Matthew Borus
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matthewborus.bsky.social
Matthew Borus
@matthewborus.bsky.social
Sociologist, social work faculty

Posting topics include community, disability, social welfare, Chicago, social movements, organizing, policy, the state, labor, coffee, and various nerdy side trips. Personal account
Pinned
New from me: A look at four (of many) areas where Trump and his GOP allies threaten to roll back disability policy:

-Disability rights at work
-Cuts to the federal workforce
-Education
-Health care, both in terms of the Affordable Care Act and Medicaid

Please check it out!
Cutting Medicaid and federal programs are among 4 key Trump administration policy changes that could make life harder for disabled people
Tracking disability policies has long been challenging − this will become a harder task under the Trump administration.
theconversation.com
Reposted by Matthew Borus
Months later, another nursing home magnate who stole public funds gets a pardon. This guy pled guilty to using $38 MILLION in payroll taxes for personal gain and corporate expenses.

Pardoning those who exploit care workers and elderly & disabled people seems like a pattern.
November 23, 2025 at 3:44 PM
When people say we should look at AI as a “solution to social isolation,” I hear “I care so little about lonely people that I’ll tell them to talk to a Magic 8 Ball.”
November 25, 2025 at 11:53 PM
O llama tree
O llama tree
Branches packed with alpacas

O llama tree
O llama tree
With vigorous vicuñas
November 25, 2025 at 2:23 PM
I disagree with Mark Kelly on a lot, but threatening to court martial a retired veteran and sitting US Senator for political speech...that's the kind of buffoonery that's even surprising from a clown like Pete Hegseth.

And Kelly was right about the obligation to refuse illegal orders.
November 25, 2025 at 4:01 AM
First of all how dare you?
narrator: 50 years ago...

me: [nods] in 1945

narrator: in 1975...

me: what
November 25, 2025 at 3:25 AM
Reposted by Matthew Borus
One day I will bring a mass of genderqueer people from all across Spain, Portugal, and Andorra to perform winter holiday music with classical European instruments

the Trans Iberian Orchestra
November 25, 2025 at 1:56 AM
Reposted by Matthew Borus
The U.S. State Department is repeating a white nationalist conspiracy theory.

On Friday, it claimed that “mass migration poses an existential threat to Western civilization.”

That line comes straight from the Great Replacement myth: the lie that immigration is a plot to erase white populations.
November 24, 2025 at 4:08 PM
Close, but not quite.

Ahem…

1. Empire Strikes Back
2. The Last Jedi
3. Rogue One
4. Return of the Jedi
5. Star Wars
6. Revenge of the Sith
7. Solo
8. The Force Awakens
9. The Rise of Skywalker
10. Attack of the Clones
11. The Phantom Menace
Close, but not quite.

1. Rogue One
2. Empire Strikes Back
3. Star Wars
4. Return of the Jedi
5. Revenge of the Sith
6. The Last Jedi
7. Attack of the Clones
8. The Force Awakens
9. The Rise of Skywalker
10. The Phantom Menace
11. Solo
Close, but not quite.

1. Empire Strikes Back
2. Star Wars
3. Rogue One
4. Return of the Jedi
5. Revenge of the Sith
6. The Force Awakens
7. Attack of the Clones
8. Solo
9. The Phantom Menace
10. The Last Jedi
11. The Rise of Skywalker
November 24, 2025 at 9:10 PM
Anyone tracking this for sociology this year?
November 24, 2025 at 4:34 PM
Reposted by Matthew Borus
What's the matter guys, don't like it when people recognize you for your work?
An ICE agent was caught removing a sign marking an ICE kidnapping in DC last week! Do we think he did it out of anger, embarrassment, or most appropriately shame? If you think what you’re doing is right, why are you trying to hide the evidence? 👀
November 24, 2025 at 3:36 PM
Adobe: This appears to be a long document. Save time by reading a summary using AI Assistant.

