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The Rick Smith Show 10-2-2026 · The Rick Smith Show

0:00
[SPEAKER_02]: It's time for the Rick Smith show.
0:02
[SPEAKER_02]: Now, here is the voice of a working class, Rick Smith.
0:13
[SPEAKER_01]: And welcome, brothers, sisters, working class heroes.
0:17
[SPEAKER_01]: This is the RxMet Show.
0:19
[SPEAKER_01]: Thanks so much for being here.
0:21
[SPEAKER_01]: Today, I have a big program, lots to get to, lots to talk about.
0:25
[SPEAKER_01]: What RFK Jr. did for the Department of Health and Human Services, Pete Hugseth is now doing for the Pentagon.
0:33
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, one brought back measles.
0:36
[SPEAKER_01]: And I guess that's an accomplishment.
0:38
[SPEAKER_01]: The other is bringing back the Roman era.
0:43
[SPEAKER_01]: Pete stood up at Quantico for his annual now is second, but his second annual state of the four speech in front of a giant massive flag, you know, kind of a little bit of a jerk she's gotten patent and announced the first new military base on American soil in 40 years.
1:02
[SPEAKER_01]: There'd be 15,000 to 25,000 troops, serious stuff.
1:08
[SPEAKER_01]: Then he explained how he's going to, he's going to pick it out.
1:12
[SPEAKER_01]: of governors are going to have to come gravel, knees bent, freshly tanned testicles, they're going to have to come on camera before him, live streamed like a reality show and given their his his give him their quote best sales pitch and who knows maybe even trumpford, you can do this for trump TV.
1:34
[SPEAKER_01]: Now that's not national defense that's shark tank on cameo.
1:41
[SPEAKER_01]: a general somewhere has to be asking is this how we pick military bases do we do it for strategy or is it for ratings or how many people voted for Trump?
1:50
[SPEAKER_01]: Now according to the headset, it's going to be built with timeless classical architecture.
1:56
[SPEAKER_01]: Columns, marble, togas optional.
2:00
[SPEAKER_01]: Our troops are living in barracks with mold and Pete's picking out
2:07
[SPEAKER_01]: Uh, then he rolled out his new commission to plan the future of warfare, led by none other than the incredible warfighter Elon Musk, uh, and Newt Gingrich at a guy named Lucky, uh, you can't make this up, can't make this up, and then Pete got into his favorite, favorite topic.
2:26
[SPEAKER_01]: favorite topic, culture war.
2:29
[SPEAKER_01]: No, no fatties.
2:30
[SPEAKER_01]: No, no, no, no, trannies, no beardos, no weirdos, no whips, no radicals, just warriors, just tough guys committed.
2:39
[SPEAKER_01]: No ideological clowns.
2:41
[SPEAKER_01]: They're out patriotic cowboys with testosterone on top in front of these, these, these, all these leaders, the military leaders, testosterone test.
2:54
[SPEAKER_01]: From a guy who did weekends at Fox and
2:58
[SPEAKER_01]: uh... peat troops don't need your hormone check they need body armor they need decent housing they need a secretary of war who doesn't send war plans over group chat just thrown it out there just thrown it up uh... now you went after reporters because it's it's treason that they actually do their job in in report the news uh... because he hasn't read the first amendment all of a second and look the first amendment isn't woke it's the thing troops ordered to defend
3:27
[SPEAKER_01]: So here's my question.
3:29
[SPEAKER_01]: Where's our military brass?
3:30
[SPEAKER_01]: Where are the generals, the admirals?
3:32
[SPEAKER_01]: Where are the people who are at the top of the food chain?
3:35
[SPEAKER_01]: Now, look, I got it.
3:36
[SPEAKER_01]: Pete did say that there's going to be a 20% reduction.
3:39
[SPEAKER_01]: They're going to fire 20% of the generals and flag officers.
3:44
[SPEAKER_01]: I got that.
3:46
[SPEAKER_01]: And I get that people want to keep their stars.
3:49
[SPEAKER_01]: So they better keep their mouth shut.
3:51
[SPEAKER_01]: not really leadership kind of makes me question a lot of that leadership stuff.
3:55
[SPEAKER_01]: It's job security, and that's what they're concerned about it seems, and after watching you know, Pete fire top brass last year, they know, but understand the the oath is to the constitution, not to Pete Heggsett.
4:09
[SPEAKER_01]: So I got to wonder, where's the retired brass?
4:13
[SPEAKER_01]: You got nothing to lose at this point.
4:15
[SPEAKER_01]: Why are we seeing them more often?
4:17
[SPEAKER_01]: Because this is ridiculous with this
4:23
[SPEAKER_01]: what he's dancing around doing.
4:24
[SPEAKER_01]: Now look, it plays well to the base and the other words.
4:27
[SPEAKER_01]: Tough guys.
4:27
[SPEAKER_01]: We're going after those people.
4:31
[SPEAKER_01]: Now Thomas Massey Republican from Kentucky on his way out the door.
4:35
[SPEAKER_01]: So again, I'm questioning the profile and courage.
4:38
[SPEAKER_01]: He wants to have a house vote to impeach headset, which is kind of why Mike Johnson let everybody go home.
4:46
[SPEAKER_01]: So I do think we should be calling our representatives.
4:48
[SPEAKER_01]: I think we should be on the campaign trail going, hey, what do you think it is?
4:54
[SPEAKER_01]: And if they're on the side of Pete Heggseth and this insanity, maybe we, maybe we vote the bomb us out.
5:01
[SPEAKER_01]: All of them, top the bottom.
5:03
[SPEAKER_01]: Want to hear your thoughts, rick at the ricksmithshow.com, right back.
5:11
[SPEAKER_01]: I'm Rick Smith, and this is Labor History in 2.
5:15
[SPEAKER_01]: On this day in Labor History, the year was 1851.
5:19
[SPEAKER_01]: That was the day that William Henry, a black cooper or barrel maker, who went by the name of Jerry, was arrested in Syracuse, New York.
5:27
[SPEAKER_01]: He was first told that he was being arrested for theft, but then he learned that federal marshals had arrested him.
5:34
[SPEAKER_01]: for violating the fugitive slave act past the year before.
5:38
[SPEAKER_01]: Jerry had escaped slavery in Missouri.
5:41
[SPEAKER_01]: The anti-slavery liberty party was holding its convention in a nearby church.
5:45
[SPEAKER_01]: When word came about Jerry's arrest, a crowd rushed to release him.
5:50
[SPEAKER_01]: Once released, he was quickly recaptured and returned to custody.
5:54
[SPEAKER_01]: But then, a large crowd, numbering more than 2,000, gathered to free Jerry from the office where he was being held.
6:02
[SPEAKER_01]: According to research done by the Syracuse University Library, the first person into the office was Jay M. Clap, an iron worker likely chosen for his brawl.
6:11
[SPEAKER_01]: The crowd was able to free Jerry and hide him until he could escape into Canada.
6:17
[SPEAKER_01]: Clap also had to flee to Canada to avoid arrest along with eight others.
6:22
[SPEAKER_01]: 19 people were indicted for participating in the rescue.
6:25
[SPEAKER_01]: Only one person was ever convicted and he died before he could appeal.
6:29
[SPEAKER_01]: In turn, the abolitionists won an indictment against the Marshall who had arrested Jared.
6:35
[SPEAKER_01]: They charged him with kidnapping.
6:37
[SPEAKER_01]: Although the Marshall was acquitted, it gave the abolitionists a chance to publicly challenge the constitutionality of the fugitive slave act.
6:45
[SPEAKER_01]: Each year, until 1858, a Jerry Rescue Celebration commemorated the event.
6:51
[SPEAKER_01]: Abolitionist referred to the, quote, Jerry level as a standard for justice.
