Welcome to our weekly open forum, where you can take the conversation wherever you want it to go. Attentive minds are listening, and may either shore you up or take you on (very respectfully, of course).
Call 888-874-4888 and join the forum.
Donald Trump, basking in the glory of his speech of reprimands to UN member-nations and threats of war against U.S. enemies the previous day, held a “working luncheon” at the Palace Hotel yesterday with a handful of African leaders, several of whom he met for the first time. Essentially, it was a crass, one-sided sales pitch to open up African markets so that U.S. companies and wealthy individuals can make more money.
Supercharged U.S. capitalism was on the menu, but Trump’s guests appeared to have little or no appetite for it.
Maria is the latest hurricane this season to take dead aim at the Caribbean basin, sparing practically no island from major human tragedy, severe damage or, like Barbuda, total ruin, with no inhabitants for the first time in 300 years. The hurricanes have bested the islands’ capacity to respond, but still they try, even though they clearly cannot meet the demand for help. We must make our voices heard about the need for urgent help to the region.
President Donald Trump yesterday made his debut at the United Nations General Assembly as a head of state. He wasted no time conveying to the U.N.’s 192 other member-states that he is king of kings and lord or lords, and America rules the world.
Life is great for ex-President Barack Obama. Fresh from an extended vacation, he’s adjusting well to his new life as a recently minted, self-branded multimillionaire entrepreneur, and wife Michelle is racking up multimillion-dollar contracts and high-paying engagements of her own.
A top priority now, Obama says, is getting the Barack Obama Presidential Center built on Chicago’s South Side, and raising the money to capitalize the $500-million project. Also, millions more will be needed to fund a range of programs the center will pioneer, he says.
Naturally, Charles Ortel’s ears perked up. Having exposed the Clinton Foundation as “the largest unprosecuted fraud in U.S. history,” the Wall Street banker turned financial investigator began looking into the Obama project. Today Ortel reports his findings exclusively on Leid Stories.
Ortel’s self-initiated investigation proved that several Wall Street-traded companies had been overvaluing their stocks by billions of dollars during the time of the 2008-2009 stock market crash.
Recent social, political and economic developments have been pointing up a long-held fact of life in America: It continues to be the land of the great divide.
The televised Emmys awards show still took top billing over real-time protests against police killings of fellow Americans.
Leid Stories asks listeners: What [else] must be done to make racial and economic justice a priority in the United States?
Our rather stormy week is not yet over.
Listeners churn out their own bruising commentaries about other storms they weathered this week.
It’s “Free Your Mind Friday” on Leid Stories, and you’re invited to add your voice to our free-form, unscripted conversation.
Call 888-874-4888 and have your say.
George Webb, a citizen journalist with Crowdsource the Truth, fleshes out the latest chapter in a major scandal involving Imran Awan, a mysterious Pakistan-born IT engineer who through high-level contacts in the Democratic Party set up a family business handling restricted accounts of dozens of Democratic members of Congress.
On July 24, federal agents arrested Awan at Dulles International Airport on bank-fraud charges as he attempted to leave the country. His wife, Hina Awan, in a separate but related action, also has been charged with bank fraud.
Webb has been untangling an intriguing web that appears to connect Awan and his unusual family business to Florida congresswoman Debbie Wasserman Schultz, the ousted leader of the Democratic National Committee.
In following the trails of this story, Webb has been encountering a dark, criminal underworld that one would hardly suspect is connected to the world of politics.
U.S Attorney Jeff Sessions’ announcement yesterday that his Department of Justice will not prosecute six Baltimore officers who had been implicated in the controversial death of Freddie Gray two years ago has triggered new rounds of criticisms about preferential treatment for law-enforcement officers in the criminal-justice system.
Leid Stories discusses the significance and impact of Sessions’ announcement.
There’s big money blowing in behind the storms this hurricane season, and if history tells us anything, there won’t be much careful thought behind who’ll get it and how it will be spent. While no one’s looking too closely in the middle of several disasters, this is when a lot of shady deals are done.
Leid Stories cautions that citizen watchdog groups be formed now to participate in overseeing rebuilding projects, wherever they are to being undertaken.
Irma, now classified as an “extreme Category 5” hurricane, is giving South Florida a taste of what she can do. Two days before her formal arrival, there are scattered power outpower outages.
Leid Stories, therefore, is pushing up our schedule by one day, just so ardent fans of “Free Your Mind Friday” won’t miss out on their weekly forum. Let’s hope this works.
