Latest / The Rick Smith Show / The Rick Smith Show 9-28-2026

Transcript

The Rick Smith Show 9-28-2026 · The Rick Smith Show

0:00
[SPEAKER_02]: It's time for the Rick Smith show.
0:05
[SPEAKER_04]: Now, here is the voice of a working class, Rick Smith.
0:13
[SPEAKER_05]: And welcome, brothers, sisters working class heroes.
0:18
[SPEAKER_05]: This is the Rick Smith show.
0:19
[SPEAKER_05]: Thanks so much for being here.
0:21
[SPEAKER_05]: Today, on the big program, I'm lots to get to.
0:23
[SPEAKER_05]: Lots to talk about.
0:24
[SPEAKER_05]: The big she Trump summits.
0:29
[SPEAKER_05]: what can i say um... it's been embarrassing to be honest and all of the white post propaganda they put out uh... this photo is the one that just makes me laugh every time i see it because trump trump don't look happy looks like a child who's about ready to throw a temper tantrum and moms in the background looking on going hey uh... i'm not happy either because i don't want to be near you and and look
0:54
[SPEAKER_05]: This whole thing with this whole state visit with China coming is it's kind of like if you ever watched a kid when his when his favorite uncle comes over to visit And he drags him through the whole house look at my room look at my leg and I was look what I made look what's on the refrigerator That's that's the feel I get from Trump on the first full day of Xi Jinping's state visit
1:17
[SPEAKER_05]: It started on the tarmac on Wednesday night.
1:21
[SPEAKER_05]: Trump did something US presidents almost never do.
1:25
[SPEAKER_05]: And that is met them at the airport at the plan, salute it him, salute it him.
1:32
[SPEAKER_05]: Then a military jet roars over because we gotta have a toys flying around.
1:36
[SPEAKER_05]: And the weird thing is, is Trump winced.
1:39
[SPEAKER_05]: All bundled up in his overcoat and gloves and all that on.
1:41
[SPEAKER_05]: It was a fairly mild day,
1:49
[SPEAKER_05]: Then came well, showin' tell.
1:51
[SPEAKER_05]: First stop the new Helipad, the one Trump calls his work of art.
1:57
[SPEAKER_05]: His big insight for the reporters, she loves good granite.
2:02
[SPEAKER_05]: Then he apologizes, that again, where are my right wingers?
2:05
[SPEAKER_05]: You know, we'll bomb our apologize.
2:07
[SPEAKER_05]: He apologizes for the ballroom not being done.
2:09
[SPEAKER_05]: Oh, it isn't finished.
2:10
[SPEAKER_05]: I wish we had it done for our date tomorrow night.
2:13
[SPEAKER_05]: I mean, our dinner tomorrow night.
2:15
[SPEAKER_05]: It's it's sad like a kid showing off his tree house that still just a pile of boards and then the the most the most ridiculous and the most embarrassing the quote unquote presidential walk of fame Evidently Trump built it after visiting Beijing's great wall of the people back in May
2:35
[SPEAKER_05]: So he comes home and he builds a shrine inspired by China.
2:41
[SPEAKER_05]: Then, then gives the Chinese president a tour of what he basically stole.
2:47
[SPEAKER_05]: And then, he points to himself, not once, but twice pointing out that he had two terms, and then he got to the Biden photo.
2:57
[SPEAKER_05]: where evidently some, I'm going to guess at his command.
3:01
[SPEAKER_05]: They swapped out Biden's portrait for a picture of an auto pet.
3:04
[SPEAKER_05]: And I know it's hysterical.
3:06
[SPEAKER_05]: It's funny.
3:08
[SPEAKER_05]: If you're using ping looking at this, you know, having Trump go through this, this is an auto pet.
3:14
[SPEAKER_05]: You know, slapping his buddy on the arm and they're laughing and having a good old time.
3:21
[SPEAKER_05]: the White House even shared a video of it with a laughing emoji.
3:24
[SPEAKER_05]: You don't think that Xi Jinping's going, what a dufist, what an embarrassment?
3:30
[SPEAKER_05]: I mean, think about it, an American president, mocking another American president to the communist dictator of another country so he would laugh.
3:39
[SPEAKER_05]: Even the National Reviews Charles Cook called the behavior, grotesque.
3:44
[SPEAKER_05]: And he's right.
3:45
[SPEAKER_05]: when you need a dictator's approval that badly we've lost and look the state dinner that went on last night the who's who of of of billionaires and then another hey let's go look at my unfinished ballroom uncle go maybe you can bounce up and down on my bed um... just an utter disgrace i don't know or else to go with it just an utter disgrace
4:15
[SPEAKER_05]: That's our, that's our guy on a hear your thoughts.
4:20
[SPEAKER_05]: Email me Rick at therixmithshow.com.
4:22
[SPEAKER_05]: Tell me what you think, back after this.
4:32
[SPEAKER_05]: I'm Rick Smith, and this is Labor History in 2.
4:35
[SPEAKER_05]: On this day in Labor History, the year was 1961.
4:39
[SPEAKER_05]: That was the day when Herbert Lee was murdered just outside of Liberty, Mississippi.
4:45
[SPEAKER_05]: He was a successful black cotton farmer who became
4:48
[SPEAKER_05]: active in efforts to register black voters.
4:51
[SPEAKER_05]: Lee had nine children.
4:52
[SPEAKER_05]: He was one of the few area black farmers with a vehicle.
4:56
[SPEAKER_05]: This made him very valuable to the voter registration movement.
5:00
[SPEAKER_05]: Lee would drive Bob Moses from the student nonviolent coordinating committee around a met county to reach unregistered voters.
5:07
[SPEAKER_05]: It was dangerous work to register black sharecroppers and farmers in rural Mississippi, attempts by black residents to gain legal or economic equality were met with threats and violence.
5:19
[SPEAKER_05]: On the morning of his murder, Lee had come to the Westbrook cotton gin just outside of Liberty to drop off a truckload of cotton.
5:27
[SPEAKER_05]: There, he was met by a childhood friend, Mississippi State Representative E. H. Hurst.
5:32
[SPEAKER_05]: Hurst came up to the truck and started shouting at Lee.
5:36
[SPEAKER_05]: Then he took out a gun and shot Herbert Lee in the head.
5:39
[SPEAKER_05]: Witnesses stated that Lee had brandished a tire iron at Hurst.
5:43
[SPEAKER_05]: Hurst claimed self-defense.
5:45
[SPEAKER_05]: A jury declared the murder was justifiable homicide.
5:49
[SPEAKER_05]: Louis Allen, a black farmer and timber worker, was one who had testified about witnessing the shooting.
5:55
[SPEAKER_05]: Later, he recanted his testimony, saying that he had lied about Lee threatening Hurst because he feared for his life.
6:02
[SPEAKER_05]: After Alan began to talk about what he actually saw that day, he became the victim of harassment and beatings.
6:09
[SPEAKER_05]: Finally, on January 31, 1964, he too was gunned down in his driveway.
6:16
[SPEAKER_05]: No one was ever convicted or even arrested for his murder.
6:20
[SPEAKER_05]: Labor history in two brought to you by the Illinois Labor History Society and the Rick Smith Show.
6:24
[SPEAKER_05]: For more information, go to laborhistoryintu.com, like us on Facebook and follow us on the Twitter's At Labor History in two.
6:35
[SPEAKER_04]: Welcome back to the Rick Smith Show.
6:36
[SPEAKER_04]: Now, here is Rick Smith.
6:42
[SPEAKER_05]: So, House Republicans had a big powwow down in Texas.
6:46
[SPEAKER_05]: That's why Alex Lawson, executive director of social security works, gathered a bunch of Texas seniors, some folks with disabilities and showed up outside a hearing held by, this is one of those things that I've just blown my mind.
7:03
[SPEAKER_05]: I guess on billionaire Harlan Crow's Dallas property, the folks returned away into the hundred degree heats, but Alex got inside.