6:56
[SPEAKER_01]: In 2001, a monument to the rescue was dedicated in Clinton Square, in downtown Syracuse.
7:03
[SPEAKER_01]: Labor history in two brought to you by the Illinois Labor History Society and the Rick Smithsia.
7:08
[SPEAKER_01]: For more information, go to laborhistoryantoo.com.
7:14
[SPEAKER_02]: Welcome back to the Rick Smith Show.
7:16
[SPEAKER_02]: Now, here is Rick Smith.
7:22
[SPEAKER_01]: So a federal court has ordered the Bureau of Prisons to immediately reinstate the master agreement covering federal prison workers, the Trump administration's been trying at every opportunity to destroy the federal unions, to take away their contracts and impose, well, his dictatorship ship over them, so that his lord ship, so that, you know, what brought him to fame, you're fired, you know, he could do to federal workers and I'm,
7:49
[SPEAKER_01]: Look Trump TV's not going to need content.
7:52
[SPEAKER_01]: I can see a day where they start marching in federal employees so he can play his games.
7:57
[SPEAKER_01]: And that's why we need strong unions.
7:59
[SPEAKER_01]: But the federal court said you have to reinstate their master agreement.
8:04
[SPEAKER_01]: All of its amendments, all of its local subs, supplements, and all of its MOUs.
8:09
[SPEAKER_01]: So it's got to be back in full in full enforcement.
8:13
[SPEAKER_01]: That's
8:14
[SPEAKER_01]: That's going to be interesting to see how they take it.
8:17
[SPEAKER_01]: I'm sure there's an appeal coming.
8:18
[SPEAKER_01]: I'm sure our tax dollar is going to be well wasted, you know, pursuing Trump's wet dream.
8:23
[SPEAKER_01]: But here to share some thoughts on another union, suing another, for another contract, I've asked our good friend Michael Sinado to come share some thoughts.
8:31
[SPEAKER_01]: He's a labor reporter over at the Guardian Guardian dot com, the website Michael, thanks for taking time for us.
8:37
[SPEAKER_00]: course for it.
8:38
[SPEAKER_00]: Thanks for having me on.
8:39
[SPEAKER_01]: So the EPA union saying, look, he can't rip up our collective bargaining agreement.
8:44
[SPEAKER_01]: We wanted back going to court like the Bureau of Prisons do it did.
8:49
[SPEAKER_01]: This is, this is not unusual.
8:52
[SPEAKER_01]: It's not even a big story.
8:53
[SPEAKER_01]: It's just, it's what we have to go through.
8:57
[SPEAKER_00]: Unfortunately, so, you know, I think everyone listening is well aware, the Trump issued an in a couple executive orders last year, that would collectively eliminate collective bargaining rights and agreements for over a million federal workers.
9:16
[SPEAKER_00]: like any other executive order, it's not the law, so the administration still has to enact it and they've done it piecemeal by different agencies.
9:26
[SPEAKER_00]: And like you said that the Bureau of prisons was one, they've been losing in court because you can't unilaterally cancel a contract
9:41
[SPEAKER_00]: You know, the courts even, you know, Trump appointed judges, you know, they're not going to, to grant it, but yeah, the EPA union, they, they've recently filed their contract was canceled in August, 2025, and initially they were pursuing and focused on adjudicating almost 150 workers who signed on to a letter last year where discipline, several workers were fired.
10:11
[SPEAKER_00]: a couple weeks ago, an arbitrator ruled in favor of the workers, so the Trump administration has to reinstate the ones they fired, give back pay to the ones who you were reprimanded and clean their records.
10:24
[SPEAKER_00]: So, big loss for them and following that, that you
10:27
[SPEAKER_00]: EPA workers union as filed this lawsuit to have their union contract, which is supposed to go to June 2020, a, you know, re-implemented.
10:41
[SPEAKER_00]: And if, you know, any other court decisions are, you know, an indicator they should win.
10:49
[SPEAKER_01]: No, it's amazing how much time effort energy resources, how many of our tax dollars are being wasted all to make federal workers miserable all to try and steal collective bargaining rights away and I think yeah not just thought of this because I actually watched like an hour of Trump TV
11:05
[SPEAKER_01]: which don't do don't it's bad for your mental health.
11:09
[SPEAKER_01]: I actually thought about calling finding a therapist to help me get through it because it was it was just all him.
11:15
[SPEAKER_01]: It's the weirdest thing.
11:17
[SPEAKER_01]: And I can envision a day where, you know, Trump TV needs some content.
11:20
[SPEAKER_01]: We're going to just bring in an army of federal workers and Trump's going to go, you're fired, you're fired, you're fired.
11:25
[SPEAKER_01]: for an hour.
11:26
[SPEAKER_01]: And I'm sure there's some idiot base out there that'd be gleeful to watch that.
11:30
[SPEAKER_01]: But for the rest of us who just want clean air and water and want decent government services, it's kind of a waste of time all this.
11:40
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, absolutely, so, you know, they've basically forced out over 300,000 federal workers, a lot of their attempted firings, you know, such as the, they tried to fire workers during the government shutdown, that didn't work.
11:58
[SPEAKER_00]: They were just, you know, breaking the rules and then waiting for, you know, the courts to, you know,
12:05
[SPEAKER_01]: There's nothing applies to them, Michael.
12:06
[SPEAKER_01]: No rules apply to them.
12:08
[SPEAKER_01]: Which is why I hope, you know, November's right around the corner.
12:12
[SPEAKER_01]: I'm hoping there's going to be the blue wave.
12:14
[SPEAKER_01]: Everyone is claiming is coming.
12:16
[SPEAKER_01]: I hope that comes and I hope it comes with a lot of labor voices.
12:20
[SPEAKER_01]: I know you've got an article out on the revenge of the labor movement.
12:24
[SPEAKER_01]: The number of three dozen Democrats running for office that have union backgrounds ready to re-invigorate labor's voice in the halls of power and it's about time It's about time we get more people who've actually done some work in those in those chambers fighting for actual working people But maybe to start holding this administration a little bit more accountable
12:49
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, so that story, you know, we currently there's a little over, I think 20 current members in Congress who have her worked a union job or have any sort of background in the labor movement, you know, which is frustrating and kind of reflective of the
13:09
[SPEAKER_00]: the federal government we have now but yeah to you know my I think pleasant surprise a lot of candidates in open seats this these congressional races coming up in November you know our have strong labor backgrounds you know just in California and the 48th district you have one of
13:38
[SPEAKER_00]: You know, there's just a lot of interesting races, a lot of Senate candidates, Andrew Nixon and Florida, as a union organizer, Dr. Abdul Alsaid, was a union member, Troy Jackson worked a lot of union jobs out of Maine.
13:56
[SPEAKER_00]: So, yeah, it's,
13:59
[SPEAKER_00]: You know, and the, the readers it research has shown that, you know, candidates from the work and class, you know, resonate with voters, and, you know, that's, you know, basically what we need is, I think it's not just enough to get people to pay a lip service to the labor movement, but to get people who have actually, you know, worked in these jobs to have, you know, the, what, you know, affordability, you know,
14:27
[SPEAKER_00]: means to the, you know, the typical American.
14:30
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, who knew you might want people who actually got their hands dirty instead of people who just pointed their finger.
14:35
[SPEAKER_01]: And this is one of those moments where I'm glad to see union unions getting a little more muscular.
14:40
[SPEAKER_01]: I know our friends over the machinist union there.
14:43
[SPEAKER_01]: I like their frame.
14:44
[SPEAKER_01]: It's about time we start framing things as versus them.
14:47
[SPEAKER_01]: This is a wartime scenario.
14:49
[SPEAKER_01]: It's workers versus billionaires and the billionaires are winning because they got all the money, but we've out procreated them.
