Special Counsel Mueller said, "If we had had confidence that the president clearly did not commit a crime, we would have said so." Trump was not exonerated of obstruction of justice. AG Barr needs to resign. Congress has a responsibility to hold the president accountable.
— Rep. Barbara Lee (@RepBarbaraLee) May 29, 2019
Using Technology to Deepen Democracy, Using Democracy to Ensure Technology Benefits Us All
Thursday, May 30, 2019
Barbara Lee Speaks For Me Daily
Wednesday, May 29, 2019
Intensity
Barbara Lee Speaks For Me Daily
I am working to stop the Trump, Bolton, and Pompeo plan to escalate tensions in Iran. They don’t have the authority to go to war without Congress. We must #StopEndlessWar and say #NoIranWar. https://t.co/iKHnTLGsdV
— Rep. Barbara Lee (@RepBarbaraLee) May 28, 2019
Monday, May 27, 2019
Barbara Lee Speaks For Me Daily
Investing in clean water infrastructure should not be controversial. For every $1 billion invested in America’s water infrastructure, 27,000 jobs are created or sustained while improving public health and the environment. #ForThePeople
— Rep. Barbara Lee (@RepBarbaraLee) May 26, 2019
Back To School
Sunday, May 26, 2019
Barbara Lee Speaks For Me Daily
Once again, Trump wants low-income communities to pay for his wealthy tax cuts and unnecessary defense spending. While Democrats fight to lift families out of poverty, Trump's far-right policies are keeping those at the bottom stuck there. https://t.co/ArFTwXoUco
— Barbara Lee (@BLeeForCongress) May 26, 2019
No War With Iran!
Vice President Mike Pence warned West Point graduates on Saturday to expect combat at some point during their service in a “dangerous” world... “It is a virtual certainty that you will fight on a battlefield for America at some point in your life. You will lead soldiers in combat. It will happen,” Pence said. “Some of you will join the fight against radical Islamic terrorists in Afghanistan and Iraq. Some of you will join the fight on the Korean Peninsula and in the Indo-Pacific where North Korea continues to threaten the peace, and an increasingly militarized China challenges our presence in the region.” He warned: “Some of you may even be called upon to serve in this hemisphere ... When that day comes, I know you will move to the sound of the guns.” Pence’s words were particularly ominous [you think?!?--d] amid rising tensions in U.S. relations with some other nations. President Donald Trump has vowed to back a coup in Venezuela. He has adopted a more bellicose tone toward Iran and announced the deployment of an additional 1,500 troops to the Mideast. Ignoring objections from some lawmakers, he’s also bypassing congressional review and allowing the sale of billions of dollars of arms to Saudi Arabia. The U.S. military remains in Afghanistan in the longest war in U.S. history, and 4,400 troops are now stationed at the border with Mexico. Trump has tried to broker a nuclear disarmament deal with North Korea ― bending over backward to praise that nation’s brutal dictator, Kim Jing Un -- but so far the president has little to show for his efforts. Pence in his speech touted increases in defense spending under Trump and aid the U.S. “is once again embracing our role as the leader of the free world.” He also called Trump the “best friend the men and women of our armed forces will ever have.” That praise came as the president has been slammed in recent days by former top military leaders for reportedly planning to pardon several service members accused of war crimes.
Friday, May 24, 2019
Barbara Lee Speaks For Me Daily
My constituents live in cars and on the streets because of soaring housing costs. Students work two to three jobs just to pay rent. Teachers drive hours to schools because they can no longer afford to live in East Bay. The affordable housing crisis is real and must be addressed.
