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The Rick Smith Show 10-13-2026 · The Rick Smith Show

0:00
[SPEAKER_03]: It's time for the Rick Smith show!
0:05
[SPEAKER_03]: Now, here is the voice of the working class, Rick Smith.
0:14
[SPEAKER_04]: And welcome, brothers, sisters working class heroes.
0:18
[SPEAKER_04]: This is the Rick Smith show.
0:20
[SPEAKER_04]: Thanks so much for being here.
0:22
[SPEAKER_04]: Today, on the big program, I'm lost to get to lots to talk about, how did an incredible weekend.
0:27
[SPEAKER_04]: Took my wife to go see a Alabama Oak Ridge Boys concert in the center of Pennsylvania.
0:34
[SPEAKER_04]: The weird thing is, went to see Alabama in the Alabama section of Pennsylvania.
0:39
[SPEAKER_04]: for those of you who get the James Carval reference, Pittsburgh on one end, Philadelphia on the other Alabama in the middle, and it was like a Trump rally.
0:46
[SPEAKER_04]: I got to be honest, was not my favorite venue to see lots of performative patriotism over the top jingoism, lots of angry, angry people.
1:00
[SPEAKER_04]: Anyway, it's bizarre to me, and it's one of these things that I've struggled with all week and going, you know, how is it to go to an event on my wife was just gleeful?
1:09
[SPEAKER_04]: Love to the event was happy, and which is the whole reason that I would put myself through that.
1:14
[SPEAKER_04]: But just loved it.
1:17
[SPEAKER_04]: For her, it was special, it was great.
1:21
[SPEAKER_04]: But everybody that we encountered seemed one bit of angry, you know, quality of, say it was about prices, say it was about, you know, the costs of park, to cost them, you know, everything.
1:31
[SPEAKER_04]: It was just crazy.
1:34
[SPEAKER_04]: And I was, it seemed again, like a Trump event.
1:42
[SPEAKER_04]: And I had a couple of conversations with people and they were very angry kind of conversations about the moment that we're in, because people are mad.
1:49
[SPEAKER_04]: People are mad about prices, people are looking for direction.
1:53
[SPEAKER_04]: And I'm not gonna put these folks down, because these are good decent, hardworking people in their lives.
2:00
[SPEAKER_04]: I think like me, it was told that life was gonna be great.
2:04
[SPEAKER_04]: And it hasn't bad.
2:06
[SPEAKER_04]: But I look at some of the stories over the weekend for instance, Donald Trump was given a spiel at one of his his shindigs said it's amazing when you stand up here.
2:15
[SPEAKER_04]: It's like, he's like, the love.
2:18
[SPEAKER_04]: He says, I can stand up here and say the stupidest things and you'd clap.
2:23
[SPEAKER_04]: It's true he says.
2:24
[SPEAKER_04]: And he's right.
2:27
[SPEAKER_04]: Because
2:31
[SPEAKER_04]: He does.
2:32
[SPEAKER_04]: He stands up there repeatedly saying that dumbest things.
2:37
[SPEAKER_04]: You know, look, look, look, look, look, look, look, look, look, look, look, look, look, look, look, look, look, look, look, look, look, look, look, look, look, look, look, look, look, look, look, look, look, look, look, look, look, look, look, look, look, look, look, look, look, look, look, look, look, look, look, look, look, look, look, look, look, look, look, look, look, look, look, look, look, look, look, look, look, look, look, look, look, look, look, look, look, look, look, look, look, look, look, look, look, look, look, look, look, look, look, look, look, look, look, look, look, look, look, look, look,
3:02
[SPEAKER_04]: But I spent some time just trying to talk with people in this crowd of which political conversations are not possible because there was some over the top.
3:13
[SPEAKER_04]: There was a flag video where everyone's we're gonna stand for the flag and it was a whole bunch of reinforcements about freedom.
3:20
[SPEAKER_04]: And you try and balance the, okay, if you have freedom,
3:27
[SPEAKER_04]: What about this?
3:28
[SPEAKER_04]: Because there was a part where they were, you know, no, we don't kneel.
3:32
[SPEAKER_04]: And you know who they were talking about.
3:34
[SPEAKER_04]: The people who weren't in the crowd, because most of the, everybody in the crowd, except for the one black girl who was working there that I saw, looked like, man, old, old white folks.
3:46
[SPEAKER_04]: That's the, that's the core audience.
3:49
[SPEAKER_04]: And it was, uh,
3:51
[SPEAKER_04]: It was an interesting sociological moment for me because I wanted to engage with folks.
3:55
[SPEAKER_04]: I was curious, you know, what brought you, you're happy about the gas prices, you're happy about what it cost the park, you're happy about the kids, you're happy about not being able to use cash.
4:06
[SPEAKER_04]: And nobody wanted to talk about what they were, what they were happy are unhappy about.
4:12
[SPEAKER_04]: No, was that the venue probably not, but they already looked angry, because we were in
4:19
[SPEAKER_04]: but already looked angry, and it's these moments where I'm wondering what it's going to take to get us back on a path where we can talk to each other and maybe also have a common direction because the reality is these are folks who love the country like I do they just think we love the country differently.
4:38
[SPEAKER_04]: uh... these are folks who work hard uh... want to have a decent life but i think it's sold a bunch of lies and and have been played as doops because remember Donald Trump said he loves the poorly educated one of your thoughts work at the rx myth show dot com
5:00
[SPEAKER_04]: I'm Rick Smith, and this is Labor History Inter.
5:03
[SPEAKER_04]: On this day in Labor History, the year was 1845.
5:07
[SPEAKER_04]: That was the day that the first industrial Congress of the United States met in New York City.
5:14
[SPEAKER_04]: People interested in the problems facing working people, including long hours, low pay, and unsafe working conditions gathered together.
5:22
[SPEAKER_04]: The Labor Movement was just beginning in this country.
5:25
[SPEAKER_04]: These were the years when the early trade unions were formed.
5:29
[SPEAKER_04]: Women played an important role in the early labor movement.
5:32
[SPEAKER_04]: Female textile mill workers in Lawrence, Massachusetts beat GAN to organize for the 10-hour day.
5:38
[SPEAKER_04]: In 1844, they established the Lowell Female Labor Reform Association.
5:43
[SPEAKER_04]: Their goal was to improve working conditions and the mills.
5:47
[SPEAKER_04]: The Lowell Women's Group sent a representative to New York for the Labor Congress.
5:52
[SPEAKER_04]: Another important development of the fledgling labor movement was the establishment of labor presses.
5:57
[SPEAKER_04]: George Henry Evans, a labor newsman, also attended the Congress.
6:02
[SPEAKER_04]: He was the editor of a series of U.S. labor papers starting with the workman's advocate in 1829.
6:08
[SPEAKER_04]: He had come to the United States from England where he had been involved in the trade labor movement.
6:13
[SPEAKER_04]: He also attended the labor congress.
6:16
[SPEAKER_04]: The meeting recommended the formation of three organizations.
6:20
[SPEAKER_04]: First, was an industrial brotherhood for workers including farmers.
6:24
[SPEAKER_04]: The second was an industrial sisterhood for women workers.
6:27
[SPEAKER_04]: The third was a group for friends.
6:29
[SPEAKER_04]: of Labor.
6:30
[SPEAKER_04]: The Congress met again in New York in 1847.
6:33
[SPEAKER_04]: Then again met in Chicago in 1850.
6:36
[SPEAKER_04]: These early efforts to establish larger labor groups did not gain much traction.
6:42
[SPEAKER_04]: But they began to lay the framework for workers to come together to discuss their challenges and imagine how they could work together to bring about change for better wages, shorter hours, and safer
7:03
[SPEAKER_03]: Welcome back to the Rick Smith show.
7:05
[SPEAKER_03]: Now, here is Rick Smith.
7:10
[SPEAKER_04]: So last week we talked about the leaked audio of Ken Pax and basically going, you know, we got, we got to do them.
7:16
[SPEAKER_04]: The common sense thing, the reasonable thing.
7:20
[SPEAKER_04]: And that's go after after after spending and when they talk about going after spending, they're not talking about stuff that they benefit from it.