14:55
[SPEAKER_01]: If we can get out to the polls and get the cast or votes, I don't understand why we don't have policies that benefit us, but I hope they're making the case.
15:05
[SPEAKER_00]: You have, you know, this election's like OELMOSK is, again, funneling millions of dollars into anti-worker anti-union candidates.
15:15
[SPEAKER_00]: And despite, you know, the Trump administration has been trying to go after labor unions trying to criticize them for what little political spending and political organizing that they do do, you know,
15:33
[SPEAKER_00]: House for publicans were pushing to investigate the UAW and a few other unions just based on just a complete misunderstanding to what labor unions are and what they do.
15:48
[SPEAKER_00]: But yeah, the machine is union, you know, started this workers, there's billionaires campaign.
15:52
[SPEAKER_00]: And, you know, it's really interesting, you know, how they're going after it.
15:58
[SPEAKER_00]: I think, you know, I think next Sunday they're having a tailgate at the, the Cowboys, Texas game.
16:04
[SPEAKER_00]: So, you know, they're thinking outside the box and they're enriching union members and kind of addressing, and focusing on this framing of, you know, why, you know, where we're at,
16:16
[SPEAKER_01]: No, look, you go where people are and you know that's that's the crowd you should be working for you should be out there having fun doing is that sounds like a good time, but also, you know, preaching the good word because ultimately, you know, I go back and I think about, you know, how we got where we are today and I think of my friend Bob Nave former Congressman from Ohio, a Republican, but he was a pro labor Republican.
16:40
[SPEAKER_01]: He always voted on always voted on the right side on on the vast majority of labor issues.
16:46
[SPEAKER_01]: And there were a lot of, you know, labor friendly Republicans at that point.
16:50
[SPEAKER_01]: And if I remember right in 94, the labor caucus hit like, you know, 90 members of Congress and it and probably upwards of 20, 25 Republican members, which, you know, it's one of those things we've completely lost.
17:04
[SPEAKER_01]: And I know my teamster friends keep telling me, no, no, the teamsters are trying to cultivate some Republicans, not not in this party, not in this moment, because well, what's there one maybe two that would be friendly on the Republican side.
17:19
[SPEAKER_00]: So you did some Republicans voting for like the faster labor contracts act when they have a incredible low AFL CIO score and you know the kinds of candidates when if they're not facing a difficult reelection race are they going to come out and support something like the pro act when it does definitely have a chance.
17:42
[SPEAKER_00]: to run.
17:43
[SPEAKER_00]: On top of, you have, you know, the small handful of Republicans and Congress who will vote on, you know, like Pennsylvania has some, but they're not actively supporting labor unions.
17:57
[SPEAKER_00]: They're not, you know, vocalizing that.
17:59
[SPEAKER_00]: you know, for instance, you know, there was a bipartisan house bill that actually passed the house and that was to counter the Trump executive order that would get rid of collective bargaining rights.
18:13
[SPEAKER_00]: It was in the federal, it was for federal workers too.
18:17
[SPEAKER_00]: you know, give them back their collective bargaining rights.
18:20
[SPEAKER_00]: It had some Republicans, but you know, they're not speaking to the media about it.
18:24
[SPEAKER_00]: They're not actually advocating in favor of labor unions.
18:29
[SPEAKER_00]: They're not out on picket lines.
18:31
[SPEAKER_00]: It's, you know, it's a smoke screen.
18:35
[SPEAKER_00]: people can point to the teamsters and the Republicans will complain that, yeah, union members and union households, they do have some Republicans, but that the facts of the matter is, it's the Republican Party that became more anti-union.
18:50
[SPEAKER_00]: On Gerald Ford was the nominee in the 70s collective bargaining rights was in the Republican platform.
18:58
[SPEAKER_00]: It was in their policy.
18:59
[SPEAKER_00]: then Reagan come and came and he fired all the air traffic controllers made a big show of being anti-union and union density just went off a cliff and has it recovered.
19:13
[SPEAKER_00]: That's that.
19:14
[SPEAKER_01]: August 4th 1981 the shot heard across the board room.
19:19
[SPEAKER_01]: the beginning of the war on labor.
19:22
[SPEAKER_01]: I mean, things have been going down because corporate America had been pushing back, but that's when the policy really went full-tilt booky against working people.
19:30
[SPEAKER_01]: We went from written on 25% union density in the country at that point to where in the private sector were what I about six.
19:38
[SPEAKER_01]: So I guess mission accomplished if you're on that side of the aisle, but the reason I bring it up is I go back to that era where You know, I don't know that there are any Republicans in the labor caucus.
19:48
[SPEAKER_01]: There were 20 to 25 that were stated out of the out of the closet so to speak on the caucus.
19:56
[SPEAKER_01]: Their names firmly attached to not somebody who when the bill's not going to pass.
20:00
[SPEAKER_01]: I can I can sign up for it.
20:03
[SPEAKER_01]: And the
20:06
[SPEAKER_01]: It's not going to get signed in the law, and I think they know that, which is why it's easy now.
20:11
[SPEAKER_01]: There's no profile and courage now to sign on to that, at least in my opinion.
20:17
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, absolutely.
20:18
[SPEAKER_00]: You know, I would agree with that.
20:21
[SPEAKER_00]: And yeah, like you said, the Republicans are joining the labor caucus.
20:25
[SPEAKER_00]: And we saw Mike Johnson this week say if the Republicans win the majority again, they're whether they're going to do the same exact thing that that's doing.
20:34
[SPEAKER_00]: which is just, you know, whatever Trump wants mixed with dysfunctional incompetence and working.
20:42
[SPEAKER_01]: Because it's working so well.
20:45
[SPEAKER_01]: It's working so well, Michael, and look, we're getting a new steel mill.
20:49
[SPEAKER_01]: I don't know if you saw it.
20:50
[SPEAKER_01]: I don't know if you saw it, but we are getting a massive.
20:54
[SPEAKER_01]: The most tremendous, nobody's ever seen a steel mill like this before.
20:58
[SPEAKER_01]: It's incredible.
21:00
[SPEAKER_01]: 15 billion dollars hundreds of miles away from where probably should be but hey the first congressional district of Iowa is getting a brand-spank and new brand-spank and new steel mill in 2030 maybe if you vote the right way because we haven't picked out a location on every permits but uh they they promise they it's gonna happen Mike
21:23
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, it's deja vu all over again, you know, you've seen this from Trump with the, you know, the carrier off-shoring his first term.
21:34
[SPEAKER_00]: And then right before the last midterms and his first presidential term, Foxconny claimed it was gonna be the eighth wonder of the world, 13,000 jobs, you know, 1100 people are employed there currently.
21:48
[SPEAKER_00]: So that didn't happen.
21:51
[SPEAKER_00]: And this, you know, people have talked to you in the labor movement that, you know, I still work as a skeptical.
21:57
[SPEAKER_00]: They said, you know, prominence promises aren't jobs, you know, and like you said, local media looked into claims from this administration that construction had already started when there's no permits have been filed in the county.
22:14
[SPEAKER_00]: They can't find anything about where the site would be, lawmakers and the company haven't cited this and, you know, this company, this company from India, they've been saying they've going, they're going to build a steel mill from this mine in northeast Minnesota since they bought Minnesota steel in 2007.
22:38
[SPEAKER_00]: uh, they filed for bankruptcy in 2016, uh, they sold off a bunch of assets, uh, lofts the company, uh, sold off a bunch of assets to the Russian government.
22:49
[SPEAKER_00]: And then they came back in 2018, bringing the company and now, uh, for whatever reason, like you said, they want to build the steel mill, not near the mine in northeast Minnesota.
