Episodes
Tuesday Dec 30, 2014
Leid Stories - 12.30.14
Tuesday Dec 30, 2014
Tuesday Dec 30, 2014
20/20 Hindsight: Lessons Learned, and Not Learned, in 2014 (Part 2)
We continue the discussion we began yesterday: With the
advantage of 20/20 hindsight, what did we learn, or not learn, from 2014?
Leid Stories listeners undertake a comprehensive review of the year from their own vantage points, discussing what for them were the defining issues, events and people of the year.
Yesterday’s callers identified the following as significant issues in 2014: Police brutality/use of excessive force; U.S. support of the neo-Nazi regime in Ukraine; the global power shift and its potential for shifting the power equation in the United States; the global police state; co-optation of the media; and the individual vs. the state.
What will today’s crop of opinions bring? Call 888-874-4888 and share your thoughts.
Monday Dec 29, 2014
Leid Stories - 12.29.14
Monday Dec 29, 2014
Monday Dec 29, 2014
20/20 Hindsight: Lessons Learned, and Not Learned, in 2014
The end of the year is always a good time for reflection.
Leid Stories listeners undertake a comprehensive review of 2014, discussing from their vantage point the defining issues, events and people of the year and, more particularly,
What lessons, if any, they have learned from them.
Friday Dec 26, 2014
LEID STORIES – 12.26.14
Friday Dec 26, 2014
Friday Dec 26, 2014
Give Yourself the Best Gift Ever. Free Your Mind!
’Tis the season to put yourself on your own gift-giving list for a change. Go big. Really, really big, and give yourself the best gift ever—a free mind.
It’s Leid Stories’ last “Free Your Mind Friday” for 2014, the perfect opportunity to clear your head before the new year (you don’t want to drag old stuff into the new year, do you?).
Friday Dec 26, 2014
LEID STORIES – 12.24.14
Friday Dec 26, 2014
Friday Dec 26, 2014
Latino Officers Association Leader Takes On PBA, NYPD
Activists Ignore Mayor’s Plea, Continue Protests in NYC
The Patrolmen’s Benevolent Association’s rancorous tirades against New York City Mayor William de Blasio crested after two police officers, Rafael Ramos and Wenjian Liu, were killed by Ismaaiyl Brinsley in an ambush shooting in the Bedford-Stuyvesant section of Brooklyn. "There's blood on many hands tonight. That blood on the hands starts at City Hall in the Office of the Mayor,” PBA President Pat Lynch, who heads the nation’s largest police union, declared at a news conference after Ramos and Liu were confirmed dead.
Tony Miranda, executive chairman of the National Latino Officers Association, says Lynch, seeking reelection as PBA leader, is “out of order” to blame de Blasio for the deaths of Ramos and Liu, and out of sync with the union’s Latino membership.
Miranda discusses these and other salient issues—including the burgeoning nationwide justice movement, racism within the police department, and a pervasive lack of leadership.
Following our discussion yesterday on coverage of the tragic event, listeners offer their perspectives on how it has been, and is being, handled by the media, police brass and City Hall.
Tuesday Dec 23, 2014
Leid Stories - 12.23.14
Tuesday Dec 23, 2014
Tuesday Dec 23, 2014
Latino Officers Association Zaps PBA, NYPD on Cop Killings, Racism
Watching Their Language: When ‘Information’ Has A Mission
The Patrolmen’s Benevolent Association’s rancorous tirades against New York City Mayor William de Blasio crested Saturday, after two police officers, Rafael Ramos and Wenjian Liu, were killed by Ismaaiyl Brinsley in an ambush shooting in the Bedford-Stuyvesant section of Brooklyn. "There's blood on many hands tonight. That blood on the hands starts at City Hall in the Office of the Mayor,” said PBA President Pat Lynch, who heads the nation’s largest police union.
Tony Miranda, executive chairman of the National Latino Officers Association, says Lynch, seeking reelection as PBA leader, is “out of order” to blame de Blasio for the deaths of Ramos and Liu, and out of sync with the union’s Latino membership.
Miranda discusses these and other salient issues—including the burgeoning nationwide justice movement, racism within the police department, and a pervasive lack of leadership.
Leid Stories examines media coverage of this major story and the impact it has had on the public’s perceptions and opinions. Listeners are asked to cite blatant and subtle examples of ways in which the mission was not to inform, but to manipulate. And if so, to what end.
Monday Dec 22, 2014
Leid Stories - 12.22.14
Monday Dec 22, 2014
Monday Dec 22, 2014
Killing of Two NYPD Officers Reignites Multiple Firestorms
A lone gunman’s killing of two on-duty NYPD officers in Brooklyn two days ago has reignited multiple firestorms thought to have reached their peak with nationwide protests over police-involved killings of Michael Brown in Ferguson, Missouri, and Eric Garner in Staten Island, New York.
Investigators said that early Saturday morning, Ismaaiyl Brinsley, 28, shot and critically wounded an ex-girlfriend in her Owings Mills, Md., apartment after an argument, then traveled to New York intending to kill police officers. He found his quarry at about 3 p.m.—partners Wenjian Liu, 32, and Rafael Ramos, 40, on special duty in their squad car outside the Tompkins Houses project in Bedford-Stuyvesant—and opened fire on them. Brinsley then ran into a nearby subway station and killed himself with a shot to the head.
