen Gifts: amzn.to/4rDn7BG
🎁Toys: bit.ly/48pJUrK
Check out the donations list for:
🎁Teen Gifts: amzn.to/4rDn7BG
🎁Toys: bit.ly/48pJUrK
December 10, 2025 at 8:09 PM
Our co-founder @prisonculture.bsky.social is co-organizing a toy drive. If you can, please support and share with others! If you are based in NYC, you can also drop off toys and gifts in person on 12/18 and 12/19.
Check out the donations list for:
🎁Teen Gifts: amzn.to/4rDn7BG
🎁Toys: bit.ly/48pJUrK
Check out the donations list for:
🎁Teen Gifts: amzn.to/4rDn7BG
🎁Toys: bit.ly/48pJUrK
Reposted by David Sparrow
In my opinion, this is one of the biggest problems with college students today: They work too hard. At least for the students at a public university like I teach at, for many of them it would make more sense for them to slow down, take fewer classes and graduate in 5 or 6 years.
Most students are pushed to take a full course load every semester so that they can get out of the institution as quickly as possible or within the traditional four year expectation. Assume that this is fifteen credit hours at three credits per class.
December 10, 2025 at 7:51 PM
In my opinion, this is one of the biggest problems with college students today: They work too hard. At least for the students at a public university like I teach at, for many of them it would make more sense for them to slow down, take fewer classes and graduate in 5 or 6 years.
Reposted by David Sparrow
Most college students are not that. Increasingly they are engaged in carework, have full-time jobs, or are otherwise responsible for things that they were not some fifteen or twenty years ago. Indeed, only the MOST privileged student has the time or space to fulfill the image of a full time student.
December 10, 2025 at 7:43 PM
Most college students are not that. Increasingly they are engaged in carework, have full-time jobs, or are otherwise responsible for things that they were not some fifteen or twenty years ago. Indeed, only the MOST privileged student has the time or space to fulfill the image of a full time student.
Destroying higher education in the U.S., a massive place-based industry that is also a significant U.S. export, is a wild self own. It is so sad.
December 10, 2025 at 2:44 PM
Destroying higher education in the U.S., a massive place-based industry that is also a significant U.S. export, is a wild self own. It is so sad.
Reposted by David Sparrow
are we still on about em dashes and ai. imo human writers should just use the em dashes even harder. we should be out here pummeling out those em dashes like we're emily dickinson
December 10, 2025 at 3:22 AM
are we still on about em dashes and ai. imo human writers should just use the em dashes even harder. we should be out here pummeling out those em dashes like we're emily dickinson
Reposted by David Sparrow
I have seen this too. VILE. It's in part what has prompted the ranting. Because this is just Islamophobia x 1000 mixed with fucking anti-Blackness and it should be called out every single time.
It’s even worse - they’re blaming Somali Americans now, who mostly voted for Harris in a state she won!
December 9, 2025 at 5:40 PM
I have seen this too. VILE. It's in part what has prompted the ranting. Because this is just Islamophobia x 1000 mixed with fucking anti-Blackness and it should be called out every single time.
Reposted by David Sparrow
Persistently annoyed by liberal refusal to see the longstanding system of immigration, the one that effectively places undocumented workers outside of the protections of labor law and subjects them to racial terror, as a strategy of labor discipline that affects all workers.
December 7, 2025 at 8:14 PM
Persistently annoyed by liberal refusal to see the longstanding system of immigration, the one that effectively places undocumented workers outside of the protections of labor law and subjects them to racial terror, as a strategy of labor discipline that affects all workers.
Reposted by David Sparrow
@handsoffnyc.bsky.social is training thousands of New Yorkers on how to protect their neighbors from ICE. Today, they are currently running two trainings in Brooklyn and the Bronx, both of which hit capacity because interest was so high.
This is the way, y’all—we protect each other, and we know it.
This is the way, y’all—we protect each other, and we know it.
