Episodes
Thursday Oct 16, 2014
Leid Stories - Opting Out on Voting Is Also A Viable Political Choice - 10/16/14
Thursday Oct 16, 2014
Thursday Oct 16, 2014
We’re told time and again how important voting is, how it matters to maintaining “democracy.” We’re also told that not voting is tantamount to political heresy—an unpatriotic act that not only betrays the high ideals of good citizenship, but for many, also the hard-won gains of forebears who “won” the “right” to vote with their blood.
Leid Stories in a commentary says there’s another way to look at voting and that is, not voting. It’s not be confused with apathy or not caring about one’s role as a good citizen. Quite the opposite, it’s a dramatic and vigorous exercise of the checks-and-balances system in which citizens regulate the conduct of government.
Especially for groups for which voting is associated with unique histories of struggle, not voting in some circumstances can be especially strategic in compelling not only accountability in government, but in shoring up rights hard won.
Listeners contribute their thoughts on the issue.
Wednesday Oct 15, 2014
Leid Stories - Fired Up!: Obama On Fire, Under Fire, In the Fire - 10/15/14
Wednesday Oct 15, 2014
Wednesday Oct 15, 2014
President Obama is having a rough time of it. A war that isn’t going his way, a still-stagnant economy, signs of incipient ebola contagion, a combative Congress that won’t play ball, the immigration debacle, militarization of police, and a restive electorate that’s turned off by politics and the political process are some of the reasons he’s getting grayer by the day.
Anti-Obama sentiment is gaining momentum, and for assorted reasons. Significantly, though, in recent months blistering criticisms of him have been coming from people he trusted—former high-level insiders, including Cabinet-level appointees and administration officials—who now openly endorse the contentions of “the other side” about Obama’s leadership and capacity to govern.
Leid Stories asks: Why is this happening? Why is it happening now? How much of this belongs to Obama? How much of it stems from … you know.
Tuesday Oct 14, 2014
Leid Stories - 10/14/14
Tuesday Oct 14, 2014
Tuesday Oct 14, 2014
The New Class Warfare: The Oligarchs, the Clerisy and the Yeomanry
Scared Yet?: Why Obama’s War and Ebola Policy Should Cause Worry
Out the window with right-versus-left, Republican-versus-Democrat notions of class warfare in America. Enter Joel Kotkin, author of The New Class Conflict, who not only gives brand-new meaning to a political lexicon many would think has no relevance today, but blasts away at the common notion of a fixed class structure.
Kotkin, an internationally recognized authority on global, economic, political and social trends, discusses prospects for progress by the majority under shifting alliances and objectives in the new class conflict.
Judging by the general tone of the Obama administration, everything is under control. Sure, a few minor hiccups here and there, but really, there’s no need to panic or go off the deep end. Not so sure, says Leid Stories—considering that President Obama’s own advisers appear to be at odds with his things-are-under-control assessment. Leid Stories cites two main reasons to worry—the war with the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria, and the first manifestations of ebola in the United States.
Monday Oct 13, 2014
Leid Stories - 10/13/14
Monday Oct 13, 2014
Monday Oct 13, 2014
Christopher Columbus: The Truth About His New World ‘Discoveries’
Sure, take the day off, if you’re among that rare group of non-furloughed “essential” employees who get it as a paid day. But at least get to know the “hero” your country – except for the states of California, Nevada and Hawaii -- honors today for “discovering” that civilizations far more advanced than his own had been established and thriving for thousands of years before he accidentally came upon them on a plunderous mission to the East.
Christopher Columbus set in motion unrelenting waves of genocide throughout the “New World,” and ushered in the slave trade in the Caribbean and the Americas. Leid Stories presents an entirely different view not only of this merchant of death and destruction, but also of the conspiracy within the world of scholars to maintain Columbus’s voyages as the first historical point of contact with the “New World.”
Friday Oct 10, 2014
Leid Stories - 10/10/14
Friday Oct 10, 2014
Friday Oct 10, 2014
Free Your Mind! Save Your Weekend!
The weekend looms before you, holding out the promise of some well-deserved R&R. But first, you have to be in the right frame of mind. How could you possibly rest and relax with a week’s worth of mind-bending news swimming around in your head?
Free your mind! Save your weekend!
Share your keen insights on big-ticket news—or on other matters you consider important—with an audience that appreciates your intellect.
Call 888-874-4888 and opine your way out of news overload and into to a wonderful weekend with family and friends.
Thursday Oct 09, 2014
Leid Stories - 10/09/14
Thursday Oct 09, 2014
Thursday Oct 09, 2014
Souls to the Polls: The Pimping of the Black Church
We can tell it’s election time. The news is all about hotly contested races, media networks rake in millions in political advertising, and Black churches are suddenly popular among politicians of all stripes who normally wouldn’t set foot in their would-be voters’ neighborhoods.