— Barbara Lee (@BLeeForCongress) May 24, 2019
Thursday, May 23, 2019
The Presidential Mediocrity Pile-Up
Steve Bullock is not John Hickenlooper, and John Hickenlooper is not Jay Inslee, but they do blend seamlessly into a haze of slight jowls and ruddy whiteness, such that if you puree their chromosomes in a laboratory, you might get Michael Bennet, who is also running for president, even though you can’t remember who he is or what he looks like. It is also important to note that Seth Moulton is not Tim Ryan, and Tim Ryan is not Eric Swalwell -- but they might as well be, because each of them is an avatar of ish-ness: young-ish, handsome-ish and nonexistent-ish, with each polling close to zero in the 2020 Democratic presidential race, which feels like it started a generation ago and will probably continue until your uncle declares, too, sometime during Thanksgiving dinner later this year. Now add Bill de Blasio to the mix, because Bill de Blasio added himself to the mix Thursday, because what we need right now is Bill de Blasio in the mix, running for president...This expresses at the tonal level of contemporary punditry-qua-celebrity-gossip a comparable and far more serious mediocrity of policy substance or imaginative heft across the sprawl of these pale, stale, male also-rans. A feeling of eerie unequalness to the urgent tasks we truly and collectively face. Now, I'm still personally quite impressed by Elizabeth Warren's campaign and I'm still keeping my eyes on Kamala Harris' superior organization, and I guess it is edifying that they are both settling into the middle of the pack of Democratic contenders for now, well beneath Biden and Bernie (neither of whom excite me at all, except my occasional disgust, tho' of course I will instantly vote for either against the execrable authoritarian bigot Trump), but well within contention as campaign vicissitudes begin to tell. The Republicans are terrifying me, the Democrats are disappointing me (in ways that are also a bit terrifying): this has been true since I came into political awareness in the 80s, of course, but like everything in Trump-stage, that is to say probably terminal stage, America everything is just that much more surreally worse.
Barbara Lee Speaks For Me Daily
Everyone has the right to a roof over their head, healthy food in their stomach, and quality health care for everything in between.
— Barbara Lee (@BLeeForCongress) May 22, 2019
Wednesday, May 22, 2019
Barbara Lee Speaks For Me Daily
The 2001 AUMF has been used to justify military action in more than 40 countries. It’s past time for us to hold a debate & vote #StopEndlessWar – especially since more than 80% of current members of Congress weren’t in office when we voted on it in 2001. pic.twitter.com/cRy4jibUiI
— Rep. Barbara Lee (@RepBarbaraLee) May 22, 2019
Compostable
Washington has become the first state in the US to legalise human composting. Under the new law, people there can now choose to have their body turned into soil after their death. The process is seen as an alternative to cremations and burials, and as a practical option in cities where land for graveyards is scarce. At the end of the composting, loved ones are given the soil, which they can use in planting flowers, vegetables or trees. The bill was signed into law by Governor Jay Inslee on Tuesday... Katrina Spade, who lobbied for the law to be introduced, founded a company that could be the first to provide the service. "Recomposition offers an alternative to embalming and burial or cremation that is natural, safe, sustainable, and will result in significant savings in carbon emissions and land usage[.]"Sign me up the minute it is legal in California. Feed me to a plum, ginkgo, apple-pear, or maple tree, and I might manage to facilitate after death some small beauty in and healing of the world. Would go some way to compensate my many ineptitudes trying the same in life.
Tuesday, May 21, 2019
Barbara Lee Speaks For Me Daily
Number of school shootings since 2009:
— Barbara Lee (@BLeeForCongress) May 20, 2019
Canada: 2
France: 2
Germany: 1
Japan: 0
Italy: 0
UK: 0
USA: 288
We are failing our children. https://t.co/Mw76bWAkBW
Monday, May 20, 2019
Monday Walk and Brunch
Barbara Lee Speaks For Me Daily
It’s no secret that people of color are disproportionately targeted by law enforcement for marijuana. We must learn from the failed #WarOnDrugs and end today’s war on marijuana.
— Barbara Lee (@BLeeForCongress) May 20, 2019
Sunday, May 19, 2019
Barbara Lee Speaks For Me Daily
Ignoring climate change will not make it go away. It’s quite simple: our lives are at risk and we must act now.