23:02
[SPEAKER_00]: five hundred six hundred miles away in eastern Iowa and Iowa and you know the Iowa had the call a special session that's going to happen Friday to expand subsidies and tax credits that they can offer for this project of course.
23:20
[SPEAKER_00]: the past couple of years that Iowa State government has they've been facing over a billion dollar budget shortfall.
23:28
[SPEAKER_00]: So they're spending more money than they have and they want to give more tax breaks and subsidies to this for right now.
23:38
[SPEAKER_01]: Why?
23:38
[SPEAKER_01]: Why, Michael?
23:39
[SPEAKER_01]: The Trump's already said that's where it's going.
23:41
[SPEAKER_01]: Why?
23:42
[SPEAKER_01]: Why now would you then go?
23:43
[SPEAKER_01]: Oh, hey, they've already announced they're putting it there.
23:45
[SPEAKER_01]: They're already announced there's 15 billion dollars for it There's money for it.
23:49
[SPEAKER_01]: In fact, we're given it to him.
23:52
[SPEAKER_01]: Why now in the announcement's been made?
23:55
[SPEAKER_01]: It's basically the ribbons been cut.
23:57
[SPEAKER_01]: Why would we go back and go?
23:58
[SPEAKER_01]: Oh, by the way I know you're gonna ask for it.
24:00
[SPEAKER_01]: You're gonna give you some sweetener on top.
24:02
[SPEAKER_01]: Why would we do that?
24:06
[SPEAKER_00]: exactly.
24:07
[SPEAKER_00]: That's that's the million dollar question.
24:09
[SPEAKER_01]: There's the response, not a question.
24:11
[SPEAKER_00]: Not a question.
24:12
[SPEAKER_01]: I had a listener who reached out and you gave me the do your research thing and pointed me to a Kentucky aluminum plant that hasn't
24:22
[SPEAKER_01]: It's not been fully constructed, it's future is still on shaky grounds, but same kind of thing, in 2018, same kind of thing, it's election season.
24:33
[SPEAKER_01]: This is this Russian company says, hey, we're going to build a $1.7 billion aluminum mill in Ashland, Kentucky with $200 million from this Russian company.
24:44
[SPEAKER_01]: They make them a 40% stay colder, but, you know, again, financial things, it's just stuff.
24:51
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, maybe it happens, maybe it doesn't.
24:53
[SPEAKER_01]: And it seems like Mr. Art of the Deal gets us into this stuff right around election time.
24:58
[SPEAKER_01]: I guess not fairly often.
25:01
[SPEAKER_00]: It's definitely dissipated from the first term, because I don't know if you remember that.
25:06
[SPEAKER_00]: Trump was full speed ahead on.
25:10
[SPEAKER_00]: He was gonna stop offshore and wasn't gonna happen.
25:14
[SPEAKER_00]: None of those promises, none of those claims paned out.
25:18
[SPEAKER_00]: Offshore and continued, you know, manufacturing, he didn't recover it.
25:24
[SPEAKER_00]: And he kind of abandoned that framing his neck his, you know, this past campaign.
25:33
[SPEAKER_00]: You know, it really wasn't that.
25:35
[SPEAKER_00]: And I think he's kind of revamped to steal, you know, for for whatever reason, because, you know, he's made all these promises and claims about US manufacturing about how he's going to improve it and, you know, jobs have continued to decline.
25:50
[SPEAKER_00]: Not that it's an easy thing.
25:52
[SPEAKER_00]: It's not.
25:53
[SPEAKER_01]: But we were doing some of it and he went and destroyed all of it.
25:57
[SPEAKER_01]: All the stuff, all the investments Biden was making in solar and renewables and batteries and all that stuff.
26:02
[SPEAKER_01]: They just came in and trashed.
26:05
[SPEAKER_01]: So again, if you want to reassure the future of manufacturing, that was kind of a part of it.
26:09
[SPEAKER_01]: Finally, I got to get your thoughts on exciting, exciting story out of New York, Auto Zone, Auto Zone, the workers at Auto Zone.
26:19
[SPEAKER_01]: are having the auto zone union.
26:22
[SPEAKER_01]: I'm thrilled.
26:23
[SPEAKER_01]: I'm going to go to the auto zone more often.
26:25
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, so the first auto zone store in the US, one of the union election last Friday, despite the small store being descended upon by managers from corporate and regional
26:44
[SPEAKER_00]: out of voting for the union.
26:47
[SPEAKER_00]: The company has an anti-union record from the 90s, the team
27:00
[SPEAKER_00]: a warehouse for the company.
27:03
[SPEAKER_00]: They did so much union busting that a rerun election was ordered, but ultimately the union was defeated.
27:10
[SPEAKER_00]: So this was a very aggressive company.
27:13
[SPEAKER_00]: This is a multi-billion dollar company.
27:14
[SPEAKER_00]: The largest auto parts retailer in the U.S. And I think it's a big win by the U.A.W.
27:21
[SPEAKER_01]: No, it's good stuff.
27:23
[SPEAKER_01]: Hopefully it catches fire and hopefully the one in my neighborhood unionizes so I can I can happily go into there.
27:29
[SPEAKER_01]: Michael, great work.
27:30
[SPEAKER_01]: Hope folks check out the work over at theguardian.com Michael Sanato, labor reporter.
27:35
[SPEAKER_01]: Thanks so much, buddy.
27:37
[SPEAKER_01]: want to hear your thoughts if if there was an auto zone that was unionized in your neighbor would you could go there over the other ones I know I would want to hear your thoughts work at the ricksmith show dot com and oh steel bell odds on steel mill yes no one here at back after this
28:00
[SPEAKER_01]: I'm Rick Smith, and this is Labor History in 2.
28:03
[SPEAKER_01]: On this day in Labor History, the year was 1936.
28:07
[SPEAKER_01]: That was the day Londoners referred to as the Battle of Cable Street.
28:11
[SPEAKER_01]: By some accounts, as many as 250,000 trade units, radicals, and anti-fascist fighters
28:19
[SPEAKER_01]: Join together to protest Sir Oswald Mosley's British Union of Fascists.
28:24
[SPEAKER_01]: The fascists plan to march in black shirt uniform through London's then heavily Irish and Jewish working class East and neighborhood.
28:32
[SPEAKER_01]: Mosley's BUF scapegoated Jews for the economic crisis brought on by the Great Depression.
28:38
[SPEAKER_01]: He had drawn thousands to rallies in previous years, and now look to impose fascist dominance over the most vulnerable of Londoners.
28:47
[SPEAKER_01]: Bill Fishman, a Jewish activist and son of an immigrant tailor, who was there on that day recollected quote, I was moved to see the bearded Jews and Irish Catholic dockers standing up to stop mostly.
28:59
[SPEAKER_01]: I show never forget that as long as I live.
29:02
[SPEAKER_01]: How working class people could get together to oppose the evil of fascism.
29:07
[SPEAKER_01]: The Metropolitan Police stationed as many as 10,000 policemen to keep counter-protesters from directly confronting the BUS.
29:15
[SPEAKER_01]: But the anti-fascist physically blocked every possible path into the East End.
29:20
[SPEAKER_01]: They constructed barricades along Cable Street made from paving stones and household furniture.
29:25
[SPEAKER_01]: Women emptied garbage bags and chamber pots from windows onto the fascists.
29:30
[SPEAKER_01]: Marbles were thrown in the direction of the fascists and their protectors.
29:35
[SPEAKER_01]: Seaman pulled out their lorries and turned them on their sides.
29:38
[SPEAKER_01]: Tram drivers parked, and abandoned their street cars in the middle of the street to prevent the fascists from continuing their march.
29:45
[SPEAKER_01]: Protesters chanted the slogan of the Spanish Civil War, no Pasorong, or they shall not pass.