Me: It’s a six-page credit card bill, you shambolic excuse for software. Stop trying to shove LLMs at us nonstop.
November 23, 2025 at 7:18 PM
Flu shot: in my arm!

I get vaxxed for my own protection, out of love for the higher-risk folks in my community, and in hearty defiance of RFK Jr and his band of eugenicist quacks.

Got your vaccine yet this year?

(Covid shot to come—I generally get that once the semester’s done.)
November 23, 2025 at 6:07 PM
Months later, another nursing home magnate who stole public funds gets a pardon. This guy pled guilty to using $38 MILLION in payroll taxes for personal gain and corporate expenses.

Pardoning those who exploit care workers and elderly & disabled people seems like a pattern.
November 23, 2025 at 3:44 PM
Love to have a random guy almost bump into me on the sidewalk, and then threaten to beat me up for it.

Male socialization in the US is great. Well done, society.
November 22, 2025 at 10:38 PM
Reposted by Matthew Borus
"Come and show me another city with lifted head singing so proud to be alive and coarse and strong and cunning."
Feds encountering loudmouthed Chicago women
November 22, 2025 at 7:04 PM
Reposted by Matthew Borus
No, he isn’t. There is literally no legal means by which he can do this. It’s not presidential power. TPS by law cannot be terminated early, and Somali TPS is not set to expire until March 17, 2026.
Trump says he’s ending Temporary Protected Status (TPS) for Somali refugees in Minnesota “immediately.”
November 22, 2025 at 1:50 AM
Reposted by Matthew Borus
No thumbs up from Zohran.
Trump also just posted these photos to Truth Social, including the one with Mamdani standing next to a portrait of FDR. Trump mentioned Mamdani asked if he could have his picture taken there.

"It's an amazing portrait in the cabinet room," Trump said. "So he's a big fan of the New Deal, I guess..."
November 22, 2025 at 1:25 AM
Dead labor, they call it. Capital is dead labor. Before I was elected, the labor was dead, and there were these vampires. I’m going to have my people look into it. Nobody wants vampire labor sucking their surplus value.
TRUMP [after spending 5 minutes with Zohran]: surplus value, it’s a very wonderful thing, very wonderful, and they’re stealing it. Can you believe that?

We’re going to be looking very strongly at the bourgeoisie, what they’re up to
November 21, 2025 at 10:25 PM
Reposted by Matthew Borus
Oh my god that is the worst possible answer
November 21, 2025 at 5:18 PM
So the CPD's Haymarket statue was subjected to some pushback from the people of Chicago over the years. It was hit by a streetcar, blown up, blown up again a year later...and then they moved it inside of police headquarters.

Is it still there? On display to police? Can the public see it?
November 21, 2025 at 4:22 AM
26 years

Pray for the dead and fight like hell for the living.
It hit me today that it's been 25 years since the first Trans Day of Remembrance. I lived in Boston, and I remember learning about Rita Hester's murder and subsequent misgendering in the press.

The violence has been going on for far too long. Pray for the dead and fight like hell for the living.
November 20, 2025 at 7:53 PM
So apparently a proposed rule is coming from ED that would define "professional degrees" to exclude social work and certain health fields for student loan purposes.

I haven't seen WHICH loans this would impact. Many statements reference Grad PLUS loans, which the OBBB eliminated.

Who knows more?
CSWE: Education Department Definition Limits Access to Social Work Education
www.cswe.org
November 20, 2025 at 7:00 PM
Reposted by Matthew Borus
For decades, scholars have argued education’s hidden curriculum is about disciplining and socializing children as future workers, and they just….tweeted it out
November 20, 2025 at 4:35 PM
There’s something freeing about deciding that I don’t need to keep up with new tech platforms.

My students talk on GroupMe? Okay. I assume it’s some kind of chat platform. But really, I don’t need to know.
November 20, 2025 at 3:06 AM
The fact that this wasn’t a given from the moment anyone at the university learned about his emails to Epstein about trying to take advantage of a mentee…
November 20, 2025 at 2:31 AM