7:14
[SPEAKER_05]: And well, this is what Alex had to say.
7:19
[SPEAKER_03]: This hearing is a far social security has nothing to do with the debt.
7:24
[SPEAKER_03]: four and a half trillion dollars in tax handouts to billionaires social security by law cannot contribute to the debt.
7:32
[SPEAKER_03]: This is a commission to cut social security, which is deeply unpopular, which is why you did not allow the public in today, and why you're setting up a closed door commission to cut social security benefits.
7:46
[SPEAKER_03]: Social security has not
7:50
[SPEAKER_03]: Social security cannot contribute to the debt is hearing as a force.
7:55
[SPEAKER_03]: We know what contributed to the debt tax handouts to billionaires.
8:00
[SPEAKER_03]: We don't need a bipartisan commission.
8:01
[SPEAKER_03]: We got a bipartisan Congress.
8:03
[SPEAKER_03]: This, this hearing as a force.
8:06
[SPEAKER_05]: This hearing is a force.
8:08
[SPEAKER_05]: And here to share some thoughts on well the hearing.
8:10
[SPEAKER_05]: And what it means for the rest of us, Alex loss an executive director of social security works.
8:15
[SPEAKER_05]: Alex, nice job, man.
8:17
[SPEAKER_05]: Oh, thank you.
8:18
[SPEAKER_05]: This hearing is a farce did not miss a beat when confronted by law enforcement because look, this you're on the righteous side of this fight protecting social security from the greedy pause of the billionaire class and our public and politicians.
8:34
[SPEAKER_05]: I got to tell you something's got to be done.
8:37
[SPEAKER_02]: So.
8:39
[SPEAKER_02]: Let me tell you just a little bit, I didn't realize the Harlan Crow angle until this really wonderful journalist Lone Star left Michelle her subsac is Lone Star left.
8:52
[SPEAKER_02]: She's the one who who caught that.
8:55
[SPEAKER_02]: I was just like surprised with let me try to paint the pictures.
9:00
[SPEAKER_02]: So what happened is.
9:01
[SPEAKER_02]: Jodi Arrington, who is the nemesis of social security, and he hates me because I always go and expose what he's trying to do, which is just to cut social security benefits.
9:13
[SPEAKER_02]: That's what he's always trying to do.
9:15
[SPEAKER_02]: So he noticed a public hearing, and that means they put it out, and by law, they have to put out a notice, and they have to give advanced notice of it.
9:27
[SPEAKER_02]: And this is all by law.
9:30
[SPEAKER_02]: They did it late, so they only had a couple days.
9:34
[SPEAKER_02]: They didn't tell all of the Democrats on the committee.
9:38
[SPEAKER_02]: This is the budget committee.
9:41
[SPEAKER_02]: And so we were scrambling and and also it was a field hearing so they didn't do it in DC, they did it in Dallas and I was like, okay, well, they're only doing this to try to hide from the American people so like it is what I think of as my job is to expose when they're trying to hide because.
10:03
[SPEAKER_02]: once they have to do things in front of the people, it's deeply unpopular to cut social security.
10:08
[SPEAKER_02]: So they are always trying to do it out of the limelight and I think of my job is bringing the light there.
10:15
[SPEAKER_02]: But so I show up and I know I'm going to do something that is going to piss off Jodi Arrington.
10:21
[SPEAKER_02]: He had me arrested in DC in his budget committee.
10:26
[SPEAKER_02]: And so
10:28
[SPEAKER_02]: I was like, I better figure out what's going on with this location where we are.
10:33
[SPEAKER_02]: And so I went over there in the morning, like 9 a.m., you know, I was just wearing a Hawaiian shirt, and this is my normal dress, and I walked in, and seriously, within seconds, this golf cart pulled up, and there's a armed private security guard, and, you know,
10:55
[SPEAKER_02]: It was former military private security, right?
11:01
[SPEAKER_02]: It was more like, there was hired military.
11:04
[SPEAKER_02]: It was definitely, and he was smart.
11:07
[SPEAKER_02]: I was like trying to give him a little bit of the run around, and he wasn't having any of it.
11:12
[SPEAKER_02]: And I was like, oh, this is actually like a serious security system.
11:16
[SPEAKER_02]: Also, they noticed me walking onto the grounds of this place,
11:20
[SPEAKER_02]: Obviously, through some cameras within seconds and drove out to get me.
11:25
[SPEAKER_02]: And so I realized that there was something that I was like, what is this place?
11:30
[SPEAKER_02]: And I'm also me, so he's like, you got to leave, and I'm like, oh, leave, I'm going to take the long way.
11:35
[SPEAKER_02]: And I walked way down in, because there was all this art that I also wanted.
11:40
[SPEAKER_02]: I was like, man, this place has got some beautiful art.
11:44
[SPEAKER_02]: So I go and look at it, there's these statues, there's a statue where a garden, and there's all these redan pieces, like very serious sculptures.
11:53
[SPEAKER_02]: And I was like, okay, well, this place is dripping with money, but I still didn't really know what it was.
12:01
[SPEAKER_02]: I go, I get my suit on, I go back, I meet our amazing activists from the Alliance for retired Americans, our partners on it.
12:13
[SPEAKER_02]: The other part, like where we were, they'd had these really gaudy ghost statues, their bronze painted like Americana stuff.
12:21
[SPEAKER_02]: But the whole place, it felt like out of like a really bad movie about like right wing, I don't know, dystopia.
12:33
[SPEAKER_02]: And it was in the back of my mind, I'm like, what is this place?
12:37
[SPEAKER_02]: And then,
12:39
[SPEAKER_02]: It's super hot.
12:40
[SPEAKER_02]: We have a lot of seniors, people with disabilities.
12:43
[SPEAKER_02]: We try to, we go at the time they told us to go and they're like, yeah, you can't come in.
12:48
[SPEAKER_02]: You've got to wait another half an hour or we win again.
12:50
[SPEAKER_02]: They're like, no, you can't come in.
12:51
[SPEAKER_02]: I'm like, we have to get our friend into the air conditioning because this is an issue.
12:57
[SPEAKER_02]: And they're like, no, you got to come back.
12:59
[SPEAKER_02]: So finally, at the start of the hearing, they come back and they're like, oh, there's space for three people.
13:05
[SPEAKER_02]: Now, mind you, we've been there for an hour in the heat.
13:08
[SPEAKER_02]: And there's another video where I'm talking to the staffers.
13:12
[SPEAKER_02]: I'm like, this is a public hearing, right?
13:16
[SPEAKER_02]: And they're like, yes.
13:16
[SPEAKER_02]: And I'm like, and you knew there were more.
13:19
[SPEAKER_02]: There's eight of us here.
13:20
[SPEAKER_02]: And you knew there were only gonna be three seats, and they kept saying,
13:24
[SPEAKER_02]: it's a very small room, it's a very small room and we keep going and because the public is so small.
13:32
[SPEAKER_02]: It's exactly, I'm like this is a public hearing and I have it all on video because I'm like there are laws that govern public hearings, right?
13:39
[SPEAKER_02]: Like the word is right there, public, we're the public, we have to have access to a public hearing
13:46
[SPEAKER_02]: And they let three of us in and they scored us down to this bunker type situation like literally and there's five armed security guards in one Dallas PD that are with me the whole time and
14:02
[SPEAKER_02]: they actually just were waiting right around me.
14:05
[SPEAKER_02]: But we enter this chamber, which you can see in the video, and it's basically a fake Congress.
14:11
[SPEAKER_02]: Like, there's a dias, there's fascist behind it, like the trappings of power.
14:16
[SPEAKER_02]: And I was like, what is this place?
14:18
[SPEAKER_02]: I didn't, I couldn't really like,
14:20
[SPEAKER_02]: figure it out although I also am like there's hundreds of people in here there's like at least 200 people in the room and there's chairs everywhere so I'm like who are these people and how did they get in like where they come from right so I'm looking around and there are there's a bunch of senators there.
