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Rachel DL

@racheldl.bsky.social

Disabled cartoonist, journalist, and youth advocate based in Madison, WI. Comics and writing in The Washington Post, The Nib, Disability Visibility, Tone. #endyouthhomelessness Melt ICE 🧊 She/Her Website: https://www.racheldl.com/

119 Posts440 Follower213 Folgt
John Scalzi@scalzi.com · last wk.

I 100% have not changed a single goddamn thing about how I write here in the age of "AI." I write how I write. If the "AI" writes anything like how I write, it's because it stole from me. I'm gonna use any punctuation I like, and if it looks "AI"ish to you, you can go fuck yourself.

Manisha Krishnan@manishakrishnan.bsky.social · last wk.

Authors and journalists are doing more first-person (hello 2010s blogging) and embracing "mistakes" in writing to prove they're not chatbots. There's even an “anti-Grammarly" app that leaves in typos and signs off "sent from my iPhone" to create more authenticity: www.wired.com/story/more-t...

public health guy@publichealthguy1.bsky.social · 2w ago

40% of disabled cancer patients die during the wait period to enroll in medicare — and the rate is rising

Stacie Dusetzina@dusetzinas.bsky.social · 2w ago

Good reminder of how hard it is to access health insurance for people who are disabled by their conditions but in the waiting period for coverage for SSDI/Medicare. The mortality during the wait period for people with cancer (neoplasms) is nearly 40%. www.healthaffairs.org/doi/epdf/10....

Graphic shows the 24-month mortality rate for different conditions for people who are in the 2 year waiting period for obtaining social security disability insurance. Shows nearly 40% mortality for cancer, followed by about 15% digestive diseases, blood diseases, and HIV/AIDS. Lack of health insurance coverage during this period likely contributes to these higher rates of death.
betsy ladyzhets 😷@betsyladyzhets.bsky.social · 2w ago

Today @thesicktimes.org: Writer Flynn Lovelace shares his experience as a teacher with Long COVID, seeing signs of the disease among his students. "Since 2020, disease has held a constant, detrimental grip on classrooms across K–12 (and higher) education," he writes.

The (sick) kids aren’t alright: Observations from a teacher with Long COVID - The Sick Times

We must help students by addressing Long COVID and advocating for clean air in schools.

thesicktimes.org

AHMAD_JOHAR🕊𓂆🇵🇸@ahmadjohary16.bsky.social · 2w ago

Like every family around the world, we simply dream of living in peace. We love life, we have dreams, and we’re doing everything we can to build a safe, normal future for our little family. I truly believe that one day, we’ll live that life. ❤️❤️‍🩹

Our Baby Deserves Safety: Help Ahmad& Samar to Start Again

Hi, I'm helping my dear friends Ahmad and Samar who are seeking your support to build a secure and stable future for themselves and their growing family. Please read their story and consider supportin...

bit.ly

s. e. smith@sesmith.lol · 3w ago

Finding statistics on literally anything in the era of AI slop is so difficult and frustrating; access to accurate, fact-checked, clearly-sourced, and cited information is paywalled behind $$$.

Meade Krosby@meadekrosby.bsky.social · 3w ago

The fires in Ontario - like so many others - demonstrating viscerally how climate change perpetuates the displacement and dispossession of Indigenous peoples, who have least contributed to emissions and over and over again put their bodies on the line to prevent fossil fuel development.

Luke LeBrun@lukelebrun.ca · 3w ago

These images of First Nations community members evacuating Collins, Ontario on motorboats are absolutely surreal www.facebook.com/reel/1548244...

Phoenix Calida@phoenixcalida.latinsky.app · 3w ago

I just dont understand why people hate data centers, aside from the fact that they drive up energy prices, pollute your neighborhoods, ruin clean water and oh yeah Will steal your fucking house via eminent domain www.cbsnews.com/news/georgia...

Georgia family says they're forced to sell home to help power AI data centers: "It's theft"

Georgia Power says building a new transmission line will require acquiring more than 300 parcels of land, including residential properties.

cbsnews.com

Chanda Prescod-Weinstein 🌌@chanda.blacksky.app · 3w ago

ICE and/or police murdered someone this morning in Biddeford, Maine. From the statements I’ve seen from local activists, I *think* the victim was a young Black man. You may already know Black immigrants are the largest non-white immigrant demo in Maine. A protest is already under way.

Witness says Biddeford shooting victim told police ‘I tried to stop’

One resident says he heard the shots and saw as agents pulled the man out of the vehicle.

pressherald.com

HoofbeatsEqualZebra@knockknockzebra.bsky.social · 4w ago

I’m so, so glad this is getting attention. Boston University Medical Center had a recruiting drive years ago & the data privacy info was so sketchy I refused. Subsequent research did nothing to allay my concern & I’ve been yapping about it ever since (mostly on my now-nuked X acct).

Rachel DL@racheldl.bsky.social · 4w ago

I was telling people for years this would happen, and people treated me as if I was paranoid lmfao. They were deliberately seeking marginalized people’s genetic data, the very people who are otherwise denied access to actual medical genetic screens. The study was always inherently predatory -

Shoumita Dasgupta, PhD@profdasgupta.bsky.social · 4w ago

“I don’t think people hoping to benefit public health by sharing their genetic data [All of Us] were really thinking that that’s the kind of company [Palantir] that would be handling their information.” -KHasson of @geneticsandsociety.bsky.social www.motherjones.com/politics/202...

