Mike Ervin
Mike Ervin is a writer and disability rights activist living in Chicago. He blogs at Smart Ass Cripple, "expressing pain through sarcasm since 2010."
Articles by this author
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Views Sunday, July 26, 2020 The ADA at Thirty—Hooray in Part It's heartening to see the many ways in which the Americans with Disabilities Act, signed into law at a White House ceremony on July 26, 1990, has positively transformed our culture and changed society's expectations of people with disabilities. When it comes to the right of disabled people to live... Read more |
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Views Thursday, January 02, 2020 Look Out: Trump’s Social Security Administration Wants People with Disabilities to Prove it Uh oh! The Social Security Administration is out to “enhance program integrity” and “maintain appropriate stewardship” by increasing the frequency of “continuing disability reviews,” known as CDRs, to which disabled people who receive Social Security payments are subjected. This is an ominous... Read more |
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Views Tuesday, October 22, 2019 The GOP and the Zombie Medicaid Block Grants The elephant, as a symbol of the GOP, is obsolete. First of all, the elephant isn’t the kind of fierce, diabolically resilient predator that can accurately represent the Republicans. It’s true that it can stomp, kick, or squash the hell out of you. But it doesn’t pounce very well. It doesn’t jump... Read more |
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Views Monday, July 02, 2018 The Tyranny of Politeness On a Saturday evening in 2017, just before the Inauguration, I gathered with about forty other protesters outside the Catholic church that Paul Ryan attends in Janesville, Wisconsin. We quietly passed out flyers as parishioners filed in for mass. The flyers noted that Ryan was championing drastic... Read more |
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Views Wednesday, January 17, 2018 Everybody Loves Frank—When it's Convenient Everybody gushed over Frank Stephens. Not that he didn’t deserve it. Stephens has Down Syndrome. Last fall, he testified before a House Appropriations Subcommittee. Here’s some of what he said: “No one knows more about living with Down Syndrome than I do. Whatever you learn today please remember... Read more |
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Views Saturday, April 13, 2013 Obama’s Proposal Hurts People with Disabilities In his budget proposal, President Obama is betraying the poorest Americans with disabilities. By supporting the so-called chained CPI, which alters the way the consumer price index is calculated, Obama would increase the cost of living for people who rely on Social Security and other government programs. It leaves those who have the least with even less. Read more |
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Views Thursday, December 29, 2011 Why the Payroll Tax Deal Is Bad for People With Disabilities Hold the applause: Extending the payroll tax cuts is a bad deal for nearly 9 million disabled Americans who rely on Social Security Disability Insurance for survival. Read more |
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Views Monday, June 22, 2009 10th Anniversary of Freedom for People with Disabilities June 22 marks the 10th anniversary of a landmark ruling for people with disabilities. The case, which reinforced the Americans with Disabilities Act, was called Olmstead v. LC and EW. LC was Lois Curtis and EW was Elaine Wilson. These two women had spent most of their lives in state mental institutions. They wanted to live in more integrated community settings, and their doctors said they didn?t need to be institutionalized. But their home state of Georgia provided no community options for them, and so they languished in the institutions. Read more |
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Views Friday, February 20, 2009 Jerry Lewis Doesn’t Deserve a Humanitarian Award at the Oscars The Oscars are about to insult people with disabilities. At the Academy Awards ceremony Feb. 22, the board of governors of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts & Sciences will present its Jean Hersholt Humanitarian Award to Jerry Lewis. Lewis is notorious for making disparaging remarks about others, particularly gay people and women. But he has said equally degrading things about people with disabilities. Read more |