Leid Stories – Feds Probing Clinton Foundation Ex-Board Member; The Clintons, Too? – 05.24.16

In a startling development related to yesterday’s program about the Clinton Foundation, news broke that Gov. Terry McAuliffe (D-Virginia)—a close friend and political ally of Bill and Hillary Clinton and a former member of the foundation’s board—is the target of a joint FBI-U.S. Justice Department investigation, allegedly for taking illegal campaign contributions.

The probe speaks directly to the issue our guest, former Wall Street banker and investor Charles K. Ortel, returns to today: the highly questionable fundraising practices of the Bill, Hillary & Chelsea Clinton Foundation.

Ortel blew the whistle on General Electric in 2007-2008, after his own investigation of the financial records of the conglomerate revealed it had fraudulently overvalued its stock. Ortel says his own examination of the Clinton foundation’s financial records leads him to believe it is engaging in massive fraud under the guise of a philanthropic organization.

Haitian-born journalist Dady Chery, author of the recently published We Have Dared to Be Free: Haiti’s Struggle Against Occupation, has written extensively on developments in Haiti and emerging nations for News Junkie Post. She joins Ortel in discussing the Clintons’ sordid history in Haiti.

Leid Stories – The Clinton Foundation A ‘Complete Fraud,’ Says Banker-Investor Who Blew the Whistle on GE Stock Scam – 05.23.16

Charles K. Ortel, a former Wall Street banker and investor, blew the whistle on General Electric in 2007-2008, after tearing its financial reports apart and finding the conglomerate had been lying to its investors, fraudulently overvaluing its stock by hundreds of millions of dollars.

Fifteen months ago, Ortel began looking forensically at the Bill, Hillary & Chelsea Clinton Foundation—a politically connected philanthropic conglomerate with multiple related entities, global interests and highly questionable fundraising practices. Like GE, he said, its financials were telling as very different stories from those it “officially” reported.

In an exclusive, no-holds-barred interview, Ortel again blows the whistle. What he has discovered about the Clintons’ foundation is that it is “a complete fraud,” he alleges.

Leid Stories – The Primary Objective? Freeing Your Mind! – 05.20.16

Another rough week. Bombarded, as usual, with “news.” Lots to declutter, ahead of the weekend’s battalion of talking heads and their versions of “news.”

Help us maintain perspective and hold on to our sanity. Let’s hear your take on this week’s atrocities. Call 888-874-4888 to free your mind—and ours, too!

Leid Stories – Hell and Hope: Lessons on Liberation, Leadership and Progress – 05.19.16

El-Hajj Malik El-Shabazz, Malcolm X, was born 91 years ago today. Political consciousness, critical thinking and the development of authentic, uncompromising leadership and power were constant themes in his speeches and in his life. Leid Stories discusses the relevance of these precepts to our collective situation and status as a society today.

The late Kwame Turé, a seminal figure in Pan-African consciousness raising and liberation struggles, bridges past, present and future in a no-holds-barred, clinical assessment of political activism in the 1960s, an era of worldwide agitation and struggles for freedom and liberation. He expounds on five key lessons of that period.

Leid Stories – Election 2016: What We Should Have Learned By Now – 05.18.16

As Election 2016 progresses toward various parties’ nominating conventions this summer, (for Republicans, July 18-21 in Cleveland, Ohio; for Democrats, July 25-28 in Philadelphia, Pa.; the Green Party, Aug. 4-7 in Houston, Texas; the Libertarian Party, May 27-30 in Orlando, Fla.), presidential hopefuls are in the final stretch of the primaries, looking to claim their spots as their parties’ standard bearers in the general election. The duopoly has outdone all other major parties in the still-ongoing battle of attrition. Donald Trump is the last person standing in the Republican field of 17; Hillary Clinton is being touted as the presumptive Democratic nominee.

By all indications, Election 2016 will be a watershed moment in U.S. electoral politics—though for reasons that should alarm even a casual observer. Leid Stories has been looking at this historical moment in terms of what politics and the political process have come to mean and be for the masses of people. We continue this discussion, focusing on what we are learning, or have learned, about our relationship to the political apparatus, and ways in which we can affect political outcomes through an increased consciousness and strategic use of power.

Leid Stories – What Happened at the Democratic Party’s Convention in Nevada – 05.17.16

The Democratic Party has not yet officially reacted to widespread charges that its chaotic May 14 state convention in Las Vegas was rigged to produce a delegate victory for Hillary Clinton. But the party’s silence is stoking an avalanche of protest, especially among Bernie Sanders supporters, who have ramped up their campaign calling attention to myriad ways in which party bosses have been sabotaging Sanders’ candidacy.

Leid Stories – The Democratic Party’s Utterly Undemocratic Convention in Nevada; How Progressives Conspire to Thwart Progress – 05.16.16

The Nevada Democratic Convention ended in chaos Saturday, after 16 hours of backroom dealing by party hacks to produce the desired result: Nevada is Hillary country. In one of the most flagrant examples of vote fixing in this election cycle, state bosses scuttled the party’s own rules and ran roughshod over any semblance of fairness in the Clinton-Sanders battle for delegates. It was a patently fraudulent process that yielded a fraudulent result, but it appears to sit well with the Democratic Party leadership, which is decidedly pro-Clinton.

Dr. James Petras, Bartle professor emeritus of sociology at Binghamton University and author of more than 62 books and 600 scholarly papers on imperialism and global oppression, notes that “progressives” have a sordid history of offering themselves as alternatives to the system when in fact they are political acolytes working with the system to thwart progress.

Leid Stories – Defeat the Enemy! Free Your Mind! – 05.13.16

Congratulations! You’ve made it through yet another mind-numbing week and you’re still relatively sane. What an accomplishment!

Share your victory with others who survived the barrage of misinformation and disinformation that was “news” this week. It’s “Free Your Mind Friday” on Leid Stories, and 888-874-4888 is our lifeline to each other.

Leid Stories – First, Kill the Schools: The Nation’s ‘Urban Removal’ Plan – 05.12.16

Last week’s teacher sickout in Detroit shut down its public school system for three days and put the national spotlight once again on the beleaguered city’s budget woes. The teachers’ action came after they were told that their salaries could not be guaranteed beyond June 30, when emergency funds allocated by the state would run out.

Detroit’s schools long have been the poster child for the many ills that plague the nation’s public schools, especially in high-density, predominantly people-of-color urban areas across America. Now, the city and just about everything associated with it are widely viewed as being beyond fixing.

Detroit’s school system didn’t just develop “problems;” it was targeted for oblivion long before the rest of the city, says Dr. Thomas Pedroni, an associate professor of curriculum studies and policy sociology at Wayne State University and Director of the Detroit Data and Democracy Project. Raced-based policies engineered the demise of the city to make way for a “re-imagined” Detroit, he says, and key to hastening that transition was a wholesale attack on its public schools. Further, Dr. Pedroni says, the model is being replicated all across “urban” America.

Leid Stories – Election 2016: Turning Political ‘Inevitabilities’ Around – 05.11.16

The results of yesterday’s primaries in West Virginia and Nebraska—with Donald Trump capturing both states and Bernie Sanders besting Hillary Clinton in West Virginia—have only moved political outcomes even closer to “inevitability.” Trump has no major impediments to clinching the Republican nomination, and Sanders’ win did little to blunt Clinton’s lead in delegates. The duopoly continues to take care of party business in the leadup to the general election in November, when, inevitably, there’ll be a new president in the White House.

Meanwhile, Leid Stories’ listeners ponder new approaches to politics and how best to prepare to cope with what soon will be our collective reality. We continue the discussion for the third day.