Steenz!@oheysteenz.bsky.social · last mo.

The whole point is I did not agree to have my work used in a book about the constitution (especially one that's not overtly critical), and I don't appreciate that they just traced my work as well. It's so fucked! I had to find out about it through someone else asking if I drew that. No I didn't.

Steenz!@oheysteenz.bsky.social · last mo.

I really am not surprised if D&Q would turn the other way wrt stealing other people's works (LRT) since they did it to me for Constitution Illustrated. "Fair use" was their excuse for tracing wholesale.

The interior of Drawn & Quarterly's Constitution Illustrated of the kids of Heart of the City in a wooden wagon.The kids of Heart of the City in a shopping cart with the Philadelphia skyline behind them.
Naomi Klein@naomiaklein.bsky.social · last mo.

Everybody in the "climate space" (which means everyone on earth...) needs to understand these mind-blowing figures. Google's "total electricity consumption jumped from 31 terawatt hours (TWh) in 2024 to 43 TWh in 2025." In ONE year. The AI corporate arms race is eating the world.

Ketan Joshi@ketanjoshi.co · last mo.

NEW BLOG FOR YOU Google's energy consumption numbers in their new climate report are mind-blowing. 2 years ago they flipped from linear to exponential growth, and their climate impact is blowing out, too. A WILD testament to the obscene bloat and waste of GenAI: ketanjoshi.co/2026/07/01/g...

a chart showing google's rising energy consumption - huge, and rising faster than ever before
LiteralGrill@literalgrill.com · last mo.

So when I got my leg amputated, I lived on a second floor building with only staircases. The alternative was being locked in a nursing home against my will. Right before COVID lockdowns began. It's a minor miracle the place I live now is accessible.

The Sick Times@thesicktimes.org · last mo.

"A 2024 study estimated that nearly one-fourth of people with disabilities in the U.S. live in inaccessible buildings with no elevator and at least one flight of stairs, making it much more difficult — if not impossible — to participate in the community." - @racheldl.bsky.social shorturl.at/MMTZC

A white woman with brown hair, a purple sleep mask, an orange shirt, and noise-canceling headphones, lies under the covers of her bed. The lights in the room are dim and a wheelchair is parked by the side of the bed. An open laptop and paperwork lie on top of the covers. On the wall behind the bed is a small bulletin board and string of fairy lights. The text reads, “The Sick Times. I worked in homeless services for years. It didn’t help me find accessible housing when I got Long COVID. By Rachel Litchman.”
Rav@rvbdrm.com · last mo.

"The Board of CPJ will formally change its definition of who qualifies as a journalist, to broadly exclude slain Palestinian and Lebanese journalists who worked for government-funded media outlets." From Mohammed El-Kurd (editor-at-large at Mondoweiss.)

Mohammed El-Kurd @m7mdkurd NEW: The Board of Directors at the Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) will formally change its definition of who qualifies as a journalist, to broadly exclude slain Palestinian and Lebanese journalists who worked for government-funded media outlets. Israeli, American, and Ukrainian journalists who work for state-funded outlets or are embedded with the military will remain recognized as journalists, of course. The move was catalyzed to appease the right-wing Zionist rag The Free Beacon, which has repeatedly accused Palestinian and Lebanese journalists of being undercover militants or used their political opinions or affiliations as justification for their killing by the IOF. This is a racist scandal of massive proportions for everyone involved, and it makes a mockery of the purported mission of the organization. It is absolutely abhorrent that the organization’s resources are wasted on this cowardly witch-hunt, at a moment in history that is the deadliest for journalists, especially in Palestine and Lebanon. 2:52 PM · Jun 28, 2026 Mohammed El-Kurd @m7mdkurd NEW: Sources say that CPJ has put together a “special task force” to “reexamine the question of ‘Who is a Journalist?’” (direct language). The main objective of the task force is to explore excluding journalists working for “state-backed propaganda outlets and terror-affiliated organizations” from their database, as well as journalists who exhibit actions and behaviors that the organization finds to be discrediting. Essentially, CPJ is saying you’re not a journalist unless you’re politically aligned with us.
United For Democracy@weareufd.bsky.social · last mo.

The far-right majority just cleared the way for Trump to strip legal protections from 350,000 Haitians and 6,100 Syrians who have lived and worked legally in the U.S. for years. Families could be separated. People could be forced back into humanitarian crises. This is mass cruelty.

Supreme Court allows Trump to end protected status for Haitian and Syrian migrants

The ruling opens the path for the Trump administration to deport hundreds of thousands of immigrants who have been living in the US for years.

bbc.com

NCCPR@nccpr.bsky.social · last mo.

I only say “drop everything and read this one” about once or twice a year, so I hope you’ll take my advice concerning this story It’s one of the most compelling, most keenly observed and most beautifully written accounts of being institutionalized as a teenager that I've ever read.

Rachel DL@racheldl.bsky.social · 2mo ago

Very pleased to share my new essay in the Disability Debrief @desibility.bsky.social about what my experiences in a residential institution taught me about power and resistance & how those lessons have come back to me during rising authoritarianism. www.disabilitydebrief.org/debrief/inst...