29:52
[SPEAKER_01]: And that day, the fascists did not pass.
29:55
[SPEAKER_01]: They were stopped by the power of working people.
30:01
[SPEAKER_03]: What's wrong with us?
30:02
[SPEAKER_03]: Her nation's moral compass, I mean.
30:05
[SPEAKER_03]: I don't like being a downer just focusing on wrongs, but some wrong stand out as morally abominable, such as this one.
30:12
[SPEAKER_03]: It's about hundreds of thousands of our low-income elders who toured the end of life when frail and most vulnerable.
30:18
[SPEAKER_03]: Find themselves cast into a part of the Medicaid system that has been deliberately structured by Congress to subject them to needless deprivations and daily indignities.
30:29
[SPEAKER_03]: These are our loved ones with serious health problems who need long-term care nursing homes, and two-thirds of them rely on Medicaid to cover their costs.
30:38
[SPEAKER_03]: To get this benefit, they surrender all of their income, which goes to defray their nursing home expenses.
30:45
[SPEAKER_03]: Of course, for a decent existence beyond mere survival, we all rely on a few little things that are basic to our humanity.
30:52
[SPEAKER_03]: So Medicaid authorizes each state,
30:55
[SPEAKER_03]: to set a monthly personal needs allowance, so their elderly patients can cover hygiene and grooming products at book or CD a small gift for grandchildren, a chocolate bar, etc.
31:07
[SPEAKER_03]: Good, but then Mr. Minji walked in.
31:11
[SPEAKER_03]: In 1987, Congress set the minimum for this allowance at a maker $30 a month under $8 a week.
31:19
[SPEAKER_03]: Congress has not raised it in the decades since, and most states still provide only a patents, despite inflation and monopoly price gouging on practically everything.
31:28
[SPEAKER_03]: So our state and national leaders who freely do loud massive corporate subsidies and tax giveaways to billionaires, are leaving ill seniors with so little spending money that they must ration their toothpaste and scrimp pennies to buy a rare treat from the vending machine.
31:44
[SPEAKER_03]: This is Jim Heitauer saying,
31:46
[SPEAKER_03]: I know this is small and the global scale of human and dignity, but that makes it an even bigger moral failure for our society.
31:54
[SPEAKER_03]: It would take so little to do so much for so many.
32:03
[SPEAKER_02]: Welcome back to the Rick Smith Show.
32:05
[SPEAKER_02]: Now, here is Rick Smith.
32:13
[SPEAKER_01]: So we all need a good laugh and one of the things that I find historical is, you know, meme Wednesday.
32:18
[SPEAKER_01]: I'm on a list of people who send great memes.
32:22
[SPEAKER_01]: And yesterday's meme was all about Eric Schmidt and whatever that was in the Senate Judiciary Committee hearing about, you know,
32:31
[SPEAKER_01]: Didn't know the hawks weren't the hawk guys, didn't know men's NBA basketball wasn't women's NCA, but hey, although the frame now is Schmidt the bed, and I like it, because I can say it on the air.
32:45
[SPEAKER_01]: He has Schmidted the bed.
32:48
[SPEAKER_01]: We need it.
32:48
[SPEAKER_01]: We desperately need to laugh in the face of, I guess it's Gallow's humor.
32:53
[SPEAKER_01]: When everything's going to pop, you got to be able to laugh about it.
32:57
[SPEAKER_01]: Serious songs are funny, serious songs are
33:02
[SPEAKER_01]: things that we need, and my next guest does that probably better than anybody, songs about what a boob peak ahead set is, Donald Trump, and his imaginary promise of 5K lie, little Marco, and my favorite, the Trump do ops singers, serenading maga, and their failures.
33:20
[SPEAKER_01]: That's why that's why I've asked Bruce, a callger to come share some thoughts with us.
33:24
[SPEAKER_01]: Bruce is a
33:27
[SPEAKER_01]: But was once a serious journalist, you could check out his work at BruceCluger.com.
33:33
[SPEAKER_01]: Bruce, thanks for the good time for us.
33:36
[SPEAKER_01]: Thank you for having me.
33:37
[SPEAKER_01]: So great stuff.
33:39
[SPEAKER_01]: I love I love all of them.
33:41
[SPEAKER_01]: I look forward to them.
33:42
[SPEAKER_01]: I would have played some of them, but the FCC there's a there's a couple of things in there.
33:47
[SPEAKER_04]: The FCC would be I swear Rick every time I start when I say I'm not going to I'm not going to I'm not going to write a curse word in this and and all bets were off because one of the first songs I read I wrote was the the ballad of Steven Miller and that pretty much was one long explicit.
34:03
[SPEAKER_01]: And how can you not, I mean, to be honest, and to be fair, I wake up every day going, what the, to every news headline that pops up, but you're like, hey, what was interesting is when I set out to write this album, a mega country, I had picked 10 characters, 10 songs, 10 characters that I was going to write about.
34:21
[SPEAKER_04]: And as much as it's classic satire, it makes fun of, in a way that's hopefully
34:29
[SPEAKER_04]: universal fun.
34:30
[SPEAKER_04]: When it came to, I try to get one serious message underneath the comedy about that particular person with the Marco Rubio I wanted to comment on whether on the loyalty to his heritage.
34:43
[SPEAKER_04]: This is a guy whose parents came to this country from Cuba and then it seems that he's not the greatest friend of Cubans now.
34:51
[SPEAKER_04]: That's an example.
34:52
[SPEAKER_04]: I would try to get a serious message
34:56
[SPEAKER_04]: There was so much that I found a reprehensible that I was sort of overwhelmed with how do you write the lyrics, so I became calmer intuitive and decided to make the entire song just adolescent, just one long profanity.
35:10
[SPEAKER_04]: And so it lists a lot of things that he is, a lot of names that he is.
35:15
[SPEAKER_04]: And what was curious is that people, you know, I was an actor before I became a writer.
35:20
[SPEAKER_04]: And so I know a lot of people in show business and some big TV producer, I sent in my album and he said to me, if I were your producer, I would keep every song set that Steven Miller one.
35:30
[SPEAKER_04]: It's out of lesson, right?
35:32
[SPEAKER_04]: Rick, it was the first one we released and it went through the room.
35:35
[SPEAKER_01]: That's the one that always sells and that's where experts are usually wrong especially this boy look because we want to have a collective outrage We want the good outrage of pointing out the emperor has no clothes and that then we we organize around how do we get them out because all of these people have to go But I want to ask you because you know your background is that of a serious journalist you're
35:57
[SPEAKER_04]: background of somebody who you have bright serious op-ed stuff you you used to work for playboy used to work for USA today how do you get to being America's satire songwriter well when I left playboy I had spent 13 years I did an actor when I first moved to the city and when I first moved to the city and this is the the footnote that happens a little later on the first thing I did in New York City as I wrote a musical the Grand Off Broadway called Kaboom and it last did maybe 80 performances or so but I had always
36:27
[SPEAKER_04]: I had either, I had done a professionally, but I was always the guy to write lyrics at a birthday party or a wedding or something like that.
36:33
[SPEAKER_04]: And it's a skill set, and it's actually a craft more than just a Mac, there's an actual craft to lyric writing that dictates whether or not it's a good lyric.
36:45
[SPEAKER_04]: In any case, I eventually moved to journalism and was with Playboy for 13 years, where you do a lot of anonymous writing.
36:56
[SPEAKER_04]: After that time, I decided I'd like to get my buy line on a lot of this, you know, for a change, and in a period of about two years, this is around the turn of the century, the 1999 to 2001, I was writing for everybody, and when you write out ads, you have to be able to formulate and pinning, you get an idea, you write the story, and then you just pitch it to three, four, six papers, and see if anybody has room for you, and
37:22
[SPEAKER_04]: it's a lot of banging on doors and no thank you and on to the next opinion and on to the next whether what's in the news if it's you know George W. Bush and Afghanistan or Iraq or you know something that's happening here at home I was just cranking these things out and finally I started I started to click while I was at Playboy I had also worked secretly
37:45
[SPEAKER_04]: for John Kennedy Jr. at George Magazine and I say secretly because I was still employed playboy at the time and I was moonlighting.