7:28
[SPEAKER_04]: They're talking about stuff that we benefit from.
7:30
[SPEAKER_04]: They're talking about stuff that belongs to us.
7:33
[SPEAKER_04]: So when the belt tightening happens, it's always working people who have to tighten the belt, even though the belt is already strangling us.
7:42
[SPEAKER_04]: While they're simultaneously loosing the belt on our billionaire class, and one of the guys who's out there fighting the good fight on the Social Security front, on good front Alex Lawson, he's the executive director of Social Security Works, he's got a piece over a common dreams on this very topic, Alex, thanks for taking time for us.
7:59
[SPEAKER_02]: Rick, it's always my pleasure to be here.
8:02
[SPEAKER_04]: So last week we talked about the, uh, the, uh, the, uh, the, uh, the, uh, the, uh, uh, comments that, oh, oh, you know, it'd be reasonable, because things are bad.
8:11
[SPEAKER_04]: Nobody wants to do the hard work, uh, you know, of sticking it to the working class.
8:16
[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah.
8:17
[SPEAKER_02]: I mean, what we saw is a few things on Ken Passen, the Republican who, you know, is running in Texas, he led a child rapeist out after one day.
8:29
[SPEAKER_02]: And he looks like the type of guy who would do that.
8:34
[SPEAKER_02]: But he's not satisfied just there and, you know, we just heard this leaked audio of him laughing while talking about cutting people's social security and Medicare benefits.
8:46
[SPEAKER_02]: Right.
8:47
[SPEAKER_02]: I mean, he's laughing to a room full of billionaire lobbyist donor.
8:52
[SPEAKER_02]: The donor class lobbyists.
8:54
[SPEAKER_02]: I mean, this is a sick individual can pack's in.
8:59
[SPEAKER_02]: And on the other hand, you have James Talrico who is running on getting millionaires, billionaires, and the ultra wealthy to pay the same rate on all of their income, just like the rest of us do, just like Rick, you and I have talked about for so long, well you got Talrico saying that's what I'm going to do, and I'm going to prevent the cut.
9:21
[SPEAKER_04]: Paxton is saying I'm definitely going to get the cut across the finish line and we're seeing that in multiple states now multiple Senate races But you know you said he's a sick he's a sick individual and I don't I'm going to push back on that frame He may be a sick individual and and I'm not going to dispute that but this seems to be the Republican parties position so to this isn't a few bad apples
9:48
[SPEAKER_04]: This is the entire party who's, you know, we just need to grow, we need to do more.
9:54
[SPEAKER_04]: Look, had our wages kept up with the growth of productivity, we would have no problems.
10:00
[SPEAKER_04]: But it hasn't.
10:01
[SPEAKER_04]: So this idea, we just need to grow out of it, seems to be another BS line.
10:06
[SPEAKER_02]: It's a total BS line because it's not like they didn't grow.
10:08
[SPEAKER_02]: They grew.
10:09
[SPEAKER_02]: It's just billionaires took all the productivity, right?
10:12
[SPEAKER_02]: They didn't, it's not like the wages magically disconnected from productivity.
10:16
[SPEAKER_02]: Those policy choices made under Reagan, Thatcher, Neoliberalism, the billionaires, right?
10:22
[SPEAKER_02]: They changed policies.
10:24
[SPEAKER_02]: Um, such boring stuff that it's hard to even parse what they are, what they mean past in the dead and night in DC and what it means is that millions of people in this country are faced with poverty,
10:54
[SPEAKER_02]: they're just going to have to, you know, take that.
10:56
[SPEAKER_02]: They're going to have to suck it off and up and suck it up or his word suck it up.
11:00
[SPEAKER_02]: And then laughs, right?
11:02
[SPEAKER_02]: And you're right, though.
11:03
[SPEAKER_02]: Uh, it is a sick ideology.
11:06
[SPEAKER_02]: It's a sick movement that they've got.
11:09
[SPEAKER_02]: It's not just Ken Paxton.
11:11
[SPEAKER_02]: He is emblematic, though.
11:13
[SPEAKER_02]: He is who the Republican Party are.
11:17
[SPEAKER_02]: Um, it's a sickness.
11:19
[SPEAKER_02]: but not in a, uh, exculpatory way, right?
11:23
[SPEAKER_02]: This is in a failing way.
11:24
[SPEAKER_02]: This is in a, these are humans who are actively failing, giving in to their basis instincts, right?
11:32
[SPEAKER_02]: The things that we come together as a society to push out, right, praying on the weak and the vulnerable of
11:41
[SPEAKER_02]: to benefit the strong and the wealthiest, that is the opposite, that is a sickness, that's the bizarre world that they've got, the Republicans and the billionaires have got the American people thinking is the only path forward.
11:59
[SPEAKER_02]: But what we're seeing is that the American people aren't buying that because they know there is another path.
12:04
[SPEAKER_02]: It's really easy, right?
12:05
[SPEAKER_02]: You have Abdul al-Sayed in Michigan who also is taking Rogers on this point and he's saying no I'm just gonna I'm gonna raise the cap people should pay into social security on all of their income That's how I'm gonna stop the cuts.
12:20
[SPEAKER_02]: What's your plan?
12:21
[SPEAKER_02]: And you know what Rogers said?
12:23
[SPEAKER_04]: Right.
12:24
[SPEAKER_04]: No, I know.
12:25
[SPEAKER_04]: I'm waiting for him to say we need to make reasonable cuts and it's amazing to me because you know part of part of Pakistan's comments was just need to make reasonable cuts.
12:33
[SPEAKER_04]: We need to suck it up and when it's interesting to me that reasonable cuts to him means well us
12:41
[SPEAKER_04]: We, and I ask the question last week, who's the we you're talking about?
12:45
[SPEAKER_04]: Is it the we who's the lobbyist you're talking to in the room?
12:48
[SPEAKER_04]: Is it the we billionaires you've created?
12:51
[SPEAKER_04]: Or is it the we the working people who desperately need our social security and these the safety net to ensure that we don't well die in poverty?
13:00
[SPEAKER_02]: You're completely right.
13:02
[SPEAKER_02]: Defining who we is, that's it.
13:06
[SPEAKER_02]: If you understand that when Ashley Hinson and Iowa, again, another one who said she's proud of her vote to cut the Social Security Administration's budget and Social Security offices have closed in her house district.
13:20
[SPEAKER_02]: She's running for Senate now in Iowa and she's running on the fact that she closed the social security office in her district, right?
13:27
[SPEAKER_02]: And on the other hand, you have Josh Turich, who's running saying, no, let's just lift the cap, let's modify the cap, let's have billionaires the ultra wealthy pay in on all of their income, right?
13:39
[SPEAKER_02]: That is what they are doing there is defining who do they work for.
13:46
[SPEAKER_02]: Ashley Henson, Ken Paxton, Mike Rogers, they work for the billionaires, right?
13:52
[SPEAKER_02]: What we're seeing and it gives me, you know, I enjoy watching the Democrats actually come into their own and really get their feelings into, they're like, man, social security, and I'm not saying all of them,
14:07
[SPEAKER_02]: are like they have just learned this, but it is every cycle around October.
14:13
[SPEAKER_02]: You start seeing Democrats being like, hey, you know what?
14:17
[SPEAKER_02]: We should de hammer the Republicans on social security because it's really, really powerful.
14:23
[SPEAKER_02]: turns out a 90 10 issue like social security is really easy to wield when you're totally on the right side of it.
14:32
[SPEAKER_02]: And so all Democrats have to do is ignore any consultant who's like actually say everything has to be on the table.
14:40
[SPEAKER_02]: Like no, man.
14:41
[SPEAKER_02]: say billionaires got to pay the same rate just like the rest of us, we're going to expand benefits, attack the Republicans on social security and watch them scurry because they know everything that they have, all the cards that they won't show the people that they have to play are literal cuts.
15:04
[SPEAKER_02]: stealing our money in a variety of terms, but they all mean the same thing, reaching their hands into our pockets and stealing our earned benefits.
15:14
[SPEAKER_04]: Yeah, because it's reasonable, of course.
