I'm glad to share this new book chapter, written with one of my undergrads. Drawing on interviews during/after Covid lockdowns, we show that moms varied in how they approached remote learning, and that intensive approaches led to more burnout, leading to more interest in a return to in-person school

Happy to share that our volume The Role of Social Inequality in Parent Engagement: From Inequality to Social Justice in Education has now been published lnkd.in/eEMuDZ6H Immensely grateful to authors of 16 chapters for their excellent contribution and publishers for their swift work!

The message to Congress here seems loud and clear: I'm the director; you're merely players on my stage.

One of my resolutions last year was to spend less time doomscrolling--especially before bed--and more time making things that bring me joy. 2025 didn't make it easy, but I managed to stick to it, finishing six big embroidery projects along with a seventh one I wrapped up this week.

8-year-old: Why do world wars start? My husband: Well, World War II started because... [history lesson]. And World War I started because... [another history lesson]. Me: The short answer is--world wars start with someone who wants more power than they deserve. 8: So, someone like... Me: Yup.

In related news, if you emailed me in 2025 and haven't heard back yet, please accept my sincerest apologies. And please know that I wasn't ignoring you, just dealing with serious inbox overload.

Me in December: Maybe I should try to get caught up on email over break. Me in January, opening Outlook and Gmail after mostly ignoring my inboxes while my kids were out of school for two weeks: 😨😂😢😭

When power is rooted in disinformation, data become a threat.

The pro-disease lobby stays winning

Harvard has removed a resident dean -- a Black lecturer in psychology -- for writing posts critical of Trump and law enforcement www.thecrimson.com/article/2026...

This episode is essential listening. I was especially grateful for the decoder ring that @kimlanelaw.bsky.social gives us here--teaching us to separate what the court might do to nominally assert its independence, all while working steadily to further the entrenchment of authoritarianism in the US.

There's a rising faction of the legal academy that stays quiet when their MAGAdemic colleagues produce fraudulent psuedo-scholarship in service to the cruelest aspects of Trump's agenda ... then leap in to police the discourse when their progressive colleagues criticize those MAGAdemics too bluntly.

One of most remarkable US presentations at UN Security Council I've ever seen. - No reference to UN Charter legal justification - Claims Panama as precedent (which the UN condemned) - Energy reserves ⤵️ as justification is illegal - Sharp contrast with US Ambassador Pickering presentation in 1989

The impacts of this admin recklessly shutting off all childcare funding to a state are grave. Our childcare system is struggling from an EXISTING supply crisis - anything that closes programs will have ripple effects on children, care workers, folks' ability to work, & the economy for years to come.

And here again is what I mean that the Democrats need to design a strategy and implement a tactic. We know in 2026 and 2028, the Republican Party will act in anti-democratic manner, and so, the Party needs to design a strategy that emphasizes democratic localism.

New at Can We Still Govern: @agpines.bsky.social & @lizananat.bsky.social explain how the work volatility of low income service employees will make it hard for them to satisfy new SNAP/Medicaid work requirements, even when they work lots of hours. 🧵 donmoynihan.substack.com/p/when-volat...

the default, cringe pose of "I must support Tough Military Action because I am Tough" is both morally wrong and bad politics

In editing the fifth episode of our Control Room project, which will drop this Friday, I noted @jessicacalarco.com talking specifically about Pugh’s book and making very similar points!

Yes. It's planned poverty. It's a policy choice.

Keeping the social safety net as small and as punitive as possible helps to ensure that there will always be a steady stream of people for employers like Bezos to exploit--people in such a precarious position that have no choice but to take whatever underpaid, overworked job they can get.

Conservative politicians have spent decades telling tens of millions that *they* are deserving of every government benefit coming their way, but that others getting them are "undeserving." The solution is not more means testing or creating more barriers to using crucial social safety net programs.

Conservatives love to add a bunch of red tape and then complain about all the red tape as if it is just a naturally occurring phenomenon

All this "means testing" and "rooting out fraud" is just thinly veiled cover for finding increasingly absurd ways to deny people aid. Surveillance systems suck up money and resources that *should* go to recipients. We're led to believe poor people lose their privacy rights and liberty to save a buck

Exactly. Welfare reform (ending the welfare program & replacing it with TANF) did not change welfare stigma. 🗃️ daily.jstor.org/why-welfare-...

I need people who think that social programs should only go to the “truly vulnerable” to come up with a clear and concise definition of what that is.

*reads study after study showing the best way to help communities is to give anyone who needs it straight cash* WaPo editorial board: what if we just ignore all that and continue the system we’ve done for decades now that we know is really inefficient?

From the newspaper owned by the second richest person on the planet.

Calling yourself the "peace president" and then bombing a bunch of countries is like calling yourself a "loving parent" and then hitting your kids.

Another round of “bombing people into freedom”

There are too many great books to recommend in re the way this dynamic has worked in the US. @kmtani.bsky.social, Michael Katz, @larryglickman.bsky.social, Elizabeth Hinton, etc. But Tom Medvetz’s 2012 THINK TANKS IN AMERICA—esp Ch5—is the best way to understand how this para ends up in wapo.

No. Social safety nets crumble when we wrap them in neoliberal rhetoric aimed at dividing people and deluding them into thinking that everyone--except some tiny group of perfect poor--should be able to pull themselves up by their own bootstraps, even if their boots have been nailed to the floor.

No. No. No. Punitive processes make narrowly targeted programs *less* efficient and *more* costly. Because more scrutiny requires more bureaucracy. Punitive processes also make it *less* likely that people will get aid for which they qualify. Because of the roadblocks and stigma scrutiny creates.

"Silicon Valley venture capital isn’t just funding technology. It’s also building an escape plan from democracy." @gilduran.com "They need to get their bag somewhere," says @ojutel.bsky.social, they're planning "to exit through the state." unprecedented.ghost.io/archive/head...

For all that the media has spent years freaking out about what social media does to our brains, I don’t understand why there appears to be little effort to grapple with the fact that these chatbots are, for some not insignificant portion of the population, literally psychosis machines

Wrote this before yesterday but it gets at what undergirds that (and lots of other things in politics). "The internet universalized subjectivity instead of objectivity. … We have reverted from acting on what we *know* to acting on what we *think*."

Yes we should always remember all the great things President Biden did. The Infrastructure Bill - roads are getting paved everywhere! He got CC Companies to waive all the extra fees - banks too. He lowered the prices on medication, making sure families didn't have to choose food or RXs. Not Trump.

Had some friends over for dinner and board games tonight, which was a welcome distraction from all the things, and also gave the kids another opportunity to help me with baking--this time homemade pizza and chocolate chunk cookies.

Like I said, they're running this like a hostile takeover by a private equity firm.

The “peace” President has started a war.

Sprinkles Cupcake Doctrine

goddammit i hate how right this is. swoop in, strip it for parts and personal gain, leave it a wreck.

This is effectively a hostile takeover, with intent to strip a public entity for profit, then run it into the ground.

what could go wrong

He's doing foreign policy like a private equity firm.

Everyday is a reason for impeachment

I went to the grocery store before my husband woke up, so my first words to him this morning were, "Did you hear that the US kidnapped Maduro?"

Illegal and unwise are his guiding principles. Add racist and misogynist, and you've described the Trump era.

There's no byline on this. There's an editing byline, but it appears no reporter at Reuters was willing to put their name on this.