Episodes
Wednesday May 30, 2018
Leid Stories—Unconscious/Implicit Bias. Really?—05.30.18
Wednesday May 30, 2018
Wednesday May 30, 2018
Starbucks, the global coffee franchise, shut down its more than 8,000 stores across the country yesterday to provide a four-hour (voluntary) seminar for its employees on “unconscious bias” in the workplace. The company was praised for its forward-thinking action, the result of a Philadelphia store manager’s decision to call the cops on two African American men waiting at the store for a third person to have a meeting. They had not ordered anything while waiting (just a few minutes, the men said), and one of them asked to use the rest room and was denied. When the police arrived, the manager demanded the men be arrested and charged with trespassing. Starbucks CEO Kevin Johnson would later call the arrests “reprehensible,” and ordered the seminar.
Leid Stories listeners discussed yesterday the many reasons Johnson ordered companywide training. Today we tackle the issue of “unconscious or implicit bias.”
Tuesday May 29, 2018
Tuesday May 29, 2018
Coffee giant Starbucks this afternoon is closing more than 8,000 of its stores nationwide to provide racial-bias training for its 175,000 workers. The companywide training comes after Starbucks issued a public apology for the arrest of two black men at a Philadelphia store. The manager of the store said the men were “trespassing,” even though they were waiting only minutes for a third person to arrive to have a meeting. The men’s arrests, videotaped by customers, went viral, and almost instantly led to protests and calls for boycott. Starbucks CEO Kevin Johnson called the arrests “reprehensible,” and said they indicated a need for race-bias training for Starbucks employees. The men, meanwhile the men, Rashon Nelson and Donte Robinson, have reached an undisclosed settlement with Starbucks, and the company will fund an incubator for young local entrepreneurs.
Leid Stories says the Starbucks defensive in the end will end up using people of color to save its skin.
Monday May 28, 2018
Monday May 28, 2018
It is Memorial Day. A dwindled portion of the country will hold parades honoring those who died while serving in or defending America’s various wars; most, however, will be enjoying a long weekend of backyard barbecuing and hunting for good buys at start-of-summer sales.
Memorial Day has all but ceased to be a sobering moment when, as the country honors generations of war dead it also reexamines its bloodlust for war. But there are signs that the all-people’s anti-war resistance movement of the 1960s is gaining renewed strength in a new generation taking on the warmongering administration of President Donald Trump.
Leid Stories today shares a speech by the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. in which he warns about six key casualties of war. The speech was made at the height of King’s anti-war activism in 1967, the year before he was assassinated.
Friday May 25, 2018
Leid Stories—Protect Your Sanity! Free Your Mind!--05.25.18
Friday May 25, 2018
Friday May 25, 2018
Don’t panic, all’s not lost—if you free your mind.
We warmly welcome you to our “gathering place for the exchange of information, opinions and ideas” to engage in vigorous discussion and debate. Add your voice, your perspective, to an unscripted, ongoing dialogue about issues and events that matter to us all. Gain new insights as you help others do the same.
Call in (888-874-4888) and free your mind.
Thursday May 24, 2018
Leid Stories—Is ‘Our Revolution’ Cutting Corners on Principles?--05.24.18
Thursday May 24, 2018
Thursday May 24, 2018
Enough already with Bernie Sanders and his bewildering political morphing—an Independent who also is a Democrat who also is the magnetic center of Our Revolution, the progressive, social-democratic political action spinoff from Sanders’ 2016 presidential campaign. Questions need to be asked—and answered.
Why? Because we need some clarity here, and because of the queasy feeling we’re already on the slippery slope of being had.
Leid Stories says Sanders’ bizarre political moves are one of many examples of progressive parties and movements cutting corners on principles. In the end, the people lose.
Tuesday May 22, 2018
Tuesday May 22, 2018
Bernie Sanders, the two-term Independent-Democratic U.S. senator from Vermont, yesterday announced he’ll kick off in June his campaign seeking a third six-year term. A presidential run, which many Sanders supporters were hoping for, is not in the cards, the 76-year-old progressive said. Rather, he will continue pushing a progressive agenda.
Sanders desires to continue in politics but only in a fluid relationship with the Democratic Party. Both sides lose with this arrangement, says Leid Stories, but the Democratic Party and the people’s political agenda suffers even more.
Monday May 21, 2018
Monday May 21, 2018
We were warned, even before his election, about unfairly judging President Donald J. Trump. Give the guy a break, they said. He’s new to the job, and it won’t be easy to “drain the swamp” with an entrenched system of bureaucrats and the “deep state” against him. Besides, he’s not a career politician, and to make good on his promises he’ll have to schmooze leaders in both parties, and he hasn’t exactly endeared himself to them.
But candidate Trump and new president Trump vowed to “make America great again.” His endless tweets avow how well he’s doing. Incredible success with everything, he says. Yuuge! And there’ll be more success, if only his critics and other impediments to progress would get out of his way.
Today, Leid Stories asks listeners: Is it still too early to judge President Trump and his administration?
Friday May 18, 2018
Leid Stories--Be the System’s Worst Nightmare! Free Your Mind!--05.18.18
Friday May 18, 2018
Friday May 18, 2018
Your opinions and ideas are so important, they’re the reason for “Free Your Mind Friday,” our weekly open forum.
Leid Stories listeners and fans enthusiastically debate the issues of the day, or introduce other topics they believe to be worthy of consideration and debate. It’s an exciting intellectual mashup.
Call 888-874-4888 and be part of the mix.
Wednesday May 16, 2018
Wednesday May 16, 2018
Gina Haspel, the President Donald Trump-backed acting director of the Central Intelligence Agency, appears very likely to get the top job. After a week of hearings, the Senate Intelligence Committee takes a preliminary closed-session vote on her appointment today, with the full Senate then taking a final confirmation vote by week’s end.
Since May 9, when the Senate Intelligence Committee began questioning Haspel, it was clear that “national security” concerns would not allow Haspel to be specific about her CIA career and her key role in running secret prisons (called “black sites”) in several locations that specialized in “enhanced interrogation” of alleged terrorists.
Leid Stories discusses the flimsy pretend hearing that will result in Haspel’s appointment as CIA director.
Tuesday May 15, 2018
Leid Stories—The Day After A Massacre--05.15.18
Tuesday May 15, 2018
Tuesday May 15, 2018
Today is a great day of irony and contrast in Israel—the way it’s been since 1948. The decimated Palestinian population somberly commemorates Yawm an-Nakba, the Day of the Catastrophe, marking the anniversary of this day in 1948 when more than 700,000 Palestinians were expelled from their homes and forced to flee their ancestral land. It also is a festive day, for the nation today called Israel—Palestine, up until 70 years ago—was born out of war.
Today’s observances take place against a backdrop of blood and brutality, as Palestinians bury their dead—58 of them, including children, according to reports—who through protest were calling attention to the decades of suffering they have endured under apartheid Israeli rule and control.
Gilbert Mercier is the founding editor in chief of News Junkie Post. He also is an international journalist, photojournalist and filmmaker, and author of The Orwellian Empire, about the ravages of corporatism. He joins Leid Stories to discuss the larger picture of yesterday’s government-directed massacre.