15:16
[SPEAKER_04]: It's reasonable, reasonable, reasonable, reasonable, larceny from us, right?
15:20
[SPEAKER_04]: Yeah, no.
15:22
[SPEAKER_04]: I do want to play the clip, but so the people can hear the audio.
15:25
[SPEAKER_04]: This is Ken Paxton with his lobbyist groups talking to a lobbyist group.
15:29
[SPEAKER_05]: We've been growing out of this as part of the solution.
15:33
[SPEAKER_05]: Thank you, some reasonable cuts in my interest that you didn't have to do it or we were going to be there is no solution that's just a real We have to suck it up and we put you from Vulcan presence to deliver equipment.
15:45
[SPEAKER_05]: We've been spending like crazy and no one seems to care It's going to be appropriate
15:54
[SPEAKER_00]: I would really like to pay my fair share of taxes, which is less than I'm paying for that.
16:01
[SPEAKER_00]: I'm going to give you something to keep it down.
16:04
[SPEAKER_05]: I'm for it.
16:04
[SPEAKER_05]: I think tax cuts will actually generate more benefits.
16:08
[SPEAKER_04]: Yeah, yeah.
16:10
[SPEAKER_04]: I'm paying too much already.
16:12
[SPEAKER_04]: No, and there are a couple of things that I want to get to.
16:14
[SPEAKER_04]: One there is that frame that I'll pay my fair share.
16:17
[SPEAKER_04]: I'm already paying too much.
16:18
[SPEAKER_04]: This idea that the billionaires are paying all the taxes and the other one is.
16:22
[SPEAKER_04]: And I can't believe we're still someone still saying it.
16:26
[SPEAKER_04]: Let alone anyone would believe it.
16:28
[SPEAKER_04]: I'm sorry, tax cuts.
16:30
[SPEAKER_04]: Never, especially tax cuts for billionaires never seem to increase revenue.
16:34
[SPEAKER_04]: There is no way you get the head of your cake and eat it to, it just doesn't, it hasn't worked.
16:41
[SPEAKER_02]: It never will work either, and they know it, right?
16:44
[SPEAKER_02]: These are just the comfortable lies that they have to tell.
16:47
[SPEAKER_02]: We've talked about it before on your show, right?
16:49
[SPEAKER_02]: As long as everyone is in on the joke slash, you know, they call it a frame, a messaging frame, right?
16:58
[SPEAKER_02]: As long as they repeat these magical words,
17:02
[SPEAKER_02]: and everyone does it, then they get away with it right up until they don't, right?
17:08
[SPEAKER_02]: Everything's gonna be fine right up until it breaks and it can't keep going while private equity billionaires are just looting everything from within and that's where we are.
17:21
[SPEAKER_02]: I've said it before that like we are at the terminal, the terminal, and
17:26
[SPEAKER_02]: of the neoliberal experiment, they have busted it out and extracted everything they can, every good paying job, everything they can, just yanked it out of the economy, put it into offshore bank accounts, and you know, are planning to party for the end of the world.
17:43
[SPEAKER_02]: That is the deep sickness.
17:46
[SPEAKER_02]: that we're up against and but working people we we have a plan to I personally believe in the future right I don't think the world ends when I do and that is one of the pieces of my faith that keeps me going is I understand I have to make the world a better place for my children and my future grandchildren right I want to understand that I did my part I wasn't just a parasite
18:12
[SPEAKER_02]: on this world, who believe that I was so important that when I and the world ends.
18:18
[SPEAKER_02]: And if you look into it, that's at the root.
18:20
[SPEAKER_02]: It's this billionaire barbarism driven by nihilism.
18:25
[SPEAKER_02]: And it's just, it's at the root of so much of what we're up against is these people do not believe in the future.
18:33
[SPEAKER_02]: Right, so Donald Trump, I've seen reporting of him saying this and think of how terrifying that is a guy who can literally destroy the world doesn't think things matter after he dies, right, he's like, well, whatever that is we have to look at that and understand that that's what we're up against.
18:52
[SPEAKER_04]: No, look, I want to leave something worth inheriting to my children when I'm gone.
18:56
[SPEAKER_04]: And it seems, it seems like, well, the hooray for me now, the one who dies with the most toys wins crowd.
19:03
[SPEAKER_04]: They seem to be, they seem to be the ones benefiting.
19:07
[SPEAKER_04]: I got to get your thoughts on something else that came out last week.
19:20
[SPEAKER_04]: Well, I'm not saying more.
19:22
[SPEAKER_04]: Well, I guess, yeah, I said we're going to live stream the execution of the Ford Hood shooter.
19:31
[SPEAKER_04]: I said last week, I'm opposed to state sponsored murder.
19:35
[SPEAKER_04]: But I got to be honest, this is the kind of the private that I would expect from these folks.
19:40
[SPEAKER_04]: And there's part of me that says, maybe we need to see this.
19:43
[SPEAKER_04]: to maybe, to eventually we look in the mirror and realize that we're not that much better than I ran or Afghanistan.
19:52
[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, I mean, what they're doing, this is just, so.
19:56
[SPEAKER_02]: The point of what I was saying with this billionaire barbarism, this nihilism, this we don't believe in anything but ourselves, is also authoritarianism, right?
20:06
[SPEAKER_02]: It's just power.
20:08
[SPEAKER_02]: And yeah, they're going to obviously execute somebody who does not generate good will when people here, right?
20:18
[SPEAKER_02]: When they're like, oh, well, I'm not going to say that there's something too bad for that guy, but they're going to do it publicly.
20:25
[SPEAKER_02]: And in the molas, in Iran, what they do is they hang people from cranes in the court square so that everybody has to see it.
20:34
[SPEAKER_02]: And then the US condemns that and is like, look at that barbarity.
20:39
[SPEAKER_02]: That's what live streaming and execution is.
20:42
[SPEAKER_02]: That's the same thing, right?
20:45
[SPEAKER_02]: It's gonna start with this guy, but once you are allowing the legal, the legal,
20:54
[SPEAKER_02]: broadcasting of a person's execution by the state, where does that end?
21:02
[SPEAKER_02]: Because it's only purpose is to generate fear or and hate through the masses.
21:12
[SPEAKER_02]: That is a very, very sick
21:15
[SPEAKER_02]: and twisted thing, right?
21:18
[SPEAKER_02]: It's deeply un-American.
21:20
[SPEAKER_02]: And they're trying to do all of these things as fast as possible.
21:25
[SPEAKER_02]: Also trying to get the American bloody up the American people, right?
21:28
[SPEAKER_02]: Make the American people complicit in the ugly that they're doing.
21:32
[SPEAKER_02]: So that the American people can't then say, oh, it wasn't me.
21:37
[SPEAKER_02]: And, you know, that if...
21:40
[SPEAKER_02]: we, the people don't stand up against all of this stuff, we won't have a leg to stand on and say that wasn't me, that doesn't reflect our values.
21:51
[SPEAKER_02]: If we're not fighting for our values, then you don't have much room to say that this doesn't represent or anything that the administration is doing.
22:02
[SPEAKER_02]: But the callousness is the purpose, and I know you know that, Rick, right?
22:05
[SPEAKER_02]: It was a lack
22:08
[SPEAKER_02]: for a human life is the purpose, it's to devalue life so that when you look at the tens of thousands of people who will die from Medicaid cuts the seniors who will die if a quarter of their benefits goes away it's so that people's hearts are too hard to care about that.
22:30
[SPEAKER_02]: It's all part of a dehumanization and especially to rip community apart, to rip a shared identity and values in this country to pieces.
22:43
[SPEAKER_04]: Yeah, I used to say the one thing we wouldn't do in this country is allow people to die on the street corner in front of us.
22:49
[SPEAKER_04]: I'm not so sure where that society that I thought we were.
22:52
[SPEAKER_04]: And I had to look up the last time we had a public execution.
22:56
[SPEAKER_04]: in the country.
22:57
[SPEAKER_04]: And what I found was 1936 was the last public execution that hung a black guy and Kentucky 20,000 people watched.
23:06
[SPEAKER_04]: And and this is where there's the I want to have hope in humanity because in Kentucky in 1936 it was viewed as something so ugly that they banned it in the state two years later.