14:38
[SPEAKER_02]: And there is somebody I didn't recognize.
14:40
[SPEAKER_02]: I do my piece because they start going on about how, you know, they got to cut social security.
14:48
[SPEAKER_02]: And I interrupted Leon Pinedo right as he was, he said, social security and he's about to, you know, we have to be brave and cut social security.
14:56
[SPEAKER_02]: And that's when I stood up and said that.
14:59
[SPEAKER_02]: And again, my whole thing is we just got to drag it into the sunlight.
15:04
[SPEAKER_02]: And then they'll cover from the American people.
15:07
[SPEAKER_05]: Now, they brought up, you bring up Leon Pineda, who was a Clinton guy, right?
15:13
[SPEAKER_05]: So this is a Democrat on the side of this.
15:16
[SPEAKER_05]: So there seems to be some, I'm not going to say by partisanship, but there are some sellouts there.
15:22
[SPEAKER_02]: there are some cell outs and the ones who knew about the hearing were the two Democrats who had already voted for the Commission to cut social security.
15:33
[SPEAKER_02]: So one of them being Leon Panetta's son, Jimmy Panetta.
15:38
[SPEAKER_02]: Now, it's important.
15:39
[SPEAKER_02]: Leon Panetta is the chair of the Committee for Responsible Federal Budget, which is a billionaire-funded operation to cut social security, right?
15:51
[SPEAKER_02]: but what I didn't realize until I read this Lone Star Left piece is, and it all, that's when I was like, that makes sense.
15:59
[SPEAKER_02]: This whole compound is owned by Harlan Crow, the billionaire, the guy who bought Clarence Thomas, the RV, and paid for all of, like, just straight up bought himself a Supreme Court Justice to give him all the rulings that he wanted, and then the whole thing clicked in my brain and
16:18
[SPEAKER_02]: They literally, this billionaire built himself, a fake little city, and then he's got arm security, private security, his own militia, and he built a fake Congress in there, and then real members of Congress and senators come and bow and scrape to him in his own chamber that he built.
16:40
[SPEAKER_02]: And I'm like the level of wrongness,
16:43
[SPEAKER_02]: that this is not only a public hearing where they didn't let the public in, they literally did it at the behest and in the building built by a billionaire whose whole plan is to cut our social security benefits because he's like, oh yeah, well, the long side of the curve,
17:03
[SPEAKER_02]: The interest rates that are going up, that's what we have to deal with and the only way to do that is to cut social security benefits, you know, and we're like, no, you can also just have billionaires pay.
17:15
[SPEAKER_02]: If you give the tax handouts to billionaires, that's what's that's what's driving up the deficit.
17:22
[SPEAKER_02]: Donald Trump has added more to the debt than any other president in the history of the country.
17:28
[SPEAKER_02]: And it's through tax handouts and war, right?
17:31
[SPEAKER_02]: Social security, social security can't contribute to the debt.
17:35
[SPEAKER_02]: So there's that issue on the policy, but then it's the who do these members work for.
17:42
[SPEAKER_02]: Exactly.
17:42
[SPEAKER_02]: And this was the most clear thing I've ever seen, Rick.
17:46
[SPEAKER_02]: They work for the billionaires.
17:49
[SPEAKER_02]: we were in the billionaire's house.
17:51
[SPEAKER_02]: It was filled with people who bow and scrape to the billionaires and they wouldn't let the public in.
17:57
[SPEAKER_02]: And that's the venue where they're planning to cut our social security.
18:01
[SPEAKER_02]: I mean, it's just it's so wrong.
18:03
[SPEAKER_02]: I don't have any more words for it.
18:05
[SPEAKER_05]: Well, best democracy money can buy, but you know, I start, I go back to, you know, the, you know, the, you know, the, you know, we had our Robert Barron's own towns, our, our Robert Barron's had their own, you know, their own police force their own militia, they had their own everything and they were in most places above, you know, the, the law of the land.
18:26
[SPEAKER_05]: And we're just recreating that only now and a much more bold, much more in your face kind of way, which is, which is bizarre to me because you would think that the red hats might red hat friends who who look at billionaires with with the stain as well that this would be the issue that would galvanize.
18:44
[SPEAKER_05]: some kind of unity, but it doesn't seem to be working.
18:47
[SPEAKER_05]: Or is it?
18:48
[SPEAKER_05]: Let me put it that way.
18:49
[SPEAKER_05]: Do you see that this is this is an issue that that regardless of which side of any issue you're on, that this is a uniting issue?
18:57
[SPEAKER_02]: It absolutely is, which is why they're so terrified.
19:00
[SPEAKER_02]: of the truth getting out there.
19:03
[SPEAKER_02]: So just to remind people of like where things stand in the next presidential administration, we will have to make a choice.
19:12
[SPEAKER_02]: Make billionaires pay the same rate on all of their income into social security or cut almost a quarter of everybody's social security benefits
19:21
[SPEAKER_02]: which would kill people and cause you know where the greatest recession we've ever seen if not a depression right I mean like these are the two paths and you just saw I was in the billionaires layer and that's where the members of Congress are planning and plotting right now the Republicans with some bought and paid for democrats.
19:44
[SPEAKER_02]: So I think they're the ones who are literally their plan is to cut our social security benefits.
19:51
[SPEAKER_02]: So billionaires don't have to pay the same rate that all the rest of us do on their social security.
19:57
[SPEAKER_05]: Outside of the Joe Manchins and the Leon Penettas, anyone else of note, any other Democrats of note that we were in this meeting?
20:05
[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, so Scott Peters, Jimmy Penetta, Ed Case, so like Scott Peters, you remember is also the Farma Dem who drilled the holes in Medicare Drug Press negotiation.
20:19
[SPEAKER_02]: So like these are all of the coward caucus, the worst of the worst.
20:26
[SPEAKER_02]: And I always wonder about ed case, because I'm like, Hawaii, you can do so much better, but they keep splitting the vote in the primary and he keeps getting through.
20:38
[SPEAKER_02]: But these are the Democrats who actually are, like the media will always sort of paint like, oh, well, the left of the caucus is the problem.
20:48
[SPEAKER_02]: You're like, no, it's not.
20:50
[SPEAKER_02]: No, the right of the caucus is the problem.
20:52
[SPEAKER_02]: They're the ones who work with the Republicans to block,
20:55
[SPEAKER_02]: Democrats from advancing the agenda, which is probably popular with the people.
21:00
[SPEAKER_02]: Like, who was asking for less drug prices to come down and for drug prices to come down less?
21:08
[SPEAKER_02]: Right?
21:09
[SPEAKER_02]: Who was asking for fewer drugs to be negotiated on and the drug prices to come down less?
21:15
[SPEAKER_02]: Farma, right?
21:16
[SPEAKER_02]: It wasn't the American people.
21:25
[SPEAKER_02]: We have to remember that it's not about, you know, partisan Democrat Republican, it's about who do they work for?
21:35
[SPEAKER_02]: And it is true that like on the Republican side, it seemed to a person they worked for the billionaires.
21:42
[SPEAKER_02]: You know, you may have some weird examples like massier something.
21:47
[SPEAKER_02]: On the Democratic side, we're seeing the pool of Democrats who are working
21:52
[SPEAKER_02]: for the people, you know, vociferously for the people, grow and grow and grow.
21:56
[SPEAKER_02]: But there still are some voices who, you know, under the guise of bipartisanship, under the guise of common sense, push extreme fringe ideas that only a handful of billionaires want.
22:13
[SPEAKER_05]: not lowering everyone's drug prices or cutting social security benefits, but it's always amazing that it's austerity for the working class and and welfare for the for the very wealthy.
22:23
[SPEAKER_05]: Now, you know, back in 2010, you had the what the Bull Simpson Commission did they learn a lesson from that and how that got torpedoed and maybe this is why they're doing it behind closed doors
22:40
[SPEAKER_02]: No, that was my live stream, Rick.
