8/3/26 - July Comments

July was a bit of a quiet month, with relatively few comments. But here they are ...

July 8, 2026 - 7/8/26 - Monthly Essay: "Questions for disabled candidates"

Adrienne has some more thoughts on engaging with candidates running for office:

"I love this list.  It probably could be sharpened but it's a great list already ... The problem is: Most of us never get to ask a candidate questions. We might get 1-2 into some small group meet-n-greet but, as someone who is supporting two local candidates, I know that they get busy and wouldn't take this kind of time to respond to an individual voter ... A group like Disabilty Victory might be able to get these answered, and could post the answers for the rest of us. I don't see a strong block of disabled voters (yet). If we had that, an organized group like Disability Victory could get candidates to answer this kind of list of questions as part of their decision to endorse them or not. At the moment I don't see that the endorsement would matter -either in dollars for their campaign, people to knock on doors or votes come election day ... I know there's been work toward this with Crip The Vote and at least one other effort I saw coming through the Independent Living channels. I'd love to know that I am seeing too small a landscape ... If might be useful to your readers if you gave us the 1 or 2 top questions to ask at a public candidate forum."

This is an interesting topic for another essay maybe. Having been involved in #CripTheVote in the past, it's probably time for me to think about what we did, and maybe didn't do, to increase disabled voters' influence in U.S. elections. It would probably be useful as well to give an overview of different approaches by organizations like the American Association of People with Disabilities' #RevUp efforts, and those of Centers for Independent Living. As always, it would be helpful to learn more about similar programs in other countries. Any information, links, and articles on this sort of thing would be much appreciated.

July 15, 2026 - 7/15/26 - Newsletters Week, Part Three

Kelly Mack says:

"If you take a look at my missives from July I would be interested in your thoughts. The theme has focused on disability freedom: what is it and how we can make it happen."

I haven't had a chance to look at Kelly's July posts. When I do, I'll probably share a few of them here. Stay tuned.

That's all for July. Now on into August!

Disability Thinking Weekday is a Monday-Friday newsletter with links and commentary on disability-related articles and other content. You can help promote the newsletter by forwarding it by email or posting on your social media. You can also comment by sending me an email at: apulrang@icloud.com. Collected comments are shared around the first of each month. A free subscription sends a newsletter to your email each weekday. Benefits of paid subscription include:

• A monthly recap with links to all of the previous month's shared articles, organized by topic.
• Listing as a supporter, and a link to your website if you have one.
• You can recommend one disability-related article for me to share per month in a weekday post.

Use the buttons below to start a paid subscription or make a one-time donation.

I am so grateful for your help and engagement, in whichever forms you choose!

Free subscribers: 1,283
Paid subscribers: 51