#Kat Abughazaleh

[justinspoliticalcorner]

Tessa Stuart at Rolling Stone:

Illinois 9th District has only been represented by two people since 1965, and there hasn’t been a competitive primary since the race Democratic Congresswoman Jan Schakowsky, the district’s current representative, won in November 1998. “I wouldn’t be born for another four months,” deadpans Kat Abughazaleh, the TikTok-famous political commentator now running to represent the district.  Abughazaleh is transparent about the fact that she is not what anyone thinks of as shoe-in for Congress: a 26-year-old narcoleptic freelance social media creator who doesn’t live in the district and has only lived in the state for less than a year, challenging a Democratic Party leader who has represented this part of Illinois for more than a quarter of a century.  That’s kind of the point: She is a normal person — with a rental lease she can’t break before it’s up, financial pressure bearing down on her, and prescription medication that she needs to function properly and that has been challenging to obtain since Elon Musk went after her employer, and she and many of her colleagues were laid off.  And when she looks to Congress, not only does she not see enough people who are concerned with the practical day-to-day challenges she and so many of the people she knows are struggling with — the costs of housing, health care, groceries, transportation — she also doesn’t see anyone confronting with any level of seriousness the peril of our current moment, two months into Donald Trump’s second term.  “We are in an emergency,” Abughazaleh says. “Right now, the answer to authoritarianism isn’t to be quiet. It’s not matching pink outfits at a state address. It’s not throwing trans people under the bus. It’s not refusing to look at the party at all and see where it could be better. The answer is to very publicly, very loudly, very boldly, stand up. The only way to fight fascism, and this has been proven over and over and over again, is loudly, proudly, and every single day.”

Abughazaleh may be young, but she is a wildly successful, incisive communicator who is stepping up at a time when it is clear that the party is in desperate need of new messengers. And she is popular on the social media platforms where sitting Democrats’ posts are continually flopping, ridiculed for their tone deafness.  The day after the 2024 presidential election, Abughazaleh thought she would wake up with an irrepressible urge to flee the country. Instead, she says, it was the opposite: “I woke up and thought, ‘You’re gonna have to drag me out by my dead body’ … I just got really angry, and I thought about running at that moment, but I was like, ‘No, I’m sure Democrats will do something,’ and then they haven’t — and it’s just been not only disappointing, but scary to watch.” Schakowsky, currently representing the district, “has had a pretty great track record on her voting,” Abughazaleh admits. But she is also 80 years old, and hasn’t had a competitive primary in decades. “She’s been a good congresswoman, but I want to be better.”

[...] Abughazaleh was born in Texas and raised as a Republican — really Republican. Her maternal grandmother, Taffy Goldsmith, was such a legendary GOP operative that when she died, the flag at Texas state capitol was flown at half mast. (Abughazaleh inherited the mink coat Goldsmith wore to Nixon’s inauguration.) Her father is a Palestinian immigrant. Both her parents, she says, were Reagan Republicans whose relationship with the party has ruptured since Trump took it over. Abughazaleh’s own political views took shape at college in Washington, D.C. She studied at George Washington University, and went to work at Media Matters after graduation, where she was employed until 2024, after Musk sued the organization, and she and 11 others got laid off.  The day the news broke, Musk tweeted “Karma is real” and his coterie of sycophants, including Libs of TikTok, piled on. Abughazaleh says it was one of the worst days of her life. The saga didn’t end there, either — Abughazaleh was deposed as part of Musk’s lawsuit against Media Matters, questioned on video for seven hours. (The lawsuit is ongoing.) After she was laid off from Media Matters, Abughazaleh did freelance video production with Mother Jones and Zeteo, but she is stepping away from work with both outlets during her campaign. “It’s terrifying… I don’t have health insurance, I have no income coming in, and am using GoodRx like my life depends on it — because it kind of does.” 

Progressive social media influencer and former MMFA journalist Kat Abughazaleh (Kat Abu) is running for a US House seat in #IL09, currently occupied by Rep. Jan Schakowsky (D).

[sponsored-deactivated20210106]

View this post on Instagram

A post shared by Kat Abughazaleh (@kabughazaleh)

Fuck yeah! 👍 Run, Kat — run! Kat Abughazaleh running for Congress

🐱🇺🇸🗳️

[thedyf]

The future is now, old man.

[tomorrowusa]

There's nothing weird about Democrats calling Republican policies and proposals "weird". It's basically just telling it like it is.

On IVF and abortion, Republicans assert that fundamentalist officials (overwhelmingly male) have the right to dictate what women are able to do with their bodies. That's not just weird but also creepy and pervy.

