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The Rick Smith Show 7-14-2026 · The Rick Smith Show

0:00
[SPEAKER_02]: It's time for the Rick Smith show!
0:05
[SPEAKER_01]: Now, here is the voice of a working class, Rick Smith.
0:12
[SPEAKER_02]: And welcome, brothers, sisters working class heroes.
0:16
[SPEAKER_02]: This is the RixMet Show.
0:18
[SPEAKER_02]: Thanks so much for being here.
0:19
[SPEAKER_02]: Today I have the big program lots to get to.
0:21
[SPEAKER_02]: Lots to talk about Lindsey Graham died over the weekend.
0:24
[SPEAKER_02]: And we're about to witness what a slow motion train wreck of governance looks like.
0:30
[SPEAKER_02]: So pull up a chair, turn on C-SPAN, get your popcorn, whatever, because on one side you got an 84-year-old Mitch McConnell explaining from a hospital bed that he fell, gotten ammonia, and is not healthy enough to come back yet.
0:43
[SPEAKER_02]: While technically running the Senate calendar, on the other Lindsey Graham 71 literally dies and Washington immediately worrying about what?
0:53
[SPEAKER_02]: Not the old human being is died or any of that, but whether Trump's one big beautiful bill and his forever war budget can still get rammed down our throats.
1:02
[SPEAKER_02]: Look, this isn't a legislature.
1:04
[SPEAKER_02]: It's a retirement community with launch codes.
1:07
[SPEAKER_02]: These guys have spent years helping Trump shovel trillions to the ultra wealthy hacking away at our health care, getting worker protections, and now, as America still needs to
1:23
[SPEAKER_02]: We've got the Republicans who are steering a straight toward another government shutdown and another budget fight that shouldn't be it again with Trump's war footing at the center like it's the only line item that matters.
1:40
[SPEAKER_02]: You know, things are broken when the big question in Washington isn't, how do we keep people from falling into poverty?
1:46
[SPEAKER_02]: It's, can we still fund the president's pet war?
1:49
[SPEAKER_02]: And can we still give tax cuts to the, to the, to the really wealthy now that one of the, the top Senate whispers is gone?
1:57
[SPEAKER_02]: And here's the kicker.
1:59
[SPEAKER_02]: The Senate's run by a geriatric class that hang on to their position of power long past their Bronx.
2:06
[SPEAKER_02]: While the country, they're allegedly governing as younger, poor, more diverse, and more exhausted than ever.
2:15
[SPEAKER_02]: Thing is, as most Americans retire somewhere around 65, our political class treats 80 like the starting point.
2:23
[SPEAKER_02]: No wonder they wanna move your social security age further down the road and further out of reach.
2:28
[SPEAKER_02]: Meanwhile, the Republicans, their focused, laser focused on everything except what matters.
2:36
[SPEAKER_02]: They can't pay a past the same budget, but they can get a tax bill named like a time share brochure, one big beautiful bill that makes Billionaires fat and happy and well, you me and the rest of the working class a lot poorer.
2:50
[SPEAKER_02]: They can't keep government open without drama, but they can find fresh billions for Trump's latest military flex while shrugging at the fact that labor's share of income since World War 2 is now the lowest it's ever been.
3:06
[SPEAKER_02]: And here's the hard truth.
3:09
[SPEAKER_02]: We're not going to fix this with one election.
3:11
[SPEAKER_02]: It's not going to happen.
3:12
[SPEAKER_02]: Not going to fix it with one speech.
3:13
[SPEAKER_02]: Not one viral rant.
3:16
[SPEAKER_02]: This is all baked in.
3:17
[SPEAKER_02]: This is decades of gerrymandering.
3:20
[SPEAKER_02]: This is decades of money and politics.
3:23
[SPEAKER_02]: This is a political party that has figured out that they can rig the rules before any ballot has ever cast.
3:30
[SPEAKER_02]: And if they can do that, they don't have to worry about what you actually want.
3:34
[SPEAKER_02]: So the question keeps coming to me.
3:36
[SPEAKER_02]: What do we do?
3:37
[SPEAKER_02]: Well, November's coming.
3:38
[SPEAKER_02]: You throw a lot of the bombs out.
3:40
[SPEAKER_02]: You get the crummodions out of the Senate on the house, bring in some young blood.
3:46
[SPEAKER_02]: We retire the TV, hawks, and the permanent war plus tax, cuts crowd, get them out, and we replace them with people who actually live in the real world and in the economy that they're gonna have to legislate.
3:59
[SPEAKER_02]: people young enough to still be paying off student loans so that's a thing people young enough to still be worrying about child care so that's a thing people who are still worried that social security might not be there so we might actually fix it now and you want to stop these government shutdowns and the hostage taking over the budget and get a government that treats Trump's wars and
4:26
[SPEAKER_02]: It's time to stop treating Congress like the country's most expensive nursing home and start treating it like a job that requires fresh blood, clear ideas, and all by the way, basic understanding of how most of us actually live.
4:41
[SPEAKER_02]: And that's one paycheck away from disaster.
4:44
[SPEAKER_02]: And as I've been saying, look, this is gonna be a long road to somewhere near sanity, a long road back from what the Republicans in Trump have done.
4:56
[SPEAKER_02]: The longer we wait to start pushing these guys off to stage, the longer we wait, the longer we're stuck watching them run this country into the ground and run it from hospital beds in memorial services.
5:13
[SPEAKER_02]: It's sad Lindsey Graham passed and there's going to be a lot of jokes and a lot of conspiracy and a lot of things going on.
5:19
[SPEAKER_02]: And I'll be honest, it was part of my first thought.
5:22
[SPEAKER_02]: But if we're really going to run this country in a way that benefits we the working people and run it to leave something for our children worth inheriting, it's time to get these people out of office who have been the problem and start getting people who are the solution.
5:46
[SPEAKER_02]: is Lindsey Graham's passing the end of the save act and well, maybe the beginning of something better.
5:51
[SPEAKER_02]: Want to hear your thoughts?
5:52
[SPEAKER_02]: Rick at TheRickswithShow.com, right back.
5:57
[SPEAKER_02]: I'm Rick Smith, and this is Labor History in 2.
6:00
[SPEAKER_02]: On this day in Labor History, the year was 1905.
6:04
[SPEAKER_02]: That was the day that revolutionary black scholar W.E.B.
6:07
[SPEAKER_02]: Dubois helped found the Niagara Movement.
6:10
[SPEAKER_02]: It was named for the mighty current of change the group hoped to bring about.
6:14
[SPEAKER_02]: The initial organizing meeting was held during Niagara Falls, New York.
6:18
[SPEAKER_02]: During the Reconstruction period after the Civil War, African Americans had an unprecedented level of freedom.
6:24
[SPEAKER_02]: They were also involved in politics.
6:26
[SPEAKER_02]: winning elections for local and state political offices.
6:29
[SPEAKER_02]: However, when reconstruction ended, those gains were quickly rolled back.
6:33
[SPEAKER_02]: W.E.B.
6:34
[SPEAKER_02]: Dubois was one of the more prominent African Americans who opposed Jim Crow laws, which strictly enforced racial segregation in the South.
6:42
[SPEAKER_02]: At the organizing conference of the Niagara Movement, the group drafted a declaration of principles.
6:47
[SPEAKER_02]: foremost among these was a demand for voting rights for black Americans.
6:51
[SPEAKER_02]: Another principle concerned labor rights.
6:54
[SPEAKER_02]: The declaration read, we hold up for public excretion, the conduct of two opposite classes of men.
7:00
[SPEAKER_02]: The practice among employers of importing ignorant, Negro or American laborers in emergencies, and then affording them neither protection, nor permanent employment.
7:10
[SPEAKER_02]: And the practice of labor unions in prescribing and boycotting and oppressing.
7:15
[SPEAKER_02]: Thousands of their fellow toylers simply because they are black.
7:18
[SPEAKER_02]: This point recognized that the refusal of many unions to include black workers limited black economic opportunity.
7:25
[SPEAKER_02]: Managers, pitted workers, against one another along the lines of race to undercut workers solidarity and power.
7:32
[SPEAKER_02]: Niagara Movement continued until 1908.
7:35
[SPEAKER_02]: That year, a race riot by white residents of Springfield, Illinois, the home town of Abraham Lincoln left eight black residents dead.
