Latest / The Rick Smith Show / The Rick Smith Show 9-18-2026

Transcript

The Rick Smith Show 9-18-2026 · The Rick Smith Show

0:00
[SPEAKER_04]: It's time for the Rick Smith show.
0:05
[SPEAKER_01]: Now, here is the voice of a working class, Rick Smith.
0:13
[SPEAKER_04]: And welcome, brothers, sisters working class heroes.
0:17
[SPEAKER_04]: This is the ultimate joke.
0:19
[SPEAKER_04]: Thanks so much for being here.
0:21
[SPEAKER_04]: Today on the big program, I must get two lots to talk about, not sure what gas prices are in your neck of the woods, but diesel in my neighborhood, $7.9 cents.
0:34
[SPEAKER_04]: a gallon, almost 7, 7, 10 a gallon for diesel and you wonder why Congress, why the House Republicans cancel votes for the rest of the legislative session, going to go back to their districts and I'm sure they're going to talk about, you know, how important gas prices are.
0:53
[SPEAKER_04]: And look, you know what they're going to do, we already know, because JD fans is given them the playbook.
0:58
[SPEAKER_04]: They're going to go home and, well, they're going to blame Democrats.
1:02
[SPEAKER_04]: And you know what, a lot of, a lot of stupid is going to go, whoo, Democrats.
1:07
[SPEAKER_04]: When Democrats have zero power whatsoever to literally do anything.
1:13
[SPEAKER_04]: Our government is controlled, top to bottom, front to back inside and out by Republican and corporate interests.
1:21
[SPEAKER_04]: We are getting the best business run government money can buy and well,
1:30
[SPEAKER_04]: Now, your kitchen table and your cover is maybe empty, but profits are good.
1:35
[SPEAKER_04]: Now, also, the reason house Republicans are running away from DC is, you know, Thomas Massey did that little impeachment thing at Hegsta, none of them want to touch that football because the Iran War, I don't know if you noticed, it's not popular, it's not popular.
1:55
[SPEAKER_04]: So, you know, look, sending members home before the midterms tells us that Speaker Johnson knows he can't control what's going to happen over the next several weeks.
2:07
[SPEAKER_04]: And I understand, they had a big meeting, big powawan Tuesday turned into a shouting match, one person described it as as the craziest meeting they'd ever been part of.
2:18
[SPEAKER_04]: And understand, rightly so, constituents are a little, little myth, because their wallets are getting a lot lighter.
2:26
[SPEAKER_04]: Did I mention diesel in my area?
2:29
[SPEAKER_04]: 709, 709 went up 20 cents in one day and they're saying, get ready.
2:38
[SPEAKER_04]: In the next six to eight weeks, a little bit, it's gonna get worse.
2:42
[SPEAKER_04]: Gonna get worse.
2:44
[SPEAKER_04]: And as we head into the colder months, you know, where, you know, the cost of diesel, the cost of home heating oil, begin to surge, that's when the, that really then is when the, the anger is going to boil.
2:59
[SPEAKER_04]: And it comes back to a look what we've done in Iran.
3:03
[SPEAKER_04]: The budget office is now estimated that Iran is cost about $38 billion already.
3:12
[SPEAKER_04]: And also, let's not forget we're diminishing our resources, our munitions are dwindling.
3:21
[SPEAKER_04]: And for someone in the Pentagon to leak that out at a time when we're quote unquote at war, things have got to be bad.
3:29
[SPEAKER_04]: And on I guess surprise surprise, J.D.
3:33
[SPEAKER_04]: Vance's answer is, well, just blame the Democrats.
3:37
[SPEAKER_04]: And this is going to be the M.O.
3:38
[SPEAKER_04]: through all of this.
3:39
[SPEAKER_04]: So get ready.
3:41
[SPEAKER_04]: It's no longer going to be about in local elections.
3:43
[SPEAKER_04]: It's going to be they're going to try and nationalize it because they can't justify what they've done.
3:48
[SPEAKER_04]: Congress is going to go home.
3:49
[SPEAKER_04]: And the Republicans are going to go, well, y'know.
3:53
[SPEAKER_04]: They're going to have to find a boogie man and the boogie man is going to be going to be Joe Biden because you know, tried and true, Kamala Harris, since Gavin Newsom brought her name back in and the guy running for Senate in Michigan, Al Said, we're going to hear about him all the time.
4:09
[SPEAKER_04]: And of course, Mimdami will be everywhere all the time because we got to we got to scare people with the Muslims.
4:17
[SPEAKER_04]: Yeah, the Muslims are coming.
4:19
[SPEAKER_04]: And then, and then, and that, because they've already laid the groundwork, the socialism word, socialism, I literally had someone tell me yesterday that they're against national health care, and I love this, they're against national health care because they don't want to pay for someone else's health care.
4:48
[SPEAKER_04]: Do you understand the basic concept of basic insurance?
4:55
[SPEAKER_04]: You are paying for people.
4:56
[SPEAKER_04]: When you don't get sick and you don't spend a dime on your self, but you paid the premiums, you're paying for other people.
5:03