23:17
[SPEAKER_04]: So there's this part of me that goes maybe maybe we have to
23:22
[SPEAKER_04]: I say this about everything.
23:24
[SPEAKER_04]: I don't think we're smart enough to save ourselves from from the collapse.
23:28
[SPEAKER_04]: Maybe we have to hit rock bottom before we do an honest assessment of ourselves.
23:33
[SPEAKER_04]: I don't know.
23:34
[SPEAKER_02]: I mean, I think that hopefully it doesn't have to be rock bottom because what does that even mean in a nuclear armed world.
23:43
[SPEAKER_02]: But.
23:45
[SPEAKER_02]: I think that it is, we're in the midst of great adversity, but it's from these times, the hard time, solidarity grows, you know, social security was born of the depths of the great depression, not from the rosy times.
23:59
[SPEAKER_02]: And I'm looking around.
24:01
[SPEAKER_02]: and October 17th is coming up the next no kings and I'm still seeing the American people saying no.
24:08
[SPEAKER_02]: So we have gotten pretty far down and it is not over because you got two more years of Trump and a lot of the cuts aren't coming in until after the midterms, but already they're trying to rip apart the fabric of our nation and the American people are standing up and saying no.
24:25
[SPEAKER_02]: It's just the question of are we going to be organized and loud enough?
24:29
[SPEAKER_02]: to to push through and win the day and get people out the vote on November 3rd.
24:35
[SPEAKER_04]: But I find all this funny ironic or sad however you want to frame that is that the people who are doing this are the people who tell us how how Christian they are, how much they love them some Jesus.
24:46
[SPEAKER_04]: And yet I'm not sure Jesus would be in favor of of streaming his his crucifixion.
24:53
[SPEAKER_02]: I mean, I also though if when you read Jesus, he makes it pretty clear that those are the people to be most wary of, you know, if they're playing trumpets in front of them, so everyone looks at their faith, you know, go pray in your closet.
25:10
[SPEAKER_02]: That is a part of it, right?
25:12
[SPEAKER_02]: Like, I don't want
25:14
[SPEAKER_02]: spend too much time casting aspersions on people's faith.
25:18
[SPEAKER_02]: I will say that the contradiction between the story of Jesus and what these purported Christians are proposing and doing, I mean you couldn't be at greater odds, right?
25:34
[SPEAKER_04]: Not casting dispersions.
25:35
[SPEAKER_04]: I'm not going there.
25:37
[SPEAKER_04]: I know.
25:37
[SPEAKER_04]: I'm simply going by not what you say, but what what you do.
25:40
[SPEAKER_02]: But what you do.
25:41
[SPEAKER_02]: I'm not either.
25:42
[SPEAKER_02]: I'm agreeing with you on no aspersions.
25:45
[SPEAKER_02]: And the people who are crowing like this are those who are most at odds with, right?
25:51
[SPEAKER_02]: I mean, the story of Jesus is pretty clear.
25:55
[SPEAKER_02]: And in the characters you're like, well, Caesar is one of them.
25:59
[SPEAKER_02]: Rome is one of them.
26:01
[SPEAKER_02]: The imperial state of violence is one of them.
26:05
[SPEAKER_02]: And if you're looking at the policies that are being put into place right now, you definitely see much more Rome.
26:13
[SPEAKER_02]: that anything else, right, a live streaming of an execution is the modern equivalent of a crucifixion.
26:22
[SPEAKER_02]: In fact, that was the point of a crucifixion.
26:24
[SPEAKER_02]: It was to have a public execution that was to keep everyone else in line.
26:32
[SPEAKER_02]: And so I want to just say the cruelty is the point, you know, like we say that all the time it might not.
26:39
[SPEAKER_02]: hit.
26:40
[SPEAKER_02]: But if you just pause on it and really think about what it means, that is what's going on.
26:46
[SPEAKER_02]: There's probably saying, like, oh, yeah, we were just joking.
26:49
[SPEAKER_02]: You guys were overreacting.
26:50
[SPEAKER_02]: It's just to own the, that's what authoritarians do, right?
26:54
[SPEAKER_02]: They're never just saying, they're testing what they can get away with.
26:59
[SPEAKER_02]: And so we have to condemn and say no as loudly and forcefully as possible.
27:05
[SPEAKER_02]: and use everything we've got in our disposal, especially the elections that are coming up, take power away from these wannabe despots.
27:14
[SPEAKER_02]: And it's not all that we have to do, but it's definitely one of the things that we have to do.
27:20
[SPEAKER_04]: Hey, man.
27:20
[SPEAKER_04]: I'll find a no Kings rally on October 17th and make the plan to vote on November 3rd.
27:26
[SPEAKER_04]: Alex, I appreciate the time as always, great stuff.
27:29
[SPEAKER_04]: Keep up the fight.
27:31
[SPEAKER_04]: Thanks, Ray.
27:32
[SPEAKER_04]: are good friend Alex loss and executive director of social security work.
27:34
[SPEAKER_04]: Check out the website social security works dot org.
27:38
[SPEAKER_04]: Also check out his piece over at common dreams on on Paxon's comments.
27:42
[SPEAKER_04]: Want to hear your thoughts?
27:45
[SPEAKER_04]: Were they joking about cutting social security?
27:47
[SPEAKER_04]: Were they joking about you having to tighten the belt a little bit?
27:51
[SPEAKER_04]: Want to hear your thoughts?
27:52
[SPEAKER_04]: Rick at therixmithshow.com right back.
28:00
[SPEAKER_04]: I'm Rick Smith, and this is Labor History in 2.
28:03
[SPEAKER_03]: On this day in Labor History, the year was 1899.
28:07
[SPEAKER_04]: That was the day Union Miners in Mount Olive, Illinois, began commemorating Miners Day.
28:13
[SPEAKER_04]: Every year, thousands came into town for a parade, music, and speeches.
28:17
[SPEAKER_04]: Mount Olive was the site of the only Union owned cemetery in the United States, established by UMWA, local 728, in the aftermath of the Verdin Massacre.
28:27
[SPEAKER_04]: A year before to the day, striking miners had been killed in a shootout with company Goons, attempting to herd scabs into the mines in Verdin, Illinois.
28:36
[SPEAKER_04]: But, as Mother Jones biographer Elliott Gorn notes, the train never unloaded its cargo and the company was forced to settle.
28:43
[SPEAKER_04]: The Union hoped to erect a grave site monument commemorating those minors who had been killed at Verdin, but they were refused by those who considered the fallen minors to be murderers and not martyrs.
28:55
[SPEAKER_04]: That's when the United Mine Workers established the Union Minors Cemetery.
28:59
[SPEAKER_04]: And on this day, 10,000 turned out for the Union's memorial ceremony.
29:04
[SPEAKER_04]: The United Mine Workers unveiled a monument dedicated to the Fallen Verdin miners, E.W.
29:09
[SPEAKER_04]: Smith, Joe Gitterly, Ernest Cramer and E.F. Long.
29:13
[SPEAKER_04]: The day was filled with parades, music, laying of reefs and speeches.
29:17
[SPEAKER_04]: Hey Market Widow, and Radical Activist Lucy Parsons was among the speakers.
29:22
[SPEAKER_04]: In his book, Death and Dying in the Working Class, Michael Ross now notes that per presence drew a direct connection between the Fallen miners and the Hey Market Marters.
29:32
[SPEAKER_04]: down while advancing the cause of labor.
29:35
[SPEAKER_04]: Thousands traveled to Mount Olive every year for celebrations, including Eugene V. Debs, miners leader John Mitchell and Mother Jones.
29:44
[SPEAKER_04]: In 1923, Mother Jones asked to be buried with her boys.
29:48
[SPEAKER_04]: Noting, they are responsible for Illinois being the best organized labor state in America.
29:54
[SPEAKER_04]: Labor history in too brought to you by the Illinois Labor History Society and the Rick Smith Show.
30:00
[SPEAKER_06]: When corporations try to bamboozle less commoners, they fire three levels of deceit at us.
30:06
[SPEAKER_06]: First comes their basic lies, then they escalate to damn lies.