37:54
[SPEAKER_04]: I wanted to jump ship and go to George Magazine and Kennedy and this is something that I will always say about him.
38:00
[SPEAKER_04]: I only knew for a brief time and only professionally.
38:03
[SPEAKER_04]: At the end of his life, but he actually said to me, I would love to hire you over here at George, but I would feel bad because I don't know how long I'm going to last, right?
38:13
[SPEAKER_04]: I don't know how long the magazine is going to last, right?
38:16
[SPEAKER_04]: And he said, I would feel bad that you would leave a really good job at playboy, you'd just had a kid, and that I would have to fold up shop and you'd be without a job.
38:24
[SPEAKER_04]: Now, that's from a guy, a guy, a friend of mine.
38:29
[SPEAKER_04]: It's just it was just so beautiful in any case, so would it hit me the good Kennedy then, right?
38:35
[SPEAKER_04]: It's like the truth we got now.
38:38
[SPEAKER_04]: Well, there's nobody like the cook.
38:40
[SPEAKER_04]: I mean, there there are there are tenities across the nation rolling over in their graves in Unison.
38:46
[SPEAKER_04]: It's just that guy and we have a song on him to that we're going to try to try and release for Halloween.
38:53
[SPEAKER_04]: It's called there's something really wrong with Bobby.
38:56
[SPEAKER_04]: And we think of the Halloween as the time to do it.
38:58
[SPEAKER_04]: Anyway, I wound up writing up ads.
39:02
[SPEAKER_04]: And I did that for a good 10 years.
39:03
[SPEAKER_04]: And then what was interesting, Rick, is I lasted maybe a little into the first term with Trump.
39:11
[SPEAKER_04]: And I was telling you earlier that there's a privilege to writing up ad.
39:18
[SPEAKER_04]: Everybody has an opinion on stuff that's going on in the news.
39:20
[SPEAKER_04]: And you'd share it at the dinner table.
39:22
[SPEAKER_04]: You'd share it at work.
39:24
[SPEAKER_04]: But without that writing, if you have an opinion, you know, especially the USA today, which was so where I was on the board of contributors, so widely circulated that you could have an idea on a Tuesday, write it up and on Wednesday morning, it's being slid under the door in hotels all around the world, right, because that's the paper that they give everybody for free, so I really took it seriously and took it and understood it to be a privilege, but I was about two months or maybe six months into the
39:54
[SPEAKER_04]: Trump era in which I was writing and I was starting to sound like everybody else and getting tired of my own voice, and that's I think that was a problem because everybody was writing the same thing about Trump, which was basically a WTF Nobody was really sure somebody said recently somebody said the other day, you know, how many times have I said the words, can he do that?
40:23
[SPEAKER_04]: Right, can I get it?
40:24
[SPEAKER_04]: Right, can I get any worse?
40:25
[SPEAKER_04]: I swear to you, I literally have a copy of the Constitution next to my bed on the night table because like back in 2018 I should you know, we all get one of those if they have a little free be at the back and I got one and I put it in the shell and I pulled it down to check can you do this and I put it back on this little place And then I was taking it down so many times.
40:46
[SPEAKER_04]: It's not just sitting on a machine
40:48
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, so you went and got the book.
40:50
[SPEAKER_01]: I just called my lawyer friend.
40:51
[SPEAKER_01]: I'm going seriously this.
40:54
[SPEAKER_01]: And he walked me through because he's a constitutional scholar.
40:57
[SPEAKER_01]: I don't pretend to be.
40:58
[SPEAKER_01]: But again, you know, he's doing all this stuff and it shows just how neutered the Republican party is bad because nobody's holding him accountable.
41:07
[SPEAKER_01]: Nobody's really on that side of the aisle.
41:09
[SPEAKER_01]: No profiles encourage there.
41:17
[SPEAKER_04]: is we're watching it.
41:18
[SPEAKER_04]: And in real time we're seeing all of these Republicans, no, a good handful of Republicans finally coming out, for example, against the war, right in Iran.
41:28
[SPEAKER_04]: And they're finally want to put a break on Trump's war, which is basically his own war.
41:37
[SPEAKER_04]: And these people
41:43
[SPEAKER_04]: to pull out of this thing and yet now because we're eight weeks before the election or is it even six weeks before the election before the midterms now it's important to them and to me that is about the lowest of the low as when you really make it clear that you're not voting on behalf of the people you're voting out of complete self interest and that's what we've been doing since 2016.
42:06
[SPEAKER_01]: So now as a train journalist, as someone who spent all the time that you have with the impressive resume that you have, who has now turned the satire, I mean, you're taking what used to be your op-eds and just making them rhyme and making them funny.
42:20
[SPEAKER_04]: So sometimes around January, I'd stop writing about Trump.
42:24
[SPEAKER_04]: I worked on a few books at the time and I didn't think I was going to go back to opinion, opinion journalism, but I
42:32
[SPEAKER_04]: I got an app, a little app that where you can write lyrics and put it in the app and hear music and usually that's a gimmicky thing and what this app did is it pumped out music that was fully orchestrated and fully sung and really quite extraordinary.
42:49
[SPEAKER_04]: And so I said, wait a minute, I can still do what I used to do, but have the fun and that it's always a challenging craft to write a good song, write a good lyric, and it's amazing when you put in these lyrics and hear your music here coming back as song.
43:05
[SPEAKER_04]: So I decided,
43:06
[SPEAKER_04]: As you say, too, I could now be a remain an op-ed columnist who just happens to write op-eds that's singing rhyme, and within a matter of two weeks and five days, it completed this album what I called MAGA Country, because I thought that there was a nice double on Tondre there.
43:23
[SPEAKER_04]: It would be country music, because country music is always more fun for funny rhymes, and also to reflect the MAGA Country that we live in, because it has become
43:34
[SPEAKER_04]: for I was going to say for better or worse, for worse and worse, it's become mega country.
43:41
[SPEAKER_01]: So what I would ask is, you know, you ask a lot of people, you know, how did you come up with this great idea?
43:47
[SPEAKER_01]: How did this one thing come to you?
43:49
[SPEAKER_01]: My question is not that.
43:50
[SPEAKER_01]: My question is, how do you narrow it down?
43:52
[SPEAKER_01]: there is so much there are so many multiple things a day that you could be mocking this administration over and look we need it what those of us out here in the in the fight where we're trying to find something that to keep us going in a little after is a good thing but how do you narrow it down from all of the crazy that's going up?
44:12
[SPEAKER_04]: Well, first of all, you had the narrowing daddy.
44:15
[SPEAKER_04]: I have to have your major players, and this, you know, I knew that I would have to have Steven Miller and Caroline Levitt and Christy Nome.
44:21
[SPEAKER_04]: The unfortunate thing is, the album wasn't too weak sold.
44:24
[SPEAKER_04]: Maybe three weeks old when Christy was fired.
44:26
[SPEAKER_04]: So she was a casualty.
44:28
[SPEAKER_04]: And Pam Bondi was also had her own song on my album, but we at least came out in time enough for her to have her song.
44:35
[SPEAKER_04]: And then she was fired.
44:37
[SPEAKER_04]: I knew Pete Higgseth was gonna be it, but to your point,
44:40
[SPEAKER_04]: You also want to, you also want to do two things.
44:42
[SPEAKER_04]: You want to, you want a song that speaks to a larger picture and that would be something like we have one song on Mike Johnson, which we haven't released yet as a video.