The Democrats have made a science of pimping the Black church, recruiting influential pastors with significant flocks into the party’s fold. Consequently, says Leid Stories, the interests and rights of many Black communities across the country are actually being undermined by the very people who should be championing them.
Wednesday Oct 08, 2014
Leid Stories - Copout!: Why the Brown and Garner Cases Have Gone Nowhere - 10/09/14
Wednesday Oct 08, 2014
Wednesday Oct 08, 2014
Today marks two months since Michael Brown, 18, was shot and killed by Ferguson, Missouri, police officer Darren Wilson and almost three months since Eric Garner, 43, died after a violent attempted arrest by a group of police officers during which one of them, Daniel Pantaleo, used an illegal chokehold. To date, no arrest has been made in either case and state and federal probes have yielded no indictments.
Lawyers for both men’s families appear to be interested only in the civil side of the case—the huge settlements they expect to get from their wrongful-death claims against both cities. Meanwhile, that aspect of the case, which is about justice, is being left to the whims and machinations of the very systems they should be fighting.
The sexual-assault cloud hanging over one of the Rev. Al Sharpton-appointed lawyers, Sanford Rubenstein, did not prevent him from staking an early claim to a portion of the Garner family’s expected wrongful-death payout; he filed a notice of claim for $75 million in court yesterday in behalf of the family.
Tuesday Oct 07, 2014
Leid Stories - 10/07/14
Tuesday Oct 07, 2014
Tuesday Oct 07, 2014
Detroit: As Trial Winds Down, Claims of Light At End of Bankruptcy Tunnel
The Trouble With Lentils: Life on the Edge In Obama’s Prosperous America
The federal trial to determine whether Detroit’s bankruptcy-exit plan is fair and feasible is winding down, but the week began with lawyers for Financial Guaranty Insurance Company, the lone remaining major creditor (with a claim against the city for $1.1 billion), all wound up over a meager payout. They want cash and real estate to settle.
Meanwhile, Gov. Rick Snyder and Mayor Mike Duggan have given emergency manager Kevyn Orr’s draconian plan their blessing—with Snyder predicting that Detroit will be out of bankruptcy within 30 to 60 days.
Abayomi Azikiwe, our correspondent on Detroit’s bankruptcy, provides an update on what’s happening in and out of court.
A fast run to the supermarket for lentils yesterday turned into a slow burn about life in Obama’s America, with object lessons drawn from a not-Mr.Rogers-type neighborhood, where people are quietly unraveling.
Monday Oct 06, 2014
Leid Stories - 10/06/14
Monday Oct 06, 2014
Monday Oct 06, 2014
Sharpton Lawyer’s Sex-Assault Probe Revives Tawana Brawley Case
Dictator’s Death Closes One Chapter, Opens Another, In Haiti’s Life
The Rev. Al Sharpton has gone silent—“no comment at this time,” says his PR flak—about the allegation by a top executive of his National Action Network that she was sexually assaulted by his attorney friend Sanford Rubenstein after a star-studded 60th-birthday bash for Sharpton at the posh Four Seasons restaurant in Manhattan last Wednesday.
Rubenstein, who has made millions litigating police-brutality cases literally delivered to him by Sharpton, is the lawyer for the family of Eric Garner, killed by police chokehold in Staten Island, N.Y., on July 17.
Leid Stories in a commentary notes several reasons why the bloviator-in-chief’s self-imposed silence and media coverage of the Rubenstein probe are stunning—and not.
The death of Jean-Claude “Baby Doc” Duvalier in Haiti on Saturday has set in motion a new wave of political machinations in the beleaguered country to which the ousted dictator had returned three years ago, hoping for a comeback after 25 years in exile in France.
Kim Ives, a prizewinning documentarian and editor of Haïti Liberté, a news weekly serving the Haitian diaspora, discusses the fallout.
Friday Oct 03, 2014
Leid Stories - 10/03/14
Friday Oct 03, 2014
Friday Oct 03, 2014
First Nations And The Nation: Sovereignty and U.S. Land and Treaty Law
U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder last Friday officially signed off on a record $554-million settlement with the Navajo Nation that brought to an end a slew of lawsuits over the government’s alleged mismanagement of the Navajo Nation’s land-use funds and its natural resources for decades.
Apart from avoiding huge litigation costs on both sides, the settlement justice for past wrongs, Holder said. The Navajo and other First Nations have several other lawsuits in litigation and pending.
The settlement raises a seldom-explored issue: What is the nature of the relationship between First Nations and the U.S. government? More than anything, it’s based on land.
Professor Charles Wilkinson, professor of law at the University of Colorado-Boulder whose 14 books include the standard law texts on public land law and on Indian law, discusses this complex relationship within the framework of treaties, sovereignty, conflicting world views and justice.