Another ‘Squad’ member axed

Missouri trims Bush

Talk about Squad goals: another of the most progressive members of Congress lost her Democratic primary last night, as Cori Bush was beaten by Wesley Bell in the race for Missouri’s 1st district.

Bush first won her seat after playing a prominent role in the Black Lives Matter movement in Ferguson and the post-George Floyd protests in St. Louis — with one local particularly pleased to see the back of her.

“Bye bye Cori Bush,” tweeted Mark McCloskey, co-star of the infamous viral gun-toting photo with his wife Patricia, taken as they faced down the Bush-led protest outside their house. “You may have torn down my gate, but the people of St. Louis tore down your career. And I ‘spat on your name.’”

Bush led an unorthodox career in Congress: she called for a ceasefire in the Israel-Gaza conflict nine days after October 7; refused to brand Hamas “terrorists” — ostensibly because she felt that term had been incorrectly applied to her before; voted against the Infrastructure Bill; claimed to have healing powers in an interview with PBS, and spent a significant amount of public money on personal security, before marrying her bodyguard Cortney Merrits, for which she is currently under investigation by the FEC. Another security guard of hers doubled as an anti-Rothschild spiritual guru who claimed he was 109 trillion years old and could summon hurricanes. A hurricane made land in America on the night of her ouster — in what is hopefully a coincidence.

Her defeat follows that of fellow Squad member Jamaal Bowman in New York. Their opponents both received substantial funds from the American Israel Public Affairs Committee — which Bush made a central part of her concession speech, saying, “All they did was radicalize me, so now they need to be afraid.

“They about to see this other Cori, this other side,” she continued. “AIPAC, I’m coming to tear your kingdom down.”

Bush and Bowman’s Squad colleague Representative Ilhan Omar faces a similar primary challenge in Minnesota next week.

Also in Missouri: after becoming omnipresent online through her engagement-baiting videos calling for voters to not be “weak and gay,” declaring “faggots don’t belong in women’s sports” and thirstily tagging the likes of Elon Musk and Andrew Tate, Valentina Gomez mustered a measly 7 percent to finish sixth out of eight in the GOP secretary of state primary. Twitter may be X now — but it’s still not real life…

-Matt McDonald

On our radar

COSTA LIVING President Joe Biden sat down for a pre-recorded interview with CBS’s Bob Costa that will air on Sunday, the White House told the press. This will be the president’s first sit-down interview since dropping out of his reelection campaign and endorsing Vice President Kamala Harris.

HARVARD JUDGED HARSHLY A district judge allowed a lawsuit filed by Jewish students against Harvard to proceed Wednesday, asserting that “the facts as pled show that Harvard failed its Jewish students.” The students say Harvard did not protect them from antisemitism on campus after the October 7 attacks on Israel by terror group Hamas.

‘IMPORTANT FOR THE COUNTRY’ Former president Donald Trump said he is still committed to debating Vice President Kamala Harris as the pair has been unable to agree on terms. Trump nixed a September 10 debate with ABC he had scheduled with the former nominee Joe Biden and Harris has rejected an offer to debate on Fox News on September 4. Trump said the stalemate might change “very soon.”

Tim Walz’s curious China ties

China holds an important place in Minnesota governor and newly minted VP pick Tim Walz’s heart — as the man has ties with the country dating back over thirty years.

In 1989, fresh out of college, Walz moved to China to teach English and American history at a high school in the southeastern province of Guangdong, through Harvard’s WorldTeach program. This happened to be the same year of the Chinese government’s brutal crackdown of pro-democracy protesters in Tiananmen Square, on June 4, 1989.

Upon return to the US, he said that there are “no limits” to what the Chinese people could do “if they had the proper leadership.

“They are such kind, generous, capable people. They just gave and gave and gave to me. Going there was one of the best things I’ve ever done,” Walz said about his time there. “No matter how long I live, I will never be treated that well again,” he recounted.

He also emphasized how safe he felt in China and the lack of crime, saying that “America is ‘it’ in the eyes of the Chinese.”

Walz was so fascinated with China he even honeymooned there with his wife Gwen Whipple in 1994, and together they started the company TravelAdventures, which coordinates summer trips to China. 

In a 2016 interview with Agri-Pulse, he said that he doesn’t “fall into the category that China necessarily needs to be an adversarial relationship.

“We’ll trade with China but they have to play by the rules, both from an environmental, from a fair trade, and also from a human rights perspective,” Walz said in that same interview. “I think we need to stand firm in the South China Sea,” he said, “but there’s many areas of cooperation we can work on.”

Walz’s relationship with China has sparked concerns among Republicans, who believe he may be soft on China. “No one is more pro-China than Marxist Walz,” Richard Grenell, former acting director of National Intelligence under the Trump administration, wrote on X. “Communist China is very happy with his candidacy,” he added.

–Elisenne Stoller

X gonna give it to ya

Elon Musk’s X is suing a group of advertisers, alleging that they unlawfully colluded to “boycott” the site formerly known as Twitter.

The lawsuit was filed in a Texas federal court on Tuesday. It claims that in violation of antitrust law, an influential ad industry group, the Global Alliance for Responsible Media (GARM), attempted “to collectively withhold billions of dollars in advertising from Twitter” following Musk’s acquisition of the platform.

GARM’s members include more than 100 prominent companies. Of those, CVS, Mars, Unilever and Danish energy giant Ørsted were named as defendants in the lawsuit.

“[GARM’s partners] agree to adopt, implement, and enforce GARM’s brand safety standards, including by withholding advertising from social media platforms deemed by GARM to be non-compliant with the brand safety standards,” the lawsuit states. This anticompetitive practice, the lawsuit alleges, “abruptly discontinued or sharply curtailed their purchases of advertising,” putting the company “at long-term risk.”

Last year, when the advertising warfare against the tech billionaire was fresh, Musk infamously told those who jumped ship, “go fuck yourself.”

–Juan P. Villasmil