Summary of events:
Bush was elected in 2020 when she beat former Rep. William Lacy Clay in the Democratic primary.
In a phone call last summer her challenger Bell told her he would not run against her.
Bush was one of the first members of Congress to call for a ceasefire in Gaza, alongside Rep. Rashida Tlaib, D-Mich., the only Palestinian American member of Congress.
This primary AIPAC spent $8.5 million supporting Bell including mailers which featured images with distortions made to Bush’s features. It is the fourth most expensive primary in House history.
This is now the 2nd Squad member AIPAC has removed through its campaign financing.
:(
@TrippyFocus Honestly I don’t think she helped herself much, basically every ad I saw from her came off like old fashioned mud slinging, and I don’t think I saw a single ad that trumpeted her accomplishments.
A local political commentator put out this scathing review of her voting record and spending. Curious what other folks think about it because it seems pretty damming
Cori Bush was one of only six Democrats who partnered with 200 Republicans to vote against the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act. Anyone who has driven in St. Louis lately understands , and how desperately we needed that investment.
IIRC this was because they split the bill with the social programs part that was originally all supposed to be 1 package. She was originally for the combined package.
Nope, not for Cori Bush, who’s repeatedly voted against defense spending.
Is this supposed to be bad…?
Despite the fact that Defund the Police was never effective, is wildly unpopular , and is overwhelmingly unpopular with Black voters, Cori Bush stubbornly continues to support the cause. She did in 2022, and she’s not backing away in 2024.
But here’s the kicker: Bush spends more on private security than just about any other member of Congress, having spent close to $500,000 on private security in the 2022 cycle. Just to be clear, this is highly aberrant. Combined, the rest of Missouri’s House delegation has spent a grand total of $0 on private security.
Without getting into a whole separate thing on defund the police I will say the spending is eye raising, she has said:
“I’m going to make sure I have security because I know I have had attempts on my life and I have too much work to do,” she said.
I would agree the spending is a bit much but I don’t know the number of threats either. He does later mention she employed her now husband as security as well which is being investigated.
With a national platform, she fails to take even basic steps to help St. Louisans
This whole section feels like it’s reaching. Like maybe she felt the best route was to push to give her constituents more time? Why aren’t other state reps also getting heat for the unused funds?
To a fault, Cori Bush is uncompromisingly partisan
Like this is meaningless in a vacuum, reaching across the aisle isn’t some automatic good.
Take her “no” vote on sanctions against Russia
There are leftists that believe sanctions primarily hurt the working class of countries and not the people in power and so are against them. They haven’t removed Putin from power so far and trying to sanction a third of the countries in the world also has other downsides.
US Secretary of the Treasury Janet Yellen said she is concerned about the strength of the US dollar going forwards, after widespread implementation of sanctions by the country has pushed other financial institutions to seek trades in other currencies.
Overall not a lot in there outside of the security spending/investigation which I’ll agree should be looked at.
Edit:
Also before any tries to frame voting No on H.R.6679 as problematic look at the actual bill:
The bill also expands an existing admissions bar against officers, representatives, and spokespersons of the Palestinian Liberation Organization (PLO). Under this bill, all PLO members are barred from admission into the United States.
Per Wikipedia:
the PLO recognized Israeli sovereignty with the Oslo I Accord, and now only seeks Arab statehood in the Palestinian territories (the West Bank and the Gaza Strip) that have been militarily occupied by Israel since the 1967 Arab–Israeli War.
I keep telling people, the AIPAC dollars are why you will never see a strong stand against Israel and nobody ever believes me…
Yeah AIPAC is trying to send a message with these huge spending amounts, speaking out against Zionism and Israel’s genocide gets you removed.
Not sure how this country peacefully fixes its many issues when bribery of politicians and judges is completely legal.