30:11
[SPEAKER_06]: And finally, they resort to their nuclear option APR campaign.
30:16
[SPEAKER_06]: The high-tech profiteers of artificial intelligence are now going nuclear.
30:20
[SPEAKER_06]: Grassroots Americans did not swallow Silicon Valley's opening deceit that AI data centers would be a bonanza for local communities.
30:29
[SPEAKER_06]: And when the billionaires escalated their land, water, and power grab by assaling the opponents as luttites,
30:35
[SPEAKER_06]: People of all political stripes erupted in open rebellion against the self-serving arrogance of Musk, Bezos, Zuckerberg, and other toned-f-a-i-i-order crats.
30:46
[SPEAKER_06]: So now comes their PR on slot.
30:49
[SPEAKER_06]: A-i's money powers desperate to control government policy, the media message and public debate, are now dumping untold billions into mass market propaganda, portraying a-i-i somewhere between
31:05
[SPEAKER_06]: Multi-trillion dollar tech July 5th Google, for example, is producing movies and streaming a series of macro dramas, depicting AI as a source of loving comfort and human connection in an alien future.
31:18
[SPEAKER_06]: And gosh, not only do their novellas tell sweet tales of artificial love as though it's real, but Google allows viewers to, quote, interact with the AI characters.
31:29
[SPEAKER_06]: This is Jim Heiter saying, Google is my straws of deceit, assure us that the intent of their recent rush of movies about AI is merely to tell the story about this dazzling technology authentically.
31:42
[SPEAKER_06]: Authentic?
31:43
[SPEAKER_06]: I was born at night, but not last night.
31:45
[SPEAKER_06]: A trillion dollar profiteering behemoth, peddling the AI robotic future is hardly to be trusted as an unbiased source.
31:53
[SPEAKER_06]: Google's movies are pure PR propaganda,
31:57
[SPEAKER_06]: It's only profit-taring ski.
32:10
[SPEAKER_04]: Look at that, what a fun weekend.
32:11
[SPEAKER_04]: Well, a fun weekend of crazy, the stories, the insanity and the White House.
32:17
[SPEAKER_04]: You know, while Rome is burning, we might as well enjoy the fun.
32:22
[SPEAKER_04]: In fact, you know, my son goes to me, he goes, you know, at some point, Dad, you're just gonna lose your mind over the fact that Trump wants to do all this crazy stuff, because I brought up the fact that, evidently, it's gonna be the Trump Ocean now.
32:34
[SPEAKER_04]: Maybe the Atlantic, maybe the Pacific, maybe once it's gonna be the Trump Ocean, maybe once it's gonna be the ocean of America,
32:39
[SPEAKER_04]: because it's just all about throwing stupid stuff out to stupid people, so that, well, they, they cheer you, they're all good, we're Mark.
32:49
[SPEAKER_04]: Wow, here to share some thoughts.
32:51
[SPEAKER_04]: I'm the fun and the entertainment of the weekend.
32:53
[SPEAKER_04]: I've asked our good friend Sarah Burst to come share some thoughts.
32:56
[SPEAKER_04]: She's seen your editor over there at alternat alternat.org, the website, Sarah, thanks for taking time for us.
33:02
[SPEAKER_04]: Hey Rick how are you so fun fun stuff.
33:05
[SPEAKER_04]: We're we're making executions great again.
33:08
[SPEAKER_04]: Haven't done that since 1936 public executions haven't had once it's 1936 where we hung a black guy in from a 20,000 white people.
33:17
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, I just it's gross.
33:22
[SPEAKER_01]: It makes me uncomfortable.
33:25
[SPEAKER_01]: I would suffer through it if it was a politician, but
33:29
[SPEAKER_01]: it's an actual, you know, human beings.
33:31
[SPEAKER_01]: So that's the part that's hard.
33:34
[SPEAKER_04]: I'm at the point where, you know, we, we have to, I've been saying this for a long time.
33:37
[SPEAKER_04]: We've got to hit rock bottom.
33:39
[SPEAKER_04]: I don't even think that's going to be our rock bottom, but the thing is, is we no longer, once you do this, once you do this kind of, of visual, this kind of promotion, this kind of, hey, we need ratings.
33:51
[SPEAKER_04]: and we're a blood loss society.
33:53
[SPEAKER_04]: We no longer get the moral high ground.
33:54
[SPEAKER_04]: It's now shut the blank up about your your religiosity and your moral compass.
34:00
[SPEAKER_04]: We've now we're no better than then some of the other places.
34:05
[SPEAKER_01]: It would be funny too, is that you've got these.
34:07
[SPEAKER_01]: It's like
34:08
[SPEAKER_01]: All of Texas is having this whole fight about Sharia law and you're just like, wow guys, I don't need just basically going to hit somebody with a brick and talk and look, I've been saying, you know, Christian Sharia law is already here.
34:21
[SPEAKER_04]: You listen to these evangelicals and they they would be thrilled if they could have that kind of power.
34:27
[SPEAKER_04]: But yeah, it's all back.
34:30
[SPEAKER_04]: I'm not going to watch it, but I know some will and I know some will be gleeful over it.
34:35
[SPEAKER_04]: Now, the White House, evidently some turmoil, some anger, some angers, some angst, or it's being reported.
34:43
[SPEAKER_04]: I don't know that I believe any of it because I don't think Trump really cares about anything, but I guess he's quote unquote, I rate extremely I rate about his daughter-in-law or ex-p-
35:00
[SPEAKER_04]: Oh, what'd she do?
35:01
[SPEAKER_04]: And why is he up?
35:01
[SPEAKER_01]: So Kim, Kimberly Gillfoil was basically trying to grift like everybody else in the Trump administration is trying to grift, including Trump himself.
35:15
[SPEAKER_01]: And her big thing is that before she was
35:18
[SPEAKER_01]: Before she had her hearing for her ambassador post, she was begging this big donor in Kentucky to pay off her American Express bill, which apparently was like $100,000.
35:30
[SPEAKER_01]: That's like dang girl.
35:33
[SPEAKER_01]: I need a rich donor to pay off my $2,000 American Express bill.
35:37
[SPEAKER_04]: Well, how do you get it?
35:38
[SPEAKER_04]: How do you get $100,000 American Express bill?
35:40
[SPEAKER_04]: I mean, don't they make you pay it every month?
35:42
[SPEAKER_04]: I mean, I've had one for 20 years.
35:44
[SPEAKER_04]: I've never run a balance.
35:46
[SPEAKER_04]: I've always paid it off at the end of the month.
35:47
[SPEAKER_04]: I don't know what happens if you don't.
35:51
[SPEAKER_01]: I don't either.
35:52
[SPEAKER_01]: I'm not sure how.
35:54
[SPEAKER_01]: I don't know what she did, I wonder too, if this was before, after she broke up with Don Jr. and she just had to move her stuff out really quickly.
36:04
[SPEAKER_01]: I don't really know, but I get this idea of, oh crap, I've got to do, get my financial house in order the day before I go down to fight a Congress.
36:15
[SPEAKER_04]: Yeah, I need a sugar daddy to pay my bills.
36:17
[SPEAKER_01]: I got it, yeah, yeah.
36:20
[SPEAKER_04]: And dumbed you, isn't that?
36:23
[SPEAKER_01]: But the big thing is that Trump is really against this idea of other people profiting off of his name.
36:30
[SPEAKER_01]: He loves profiting off of his own name, but if somebody else is using his name to profit and he's not getting a cut of it, he gets really mad.
36:40
[SPEAKER_01]: And this is the same kind of thing that happened with some of his aids that were over in Bosnian
36:49
[SPEAKER_01]: that self-governed and they had this big, like, nationalist party that was trying to win an election.
36:55
[SPEAKER_01]: And these two guys who worked for Trump were basically helping the nationalist party to power.
37:01
[SPEAKER_01]: And, and we're doing it because they worked for Donald Trump.
37:06
[SPEAKER_01]: And so these, you know, they got paid like a couple hundred thousand dollars or whatever a piece.
37:12
[SPEAKER_01]: And Trump's really mad about it because it's like, again, like, people are making money.
37:18
[SPEAKER_01]: But it's like, it's been, this is a tail as old as time, like quarry, Lewandowski, and, and Christy Noom, and, um, scare moochy, and, uh, Steve Bannon, like all of these people have been using their,
37:37
[SPEAKER_01]: You know, their their relationship with on on Trump to propel them into something.
37:43
[SPEAKER_01]: So I don't understand like why this is some big new thing for him.
37:48
[SPEAKER_01]: But apparently it's just triggering.
37:53
[SPEAKER_01]: So they're talking about maybe she's going to get fired.
37:55
[SPEAKER_01]: Like that's how hacked off he is about it.
37:57
[SPEAKER_04]: Wow, that's something considering the fact that I didn't think anybody got fired over there for, for, for, for, for crime.
38:04
[SPEAKER_04]: Well, I think I was the point.
38:06
[SPEAKER_01]: I thought the whole reason that they shipped her off over there was because she knew too much about the family and knew too much about Don Jr and they were just like, please just go away to a place that
38:16
[SPEAKER_04]: You're nowhere near.
38:17
[SPEAKER_04]: It's nobody pays attention to.
38:18
[SPEAKER_04]: Yeah.
38:19
[SPEAKER_04]: Yeah.
38:20
[SPEAKER_04]: Now, the thing is, you know, all of this stuff at some point has got to come back around and I, you know, there are some experts who are predicting that when Democrats take power, the, you know, impeachment might be on the table, and then you'll look some of the, the people in the administration might be might be going.
38:37
[SPEAKER_04]: So, you know, maybe her, maybe, you know, some of the others?
38:41
[SPEAKER_01]: Well, it's kind of this weird debate between people who want to impeach Donald Trump versus the folks who want to take kind of it indirect route to it.
38:50
[SPEAKER_01]: They've been calling it the Republican route because what Republicans did during the Biden administration is they went after Biden's cabinet members and tried to impeach them.
39:02
[SPEAKER_01]: and it wasn't successful for them, like it never really turned into anything.
39:06
[SPEAKER_01]: So there's kind of this debate of, all right.
39:08
[SPEAKER_01]: So do we first go into investigate every single department and all of the things that they've done and work on impeachment for them?
39:19
[SPEAKER_01]: Or do we just start with Donald Trump?
39:21
[SPEAKER_01]: And I mean, I get it, I get the indecision of it because it's like we've been through this before,
39:29
[SPEAKER_01]: And it's, it's a lot easier to get people to, to sell the idea of impeaching Pete Higgs-Seth, or Russell Vaughn, or, you know, folks like that.
39:42
[SPEAKER_04]: Like, it's, it's, yeah.
39:43
[SPEAKER_04]: No, because no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no
39:54
[SPEAKER_04]: And I think Carval talked about this as well, you know, but what do you do when the crimes just keep adding up?
39:59
[SPEAKER_04]: And the, you know, it's high crimes, Mr. Meeter's felonies.
40:03
[SPEAKER_04]: They're just mean so numerous that you at some point can't turn a blind eye.
40:08
[SPEAKER_04]: And I'm, I'm in that weird spot because I think Democrats have to get some stuff done.
40:12
[SPEAKER_04]: I think they have to have a message on how they're going to lead.
40:16
[SPEAKER_04]: But I don't know that you can also go, yeah, we're going to, we're going to let all the
40:21
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah.
40:22
[SPEAKER_01]: And I think that was one of the major things that I feel like Democrats got really hacked off about with the Biden administration is all of that took a really, really long time.
40:30
[SPEAKER_01]: And Biden had this kind of attitude of, you know, we're going to look forward.
40:35
[SPEAKER_01]: We're not we're not looking back.
40:37
[SPEAKER_01]: And so he as a president was just moving forward with his agenda while, you know, special counsel and everybody else was doing the legal part of the DOJ.
40:47
[SPEAKER_01]: for for this piece of it like particularly with Hague Seth what I think I mean if it was being if I was by some miracle senator I mean I would really try and push trump toward this idea of look you have you're you're destroying your entire name and legacy with this Iran war
41:07
[SPEAKER_01]: Why not just throw pedags out under the bus?
41:10
[SPEAKER_04]: That's the room right on the floor.
41:11
[SPEAKER_01]: Make this, make this all about him.
41:14
[SPEAKER_01]: Let us do a huge impeachment of him and just, you know, and have everybody put his name on this and then you're kind of getting off of this whole thing.
41:23
[SPEAKER_04]: Yeah, I gotta say, and Republicans are smarter than we think they are sometimes.
41:28
[SPEAKER_04]: I gotta think that conversation's already been happy.
41:31
[SPEAKER_01]: Well, I think for sure, somebody's had that conversation with them or they're like, you know, sir.
41:37
[SPEAKER_01]: We had a we got to find some native lane for this and it kind of seemed for a while early on like maybe that was a piece of it.
41:44
[SPEAKER_01]: I know too like I think it was this week or last week, peak to excess started firing a whole bunch of generals and a bunch of really high military officials.
41:54
[SPEAKER_01]: I can just see the hearing right now right like completely uniformed out military officers on a bank of TV cameras are going to be talking about, you know, we tried to warn Donald Trump we told Pete hegseth is wrong I mean it's all going to come back to to headset and Trump so one of the fast things that he could do is he could just be like
42:17
[SPEAKER_01]: let's let's just get rid of accept and throw him in his eyes.
42:22
[SPEAKER_04]: No, I look at the end of the day.
42:23
[SPEAKER_04]: I think Democrats are going to take power.
42:24
[SPEAKER_04]: I think there's a chance they're going to even win the Senate.
42:26
[SPEAKER_04]: So they're going to have some kind of plan going forward.
42:30
[SPEAKER_04]: And look, you know, there's this story in Timothy Snyder who was, you know, look, there's going to be his view was is that at least if I understand it, right?
42:38
[SPEAKER_04]: His view is all that Democrats are going to win probably bigger than we already think.
42:43
[SPEAKER_04]: I'm not so, I'm not, I'm holding back a little on that prediction, but, you know, he's right in the fact that Trump is never going to concede.
42:51
[SPEAKER_04]: It's all that he's going to lose.
42:53
[SPEAKER_04]: He's going to do what losers do.
42:54
[SPEAKER_04]: It's rigged.
42:55
[SPEAKER_04]: I was cheated.
42:56
[SPEAKER_04]: He's going to go, we already know that part of it.
42:59
[SPEAKER_04]: Where does it go from there?
43:01
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, and I think he makes a good point in this idea of,
43:06
[SPEAKER_01]: You know, whether it's a blue wave or a blue tsunami, it doesn't matter like any Democrat that wins Donald Trump is going to say it's rigged, it's rigged, you know, all of this is rigged.
43:17
[SPEAKER_01]: No Democrat should have won because I'm such a big deal and everybody loves me and.
43:23
[SPEAKER_01]: Um, I, so one of the things that he, that Tim Steinner really talked about was we have to inoculate ourselves against this message right now.
43:30
[SPEAKER_01]: Like this is not something where the election happens and then we fight against this message.
43:36
[SPEAKER_01]: It's something that needs to start happening right now.
43:38
[SPEAKER_01]: People need to start saying today, Trump's going to say this is all rigged and I'm surprised he's not saying it before the election is even taking place.
43:52
[SPEAKER_04]: Oh, but no, they're part of this.
43:54
[SPEAKER_04]: When Democrats do take this Senate, though, and I gotta tell you, there's part of me it goes, I hope we dump Schumer, because I'm not a Schumer fan by any stretch of the imagination.
44:02
[SPEAKER_04]: I think we need somebody a little bit more forward thinking a little bit more aggressive.
44:06
[SPEAKER_04]: Because look, I don't think Clarence Thomas and Samuel Lito are gonna make it, you know, through the, I don't know, six years no, but the next couple, I think there's a moment where Democrats are gonna have to really take a stand
44:23
[SPEAKER_01]: Well, and this has been like the one thing the selection that I am so angry about is that it really seems like democratic operatives are super focused on the house.