22:42
[SPEAKER_02]: I didn't do it in this game for so long.
22:43
[SPEAKER_02]: No, we with John Connures, we demanded that they live stream it from the inside.
22:50
[SPEAKER_02]: And they rejected that.
22:51
[SPEAKER_02]: So I stood outside the closed door commission, the bowl Simpson commission, the BS commission.
22:57
[SPEAKER_02]: And I live streamed it from my phone 16 years ago.
23:01
[SPEAKER_02]: I was live streaming a closed door until Alan Simpson who is the S in B.S.
23:10
[SPEAKER_02]: He got annoyed that I was exposing what they were doing.
23:14
[SPEAKER_02]: There was a New York Times right up.
23:16
[SPEAKER_02]: And so he came out and he was going to give me a, you know, a piece of his mind and he ended up exposing the whole thing.
23:23
[SPEAKER_02]: And he's like, yeah, we're cutting social security in there, you know, and he's just admitted it all and I just rolled tape, but they did learn from that what they learned is they needed to fast track the commission and they needed to make it a simple majority.
23:40
[SPEAKER_02]: So they needed to make it easier for a smaller group of members.
23:45
[SPEAKER_02]: to ram through something that couldn't be amended and has an upper down vote in the house in the Senate.
23:50
[SPEAKER_02]: And in the hearing that I just protested at, they're open about it.
23:57
[SPEAKER_02]: They just keep saying over and over again.
23:59
[SPEAKER_02]: Well, the best thing that you can do is give members cover.
24:02
[SPEAKER_02]: You've got to give members cover, you've got to give them cover and it's all over and over again what they're saying is you have to hide the intentions and the effects from the American people by giving members cover to do the wrong thing right they know it's deeply unpopular so they have changed the process.
24:24
[SPEAKER_02]: to be even less democratic, less accountability and then they're trying to even get that commission set up now in a hidden billionaire bunker in Texas where they don't even let the public into a public hearing.
24:44
[SPEAKER_05]: If nothing angers you, this should be it.
24:47
[SPEAKER_05]: If nothing ever angers you, this should be the thing that gets you upset.
24:52
[SPEAKER_05]: Because the reality is, it's just more greed, more obscene greed by a handful at the expense of everyone else and iron.
25:02
[SPEAKER_05]: So last question I got for you, what do we do?
25:03
[SPEAKER_05]: What's the action?
25:04
[SPEAKER_05]: Obviously, you did a great job down there.
25:07
[SPEAKER_05]: This is going to continue.
25:08
[SPEAKER_05]: It's not going away.
25:09
[SPEAKER_05]: What's the action here?
25:10
[SPEAKER_05]: What are you looking for?
25:12
[SPEAKER_02]: So we just have to make this an issue in November, right?
25:16
[SPEAKER_02]: We have everybody has to electoral powers, definitely not the end, it's not the only thing, but it's super important.
25:23
[SPEAKER_02]: And we need good Democrats to win on good platforms, right?
25:27
[SPEAKER_02]: Like we need Abdul and Michigan who's saying, people will elect a Democrat who's running on guaranteeing healthcare for everybody.
25:36
[SPEAKER_02]: And I think we are doing a good job in that.
25:42
[SPEAKER_02]: We have to immediately understand that right after that, the lame duck happens, right?
25:47
[SPEAKER_02]: That's the session of Congress where all the people who've lost their jobs still have power to make law in this window.
25:55
[SPEAKER_02]: And that's what they've been setting up.
25:57
[SPEAKER_02]: And I look at it as my job to watch this, to mind this, to expose this.
26:02
[SPEAKER_02]: So for two years, I've been doing this.
26:05
[SPEAKER_02]: And you could just Google, Jodi, Arlington, Alex Lawson, and you can see all of our
26:10
[SPEAKER_02]: And then when the lame duck happens, they'll be this thing where the media are going to be like, what's going on?
26:16
[SPEAKER_02]: Why is no one talking about this?
26:18
[SPEAKER_02]: And it is like, well, you're not talking about a corporate media.
26:21
[SPEAKER_02]: But actually, people are.
26:24
[SPEAKER_02]: And we need to be the people who are.
26:26
[SPEAKER_02]: And we need to shut down any idea that in the lame duck with these members who have no accountability to the public anymore.
26:36
[SPEAKER_02]: that they're going to ram through a fast track closed or commission to cut social security.
26:43
[SPEAKER_02]: No, I don't count a building and look for their next job.
26:47
[SPEAKER_02]: That's exactly what it is.
26:48
[SPEAKER_02]: Auditioning for their next job.
26:49
[SPEAKER_02]: So this is the moment where I really do think it's go to socialsecurityworks.org.
26:54
[SPEAKER_02]: sign a petition of ours and we will email you about the upcoming fights and the lame duck is the biggest threat.
27:03
[SPEAKER_02]: There's the two biggest threats to social security are always the lame duck and then a debt ceiling fight and they often times are, you know, it's like a one-two punch that they try to throw out.
27:14
[SPEAKER_05]: Yeah, they try to match them up.
27:17
[SPEAKER_05]: I hope folks will.
27:18
[SPEAKER_05]: This is one of those issues that I don't care what side of the eye you're on.
27:22
[SPEAKER_05]: For the working class of this country, we desperately need to save social security.
27:26
[SPEAKER_05]: Alex has always great work, amazing, amazing courage in the face of power and I appreciate you taking time for us.
27:35
[SPEAKER_02]: Thanks, Rick.
27:36
[SPEAKER_05]: our good friend Alex loss and make sure to check out their website social security works.org.
27:40
[SPEAKER_05]: Want to hear your thoughts?
27:41
[SPEAKER_05]: Is this that issue?
27:42
[SPEAKER_05]: Is this going to get you upset?
27:43
[SPEAKER_05]: Is this going to get you angry?
27:44
[SPEAKER_05]: Get you motivated?
27:45
[SPEAKER_05]: Maybe to do something?
27:47
[SPEAKER_05]: I want to hear it.
27:48
[SPEAKER_05]: Rick at therixmithshow.com right back.
28:00
[SPEAKER_05]: I'm Rick Smith, and this is Labor History in 2.
28:03
[SPEAKER_05]: On this day in Labor History, the year was 1970.
28:06
[SPEAKER_05]: That was the day 350,000 GM workers kicked off a 67 day strike.
28:12
[SPEAKER_05]: It was the largest auto strike since the end of World War II, according to historian Jefferson Cowey.
28:19
[SPEAKER_05]: It was likely the costliest.
28:20
[SPEAKER_05]: in his book, Stay In A Live.
28:22
[SPEAKER_05]: Cowey notes that the strike cost GM a billion dollars in profits and nearly bankrupted the union.
28:29
[SPEAKER_05]: But he adds, it, quote, lacked the proletarian drama that fired journalist's hearts.
28:34
[SPEAKER_05]: For Cowey, it was an example of labor management cooperation, a civilized affair, but historian Jeremy Breachier points out that the Wall Street Journal drew different conclusions about the strike at the time.
28:46
[SPEAKER_05]: In a series of articles,
28:48
[SPEAKER_05]: The paper noted that labor management cooperation during the strike served ironically to get workers back to work, a long and costly strike served a number of functions.
28:58
[SPEAKER_05]: It wore down strikers' expectations.
29:01
[SPEAKER_05]: After eight or ten weeks, workers would be amiable to terms they initially rejected.
29:06
[SPEAKER_05]: It also provided an escape valve for built-up frustration overworking conditions.
29:11
[SPEAKER_05]: And a long strike served to coalesce internal union factions around a common enemy.
29:16
[SPEAKER_05]: strengthening the Union's leadership and the process.
29:19
[SPEAKER_05]: For management, a long and costly strike let hope that workers would be reluctant to strike in the future.
29:25
[SPEAKER_05]: But breach your notes, these ideas about workers' motives nearly backfire.
29:29
[SPEAKER_05]: Strikers simply wouldn't budge on their demands.
