Leid Stories

Leid Stories - 02.23.22

Our presentations series makes its debut next Monday, Feb. 28. Details. What's going on? Tell me the news!    

Leid Stories - 02.18.22

 "Free Your Mind Friday."

Leid Stories - 02.17.22

Three white men,  convicted in a state court of the brutal murder of Ahmaud Arbery, a 25-year-old Black man they saw jogging through their suburban Brunswick, Ga., neighborhood on Feb. 23, 2020, are on trial in federal court.

Federal statutes allow for separate/additional prosecutions for crimes allegedly committed in violation of human-rights laws. 

Racial hatred motivated Arbury's attackers -- Gregory McMichael, 65, son Travis McMichael, 35, and neighbor William "Roddie" Bryan, 52 -- the prosecutor has charged.

In her opening statement prosecutor Bobbi Bernstein laid out the premise of the federal case: Ahmaud Arbery, she told the court, would not have been murdered had he been white.

Is the prosecutor playing "the race card" to sensationalize the case and play to Black sympathies? Is she unmasking the sheer brutality that lurks behind the illusion of well-ordered life?

On Leid Stories today we look at how the murder of Ahmaud Arbery lays bare the false notion of "progress" in the South.

Leid Stories - 02.16.22

Three white men,  convicted in a state court of the brutal murder of Ahmaud Arbery, a 25-year-old Black man they saw jogging through their suburban Brunswick, Ga. neighborhood on Feb. 23, 2020, are in their second day of trial in federal court.

Federal statutes allow for separate/additional prosecutions for crimes allegedly committed in violation of human-rights laws. Racial hatred motivated Arbury's attackers --  Gregory McMichael, 65, son Travis McMichael, 35, and neighbor William "Roddie" Bryan, 52 -- the prosecutor has charged.

In her opening statement prosecutor Bobbi Bernstein said that Ahmaud Arbery would not have been murdered had he been white.

 

QUESTIONS: 

︎Is prosecution under federal statutes double jeopardy?

︎Could prosecutors prove beyond the shadow of a doubt what was in Arbery's killers' minds when they murdered him?

Leid Stories - 02.15.22

︎How prepared are we for the very real possibility that the United States could soon be at war, as President Biden has vowed, should Russia, still massing its forces against Ukraine, overrun it?

President Biden has warned Russia of swift and certain U.S. military action if it should invade Ukraine. But Russia continues massing its troops at Ukraine's borders.

 

︎Ahmaud Arbery would not have been murdered had he been white, the prosecutor in the federal trial of three men who chased and killed Arbery as he jogged through their neighborhood told the court yesterday afternoon as the trial began.

Arbery, 25, was shot to death on Feb. 23, 2020. Gregory McMichael, 65, son Travis McMichael, 35, and neighbor William "Roddie" Bryan, 52, were convicted in the killing of Arbery and sentenced to life in prison.

QUESTION: What would true justice be in this case?

Leid Stories - 02.14.22

What has been, and continues to be, your greatest secret yearning -- a yearning that has haunted you for years but you haven't yet actualized it?

Do you think it's still attainable? Will you still pursue it? Or, will you let it go and move on?

 

The president's wife, First Lady Jill Biden, last week announced her "disappointment" that the president's $2.2T Build Back Better budget for next year will not include $45.5 billion for free tuition for two-year college students.

"We knew this wouldn't be easy. Joe has always said that. Still, like you, I was disappointed," she told attendees at the Community College National Summit in Washington.

Question: What do you make of Mrs.Biden's appearance at the national summit and her remarks?

Leid Stories - 02.11.22

It's "Free Your Mind Friday" on Leid Stories, a free-wheeling forum to share information, opinions and ideas that matter.

 

Leid Stories - 02.10.22

We're making up for time lost last week, when some equipment we were expecting was snowbound in delivery.

 

Thanks to our chief engineer, Rodney Harris, who was on the case, we're good to go! 

 

So, we added a day to our regular "Free Your Mind Friday" open forum to give you time to talk.

 

Leid Stories - 01.31.22

President Biden's declaration that he'll  nominate by the end of February a black woman to the U.S. Supreme Court to fill the seat that Justice Stephen Bryer will have vacated by his retirement. 

What's your take on how Biden is handling this?

Prosecutors in the federal hate crime case of the killing of Armaud Arbery filed notices yesterday that they've made plea deals with two of the three men -- a father and son, Gregory and Travis McMichael -- charged in Aubery's Feb. 23, 2020 shooting death.

William "Roddie" Bryan, the third member of the posse that chased Arbery and cornered him as he jogged through their neighborhood outside Brunswick, Ga., was not included in the plea deal, which Arbery's parents, Wanda Cooper Jones and Marcus Arbery, said they are "vehemently" against.

What is your initial reaction to the purported plea deals?

Leid Stories - 01.28.22

It's "Free Your Mind Friday" on Leid Stories, so we make our usual tweaks.

We dispense with our regular program format and become an open forum so that callers can express their views.