December 6, 2025 at 7:10 PM
@handsoffnyc.bsky.social is training thousands of New Yorkers on how to protect their neighbors from ICE. Today, they are currently running two trainings in Brooklyn and the Bronx, both of which hit capacity because interest was so high.
This is the way, y’all—we protect each other, and we know it.
This is the way, y’all—we protect each other, and we know it.
“Who, if I cried out l, would hear me among the angels’ hierarchies?”
Opening line of Stephen Mitchell’s trans of Rilke’s Duino Elegies
Opening line of Stephen Mitchell’s trans of Rilke’s Duino Elegies
Which lines of poetry live rent-free in your head?
December 6, 2025 at 7:57 PM
“Who, if I cried out l, would hear me among the angels’ hierarchies?”
Opening line of Stephen Mitchell’s trans of Rilke’s Duino Elegies
Opening line of Stephen Mitchell’s trans of Rilke’s Duino Elegies
Reposted by David Sparrow
This inaccurate framing has taken hold. Biden didn't act "without congress." Congress specifically *passed a law* authorizing student loan cancellation.
What SCOTUS did was use an unconstitutional made up "Major Questions Doctrine" to say that the laws Congress passes don't count.
What SCOTUS did was use an unconstitutional made up "Major Questions Doctrine" to say that the laws Congress passes don't count.
December 6, 2025 at 7:25 PM
This inaccurate framing has taken hold. Biden didn't act "without congress." Congress specifically *passed a law* authorizing student loan cancellation.
What SCOTUS did was use an unconstitutional made up "Major Questions Doctrine" to say that the laws Congress passes don't count.
What SCOTUS did was use an unconstitutional made up "Major Questions Doctrine" to say that the laws Congress passes don't count.
Reposted by David Sparrow
You can help Bolts continue to provide crucial coverage of local elections. Here's how:
- Repost this = I donate $1.
- Follow @boltsmag.org = I donate $1.
- Donate (link below) + tell me how much = I match your donation.
(Donate monthly = I match a year's worth)
- Repost this = I donate $1.
- Follow @boltsmag.org = I donate $1.
- Donate (link below) + tell me how much = I match your donation.
(Donate monthly = I match a year's worth)
Support Bolts
We are a nonprofit publication that covers the nuts and bolts of political change, from the local up, and we need reader support to build our journalism.
boltsmag.org
December 3, 2025 at 6:20 PM
You can help Bolts continue to provide crucial coverage of local elections. Here's how:
- Repost this = I donate $1.
- Follow @boltsmag.org = I donate $1.
- Donate (link below) + tell me how much = I match your donation.
(Donate monthly = I match a year's worth)
- Repost this = I donate $1.
- Follow @boltsmag.org = I donate $1.
- Donate (link below) + tell me how much = I match your donation.
(Donate monthly = I match a year's worth)
Reposted by David Sparrow
the argument that “the people who lie about disability to get accommodations in school will prosper and lead our most important institutions” is easily fixed by broad application of accommodations instead of making people prove they‘re “really“ disabled, something frustrating for all disabled people
December 2, 2025 at 9:43 PM
the argument that “the people who lie about disability to get accommodations in school will prosper and lead our most important institutions” is easily fixed by broad application of accommodations instead of making people prove they‘re “really“ disabled, something frustrating for all disabled people
I see that Hilary Clinton is making the abstract “learn the history” argument, which is truly wild. When you learn the history it makes you more, not less, angry about Zionism. For me it was reading Benny Morris and the new Israeli historians.
December 3, 2025 at 2:05 AM
I see that Hilary Clinton is making the abstract “learn the history” argument, which is truly wild. When you learn the history it makes you more, not less, angry about Zionism. For me it was reading Benny Morris and the new Israeli historians.
Reposted by David Sparrow
An article that wasn't focused on elite colleges might be capable of considering that disability accommodations are about a student getting a good education for themselves rather than framing things in terms of a hunger games competition for who gets to be elite in society
December 3, 2025 at 12:41 AM
An article that wasn't focused on elite colleges might be capable of considering that disability accommodations are about a student getting a good education for themselves rather than framing things in terms of a hunger games competition for who gets to be elite in society
Reposted by David Sparrow
She shouldn't have to keep doing this by herself. She is supposedly a member of a political party and every single one of her *colleagues* should be BLASTING the fascist in chief. ALL OF THEM. Where is the solidarity???
