Leid Stories

For the Record: Reporting on Underreported ReportsThe din of the presidential election seems to have drowned out several noteworthy reports. Leid Stories starts the week off discussing a few of them—including reports on U.S. employment and the income gap; hunger and food aid; human rights violations; a record number of exonerations due to false convictions; and new tactics cops and city governments are using to avoid paying judgments won against them.

It’s Our Town Hall! Speak Up and Free Your Mind!A “town hall” meeting every four years is good for democracy? We beg to differ. Leid Stories’ “Free Your Mind Friday” is a weekly town hall on the critical issues of the day. Call in (888-874-4888) and share your thoughts, opinions and ideas.

President Obama on Islam, Terrorism, Race and the American WayIn a highly publicized speech he delivered yesterday at the Islamic Society of Baltimore—his first visit to a U.S. mosque as head of state—President Barack Obama ostensibly was playing the role of Domestic Peacemaker in Chief, calling for religious tolerance and a rekindling of the Jeffersonian/Founding Fathers’ commitment to religious freedom for all Americans.Lawdy, Lawdy, so wrong in so many ways, says Leid Stories of Obama’s speech.

Analyze This!: Is ‘Feeling the Bern’ A Viable Option and Strategy?Expanding on yesterday’s discussion (the Iowa caucuses and implications of the results), Leid Stories asks, especially of those who reject duopoly politics: Given the situation as it stands, is Bernie Sanders, the self-titled Democratic Socialist who virtually tied Hillary Clinton’s caucus votes, a viable choice? What is to be gained by supporting his candidacy? What is the biggest hurdle you’ll have to overcome to consider supporting him?

So, What Have We Learned from the Iowa Caucuses?Leid Stories deconstructs the Iowa caucuses. The first voting event in the 2016 presidential election, it defied predicted outcomes and winnowed the ranks of both Republican and Democratic contenders. But it also confirmed the validity of and need for serious grassroots political movements that challenge the status quo, says Leid Stories.

Starting in Iowa: It’s Open Season, and Hapless Voters Are the QuarryAll eyes are on Iowa, where voting in the 2016 presidential race gets off to a high-pitched start, and by night’s end will be fodder for political analysts’ predictions about who the next occupant of the White House might be. No run-of-the-mill runoff, it’s a history-making contest—though not for the reasons most often cited. For, behind the media-manufactured excitement is a sordid truth, says Leid Stories: Voters are merely the quarry in a well-organized, big-money hunt for power among self-appointed guardians of America’s Old World Order.

Get It Off Your Chest! Have Your Say and Free Our Minds!Help us all free our minds by bringing to this open forum your perspective on issues raised on Leid Stories this week or on any subject you think deserves further discussion and debate. It’s “Free Your Mind Friday,” and it’s all about listeners’ opinions and ideas. Call in (888-874-4888) and have your say.

Power Shift: The Radicalized Right and the Battle of ‘American Values’Leid Stories discusses the rise of the radicalized right in America and the seismic shifts it has caused, and continues to cause, in our notions about governance, national identity, democracy, and even self.

Dirty Water, Dirty Politics: An Update on the Crisis in FlintHell in Haiti: Hillary Clinton’s Other Presidential ElectionIn August 2014, Curt Guyette, an investigative reporter for the ACLU of Michigan, told Leid Stories that tens of thousands of residents of the cash-strapped city of Flint, Michigan, were being exposed to lead-poisoned and bacteria-infected water because the city, under state-imposed emergency management and ordered to cut operating costs, had switched its water supply from Detroit’s water system and instead was drawing its water from the extremely polluted Flint River. Guyette uncovered not only the public-health catastrophe, but efforts by public and elected officials to cover it up. He updates the story since his report a week ago.Hillary Clinton is actually involved in two presidential elections—one in the United States and the other in Haiti, where her hand-picked president, Michel Martelly, is at the center of political chaos and escalating violence that last week led the country’s electoral council to cancel national elections. Kim Ives, editor of Haïti Liberté, has been reporting on Haiti for Leid Stories. He files an on-site report on the current situation, and explains the continuing legacy of the Clinton connection to Haiti’s chaos.

Killer Cop Trials Show Disturbing Prosecutorial Trend of ‘Errors’Audacity and Hope: Obama Shamelessly Shills for Hillary“Attorney at War” Alton H. Maddox Jr., who in a series has been discussing legal issues associated with the several high-profile cases involving police killings of unarmed people, looks at the disturbing trend of “errors” that compromise the integrity of prosecutors’ cases and often result in no convictions.Leid Stories in a commentary discusses President Obama’s shameless shilling for Hillary Clinton and explains why he’s doing so.