It’s hardly surprising that Barbara Lee reacted so emotionally to Trump’s takeover of the D.C. police and his implied threat to do the same in Oakland. Here’s what Lee said: “President Trump is wrong.” His comment was “not grounded in facts, but in fear-mongering. This is not leadership--it’s an attempt to score cheap political points by tearing down communities he doesn’t understand.”

Wokespeak is a bunch of gibberish anyway, but there’s a particular variety of it that’s worse than anything, and that’s when it’s used commercially to sell stuff.

When Jack Saunders, the late Rich DiLeo and I started the Coalition for a Better Oakland in 2020, we settled on two issues to focus on: cops and encampments.

Thank to our member Rajni Mandal, who reports on the Police Commission, we know that, at their Aug. 6 meeting, “Two commissioners were reappointed,” Rajni writes, “Chair Garcia-Acosta and Alternate Commissioner Omar Farmer.” Chair Garcia-Acosta mentioned the "minute but powerful movement against oversight” at the meeting, whose topic was the Police Commission’s so-called “Discipline Matrix.” That’s their bureaucratese for how to harass cops.

From OPD, the crime report for Jan. 1, 2025 to June 30, 2025 (compared to the same period in 2024) is good news: