Welcome, to the radio magazine that brings you news, commentary and analysis from a Black Left perspective. Washington, DC is the site, this weekend, for a National Black Political Convention on Self-Determination. The event was organized by the Black Is Back Coalition for Social Justice, Peace and Reparations, which has rallied and marched on the White House every November since President Obama’s first year in office. Coalition chairman Omali Yeshitela says Black Is Back is determined to put Black self-determination back on the agenda. Much of the world would agree that the current U.S. presidential campaign is one of the strangest in modern times. Not only did the Republicans and Democrats nominate the nation’s two most unpopular politicians, but the election is occurring when the entire capitalist system is in crisis. We spoke with Dr. Anthony Monteiro, the Duboisian scholar with the Black Radical Organizing Committee. If you believe the U.S. corporate media, then you probably think that the people of Venezuela are starving, and that most of them are out in the streets demanding the head of President Nicholas Maduro and the overthrow of his Socialist Party government. But is any of that true? We asked Dr. George Ciccariello-Maher, who teaches politics at Drexel University, and is author of the book, “We Created Chavez: A People’s History of the Venezuelan Revolution.” Political prisoner Rev. Edward Pinkney turned 68 years old this month, still serving a 2 ½ to ten year sentence on election tampering charges. Marcina Cole was a courtroom observer at Rev. Pinkney’s trial, in Benton Harbor, Michigan. She teamed up with David Sole, of the Michigan Emergency Committee Against War and Injustice, to visit Pinkney in prison and to arrange a birthday party for him, in Detroit. And that it’s for this edition of Black Agenda Radio. Be sure to visit us at BlackAgendaReport.com, where you’ll find a new and provocative issue, each Wednesday. That’s www.BlackAgendaRepo