LESLIE SCOTT – The Story of Jill Stein: Putting People, Peace and the Planet Before Profits

Even with support from the thousands that pack his speaking engagements, pundits continue to count Bernie Sanders out once the 2016 Democratic National Convention rolls around in July. This rhetoric should not be taken lightly. History reveals how candidates, who are unpopular with their own establishment, have been taken down by the powers-that-be even as they gained popularity in the …

Chris Hedges – The Socialist Alternative

SEATTLE: The disintegration of the ruling political parties, along with the discrediting of the established political and economic elites, presage radical change. This change may come from the right. It may result in a frightening proto-fascism. If it is to come from the left it must be pushed forward by dogged activists and citizens who are willing to accept that …

Robert Reich – Are Trade Deals Good for America?

Both Bernie Sanders and Donald Trump are blaming free-trade deals for the decline of working-class jobs and incomes. Are they right? Clearly, America has lost a significant number of factory jobs over the last three decades. In 1980, 1 in 5 Americans worked in manufacturing. Now it’s 1 in 12. Today Ohio has a third fewer manufacturing jobs than it had in 2000. Michigan is down 32 …

Les Leopold – How America’s Superrich Are Draining the Poor of a Longer Life Span

The American people have a deep sense of fairness. We are angry about the growing pay gap between the top 100 CEOs and the average worker — a gap that has widened from $45 to $1 in 1970, to a staggering $844 to $1 today. (See Runaway Inequality [3]) A new study shows [4] that runaway inequality also is creating a more deadly gap — …

JENNIFER MATSUI – It Takes Hillary Clinton to Lead a Global Pillage

You don’t have to be a blinkered Bernie-bot to recognize the toxicity of Hillary Clinton and call her out on it, contrary to the party faithful’s insistence that the widening chasm between ‘Bern and Hill’ (Burn in Hell?) supporters is weakening the chances for a Democratic victory in November. Clinton’s less than stellar (Okay, gloves off . . . *abysmal*) …

Leid Stories – 02.03.16

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?

Leid Stories – 11.24.15

In Chicago, A Year to File Charges Against Killer Cop

Feeling the Bern? Sanders’ ‘Political Revolution’ (Part 2)

A year to the day that St. Louis County Prosecutor Robert McCullough announced that a grand jury found no reason to charge then-Officer Darren Wilson with any crimes related to his killing of Michael Brown, 18, in Ferguson, Missouri, Officer Jason Van Dyke is expected to be formally charged with the first-degree murder of Laquan McDonald, 17, in a similar case in Chicago.
Picking up from where we left off yesterday, listeners continue to dissect “democratic socialism,” the political philosophy extolled by presidential candidate Bernie Sanders.

Leid Stories – 11.23.15

Auto Workers Approve New Four-Year Contract with the Big Three
Feeling the Bern? Rating Bernie Sanders’ ‘Political Revolution’
Late Friday, workers at Ford Motor Company voted to approve a new four-year contract, bringing to a close a tense round of negotiations between the Big Three (including General Motors and Fiat Chrysler Automobiles) and the United Auto Workers union, which represents more than 141,000 workers in the industry. Alex Wassel, a member of UAW’s Local 869, discusses key aspects of the new contract.

What’s this “democratic socialism” that presidential candidate Bernie Sanders keeps talking about? Leid Stories takes on Sanders’ own definition of the term.

Richard Eskow – The “New Democrats” Confront a New Reality

Several recent news articles have suggested that, in the words of a Washington Post headline, “there’s … a big economic fight happening in the Democratic Party.” It’s true. The corporate-friendly policies of the party’s more conservative wing have fared poorly, both as policy and as politics, and as a result the party has moved to the left. The insurgent candidacy …

Lawrence S. Wittner – Why Tuition-Free College Makes Sense

The issue of making college tuition-free has recently come to the fore in American politics, largely because the two leading contenders for the Democratic presidential nomination, Bernie Sanders and Hillary Clinton, have each championed it.  Sanders has called for free undergraduate tuition at public colleges and universities, to be financed by a tax on Wall Street speculation, while Clinton has done the same, although …