44:32
[SPEAKER_01]: And it's like, guys, there is a real, a very real chance that you could take some Senate seats that are, are, Kansas, Kansas, Kansas.
44:44
[SPEAKER_01]: Kansas, Idaho, Nebraska, kind of a, maybe Texas, Texas.
44:50
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, I mean, Texas seems even closer to me than than Kansas, but I haven't seen the latest polling on Kansas, what's been interesting is looking at some of the polling in South Carolina, and that's, I mean, that has been cut in my bill, whether on election night, East Coast time, if you see some, if you see,
45:11
[SPEAKER_01]: Annie was at Annie Andrews, Annie Alexander, something like that, Annie, the doctor.
45:17
[SPEAKER_01]: If you see her within, you know, spitting distance of Graham, even if she loses, if she's close,
45:25
[SPEAKER_01]: That's really bad for Republicans for the rest of the time zones for the night like that kind of foretells that this is going to be crazy.
45:33
[SPEAKER_01]: But yeah, the fact that Democrats and and and Schumer in particular are not super focused on getting more money to to Kansas and Texas and Nebraska and those kinds of states.
45:44
[SPEAKER_01]: In addition to, I get it like they're defending the blue states that we already have like New Hampshire.
45:50
[SPEAKER_01]: They're trying to shore up shared brown in Ohio, but these are races where it's like, this is going to, they're going to be there for six years.
45:58
[SPEAKER_01]: And we're, I mean, look.
46:00
[SPEAKER_01]: One of the things that I heard Bill Crystal say that I thought was pretty funny is, what's the difference between winning 235 and 255 like there's really at some point it's like you've won a bunch of seeds you've won enough seeds like that it's the house is kind of over like this is already sort of over with the house the Senate.
46:22
[SPEAKER_01]: if you win the Senate with some of these red seats, it means that you are controlling all of the federal judges and the Supreme Court for the next at least four years maybe six years.
46:35
[SPEAKER_04]: No, look, you go back to 2016.
46:39
[SPEAKER_04]: why I look I spent a lot of time working for a friend who was running for office and the one thing that Republicans every time you would bring up Trump's damage yeah you know he's he's got his problems but the Supreme Court they were zero day and they knew what they were voting for especially when you got into the anti-abortion crowd the religious crowd knew what their gold prize was and their gold prize was was overturning row and they would put
47:07
[SPEAKER_04]: because they wanted their, they wanted roll overturned and they knew and they looked a messaging on that side of the aisle was there.
47:14
[SPEAKER_04]: So is this a Schumer problem?
47:16
[SPEAKER_04]: Is this a Democrat Democratic Party problem overall?
47:19
[SPEAKER_04]: What's the problem?
47:21
[SPEAKER_01]: I don't know, honestly.
47:23
[SPEAKER_01]: I mean, I'm, I'm hoping that it's just a Schumer problem because I can see that there are other Democrats in the Senate who are kind of stepping up and really trying to fight for some of these seats.
47:34
[SPEAKER_01]: But just from looking at the math alone, if you look at 28, there's I think 32 seats that are up in the Senate and 28, nothing's moving in 28.
47:47
[SPEAKER_01]: We may have a small chance of getting rid of Ron Johnson in Wisconsin because it's kind of moves the keys so far right for a state that is pretty purple.
47:59
[SPEAKER_04]: Even though he has said he was going to only do two terms right a term ago Right never mind those term live.
48:06
[SPEAKER_04]: I love terminated people who run on I believe in term limits and then well Yeah, I'm here now Susan Collins One of the biggest of you know in 1994 she didn't have health insurance For one whole year for whole year How did she survive for that one year?
48:28
[SPEAKER_04]: unbelievable.
48:29
[SPEAKER_04]: I don't know.
48:29
[SPEAKER_04]: I mean, yeah, I, she is, she is my hero.
48:37
[SPEAKER_01]: Oh my god, that's been the funny thing, that debate, like seeing that piece of the random thing that she said where she was like, I think it was true Jackson made some comment like she's spent her entire life working in government service.
48:50
[SPEAKER_01]: She's always had employer funded healthcare and she was like, nah, ah, there was this one year and everybody's just broke stop talking stop talking.
48:59
[SPEAKER_01]: And then she made her whole, you know, I saved the economy because of road salt and you're just like, dude, dude, like, just just quit and while you're ahead.
49:11
[SPEAKER_04]: And the fact of the matter is she still close.
49:12
[SPEAKER_04]: I mean, it's still a close election and the reality is she has been such a bad senator.
49:17
[SPEAKER_04]: I know she tries to play that middle of the road and and you know, does that grandmotherly thing, but man, man.
49:25
[SPEAKER_01]: The killer thing, particularly about Maine, is that her whole speel is that she is the chair of appropriations.
49:32
[SPEAKER_01]: And so this idea of I'm bringing all of this federal money back to my state accepts now Trump is cutting all of this money to like higher ed research, to medical research, like all of this money that he's slashing out of Maine.
49:48
[SPEAKER_01]: And it's like,
49:49
[SPEAKER_01]: Well, if you can't even do that, then as, as the chair of Senate Appropriations, then what, what do you do in?
49:55
[SPEAKER_01]: Like why are you even there?
49:56
[SPEAKER_04]: But you got to remember it when he was in New Hampshire, I believe it was.
49:58
[SPEAKER_04]: If you remember, you know, he, you know, he won with the, uh, the highly educated, uh, he, he won with the, the poorly educated, what was the line?
50:07
[SPEAKER_04]: I love the poorly educated I love the poorly educated yeah over the weekend I mean it just came out you know he came out and said like I said earlier He said oh, I could say I come up and I see the dumbest stuff and you guys applaud It's like they're all like you it's like him telling them right to their face You are all stupid and I know you're stupid and now you know you're stupid And I think you've always known you're stupid for listening to anything I have to say I mean that's the remarkable part in all of this is the fact that
50:37
[SPEAKER_04]: He could literally call them stupid to their face and they applaud and they love every moment of it They're like, yeah, it's shooting on 5th Avenue.
50:46
[SPEAKER_04]: I love it Maybe so but as always sir great stuff keep up the amazing work.
50:52
[SPEAKER_04]: Make sure you check out Sarah Burst's work over at alternate dot org.
50:55
[SPEAKER_04]: Thanks so much Sarah Thanks have a great as the week everyone Let me ask you know if someone said you were stupid to your face would you cheer would you a plot would you vote for them
51:07
[SPEAKER_04]: Yeah, remember he's on the ballot.
51:09
[SPEAKER_04]: That's what he's telling us.
51:10
[SPEAKER_04]: He's on the ballot.
51:11
[SPEAKER_04]: So November 3rd, remember that.
51:13
[SPEAKER_04]: He's on the ballot somewhere.
51:16
[SPEAKER_04]: Back after this.
51:23
[SPEAKER_04]: I'm Rick Smith, and this is Labor History in 2.
51:27
[SPEAKER_04]: Bearing me with my boys in Mount Olive and let no traitor draw breath over my grave, such was the last wish of Labor Leader Mother Jones.
51:37
[SPEAKER_04]: She wanted her final resting place to be alongside the coal miners who gave their lives in the struggle to bring fair wages and a safe working environment to verdine Illinois.
51:48
[SPEAKER_04]: And on this day in Labor History, the year was 1898.
51:52
[SPEAKER_04]: Members of the newly formed United Mine Workers of America were out on strike against the Chicago Verdin coal company mine.
52:00
[SPEAKER_04]: They demanded the company pay the new mining wage scale of 40 cents per ton of coal mine.
52:06
[SPEAKER_04]: The company refused.
52:08
[SPEAKER_04]: Worried that management would try to sneak in replacement workers, the striking men patrol the railroad tracks leading to the mine.
52:15
[SPEAKER_04]: Both black and white strikers join the lookout parties.
52:19
[SPEAKER_04]: Just a little afternoon on that faithful day, the men spotted a train coming toward them.
52:24
[SPEAKER_04]: It was loaded with strike breakers.
52:26
[SPEAKER_04]: African-American workers recruited from Alabama, looking to escape the oppression of the south.
52:31
[SPEAKER_04]: The black workers had not been told about the labor unrest in Verdin.
