Episodes
Thursday Jul 16, 2015
Leid Stories - 07.16.15
Thursday Jul 16, 2015
Thursday Jul 16, 2015
World Money Woes: Bankruptcies, Bailouts and Big-Trade Boondoggles
Diplomatic scholar, historian, attorney and prolific author Dr. Gerald Horne takes a look at major international trade issues and corresponding shifts in global power, and the impact of these factors on U.S. foreign and domestic policy.
Horne is the John J. and Rebecca Moores chair of history and African American studies at the University of Houston. He also teaches graduate courses in diplomatic history. He has written more than 30 books, and more than 100 scholarly papers and reviews, on struggles against imperialism, colonialism, fascism and racism.
Wednesday Jul 15, 2015
Leid Stories - 07.15.15
Wednesday Jul 15, 2015
Wednesday Jul 15, 2015
Puerto Rico: The Making and Breaking of An ‘Emerging Market’
On June 29, Governor Alejandro García Padilla of Puerto Rico declared that the U.S. commonwealth’s $72.6-billion debt is “not payable.” His announcement confirmed creditors’ and bondholders’ worst fears and set in motion a mad scramble in the financial and political worlds to find a workable solution. Nothing yet, but it is certain that any solution will involve severe austerity measures the people of Puerto Rico will have to endure.
For decades Puerto Rico’s star was shining bright in the constellation of emerging markets. Mauro F. Guillén, co-author of Emerging Markets Rule: Growth Strategies of the New Global Giants, explains the making and breaking of Puerto Rico as an emerging market.
Guillén is the director of the Joseph H. Lauder Institute at the University of Pennsylvania, and holds the Dr. Felix Zandman Endowed Professorship in International Management at The Wharton School. He also holds a secondary appointment as a professor of sociology in at the University of Pennsylvania.
His most recent books are Global Turning Points (2012) and Emerging Markets Rule (2012).
Tuesday Jul 14, 2015
Leid Stories - 07.14.15
Tuesday Jul 14, 2015
Tuesday Jul 14, 2015
Downgrade: Behind the AFT’s Superhyped Endorsement of Hillary
Garner Family Settles Chokehold Case: Money Talked, Justice Walked
The American Federation of Teachers made big news July 11 when its president, Randi Weingarten, a longtime friend and political supporter of Hillary Clinton, announced that the 1.6-million-member union voted “overwhelmingly” to back the presidential contender.
Dr. Thomas C. Pedroni, associate professor of curriculum studies and policy sociology at Wayne State University and co-director of the Detroit Data and Democracy Project, explains why the AFT is drawing heat from the rank and file over the endorsement, and how Clinton’s record on education betrays her right-wing agenda.
The family of Eric Garner has agreed to settle a $75-million lawsuit it threatened against the City of New York for Garner’s police-chokehold death on July 17 last year. The family will accept a $5.9-million payout, and the city admits no liability for the actions of Daniel Pantaleo, the officer who placed Garner in the banned chokehold, nor any other city employees involved in the fatal encounter.
Leid Stories explains how money talked and justice walked.
Monday Jul 13, 2015
Leid Stories - 07.13.15
Monday Jul 13, 2015
Monday Jul 13, 2015
A Year After Eric Garner’s Murder, Still No Justice
On July 17, 2014, the life of Eric Garner, a 43-year-old father of six from Staten Island, N.Y., came to a horrific end in a matter of seconds—death by police chokehold. Plainclothes officers had approached Garner to arrest him for selling loose cigarettes. When Garner objected to being arrested, Officer Daniel Pantaleo, 29, one of brought Garner to the ground with a chokehold that was the principal caused of his death, medical examiners determined.
Garner’s death, ruled a homicide, touched off demonstrations nationwide demanding an end to police brutality and excessive use of force. But Pantaleo so far has not been charged with any crime connected his chokehold killing of Garner, nor has the New York Police department taken disciplinary action against the officer for using the banned maneuver.
A year after Garner’s death, Leid Stories revues the case and its key actors, noting that justice remains elusive.
Friday Jul 10, 2015
Leid Stories - 07.10.15
Friday Jul 10, 2015
Friday Jul 10, 2015
Call It As You See It! Free Your Mind!
Take your pick of the thousand-or-so things you have an opinion about and share them with an audience eager to hear what you have to say.