44:55
[SPEAKER_04]: And it's about doing nothing, you know, it's about actually holding a job and the art of doing nothing and I'm, I'm trying to remember, he wouldn't, he wouldn't know a
45:09
[SPEAKER_04]: uh... i'll go to which he would know a quorum if jeez is something but ever he it's it's it's it's a song can speak to a larger and more uh... uh... deeper point that that is a constant you know a constant in the day-to-day grind of the country that's going to be a song that will ultimately resonate that the song on caroline lab it was called not so not so sweet caroline of course based on it you know the
45:37
[SPEAKER_04]: What was interesting is while we followed her, what we thought was what I say, what I wrote was duplicity and outright lying, it was it actually reflects the larger culture of lying.
45:50
[SPEAKER_04]: I mean, we sit and here lies every single day.
45:54
[SPEAKER_04]: from this and especially from this administration and especially especially from this present in the United States and we we accept it we accept the lot and so the other thing that you want to do is if you're pegged into a news event today just hours before you and I are talking now we launched a new song called Pete's Army and it's a it's a Disney spoof
46:16
[SPEAKER_04]: Um, of course it is what Pete is what Pete is looking for in his army and the reason it's a funny song is as you commented before you can't get funnier than real life For the today was the second annual state of the forces convention you remember last year at this time.
46:36
[SPEAKER_04]: You're all fat and weak.
46:39
[SPEAKER_04]: Yes, yes.
46:40
[SPEAKER_04]: So today was the second one, but this is true
46:44
[SPEAKER_04]: For this meeting, he ordered the commanders from the different branches of the military to make sure that the people that to nominate the people to attend the meeting had to be the most fit and the most immaculately groomed of the soldiers to be able to attend the meeting today.
47:02
[SPEAKER_04]: in our song that we just released today, Pete Sormy, we kind of make our commentary on that.
47:06
[SPEAKER_01]: And there are testicles had to be well-tanned and all that too.
47:09
[SPEAKER_01]: Because if it doesn't add to the thing there as well.
47:12
[SPEAKER_01]: But here's the thing, and I'm hoping you'll get to some because today's, you know, news is super intelligence, evidently Trump signed a document, don't know what it's going to do, but it's no longer artificial intelligence.
47:24
[SPEAKER_01]: It's now super intelligence, and it says so, because Donald Trump has literally signed the edict.
47:31
[SPEAKER_01]: Oh, you were going to build a baseball field.
47:32
[SPEAKER_04]: You're going to build a baseball field in a national park.
47:36
[SPEAKER_04]: And remember, this is the man who gave us, you know, Lake America, which we actually have a song on, and the, uh, so I'm called Lake America.
47:44
[SPEAKER_04]: And the Gulf of America is, and that will we have?
47:48
[SPEAKER_01]: Yes, so are we expecting some super intelligent song a great week.
47:54
[SPEAKER_04]: I haven't started on this I haven't started on a super intelligent one yet, but one that I am working on as we speak is the one on the Kennedy Center because as we noted earlier
48:09
[SPEAKER_04]: There's that seems to that actually seems to affect, you know, it's an I role for some Americans and it's heartbreaking for other Americans who like I, you know, remember the Kennedy assassination and remember what the whole purpose of that building was for, right?
48:24
[SPEAKER_04]: And so it's a personal front.
48:26
[SPEAKER_04]: So that's what we've been working on.
48:28
[SPEAKER_01]: What was the purpose of the building other than the honor dear leader Donald Trump?
48:32
[SPEAKER_01]: I mean, I'm telling you man.
48:33
[SPEAKER_04]: And do you realize that that scaffolding is still up?
48:36
[SPEAKER_04]: Yeah.
48:37
[SPEAKER_04]: Because he doesn't want to admit, I would be remiss and I want to say it right up front that I'm kind of a shop of two.
48:44
[SPEAKER_04]: My partner in this is a young woman named Louise Lade in Denmark.
48:48
[SPEAKER_04]: She's from Copenhagen.
48:50
[SPEAKER_04]: And she works on the videos with me.
48:52
[SPEAKER_04]: She actually, she actually put together this one today.
48:55
[SPEAKER_04]: I actually wrote this song that's on the Pizza Army today, which was very special.
49:02
[SPEAKER_04]: What I found so interesting is what I get for the weeds all the time is I get the perspective that you and I don't get, which is How are we viewed outside of this country, right?
49:13
[SPEAKER_04]: The the man who designed the cover from my album is a very dear friend named John
49:17
[SPEAKER_04]: style and he did the the the jacket cover and he's from Germany and he and Louise both remind me all the time that believe it or Rick there sad for us you know we're angry a lot and they're sad because they say
49:32
[SPEAKER_04]: You know, we were shining star, they're whole, you know, they're whole lives.
49:36
[SPEAKER_04]: The miracle was a shining star and I don't know about you, but I'm, I'm feeling embarrassed a lot for us.
49:42
[SPEAKER_01]: Absolutely.
49:43
[SPEAKER_01]: We're no longer that shining city on the hill.
49:45
[SPEAKER_01]: No.
49:45
[SPEAKER_01]: So last question, I've got for you.
49:47
[SPEAKER_01]: How do we get MAGA country, how do we get MAGA country music in our lives?
49:51
[SPEAKER_01]: How do we get the album, where do we go, how do we get it?
49:54
[SPEAKER_04]: We're on all the streaming sites, I'm on Spotify and Apple and Amazon and Dora and all of the streaming sites and our main, the home, and of course on Instagram and Facebook and X and and Blue Sky.
50:11
[SPEAKER_01]: But but our main home base is on YouTube where we have all of the music done as videos, but the album itself is on all the streaming sites I can't wait my next road trip going to be all Bruce all the time maga country I'm not a country music fan, but you make me laugh We desperately desperately need that verse and I appreciate the time
50:32
[SPEAKER_01]: One of your your thoughts, you mail me Rick at therixmithshow.com, do you need a good laugh every once in a while?
50:38
[SPEAKER_01]: Do we need?
50:39
[SPEAKER_01]: Do we need maga country music?
50:41
[SPEAKER_01]: I say we do.
50:42
[SPEAKER_01]: Make sure you check out BruceCluber.com.
50:45
[SPEAKER_01]: You can find the links that'll get you where you need to go.
50:47
[SPEAKER_01]: One of your thoughts, Rick at Therixmithshow.com right back.
50:50
[SPEAKER_01]: Just a
51:01
[SPEAKER_01]: This day in Labor History, the year was 1991.
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[SPEAKER_01]: That was the day that the pattern makers League of North America merged with the International Association of Machinists and aerospace workers.
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[SPEAKER_01]: Have you ever heard of the pattern makers union?
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[SPEAKER_01]: The pattern makers can trace their history all the way back to 1877.
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[SPEAKER_01]: were a 13-men met in Philadelphia to form their union, highly skilled craftsmen.
51:26
[SPEAKER_01]: The pattern makers created molds and models.
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[SPEAKER_01]: These cast molds were an essential step in the industrial manufacturing process.
51:34
[SPEAKER_01]: The earliest cause of the pattern makers was the nine-hour workday.
51:38
[SPEAKER_01]: Over the years, the pattern makers fought for the health and safety of their workers in an ever-changing industry.
51:44
[SPEAKER_01]: Like many industrial workers, abs and flows in the economy hit their union hard.
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[SPEAKER_01]: Their membership peaked during productive industrial times, including during World War II.
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[SPEAKER_01]: The pattern makers issued a lively, bi-monthly journal.
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[SPEAKER_01]: The journal related the news of their union, but also reported on major legal decisions and events impacting the national labor movement.
