Episodes
Thursday Jan 16, 2014
Leid Stories - 01/16/14
Thursday Jan 16, 2014
Thursday Jan 16, 2014
Obamacare Faces Major Legal Challenges: Will Pending Lawsuits Sink It?
The contentious Affordable Care Act (also known as Obamacare), off to a wobbly start, is about to come under a series of blistering attacks that, legal experts say, can significantly alter the health-care-reform law if not kill it altogether.
More than 100 major lawsuits are pending, filed by a wide array of litigants that include public-policy and interest groups, health-care providers, insurance companies and state governments. Several of these cases will come before the U.S. Supreme Court.
Law professor Josh Blackman, and expert on the U.S. Supreme Court and author of the recently released Unprecedented: The Constitutional Challenge to Obamacare, joins Leid Stories for a discussion on the key cases the legal community is watching, the constitutional issues they raise, how they likely will fare at trial, and their potential impact on Obamacare.
Wednesday Jan 15, 2014
Leid Stories - 01/15/14
Wednesday Jan 15, 2014
Wednesday Jan 15, 2014
CNN Continues Its Campaign of Terror Against Rodman and Teammates
Leid Stories continues its examination of CNN’s campaign to destroy Dennis Rodman and his ex-NBA teammates who went to the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea on what they intended to be a goodwill mission to promote people-to-people contact through basketball. Instead, for purely political reasons, they are being pilloried by the U.S. media for insisting their mission was not political.
CNN has made no attempt to disguise its offensive, openly racist “coverage” of the issue – a stark contrast to its supportive disposition when the New York Philharmonic accepted an invitation from Supreme Leader Kim Jong-Il to perform a concert in Pyongyang. President George W. Bush had called the DPRK “the axis of evil,” but it neither deterred the Philharmonic from staging a full-orchestra concert on Feb. 6, 2008, nor did it generate anything but the highest praise from CNN.
Listeners register their reaction to CNN’s “coverage.”
Tuesday Jan 14, 2014
Leid Stories - 01/14/14
Tuesday Jan 14, 2014
Tuesday Jan 14, 2014
Think Out Loud, Share It with A Crowd! It’s Open Forum on Leid Stories!
Let’s hear your take on world affairs or what’s happening in your world. It’s Open Forum, where great minds like yours gather to exchange information, opinions and ideas, and create a community of interest.
No “wrong” or “right” way of thinking; all points of view are welcome. But be prepared to be questioned closely – with love and respect, of course!
Monday Jan 13, 2014
Friday Jan 10, 2014
Leid Stories - 01/10/14
Friday Jan 10, 2014
Friday Jan 10, 2014
CNN’s Bait-and-Switch ‘Journalism’; Salute to Amiri Baraka
Chris Cuomo of CNN’s “New Day” probably thought that a good way to dig himself and his program out of the ratings pit it’s in (down 33% in viewership from when it debuted six months ago) would be to do a bait-and-switch with Dennis Rodman. His billed “exclusive” live interview with the mercurial Dennis Rodman and his ex-NBA colleagues to discuss “basketball diplomacy” with the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea yielded a mother lode of buzz; Cuomo masterfully goaded Rodman into an epic meltdown.
Leid Stories breaks down Rodman’s breakdown and exposes Cuomo’s – and CNN’s – hidden, unethical agenda.
Amiri Baraka, the people’s poet laureate, died yesterday at age 79. We salute him with his own words.
Thursday Jan 09, 2014
Leid Stories - 01/09/14
Thursday Jan 09, 2014
Thursday Jan 09, 2014
Haiti: Four Years After the 'Quake, Progress Buried In Political Rubble
On Jan. 12, 2010, a 7.0-magnitude earthquake with an epicenter just west of the capital, Port-au-Prince, struck Haiti with devastating impact – about 250,000 dead, more than 300,000 injured, about 294,000 properties destroyed, and almost 2 million made homeless.
International aid and support personnel poured into the Western Hemisphere’s poorest nation to assist with relief efforts and to help rebuild. But four years after the catastrophe, hundreds of thousands of Haitians are stuck in dire circumstances, their situation and living conditions showing little if any improvement.
Kim Ives, a prizewinning documentarian and editor of Haïti Liberté, a news weekly serving the Haitian diaspora, discusses what has – and has not – happened to the people of Haiti over the past four years.
Wednesday Jan 08, 2014
Leid Stories - 01/08/14
Wednesday Jan 08, 2014
Wednesday Jan 08, 2014
Obamacare’s Huge Gap; Bankers Pay to Play; Poor in the Land of Plenty
Leid Stories’ commentaries take aim at two major issues that affect millions of people and involve billions of dollars -- Obamacare’s 5 million “gap” people who won’t get insurance, and the administration’s refusal to shut down gangster banks and financial institutions.
And on the 50th anniversary of President Lyndon B. Johnson’s declaration of a “war on poverty,” guest Sasha Abramsky offers a five-decades-long view of its successes and failures, and of battles yet to be fought. He is the author of The American Way of Poverty: How the Other Half Still Lives.
Tuesday Jan 07, 2014
Leid Stories - 01/07/14
Tuesday Jan 07, 2014
Tuesday Jan 07, 2014
It’s Open Forum, the First Edition for 2014!
You’ve been walking around with heavy thoughts that have weighed you down since last year.
Well, unburden yourself. Bring them to the gathering place for the exchange of information, opinions and ideas, and lay them before us all. You’ll feel much, much better, even if you’re asked to explain yourself – with due respect, of course!
Monday Jan 06, 2014
Leid Stories - 01/06/14
Monday Jan 06, 2014
Monday Jan 06, 2014
Heartless, Conniving Pols Deserve Unemployment Assurance;
Detroit Bankruptcy Trial Exposes Bankster-City Dealings
Fresh from their end-of-year holiday break, congressional underperformers are hoping to impress a turned-off, disgusted electorate with productivity in “doing the people’s business.” Long-term unemployment insurance, which they refused to deal with last year while hammering out a budget, is now at the top of the list – except it is being used as a giant carrot to gain partisan points in this re-election year. Leid Stories explains why politicians who callously cut off extended unemployment insurance benefits to 1.3 million people deserve unemployment assurance from voters.
In Detroit, an ongoing federal trial has exposed highly questionable (and possibly illegal) dealings between several banks and the previous city administration that obligated the city to pay hundreds of millions of dollars in termination fees on interest-rate swaps that were used to finance its pension debts in 2005 and 2006.
Abayomi Azikiwe, editor of the Pan-African Newswire, reports on the trial. The Rev. William Wylie Kellermann, pastor of St. Peter’s Episcopal Church, discusses a building grassroots movement in the city.
Monday Jan 06, 2014
Leid Stories - 01/03/14
Monday Jan 06, 2014
Monday Jan 06, 2014
Pushback in the Making: 29 Years to A Majority-Minority America
By 2043, the U.S. Bureau of the Census predicts, the United States will have become the first industrial nation with a majority-nonwhite population. There are signs it may happen even sooner.
As a society created, governed and maintained by the false construct of race -- and, later, class – it is to be expected that America, especially its power elite, will experience great difficulty adjusting to the demographic shift and its attendant effects on all aspects of life.
Leid Stories discusses hints of a major multilevel pushback in the making, and asks the question: Are we all ready for the “new” America?