The officers’ deaths, which Police Commissioner William Bratton is calling “assassinations,” are having massive impact at many levels and adding even more heat to the already boiling cauldron of debate on policing, especially in communities of color, and the all-too-rare prosecutions of rogue cops.
Our guest, Michael Greys, cofounder of 100 Blacks in Law Enforcement Who Care and cohost of “Community Cop” on the Manhattan Neighborhood Network, assesses the fallout from the officers’ deaths.
Friday Dec 19, 2014
Had Enough of Their Mind Games? Fight Back! Free Your Mind! - 12.19.14
Friday Dec 19, 2014
Friday Dec 19, 2014
Yet another week that the propaganda machine was in overdrive, trying to invade your mind. Yet another week that you gave it no victory.
Share your thoughts—and defensive tactics—with likeminded Leid Stories listeners on “Free Your Mind Friday,” the best open forum on the planet. Give us your take on this week’s major news stories and events, or introduce ideas worthy of further discussion and debate.
Your call. 888-874-4888.
Thursday Dec 18, 2014
Leid Stories - 12.18.14
Thursday Dec 18, 2014
Thursday Dec 18, 2014
The Big Thaw: Obama Seeks Rapprochment with Cuba, but Foes Aplenty
Benton Harbor: A Lesson About Justice and Why It’s Everybody’s Business
President Obama’s announcement yesterday that the United States and Cuba have agreed to pursue bilateral talks immediately to cease hostilities after 53 years sent stocks soaring, peace and political activists applauding, and diehard opponents of the communist regime to back-room drawing boards to plot their next bipartisan moves.
Seeking to reverse the Cold War, Kennedy-era isolation policy toward Cuba, Obama is making a bold move, arguing that isolation simply has not worked. But in the twilight of his tenure, and now with opposition even within his own battered party, can he pull it off?
Diplomatic scholar, historian, attorney and prolific author Dr. Gerald Horne puts Obama’s stunning announcement in political and historical perspective.
It isn’t getting the kind of media attention it deserves, but the controversial prosecution, conviction and sentencing of the Rev. Edward Pinkney—a pastor in Benton Harbor, Michigan, who has been leading a decades-long fight against a corporate takeover of the almost-all-black lakeshore town—is big news. It’s fired up grassroots activists across the nation.
In a poignant statement after Pinkney’s sentencing (Dec. 16 program), an elder-observer of Pinkney’s trial gives a stunning indictment of the criminal-justice system, the evil of capitalism, and explains why justice is everybody’s business.
Wednesday Dec 17, 2014
Leid Stories - 12.17.14
Wednesday Dec 17, 2014
Wednesday Dec 17, 2014
The Thrill Is Gone, and Haitians Want Clinton and His Initiative Gone, Too
Grassroots Movement Far More Genuine and Effective In Forcing Change
Four years after Bill Clinton swooped into earthquake-devastated Haiti with can-do promises and billions of dollars at his disposal to “build back better,” Haitians rate his leadership and performance as the point man on the internationally backed rebuilding effort an epic fail and want him gone.
They contend that Clinton has become a major player in the corrupt, anti-democratic political and economic system Haitians have been fighting against for decades under various regimes that is central to the oppression and misery of the Haitian people.
Veteran journalist Kim Ives, an editor with Haïti Liberté, a news weekly serving the Haitian diaspora, discusses Haitians’ no-confidence opinion of Clinton and the contentious political backdrop, in Haiti and the United States, against which the routing of the ex-president is unfolding.
Ongoing protests against the grand jury decisions in the police-involved killings of Michael Brown and Eric Garner are powerful expressions of people-driven leadership that has served notice--on systems of government and establishment-accommodating organizations—that it’s a new day.
Leid Stories in a commentary discusses why this is a significant achievement and why it should be the start of a massive, interdependent—but locally independent, focused and controlled—people-centered network.
Tuesday Dec 16, 2014
Benton Harbor, MI: A Legal Lynching Caps A Battle Over A Black Town - 12.16.14
Tuesday Dec 16, 2014
Tuesday Dec 16, 2014
“They” scored a victory of sorts yesterday. A county judge sentenced the Rev. Edward Pinkney—for decades an undisputed thorn in the side of a political-corporate conspiracy to empty the small, almost-all-black, poverty-stricken town of Benton Harbor, Mich., and hand it over to Whirlpool Corporation—to 2.5 to 10 years on five felony counts of forging signatures on petitions to recall the openly pro-Whirlpool local mayor, James Hightower.
Pinkney’s trial was an all-white affair—including all jurors, the prosecutor and the judge—and not a shred of evidence at trial linked him to altering petitions. Prosecutor Michael Sepic repeatedly advised jurors (without correction from Judge Sterling Shrock) that evidence was not necessary to convict.
Pinkney, 66, was remanded immediately to prison. He is appealing the sentence. He had told Leid Stories on Nov. 5, hours before the jury convicted him, that he was hoping for the best but prepared for the worst. Either way, he said, he’ll fight to the end.
Abayomi Azikiwe, editor in chief of Pan African News Wire and our correspondent on Detroit’s bankruptcy, also has been covering the battle for Benton Harbor and Pinkney’s sham trial. He discusses the minister’s long history of activism and why he was targeted, and the link between Detroit, Benton Harbor and several other cities and towns that account for more than half of the state’s black population under emergency management.