7:42
[SPEAKER_02]: In response, Dubois founded an interracial organization, the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People, which still exists today.
7:51
[SPEAKER_02]: Labor history in two brought to you by the Illinois Labor History Society and the Rick Smith Show.
8:00
[SPEAKER_01]: Welcome back to the Rick Smith Show.
8:02
[SPEAKER_01]: Now, here is Rick Smith.
8:08
[SPEAKER_02]: One of my favorite headlines that I came across today.
8:11
[SPEAKER_02]: I think the website is post millennial.
8:15
[SPEAKER_02]: It's one of these way out right wing kind of rags, but it's the kind of outrage candy that the right continually force feeds their viewers, readers, whatever.
8:28
[SPEAKER_02]: The headline read, text, text us to investigate Shadow DEI program at Stephen Austin University.
8:36
[SPEAKER_02]: censoring politics after Charlie Kirk's assassination.
8:40
[SPEAKER_02]: They're claiming that a student who doesn't go there is angry that or doesn't go there any more That there's a possible violation That they banned this person's political speech and I love how they wrote it.
8:54
[SPEAKER_02]: There's a possible violation alleged ban because they're not going in but they want you to think you know
9:03
[SPEAKER_02]: They're censoring censoring this poor guys free speech all for their political aims, which is clearly you know D.E.I.
9:12
[SPEAKER_02]: after the state has specifically banned D.E.I.
9:14
[SPEAKER_02]: so now it's no longer about D.E.I.
9:17
[SPEAKER_02]: it's about shadow.
9:18
[SPEAKER_02]: It's about a shadow D.E.I.
9:21
[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, that's why I've asked my good friend Sarah Burst to come share some thoughts and actual reporter, someone who does good reporting and you can check with her workout over at alternate Sarah, thanks for
9:32
[SPEAKER_03]: Hey, Rick, how are you?
9:33
[SPEAKER_02]: So Shadow, it's a Shadow DEI band now.
9:37
[SPEAKER_02]: It's not an actual one.
9:38
[SPEAKER_02]: There's no real policy.
9:39
[SPEAKER_02]: There's nothing to point to.
9:41
[SPEAKER_02]: And this is the greatest boogey man of all, because you can just say whatever you want to go, well, it's a Shadow band.
9:50
[SPEAKER_03]: a shadow ban that's allegedly alleged so how many how many times can you put allegedly into one sentence a leg allegedly this is a shadow ban so you know it is outrage candy I feel like that is become kind of the norm now with the internet that's what those the memes that people share the most are things that are outrage candy
10:20
[SPEAKER_03]: I obviously trend toward the funny, because there's a lot to be funny about.
10:24
[SPEAKER_02]: There is a lot to be funny about.
10:27
[SPEAKER_03]: And I feel like it's a lot more positive emotion than the outrage.
10:32
[SPEAKER_03]: And it sucks because there are so many things to be outraged about.
10:36
[SPEAKER_03]: And I hate the idea of just providing people with something that's awful and not giving them either.
10:43
[SPEAKER_03]: Something to do, something to laugh at, you know, like ideally there's something else
10:49
[SPEAKER_02]: Absolutely, no, I believe in, look, I'm outraged every day.
10:52
[SPEAKER_02]: There's something that gets my blood flowing, gets my brain waves moving.
10:57
[SPEAKER_02]: And I like to think it's good outrage because it's outrage at the right stuff, you know, wage theft, companies throwing people out of employment after decades of service, you know, big wigs moving companies overseas.
11:09
[SPEAKER_02]: There's a lot to be outraged about, you know, people who can't get health care, people who get who die because, oh gee well, we couldn't get in because we didn't have health
11:18
[SPEAKER_02]: cutting a trillion dollars for Medicaid.
11:21
[SPEAKER_02]: There's a lot.
11:22
[SPEAKER_02]: There's a lot.
11:22
[SPEAKER_02]: There's a lot.
11:25
[SPEAKER_03]: There is a lot.
11:26
[SPEAKER_03]: The corruption alone.
11:28
[SPEAKER_03]: I mean, one of the things that we were talking about earlier is that the I saw an interview with Mitt Romney where Mitt Romney was outraged over.
11:38
[SPEAKER_03]: Elon Musk being a trillionaire and was just like, wow, this isn't at Romney.
11:42
[SPEAKER_03]: He's talking about how concerned he is that Elon Musk can basically just buy any politician ones, he can buy another president and have them pass laws that, you know, benefit him specifically and it's just like, wow, like that's how bad the corruption has gone.
12:01
[SPEAKER_02]: No, this is a guy who's worth what's wrong with.
12:04
[SPEAKER_02]: What's wrong with he worth?
12:05
[SPEAKER_02]: A half a billion dollars, something like that?
12:09
[SPEAKER_03]: Yeah, something like that.
12:10
[SPEAKER_03]: I mean, it's enough that it's like that's nothing to seize that, but it's like you're also not one of the billionaire class So there are a lot of you're missing a lot of zeros because I've been asking people how many zeros in a trillion
12:22
[SPEAKER_02]: And well of course you know that but most people I've most people I've I've talked to say nine and you go Know that's a billion we're already that's already the norm now.
12:33
[SPEAKER_02]: It's 12 and you I potentially Corporal tunnel just writing out that many zeros Seriously, I imagine writing that check out I'd like to receive you.
12:45
[SPEAKER_03]: It'd be it'd be right.
12:47
[SPEAKER_03]: It'd be it'd be shorter and narrative form than it would be
12:51
[SPEAKER_02]: But you know the thing is like it's amazing that Romney's outrage because well, maybe it's because it's brain shrinking Maybe that's part of it.
13:00
[SPEAKER_02]: I mean, I got to tell you I was a little a little shocked that he's not going to run for president again because the brain of it.
13:06
[SPEAKER_02]: Deadly Shrek and
13:09
[SPEAKER_03]: So it was totally a joke where Romney was just like, yeah, no, I'm going to announce that I'm running for president again.
13:18
[SPEAKER_03]: But his reason for he said they know and never run for office again is that your brain shrinks to about 80% of its size by the time you're 80.
13:30
[SPEAKER_03]: And it's just one of those things
13:39
[SPEAKER_03]: And so it seems like your brain is always sort of in blocks, right?
13:43
[SPEAKER_03]: Like you're going through your teenage years and the temporal lobes, it's fully developed and that's why you're all emotional.
13:48
[SPEAKER_03]: And then you get to 25 and you feel like, okay, I've got my degree or whatever and I have a path that I'm going to and then your brain starts right there.
13:57
[SPEAKER_03]: It's like, well, what's the point of this?
13:58
[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, no, or so then, I mean, if you stop you thinking about it that way, you think about most of the country, you know, good, good, good bit of the country or boomers and in my generation generation X, if you didn't use it from 25 to your 50s, you know, maybe that accelerates a bit and maybe the, maybe this is why we are where we are, having someone like Trump as president who clearly has no.
14:21
[SPEAKER_02]: no business being there and doing a bang-up job.
14:25
[SPEAKER_02]: I mean, I got to tell you, I'm kind of tired of winning.
14:28
[SPEAKER_02]: He was right.
14:29
[SPEAKER_02]: We were going to get tired of winning and I'd been tired of winning for a while.
14:34
[SPEAKER_02]: But here we are.
14:36
[SPEAKER_03]: It's kind of the weird thing about the takeover of the media by the right wing is that it they have successfully created a completely different reality and that is the world that Maga lives in Nicole Wallace calls it earth one and earth two and earth one being obviously the planet that we live on or to being a completely imaginary place and the world.
15:03
[SPEAKER_03]: Right, yeah.
15:04
[SPEAKER_03]: And so creating a completely different reality is the only way that you can kind of force people into either believing whatever you say, an occupulating yourself against anything negative and basically manipulating people into doing whatever you want them to do.
15:24
[SPEAKER_03]: And that's basically what we've seen since I would say the invent of Rush Limma,
15:32
[SPEAKER_03]: you know, after Fox thing was started.
15:36
[SPEAKER_02]: So was you then get it?
15:37
[SPEAKER_02]: I had a disagreement with somebody over the weekend, who was all in.
15:41
[SPEAKER_02]: I'm Trump's take down of Spain because evidently there was a debate going on with Spain.
15:47
[SPEAKER_02]: There was something going on.
15:48
[SPEAKER_02]: Trump was in the middle of something.
