Leid Stories

Leid Stories - 08/13/14

Today's guest was Alton Maddox and he will discuss “Legal Strategies for Combating Police Killings, Brutality.”

leid stories – 08/12/14

Guest today was Michael Greys. He discussed “When the Law Is About Enforcement” and how tensions are high In St. Louis after police shooting.

Leid Stories - 08/11/14

Running Dry In Detroit: More Than 100,000 At Risk of Water Shutoffs

Seeking Justice for Eric Garner, But Sharpton Is In A Political Chokehold

Add a water crisis and a fast-developing public-health problem to the long list of miseries heaped upon beleaguered Detroiters as the city seeks to declare bankruptcy.

Tens of thousands of households unable to pay their water bills have no running water. And 100,000 more facing shutoffs aren’t sure what will happen after a citywide moratorium ends on Aug. 25.

Curt Guyette, an investigative reporter for the American Civil Liberties Union of Michigan focusing on Michigan’s emergency management law, discusses the human-rights and related legal issues raised by the water-shutoff crisis, and says that the shutoffs are being done “in a way that disproportionately affects African Americans, a concern echoed by the United Nations.”

The Rev. Al Sharpton’s Aug. 23 “March for Justice for Eric Garner” across the Verrazano Bridge into Staten Island instead will be a caravan—owing to safety concerns, not capitulation to City Hall or the NYPD, he says.

But even as he takes the lead in channeling the community’s outrage over Garner’s NYPD-inflicted chokehold death, demanding justice in the case, Sharpton is himself in a political chokehold, and it already is affecting the legal course of the case.

Leid Stories explains.  

Leid Stories - 08/08/14

Leave the Herd! Free Your Mind!

It’s “Free Your Mind Friday” on Leid Stories—a totally unscripted program centered around and driven by listeners’ opinions and ideas. They put their own finishing touches on topics featured on Leid Stories this week, or introduce new issues worthy of consideration and debate. It’s the best open forum in radio!

Contribute to the dialogue. Leave the herd and bring your best to the gathering place for the exchange of information, opinions and ideas. Call 888-874-4888 and test your intellectual mettle.

Leid Stories - State Crimes Against Democracy: When Conspiracies Are More Than Theories - 08/07/14

There was no legal classification for the type of crime top lawmakers in Florida committed in 2000, when they blocked a recount of the vote in the presidential election. But it got Lance deHaven-Smith, a professor of public administration and policy at Florida State University, to thinking that there ought to be.

In 2006, he coined the term, “State Crimes Against Democracy (SCADs),” and since then has been on a mission to codify political criminality in high office.

SCADs, deHaven-Smith says, are a particularly pernicious type of governmental corruption. Far more dangerous than “regular” corruption for personal gain, SCADs essentially are conspiratorial and anti-democratic in nature, and involve the subversion of political institutions, branches of government, and even the entire government.

Scratch a conspiracy theory, and you very likely will find SCADs, he says.

Dr. deHaven-Smith, the author of 16 books, including Conspiracy Theory In America, joins Leid Stories for an eye-opening discussion on elite political criminality in the United States and the special challenges it poses in preventing and prosecuting such crimes.

Leid Stories - 08/06/14

The Other U.S.-Africa Leaders Summit: Grassroots Action in D.C.

Police Unions Defend Officers in NYC Chokehold Case; Blast ‘Rhetoric’

President Obama’s three-day U.S.-Africa Leaders Summit on bilateral investment, trade and development wraps up today in Washington, D.C.

At Howard University, more than 150 grassroots organizations also are wrapping up a parallel summit of their own that focused on political, social, economic, environmental and human rights problems that continue to imperil the lives of millions on the continent.

(Look for discussions on the results of both summits in coming weeks.)

William Minter, editor of the AfricaFocus website and AfricaFocus Bulletin, gives an overview of the US-Africa Network’s (USAN) Empowered Africa Dialogue.

The presidents of the Patrolmen’s Benevolent Association and the Sergeants Benevolent Association yesterday excoriated “anti-police rhetoric” they said is tainting the reputation of the NYPD generally and jeopardizing the rights of police officers involved in the chokehold death of Eric Garner, which has been ruled a homicide.

Leid Stories and listeners deconstruct PBA President Pat Lynch’s statement as an exercise in media literacy—an ongoing Leid Stories project.