Despite the fact that the words Jesus and Christian are nowhere in the US Constitution or Declaration of Independence, the MAGA crowd wants the US to be governed as a Christian theocracy – the United States of Gilead or something like that. That's certainly weird.

These far right obsessives think the United States should be aligned with dictators and war criminals instead of our traditional allies in liberal democracies. That's not just weird but puts us on the wrong side of history.

If anybody objects to you calling Republicans "weird", spell out some of the Trump-Vance policies and explain that the word fits perfectly.

[cicadabooks]

Kat Abughazaleh's contact page:

https://www.katforillinois.com/contact

(image: contact page with a bold title of "Questions? Comments? Concerns? Death threats?" with emails for these communications)

Apparently boomer Democrats are having meltdowns over a gen-z progressive who is primarying an 80 year old Democrat because she "went on trans podcasts" and wore a Charizard kigurumi

[schraubd]

What Will Be the Democratic Party's Anti-Incumbent Keyes Number?

Way back in 2005 (20 years ago(!)) the blogosphere discovered the "Crazification Factor" of 27% -- the baseline percentage of Americans who will take an action for reasons that defy any rational explanation whatsoever. The background came in a discussion of President George W. Bush's cratering approval numbers, and a query as to how low they might go, and it's still fun to read to this day: John: Hey, Bush is now at 37% approval. I feel much less like Kevin McCarthy screaming in traffic. But I wonder what his base is -- Tyrone: 27%. John: ... you said that immediately, and with some authority. Tyrone: Obama vs. Alan Keyes. Keyes was from out of state, so you can eliminate any established political base; both candidates were black, so you can factor out racism; and Keyes was plainly, obviously, completely crazy. Batshit crazy. Head-trauma crazy. But 27% of the population of Illinois voted for him. They put party identification, personal prejudice, whatever ahead of rational judgement. Hell, even like 5% of Democrats voted for him. That's crazy behaviour. I think you have to assume a 27% Crazification Factor in any population. For this reason, the "Crazification Factor" is also known as the "Keyes Number". And though undoubtedly the product of significant cherry-picking, it was fun in the years that followed to find other crazy propositions that clustered around 27% support. I was thinking about this nugget of blogger history upon reading about an announced primary challenge against incumbent Rep. Jan Schakowsky (D-IL) by progressive influencer Kat Abughazaleh. The announced basis for the challenge is general discontent with Democratic leadership and the "gerontocracy" not being aggressive enough in fighting the Trump administration. But the problem is that nobody -- not even Abughazaleh -- can point to any problems on that front for Schakowsky, specifically. Abughazaleh herself agrees that Schakowsky has been a good Democrat! Beyond that, Abughazaleh has never held elected office, has no significant political experience, is from out-of-state (she voted in DC last election), and doesn't live in Schakowsky's district. In terms of traditional bases of support, Abughazaleh has literally nothing going for her other than "I am not a long-standing incumbent Democrat." To be clear, I'm not saying one would have to be crazy to vote for Abughazaleh. Rather, what made the Keyes Factor notable was that the Keyes/Obama race helpfully isolated out every possible reason one might vote for a candidate aside from "I'm attracted to the crazy." Likewise, I'm pointing out that if Abughazaleh does end up facing off against Schakowsky (and the latter hasn't decided if she's seeking reelection), any support the latter gets will be purely, 100% attributable to people voting entirely on the basis of generalized anti-incumbent/anti-established Democrat rage, untethered either to any particular vices of the incumbent or any particular virtues of the challenger. It will, in other words, provide a useful baseline for seeing how powerful this sentiment is amongst the Democratic electorate, because it is a race that is uniquely free of other confounding variables.  This race will not be like George Latimer beating Jamaal Bowman (an especially well-established challenger taking out a somewhat wounded incumbent, with clear ideological differences), or AOC beating Joe Crowley (a uniquely talented challenger ousting an incumbent asleep at the wheel). Here, the only impetus that might push a voter to pick Abughazaleh over Schakowsky is "Schakowsky is an old, long-tenured incumbent, and I don't like that." That's clearly a sentiment that has no small amount of force amongst Democrats right now -- but is it enough to actually win a race? I don't think it is. My guess, assuming a head-to-head matchup between Schakowsky and Abughazaleh? I think the latter will end up pulling around 27%. We'll see if I'm right. via The Debate Link https://ift.tt/fuq140i

[dhaaruni]

im sorry if you already had commentary on this but i would love to know your thoughts on kat abughazaleh... like not living in the district she's running apparently?!

Haha I haven't said anything really because I doubt she'll win.