15:50
[SPEAKER_02]: And this person was all in.
15:53
[SPEAKER_02]: You'll show those those spaniards.
15:56
[SPEAKER_02]: he didn't say that he said Spanish, but I'm like, okay, they're Spanish, but it was interesting to listen to the, you know, we're leading the world, you know, our guys, the tough guy, you know, this won for an authoritarian without admitting that you know, he's basically cheering on a dictator, you know, to stick it to other countries.
16:19
[SPEAKER_02]: It's very bizarre to me, but
16:21
[SPEAKER_02]: Then you go and you find out that was there really anything going on with Spain other than what was going on between Trump's ears?
16:28
[SPEAKER_03]: That's really one of my favorite stories that week is that that whole incident I think Trump got really confused about what was going on.
16:37
[SPEAKER_03]: There's been sort of this fight between the U.S. and Spain about airspace and Spain didn't want to let the U.S. use their airspace if they were
16:49
[SPEAKER_03]: And because they didn't want any part of the war and and so he decided to find them and we're just going to jack up all of our tariffs and they're going to be paying a fortune and tariffs and yada yada and and then something happened I want to say like 24 hours later where he said that Spain's cave didn't and they're going to do whatever he asked.
17:15
[SPEAKER_03]: And I found it was a Spanish publication online that thank God for the Google Auto Translight thing.
17:23
[SPEAKER_03]: And they're saying like the Spanish leaders are like we don't know what he's talking about like we haven't we haven't talked to him we haven't talked to his administration we don't know what he's saying and that's sort of become the norm right this whole the whole native summit that was basically the whole thing as it was.
17:49
[SPEAKER_02]: That's crazy.
17:49
[SPEAKER_02]: That's crazy.
17:50
[SPEAKER_02]: I can't hear you.
17:52
[SPEAKER_02]: But, you know, it's one of those things that makes you go, is it really all just between the ears?
17:59
[SPEAKER_02]: I mean, has he really lost that much?
18:03
[SPEAKER_03]: You know, I think he has.
18:04
[SPEAKER_03]: I mean, I get 20% of your brain has gone.
18:07
[SPEAKER_03]: So maybe that 20% of something he was actually using.
18:11
[SPEAKER_02]: And maybe that was before.
18:13
[SPEAKER_03]: No, I can't take long division, right?
18:16
[SPEAKER_03]: Like who needs long division?
18:18
[SPEAKER_03]: Who needs to remember that?
18:20
[SPEAKER_03]: But God forbid, you remember where your keys are, right?
18:23
[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, good point, good point.
18:25
[SPEAKER_02]: Not a big story of the week, and obviously was Lindsey Graham's passing.
18:30
[SPEAKER_02]: I gotta tell ya, I gotta...
18:33
[SPEAKER_02]: uh... cash betell didn't make it any better uh... because he went to he tweeted out that uh... the FBI is assisting local authorities and has made every necessary resource available which got the attention of people like me going uh... is there something nefarious did did something bad happened to Lindsay uh... because there's a lot of conspiracy running around i'll throw it out there i'll
18:57
[SPEAKER_02]: You know, my first thought, and I'll be completely honest because this is how screwed up my mind is my first thought was Lindsey got himself between a you know a couple of UFC fighter kind of a you know a sandwich like that and there's a lot of rumors about you know Lindsey and his and look You know if that was it God bless him You know, I wish him the best.
19:16
[SPEAKER_02]: I hope he got I hope he got to the end of that road before he got to the end of the road But you know who knows
19:25
[SPEAKER_03]: You know, there've been a lot of people who were saying, you know, if you can't say something nice.
19:29
[SPEAKER_03]: And so I've been just saying, well, if you can't say something nice comes to it by me.
19:34
[SPEAKER_03]: Because the first thing that I thought other than the conspiracy theories, like my first conspiracy theories do just comes back from Ukraine, like how do we know this isn't.
19:43
[SPEAKER_03]: You know, Russia doing something because they have a tendency to poison people with things that makes it look like they've had heart attacks.
19:49
[SPEAKER_03]: So that was my first conspiracy theory, but the reality is the guy is like 900 years old and and apparently he.
19:58
[SPEAKER_03]: he called 911 himself and or somebody, somebody at that phone number called 911 themselves.
20:05
[SPEAKER_02]: But he's not 900 years old.
20:08
[SPEAKER_02]: So he was 71.
20:09
[SPEAKER_02]: Like, I'm looking at the clock going, you know, it's not, it's not that far down the road.
20:18
[SPEAKER_03]: He's younger than Donald Trump, which is saying something.
20:22
[SPEAKER_03]: And he's also younger than Joe Biden, like who thought Joe Biden was gonna out live Lindsey Graham, right?
20:27
[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah.
20:28
[SPEAKER_02]: And it's what kind of looked at him in Connie Charm, just put out a, I think it, no, not Connie Charm, who is the, yeah.
20:35
[SPEAKER_02]: Sorry.
20:38
[SPEAKER_02]: What's her name she was out of the she was kind of a department of transportation the lane child that's it Jesus, man Good lord
20:49
[SPEAKER_03]: um okay yeah they they did a proof of life photo and um but i mean again like this is sort of that whole proof of life thing i'm just like well why isn't in a video why isn't he holding up the newspaper like this is very easy for conspiracy to continue to perpetuate and grams office i mean i want to say it was like Sunday morning grams office the first comment was um he had a
21:13
[SPEAKER_03]: What was it a short illness of some kind of a brief short something illness?
21:22
[SPEAKER_03]: Anyway, and I was just like, well, that's, I guess that's one way to say a hard attack.
21:27
[SPEAKER_03]: It certainly was brief.
21:29
[SPEAKER_03]: Then they came out and said that the medical examiner found some kind of heart failure.
21:37
[SPEAKER_03]: Um, which totally tracks for, I think, somebody of that age and who's not doing a whole lot of physical activity, um, despite how, like, active he is in politics, not like he's running those halls, right, and he's fine, he'll, sorry, that was bad, that was so terrible.
21:56
[SPEAKER_03]: And so it was one of those things where I was kind of questioning what was really going on if there was something nefarious that happened or if it's just like this is what happens when you're
22:11
[SPEAKER_03]: Yeah, that age, but like that's almost my my bumpers almost 71 so not but but just so the high heel thing allegedly Allegedly allegedly in high I mean that looks like he's he's between a rock and a hard body right there so
22:31
[SPEAKER_02]: I know it's, I'm not making like the, the man died, you know, I wish him the best and I hope for him there is somewhere to go after where he can be judged on the things that he's done.
22:41
[SPEAKER_02]: I'm hopeful for that because it makes me want to believe that there is some justice in the world.
22:47
[SPEAKER_02]: But you know, one day we'll all find out, but you know, I hesitate to say anything bad about the guy now.
22:56
[SPEAKER_02]: I said a lot bad about him when he was alive.
22:58
[SPEAKER_02]: So I think I was, I think I'm covered.
23:01
[SPEAKER_02]: I wish him peace.
23:03
[SPEAKER_02]: I wish the people of South Carolina someone a better representative.
23:07
[SPEAKER_02]: There's a lot that I'm hoping for that will save my soul and not endanger my karma.
23:15
[SPEAKER_03]: I don't know.
23:15
[SPEAKER_03]: I mean, it's the kind of thing where I get the idea of the devil, you know, beats the devil that you don't.
23:24
[SPEAKER_03]: It's going to be a reliably red vote for everything.
23:28
[SPEAKER_03]: I think that the bigger piece of this is that Mitch McConnell is still out.
23:35
[SPEAKER_03]: There's a lot of questions I still have about him.
23:37
[SPEAKER_03]: Apparently he left the hospital moment to
23:42
[SPEAKER_03]: He's in rehab for whatever happened to him even though he said that he he didn't break any bones and Just had some bumps and bruises and it's like we're gonna lie.
23:53
[SPEAKER_03]: Are you in a rehab facility?
23:56
[SPEAKER_03]: I don't know if he's left George Washington University Hospital because this morning, I mean, it was Sunday morning there was somebody that I know who saw to black down, you know, SUV's there.
24:10
[SPEAKER_03]: So I don't know if he left Sunday morning or if he's still there if he's still there and doing rehab at that hospital.
24:18
[SPEAKER_03]: It's important to know that that hospital only does rehab for the most severe cases.
24:23
[SPEAKER_03]: So people who have had major strokes, people who have had serious injuries, and they have like something like 12 beds available for that.
24:33
[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, but the other part of this, and I would generally tend to agree with you, but he's a big wig, a big wig always trump some commoner who had something really bad happen.
24:43
[SPEAKER_03]: you think they'd be coming to his house.
24:45
[SPEAKER_03]: That's the thing, right?
24:46
[SPEAKER_03]: Like if he is that big of a big wig and he's got that kind of money, which we know, you know, he and Elaine child definitely do.
24:53
[SPEAKER_03]: I mean, I can't believe you did either, but I can't believe I'd then cursed after he was that kind of stuff.
25:02
[SPEAKER_03]: That was really funny.
25:04
[SPEAKER_03]: So, anyway, so, I think the sad thing about
25:13
[SPEAKER_03]: McConnell is a fur republicans like and Trump sort of talked about this untrue social of course his you know farewell to Lindsey Graham he's a good friend of mine of course right now the first thing he says is well there goes my say that yeah but I think to to a larger degree there's
25:34
[SPEAKER_03]: I mean, it was already going to be complicated passing a budget without Mitch McConnell because Mitch McConnell's the head of appropriations.
25:40
[SPEAKER_03]: And right now, there's a big stalemate between Republicans and Democrats and appropriations because Democrats don't want to fund Trump's war.
25:48
[SPEAKER_03]: Right.
25:49
[SPEAKER_03]: And so you have to have Mitch McConnell there to cast the tie-breaking vote.
25:54
[SPEAKER_03]: And he's gone.
25:55
[SPEAKER_03]: Well, now you've got Graham, who's on the budget committee.
25:58
[SPEAKER_03]: So, I mean, I'm looking at that.
25:59
[SPEAKER_03]: Go on and we're headed for a shutdown again.
26:03
[SPEAKER_03]: I mean, unless by some miracle, Republicans in the Senate can come up with some sort of deal that they can make with Democrats, and then somehow the House will approve that.
26:18
[SPEAKER_03]: And that's been the problem, right?
26:19
[SPEAKER_03]: The problem is in between Republicans in Democrats in the House, the Republicans in the House, fighting against the Republicans in the Senate.
26:27
[SPEAKER_03]: So that's why we've ended up with all of these shutdowns.
26:29
[SPEAKER_03]: And it's just like, man, this is gonna be the worst political year, the Republicans have had to face in a really long time, not just because Trump sucks, but it's like literally everything is working against you.
26:45
[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, this is what happened.
26:46
[SPEAKER_02]: Do you break everything?
26:47
[SPEAKER_02]: At some point, you hit critical mass where everything starts coming due and you can't live off of off of,
26:57
[SPEAKER_03]: Well, last week we were talking about how, you remember the right-wing pastors who always say that the bad weather is caused by, you know, darn those gays.
27:07
[SPEAKER_03]: And it was Pride Month and everything.
27:09
[SPEAKER_03]: And I'm just like, well, you basically have to huge, major, important U.S. Republican U.S. senators who've been taken out in a month.
27:19
[SPEAKER_03]: And I mean, if I was the liberal pastor on that side, I'd just be going, the Lord has spoken.
27:28
[SPEAKER_02]: We're tele Rico when you need him, but Sarah as always I appreciate the time the input great stuff.
27:34
[SPEAKER_02]: Hope folks will get over there to alternate dot org and check out Sarah Burris's work Sarah.
27:38
[SPEAKER_03]: Thanks so much My pleasure.
27:41
[SPEAKER_02]: I have a great rest of the week everyone you as well and it's a lame child just just for the record want to make sure that I I don't screw that up again, but I want to hear your thoughts Chastise me if you must Rick the ricksmith share dot com quick break right back
28:00
[SPEAKER_02]: I'm Rick Smith, and this is Labor History in 2.
28:03
[SPEAKER_01]: On this day in Labor History, the year was 1995.
28:06
[SPEAKER_02]: That was the day, 2,500 pressmen, reporters, drivers, and clerks went out on strike against the Detroit News and the Free Press.
28:15
[SPEAKER_02]: Both newspapers had created a virtual monopoly in 1988 by merging their advertising and circulation departments into the Detroit newspaper association.
28:25
[SPEAKER_02]: Even as the DNA raked in record profits, they forced years of concessions, including wage freezes and layoffs.
28:32
[SPEAKER_02]: When the association implemented a merit pay-raise system, the newspaper guild voted to strike.
28:37
[SPEAKER_02]: Five other unions, including CWA and the teamsters, soon followed.
28:41
[SPEAKER_02]: The newspapers, however, were ready.
28:43
[SPEAKER_02]: Just before the strike, they cut off the dues check off.
28:46
[SPEAKER_02]: They also contracted with the company alternative workforce to provide scabs.
28:51
[SPEAKER_02]: They also hired private security guards from Huffmaster and Vance International to enforce the scab hurting.
28:57
[SPEAKER_02]: A solid union boycott cut revenues for both newspapers.
29:01
[SPEAKER_02]: On August 19th, hundreds of strikers stopped scabbing until police attacked the picket lines, breaking arms, and arresting at least four.
29:10
[SPEAKER_02]: Then, on Labor Day weekend, thousands of strikers and supporters successfully repulsed police forces amassed from across the state to break up the picket lines.
29:19
[SPEAKER_02]: By mid-September, both newspapers were forced to airlift the Sunday edition until strike breaking and junctions limited picket lines.
29:27
[SPEAKER_02]: Over a hundred had been arrested over the course of several weeks.
29:30
[SPEAKER_02]: Unable to stop production, strikers gradually returned to work until the strike was finally called off in February of 1997.
29:37
[SPEAKER_02]: In his two volume set, workers in America, Robert Weir notes that many labor activists criticized strike tactics.
29:46
[SPEAKER_02]: They argued direct action to stop production should have been the priority, rather than boycotts and political pressure.
29:52
[SPEAKER_02]: Once the strike ended, the DNA claimed all but a few had forfeited their jobs.
30:11
[SPEAKER_00]: but it amounted to a firecracker of hypocrisy.
30:14
[SPEAKER_00]: For many of these showboat patriots have been back room funders of Trump regimes repression of our people's democratic rights.
30:22
[SPEAKER_00]: Also, there's an internal level of cynical dishonesty in their flashy show of support for egalitarian values.
30:29
[SPEAKER_00]: In the past few years, a clique of the Silicon Valley and Wall Street Giants had been monkey wrenching the rules of their own corporate governance to crush the very ideal of shareholder democracy.
30:42
[SPEAKER_00]: Yes, such a concept has existed, at least in theory.
30:46
[SPEAKER_00]: For decades, big business profiteers have been given special privileges.
30:51
[SPEAKER_00]: Over the rest of us, claiming to be Democratic enterprises governed by masses of common shareholders who get one vote for each share of stock they own.
31:00
[SPEAKER_00]: Actually, that makes a corporation more of a plutocracy since the more stock you own the more votes you get.
31:07
[SPEAKER_00]: Today though, even plutocracy is too democratic for monarchy of billionaire bosses like Elon Musk, CEO of SpaceX.
31:16
[SPEAKER_00]: So they've invented a superclass of shareholders, mostly themselves and their cronies.
31:22
[SPEAKER_00]: these elite owners get domineering voting power, exceeding all other investors combined.
31:28
[SPEAKER_00]: For example, Musk owns about 40% of the stock in SpaceX, but his self-created system gives him more than 80% of shareholder votes.
31:38
[SPEAKER_00]: Among other advantages, this skewed voting power makes Musk quote unfirable, unless he votes to fire himself.
31:46
[SPEAKER_00]: This is Jim Hi-To-R saying, but where a billionaire's professing any allegiance to America's Democratic values, in fact, just be where a billionaire's period.
32:04
[SPEAKER_01]: MUSIC Welcome back to the Rick Smith Show.
32:12
[SPEAKER_01]: Now, here is Rick Smith.
32:15
[SPEAKER_02]: So with the death of Lindsey Graham, I guess the save act is probably dead as well.
32:21
[SPEAKER_02]: And I guess we can plan on a government shutdown.
32:24
[SPEAKER_02]: That seems kind of inevitable at this moment.
32:27
[SPEAKER_02]: Trump's war is ramping up against seems like the ceasefire kind of unraveling.