It’s “Free Your Mind Friday” on Leid Stories—an open forum for the exchange of information, opinions and ideas.
Call in and give us your take on current news issues and events. Or, take the conversation wherever you want it to go.
Thursday Jul 09, 2015
Leid Stories - 07.09.15
Thursday Jul 09, 2015
Thursday Jul 09, 2015
The Confederate Flag Comes Down in South Carolina, But Still Flies
Donald Trumps the Media and Political Debate
After a rancorous, 13-hour debate that went into the wee hours of the morning, South Carolina’s House voted 94-20 today to remove the Confederate flag from the statehouse grounds.
Leid Stories in a commentary says that while the removal of the flag may be seen by many as a "victory over what politely is being called “hate,” the flag of white supremacy still flies high in hearts and minds beyond the borders of South Carolina.
Donald Trump has bulldozed his way into the 2016 presidential race seemingly with the hot-button issue of immigration. But, really, it’s about race. And money.
Leid Stories explains how and why Trump is taking dead aim at Mexico and Mexicans.
Thursday Jul 09, 2015
Leid Stories - 07.08.15
Thursday Jul 09, 2015
Thursday Jul 09, 2015
Bleeding to Debt: As With Detroit, So With Puerto Rico?
Puerto Rico is in a “death spiral,” Gov. Alejandro García Padilla has declared, unable to pay off an estimated $72 billion in debts. Padilla’s plea to creditors for concessions and more time on overdue notes isn’t playing well with bondholders, and Puerto Ricans have had it with government cutbacks and runaway increases in the cost of living to service the debt.
Padilla sees a way out—declaring bankruptcy. The problem is, by law only U.S. municipalities and states can seek bankruptcy protection from the courts, and Puerto Rico is a U.S. territory; it must first seek special dispensation from Congress.
Padilla has hired former federal judge Stephen Rhodes as a consultant on restructuring Puerto Rico’s debt. For many, it’s a troubling sign. Rhodes, now in private practice, was the judge who presided over Detroit’s contentious $18-billion bankruptcy, sanctioning wholesale plunder of the once-prosperous city.
Abayomi Azikiwe, editor in chief of Pan African News Wire and our correspondent on Detroit’s bankruptcy, says Padilla’s hiring of Rhodes is an indication that the Detroit bankruptcy model is about to be applied to Puerto Rico.
Tuesday Jul 07, 2015
Leid Stories - 07.07.15
Tuesday Jul 07, 2015
Tuesday Jul 07, 2015
Talking Things Over, Talking Things Through
Yay! We’re reconnected, PRN having accomplished its move into brand-new studios.
To make for time lost on our regularly scheduled “Free Your Mind Fridays,” Leid Stories devotes today’s program to listeners’ thoughts and opinions about current issues and events.
Monday Jul 06, 2015
Leid Stories - 07.06.15
Monday Jul 06, 2015
Monday Jul 06, 2015
Trump’s Racist Comments Have Deep Roots
What is instructive about Donald Trump’s racist comments about Mexican immigrants is its epistemology.
Leid Stories examines Trump’s immigrant background, making the connection between his crudely touted credentials as an American oligarch and the concessions his German grandfather, Friedrich Drumpf, clearly made to succeed in a white-supremacist culture.
Trump’s benefits of the accumulation and transference of wealth over just three generations compares starkly with that of another Republican presidential candidate, Ben Carson, as Leid Stories explains.
Friday Jul 03, 2015
Leid Stories - 07.03.15
Friday Jul 03, 2015
Friday Jul 03, 2015
Whose Independence?: The Fourth of July and What It Really Means
Leid Stories wraps up its series on systems of white supremacy and their centrality to practically all aspects of life in the United States with two history lessons.
Dr. Gerald Horne, the John J. and Rebecca Moores chair of history and African American studies and professor of diplomatic history at the University of Houston and author of The Counter-Revolution of 1776: Slave Resistance and the Origins of the United States of America, explains the War of Independence as a counterrevolution by the power elite against the inevitability of the abolition of slavery by Britain.
The prescient words of Frederick Douglass still ring true. The late actor and activist Ossie Davis gives voice to “The Meaning of July Fourth for the Negro,” Douglass’s speech to the Rochester Ladies Anti-Slavery Society at Corinthian Hall in Rochester, N.Y., on July 5, 1852.