29:33
[SPEAKER_05]: They made gains in wages, pensions, and cost of living allowances.
29:37
[SPEAKER_05]: and they were finally able to retire after 30 years.
29:41
[SPEAKER_05]: But critics argued the agreement fell short of initial demands and workers lacked more say in the workplace.
29:47
[SPEAKER_05]: This would be a key issue in the many strikes and wildcats in the years to come.
29:52
[SPEAKER_05]: For more information, go to laborhistoryn2.com like us on Facebook, follow us on Twitter at LaborHistoryn2.
30:00
[SPEAKER_00]: It's one thing for someone like me to say that the Republican Party has dived off the highboard into the abyss of political delirium.
30:09
[SPEAKER_00]: But it's another thing when the party is self-confirms its collective delirium for two whole days in a made for TV political talkathon.
30:19
[SPEAKER_00]: Their theme was, bring back Joe McCarthy.
30:22
[SPEAKER_00]: Let's not forget what a horror McCarthyism was, a 1950s dissent into totalitarian repression.
30:30
[SPEAKER_00]: Fominated by Joe, a brutish and slimy Republican senator who terrorized America for a decade with a vicious red-baiting crusade to crush liberals, unions, minorities, government employees, homosexuals, professors, and others he and his rich backers hated.
30:49
[SPEAKER_00]: Indeed, given Joe's direct parallels to today's White House, you'd think GOP strategists would not want to resurface that disgraceful chapter of their heritage.
30:59
[SPEAKER_00]: But there they were this month proudly pushing McCarthyism 2026.
31:05
[SPEAKER_00]: Not just the party's friends, but his top leaders were squalking from the podium like chicken littles that Democrats or anti-American communists.
31:14
[SPEAKER_00]: Trump himself, bellied maniacally, that, Demems even intended to destroy Mount Rushmore, quote, they want to blow it up, he squealed.
31:22
[SPEAKER_00]: A parade of top Republican officials literally shouted at the audience's maga faithful to fear of Democrats.
31:28
[SPEAKER_00]: Tim Scott, chair of the party's senatorial fundraising arm, exclaim that Democrats are fiends, who quote, hate what it means to be American.
31:37
[SPEAKER_00]: So they are coming to quote, rip that heart out of our chest.
31:43
[SPEAKER_00]: Sure, Tim, it's evil for Democrats to fight for social security, health care for all, affordable housing, voting rights, and, you know, communist stuff like that.
31:53
[SPEAKER_00]: So please, you do you, keep running your mouth, and let the people decide who's crazy.
32:12
[SPEAKER_05]: show a new piece out from the folks over at the Center for American Progress exposes how the Trump administration's planning on handing their political appointees, their patronage hires controls of about a trillion dollars in federal grants.
32:29
[SPEAKER_05]: Like RFK Jr. getting to decide what we research.
32:34
[SPEAKER_05]: Oh, look, and we've made Patriot Hires great again.
32:37
[SPEAKER_05]: So why not?
32:38
[SPEAKER_05]: Now it's time to cash in with some good nepotism, some good chroniism, and maybe some good old fashion pay for play crime and what do you say?
32:45
[SPEAKER_05]: Oh, the White House budget office rule would promote scientific peer review to just the role of advisory as I understand it.
32:55
[SPEAKER_05]: and let these political hack-up pointies cancel research it will you know we don't like what the vaccine rule says let's get rid of it gotta tell you that's bad for us and here to share some thoughts and explain why it is bad for us as Jill Rosenthal like I'm sure some thoughts she's the director of public health policy there at the Center for American Progress you can check out this article over at americanprogress.org Jill thanks for the
33:20
[SPEAKER_01]: Of course thanks for having me.
33:21
[SPEAKER_05]: So I look at this and I'm like my first reaction is well of course We're going to give political hacks the ability to pursue whatever whatever bizarre policy or bear Dead bear beaver Testicles or whatever of course we're gonna do that because this is the clown show of the trumpet administration But then I want to let my brain sit back and go.
33:44
[SPEAKER_05]: This is really bad isn't it?
33:47
[SPEAKER_01]: It's really bad it's not new in the sense that the Trump administration has been trying, you know, over the course of this administration to do this in various ways, but this is really a sweeping proposal like you said, which affected trillion dollars of federal money and that's for research and it's also for lots of kinds of services that we all rely on.
34:12
[SPEAKER_01]: So it's it's it's bad.
34:14
[SPEAKER_05]: Yeah, I saw a report.
34:15
[SPEAKER_05]: Something said that someone said that I can't verify it, it's just what I've been told and I want to get your thought on it, that the federal government has lost like 10,000 scientists and researchers who were doing things like on cancer and on, you know, the next virus and all of this stuff, we've had a massive brain drain under this administration partially because of them pulling back just for no reason a bunch of grant money.
34:40
[SPEAKER_01]: That's absolutely true.
34:41
[SPEAKER_01]: There's young scientists who, you know, are losing their funding through fellowships or through graduate programs and, you know, they're looking for where can they do good research and where can they bring their innovation and it's, you know, it's, it's a struggle here right now and, you know, this, this money that we have put into research has funded lots of innovation at funds, you know,
35:06
[SPEAKER_01]: funds drugs for heart disease and, you know, if we don't do it, someone else will, but it's it's really a threat to the health of Americans as well as the economy because that money funds a lot of research is to do really important work.
35:23
[SPEAKER_05]: So for the average person, because look, you know, there's a lot of, I hear these maha experts out there all the time.
35:28
[SPEAKER_05]: Always seven, some kind of supplement that they've clicked up, but they're experts without degrees or, they watch the YouTube video that that they did do.
35:37
[SPEAKER_05]: But they always got a supplement.
35:38
[SPEAKER_05]: There's a lot of, a lot of this,
35:40
[SPEAKER_05]: attacking expertise, attacking science, you're kind of demeaning intelligence or people who, it's their job, their life's work to work on this one thing.
35:52
[SPEAKER_05]: It seems to be, I don't know if it's just this administration or the time in history we're in, but this assault on science and knowledge is kind of frightening to me.
36:02
[SPEAKER_05]: And I think it's going to have, you know, at least a generational effect, I'm curious what your thoughts are.
36:09
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, I mean, the way that we decide now about which science is going to be funded is through panels of experts that review, you know, proposals and they determine whether the evidence, you know, meets certain standards and and that that's like a, you know, an evidence based approach to making decisions.
36:30
[SPEAKER_01]: Whereas, as you said, if the administration decides they don't like something and they decide not to fund it, then we don't have that research anymore.
36:38
[SPEAKER_01]: And part of what they're saying here is that they don't want to fund unlawful DEI.
36:46
[SPEAKER_01]: But nowhere do they define what that means?
36:48
[SPEAKER_01]: And so that could apply to something
36:56
[SPEAKER_01]: the health of black mothers and infants.
36:59
[SPEAKER_01]: And if we want to look at why there are such great disparities, we need to do the research and we need to find out.
37:04
[SPEAKER_01]: And so if we don't do that, we don't have an answer.
37:07
[SPEAKER_05]: Now, one of the things that's driven me crazy since the pandemic is people say, do your own research.
37:11
[SPEAKER_05]: I'm like, no, I'm not going to do my own research into cancer.
37:14
[SPEAKER_05]: I think I want actual doctors.
37:15
[SPEAKER_05]: I think I want actual experts to do it.
37:17
[SPEAKER_05]: But what these folks have done, these maha people have done so well.
37:22
[SPEAKER_05]: is they take one isolated thing and I think my mind goes to the cat.
37:26
[SPEAKER_05]: I've dealt with paid somebody $20,000 to watch a cat walk on a treadmill.
37:31
[SPEAKER_05]: And then when you find out it was part of something much bigger, but they take that one little kernel and blow it way out of proportion like we're paying millions of dollars over this.