32:32
[SPEAKER_02]: Oh yeah, the economy's still sucks for average every day.
32:35
[SPEAKER_02]: We're working people.
32:36
[SPEAKER_02]: But at least, at least Graham Platner's happy out of the news cycle.
32:41
[SPEAKER_02]: Um, and it's moved on without him and here's shares and thoughts on well all of that and everything that we can jump into the middle of that's my good friend Greg Pavis to come share some thoughts Greg is an investigative journalist forensic economist data journalist he's covered votes oppression he's come well
32:58
[SPEAKER_02]: just about everything New York Times bestselling author.
33:01
[SPEAKER_02]: He's got that incredible movie of vigilante's ink America's new vote suppression hitman that you can find all of that at Greg Palis dot com Greg thanks for taking time for us
33:14
[SPEAKER_04]: Let's be with you again, Rick.
33:17
[SPEAKER_02]: So where do we start?
33:20
[SPEAKER_02]: Let's start with Lindsey.
33:21
[SPEAKER_02]: Lindsey passed away.
33:22
[SPEAKER_02]: I guess some people, you're going to be sad.
33:25
[SPEAKER_02]: Some people sad about it.
33:27
[SPEAKER_02]: I've said a lot of bad things about him over the years.
33:30
[SPEAKER_02]: I'm not going to go suddenly say good things.
33:33
[SPEAKER_02]: But any thoughts?
33:35
[SPEAKER_04]: Yeah, what a sad character.
33:38
[SPEAKER_04]: think about it.
33:39
[SPEAKER_04]: Here's a guy, Trump holds up his cell phone number and just viciously attacks him.
33:46
[SPEAKER_04]: And he gets, and instead of saying how dare you, he gets down on his hands and knees.
33:53
[SPEAKER_04]: One meme that was really sad.
33:55
[SPEAKER_04]: I just got even just last week before he passed away.
33:58
[SPEAKER_04]: was pets of the president, you know, they showed Carter and Reagan and they, and Obama, they all have their their White House dogs.
34:07
[SPEAKER_04]: And in a Trump's case, it was just Lindsey Graham on a leash.
34:11
[SPEAKER_04]: So, you know, it was sad.
34:13
[SPEAKER_04]: It was very sad to watch this guy, but on the other hand, you know, um,
34:19
[SPEAKER_04]: Yeah, he was not the working person's friend, but to see like, it was just Iki to watch him just suck up to Trump who just savage him in the worst nasty personal way.
34:34
[SPEAKER_04]: Just it was just sickening.
34:36
[SPEAKER_04]: And this is he is a symbol of the Republican Party where they're all bending in need.
34:42
[SPEAKER_02]: And this one I was gonna say.
34:43
[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, he wasn't the only one.
34:45
[SPEAKER_02]: The worst one for me is going to be Ted Cruz, because I'll be honest with you.
34:50
[SPEAKER_02]: Say what you want about everybody else.
34:53
[SPEAKER_02]: You attack my wife.
34:55
[SPEAKER_02]: We're rolling in the dirt.
34:57
[SPEAKER_02]: You can do a lot of things to me call me whatever but you you don't go after my walk you don't do that I would have appreciate if he attacked my wife.
35:05
[SPEAKER_04]: I would have a different donation, but that's a different issue I like my one But all I can tell you is you know, this is so it you have to understand this kind of stalinistic
35:25
[SPEAKER_04]: brush on Democrat on Republicans.
35:29
[SPEAKER_04]: They're scared of their own shadows.
35:32
[SPEAKER_04]: Is that what we want?
35:33
[SPEAKER_04]: People, it's just like under Stalin.
35:35
[SPEAKER_04]: It's just like under Hitler.
35:37
[SPEAKER_04]: The people under them were scared for their lives.
35:40
[SPEAKER_04]: In this case, scared for the political lives, but they're scared for the political lives.
35:45
[SPEAKER_04]: And it's very sad.
35:47
[SPEAKER_02]: No profiles encourage you over there.
35:49
[SPEAKER_04]: to see this kind of internal emotional collapse.
35:53
[SPEAKER_04]: And for people to take like even like Mark, like Marco Rubio, you know, little Marco.
36:01
[SPEAKER_04]: Here's the guy.
36:03
[SPEAKER_04]: who was pro Ukraine, who was, you know, all these positions he took.
36:08
[SPEAKER_04]: And now he has to crawl on his hands and knees.
36:11
[SPEAKER_04]: It's like he's going to the, to go see the, the statue at Lord's crawling on his knees for miles.
36:19
[SPEAKER_04]: I mean, really?
36:20
[SPEAKER_04]: Really, and then the way that Trump plays Rubio and the JD Vance, like Spiders on the Boll, to see who will eat each other first.
36:31
[SPEAKER_04]: So good.
36:31
[SPEAKER_04]: I mean, this is okay, America.
36:34
[SPEAKER_04]: Now, as you know, I wrote the piece, Trump lost votes, the pressure won here, the numbers.
36:40
[SPEAKER_04]: Without vote suppression, Trump would not be president still knew that 70 plus million Americans who voted for this guy So there you go, buddies Now you know people who let it happen by not voting, but you know this which brings me to this
36:54
[SPEAKER_02]: to the save act.
36:55
[SPEAKER_02]: I mean Trump refused to sign the housing bill that could have been a legacy bill for him.
37:00
[SPEAKER_02]: It could have been something that he could actually go look when I accomplish, but in the most petulant way possible, allowed it to be come law without his signature, because he wasn't going to veto it, had vetoed proof of majority.
37:13
[SPEAKER_02]: They were going to, they were going to override that.
37:15
[SPEAKER_02]: But it means now the save act, now the Graham has gone,
37:20
[SPEAKER_02]: Not not gonna happen and nor should it or or do you see a different path?
37:27
[SPEAKER_04]: Well, here's what I'm concerned with the save act for those who don't know it, which was the safe guard America's voting and
37:36
[SPEAKER_04]: Integrity, no, that'd be save me.
37:38
[SPEAKER_04]: Got to get my anyway.
37:40
[SPEAKER_04]: It's Trump's basically it's the Jim Crow Law dressed up with a civil rights name.
37:45
[SPEAKER_04]: You know, it's like you're putting a two, two on a U of C fighter.
37:50
[SPEAKER_04]: I think we know these are guy.
37:52
[SPEAKER_04]: Okay.
37:53
[SPEAKER_04]: So, well, you know, so, you know, so we know that this is
38:05
[SPEAKER_04]: I think he understands very well that without the save act, the Republicans cannot possibly win the midterms.
38:12
[SPEAKER_04]: I've been going through this, I'm about to, if you go to Greg Palsek, I'm gonna see we're about to launch a six-part series.
38:20
[SPEAKER_04]: the specifics of the save act and the other ways are going to take your vote away requirement that you show your a citizen.
38:26
[SPEAKER_04]: Okay, that sounds good.
38:27
[SPEAKER_04]: Except you know where your burst certificate is.
38:30
[SPEAKER_04]: Did your mom tell you?
38:31
[SPEAKER_04]: And if you're a woman, 69 million women, have their husbands last name.
38:36
[SPEAKER_04]: Good luck to you trying to vote.
38:39
[SPEAKER_04]: They don't want you to vote though, that's the trick.
38:42
[SPEAKER_04]: And about, you know, only one in three black people, for example, have a passport, which is your proficitism.
38:49
[SPEAKER_04]: It's the, by the way, forget your odd, your driver's license, that's not proof of citizenship.
38:55
[SPEAKER_04]: And here's the sixth thing, your military ID is not proof of citizenship.
39:00
[SPEAKER_04]: 35,000 people removed in Kansas.
39:05
[SPEAKER_04]: when they imposed, when they did a test run on this citizenship requirement to register to vote.
39:12
[SPEAKER_04]: 35,000 people lost their vote, including a huge number of officers from the Lawrence Air Force Base, because they couldn't leave the base to get their original birth certificate and some of them didn't have passports.
39:24
[SPEAKER_04]: They, you know, when you go to Germany from the US on a US military plane, you don't need a passport, you're not a tourist.
39:30
[SPEAKER_04]: So what's happened is,
39:31
[SPEAKER_04]: When the Attorney General, Republican Attorney General, Trump's big vote suppression, vote fraud hunter, Chris Cobak, went into court and swore under oath that are the 35,000 people he blocked from voting.