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[SPEAKER_01]: Also in the pages of the journal, the pattern makers related their efforts to support other workers in metal trades.
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[SPEAKER_01]: By 1959, the pattern makers had more than 15,000 numbers.
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[SPEAKER_01]: During the 1960s space race, it was the pattern makers who played an important role.
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[SPEAKER_01]: Their molds and models were an essential step in building spacecraft and other aeronautical equipment.
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[SPEAKER_01]: But in the 1970s, the pattern makers' numbers began to decline.
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[SPEAKER_01]: Finally, they decided as many unions have to merge with another union.
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[SPEAKER_01]: There are many untold stories of unions whose work kept the great machine of American industry running.
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[SPEAKER_01]: Labor history and two brought to you by the Illinois Labor History Society and the Rick Smith Show.
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[SPEAKER_01]: For more information, go to laborhistoryintu.com, like us on Facebook and follow us on the Twitter's at Labor History in the two.
53:01
[SPEAKER_02]: We're listening to the Rick Smith show we're working people coming to Tom.
53:05
[SPEAKER_01]: So we got to take our love Bruce's work is Bruce Cluger dot com if you want to check out Maga Country
53:17
[SPEAKER_01]: He's got a great piece on a little Marco.
53:20
[SPEAKER_01]: I wish I could have played it.
53:21
[SPEAKER_01]: Maybe we'll get it cleaned up and we'll bring it on the air.
53:23
[SPEAKER_01]: But look, I've been down to the little Marco.
53:26
[SPEAKER_01]: How to temperature.
53:27
[SPEAKER_01]: According to Axios, peace talks with Iran stalled at the United Nations.
53:31
[SPEAKER_01]: So our our genius, our little secretary of state.
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[SPEAKER_01]: What does he do?
53:38
[SPEAKER_01]: You know, our guy, evidently through the entire Iranian delegation out of the country.
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[SPEAKER_01]: They're foreign minister out of the country immediately get out go to your room no dessert Abbas All the weird thing is is evidently the Iranians were already leaving They're foreign minister rescheduled the fly with home that night anyway So rubio through a guy out of a party who was already walking out and that's not diplomacy.
54:06
[SPEAKER_01]: That's a guy Yaman That's a guy Yaman you can't quit you're fired as the guys carrying the box to his car
54:15
[SPEAKER_01]: Let's remember how we got into this.
54:18
[SPEAKER_01]: Remember remember how we got into the need for it Yeah, I mean either.
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[SPEAKER_01]: Oh this administration started this war by choice back in February nobody attacked us nobody forced their hands They chose it and seven months later surprise surprise They've still got no plan on how to end it They had no plan when they started and there isn't a plan
54:44
[SPEAKER_01]: So what's the strategy?
54:46
[SPEAKER_01]: I'll wish for a Hail Mary.
54:48
[SPEAKER_01]: Get guitar to broke or something, anything, please.
54:52
[SPEAKER_01]: A bail-out for the guy who drove the car into the ditch, seriously?
54:56
[SPEAKER_01]: The problem is you can't throw a Hail Mary when you fumbled on your own one yard line.
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[SPEAKER_01]: It just doesn't work that way.
55:03
[SPEAKER_01]: And they're mad at the Iranians who don't trust them.
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[SPEAKER_01]: Now, understand, just to be perfectly clear before the angry emails come.
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[SPEAKER_01]: The Iranian regime is a brutal, repressive, horrible regime.
55:18
[SPEAKER_01]: What I like to see them all gone absolutely.
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[SPEAKER_01]: Nobody here is defending them.
55:24
[SPEAKER_01]: But I gotta be honest, if I'm in their shoes, if I'm on the other side, I gotta be a little hesitant.
55:36
[SPEAKER_01]: because Trump tore up the last nuclear deal back in 2018, then in 2025 with talks still on the calendar, he goes in bombs or nooksut.
55:46
[SPEAKER_01]: And now this war, I don't know why anyone would believe a handshake from this crop.
55:53
[SPEAKER_01]: And even listening to Trump talk by the end of
56:02
[SPEAKER_01]: He's already made numerous statements where you go, I, what do you want?
56:09
[SPEAKER_01]: No, Trump gets up to the microphone on Wednesday last week.
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[SPEAKER_01]: And says maybe, maybe I'll blow him up.
56:16
[SPEAKER_01]: Maybe I'll blow him up.
56:18
[SPEAKER_01]: We have to make a decision.
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[SPEAKER_01]: Maybe, maybe you're gonna annihilate 90 million people.
56:27
[SPEAKER_01]: Maybe, I'm just,
56:33
[SPEAKER_01]: describing our war policy, like he's flipping a coin at the Waffle House, really.
56:39
[SPEAKER_01]: Meanwhile, it's all of us who pay for it, because again, it's not going to be them.
56:46
[SPEAKER_01]: It's going to be you and me and our winning is, you know, what, what I pay today for 29
57:03
[SPEAKER_01]: So you got farmers and truck drivers and every family who buys anything, paying the war tax or the new one I've seen, the winning tax.
57:14
[SPEAKER_01]: And look, it's the working class kids who are going to get shipped over the fight when they decide to do that.
57:20
[SPEAKER_01]: Because wars of choice are always, always paid for by the people who had no choice.
57:29
[SPEAKER_01]: You're not going to see barren signed up.
57:32
[SPEAKER_01]: You're not going to see dumb junior in an era in the rest of you're not going to see the Trump clan or the one that plays golf.
57:38
[SPEAKER_01]: You're not going to see them.
57:39
[SPEAKER_01]: You're going to see your kit.
57:43
[SPEAKER_01]: My kit's working class kits.
57:47
[SPEAKER_01]: And all by the way, as we continue to talk about this, we're going to continue to pay through the notes
57:59
[SPEAKER_01]: They're already saying diesel prices are not coming down for at least a year.
58:03
[SPEAKER_01]: So we're in for the long haul and look, they're happy, they're making profit.
58:09
[SPEAKER_01]: It's you and me, it's us.
58:12
[SPEAKER_01]: It's those of us who have to get up and go to work, who have to put food on the table, where the ones who are being hit by this.
58:18
[SPEAKER_01]: And this is why again, elections have consequences and we, as a country, walked into
58:25
[SPEAKER_01]: What was without question going to be chaotic insanity with nothing but a con man running the greatest grift of all time and he has not disappointed.
58:37
[SPEAKER_01]: Look, as it disappointed a bit, he's done everything and even a little more exceeded expectation on just how horrible this administration was going to be.
58:49
[SPEAKER_01]: Mission accomplished.
58:50
[SPEAKER_01]: Break out the bush banner and the sock for his drawers.
58:52
[SPEAKER_01]: I mean,
58:54
[SPEAKER_01]: Congrats, I guess, but for us, you and me, we're the ones who who pay the fright, and I'm waiting for the anger.
59:04
[SPEAKER_01]: Now, I know if the gas pumps people are angry, but you still got this, oh, I'm not fighting for freedom.
59:10
[SPEAKER_01]: I'm still not sure what.
59:12
[SPEAKER_01]: Still not sure which freedom I want to hear your thoughts if I'm missing something I've had some people tell me do my research Oh, and I say well tell me what I'm missing So by all means don't just send do your research send me what you're talking about You can do that at rickettorexmithsio.com because maybe I missed it or maybe it doesn't exist I want to hear your thoughts rickettorexmithsio.com Missing the portion of the program podcast and as always thanks so much for being here We'll see you back your next time
59:42
[SPEAKER_02]: You've been listening to the Rick Smith show.
59:46
[SPEAKER_02]: Email Rick at RickAtTheRickSmithShow.com.
59:54
[SPEAKER_02]: Until next time, this has been The Rick Smith Show.
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[SPEAKER_02]: We're working people coming to talk.