But honestly, I don't think she's a serious candidate since a) she doesn't currently live in the district she's running in, b) has no history of living in that district, c) is refusing to run TV ads because she thinks appealing to older voters is icky (ignoring that older voters vote a lot more than the youths), and d) is primarying an elected official who, while old, is markedly more progressive than the voters in the district.

But she's very pretty (minus the weird Zoomer bangs) and I wish her the best of luck lol

[omamervt]

Hey I know that like, AOC is not a perfect or even necessarily good representative half the time, it seems like, but do you guys remember that time she and Ilhan Omar played Among Us on Twitch?

We need more representation like that.

Anyway here's Kat Abughazaleh, running for Congress in Illinois:

[sponsored-deactivated20210106]

View this post on Instagram

A post shared by Kat Abughazaleh (@kabughazaleh)

[thedyf]

Kat has only supported trans rights since 2020 and now she's implying the woman who helped found the congressional lgbt+ equality caucus and who actually has a trans grandson who's life be ruined if she stops fighting cares less about trans people than Kat?

LMFAO

Usually I ignore these, but I'll bite. Please show me some information or an interview to support your claim if you're going to imply that someone is doing something, citation is needed. I would consider this a serious topic and nothing to laugh about honestly, especially if you care about it as much as you seem to since you went out of your way to send me an anonymous ask when I realistically just posted it to share information (because I am black and disabled and I post things or information that would or may positively effect my life because of/inspite of that) and not necessarily exhalt anyone as anything in particular.

[sponsored-deactivated20210106]

She has more perspective than the 80-year old geriatric Congresswoman she's running against.

When so many of these people are unqualified, with very little to no experience in the field they're supposed to lead, I start wondering if these are the qualifications in the first place. Because all of this is starting to look like a feature rather than a bug.

[meret118]

Recent reporting by the Orlando Sentinel revealed that Florida state officials are pressuring some districts to adopt an abstinence-only approach, stripping students of basic knowledge about contraception, anatomy, and human development. Students are being taught abstinence as the sole method of avoiding pregnancy and STDs, and terms like “abuse,” “fluids,” and “LGBTQ” are absent from classrooms.

“Under recent changes to state law,” reports the Associated Press, “it’s now up to the Florida Department of Education to sign off on school districts’ curriculum on reproductive health and disease education if they use teaching materials other than the state’s designated textbook.”

This week, Mother Jones Creator Kat Abughazaleh analyzes one of these state-approved plans, “Real Essentials,” which encourages “spiritual intimacy” and traditional marriage. The plan’s author has a history of citing pro-abstinence education research from the Heritage Foundation, the conservative think tank behind Project 2025.

Florida’s approach is a test for a much broader movement, Kat argues. Just pages into Project 2025, you’ll find a promise to register “educators and public librarians” who purvey “pornography”—a term so vaguely defined as to potentially include any term currently being weaponized in the culture war—as registered “sex offenders.” Another section calls for provisions to prevent types of sex education that might “promote prostitution, or provide a funnel effect for abortion facilities and school field trips to clinics.”

[beardedmrbean]

Liberal watchdog Media Matters fired at least a dozen staffers Thursday — and management and some of the laid-off journalists blamed X owner Elon Musk for the cuts.

The billionaire mogul sued the Washington, DC-based nonprofit organization for defamation last November, accusing the company of manufacturing images showing advertisements from major companies alongside posts made by white supremacists and neo-Nazis.

The lawsuit led to federal probes by Republican Attorneys General Ken Paxton of Texas and Andrew Bailey of Missouri into the outlet for possible fraudulent activity by allegedly manipulating data on the site formerly known as Twitter.

Media Matters did not immediately return requests for comment but its president Angelo Carusone released a statement on Thursday regarding the layoffs.

“We’re confronting a legal assault on multiple fronts and given how rapidly the media landscape is shifting, we need to be extremely intentional about how we allocate resources in order to stay effective,” Carusone said.

“Nobody does what Media Matters does. So, we’re taking this action now to ensure that we are sustainable, sturdy and successful for whatever lies ahead.”

Ousted staffers took to social media Thursday to announce their sudden dismissal, with one having particularly harsh words for Musk.

“Bad News: I’ve been laid off from @mmfa, along with a dozen colleagues. There’s a reason far-right billionaires attack Media Matters with armies of lawyers: They know how effective our work is, and it terrifies them (him),” Kat Abughazaleh wrote.

The Post reached out to Musk for comment.

Other longtime Media Matters journalists lamented the layoffs.

“After nearly four years of working at media matters, I got laid off,” wrote a staffer named Beatrice. “So if anyone is looking for researchers with video experience, drop a line.”