39:49
[SPEAKER_04]: Not one was an alien.
39:52
[SPEAKER_04]: Every single one was an American citizen, and he even said, yeah, I blocked them from voting.
39:56
[SPEAKER_04]: But, you know, we need integrity of our elections.
40:02
[SPEAKER_04]: Army officers, students from the University of Kansas.
40:07
[SPEAKER_04]: I didn't know that that gave you confidence in our elections.
40:09
[SPEAKER_04]: It sounds like the dictators telling us who's voting in who isn't.
40:14
[SPEAKER_04]: So when Trump is not just petulant, Trump understands even better than his dear Republican colleagues.
40:22
[SPEAKER_04]: Now without the save act as they call it, without being able to knock out literally millions of people from voting, there's no chance these characters can keep control of the Congress.
40:33
[SPEAKER_02]: No, there's no if I'm certainly there are a lot of bombs are going to be shown in the street.
40:37
[SPEAKER_02]: unless as you point it out they can rig it and as I've been talking about for the last several weeks if they can rig it before the first ballot is it's ever cast because they're doing such a bad job.
40:47
[SPEAKER_02]: I mean you know we're kind of hitting a critical mass point where nothing seems to be working anymore because they basically broken everything.
40:56
[SPEAKER_02]: So you know I fear that this summer it's going to be well it's going to be quite interesting as the as we head into the fall.
41:08
[SPEAKER_04]: We have a problem in America, it's called democracy.
41:12
[SPEAKER_04]: It's our solution, I'm a big believer in democracy.
41:20
[SPEAKER_04]: problem is everyone has the vote unless they stop.
41:26
[SPEAKER_04]: And right now, you know, Trump's selling a good line.
41:31
[SPEAKER_04]: That's someone out there is out to get us.
41:34
[SPEAKER_04]: So we have to work on that.
41:35
[SPEAKER_04]: We have a lot of people saying, Oh, what are the Democrats done with for us and all politicians are cropped?
41:41
[SPEAKER_04]: That kind of generalized.
41:43
[SPEAKER_04]: I don't care about the system.
41:45
[SPEAKER_04]: Yeah, they're both the same.
41:50
[SPEAKER_04]: Those ignoramuses, I'll protect their vote, but I wish they don't vote.
41:57
[SPEAKER_04]: I think we're getting to the point.
41:59
[SPEAKER_04]: I'm actually thinking about raising the voting age again to 24, because in the last election, the majority of males of any race religion, whatever.
42:19
[SPEAKER_04]: Now, maybe, you know, I can't take it away from them.
42:22
[SPEAKER_04]: It's not my job to tell them to do that.
42:23
[SPEAKER_04]: Maybe the Democrats just didn't do a good enough job of, well, I don't, no, I'm not going to blame the Democrats.
42:29
[SPEAKER_04]: So people are that, if they don't understand that there's a difference between Democrats and Republicans and shame on them at a certain point, we have to stop making excuses and say, oh, the young people don't have anything to vote for.
42:40
[SPEAKER_04]: We'll screw them.
42:42
[SPEAKER_04]: How about, here's something to vote for.
42:44
[SPEAKER_04]: T-R-U-M-P. That doesn't motivate you.
42:49
[SPEAKER_04]: Then get the hell out of the way.
42:51
[SPEAKER_04]: All right, you know, I'll be very honest.
42:52
[SPEAKER_04]: I'm not sure.
42:53
[SPEAKER_04]: My kids are 29.
42:54
[SPEAKER_04]: I don't think they're capable of making voting decisions.
42:57
[SPEAKER_02]: Okay.
42:58
[SPEAKER_02]: There it is.
43:02
[SPEAKER_04]: There it is.
43:03
[SPEAKER_04]: My kids friends all went to Bernie Raleigh's.
43:07
[SPEAKER_04]: All of them.
43:08
[SPEAKER_04]: Big packs of kids go to Bernie Raleigh's.
43:10
[SPEAKER_04]: Except for my own kids who are free or their mother if they didn't vote.
43:14
[SPEAKER_04]: None of them voted.
43:16
[SPEAKER_04]: They didn't vote.
43:18
[SPEAKER_04]: And Bernie actually didn't care if they voted, like he didn't tell people like in California how you vote and how the system works.
43:25
[SPEAKER_04]: It was all, you know.
43:28
[SPEAKER_04]: So I'm very concerned that the opposition to Trump's vicious racist warm-ongering mayhem,
43:41
[SPEAKER_04]: is a bunch of narcissistic BS, you know, like I asked, no, I'm chompsky, what's going on in our campuses?
43:49
[SPEAKER_04]: No, he said, me, Greg, it's the new narcissism.
43:54
[SPEAKER_04]: It's all how I feel.
43:56
[SPEAKER_04]: What does it do for me?
43:57
[SPEAKER_04]: Where's my?
43:58
[SPEAKER_04]: And, and.
44:00
[SPEAKER_04]: That's why we're heading.
44:01
[SPEAKER_02]: So we don't so we have, but haven't we told our whole lives we're voting in our interest or they're voting against their best interest.
44:08
[SPEAKER_02]: I mean, I'm not entirely saying that he's wrong, but we've always been, you know, kind of hyper, you know, self centered in all of this.
44:20
[SPEAKER_04]: Well, we should we should vote our interest.
44:22
[SPEAKER_04]: We shouldn't vote against our interests.
44:25
[SPEAKER_04]: I don't expect that, but I do expect this.
44:29
[SPEAKER_04]: Whenever I hear there's no difference between the parties, look, I personally, I'll never forget, I couldn't stand Al Gore.
44:39
[SPEAKER_04]: But the idea that when Michael Moore went on my television showing England news night, and said there's no difference between George Bush and Al Gore.
44:50
[SPEAKER_04]: He lost me.
44:52
[SPEAKER_04]: because however disappointing Al Gore is, and I don't think he should have been elected dog catcher, but to compare it, but to say that there's no difference between him and George Bush, ask the Iraqis about that.
45:04
[SPEAKER_04]: Ask the Afghanis about that.
45:08
[SPEAKER_04]: Ask the people who lost their pensions.
45:11
[SPEAKER_04]: You know, you have to understand this is serious stuff and yeah, I'm we don't have politicians who are going to create miracles.
45:19
[SPEAKER_04]: And if you think that it's so if all you want is someone to feedback what you think is wonderful, then your lack of sophistication and basically lack of concern because I'm going to tell you right now you take like DSA.
45:34
[SPEAKER_04]: or when I was young, we used to, I don't know about you, we used to call, they were called D-Sock, then we're great, socialists.
45:40
[SPEAKER_04]: But we always called them socialists singles, because we know it's just a bunch of trust fund kids trying to get into bed with each other.
45:46
[SPEAKER_04]: But they had nothing to do with the working class.
45:48
[SPEAKER_04]: And I'm very concerned that we have this new tea party.
45:52
[SPEAKER_04]: Now, if you're out of putting it on a political spectrum, Rick, I've thought of the truth right now.
45:57
[SPEAKER_04]: I'm to the left of DSA.
45:59
[SPEAKER_04]: but I'm also very concerned about what happens to the United States of America.
46:04
[SPEAKER_04]: And right now, the US Senate's on the line while we have a bunch of kids playing with matches.
46:11
[SPEAKER_04]: And I'm very concerned about that.
46:14
[SPEAKER_04]: They're all excited that they believe it or not.
46:18
[SPEAKER_04]: What was the shocker, a Democrat, were on the leadership of New York.
46:23
[SPEAKER_04]: Wow.
46:26
[SPEAKER_02]: Look, I've always said that politicians are tools that are not saviors.
46:30
[SPEAKER_02]: I don't look at them as anything special, but we've been trained especially on the Democratic side to look to Obama was a saviour, mandami, people view as a saviour.
46:41
[SPEAKER_02]: They're tools to get what we need, and I look at Graham Platner and I said this for the last couple of weeks.
46:46
[SPEAKER_02]: I supported what came out of his mouth.
46:48
[SPEAKER_02]: The policies that he was moving on.
46:50
[SPEAKER_02]: Don't know him, don't know his past.
46:52
[SPEAKER_02]: Wish someone would have done some up, up a research on him before they put him out in front of everybody.
47:00
[SPEAKER_02]: But it's the policies that I want.
47:02
[SPEAKER_02]: I don't care about the individual.