Overturning citizens united would help
While I totally agree and even believe this should be political priority #1, I’m not sure anything short of a constitutional amendment will result in this. If liberal judges are anything like their liberal politician counterparts, then they will try to take the high road and subsequently fail to change the Citizens United ruling at the supreme court level.
Packing the court is probably the “easiest” route.
It’s almost as if being pro-Israel while also being anti-Netenyahu while also being anti-Hamas while also being pro-Palestinian is really popular to those who vote at the ballot box ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
It’s almost as if money has a huge influence on elections and allowing legal bribery of politicians and judges probably isn’t the best route to improving conditions for disadvantaged members in any society.
And I don’t see how pushing to continue to fund and supply their genocide is “pro-Palestinian”.
I don’t see how allowing a genocide by Hamas is “pro-Palestinian”
What genocide is happening due to Hamas?
Last I checked it’s Israel that has been occupying both the West Bank and Gaza for decades.
It’s Israel that’s been declared by the ICC to be committing acts of genocide.
Israel is the one that’s running an apartheid state for decades.
History did not start on Oct 7th.
You’re right, history did not start on October 7th.
As a matter of fact, the history of Hamas could be thought of to start in August of 1988, when they issued the Covenant of the Islamic Resistance Movement.
In this covenant, they state:
“The Islamic Resistance Movement is a distinguished Palestinian movement, whose allegiance is to Allah, and whose way of life is Islam. It strives to raise the banner of Allah over every inch of Palestine.” (Article 6)
“Israel will exist and will continue to exist until Islam will obliterate it, just as it obliterated others before it.” (Preamble)
“The land of Palestine is an Islamic Waqf [Holy Possession] consecrated for future Moslem generations until Judgment Day. No one can renounce it or any part, or abandon it or any part of it.” (Article 11)
“Palestine is an Islamic land… Since this is the case, the Liberation of Palestine is an individual duty for every Moslem wherever he may be.” (Article 13)
“The day the enemies usurp part of Moslem land, Jihad becomes the individual duty of every Moslem. In the face of the Jews’ usurpation, it is compulsory that the banner of Jihad be raised.” (Article 15)
“Ranks will close, fighters joining other fighters, and masses everywhere in the Islamic world will come forward in response to the call of duty, loudly proclaiming: ‘Hail to Jihad!’. This cry will reach the heavens and will go on being resounded until liberation is achieved, the invaders vanquished and Allah’s victory comes about.” (Article 33)
“[Peace] initiatives, and so-called peaceful solutions and international conferences are in contradiction to the principles of the Islamic Resistance Movement… Those conferences are no more than a means to appoint the infidels as arbitrators in the lands of Islam… There is no solution for the Palestinian problem except by Jihad. Initiatives, proposals and international conferences are but a waste of time, an exercise in futility.” (Article 13)
“The Day of Judgment will not come about until Moslems fight Jews and kill them. Then, the Jews will hide behind rocks and trees, and the rocks and trees will cry out: 'O Moslem, there is a Jew hiding behind me, come and kill him.” (Article 7)
“The enemies have been scheming for a long time … and have accumulated huge and influential material wealth. With their money, they took control of the world media… With their money they stirred revolutions in various parts of the globe… They stood behind the French Revolution, the Communist Revolution and most of the revolutions we hear about… With their money they formed secret organizations - such as the Freemasons, Rotary Clubs and the Lions - which are spreading around the world, in order to destroy societies and carry out Zionist interests… They stood behind World War I … and formed the League of Nations through which they could rule the world. They were behind World War II, through which they made huge financial gains… There is no war going on anywhere without them having their finger in it.” (Article 22)
“Zionism scheming has no end, and after Palestine, they will covet expansion from the Nile to the Euphrates River. When they have finished digesting the area on which they have laid their hand, they will look forward to more expansion. Their scheme has been laid out in the ‘Protocols of the Elders of Zion’.” (Article 32)
“The HAMAS regards itself the spearhead and the vanguard of the circle of struggle against World Zionism… Islamic groups all over the Arab world should also do the same, since they are best equipped for their future role in the fight against the warmongering Jews.” (Article 32)
What does any of that have to do with Israel’s genocide? No US politician is “Pro-Hamas” they’re at best against the funding and supplying of weapons to Israel due to the ongoing genocide.