37:41
[SPEAKER_05]: And,
37:42
[SPEAKER_05]: I think giving that kind of information out and just these little kernels is really been destructive and I think it's only going to get worse and I fear the innovation that we've been known for over my lifetime kind of dies away.
37:58
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, it's definitely a concern, and I think that, you know, it's good for people to ask questions and to be interested in their own care and, you know, certainly don't want to deny anybody that opportunity, but, you know, we can't all know everything.
38:15
[SPEAKER_01]: And so, you know, for me, if I want to know what's a good way to treat a certain disease, I want to go to the people that really have done that research that really know the answers.
38:26
[SPEAKER_01]: And, you know, we just need to make sure we, you know, have a system where the people that really have that knowledge can get it out to the public and so that we can all make informed decisions.
38:40
[SPEAKER_05]: Right.
38:40
[SPEAKER_05]: So the system that has been in place and is still as I understand then this moment sort of kind of maybe.
38:46
[SPEAKER_05]: As you had, you know, scientists who with their expertise, it's their area of expertise, a bunch of people, a bunch of them make decisions on how this money is spent.
38:56
[SPEAKER_05]: I think that's how you laid it out.
38:58
[SPEAKER_05]: What's it going to go to?
38:59
[SPEAKER_05]: Is this just going to be, you know, RFK Jr was driving down the road one day, found another dead bearer or beaver and decided, hey, this is something I might want to research.
39:08
[SPEAKER_05]: We're going to whip some money on a friend or maybe you might kid like some squirrels.
39:12
[SPEAKER_05]: Here's some money for squirrels.
39:17
[SPEAKER_01]: It could be so it takes the decisions out of the hands of what we call peer review panels who are scientists that are trained in a certain area and they make joint decisions together and it puts the decisions and the hands of political appointees.
39:33
[SPEAKER_01]: And their job is to make sure will be, would be, to make sure that the research or the program aligns with the bias of the administration.
39:43
[SPEAKER_01]: And what happens in a case like that is, of course, also, that the administration changes.
39:49
[SPEAKER_01]: And so what happens when the bias is changed?
39:52
[SPEAKER_01]: So as an example of that, we have people who have been in clinical trials for drugs.
39:57
[SPEAKER_01]: for certain conditions and the trials could end in the middle.
40:01
[SPEAKER_01]: So after people invest, you know, years of being in a clinical trial to try to help find cures for diseases, the trial could end without any results.
40:11
[SPEAKER_01]: So that is a huge waste of money.
40:14
[SPEAKER_01]: And, you know, waste of time for people that rely on the answers that we could be developing.
40:20
[SPEAKER_05]: Yeah, as someone who likes being alive and who wants to stay alive, I want this kind of research.
40:25
[SPEAKER_05]: Because what I know is, this planet is not very...
40:29
[SPEAKER_05]: conducive for life.
40:30
[SPEAKER_05]: It's always trying to kill us.
40:31
[SPEAKER_05]: There's always something around the corner trying to kill us and it's the the people who spend their lives Looking after what a monkey does in a tree or what this amoeba or what this thing does that a lot of times comes up with the cure or at least a Vaccine and I know my maha friends like we don't need any more vaccines.
40:49
[SPEAKER_05]: I don't know.
40:50
[SPEAKER_05]: I'm kind of pro vaccine
40:53
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, I mean, unfortunately and tragically all we have to do is look at what's happened recently with measles and you know, we shouldn't have to have families losing children I live in a place where every time I go to the I have to take my wife to her she medical center every time I go there they ask me have you been the Lancaster.
41:14
[SPEAKER_05]: because that's where the heart of the measles outbreak is.
41:17
[SPEAKER_05]: We have made, it's now, Lancaster is now, it's not only omish, it's now measles.
41:25
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, and, you know, it's really unfortunate because we know that the best most effective way to prevent measles is by having the two shots of the measles vaccine and, you know, again, this is a case where there's no problem with having doubts or having concerns and that's a time that you could go to your doctor and ask questions and the doctors can listen and help make an informed decision, but we know that those.
41:52
[SPEAKER_01]: measles vaccines work really effectively.
41:56
[SPEAKER_05]: Now, the NIH spends a lot of money on research and all kind of things.
42:02
[SPEAKER_05]: And I was reading this statistic that you're talking about like $410,000 jobs, nearly $93 billion of economic activity in 2023 is what's going on.
42:13
[SPEAKER_05]: This is a driver of jobs.
42:14
[SPEAKER_05]: It's a driver of a future
42:17
[SPEAKER_05]: If that gets canceled in a whim, all that stuff, as you've been pointing out, stops, those people are going to go somewhere else and look for somewhere else to go.
42:25
[SPEAKER_05]: And then we end up in a scenario where
42:28
[SPEAKER_05]: Um, catching up is really difficult, and from what I've been hearing, uh, there are people who are actually leaving the country who are doing this work.
42:37
[SPEAKER_05]: My concern is that, you know, we're kind of, I guess the Germany of the 1930s, you know, where, you know, the, the brains were coming to the US away from Germany, uh, I kind of get that weird feeling.
42:50
[SPEAKER_05]: Am I, or am I off-based, do you think?
42:53
[SPEAKER_01]: Well, I think it's certainly a concern for people that are losing, you know, as I said, they're losing graduate fellowships or other kinds of support to go to school and study things and yeah, it is absolutely concerned that, you know, we lose our standing in the world as a.
43:11
[SPEAKER_01]: leader in innovation.
43:13
[SPEAKER_01]: And I will also just add that we've been talking about scientific research and we've been talking mostly about health research, but this applies to all kinds of research and it's not just research.
43:25
[SPEAKER_01]: These are all federal grants.
43:26
[SPEAKER_01]: So this applies to grants for public safety, education, environmental protection, transportation.
43:33
[SPEAKER_01]: So we're we're talking about all kinds of
43:37
[SPEAKER_01]: not just health research.
43:39
[SPEAKER_05]: No, and look, we the taxpayers fund an awful lot of research.
43:43
[SPEAKER_05]: Now, there are some who believe that if we just pulled that back, you know, the private sector would most certainly pick it up, of course, right?
43:49
[SPEAKER_05]: I mean, corporations are going to pick up all the research that we have done so that they can profit from, right?
43:55
[SPEAKER_01]: I mean, if you look at the innovation that our country has been responsible for, it is predominantly funded by the federal government.
44:05
[SPEAKER_01]: So the federal government plays a huge role in supporting that development.
44:10
[SPEAKER_01]: And there are times where
44:12
[SPEAKER_01]: You know, the private sector might run with something, but they're not going to invest if they don't see, you know, a short term return on investment.
44:21
[SPEAKER_01]: So we need we need that support to come from the government because it's for the public good.
44:27
[SPEAKER_05]: So who's making this choices?
44:28
[SPEAKER_05]: Is it OMB?
44:29
[SPEAKER_05]: Is it vote over at OMB?
44:31
[SPEAKER_05]: Is this Trump coming down from him?
44:33
[SPEAKER_05]: And is this spending?
44:36
[SPEAKER_05]: I guess because I still remember eighth grade civics class.
44:40
[SPEAKER_05]: The power of the person in the house.
44:43
[SPEAKER_05]: They're the ones who decide the spending and how it's spent.
44:48
[SPEAKER_05]: does OMB have this power to just unilaterally go, you know what?
44:52
[SPEAKER_05]: Yeah, we used to do it that old fashion way, but we've got a better way.
44:56
[SPEAKER_05]: We've got a political hack who has a brother and low who needs a gig.
44:59
[SPEAKER_05]: We're going that way.
45:00
[SPEAKER_05]: Can they do that?
45:02
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, that's a great question.
45:03
[SPEAKER_01]: So, and interestingly, this is a place that there actually is by partisan opposition.
45:11
[SPEAKER_01]: in Congress because the folks that do the appropriations in Congress, they have the power of the purse and they don't necessarily look too favorably to having the administration taking those decisions away from them.