47:04
[SPEAKER_02]: They're just the vessel in which we hopefully get what we need.
47:07
[SPEAKER_02]: But I know you've got some pretty strong opinions on Graham Platner.
47:11
[SPEAKER_04]: Well, yeah, because I actually, I'm going to say it.
47:15
[SPEAKER_04]: Rick, I don't agree with you.
47:17
[SPEAKER_04]: I don't agree it's what their philosophy is.
47:19
[SPEAKER_04]: This is about who controls the United States Senate.
47:22
[SPEAKER_04]: And if you had a chimpanzee running for United States Senate and other Democratic line, Democrats would be foolish, not to promote them.
47:31
[SPEAKER_04]: So it's not about so that the D-Sock, Democratic Socialist, whatever you want to call it, Democratic singles, whatever you want to call them, they didn't care about winning the United States Senate.
47:45
[SPEAKER_04]: They're very, very good at knocking off Democrats.
47:48
[SPEAKER_04]: And I haven't seen them.
47:49
[SPEAKER_04]: I have not seen them win or even run against a Republican.
47:55
[SPEAKER_04]: And I would like to remind you.
47:56
[SPEAKER_04]: So they find this guy, brain, crack, platinum, or platinum, whatever the hell.
48:02
[SPEAKER_04]: OK, he's wearing, he's a beefy guy with a beard, a white guy.
48:08
[SPEAKER_04]: He's wearing a Pendleton and Boots and a cap.
48:13
[SPEAKER_04]: So, you know, and he says, I'm an oysterman, you know, so it's like all the white trust friend kids came up from New York City to Maine.
48:24
[SPEAKER_04]: And I know you've, I think that you've been to Maine.
48:26
[SPEAKER_04]: I certainly work for this state of Maine.
48:28
[SPEAKER_04]: So I can tell you right now.
48:30
[SPEAKER_04]: So they go up to Maine these New Yorkers.
48:32
[SPEAKER_04]: And they find this guy, I literally saw him on YouTube.
48:35
[SPEAKER_04]: And I want to say that Platner, I think Democrats should study how he speaks.
48:40
[SPEAKER_04]: He's amazing.
48:41
[SPEAKER_04]: He's one of the best political speakers I've seen in 20 years.
48:44
[SPEAKER_04]: Now he shouldn't be United States Senator.
48:46
[SPEAKER_04]: He shouldn't be a mayor of a small village.
48:53
[SPEAKER_04]: He's on disabilities unemployed.
48:56
[SPEAKER_04]: No, he's not working class.
48:57
[SPEAKER_04]: He's in this is what I resent.
48:59
[SPEAKER_04]: I come from, look, I come from Pokemon.
49:02
[SPEAKER_04]: I come from the poorest barrio in Los Angeles.
49:04
[SPEAKER_04]: And I've seen these rich bricks before.
49:07
[SPEAKER_04]: So Platner goes to Hodgkin's.
49:09
[SPEAKER_04]: It's $81,000 a year and he gets his ass thrown out.
49:16
[SPEAKER_04]: So he gets, and so that's supposed to be a qualification United States Center, then he goes off and kind of does a little college blows out of, you know, flunks out of college, then he goes off to the Marines, gets PTSD, comes back, goes on disability.
49:32
[SPEAKER_04]: Supposedly can't work, but he's working as an oysterman.
49:35
[SPEAKER_04]: By the way, how quickly would it be before he was under arrest because he claims he's on disability, can't work, and then he says he's an oysterman.
49:43
[SPEAKER_04]: Which is, are you an oysterman or you want disability?
49:45
[SPEAKER_04]: And if you are on a mental disability, which we need to know and no one in the Democratic Party asked, why are you on disability?
49:52
[SPEAKER_04]: Is it a mental condition?
49:53
[SPEAKER_04]: If you have a mental condition, which makes you unable to work, you sure as hell can't be a United States senator, we did that with John Fetterman.
50:02
[SPEAKER_04]: All the progressives jump behind John Fetterman.
50:05
[SPEAKER_04]: And you know what?
50:06
[SPEAKER_04]: Maybe we should give them a psychological test.
50:10
[SPEAKER_04]: First, you don't, you know, Heather Cox Richardson, the historian lives in Maine.
50:15
[SPEAKER_04]: The minute Platner was nominated, she says, oh my God, why aren't we running this guy for, you know, state legislature?
50:24
[SPEAKER_04]: No, Maldani became mayor of New York after he was elected three times to the New York state assembly.
50:32
[SPEAKER_04]: He had some experience.
50:35
[SPEAKER_04]: And in Maine, we had Janet Mills, a very popular governor.
50:39
[SPEAKER_04]: They said, oh, she was billionaires in behind.
50:42
[SPEAKER_04]: She erased nothing.
50:43
[SPEAKER_04]: Nothing.
50:44
[SPEAKER_04]: Where are the billionaires behind her?
50:45
[SPEAKER_04]: I didn't see any billionaires behind her.
50:47
[SPEAKER_04]: So she raised, you know, and she was well-loved in Maine.
50:53
[SPEAKER_04]: Most people have voted for her.
50:55
[SPEAKER_04]: She would have kicked Susan Collins ass.
50:57
[SPEAKER_04]: But if you want something better, if you want a guy who can scream in a hour and talk about Palestine or something, great.
51:02
[SPEAKER_04]: But if you want to take the United States Senate, how about being serious, instead of guy that you got from central casting who pretends to be a working glass guy, he's a rich, privileged prick.
51:16
[SPEAKER_04]: A loser, by the way, he hasn't earned a dime as an oysterman, or it's a fraud, where all the money shifted to his wife.
51:24
[SPEAKER_04]: He lives off money, he's on disability.
51:28
[SPEAKER_04]: Okay, fine, if you're disabled, then why are you running for the United States Senate?
51:31
[SPEAKER_04]: What's your disability, buddy?
51:33
[SPEAKER_04]: This is such a con job because it's looking down at the working class.
51:37
[SPEAKER_04]: And you know it, Rick, you've seen it because you have done as a teamster, you've driven across
51:44
[SPEAKER_04]: those highways.
51:46
[SPEAKER_04]: You've done that work.
51:48
[SPEAKER_04]: Graham Platner was not from the working class.
51:51
[SPEAKER_04]: whatsoever.
51:52
[SPEAKER_04]: He was a New Yorker's idea of working class people in Maine look like.
51:58
[SPEAKER_04]: They went after the, oh, they finally found themselves a white guy who will pretend to be working class.
52:05
[SPEAKER_04]: And he wasn't.
52:06
[SPEAKER_04]: You can't lie to the people like that.
52:08
[SPEAKER_04]: You can't calm the people.
52:13
[SPEAKER_04]: This guy's the con artist of the worst order.
52:16
[SPEAKER_04]: Forget the rape charges and everything else.
52:21
[SPEAKER_04]: This was completely incontradible of what Lenin used to call the infantile left.
52:27
[SPEAKER_04]: Do you want to take the Senate and do something for people?
52:29
[SPEAKER_04]: Or do you want to check around?
52:31
[SPEAKER_04]: They've been very, very good.
52:33
[SPEAKER_04]: Oh, I'm so glad.
52:33
[SPEAKER_04]: Oh, my God, Moldani was able to knock off the head of the Hispanic congressional caucus.
52:41
[SPEAKER_04]: Oh, that's great.
52:43
[SPEAKER_04]: I've always spanned us have simply too much power.
52:46
[SPEAKER_04]: I would agree with Mondani about that.
52:48
[SPEAKER_04]: About time, they got knocked down these, these border critters.
52:53
[SPEAKER_02]: No, but look, but the reality is, and this is where I don't agree with you, but there are points where you go, we keep voting for these people who don't deliver on things that people need.
53:03
[SPEAKER_04]: What do you mean, no, I'm sorry, that's not true.
53:05
[SPEAKER_02]: We haven't had any major country heads of labor or law reform in this country in my lifetime.
53:10
[SPEAKER_04]: We haven't done all the way to my state in the 20 years.
53:14
[SPEAKER_04]: Do you think a platinum would deliver to you?
53:16
[SPEAKER_04]: Do you think at knockoff the head of the Hispanic caucus in New York will deliver to you?
53:22
[SPEAKER_04]: AOC want our big election.
53:23
[SPEAKER_04]: She's an 85% Puerto Rican district and she want against a non- Puerto Rican running.