— Barbara Lee (@BLeeForCongress) May 19, 2019
Rain Check
Saturday, May 18, 2019
Barbara Lee Speaks For Me Daily
There. Is. Not. A. Single. Place. In. The. United. States. Where. The. Minimum. Wage. Covers. The. Cost. Of. A. Two. Bedroom. Apartment. https://t.co/XUnDawnjFG
— Barbara Lee (@BLeeForCongress) May 18, 2019
Syllabus For My Upcoming Berkeley Intensive: "What Is Compelling?"
Summer 2019, Session A, 2-4.30pm., Tuesdays, Wednesdays, and Thursdays, 88 Dwinelle Hall
Instructor, Dale Carrico: dcarrico@sfai.edy; ndaleca@gmail.com;
Course Blog: http://whatiscompelling.blogspot.com
Participation/Attendance/In-Class Activities, 25%; Reading Notebook, 15%; Mid-Term Exam, 30%; Final Paper, 5-6pp., 30%. (Rough Basis for Final Grade, subject to contingencies)
Course Description
The arc of the moral universe is a longing... and it bends from just us.
This course provides students with tools they can use to make better, more compelling, arguments and also to read arguments in better, more critical, ways. We will draw the tools for our argumentative toolboxes from the long history of rhetoric, from sophistical dissoi logoi, to the Aristotelian appeals, to Quintilian's four master tropes, to the rich archive of formal and informal fallacies, to argument modeled on litigation via Toulmin's schema, to argument modeled on mediation via Rogerian synthesis, to the pragmatism of the ends of argument. All the while we are workshopping these technical skills we will also be reading and discussing a range of texts that tackle questions of the reach and forms of violence and nonviolence in historical struggle and in everyday life. These texts will likewise draw from a long history, from Immanuel Kant, Martin Luther King, Jr., Frantz Fanon and Hannah Arendt to Arundhati Roy, Judith Butler, and Ta-Nehisi Coates. We will also talk through a play by Euripides, an essay by Nietzsche, a novel by Octavia Butler, a film by Cronenberg… The crucial thing to understand about the course is that we will not be taking on two separate projects, one practical and another theoretical. This course proposes that there is an indispensable relation between the traditional focus of rhetoric as instruction in the art of making compelling arguments and the theoretical preoccupation of many rhetoricians with questions of what violence or compulsion ultimately consists. It is commonplace to see Persuasion offered up as an alternative to the violent adjudication of disputes or hear Argument idealized as a space "outside" of violence. But the truth is that many arguments rely on the acceptance of a violent status quo or depend on conventional assumptions that deny marginal testimonies to violation. Also, many arguments stealthily threaten violence while at once congratulating themselves on their peacefulness. Ultimately, the course proposes that it is rhetoric's definitive concern with the traffic between the literal and figurative dimensions of language and its situated understanding of truth-telling that connects the work of rhetoric with a project of reconciliation that resists violence even as we cannot help but risk it.
A Provisional Schedule of Meetings
Week One
May 28 SKILL SET: Key Definitions
[1] Rhetoric is the facilitation of efficacious discourse as well as an ongoing inquiry into the terms on the basis of which discourse comes to seem efficacious or not.
[2] A text is an event experienced as arising from intention, offered up to the hearing of an audience, and obligating a responsiveness equal to it.
[3] An argument is a claim supported by reasons and/or evidence.
Introductions: Rhetoric as occasional, interested, figurative; The literal as conventional, the figurative as deviant.
