Kat Abughazaleh is a journalist who worked for Media Matters for America. She's running to represent the weirdly gerrymandered Illinois 9th congressional district, which meanders quite close to you. She's young, sharp, progressive and pretty. One to watch and maybe support.
Kat Abughazaleh is a journalist who worked for Media Matters for America. She's running to represent the weirdly gerrymandered Illinois 9th congressional district, which meanders quite close to you. She's young, sharp, progressive and pretty. One to watch and maybe support.
Watch, yep.
Support, we'll see.
She's got a militant streak as well as an uphill climb.
In early May, Schakowsky announced that she would forgo seeking re-election and retire at the conclusion of her current term in 2026.[74][75] Abughazaleh released a statement which thanked Schakowsky for her tenure in Congress, and praised Schakowsky as having been supportive of Palestinian rights.[76] After Schakowsky announced that she would retire, State Senator Laura Fine[77] and Evanston Mayor Dan Biss (a former state senator and the 2018 Democratic gubernatorial primary runner-up) each announced candidacies for the district. Abrevaya also remains a candidate.[78]
Eamus Catuli~AC 000000000101010202020303010304 020405....Ahhhh, forget it, it's gonna be a while.
Laura Fine, state senator from the 9th district (2019–present)
Kat Abughazaleh, journalist and social media influencer
Bushra Amiwala, member of the Skokie School District 73½ Board of Education (2019–present)
Daniel Biss, mayor of Evanston (2021–present) and candidate for governor in 2018
Justin Ford, environmental health and safety professional
Publicly expressed interest
Mike Simmons, state senator from the 7th district (2021–present)
Potential
Danny Goldberg, attorney
Hoan Huynh, state representative from the 13th district (2023–present)
Withdrawn
David Abrevaya, mathematics teacher
If the established pols split the vote and Kat Abu can mobilize the "militant" niche she might do well. Remember Bozobert? Does plurality take it in IL or do you have runoffs?
If elected, I would be the poorest member of Congress—and the world’s richest man just attacked me in a 3 a.m. tweet for supporting universal health care.
You might have seen a clip of me on CNN last week, debating with Scott Jennings on whether health care is a basic human right. In that clip, Jennings—a longtime Republican strategist and pro-Trump contributor at CNN—asks, “Even illegals?” To which I respond, “Every single person in the world deserves health care.… How is this controversial?”
... One of the main reasons I’m running for Congress is because our leaders have conditioned us into thinking we don’t deserve good things, especially if we aren’t rich. But we do. You do.
Every American deserves to afford housing, groceries, and health care with money left over to save and spend. We deserve to thrive, not just survive. And every single human being in every single country deserves to know that they can find the help they need on the worst day of their lives, when they are at their weakest and most vulnerable.
For most Americans, this concept isn’t hard to grasp, but when it comes to Elon Musk and right-wing pundits, they simply can’t fathom having even an ounce of basic humanity.
Fuck off, Elon.
I support universal health care, of course, but at least Medicaid for the undocumented. It's not just compassion but also for public health reasons:
* Sick or injured workers cost the economy with lost time;
* Sick or injured workers seek care in our expensive ERs;
* Diseases don't check immigration status. It is in the interest of citizens to have the undocumented treated rapidly and adequately.
In his second term, President Donald Trump has turned most Republican members of Congress, from the House speaker who declared Congress has no war powers to the backbench wingnuts nominating him for the Nobel Prize, into his stooges and henchmen.
Except for Rep. Thomas Massie (R-Ky.).
The Kentucky Republican has stood athwart the tide of Trumpism, not yelling “stop!” exactly, but at least not going along with the tide.
And Trump clearly hates it....
So Trump has escalated his attacks on Massie, saying this week he’ll recruit a primary opponent and campaign against Massie in his Northern Kentucky district. On Thursday, a new super PAC backed by Trump allies unveiled anti-Massie attack ads.
Massie says it’s not actually about him — it’s about intimidating the many other Republicans who’ve threatened to stray from the party line.
“He’s doing this publicly and very flagrantly and notoriously in order to keep all of those people in line because they don’t want any part of this, whereas I think I can sustain it,” Massie told HuffPost in an interview this week....
For years and years, Republicans have said budget deficits and the growing national debt are pure evil. The party’s libertarian wing, of which Massie is a leading member, has always been particularly adamant.
The funny thing is, Massie is in no way an anti-Trump Republican. He’s a reliable Trump-aligned voter on most high-profile issues and a leading voice on others.
To give one example, Massie is the foremost proponent of the theory that the Jan. 6, 2021, riot at the U.S. Capitol had been at least partially instigated not by Trump, but by a supposed FBI informant named Ray Epps, with the ultimate goal of entrapping Trump supporters in the criminal justice system. Epps repeatedly said under penalty of perjury that he wasn’t a federal agent. He got charged with crimes along with 1,500 other Trump supporters....
TACO DonOLD is a mob boss and almost all RepuQs in Congress are cowards.
Prediction.....trump will find some reason to somehow postpone or even cancel the midterm elections. Republicans in congress will go along with it, gushing in awe the whole time. All the while, they'll be cackling about "law and order." Wait and see.
Prediction.....trump will find some reason to somehow postpone or even cancel the midterm elections. Republicans in congress will go along with it, gushing in awe the whole time. All the while, they'll be cackling about "law and order." Wait and see.
It won't surprise me to see NC11's Chuck Edwards run for the seat. He comes off as sane, unlike the norm for NC11, he's been a boot-licking loyal MAGAt, and he got some positive national media from his mostly competent and compassionate work in the wake of Helene, other than kissing FEMA-dismantling TACO's ass.
Whatever, better chance than usual that our new Sen will be a Dem. Haha. In fact, that could play a role in the Tillis retirement. Maybe he didn't like his chances.
Prediction.....trump will find some reason to somehow postpone or even cancel the midterm elections. Republicans in congress will go along with it, gushing in awe the whole time. All the while, they'll be cackling about "law and order." Wait and see.
It won't surprise me to see NC11's Chuck Edwards run for the seat. He comes off as sane, unlike the norm for NC11, he's been a boot-licking loyal MAGAt, and he got some positive national media from his mostly competent and compassionate work in the wake of Helene, other than kissing FEMA-dismantling TACO's ass.
Whatever, better chance than usual that our new Sen will be a Dem. Haha. In fact, that could play a role in the Tillis retirement. Maybe he didn't like his chances.
IMO she would get trounced in the general. GoLaraGo!
I think she would be an interesting candidate. There certainly would not be a name identity issue that any other GOP candidate will have. Also, like it or not guys, the Trump connection would be helpful to her in NC.
Prediction.....trump will find some reason to somehow postpone or even cancel the midterm elections. Republicans in congress will go along with it, gushing in awe the whole time. All the while, they'll be cackling about "law and order." Wait and see.
It won't surprise me to see NC11's Chuck Edwards run for the seat. He comes off as sane, unlike the norm for NC11, he's been a boot-licking loyal MAGAt, and he got some positive national media from his mostly competent and compassionate work in the wake of Helene, other than kissing FEMA-dismantling TACO's ass.
Whatever, better chance than usual that our new Sen will be a Dem. Haha. In fact, that could play a role in the Tillis retirement. Maybe he didn't like his chances.
IMO she would get trounced in the general. GoLaraGo!
Damn, I thought she was just going to embark on a career as a bad singer and occasional standard liar and whiner on Fox News. With any luck, she will run for Senate and Mark Meadows will be her campaign manager, Paul Manafort as liaison to Russia. But I agree with supplicant.....she will certainly be an "interesting" candidate......interesting in the same way a three mile long train derailment is interesting.
IMO she would get trounced in the general. GoLaraGo!
Damn, I thought she was just going to embark on a career as a bad singer and occasional standard liar and whiner on Fox News. With any luck, she will run for Senate and Mark Meadows will be her campaign manager, Paul Manafort as liaison to Russia. But I agree with supplicant.....she will certainly be an "interesting" candidate......interesting in the same way a three mile long train derailment is interesting.
The curse is sometimes presented as the first in a trilogy. Comedic author Terry Pratchett stated:
The phrase "may you live in interesting times" is the lowest in a trilogy of Chinese curses that continue "may you come to the attention of those in authority" and finish with "may the gods give you everything you ask for." I have no idea about its authenticity.