45:26
[SPEAKER_01]: So this proposed rule has been blocked temporarily, so it was put into stock gap funding bill
45:36
[SPEAKER_01]: It blocked this rule from going into a fact.
45:38
[SPEAKER_01]: So it is the office office of budget management, management budget, sorry, and it's blocked through December, but that doesn't mean it's blocked permanently.
45:47
[SPEAKER_01]: And so, you know, what we're seeing in the meantime is the Trump administration trying to find other ways to do a similar thing.
45:54
[SPEAKER_01]: So other avenues.
45:56
[SPEAKER_01]: to kind of, you know, accomplish their goals, but this is an issue that both on the Democratic side and the Republican side, senators and House members have said, no, we, you know, we oppose this.
46:12
[SPEAKER_05]: So a concrete example that I came across is I guess they cut $40 million to more than 50 NHI studies looking into whether pollution and chemicals raise risks of autism.
46:25
[SPEAKER_05]: That didn't fit RFK juniors vaccine theory.
46:28
[SPEAKER_05]: So somehow that got, we're not funding an alternative theory because it doesn't fit neatly into vaccines cause autism.
46:37
[SPEAKER_05]: This is the kind of stuff we're talking about, right?
46:40
[SPEAKER_01]: Exactly.
46:40
[SPEAKER_01]: And again, this is another example where that work was starting to come to fruition.
46:46
[SPEAKER_01]: And we were getting results.
46:48
[SPEAKER_01]: And so when you cut something like that in the middle, you're wasting all the money we already spent on it, right?
46:53
[SPEAKER_01]: And we're going backwards.
46:54
[SPEAKER_01]: And so, you know, and that's specifically because it does not align with RFK Junior's idea.
47:02
[SPEAKER_01]: That's somehow there's a link with vaccines and so we know that there are relationships between pollution and autism and we should be pursuing that to understand it so that we can protect people in the future instead of cutting the research.
47:21
[SPEAKER_01]: and deciding we're not interested for a political reason.
47:23
[SPEAKER_05]: No, again, I want to make sure I get this right because look, you have this system, peer-reviewed system, experts deciding on what's the best use of finite resources to pursue certain goals.
47:36
[SPEAKER_05]: I like that set up.
47:37
[SPEAKER_05]: I think it works.
47:39
[SPEAKER_05]: Um, and also, I also know that the taxpayers do get some bit of reward.
47:44
[SPEAKER_05]: I wish he was more.
47:46
[SPEAKER_05]: I think a Jonah Salt came up with the polio vaccine.
47:48
[SPEAKER_05]: He didn't become a gazillionaire.
47:51
[SPEAKER_05]: Um, you know, we had good health outcome.
47:53
[SPEAKER_05]: Um, I look at the COVID vaccine.
47:55
[SPEAKER_05]: Moderna Pfizer, they made bank.
47:59
[SPEAKER_05]: Most of that research done by, well, the NIH, right?
48:04
[SPEAKER_05]: I wouldn't like to see a little bit more of that money coming back to the taxpayer, but I also understand that we get a return of about 140 to 200 percent on what we spend, so it's not like this is just throwing money into the wind, right?
48:18
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, yeah, exactly.
48:20
[SPEAKER_01]: And, you know, I think that there is an issue with vaccines that, you know, if we don't put public money into an issue like vaccines, we don't end up with new vaccines to fight new diseases.
48:38
[SPEAKER_01]: So the pharmaceutical industry is not as interested in vaccines as they are in,
48:46
[SPEAKER_01]: You know, some new drug to, you know, prevent some, no, we want you to get sick.
48:51
[SPEAKER_05]: We want you to get sick so we can make money off of you being sick.
48:56
[SPEAKER_05]: And look, this is where the Mahah people kind of get me a little bit.
48:59
[SPEAKER_05]: Yeah, we want to be preventative.
49:00
[SPEAKER_05]: We want to do pros and pro-active stuff, eat healthier, do all that stuff, stay healthy.
49:05
[SPEAKER_05]: Absolutely, but I think the vaccines are part of it.
49:09
[SPEAKER_05]: Look, when I was a kid, I had all of the mom's measles, chickenpox, all of it, and it was terrible.
49:15
[SPEAKER_05]: We chose our kids not to get them.
49:18
[SPEAKER_05]: because it was terrible, because there was a vaccine, there wasn't so many back then in my day, and it wasn't as prevalent.
49:25
[SPEAKER_05]: Now we're smarter, or at least I thought we were.
49:29
[SPEAKER_01]: Well, in the fact is you look at the cost, I mean, the cost of preventing a disease versus, you know, look at measles versus the cost of having that disease if it's hospitalizations or fits, you know, losing hearing, which is another side effect of measles.
49:45
[SPEAKER_01]: You know, there's all kinds of different long-term consequences of having measles, right?
49:50
[SPEAKER_01]: And so that's certainly much more expensive than preventing in the first place.
49:55
[SPEAKER_05]: I'm going to leave you with the Aaron Rogers.
49:57
[SPEAKER_05]: The enlightened words of Pittsburgh Steelers quarterback Aaron Rogers.
50:02
[SPEAKER_05]: He has never met a person who regrets not getting the vaccine.
50:10
[SPEAKER_05]: Okay.
50:10
[SPEAKER_05]: Well, that's one opinion.
50:12
[SPEAKER_05]: because they're dead.
50:13
[SPEAKER_05]: The people who would regret it are dead.
50:15
[SPEAKER_05]: I think Herman came.
50:16
[SPEAKER_05]: I think Herman came might might regret it.
50:19
[SPEAKER_05]: But Jill, I appreciate the time.
50:21
[SPEAKER_05]: Great piece.
50:22
[SPEAKER_05]: I hope folks will take a look at it.
50:24
[SPEAKER_05]: I won't get links to that on social media on how the federal government is now politicizing how we do a lot of grant money to keep us healthy and safe.
50:32
[SPEAKER_05]: But Jill, I appreciate it.
50:33
[SPEAKER_05]: Thanks so much.
50:34
[SPEAKER_01]: Thank you so much.
50:35
[SPEAKER_01]: Take care.
50:35
[SPEAKER_05]: Jill Rose and Thal, director of public health policy there at the Center for American Progress American Progress.org website, one of your thoughts, you okay?
50:43
[SPEAKER_05]: With it, should we maybe a lottery instead, screw if you're your anti-expert, maybe just a lottery, you know, maybe you, you know, maybe a bingo ball get her thing, maybe that one of your thoughts, Rick at therixmithshow.com right back.
51:05
[SPEAKER_05]: I'm Rick Smith, and this is Labor History Inter.
51:09
[SPEAKER_05]: Can a photograph bring about social reform, Lewis Hein believed it could, and on this day in Labor History, the year was 1874.
51:17
[SPEAKER_05]: Renowned photographer Lewis Hein was born in Oshkosh, Wisconsin.
51:22
[SPEAKER_05]: Hein studied sociology at the University of Chicago, Columbia University, and New York University.
51:27
[SPEAKER_05]: He secured a job teaching.
51:29
[SPEAKER_05]: at the Ethical Culture School in New York City, high news photography in his teachings.
51:34
[SPEAKER_05]: He took his students to Ellis Island to photograph some of the thousands of immigrants who arrived each day.
51:40
[SPEAKER_05]: In five years, they had taken more than 200 photographs.
51:44
[SPEAKER_05]: Louis Hein continued to use his camera to capture the lives of the poor and working class.
51:50
[SPEAKER_05]: Hein traveled the country taking pictures of children who worked in factories.
51:54
[SPEAKER_05]: Since factory owners often refused Hein entry into their factories, he sometimes hit his camera and posed as a fire inspector.
52:01
[SPEAKER_05]: His photographs helped prod Congress to take up the problem of child labor in the United States.
52:06
[SPEAKER_05]: Hein worked for the Red Cross during World War I and on his passport,
52:10
[SPEAKER_05]: He listed himself as following the occupation of a photographer and investigator.
