Episodes
Friday Jun 15, 2018
Leid Stories—Looking Deeper Into the Horowitz (DOJ/FBI) Report—06.15.18
Friday Jun 15, 2018
Friday Jun 15, 2018
The Justice Department’s inspector general, Michael Horowitz, yesterday released a 568-page report on how officials in the DOJ and the FBI handled investigations into former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton’s use of a secret email server she had installed in the basement of her Chappaqua, N.Y., home. At the time the server was discovered, Clinton claimed it was merely for convenience. But allegations immediately surfaced that Clinton’s private server allowed her to conduct personal business outside of government knowledge or oversight.
So, the long-awaited report, 17 months in the making, is in. Why does it not address key questions?
Charles Ortel—a retired Wall Street banker turned forensic financial investigator and anti-charity-fraud crusader—helps Leid Stories dissect the Horowitz report, particularly in light of the unique relationships between key figures in the DOJ/FBI probes and Hillary and Bill Clinton and their eponymous foundation.
Thursday Jun 14, 2018
Leid Stories—It’s ‘Free Your Mind Thursday!’—06.14.18
Thursday Jun 14, 2018
Thursday Jun 14, 2018
The much-anticipated report by Justice Department Inspector General Michael Horowitz on Justice Department and Federal Bureau of Investigation probes into how Hillary Clinton handled classified information when she was secretary of state in the Obama administration is to be released today,
The report would have been the subject of our program today, but it won’t be released until 3 p.m. and is rather lengthy. Leid Stories is scheduling “Free Your Mind Friday” today, and will discuss the Horowitz report tomorrow.
Let’s hear what’s on your mind today. Call 888-874-4888 and share your information, opinions and ideas
Wednesday Jun 13, 2018
Leid Stories—Facing No Real Resistance, Trump Proceeds with His Maniacal Plans—06.13.18
Wednesday Jun 13, 2018
Wednesday Jun 13, 2018
President Donald J. Trump has made quick work of sidelining and silencing the opposition. There have been massive protests and a great deal of public agitation about his administration’s policies, but not nearly enough to suggest in Washington and in state and city legislatures a shared urgency about facing down Trump’s open contempt for democratic rule.
Leid Stories says that in the absence of real resistance—with political parties moving aggressively beyond their parochial interests to champion a people’s agenda—Trump won’t have to worry about impediments to his maniacal policies and plans.
Tuesday Jun 12, 2018
Leid Stories—Rating Trump’s G-7/Kim Jong Un Shuttle—06.12.18
Tuesday Jun 12, 2018
Tuesday Jun 12, 2018
President Donald Trump can now check off two items on his to-do list. He attended the annual summit of G-7 nations (Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, the United Kingdom and the United States) held this year in Quebec, and cut short his time there to meet one-on-one in Singapore with Kim Jong-un, leader of the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea.
Trump left the G-7 summit in a huff, claiming afterwards on Twitter a conspiracy, especially by Canada and France, to hammer U.S. tariffs on steel and aluminum imports. He refused to sign a document representing the G-7 nations’ commitment to work together to solve major issues. His mood was far more optimistic in Singapore, where closed-door talks with Kim Jong-un yielded a promise for continued bilateral negotiations.
Leid Stories listeners offer their impressions of Trump’s tumultuous, history-making week abroad.
Monday Jun 11, 2018
Monday Jun 11, 2018
Making good on an election-year promise to the coal mining and nuclear energy industries and a smackdown for environmentalists, President Donald Trump last week ordered Energy Secretary Rick Perry to take “immediate steps” to ensure continued operations of coal mines and nuclear power plants across the country.
This means that the administration is committed to continuing massive, and even fatal, assaults on the environment and on the people working in and living near such projects.
Investigative journalist Paul DeRienzo has filed several reports on Leid Stories about the sketchy state of the nation’s nuclear power plants, the government’s gross mismanagement of nuclear waste, and the health and environmental problems they cause nearby populations.
DeRienzo is joined by Tom Carpenter, executive director of Hanford Challenge, a group seeking the proper disposal of nuclear waste at the decommissioned Hanford Site in Washington state and at all other plants. They explain why the Department of Energy’s new rules on nuclear waste will create environmental and health hazards that will last forever.
