Leid Stories

President Donald Trump wants to make nice. It’s finally getting through to him that his presidential “brand” stinks and that he’s the main reason. It’s bad when your own party helps to defeat you in your first big-league battle. Clearly, Trump is in a bind.

Thinking tactically, Trump now says he wants to reach out to Democrats and forge a working relationship with them. A wily Jesse Jackson, who remains at the periphery of black politics as a self-assigned “statesman,” already has penned an op-ed piece on counterpunch.org urging that Trump form “a bipartisan coalition” to advise on the nation’s pressing problems.

Trump obviously knows the Democratic Party is still reeling from Election 2016, that reduced its numbers and clout at every level of government. It, too, could use some help with its damaged brand.

Is a bipartisan coalition the answer? Leid Stories listeners tackle the question.

As a poll- and ratings-obsessed individual, you’d think Donald Trump would worry that he and his administration are down to the mid-30s right now in terms of popularity among Americans. But no, it doesn’t seem to faze President Chaos, who clearly is obsessed with fighting Barack Obama’s ghost.

Leid Stories explains how that obsession already has put Trump on a losing streak.

Just the same, Trump is moving along with his essentially anti-Obama agenda, which has framed most of his legislative battles and executive actions so far. The opposition, in a state of disarray, has not yet been able to advance legislative initiatives of its own.

On Sunday, his regular day off, Officer Richard Haste submitted his resignation from the New York Police Department ahead of a departmental recommendation that he be fired. Haste was the cop who in 2012 chased 18-year-old Ramarley Graham into his Bronx home, kicking down the door. He found Graham, cowering in a bathroom. Haste shot and killed him. Haste said Graham had a gun. No gun was found.

Leid Stories explains how a killer cop could remain active in the NYPD, drawing a salary for five years after killing a person, and walking free of penalty of law.

An Instagram post last Thursday set off a media frenzy. “14 Girls Have Gone Missing in D.C. in the Last 24 Hours,” the headline said, and within a flash it was the story. Except that the facts were way wrong, and needlessly caused panic.

But the story of young people disappearing into a shadowy world is a very important one, and Leid Stories looks at what the numbers are saying about dark secrets in our communities.

It’s “Free Your Mind Friday” on Leid Stories, and your thoughts and opinions about what’s happening in the world are the center of our attention.

Share the gifts of your insights and intellect, and be part of the best peer-education program on the planet.

Save our sanity while freeing your mind! Call 888-874-4888.

He’s back, Bill Clinton, still selling the myth that his all-but-defunct, corruption-riddled Clinton Foundation saved the lives of millions of HIV/AIDS sufferers around the world through the foundation’s HIV/AIDS program.

The former president is one of three “well-deserving” luminaries being lauded tonight at a Manhattan gala commemorating the Gay Men’s Health Crisis’ 35th anniversary. The Clinton Foundation, the GMHC says in a news release, “has been battling the epidemic since 2002, saving the lives of people living with HIV/AIDS worldwide.”

Our guest, Charles Ortel, the leading authority on the Clinton Foundation, begs to differ. In an exclusive, multi-episode series he’s been doing on Leid Stories since May last year, Ortel has exposed multiple layers of fraud within the pseudocharity, calling the foundation and its associated programs “the largest unprosecuted fraud in history.” The foundation’s HIV/AIDS Initiative, Ortel says, tops the list.

Ortel blew the whistle on Wall Street fraud in 2007-2008, when he proved that many companies—GE, GM and AIG among them—had overvalued their stocks by hundreds of billions of dollars. 

It’s Day 3 of confirmation hearings for U.S. Supreme Court nominee Neil Gorsuch, who President Donald Trump has selected to fill the vacancy created by the death of Justice Antonin Scalia last year. With robust Republican support, Gorsuch seems poised to join the nation’s highest court. Republicans savored an earlier victory last year when they blocked consideration of President Barack Obama’s nominee, Merrick Garland, after a 247-day wait for a hearing that never materialized.

The U.S. Supreme Court battle will add to a growing list of victories for a newly invigorated and emboldened Republican Party. The flip side of the coin is that the party’s gains are showing up more and more the humiliating defeats of the Democratic Party, which seems unable to beat back Republican encroachments in its historic territories.

While the party loses ground and power—largely the result of self-inflicted wounds—the people suffer. Leid Stories asks: Is it time to repeal and replace the Democratic Party?

Five hours and 20 minutes of intense sparring between members of the House Intelligence Committee and directors of the FBI and National Security Agency, two key witnesses called to testify, were short on yield. FBI Director James Comey and NSA Director Mike Rogers by the end of the first day of the hearing did little more than say there was no evidence yet to substantiate President Donald Trump’s claim that former President Barack Obama wiretapped his campaign headquarters during the 2016 presidential election, and an investigation into Russia’s alleged interference in the election, ostensibly to help Trump defeat rival Hillary Clinton, was ongoing.

Leid Stories returns to yesterday’s discussion about many elements of the intelligence committee’s probe that won’t see the light of day.

The House Intelligence Committee today opens its much-anticipated probe into Russia’s alleged interference in the 2016 presidential election to produce a win for then-candidate Donald Trump and, more broadly, the extent of Moscow’s alleged influence in the Trump administration.

FBI Director James Comey and National Security Agency Director Mike Rogers are set to testify—which means they are likely to be asked about related cyberattacks the agencies recently investigated, including Trump’s charge that former President Barack Obama had his campaign headquarters at Trump Tower in New York wiretapped during the election, and that key Trump advisers and campaign personnel were in frequent contact with Russian diplomatic personnel.

Well, that’s the story, according to the news folks. But on Leid Stories today, we’ll be discussing elements of the story that won’t be part of “regular” news coverage.

Another week of chaos, “alternative facts” and nonsensical missives from the White House. Time for our weekly “Free Your Mind Friday” open forum.

Repeal and replace the system’s propaganda with your keen analysis of the social, political and economic challenges that confront us and how best to deal with them.

Call 888-874-4888 and share your ideas.

With the spotlight shining bright—and not in a good way—on President Donald Trump and the missteps of his embattled administration, the misdeeds and shortfalls President Barack Obama and his administration seem to have been put in the ash can of history, as though they have nothing to do with the severity of domestic and foreign policies Trump espouses and is seeking to enact.

Today we explore the question: In what ways did Obama and his administration trigger the backlash we see now in Trump and the rise of his so-called “populist” agenda?