52:15
[SPEAKER_05]: His camera documented the war's devastating impact on French and Belgian citizens.
52:20
[SPEAKER_05]: After the war, Hein joined the campaign to establish better safety laws for American workers.
52:26
[SPEAKER_05]: In 1930 through 1931, he took photographs documenting the construction of the Empire State Building.
52:32
[SPEAKER_05]: He was later employed by the Tennessee Valley Authority to photograph the dam's construction.
52:36
[SPEAKER_05]: In addition, he took photos of the civilian conservation corps.
52:40
[SPEAKER_05]: These images remain a lasting documentation of the laborers employed by New Deal programs.
52:46
[SPEAKER_05]: Lewis Hine had difficulty earning enough money from his photography to support himself.
52:51
[SPEAKER_05]: His poverty mirrored that of the workers he had photographed.
52:54
[SPEAKER_05]: And sadly, in November of 1949, Lewis Hine died in poverty.
52:59
[SPEAKER_05]: Labor history in two brought to you by the Illinois Labor History Society and the Rick Smith Show.
53:07
[SPEAKER_04]: You're listening to the Rick Smith show, We're working people, come to talk.
53:17
[SPEAKER_05]: So the question becomes, since RFK Jr. already cut $40 million for 50 NIH studies on causes of autism from pollution to chemicals, since it was now a bunch of money laying around and we're making grants based on patronage, I thought it would be interesting to dig into some of the really important initiatives that RFK Jr. could potentially fund.
53:47
[SPEAKER_05]: like that $50 million right there could go to the National Institute for Roadkill Studies if the $50 million could find out where the rest of the raccoon was hiding.
53:58
[SPEAKER_05]: The research had been done on the side of I684, the applicants would have to bring their own pocket knives, but it's important, really important research.
54:07
[SPEAKER_05]: And then I started thinking about, well, you know, maybe the minivan marine biology fellowship, that could be something fun too.
54:15
[SPEAKER_05]: You know, to get answers to science is most burning questions like, how many bungee cords does it take to strap down a chain saw and whale head to the family car and drive for five hours?
54:26
[SPEAKER_05]: His daughter said he did it.
54:29
[SPEAKER_05]: I wonder.
54:31
[SPEAKER_05]: I think it's worth the investment.
54:34
[SPEAKER_05]: There's also the brain worm wellness initiative.
54:38
[SPEAKER_05]: A worm, as you know, eight part of RFK juniors brain, and then died.
54:43
[SPEAKER_05]: And according to his own sworn testimony, that happened.
54:48
[SPEAKER_05]: So a study on whether brain worms count as a secret source of protein, maybe, or a secret testosterone booster that could be fun.
54:57
[SPEAKER_05]: we go through the rock creek immunity project, the grandkids get the swim and and sewage and fusted water that has been banned.
55:07
[SPEAKER_05]: And if they don't get sick, grant renewed, if they do, well, it's the vaccines fault that they got sick.
55:14
[SPEAKER_05]: And if they die, they will be around to complain about not getting the vaccine.
55:17
[SPEAKER_05]: So never mind.
55:20
[SPEAKER_05]: Also, I'm about $200 million for the Wi-Fi 10 hat
55:27
[SPEAKER_05]: claims that Wi-Fi causes leaky brain.
55:31
[SPEAKER_05]: So, you know, we could wrap every router in America in aluminum foil.
55:35
[SPEAKER_05]: And, you know, Reynolds wrap would be thrilled to get that no big contract.
55:40
[SPEAKER_05]: Ah, then there's the Central Park Bear Cup, a more memorial fund, a multi-year study on the best way to dispose of roadkill in a major American city without getting caught the working title.
55:51
[SPEAKER_05]: Let's make it look like a bike accident.
55:54
[SPEAKER_05]: Let's not forget the Tylenol Tribunal.
55:58
[SPEAKER_05]: We could fund that heavily, because he's already stood next to Trump and blamed Tylenol for autism.
56:04
[SPEAKER_05]: Even though science backs none of that up, but the next grant will take, we'll take on the next suspect.
56:13
[SPEAKER_05]: So, Adville, you're in trouble next, we're coming for you.
56:18
[SPEAKER_05]: How about the raw milk randomized trial?
56:23
[SPEAKER_05]: half of the participants drink raw milk the other half drink pasteurized milk nobody gets told which is which and the half in the hospital that will be the clip because he likes raw milk and look if your body's used to it god bless you do whatever you got to do
56:46
[SPEAKER_05]: pasteurize the milk for me.
56:47
[SPEAKER_05]: It's not that it's not that big of a deal.
56:49
[SPEAKER_05]: They're not putting they're not putting chips at it.
56:52
[SPEAKER_05]: How about the great vaccine?
56:54
[SPEAKER_05]: Restuddy round 47.
56:57
[SPEAKER_05]: A scientist already answered this question so many times.
57:00
[SPEAKER_05]: But hey, it needs to be retested and retested until we get RFK juniors right answer.
57:08
[SPEAKER_05]: So peer review is replaced by one question.
57:11
[SPEAKER_05]: Does Bobby
57:13
[SPEAKER_05]: And finally, I think, I think the fast food talo institute would be a good source of some of that funding.
57:21
[SPEAKER_05]: Instead of, we don't need to research cancer.
57:25
[SPEAKER_05]: Let's find out if, you know, frying French fries in beef fat is now healthy.
57:32
[SPEAKER_05]: And as long as they do it at a Trump property, I'm okay with it.
57:37
[SPEAKER_05]: I am.
57:38
[SPEAKER_05]: Now again, the sad reality and all this, and all of this are satire for now,
57:45
[SPEAKER_05]: But what happens when you have political hacks?
57:50
[SPEAKER_05]: Someone with an ideological agenda, like RFK Jr, deciding who gets grant money to study the diseases that are trying to kill us?
58:00
[SPEAKER_05]: Because this place was given to us by God.
58:04
[SPEAKER_05]: And it's really good for us here.
58:06
[SPEAKER_05]: And this is, you may think all that, but the planet is literally trying to kill us every day.
58:12
[SPEAKER_05]: It's trying to find new germs and new viruses and new ways to make us sick.
58:17
[SPEAKER_05]: And the reason that we're living as long as we are has everything to do with science.
58:22
[SPEAKER_05]: Has a lot to do with clean water?
58:24
[SPEAKER_05]: Science brought us that.
58:26
[SPEAKER_05]: Has a lot to do with the fact that we've got antibiotics.
58:29
[SPEAKER_05]: Oh yeah.
58:31
[SPEAKER_05]: Did that come out of the toilet seat?
58:34
[SPEAKER_05]: Well, RFK Jr. was sniffing coke?
58:37
[SPEAKER_05]: No, no, no, those are scientists.
58:39
[SPEAKER_05]: Now maybe they were sniffing coke off a toilet seat, but it wasn't RFK Jr.
58:44
[SPEAKER_05]: I mean, stop and think of all the advancements that we have and understand that our government, we, the taxpayers, we funded that research.
58:54
[SPEAKER_05]: and now to have a bunch of cooks and crack pots deciding where that research money goes should scare every single one of us.
59:02
[SPEAKER_05]: And make us angry that our tax dollars are going to be wasted on the beaver penis initiative because he did, he dissected a beaver's.
59:13
[SPEAKER_05]: Yeah, what the, seriously.
59:19
[SPEAKER_05]: If you've got a good place for RFK Jr to spend our money instead of doing honest research, I want to hear it, email me Rick at theRixMithshow.com, miss any portion of the program grab the podcast, and as always, thanks so much for being here.
59:32
[SPEAKER_05]: We'll see you back in next time.
59:42
[SPEAKER_04]: You've been listening to the Rick Smith show.
59:46
[SPEAKER_04]: email wreck at wreck at the ricksmithshow.com.
59:54
[SPEAKER_04]: Until next time, this has been the ricksmithshow.
59:57
[SPEAKER_04]: We're working people coming to talk.