Friday Jun 08, 2018
Leid Stories—Talk What You Walk and Free Your Mind!—06.08.18
Friday Jun 08, 2018
Friday Jun 08, 2018
Speak your own truth to power on Leid Stories’ “Free Your Mind Friday,” the best on-air open forum on the planet. Share your take on issues in the news, topics we’ve covered on the program, or whatever you think merits further discussion or debate.
Join us for a mind-freeing hour of great radio. Call 888-874-4888 and talk what you walk!
Thursday Jun 07, 2018
Leid Stories—A Planned Demise in Michigan—06.07.18
Thursday Jun 07, 2018
Thursday Jun 07, 2018
The City of Detroit for years now has been on a terrifying mission. The Depression-era miseries that affected the city after the collapse of the auto industry made the once-thriving city into a wasteland, with the remnants of political leadership hanging on mostly to pick the city’s bones dry. The city went way down, but it wasn’t out. There were vast tracts of available land, real estate interests appreciated the city’s excellent location and its “good bones,” and it was ripe for “reimagining.” One requirement: A totally clean slate. The people, mostly people of color, have to go. They won’t fit into what’s being planned for “new” Detroit.
Abayomi Azikiwe, editor in chief of Pan-African News Wire and a Detroit organizer for the Workers World Party and Moratorium Now!, has been reporting on the aggressive plan to retake Detroit and the devastating consequences and havoc it continues to cause. He tells Leid Stories today that the contagion has spread to other predominantly Black cities.
Wednesday Jun 06, 2018
Leid Stories—Redefining Our Politics and Our Power—06.06.18
Wednesday Jun 06, 2018
Wednesday Jun 06, 2018
Yesterday was The Big Primary Show—the midterm races for the U.S. House and Senate seats, and for governorships, that in turn will shape the 2020 presidential election and the political fortunes of the Democratic and Republican parties.
State-by-state results are still being finalized, but what political analysts are keenly interested in is measuring whether President Donald Trump is helping to grow Republican strongholds or, conversely, whether Democrats are increasing their voter appeal.
Where does that leave those who oppose the duopoly? Whatever the final tally, it should be no surprise that non-duopolists will have little in the way of midterm victories to celebrate.
Leid Stories returns once again to the question of the future of independent politics.
Tuesday Jun 05, 2018
Tuesday Jun 05, 2018
Starbucks CEO Howard Schultz later this month will end his 36-year tenure as executive chairman of the company and “think about a range of options that could include public service.” Read that as a possible presidential run. This adds new perspective on the quick shutdown of public outrage over the “trespassing” arrests of two African American men who were waiting for a third man for a meeting at a Starbucks store in Philadelphia.
Leid Stories commented that the men’s still-undisclosed “settlement,” followed by a companywide “bias-training” session featuring high-profile blacks, wasn’t just about a forward-looking company’s way of heading off a crisis.
On June 5, 1968, Robert F. Kennedy, 42, was mortally wounded at the Ambassador Hotel in Los Angeles, where supporters were celebrating his clinching of the Democratic nomination with primary election wins in California and South Dakota. He had just left the podium and was heading toward a kitchen exit when shots rang out. He fell, mortally wounded. In the early morning hours of June 6, Kennedy was pronounced dead.
Sirhan Sirhan, a 24-year-old Palestinian-Jordanian immigrant, was held as the gunman. He claimed that he was brainwashed and didn’t act alone. He was sentenced to death after trial in 1969. His sentence was commuted to life in prison in 1972.
Leid Stories commemorates the public spirit of Robert F. Kennedy with an interaction he had with students at Columbia University in 1964.
Monday Jun 04, 2018
Leid Stories—The Opposition Is Yammering, Not Hammering—06.04.18
Monday Jun 04, 2018
Monday Jun 04, 2018
President Trump and his administration have given, and continue to give, the opposition more than enough ammunition to blast gaping holes in his anti-humanitarian, anti-democratic agenda and bring it down.
Last Thursday, Spain’s archconservative prime minister, Mariano Rajoy, rejected yet another demand that he and his corrupt government resign. By Saturday, the center-left Socialist Party had pushed through a no-confidence vote against Rajoy in Parliament, removing him from power and replacing him with the party’s Pedro Sanchez instead.
In Spain, a major political change was hammered out. But in the United States, there’s endless yammering by the opposition about Trump’s corrupt and chaotic administration. Yammering is not hammering, says Leid Stories.