Congresswoman Omar calls Trump's comments about her 'creepy' after the US president launches into an anti-Somali tirade.
Ilhan Omar denounces Donald Trump for calling Somali immigrants ‘garbage’
Congresswoman Omar calls Trump's comments about her 'creepy' after the US president launches into an anti-Somali tirade.
bit.ly
December 3, 2025 at 12:34 AM
She shouldn't have to keep doing this by herself. She is supposedly a member of a political party and every single one of her *colleagues* should be BLASTING the fascist in chief. ALL OF THEM. Where is the solidarity???
Just going to put it out there based on 10+ years of teaching at a community college. There is no problem providing extra time on tests. It's not a problem. Provide extra time to all students. That's it.
December 2, 2025 at 6:49 PM
Just going to put it out there based on 10+ years of teaching at a community college. There is no problem providing extra time on tests. It's not a problem. Provide extra time to all students. That's it.
Missed this recent action at a Philly Whole Foods -- workers voted to join UFCW and Amazon is not recognizing the union.
www.audacy.com/kywnewsradio...
www.audacy.com/kywnewsradio...
Whole Foods union rallies outside Fairmount store to demand contract talks
Unionized workers at a Philadelphia Whole Foods rallied outside the store Monday in hopes of pressuring the company to negotiate a first contract with them. The Amazon-owned grocery chain has not reco...
www.audacy.com
December 2, 2025 at 4:39 PM
Missed this recent action at a Philly Whole Foods -- workers voted to join UFCW and Amazon is not recognizing the union.
www.audacy.com/kywnewsradio...
www.audacy.com/kywnewsradio...
Reposted by David Sparrow
This Day in Labor History: December 2, 1984. A gas leak in a Union Carbide chemical plant in Bhopal, India killed somewhere between 3787 and 16,000 people. Let's talk about probably the worst industrial disaster in history and how U.S. companies can murder with impunity, then and now!
December 2, 2025 at 4:27 PM
This Day in Labor History: December 2, 1984. A gas leak in a Union Carbide chemical plant in Bhopal, India killed somewhere between 3787 and 16,000 people. Let's talk about probably the worst industrial disaster in history and how U.S. companies can murder with impunity, then and now!
Reposted by David Sparrow
I support faculty members of all ranks as they make expert choices about what to assign, why to assess, and how to evaluate student work.
December 2, 2025 at 12:52 AM
I support faculty members of all ranks as they make expert choices about what to assign, why to assess, and how to evaluate student work.
Reposted by David Sparrow
This is the result of the CIA using children to kill people and yet a whole lot of people don’t want to recognize *American* culture, and in particular the culture of the War on Terror, at work here.
Stephen Miller is now arguing that assimilation is fundamentally impossible and that certain cultures are not compatible with Western civilization
November 28, 2025 at 3:19 PM
This is the result of the CIA using children to kill people and yet a whole lot of people don’t want to recognize *American* culture, and in particular the culture of the War on Terror, at work here.
Reposted by David Sparrow
we are just over a week out from publication of WE WILL RISE AGAIN, the anthology of speculative fiction, essays, and interviews about collective action I co-edited with @annaleen.bsky.social and @drkarenlord.bsky.social which means THERE'S STILL TIME TO PREORDER!
We Will Rise Again
From genre luminaries, esteemed organizers, and exciting new voices in fiction, an anthology of stories, essays, and interviews that offer transfor...
www.simonandschuster.com
November 24, 2025 at 9:12 PM
we are just over a week out from publication of WE WILL RISE AGAIN, the anthology of speculative fiction, essays, and interviews about collective action I co-edited with @annaleen.bsky.social and @drkarenlord.bsky.social which means THERE'S STILL TIME TO PREORDER!