Hamas was elected nearly 20 years ago at this point and there hasn’t been one since due to Israel’s occupation. Nearly half of Gazas population is children so wouldn’t have even been alive during that election. How are any of them responsible for Hamas actions?
When I say history didn’t start on Oct 7th I’m saying that this has been happening since the Nakba well before Hamas. Decades of apartheid and genocide are going to bread anger against the purpetrators. Especially when peaceful protests have been met with violance by Israel.
Any support Hamas has is largely because it’s one of the few organizations able to fight against Israel since Israel has been helping prop up Hamas.
The idea was to prevent Abbas — or anyone else in the Palestinian Authority’s West Bank government — from advancing toward the establishment of a Palestinian state.
So Israel, after running an apartheid state for decades and trying to slowly wipe out the Palestinian people, started to fund Hamas to prevent a Palestinian state from forming because as you clearly pointed out Hamas is an extremist group it blew up in their faces but that’s somehow the fault of the innocent children?
Maybe Israel should have been pushing for a unified state that guaranteed rights to all groups.
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Lol you’re clearly just going to continue to believe Israel’s propaganda that it uses to justify an ongoing Apartheid state and genocide. I actually go out and organize in my community and am extensively read up on this subject but instead of countering any of my last points you want to tap out and try to use some cliche’s to end the conversation.
Shut the fuck up you genocide sympathizer. Go eat shit.
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Why don’t you go join the homicidal death cult, terrorist sympathizer! Go kill a baby or rape some women, why don’t you, terrorist!
Why would they want to join the IOF?
You probably meant IDF, dummy.
But good one 🤦
No, I mean the IOF. The IDF is a misnomer.
Yeah that’s a totally incoherent set of positions; par for the course for Americans on foreign policy
Our system is totally working guys, we just openly let Israel spend literally unlimited money to form our government by hand.
Sounds by the people for the people to me 🙄
Sounds like the majority of people have spoken and don’t want her to represent their values in the main election in November.
I see no problem here.
Well, by this time next year the DNC will be a fully genocide-enabling party and I’ll have no reason to even PRETEND they’re not the same white devils that the RNC are
When the rnc is finally defeated I’m sure the dnc will take its place.
Oh, undoubtedly. They’ll probably resort to creating carceral slaves hand-over-fist to prevent the same kind of ideological split that saw the Republican party chestburst the Whigs; because at this juncture of history, there’s only really one reliable counter-position to the DNC, and they can’t have that.
Supporters of Bush and Bowman now face a strange incentive.
If they vote for Latimer and Bell, they will only embolden AIPAC and corporate America to use the same playbook in the districts of other progressive Democrats. And they will have them as incumbents in 2026.
If they do a protest vote (third party, write-in or stay home), that sends a clear message, but also gives the Republicans a +1.
On the face it, it would suck if the Republicans win their district, but also consider that a Republican win will (a) ensure Democrats field a progressive in 2026 and (b) show both Democrats and Republicans that the progressive vote is powerful and can be courted.
So it might actually be a good strategy. Look at 2016. Yeah, four years of Trump sucked, but it also made Democrats realize they had to court their progressive win. Corporate Hilary just couldn’t win without them.
Knowing this, there is also a Dark Brandon, scorched earth, move available: Vote directly for the Republican and give them a +2.
This will show progressives know how to yield their voting power and that they should be taken seriously as a group.
This is the stupidest political strategy I’ve ever heard of.
I’m not convinced the Democrats learned anything since 2016. When did they “court” the progressives in 2020?
So what you’re saying is, give the pro-Israel republicans a slight edge in the House. That’ll help Palestine.
