Leid Stories

Leid Stories—Gina Haspel’s Appointment as CIA Director Warranted ‘Enhanced Interrogation’ by Senate Intelligence Committee--05.16.18

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.

Leid Stories—The Day After A Massacre--05.15.18

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.

Leid Stories—Who/What Can Stop Trump from Lying?--05.14.18

Gina Haspel, the President Donald Trump-backed acting director of the Central Intelligence Agency, appears very likely to get the job. Since May 9, when the Senate Intelligence Committee began questioning her, it was embarrassingly clear that “national security” concerns would not allow her to be specific about her key role in running secret prisons (called “black sites”) in several locations all over the world that specialized in torturing alleged terrorists.

Leid Stories discusses Haspel successfully diverted attention away from her role in the torture program.

On May 7, Leid Stories did a commentary titled, “The Always-Lying President Just Keeps On Lying,” noting: “He lies about big things and small. He lies to make himself look good, and others bad. He even lies about lying. There is no hope, it seems, that the lying will stop, but President Trump’s lies are quite consequential; his lying ways have caught on in his administration.”

Well, former New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg ran with the theme in a commencement speech he delivered at Rice University on May 12. Without calling any names, he talked about the “epidemic of dishonesty” that has entrenched itself in American politics and society, and warned that, left unchecked and unchallenged, it will destroy democracy.

Leid Stories—Free Your Mind. It’s Your Best Defense!—05.11.18

Here you are at the end of a very trying week. You’ve triumphed over the conspiracy to drive you mad with a torrent of “news” and “information” designed to confuse you, throw you off kilter, and dumb you down.

Disassemble the mishmash we’ve been fed all week and tell us what we really ought to know. Call 888-874-4888 and help us free our minds.

Leid Stories—Dr. Gerald Horne Looks At Some Spotty Contemporary Issues Through the Lens of History—05.10.18

Historian and prolific author Gerald Horne, Ph.D., looks at a few contemporary issues and events, domestic and global, through the lens of history.

Horne, the John J. and Rebecca Moores Chair of History and African American Studies at the University of Houston, regularly decodes complex social, political and economic issues on Leid Stories.

He has written more than 30 books and 100 scholarly papers on global struggles against imperialism, colonialism, fascism and racism. Most recently: The Rise and Fall of the Associated Negro Press: Claude Barnett's Pan-African News and the Jim Crow Paradox (2017); Storming the Heavens: African Americans and the Early Struggle for the Right to Fly (2017); Facing the Rising Sun: African Americans, Japan the Rise of Afro-Asian Solidarity (2018); and The Apocalypse of Settler Colonialism: The Roots of Slavery, White Supremacy and Capitalism in Seventeenth Century North America and the Caribbean (2018).

Leid Stories—A Big Win Against Corruption and Injustice in Benton Harbor, Michigan—05.09.18

Last Tuesday, May 1, the Rev. Edward Pinkney, a longtime grassroots activist, received some good news—albeit after serving a full 30-month prison sentence on a bogus conviction for election fraud. The Michigan Supreme Court, finally reviewing his case, unanimously ordered his convictions vacated and all charges against him dismissed.

Pinkney, a leading voice against corrupt political leadership and massive corporate land grabs in many Black cities in the state, continued to organize even while in prison. Democracy works when people make it work, and work together to make it work, he says.

Leid Stories takes time to celebrate the fighting spirit of Rev. Pinkney and the people of Benton Harbor, who are in a pitched battle with major corporations wanting to drive them out and take their land.

Leid Stories—Haitians in Central and South America Brace Against Bleak Prospects in Bid to Return Home; Sex Abuse Charges Sink NY Attorney General, Not Legal Abuse of Communities of Color—05.08.18

The draconian programs that the Trump administration has vowed to implement to curb illegal immigration into the United States are having ripple effect elsewhere in the hemisphere. Several Central and South American countries are doing thee same, expelling hundreds of thousands who previously were welcomed under a number of national and international humanitarian compacts but now want their foreign guests gone.

Kim Ives, editor of the English edition of Haïti Liberté, has been traveling with Haitian exiles in Central and South America who under extreme difficulty and bleak prospects are trying to return home.

New York Attorney General Eric Schneiderman resigns at the end of the business day today, and already the list of possible replacements is long. Gov. Andrew Cuomo urged Schneiderman to quit after a New Yorker magazine exposé reported that at least four women linked to him romantically said he was physically abusive to them.

Leid Stories discusses Schneiderman’s history of legal abuse of communities of color in New York state.

Leid Stories—Who/What Can Stop Trump from Lying?--05.07.18

He lies about big things and small. He lies to make himself look good, and others bad. He even lies about lying. There is no hope, it seems, that the lying will stop.

But President Trump’s lies are quite consequential. And as we have seen, his lying ways have caught on in his administration.

Leid Stories discusses Trump’s compulsive lying—not as some personality quirk, but as an integral part of how he lives in and manipulates the world.

Leid Stories—Free Your Mind Now to Deal With the Madness Ahead!—05.04.18

This is no time to be confused. Your mind needs to be uncluttered and in good shape, and “Free Your Mind Friday” on Leid Stories is here to help.

Get a head start with “Free Your Mind Friday” on Leid Stories. It’s the best open forum on the planet. Call in (888-874-4888) and share your thoughts about the issues of the day or any subject you think warrants further discussion or debate. Prepare us for the madness ahead!

Leid Stories—‘Teachable Moments’ for Racist Whites That Come At Their Victims’ Expense; Did Bill Cosby Get A Fair Trial? (Part 4)—05.03.18

Two African American men, Rashon Nelson and Donte Robinson, both 23, were arrested April 12 at a Starbucks in Philadelphia after the store’s manager said they were not paying customers and were not entitled to any of the cafe’s amenities. After protests urging a national boycott of Starbucks, the men have reached undisclosed settlements with the parent company, and each has agreed to a $1 symbolic settlement with the city in exchange for $200,000 to support a program in minority entrepreneurship.

Two Native American men were part of an organized tour of Colorado State University on Monday when campus police showed up and detained them for questioning. A white woman who was on the tour with her daughter had called in a report that the Native American men on the tour were “making her nervous," The Denver Post reported yesterday. After campus security questioned the men, they left the tour and the campus and returned home to New Mexico. CSU officials reached out to the men to apologize, but it appears the damage is done.

Leid Stories notes that “teachable moments” like these almost always come at the expense of victims of racism and not the ones inflicting it.

Entertainer Bill Cosby, convicted April 26 in a Pennsylvania court on three felony counts of aggravated indecent assault, is to learn the length of his prison sentence in June. The maximum for each count is 10 years.

Leid Stories continues with listeners’ observations on the fairness of the trial of Bill Cosby, which ended April 26 with guilty verdicts on three felony counts of aggravated indecent assault—charges that could cost him up to 10 years on each count when he is sentenced next month.