 

Leid Stories - 08/05/14

Medical Examiner Rules Homicide; Chokehold Case Takes Familiar Path

Israel, International Law and Impediments to Peace in Palestine

New York City’s chief medical examiner announced last Friday that Eric Garner, a 43-year-old father of six from Staten Island who died during a violent arrest by a group of police officers on July 17, was the victim of a homicide. Officer Daniel Pantaleo, 29, had placed Garner in a chokehold—a tactical maneuver banned by the NYPD since 1993.

The case has touched off yet another wave of community outrage over police brutality, with the Rev. Al Sharpton taking the lead in calling for justice and seeking federal  intervention.

Leid Stories cites troubling signs that the case is already on the wrong course, and explains how it is following a predictable pattern that is unlikely to deliver the kind of justice the community is clamoring for.

Israel reportedly has withdrawn all troops from Gaza as a 72-hour truce goes into effect to deliver humanitarian aid to the bombarded area. Many are hoping it is the first step in a de-escalation of hostilities and a step toward brokered peace negotiations.

Richard Falk, professor emeritus of international law at Princeton University and a U.N.-appointed special rapporteur on Palestine, explains in a speech at the University of London how and why several attempts at negotiating peace deliberately were sabotaged.

Leid Stories - Vote on Extra Military Aid to Israel Reveals Weakness of Peace, Political Movements - 08/04/14

On top of the $3.1 billion Israel receives each year in military aid (in lump sum—the only nation receiving U.S. aid on such terms), Congress approved an additional $504 million requested by President Obama (through the 2014 Consolidated Appropriations Act) for its missile and anti-rocket systems.

Last Friday, before Congress recessed for an additional month of legislative inaction, the Senate unanimously approved an additional $225 million in military aid for Israel’s Iron Dome missile-defense system. The House responded equally generously with a 395-8 vote approving the measure.

Clearly, Israel continues to get what it wants, and on terms that it wants, few if any questions asked. But who in Congress is asking questions? More importantly, who is compelling the asking of questions?

Friday’s vote is bad news on many levels. It proves the absolute capitulation of the White House to Israel; the ineffectiveness of whatever is passing for a peace movement; the cooptation/sellout of allegedly progressive forces in Congress; and, yet again, the need for grassroots movements to develop viable political alternatives to the Democrats and Republicans, two wings of a flightless bird.  

Leid Stories - 08/01/14

To Free Your Mind, Give Us A Piece of It!

What a week! It’s as if the whole world went mad. Scary thing is, it looks like more of the same is headed our way next week.

Hence, the importance of “Free Your Mind Friday” on Leid Stories. This is the day we decode and share our thoughts about what has happened, and brace ourselves for what’s likely to come.  

Add your own flavor to this zesty intellectual soup with your take on major issues and events. Or, fix our gaze on something else entirely. It’s your call; you decide where the conversation ought to go.

Call 888-874-4888 and be heard!

Leid Stories - 07/31/14

California Heeds Small PAC’s Call to End Big Money In Elections

Media Madness , Geopolitics  and Other Global Anomalies

Hillary’s State Department OK’d $48 Million In Gigs for Bill

 

A small political action committee, Wolf-PAC, had a big idea—ending corporate financing of political campaigns nationwide. It organized a grassroots campaign to persuade at least 34 states to support a Free and Fair Elections Amendment to the U.S. Constitution. In May, Vermont was the first to sign on. And now California is on board. Todd Jagger, a Wolf-PAC coordinator, talks about getting 32 more states.

Leid Stories introduces Brazilian journalist Pepe Escobar, renowned for his authoritative reporting on crises in the world’s major trouble spots. He discusses the wholesale surrender of the media to geopolitical considerations and corporate interests, fulfilling its primary role as creators of an alternate reality. Escobar, whose latest book is Globalistan: How the Globalized World is Dissolving into Liquid War, takes us into the world he knows very well.

Judicial Watch, reviewing documents it obtained via a Freedom of Information Act lawsuit last year against the State Department, discovered 48 million [more] reasons the Clintons should be doing prison time. While Hill was secretary of state, Bill was able to wrangle $48 million in fees for speaking engagements and high-profile appearances at events unrelated to the State Department and that were clear-cut breaches of ethics rules. Leid Stories asks: The Clintons and ethics?