Leid Stories

Leid Stories - Chaos in D.C.; Chaos in DRC - 12/04/12

Will the bipartisan wrangling over the budget deliver a fair result?  Absolutely not, says Utrice in a scathing commentary. Both sides will "compromise" -- which means they will agree to do what is politically expedient.

Dr. Suleyman Nyang, a political scientist and African scholar at Howard University, gives a primer on the civil war in the Democratic Republic of Congo.

Leid Stories - What's Odd - 11/30/12

Leid Stories catches up on oddball politics.

Leid Stories - Hillary Clinton And Other Disturbances - 11/30/12

And now, she'll stamp out AIDS worldwide!  Hillary Clinton's self-serving political ambitions know no bounds -- not even as she presented a "blueprint" for a global AIDS program that was started by George W. Bush. This latest move of hers, brazenly overshadowing her boss, is consistent with the Clintons' way of operating -- all is fair in the pursuit of money and power.  Is President Obama studying the Clintons' political manual?  Some of his recent actions and decisions suggest he is.

Leid Stories - The Road to Emancipation: Lincoln's Dilemma - 11/29/12

Concurrent with the release of Steven Spielberg's Lincoln, Dr. Hari Jones, assistant director and curator of the African American Civil War Memorial, Freedom Foundation and Museum in Washington, D.C., reveals in a riveting presentation how extensive and well-organized America’s African-descent community was in its determination to end slavery in a parallel struggle to Lincoln's effort to get the 13th Amendment of the U.S. Constitution abolishing slavery through Congress.

Jones, one of the foremost authorities on the role of African Americans in the Civil War, draws from his book, For Light and Liberty: How the War to Preserve the Union Became A War to End Slavery.

Leid Stories - It's Open Forum Day! - 11/28/12

Listeners have their say on news issues and events -- prepared to defend their points of view.

Leid Stories - Israel, Gaza, and International Law - 11/27/12

Mark LeVine, professor of Middle Eastern history at the University of California-Irvine, discusses the Israel-Gaza conflict in the context of international humanitarian law and the amorphous legal status of Gaza.  Plus, more observations from Utrice on Benghazigate.

Leid Stories - Benghazigate - 11/26/12

Hillary Clinton should know a thing or two about handling terrorist attacks on U.S. embassies and diplomatic and military personnel abroad. It was during her husband's administration, after all, that Americans first learned about Osama bin Laden and al Qaeda (the first World Trade Center Attack), and U.S. diplomatic and military personnel were the targets of deadly terrorist attacks (Saudi Arabia, Nairobi and Dar es Salaam, and the shelling of the USS Cole in Yemen). Leid Stories takes a look at the striking parallels between the Clinton and Obama administrations' responses to terrorism and the political motives behind them. Also, we pause to remember civil-rights icon Lawrence Guyot, co-founder with Fannie Lou Hamer of the Mississippi Freedom Democratic Party, who died on Nov. 23 after a long illness. He was physically weak when he was on Leid Stories on Oct. 24, but he insisted on doing the show because he wanted to speak out about the suppression of voting-rights.

Leid Stories - Hillary Again Slithers Through - 11/23/12

Secretary of State Hillary Clinton has managed once again to slither through the mud and come out smelling like a rose.  The battle over the attack on the U.S. consulate in Benghazi somehow has come to rest squarely on the shoulders of U.N. Ambassador Susan Rice, putting her and President Obama in the crosshairs around her nomination to succeed Clinton, while Clinton racks up political ammunition from her Southeast Asian tour with the president and the Israel-Hamas ceasefire for a possible run in 2016. Leid Stories deconstructs how and why Clinton, who has admitted responsibility for security at all U.S. installations abroad and the safety of all workers assigned to them, so far has dodged the bullet on why a U.S. ambassador and four others were killed on Sept. 11 in Benghazi.

Leid Stories - Talking Points - 11/21/12

It's Open Forum on Leid Stories -- listeners share their thoughts and opinions on major issues of the day.

Leid Stories - Not Susan, But Hillary - 11/20/12

The current dustup in Congress about the consulate attack in Banghazi on Sept. 11 has put Susan Rice, U.S. ambassador to the United Nations, in the political crosshairs.  But the debacle has all the signs of the sleight-of-hand subterfuge that an astute political observer would associate with the Clintons.  Utrice takes dead aim at Secretary of State Hillary Clinton for cleverly using the current political climate to settle scores with Susan Rice, scuttle Rice's chances as her her successor, and positioning herself for a 2016 presidential run.