52:35
[SPEAKER_04]: Many refused to work for the company once they learned the truth.
52:39
[SPEAKER_04]: The train was also packed with armed guards hired by the company, determined not to let the replacement workers through.
52:46
[SPEAKER_04]: Armed strikers met the train at the depot.
52:48
[SPEAKER_04]: A gun battle ensued, eight miners were killed for armed guards, also died.
52:54
[SPEAKER_04]: A month later, the Union won its wage demand.
52:57
[SPEAKER_04]: Three of the Union miners who lost their lives that day were laid to rest at the Mount Olive Union Minor Cemetery.
53:03
[SPEAKER_04]: It was these men who mothered Jones loved as her boy.
53:07
[SPEAKER_07]: New Dirt's Falling on a new mate call for a new Dirt's Falling on a new mate call for a way over an ad union.
53:20
[SPEAKER_04]: Like what you hear, check out more at LaborHistoryInto.com.
53:34
[SPEAKER_04]: We've had steep band-in-things of democratic power.
53:36
[SPEAKER_04]: Oh, there's going to be some impeachments.
53:38
[SPEAKER_04]: He said, quote, I think you'll see Bobby Kennedy impeached.
53:42
[SPEAKER_04]: I think you'll see Pete Heggsappen impeached.
53:44
[SPEAKER_04]: I think you'll see Sapita's flying every day.
53:49
[SPEAKER_04]: Now he took it as they'll look they'll try and destroy president Trump and it will be bogged down for two years.
53:54
[SPEAKER_04]: Yeah Because maybe some of the bad stuff will stop happening Maybe I don't know if you saw it on truth social Trump is kind of deal with Putin.
54:04
[SPEAKER_04]: Yeah, that's a good company there and his argument is is we're gonna drive diesel prices down
54:10
[SPEAKER_04]: diesel prices for Americans and indeed the world will be coming down in capital letters in record numbers in capital numbers and fast in capital letters.
54:21
[SPEAKER_04]: Yeah, now according to CNBC, Trump says Russia will ship more than 4 million tons of diesel.
54:28
[SPEAKER_04]: In fact, I think that's what Trump's tweet also said or is truth or whatever it was.
54:34
[SPEAKER_04]: About 300,000 tons right away, 500,000 tons in November and the rest coming after that.
54:42
[SPEAKER_04]: Not to do that, our treasury department had to waive sanctions on Russian diesel through April of next year to make that happen.
54:50
[SPEAKER_04]: And why?
54:51
[SPEAKER_04]: Because diesel prices are through the roof.
54:53
[SPEAKER_04]: And gee, who could have possibly predicted that Iran would shut off the strait or her moves and that diesel prices would go up.
55:00
[SPEAKER_04]: Who could have possibly, for told that?
55:04
[SPEAKER_04]: Now, Ukraine has been bombing Russian oil refineries, which is their, you know, remember when Trump said, uh, Zelensky has no, no cards, that's one of the cards.
55:14
[SPEAKER_04]: Like I ran, shutting off the straightary moves.
55:17
[SPEAKER_04]: Uh, now Iran and the, the Houthsees, uh, they've hit refineries in the Middle East too.
55:23
[SPEAKER_04]: So guess what, we're probably going to be teaming up with Saudi Arabia to go after them.
55:26
[SPEAKER_04]: Yeah, Russia and Saudi Arabia.
55:29
[SPEAKER_04]: And I got Republicans who were kind of sweating this because the midterms, you know, places like Iowa or diesel prices run tractors, so kind of wondering, you know, what we're doing, and I Ukrainian president Zelensky put it plainly gifts to Putin will not bring peace.
55:46
[SPEAKER_04]: Now here's the thing that gets me.
55:48
[SPEAKER_04]: Last year, didn't Trump slap India with 25% tariffs on because they were buying Russian oil.
55:55
[SPEAKER_04]: Because at the time the White House Trump said that the money was funding Putin's war didn't I remember that?
56:02
[SPEAKER_04]: This month this month Congress gave Trump the power to hit Russia's oil Russian oil buyers with tariffs up to a hundred percent So if you India or anyone buy oil from Russia hundred percent tariffs and then a week later We're buying Russian oil
56:22
[SPEAKER_04]: Huh, so it's a crime when India does it and it's a bargain when Mr. Art of the deal breaks our own laws and it doesn't be before an election seriously No, I can't confirm this, but I've seen stories and I'm not I'm not I'm just throwing this out here as a possibility with you believe me or not.
56:41
[SPEAKER_04]: I don't know But there's Russia is supposedly passionate passing I offer Iranian oil as it of its own because remember their partners
56:52
[SPEAKER_04]: The partners at getting around sanctions media reports tied to the Iranian Revolutionary Guard say Iran just moved a billion and a half dollars in oil money through Russian banks.
57:06
[SPEAKER_04]: That's what I'm saying, not me.
57:08
[SPEAKER_04]: the Treasury Department has sanctioned a Russian-linked network for helping Iran move cash from its oil sales.
57:16
[SPEAKER_04]: So every dollar we send Moscow hands lands with Iran's best friend in the sanctions dodging business.
57:25
[SPEAKER_04]: Am I getting rid of this wrong?
57:28
[SPEAKER_04]: And here's what's really going on.
57:29
[SPEAKER_04]: You got farmers and truck drivers who are paying for the war.
57:32
[SPEAKER_04]: They're getting screwed.
57:33
[SPEAKER_04]: They didn't
57:38
[SPEAKER_04]: They didn't start this war, Trump did, voluntarily, without cause.
57:46
[SPEAKER_04]: I think those same farmers and truck drivers and me deserve an actual plan.
57:52
[SPEAKER_04]: Not another favorite of Putin, not a favorite Putin can pull back on whatever he wants.
58:00
[SPEAKER_04]: I don't get it.
58:03
[SPEAKER_04]: And I guess you got to call your senators, because this is why elections matter.
58:07
[SPEAKER_04]: Ask him, you know, hey, you know, what's with the Russian thing?
58:10
[SPEAKER_04]: Why Russian diesel now?
58:12
[SPEAKER_04]: Why is it fine now?
58:14
[SPEAKER_04]: Is it because of all the jeet?
58:15
[SPEAKER_04]: There's an election, maybe you've heard.
58:17
[SPEAKER_04]: There's an election coming up and Republicans are going to take a beating for Trump's decisions.
58:24
[SPEAKER_04]: Which have been, you know, again, my friends, who's loved to call a Mr. Art of the Deal.
58:30
[SPEAKER_04]: And I've always said, Mr. Art of the bad deal has been making really bad deals.
58:37
[SPEAKER_04]: We're now in bed with with the Russians funding the Russian war against Ukraine and now to shut Zelensky up where we're talking about maybe not giving him some weapons so that they can defend themselves.
58:51
[SPEAKER_04]: This is may you live in interesting times.
58:56
[SPEAKER_04]: This is definitely an interesting time and I got to wonder.
59:01
[SPEAKER_04]: I got to wonder what's all behind it.
59:03
[SPEAKER_04]: I know, I'm sure Trump's getting a kick back somewhere.
59:05
[SPEAKER_04]: Want to hear your thoughts?
59:06
[SPEAKER_04]: Rick at therexmytheshow.com.
59:08
[SPEAKER_04]: What do you think?
59:09
[SPEAKER_04]: Do we just, it doesn't matter.
59:11
[SPEAKER_04]: As long as we get cheap gas, doesn't matter what the rest of the world's going through as long as we get, we get cheap.
59:18
[SPEAKER_04]: Want to hear the thoughts?
59:19
[SPEAKER_04]: Rick at therexmytheshow.com.
59:20
[SPEAKER_04]: Mississippi portion of the program.
59:21
[SPEAKER_04]: Make sure you grab the podcast, or you find your favorite podcast.
59:25
[SPEAKER_04]: You'll find ours also freespeech.org.
59:27
[SPEAKER_04]: You can find our archive there as well.
59:31
[SPEAKER_04]: Man.
59:34
[SPEAKER_04]: Thanks so much for being here.
59:35
[SPEAKER_04]: We'll see you back here next time.