Ralph Nader – The Democrats’ Presidential Debates: Underway and Underwhelming

Who thought this up – Giving a  private corporation (CNN) control of a presidential debate? In the most recent Democratic presidential debate, CNN controlled which candidates were invited, who asked what questions, and the location, Las Vegas – the glittering, gambling center of America. This is a mirror image of the control Fox News exercised during their Republican candidates’ circus. …

Adam Taggart – The Death Of Hopium

As many readers know, I spent 15 years working in Silicon Valley before partnering up with Chris to start Peak Prosperity. I got my MBA at Stanford in 1999 when the dot-com bubble was at its zenith, and worked for both a VC-funded start-up as well as one of the biggest Internet juggernauts (Yahoo!). I lived in Palo Alto, the central core of the …

Leid Stories – 10.14.15

Debating the ‘Debate’: The Leid Stories Q&A About the Democrats’ Q&A

Well, that’s done. The first of six scheduled presidential Q&A sessions (they aren’t debates) was held yesterday at the opulent Wynn resort and casino in Las Vegas. It was a CNN-Facebook production.

Leid Stories listeners dissect the Q&A, debating the so-called debate.

Harvey Wasserman – Why Bernie and Hillary Must Address America’s Dying Nuke Reactors

Harvey Wasserman As the first Democrat presidential debate finally approaches (on Oct. 13), America’s nuke power industry is in accelerated collapse. The few remaining construction projects in the U.S. and Europe are engineering and economic disasters. Presidential candidates Hillary Clinton and Bernie Sanders may address this in broad terms. But as a nation we must now focus on the 99 dying U.S. reactors that threaten us all every …

Jordyn Cormier – Raw Vegan Powerhouses: Spotlight on Venus & Serena Williams

Think vegans can’t get power from their food? Think again! Believe it or not, tennis legends Venus and Serena Williams follow a healthy, balanced raw vegan diet during the tennis season. That’s right, both raw and vegan! These women kick serious butt on the court without eating any cooked food or animal products. While the superstar sisters technically consider themselves ‘chegan’ — …

Black Agenda Radio – 09.21.15

– A researcher at the University of Connecticut has come up with a price tag for reparations for Black people for slavery in the United States. Professor Thomas Craemer puts the cost at between $5.9 trillion and $14.2 trillion, depending on how you do the calculations.

– Dr. Marsha Coleman-Adebayo is an editor and columnist for Black Agenda Report, a renowned whistleblower, and an activist with the Hands Up Coalition-DC. She’s also become a close friend and comrade with the mother of Emanuel Okutuga, a Nigerian American college senior who was shot dead by a cop in suburban Washington, in 2011. Dr. Coleman-Adebayo says her Nigerian friend’s American dream has turned into a nightmare.

– A new book reveals U.S. efforts to undermine and overthrow governments in Latin America during the Bush and early Obama administrations. The book is titled “The WikiLeaks Files,” and it’s co-authored by Dan Beeton and two other researchers from the Center for Economic Policy and Research. The team examined diplomatic cables detailing U.S. subversion of the governments of Venezuela, Bolivia, Ecuador, El Salvador and Honduras. The United States claims that it is a good neighbor to nations in Latin America, but Dan Beeton says the evidence tells a very different story.

– There will soon be a new film on the aftermath of Katrina, in New Orleans. Kimberly Rivers-Roberts produced her first film, “Trouble the Water” shortly after the 2005 catastrophe in her hometown. The film was nominated for an Oscar and won several awards at the Sundance Film Festival. Ms. Rivers-Roberts is also known by her Hip Hop artist name, Queen Kold Madina, Her new film looks at what has happened to New Orleans in the ten years since Katrina. It’s titled “Fear No Gumbo.”

Solartopia Green Power and Wellness Hour – 09.17.15

Award-winning columnist ROBERT KOEHLER talks with us about refugees and compassion as the “Squirming Buddha” seeks a balance among difficult choices.

Bob’s always-cogent columns speak to us of the dilemma of NOT being a refugee and of facing the reality of how one would act as an individual in the face of the need for sharing and personal cost.

He tells a simple story of finding money on the street and then NOT giving it to a panhandler in need. Of housing a political refugee for five years and living through the day-to-day difficulties of doing a good deed.

We start with a talk about the REPUBLICAN PRESIDENTIAL DEBATE and the astonishing spectacle of 11 (ELEVEN!) candidates strewn across a stage in the Ronald Reagan library, yelling about legal pot and wars unfought. An event to shake the very roots of Solartopia.

Steven Rosenfeld – GOP Debate Shows a Party Where Crazy Is the New Normal

Despite the large number of candidates on the stage at the Ronald Reagan Library, the second debate of Republican presidential candidates was an astounding display of how intellectually bankrupt the Republican Party has become in 2015. Beyond the many subplots—such as a red-faced Donald Trump eating crow for his nasty remarks about ex-Hewlett Packard CEO Carly Fiorina’s looks (then he …

Paul Street – ISIS is US: the Empire and the Evil Genie It Released

The reigning politics and media culture of the United States is not without moments of high comic relief. Three weeks ago, for example, CNN’s Chris Cuomo presented the buffoonish Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump with a bizarre hypothetical situation. What would Trump do, Cuomo asked, if he met the Pope and the pontiff expressed his opinion that capitalism can be …

Dr. Gary G. Kohls – Flibanserin (Addyi), the Alleged “Libido Pill For Women”

On August 18, 2015, the FDA proudly announced that they had approved (after 2 previous rejections) a new drug whose generic name is flibanserin (Addyi will be the brand name when it comes to your local drug store in mid-October). The only drug that Sprout Pharmaceuticals has ever marketed, flibanserin is purported to treat a “disease” called hypoactive sexual desire disorder …