May 29 SKILL SET: Reading Critically/Writing Critically; Audience/Intentions -- Audiences: Sympathetic, Unsympathetic, Apathetic; Intentions: Interrogation, Conviction, Persuasion, Reconciliation
Euripides: Hecuba (Here is a link to the last few lines of the play, cut off from the online version for some reason)
May 30 SKILL SET: Aristotelian rhetoric; Ethos, Pathos, Logos; Writing A Precis
Immanuel Kant, Idea for a Universal History with a Cosmopolitan Purpose
Week Two
June 4 SKILL SET: Four Habits of Argumentative Writing: 1. Formulate a Strong Thesis, 2. Define Your Terms, 3, Substantiate/Contextualize, 4, Anticipate Objections; Performativity
Thomas Jefferson, The Declaration of Independence
June 5 SKILL SET: The Toulmin Schema
William May, "Rising to the Occasion of Our Death" (In-Class Handout)
Henry David Thoreau, Civil Disobedience
Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., Letter from the Birmingham Jail
Logan Rimel, My "Nonviolent" Stance Was Met With Heavily Armed Men
supplemental/referenced texts this week:
Henry David Thoreau, A Plea for Captain John Brown
Howard Zinn, On Henry David Thoreau and When To Resist An Immoral State
Ella Baker, Bigger Than A Hamburger
Combahee River Collective Statement
Week Three
June 11 SKILL SET: Logoi Dissoi
June 13 SKILL SET: Literal/Figurative Language; Figures, Tropes, Schemes; Four Master Tropes
Nietzsche, On Truth and the Lie in an Extra-Moral Sense
supplemental/referenced texts this week:
Angela Davis, Abolition Democracy
Nietzsche, selections from The Gay Science
Week Four
June 12 Mid-Term Examination
June 13 Screening and Discussion of the Film, "A History of Violence," dir. Cronenberg
June 14 Hannah Arendt, Reflections On Violence and "Must Eichmann Hang?" (In-Class Handout)
Week Five
June 19 Octavia Butler, Kindred (Purchase in time for class. ISBN-10: 0807083690 ISBN-13: 978-0807083697)
June 20 SKILL SET: Debate
Correspondence of Tolstoy and Gandhi
Jane Addams, New Ideals of Peace: Passing of the War Virtues
supplemental/referenced texts this week:
Mohandas K. Gandhi, The Meaning and Practice of Ahimsa
Karuna Matena, The Power of Nonviolence
Gene Sharp, How Nonviolent Struggle Works
Week Six
June 26 Rob Nixon, Slow Violence and the Environmentalism of the Poor (Introduction, pp. [1]-44.).
Final Paper Due
Friday, May 17, 2019
Barbara Lee Speaks For Me Daily
Only 20 states have laws protecting LGBTQ Americans against discrimination. DespiteTrump’s attempts to stonewall our progress, the #EqualityAct will move our country in the right direction.
— Barbara Lee (@BLeeForCongress) May 16, 2019
.@HouseDemocrats took a huge step forward today by passing the #EqualityAct, ensuring that everyone has equal rights — regardless of who they are or who they love. Let's keep working #ForThePeople! #HR5 pic.twitter.com/SrenszTEUr
— Rep. Barbara Lee (@RepBarbaraLee) May 17, 2019
Beyond Grading
Thursday, May 16, 2019
Barbara Lee Speaks For Me Daily
The Trump administration is denying LGBTQ couples from passing their citizenship onto children “born out of wedlock.” This outrageous policy dehumanizes and delegitimizes LGBTQ families. I won’t stand for it.https://t.co/HWTbjq8ZEH
— Barbara Lee (@BLeeForCongress) May 16, 2019
Tuesday, May 14, 2019
Barbara Lee Speaks For Me Daily
The Trump Administration’s continued steps to escalate tensions with Iran is dangerous and undermines the prospects of any diplomatic solution. We cannot afford a disastrous war against Iran. #StopEndlessWar https://t.co/of0aEBjTWh
— Rep. Barbara Lee (@RepBarbaraLee) May 14, 2019
Silly Season
Monday, May 13, 2019
Barbara Lee Speaks For Me Daily
No one should be fired because of who they love. But for #LGBTQ Americans in 30 states, no law protects them from this happening. It's time to put an end to end this discrimination and pass the #EqualityAct. #HR5 https://t.co/XDrRJbFfC5
— Rep. Barbara Lee (@RepBarbaraLee) May 13, 2019
Good-Bye Doris Day
Sunday, May 12, 2019
Barbara Lee Speaks For Me Daily (Mother's Day Edition)
As we celebrate #MothersDay today, we cannot forget the thousands of families that are still separated due to Trump’s inhumane family separation policy. #EndFamilySeparation #UntilEveryFamilyIsReunited pic.twitter.com/hNteX1O8Wp
— Rep. Barbara Lee (@RepBarbaraLee) May 12, 2019
Sunday Walk and Brunch
Saturday, May 11, 2019
Barbara Lee Speaks For Me Daily
Another week, another community in America terrorized by gun violence. When is enough going to be enough? Democrats are ready to act. It’s time for the GOP to prioritize the lives of our children and future over the NRA.