53:28
[SPEAKER_04]: So she won on racism, which is fine.
53:31
[SPEAKER_04]: I mean, this is America.
53:32
[SPEAKER_04]: But I'm telling you right now, we are
53:37
[SPEAKER_04]: Hissing on the working class in America and the left is is has the big string big string of urine so far when they try to sell us a con man as an when you take a kid who went to hotch his prep school and then after that he's thrown out he went to another prep school like most Oysterman.
54:00
[SPEAKER_04]: And you're going to tell me, he's a working class hero.
54:02
[SPEAKER_04]: Don't pull that crap on me.
54:04
[SPEAKER_04]: No, I'm not looking, I said, I've said this all along.
54:07
[SPEAKER_04]: You, I'm saying, I'm saying these, these socialist singles have got to get off this track.
54:12
[SPEAKER_04]: This is our tea party, but the difference is the tea party actually did not go off some Democrats, which was serious stuff, but we haven't seen the sock or all these
54:28
[SPEAKER_04]: knock off a single Republican.
54:30
[SPEAKER_04]: And that's what has to be concerned.
54:33
[SPEAKER_04]: Now, I'm not partisan.
54:34
[SPEAKER_04]: I'm telling you right now.
54:36
[SPEAKER_04]: But if you're a goal, because whatever, I'll be fine.
54:41
[SPEAKER_04]: No, I'll be fine.
54:42
[SPEAKER_04]: But I'm gonna tell you this.
54:44
[SPEAKER_04]: If it weren't for Democrats, remember, we had Biden people complain.
54:48
[SPEAKER_04]: Biden did as my director said, he was forgiven $40,000 in student income under Biden.
54:55
[SPEAKER_02]: No, look, there's things that are in us.
54:57
[SPEAKER_02]: Things I loved about Biden, absolutely.
54:59
[SPEAKER_02]: Oh, Greg.
54:59
[SPEAKER_02]: I didn't love it.
55:01
[SPEAKER_02]: I didn't love it.
55:02
[SPEAKER_02]: I loved all the things he did on the labor front.
55:04
[SPEAKER_02]: Oh, but Greg, as always, I appreciate the input.
55:07
[SPEAKER_02]: I hope folks who go to GregPathas.com, check out more of this stuff you're doing, more of the incredible work, and we're going to pick this up again.
55:13
[SPEAKER_02]: Problems.
55:14
[SPEAKER_04]: You got it.
55:15
[SPEAKER_04]: Thanks.
55:15
[SPEAKER_02]: Oh, my good friend, Greg Pathas.
55:17
[SPEAKER_02]: I want to hear your thoughts.
55:17
[SPEAKER_02]: Something you said.
55:18
[SPEAKER_02]: Something you said got your attention.
55:20
[SPEAKER_02]: Hit me up.
55:20
[SPEAKER_02]: I want to hear it at ricketerricksmithshow.com.
55:22
[SPEAKER_02]: Quick break, break back.
55:27
[SPEAKER_01]: I'm Rick Smith, and this is Labor History in 2.
55:30
[SPEAKER_02]: This day in Labor History, the year was a 1663.
55:34
[SPEAKER_02]: That was the day that draft riots broke out in New York City.
55:38
[SPEAKER_02]: The Civil War had been raging for two years.
55:41
[SPEAKER_02]: For the first time in the United States history, the government instituted a draft lottery.
55:46
[SPEAKER_02]: But for those with enough money, they could buy their way out of the draft.
55:56
[SPEAKER_02]: You could remove your name from the lottery.
55:58
[SPEAKER_02]: This meant that the city's working class men, many of them Irish Americans, had to fight while the wealthy could stay home.
56:06
[SPEAKER_02]: Anger in New York City Mountain.
56:08
[SPEAKER_02]: The anger was stoked by anti-war newspapers and politicians.
56:12
[SPEAKER_02]: The newspapers railed against the war and the draft.
56:16
[SPEAKER_02]: They also riled up fears that more black southerners would come to New York because of Abraham Lincoln's emancipation proclamation.
56:24
[SPEAKER_02]: Black men were exempted from the draft because they were not citizens.
56:28
[SPEAKER_02]: This further fueled anti-black anger amongst working class whites on the second day of the draft violence erupted.
56:37
[SPEAKER_02]: First, the rioters targeted government facility.
56:40
[SPEAKER_02]: But then they turned their wrath on black New Yorkers.
56:43
[SPEAKER_02]: White dock workers destroyed dance halls and boarding houses that served black patrons near the docks.
56:49
[SPEAKER_02]: A mob burnt down an orphanage for black children, but fortunately the children escaped.
56:55
[SPEAKER_02]: 11 Black men were lynched.
56:57
[SPEAKER_02]: President Lincoln sent federal militia to New York to quail the uprising.
57:01
[SPEAKER_02]: After four days of violence, the official death toll rose above 100, but the true number is unknown.
57:08
[SPEAKER_02]: The Martin Scorsese film Gangs of New York dramatized the draft riots.
57:13
[SPEAKER_02]: To this day, class continues to be a major factor in who fights and dies on the battlefield.
57:20
[SPEAKER_01]: Labor history in two brought to you by the Illinois Labor History Society and the Rick Smith Show.
57:29
[SPEAKER_01]: We're listening to the Rick Smith show.
57:32
[SPEAKER_01]: We're working people, come to Tom.
57:36
[SPEAKER_02]: Got to say, I love Greg Pavas and I hope folks will go to GregPavas.com and check out the work that they do over there and the important part of all of this is, come November.
57:47
[SPEAKER_02]: Come November.
57:48
[SPEAKER_02]: People are going to need to get out and vote.
57:51
[SPEAKER_02]: Um, it's, we need to start throwing some bombs out and bringing people in and whether uh, you're on the grand platinum side or the out.
57:57
[SPEAKER_02]: He's out now.
57:59
[SPEAKER_02]: Uh, but if you agree with Greg and then I understand Greg's position.
58:03
[SPEAKER_02]: Look, you got to win elections.
58:05
[SPEAKER_02]: You got to move in the agenda.
58:06
[SPEAKER_02]: And I think the rise of someone like Plattener Our people were we're hoping that he was the real deal.
58:12
[SPEAKER_02]: Hoping that they actually, oh, I don't know.
58:15
[SPEAKER_02]: And this is where I was hoping that the campaign Actually did with normal rational sane campaigns do.
58:22
[SPEAKER_02]: And that's properly vet their own candidate before they look outward
58:27
[SPEAKER_02]: The fact that they did zero in this, I gotta tell you is a bit concerning, and this is where Greg, I don't think Greg is at all wrong, or Chomsky's wrong.
58:39
[SPEAKER_02]: It is the narcissism.
58:41
[SPEAKER_02]: It is trying to put the thumb on the scale by some of these consultants.
58:45
[SPEAKER_02]: And yes, the consultant class keeps winning.
58:52
[SPEAKER_02]: But I'm still not going to give up on working class people running for office.
58:56
[SPEAKER_02]: I'm still not going to give up on, you know, people having the ability to rise, to rise up, regular average people.
59:04
[SPEAKER_02]: And I'm angry about the platner thing, just like a lot of folks.
59:09
[SPEAKER_02]: But I still want working class people in the halls, in the halls of power.
59:14
[SPEAKER_02]: It's that for me, it's that simple.
59:19
[SPEAKER_02]: But was this a learning lesson?
59:21
[SPEAKER_02]: Was it a con job?
59:22
[SPEAKER_02]: As Greg said, I'd love to hear your thoughts.
59:25
[SPEAKER_02]: Email me, Rick, at therixmithshow.com.
59:27
[SPEAKER_02]: And now with Lindsey Graham passing, does this mean the end of the save act?
59:31
[SPEAKER_02]: Does this mean that maybe Republicans are gonna have to reach across the aisle?
59:36
[SPEAKER_02]: We'll find out, Rick, at therixmithshow.com.
59:39
[SPEAKER_02]: Thanks so much for being here.
59:41
[SPEAKER_02]: See you back here next time.
59:42
[SPEAKER_01]: You've been listening to the Rick Smith show.
59:46
[SPEAKER_01]: email wreck at wreck at ricksmithshow.com.
59:54
[SPEAKER_01]: Until next time, this has been The RickSmithshow.
59:57
[SPEAKER_01]: We're working people, come to talk.