President Obama, expected to hit the campaign trail to support Hillary Clinton, instead will be in Orlando today, paying his respects to the victims of the June 12 mass shooting by a lone gunman at a gay club there. Fifty people—including the gunman, Omar Mateen, 29—died in the carnage, and 53 others were wounded, many of them sustaining multiple wounds.
Leid Stories continues yesterday’s discussion on the politicization of the tragedy.
A lone gunman, identified as Omar Mateen, 29, of Port St. Lucie, Fla., without warning opened fire inside a popular gay nightclub in Orlando in the wee hours of Sunday morning as patrons were celebrating Pride Month. Mateen died in a gunfight with a SWAT team, but not before himself killing 50 patrons and wounding 53 others, many of them critically.
The massacre has shocked and outraged the nation and the world—and especially the LGBTQ community, which has been reporting an escalation in homophobia-related violence. The Orlando mass killings, however, are a new threshold in such violence, which is occurring in a carefully orchestrated climate, says Leid Stories.
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Leid Stories’ listeners chime in on yesterday’s topic, which predicted Sanders’ capitulation to Clinton and the Democratic Party in the name of “party unity,” and the almost certain death of the “progressive” movement he started.
With wins yesterday in four of six states holding primaries—particularly in delegate-rich California and New Jersey—Hillary Clinton, who also carried New Mexico and South Dakota, had a big political payday. She zoomed past the 2,383 delegates needed to be the Democratic Party’s nominee in the general election (now having 2,184 pledged delegates and 571 superdelegates, against Sanders’ 1,804 and 48, respectively). The taste of victory—and history, as a major party’s first female presidential nominee—was sweet.
Which brings us, for the umpteenth time, back to Bernie and what, exactly, he plans to do with his votes and his anti-establishment movement.
Leid Stories discusses the inevitability of Sanders’ capitulation to Clinton and the Democratic Party in the name of “party unity,” and the almost certain death of the “progressive” movement he started.
It’s a big day in presidential primaries—with contests in California, Montana, New Jersey, New Mexico, North Dakota and South Dakota that will further enshrine Donald Trump as the Republican nominee and help Hillary Clinton finally to put Bernie Sanders out of her field of dreams. By the end of the day, the delegate count will “predict” the outcome of the parties’ nomination conventions next month (July 18-21 in Cleveland for the Republicans, and July 25-28 in Philadelphia for the Democrats).
Trump’s 1239 delegates (1,237 needed for nomination) and stunning, though controversial, victories that edged out 16 other candidates in primary contests have all but secured his position as standard bearer in the general election. But Clinton hasn’t been able to shake a persistent Sanders, despite delegate/superdelegate support (1,812/571, respectively) that yesterday brought her to the 2,383 threshold and the advantages of political longevity, big-money donors and a well-oiled campaign machine.
Leid Stories looks at where the 2016 political season stands right now and why, with today’s roster of primaries, it’s Judgment Day, kinda.
Lawyers for Caesar Goodson, the Baltimore police officer facing the most serious charges in the death of Freddie Gray on April 12 last year, are in court today challenging the admissibility of key evidence. Goodson goes on trial tomorrow on charges of depraved-heart murder, three counts of manslaughter, misconduct in office and reckless endangerment. While in Goodson’s custody, the indictment says, Gray suffered irreparable—and, eventually, fatal—injuries to his spine.
Attorney Alton H. Maddox Jr. disassembles State’s Attorney Marilyn J. Moseby’s handling of the case, which yielded an acquittal for Officer Edward Nero two weeks ago in a nonjury trial, and a mistrial last December in the case of Officer William Porter.
Leid Stories pays tribute to the world-renowned boxer and humanitarian Muhammad Ali, who died June 3 at a Phoenix-area hospital, where he was being treated for respiratory complications associated with his 32-year battle with Parkinson’s disease. He was 74 years old.
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Dr. Gerald Horne, John J. and Rebecca Moores chair of history and African American studies at the University of Houston and frequent analyst of world affairs on Leid Stories, tells us what we need to know about President Obama’s 10th “pivot-to-Asia” trip; what’s behind the push against Venezuela’s Nicolás Maduro and Brazil’s Dilma Rousseff; Britain’s June 23 referendum on whether to leave the European union; and the Clinton drag on Obama’s “legacy.”
Horne, who also teaches diplomatic history, is the author of more than 30 books (including, most recently, Paul Robeson: The Artist As Revolutionary; Confronting Black Jacobins: The U.S., the Haitian Revolution and the Origins of the Dominican Republic; and Race to Revolution: The U.S. and Cuba during Slavery and Jim Crow.
In addition, he has written more than 100 scholarly papers that focus on struggles against imperialism, colonialism, fascism and racism.
A five-member independent council charged with oversight of Haiti’s contentious presidential election yesterday released its finding that the election was so marred by fraud, only a new election would restore voter confidence.
Kim Ives, editor of Haïti Liberté who has been reporting on Haiti and related developments, discusses the electoral council’s report and the ripple effects it appears to be having, including in the Obama administration.
Utrice Leid, host of Leid Stories, waxes somewhat philosophic on the occasion of her 63rd birthday.
