jeeeeeeesus: theintercept.com/2026/02/10/g...

If I called this “A Gramscian Theory of Student Debt” would it place better or worse?

The first draft of my effort to theorize the political/coalitional characteristics of student debt is out for review. It's really the first step in an effort to think through how to design a free college program with durable long-term coalitions

There's something utterly exhausting about people who can't sense any moral or political difference between a critique of power and whining about their mentions. If you are complaining about "tankies" you are almost certainly doing the latter.

I've heard directly from hundreds of children at Dilley. One young girl who shared her story with me grew up in the United States and her stepfather is a U.S. citizen. She said that the guards are mean to her, she is afraid, and that she is worried she will die in detention.

The first draft of my effort to theorize the political/coalitional characteristics of student debt is out for review. It's really the first step in an effort to think through how to design a free college program with durable long-term coalitions

This isn’t a new playbook - Andreessen Horowitz more or less lobbied the crypto markets into existence (along with a bunch of other fintech). Lobbying and marketing - rather than finding good tech- is WHAT THEY DO. fintechdystopia.com/chapters/cha...

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The first ALPE conference is in the books and it was incredible! Over 300 presenters, 450+ people in attendance. It was great to see so many friends and comrades who have been building LPE for years among so many new faces! lawandpoliticaleconomy.org?page_id=63

I almost cried during the Bad Bunny show when I saw the workers repairing the electrical system. I spent years working on Puerto Rico's crisis, and this was the one thing I couldn't resolve before moving to the academy. Thanks to the @lpeblog.bsky.social and @lpeproject.bsky.social for sharing this.

I’m at the law conference I’m at the political economy conference I’m at the combination Law and Political Economy Conference

Almost 500 people in attendance at inaugural @a-lpe.bsky.social conference! Cc @lpeproject.bsky.social @lpeblog.bsky.social

Earlier this year, the Student Loan Ombudsman for the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) wrote her annual report on student loans. It was deeply critical of Trump admin policies. So they fired her. Well, we just hired her.

This is tremendous. Take the time to watch it.

Fascinating. And also further support for @jwmason.bsky.social's arguments that borrowing mostly does not fund consumption.

I have no idea what the dynamics are in MN, but the history of bottom-up movements involves a dialectic between dedicated cadres of organizers and sporadic self-organized uprisings. Both are required (and each can help create the other!). Caution to anybody who fetishizes only one.

Just in time for the great grocery debate of 2026, Errol Schweizer is on the substack today arguing why public grocery stores are but one piece of a larger set of policies necessary to make the right to good and affordable food in NYC a reality. substack.com/home/post/p-...

Actually it can't just be these things. It has to also be Green New Deal, rebuilding/re-imagining the admin state, reconstructing international policy on more solidaristic grounds. Structural political change without that stuff won't stick

This is great but the piano piece in the background is distractingly irritating

At the @rooseveltinstitute.org, @lookheron.bsky.social has a new report on the institutional foundations of free speech at public universities.

One thing I didn't dig into much in this report is the role of the AAUP. Historically, it held itself out as a soft-law quasi-judicial body, offering interpretations of norms of academic freedom & "censuring" campuses that violated them. That power was entirely reputational, but

This is a terrific report by @lookheron.bsky.social on how to create institutional structures that protect free speech at public universities. rooseveltinstitute.org/publications...

I enjoyed this argument / thesis.

Because a substantial part of political base-building, especially in the conservative movement has been scam-based for decades. thebaffler.com/salvos/the-l...

Is this good?

Last week I wrote that ICE (& immigration judges) are increasingly openly defying courts. lpeproject.org/blog/immigra... Now, a judge compiled 100 cases from ICE’s MN siege where ICE ignored court orders. Yet what are dems offering? Basically—laws that ask ICE to please follow the law.

I will simply never recover from reading this sentence: "Since Georgia implemented work requirements in 2020, they have spent twice as much on Deloitte consultants and administrative costs as on healthcare for people."

By even conservative measures the number of people killed by the Iranian regime is at least 10,000. Other estimates go significantly higher. These include mass executions, including civilians killed while undergoing medical treatment. www.theguardian.com/global-devel...

An underrated reason that higher ed should not structured as leveraged individual investments in marketable skills. It's pro-cyclical and on a lag!

We should be thinking about student loans in the same conversation. Incentivizing private lenders rather than lending directly was thought to save money, but then the evidence became overwhelming. And even then lobbying profiteers prevented reform for decades.

There's an episode based on the @debtcollective.bsky.social's early organizing of for-profit college students! Except they turn the lawyers into the heroes

OK a quick 🧵 on one aspect of the report In this Neo-McCarthyist moment, how can progressives make sure that expanding public higher education does not come at the expense of academic freedom and freedom to protest on campus? In a way, the question is easier to answer that I thought

We have to stop talking about means-testing as inherently cost saving. lpeproject.org/blog/the-mea...

Our work on higher ed by @lookheron.bsky.social explores the foundation of many of today’s higher education challenges: from funding and governance to the conditions that make free speech possible on campus. 🧵

🔗 Read both reports by @lookheron.bsky.social: 📌 "The Neoliberalization of Higher Education: Changes in State Funding and Governance Throughout the 20th Century" → bit.ly/4t48ecb 📌 "The Institutional Foundations of Free Speech at Public Universities" → bit.ly/4aeVtnD

OK a quick 🧵 on one aspect of the report In this Neo-McCarthyist moment, how can progressives make sure that expanding public higher education does not come at the expense of academic freedom and freedom to protest on campus? In a way, the question is easier to answer that I thought

Let's withhold judgment, he might have acquired renaming rights.

We genuinely didn't know where the research would end up, but when @lookheron.bsky.social came back with the argument that the missing link in the story was the growing power of trustees it made perfect sense.

This project was born out of conversations about how the free college fight in 2019 and 2020 barely touched issues like free speech, curriculum, and academic freedom. That would be impossible today, but if we are serious about equity we can't stop calling for real public investment in higher ed.

I’ll thread on this later. The original inspiration for this report was thinking about how to shift to a system if free public higher education without undermining academic freedom or free speech. Turns out public universities actually have some advantages

Hoping to have this one ready for law review soon. It's an effort to think critically about a point that student loan supporters sometimes make: that it provides most funding for higher ed given the political realities of the US. Building on @sarahquinn.bsky.social & Suzanne Mettler, among others

Impossible to imagine the leadership of my employer issuing this message

The reason I have a mini-series on Hauntologies called “the ghosts if Israel’s future” is because of this: hating Palestinians is the glue holding Israel’s dominant political culture together. They have no identity beyond genocide anymore. www.instagram.com/reel/DT7w6sX...

Immigration is a fake problem. We have politicians on the one hand who want to use immigrants as scapegoats for our real ones and politicians on the other who are too cowardly to stand against them and tell the truth. That is the entire situation. Until that changes, people will continue to die.

There's apparently also a risk that banking law scholars will get banking law egregiously wrong. See fn. 293.

Really good and comprehensive piece by @levmenand.bsky.social on the fundamental problems with all arguments that aim to preserve the Fed while maintaining the UET. Among other things, highlights how badly so many theories understanding the history of banking papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers....

I've got a report with @rooseveltinstitute.org on institutional design lessons from the history of battles over free speech on campus coming out next week. Stay tuned

If you are interested in learning more about whether Amazon's e-commerce business is actually that profitable, or whether it's restructuring of logistics and parcel delivery has been overhyped, see Ben Fong's newsletter! www.phenomenalworld.org/analysis/the...