— Barbara Lee (@BLeeForCongress) May 11, 2019
Friday, May 10, 2019
Last Teaching Day
Thursday, May 09, 2019
Barbara Lee Speaks For Me Daily
More than 40 years of the discriminatory Hyde Amendment is far too long. Let’s #BeBoldEndHyde so all women, regardless of how little they earn or where they live, have access to comprehensive reproductive healthcare. @AppropsDems pic.twitter.com/dUXvd2Rc7E
— Rep. Barbara Lee (@RepBarbaraLee) May 8, 2019
Wednesday, May 08, 2019
Barbara Lee Speaks For Me Daily
Thoughts and prayers are a beautiful thing, but to protect our children and our communities, we need real, commonsense gun reform. And that’s exactly what House Democrats plan to do. https://t.co/1aLALQV1OI
— Barbara Lee (@BLeeForCongress) May 7, 2019
Tuesday, May 07, 2019
Onboarding Offputting
Barbara Lee Speaks For Me Daily
It’s been one year since Trump instituted his inhumane family separation policy, and what I said last summer stands true: This never should have happened. I’ll keep fighting to make sure no more families have to endure this pain. #EndFamilySeparation #UntilEveryFamilyIsReunited pic.twitter.com/28D9LLeL0x
— Rep. Barbara Lee (@RepBarbaraLee) May 7, 2019
Sunday, May 05, 2019
Barbara Lee Speaks For Me Daily (With Bonus Gratuitous Oakland Love)
The Trump admin aims to deny #homecare workers —many women & women of color— the ability to choose a strong union to fight for higher wages. This country has a long history of telling working women what they can and cannot do. It’s time to stop! #RiseUpHomeCare
— Rep. Barbara Lee (@RepBarbaraLee) May 5, 2019
Happy 167th birthday to the beautiful city of Oakland! I am so glad to call you home. pic.twitter.com/5pQgExkuz0
— Rep. Barbara Lee (@RepBarbaraLee) May 4, 2019
Gack! Redux
Saturday, May 04, 2019
Barbara Lee Speaks For Me Daily
Trump just got one step closer to dismantling the *entire* Affordable Care Act. We won’t let his administration get away with stripping life-saving health care from millions of Americans. Democrats will always fight to #ProtectOurCare.https://t.co/JROjt3vTIe
— Barbara Lee (@BLeeForCongress) May 4, 2019
Today's Random Wilde (Precious Prescience Edition)
Friday, May 03, 2019
Barbara Lee Speaks For Me Daily
Voting is a right.
— Barbara Lee (@BLeeForCongress) May 3, 2019
Seeking asylum is a right.
Reproductive health is a right.
Don’t let the Republican Party convince you otherwise.
Thursday, May 02, 2019
Gack!
Barbara Lee Speaks For Me Daily
The number of people experiencing homelessness is increasing across the country, especially in California. It’s an absolute disgrace that people are forced to choose between medicine, rent, and food.
— Barbara Lee (@BLeeForCongress) May 2, 2019
Affordable housing is a basic human right.
Wednesday, May 01, 2019
Barbara Lee Speaks For Me Daily
On #MayDay, we’re reminded that working Americans still don’t make a living wage while giant corporations rake in the profits. Today, and everyday, we must recognize how important unions are to representing and fighting for everyday Americans.https://t.co/yEG03yxQAF
— Barbara Lee (@BLeeForCongress) May 1, 2019