I don’t mean to pick on Barbara Lee, I really don’t, but she keeps saying dumb stuff, and it needs to be pointed out. This time it was in a profile in the Oakland Tribune. Lee was patting herself on the back for her “accomplishments” in her first hundred days in office. Since she’s done nothing of substance, all she had was clichés. I’m okay with politicians uttering clichés—they all do it. But what Barbara Lee says isn’t just dumb and false, it’s dangerous.

As you might have heard, the Mexican Men’s National Soccer Team, visiting Oakland for a match at the Coliseum, had their van broken into on Tuesday, and were robbed of $4,000 worth of equipment.

In the Bay Area one of the big unanswered questions concerning homelessness is: housing first, or treatment first? Housing-first adherents argue that the first thing to do with homeless people is to get them into permanent housing. This, they claim, is because a lack of housing is responsible for all of their other problems (drug addiction, mental illness, criminal behavior, etc.) and it makes no sense to treat symptoms without getting to their root cause—the absence of a place to live.

Just my personal opinion on the topic of “influencers,” whom Google describes as “individuals with large or highly engaged social media followings who hold considerable sway in specific industries such as beauty, fashion, fitness, travel, and food.”

After the slowest start of any Oakland mayor in memory, Lee just announced she will create “lasting solutions” that will ensure “everyone has a safe, clean place to call home.”