Understand, we are the ‘extremist’.../s
Barbara Lee
Political career:
While a student at Mills College, she was a volunteer at the Oakland chapter of the Black Panther Party’s Community Learning Center and worked on Panther co-founder *Bobby Seale’s 1973 Oakland mayoral campaign
*Bobby Seale - adapted activist’s slogan “Freedom by any means necessary” as their own. Seale became the chairman of the Black Panther Party
Bobby Seale was one of the original “Chicago Eight” defendants charged with conspiracy and inciting to riot, in the wake of the 1968 Democratic National Convention, in Chicago
Lee gained national attention in 2001 as the only member of congress to vote “No” on the Authorization for Use of Military Force Against Terrorists (AUMF), stating that she voted no not because she opposed military action but because she believed the AUMF
Lee was ranked as the sixth-most Progressive member of the House by the National Journal, based on roll-call votes on economic, social and foreign policy issues in 2006.
Lee received a 97% progressive rating from “The Progressive Punch”
In 2010, Lee took the *food stamp challenge and also appeared in the documentary film Food Stamped.
*A food stamp challenge is a trend in the United States popularized by religious groups, community activists and food pantries in which a family of means chooses to purchase food using only the monetary equivalent of what a family that size would receive in federal food stamps. In 2007, this amounted to US$3 per person per day.
CNN reporter Sean Callebs did an experiment where he spent the month of February 2009 eating only as much food as what a person could get with the maximum possible amount of food stamps. Since he was living in New Orleans, Louisiana, this amounted to $176. At the end of the experiment, he said that he had eaten pretty well, and that the biggest drawback was a social one, not a nutritional one, because he could not go out to eat at restaurants with friends.
Can you say OUT OF TOUCH WITH REALITY?!
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Babara Lee is dedicated to social and economic justice, international peace, and civil and human rights unless you are in the Tea Party.
She has been a strong proponent of safe communities, affordable housing, the homeless, low income energy assistance, job training, making health care affordable and universal, just immigration policies, the establishment of a living wage, and protection of the right of women to make decisions about their reproductive health. She is the immediate past chair of the Congressional Black Caucus and former co-chair of the Progressive Caucus.
Her accomplishments are many, including authoring or co-authoring every major piece of legislation dealing with global HIV/AIDS issues since she was elected to Congress.
In 2007, she successfully blocked funds from being used to establish permanent military bases in Iraq.
The congresswoman has worked tirelessly to strengthen relations between the United States and its Caribbean neighbors, promoting engagement and dialogue through educational exchange programs, travel, and fair trade, including the ending of the ineffective embargo against Cuba.
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We must not take action that undermines the most vulnerable among us
By Sen. Steny Hoyer (D-Md.) - 07/21/11 02:01 PM ET
House Democratic Whip Steny H. Hoyer (D-Md.) made the following remarks on the House floor July 21, 2011:
Mr. Speaker, ladies and gentlemen of this House, I am pleased to rise with my colleague and dear friend, Barbara Lee, to focus on an issue that all too frequently is ignored. I rise to speak as we are engaged in an extraordinarily important discussion, debate, and responsibility. That responsibility is to ensure that America pays its bills; that America’s creditworthiness is not put at risk; that America, which has incurred obligations, meets those obligations, to individuals and to others. As we have made policies which have cost money, it is now necessary to pay the bills that we have already incurred.
But as we engage in that debate and discussion, we must remember that in our country one child out of every five is living in poverty, is worried about proper food, proper housing, proper medical care. These are children who are, in fact, at risk. In America, the richest nation on the face of the earth, we have the largest number of people living in poverty that we have had in over seven decades. And so as we engage in this debate, it is important that we take time to focus on those who all too often are invisible, who all too often are not the center of our discussion, who all too often are perceived to simply be those who will not matter at the voting booth.
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Screw the Tea Party according to them but you better keep paying your taxes so they can redistribute YOUR WEALTH to their constiuents!