So maybe Thom will run as independent. Probably good chance if he did?
For Senate?
Yeah - it's a different scenario, but reminds me of Murkowski. I don't know, but I thought Tillis was fairly popular in NC and had a pretty safe seat. Absent doing something stupid like being a full-blown Trumper, I thought he'd cruise to re-election. But now, he'd be saying in effect "I did my best to work for the interests on NC, but the repressive Republican Trump party wants only loyalty to them, and I can no longer be a Republican. But I've done a good job for NC and would like to continue as an independent, putting the priorities of my state and my constituents above party..."
So maybe Thom will run as independent. Probably good chance if he did?
For Senate?
Yeah - it's a different scenario, but reminds me of Murkowski. I don't know, but I thought Tillis was fairly popular in NC and had a pretty safe seat. Absent doing something stupid like being a full-blown Trumper, I thought he'd cruise to re-election. But now, he'd be saying in effect "I did my best to work for the interests on NC, but the repressive Republican Trump party wants only loyalty to them, and I can no longer be a Republican. But I've done a good job for NC and would like to continue as an independent, putting the priorities of my state and my constituents above party..."
IMO he has not moved that far away from the current GQP yet. However, if he has I could see him switching to Independent just before filing, say early 2006, not retiring and then unretiring. That way, the parties would have less time to prepare for a wildcard election, and Tillis would look less indecisive.
I didn't write this, but for the most part I could have. Highly appropriate for upcoming elections.
If you won’t fight for me, I’ll vote for you
BY NOLAN FINLEY
One reason today’s politics have become so vicious is the way we characterize
our political campaigns.
They are battles, not races, and are contested by candidates, no matter how
scrawny, who cast themselves as Viking warriors.
Nearly everyone who runs for office claims to be a “fighter” and promises to go
to Washington, D.C., the state capital or City Hall and battle on behalf of their
constituents.
To prove their pugilistic skills they present themselves on the campaign trail as
angry, snarling tough guys and “bad asses” (one of the worst cultural cliches
ever), and communicate in the language of confrontation.
A fighter needs someone to fight. So Job One is to manufacture a enemy.
Candidates must convince voters “the other side” is out to harm them and
destroy their way of life. They fearmonger, demonize their opponents and
portray every policy disagreement as an existential threat.
In our newly released “The Civility Book” (Wayne State University Press),
Stephen Henderson and I devote a segment to how politicians profit off
keeping us divided and afraid of each other.
They need us to be anxious and worried that our neighbors are out to get us to
motivate us to the polls to vote for them as our protectors. They want us to
believe our countrymen are our blood enemies simply because they vote
differently than we do.
They know that if we stop hating each other, they’ll be out of business.
The default campaign strategy in America is not to sell your own vision for a
brighter, more prosperous nation, but to cast the other guy’s plan as the path
to destruction.
When is the last time a politician has made a case for office by inspiring voters
rather than scaring them to death? Who is out there pitching a message of hope
rather than fear?
In a political environment in which elected officials are being murdered in their
homes, I’m done with all this fighting talk.
I don’t need anyone to fight for me. I need someone to get things done for me. I
need a representative who will seek consensus for me. I’m looking for
politicians willing to reach across the political divide for me.
There’s too much fighting and not enough cooperating. Too much partisanship
and not enough fellowship. If you want my vote, tell me about who you will lift
up rather than who you will knock down.
I’m not afraid of those I disagree with, and I certainly don’t hate them. I believe
for the most part they are good, honorable people who hold values and views
that are different from mine, but no less valid. I don’t need a politician
punching them in the nose in my name.
When we give our Civility Project presentations, Stephen and I are nearly
always asked what individuals can do to help close the political divide.
For one thing, they can stop voting for candidates who preach division. Stop
choosing politicians who put partisanship over principles.
This cycle, I’m rejecting any candidate who casts politics as a war. I’m not
voting for any fighters. I’m voting for healers, for collaborators, for those
committed to civil discourse.
If you want my vote, promise not to fight for me.
Huh? It's an either/or question.
One way is winding up Mush.
Fuck off, Elon.