“Journalism milestone achieved (got laid off),” now-former Media Matters writer Bobby Lewis added.

“Layoffs at Media Matters today. Lots of smart people available for jobs now,” said Jared Holt, a senior researcher at the Institute of Strategic Dialogue.

At the time of the Musk lawsuit, Carusone called it “meritless” and pointed out that “major brands” are “rightly skittish of partnering” with the social media platform.

The suit — which was filed in federal court in Fort Worth, Texas — is still winding through the judicial system.

Media Matters’ purge is the latest in a slew of layoffs in the industry — and notably at liberal outlets.

NowThis laid off half of its editorial team in February as part of a “broader initiative to realign our resources and structure to ensure a long-term sustainable business in the evolving media landscape,” The Daily Caller first reported.

The Intercept also laid off 15 staffers, including its editor in chief Roger Hodge, on the same day. Last month, The New York Times reported that the news site co-founded by Glenn Greenwald is running low on cash and that it is in danger of closing next year.

[vague-humanoid]

LIVE w/ Abby Martin, Francesca Fiorentini, & Kat Abu: Rage against the (corporate media) machine!

While Democrats are looking for scapegoats to blame for their losses on election day, Donald Trump is busy making cabinet and administration appointments. When it comes to US policy on issues ranging from the climate crisis to Israel’s ongoing genocide in Gaza, from public health policy to reproductive rights and labor rights and civil rights, from trade wars to mass deportations, one thing is clear: a lot is about to change. But between Trump’s own contradictory statements and a corporate, independent, and social media ecosystem overflowing with conjecture, misinformation, propaganda, and partisan hackery, it is difficult to know what exactly is coming, how we should be preparing for it, and how we can fight it.

So what are we facing, really? How do we get ready for the fight ahead? What tools do we need to parse fact from fiction in this critical moment, when talk is everywhere but truth is in short supply? What lessons from the last Trump administration can we use to effectively navigate the very different political terrain we’re on and media ecosystem we’re in today? In this livestream, we’ll dig into these questions (and answer yours!) with independent media makers Abby Martin of  ‪@EmpireFiles‬, Francesca Fiorentini ‪@franifio‬ “The Bitchuation Room” podcast, and Kat Abughazaleh ‪@katmabu‬ of ‪@MotherJones‬.

[evidence-based-activism]

I already had this discussion about deepfakes. Deepfakes aren’t on the front cover of internationally recognised magazines. Also I call trump and Biden Donald and joe as much as I call Harris Kamala. You just want to Pearl clutch over irrelevant points

This is in reference to this post.

You do realize that the fact that a magazine can publish a cover like that, and Biden and Trump can continue on with absolutely no repercussions, while female politicians are having their personal and professional lives ruined due to propaganda in and from less reputable sources … does not actually support your argument?

As I said, I find the cover distasteful. (To be clear, however, that is because of the threads of ableism not sexism in the cover.) But again, distasteful and offensive commentary is pretty much par for the course for political cartoons and satire. The fact that there has been such a universal condemnation of the cover when objectifying and sexualizing images of female professionals are being defended as “free speech” is yet another point against your argument. (And it’s not like similarly (or more) offensive content isn’t spread about female politicians. Here's three examples I found via a quick Google search [1-3]. Importantly, a common difference is that these attacks aren’t about one or two specific women the way that cover is about two specific men, they’re about undermining all women in politics.)

And while we’re on the topic, answer this: are you even capable of imagining a magazine cover of a women in her underwear that is not overtly sexual?

"Also I call trump and Biden Donald and joe as much as I call Harris Kamala. You just want to Pearl clutch over irrelevant points."

Funny then, that you just so happened to only use Harris’s first name in that question.

You sent an ask about sexism in political commentary, the sexism in your question is therefore not irrelevant.

Unless you actually engage with the arguments I've made, I will not respond to further asks on this topic.

References below the cut:

Rodriguez, B. (2024, July 24). Racist, misogynist online disinformation is already being used against Kamala Harris’ campaign. The 19th. https://19thnews.org/2024/07/racist-misogynist-online-disinformation-is-being-used-against-kamala-harris-campaign/

Rogers, J. (2020, August 14). The Australian’s racist Kamala Harris cartoon shows why diversity in newsrooms matters. The Conversation. http://theconversation.com/the-australians-racist-kamala-harris-cartoon-shows-why-diversity-in-newsrooms-matters-144503

West, J. (2024, July 12). Fox’s racist, sexist attacks on Kamala aren’t landing. Yet. Mother Jones. https://www.motherjones.com/politics/2024/07/fox-news-kat-abughazaleh-kamala-harris-biden-debate-video/