Episodes
Thursday Jan 11, 2018
Leid Stories—Haiti Earthquake: After Hell, Eight More Years of Hell—01.11.18
Thursday Jan 11, 2018
Thursday Jan 11, 2018
Tomorrow marks the eighth year after a catastrophic 7.0-magnitude earthquake with an epicenter just west of Haiti’s capital city, Port-au-Prince, shattered the afternoon calm with the strongest tremors to strike the region in more than 200 years; at least 52 significant aftershocks were recorded by Jan. 24.
The disaster pushed Haiti, the poorest country in the Western Hemisphere, beyond the brink, compounding the political and economic crises that had dogged it for decades. The quake left some 3 million people affected; a government-estimated 316,000 dead; almost 300,000 homes and commercial buildings collapsed or severely damaged; and the entire nation gripped by sorrow and wondering whether they could survive the hell they were living in.
After the hell of 2010 came eight more years of hell, as Leid Stories discusses today with Dady Chery.
Chery is a Haitian-born journalist, poet, playwright, professor of biology, and co-editor in chief of the news site, newsjunkiepost.com. She writes extensively about Haiti. She wrote the first story uncovering Haiti’s hidden mineral wealth, and revealed that U.N. peacekeeping forces were responsible for two strains of cholera outbreaks that killed thousands of Haitians and sickened thousands more—which the U.N. finally admitted. She has followed closely the deeds of corrupt Haitian leaders as well as the deeds of Bill and Hillary Clinton in Haiti. Her recently published book is titled We Have Dared to Be Free: Haiti’s Struggle Against Occupation.
Thursday Jan 11, 2018
Leid Stories—Are We Sleeping Through A Revolution?—01.10.18
Thursday Jan 11, 2018
Thursday Jan 11, 2018
Next Monday, when the nation pays mostly symbolic tribute to Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. commemorating what should have been his 86th birthday, look to the State Florida, where prison inmates plan to live the meaning of King’s prophetic words. Many of them will go on strike against the state’s legendarily oppressive prison system, refusing to work for 30 days until basic human-rights demands are met—not only fo themselves but for all prisoners.
Ahead of Dr. Martin Luther King Day, Leid Stories reminds us all that each of us has a role to play in creating both the possibility and reality of a better world. Sadly, for too many it’s merely an idea, not a duty or ongoing commitment. But King admonishes us against self-induced passivity in the face of clear and present dangers to humanity as a whole and even to ourselves. It was the signature theme of his speeches and writings.
A week before he was assassinated on April 4, 1968 in Memphis, Tenn., where he had gone to support sanitation workers on strike, King preached to a church congregation about the importance of “Remaining Awake Through Great Revolution.” We listen to that sermon in preparation for further discussion on Leid Stories.
Tuesday Jan 09, 2018
Leid Stories—The Clinton Foundation: FBI Probe Deepens, Noose Tightens—01.09.18
Tuesday Jan 09, 2018
Tuesday Jan 09, 2018
A wide-ranging FBI probe into the Bill, Hillary and Chelsea Clinton Foundation (The Clinton Foundation), reportedly launched months before formal confirmation last week, is raising new questions about whether it initially was impeded by Clinton and Obama loyalists within the Trump administration. Even so, it appears that the investigation into foundation has reached a critical point, and the public may soon know whether the Clintons and/or other officers of the foundation are to be charged with operating the charity as a criminal enterprise.
Charles Ortel, a retired Wall Street banker turned financial investigator and a sworn enemy of charity fraud, has been forensically examining the foundation’s operations and records for two years and has been reporting his findings on Leid Stories. He declared early on that the evidence he uncovered suggested that the foundation was “the largest unprosecuted fraud in U.S. history.” He files his latest report.
Monday Jan 08, 2018
Monday Jan 08, 2018
The appellation “The People’s Attorney General” befits Alton H. Maddox Jr., who for more than a half-century has been engaged in vigorous struggle against American apartheid, battling an inherently uneven, unfair and immoral system engineered to throttle the well-being, opportunities and progress of people of color while assuring rights, privileges and social, political and economic control to whites.
Long before the Newnan, Ga.-born Maddox became a lawyer, he had placed himself in service to distressed communities. But it was in the bantustans of the North, most notably in New York City, that Maddox came into the fullness of big-city apartheid and his role in battling it, both inside and outside the courts. He has paid a big price, but continues the struggle.
Leid Stories begins the first of an extended conversation with Maddox, a treasure in our midst.
Friday Jan 05, 2018
Friday Jan 05, 2018
It’s paralyzingly cold. But you can warm up your brain and heart and soul a bit by joining us on “Free Your Mind Friday” in our first open forum for the year. It’s a wonderful blizzard of information, opinions and ideas—people telling it as they see it.
Call 888-874-4888 and enjoy the warmth.
Wednesday Jan 03, 2018
Wednesday Jan 03, 2018
Lots of rumbling about President Trump’s bizarre behavior and excessive vitriol, but not much evidence that he can be compelled to quit embarrassing himself, his office and the country with his vituperative talk and outrageous actions. Case in point: Pushing both the United States and the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea to the brink of war.
Bucking the admonitions of the American Psychological Association against “diagnosing” people, especially public officials, who aren’t their patients (specifically Donald Trump), many mental-health professionals are saying they have a “duty to warn” when they see “signs or risk or danger” to the public in a public official’s erratic behavior. Three mental-health experts explained in an article published yesterday in the Boston Globe why “professionals should further engage in educating the public” about a “dangerous president.”
Tuesday Jan 02, 2018
Leid Stories—Commit to Making 2018 A Purposeful Year—01.02.18
Tuesday Jan 02, 2018
Tuesday Jan 02, 2018
It’s a brand-new year, and while we look to it with an abundance or optimism and hope, we know that many of the troubles of 2017 will be with us in 2018. But let us not despair, says Leid Stories. Let us instead move into the new year purposefully, committed individually and collectively to transformative change.