[SPEAKER_04]: And do you know what the response was?
5:07
[SPEAKER_04]: Well, at least they've got jobs.
5:10
[SPEAKER_04]: I gotta tell you, man, it's worked.
5:13
[SPEAKER_04]: The Neo-Libs, the Neo-Kons, the corporates, man, they're between our ears.
5:20
[SPEAKER_04]: When are your thoughts?
5:22
[SPEAKER_04]: Happy Congress is going home, especially when they haven't done anything on AI.
5:26
[SPEAKER_04]: Rick at TheRexBitsure.com, right back.
5:31
[SPEAKER_04]: I'm Rick Smith, and this is Labor History Inter.
5:35
[SPEAKER_04]: This day in Labor History, the year was 1934.
5:39
[SPEAKER_04]: That was the day that leading southern textile employers met together in Greenville, North Carolina.
5:45
[SPEAKER_04]: They met to plan a coordinated response to the national textile strike.
5:50
[SPEAKER_04]: The Great Depression had ravaged the textile industry.
5:53
[SPEAKER_04]: Workers were subject to the, quote, stretch out.
5:56
[SPEAKER_04]: Fewer workers were expected to work at a faster pace to produce the same amount of products.
6:02
[SPEAKER_04]: work in textile mills was already grueling.
6:04
[SPEAKER_04]: The stretch out made conditions even more unbearable.
6:08
[SPEAKER_04]: Fed up, 20,000 southern workers walked off the job in July.
6:13
[SPEAKER_04]: From there, the numbers grew.
6:15
[SPEAKER_04]: On Labor Day 65,000 workers in North Carolina joined the strike.
6:19
[SPEAKER_04]: Strikers confronted scabs and moved to close down mills, not participating in the strike.
6:25
[SPEAKER_04]: They also disrupted railroad traffic.
6:27
[SPEAKER_04]: In response, the National Guard was called out against the strikers.
6:32
[SPEAKER_04]: Violence erupted between the strikers and armed police and strikebreakers throughout the South and New England.
6:38
[SPEAKER_04]: The Southern owners decided it was time to marshal their own response to the strike.
6:44
[SPEAKER_04]: According to historian Jeremy Brecker, an army of 10,000 National
6:49
[SPEAKER_04]: was mobilized in Georgia, South Carolina, North Carolina, Alabama, and Mississippi, supplemented by 15,000 armed deputies.
6:58
[SPEAKER_04]: But despite this show of force, the strike grew more than 400,000 textile workers had walked off the job in response.
7:06
[SPEAKER_04]: President Franklin Delano Roosevelt's administration declared that the working conditions and wages in the industry should be studied.
7:14
[SPEAKER_04]: Although there were no guarantees for improvement, union leaders called off the strike.
7:19
[SPEAKER_04]: Much to the anger of many rank and file union members, one of the largest worker actions in U.S. history, and one of the most important uprising of southern labor was ended.
7:34
[SPEAKER_01]: Welcome back to the Rick Smith Show.
7:36
[SPEAKER_01]: Now, here is Rick Smith.
7:44
[SPEAKER_04]: So I'm going to say I agree with Bernie Sanders that it's embarrassing that Donald Trump knows so little about AI, but also understand it doesn't matter how much he knows, 35% of his stock portfolio is tied up in AI related stuff.
8:00
[SPEAKER_04]: So anybody surprised that he's on the side of AI, I would take Bernie statement a little bit further.
8:06
[SPEAKER_04]: Go it's embarrassing that Congress has allowed this to get so far out of hand.
8:13
[SPEAKER_04]: and that we've not regulated any of this for the last several years and that we funded most of it and are getting nothing really odd of it.
8:22
[SPEAKER_04]: I guess that's where the embarrassing part for me is, but the question now that the they're admitting potentially could bring us all the wonders of a lazy lifestyle or could kill us.
8:34
[SPEAKER_04]: You know, flip that coin, whichever it goes, uh, here to help me weed through some of this and help get us some information.
8:41
[SPEAKER_04]: I've asked Don Bell to come give us some thoughts.
8:44
[SPEAKER_04]: He's a policy council there at the Constitution project, at the project on government oversight, pogo.org, their website.
8:52
[SPEAKER_04]: Don, thanks for taking time for us.
8:54
[SPEAKER_02]: Thanks for having me, and that's one heck of a heck of a coin flight.
8:57
[SPEAKER_04]: No, I mean seriously, we were told, I mean if you listen to Elon Musk and this is where you know, I don't but if you did I was going to bring us this wild abundance.
9:09
[SPEAKER_04]: We weren't going to have to work money was going to be worthless.
9:12
[SPEAKER_04]: You wouldn't need any money because the product the product of
9:16
[SPEAKER_04]: Keep a capacity of AI and robotics and all of this new futuristic stuff was going to make, you know, us just have everything we could, our little hearts could ever dream of and if we did need money, there was going to be universal high income, so it was going to be nerve on it was going to be utopia was going to be everything that anyone's ever fantasized about and now we find out well, maybe maybe, but maybe it could kill you to it's a quite a world that we're living at.
9:46
[SPEAKER_02]: You know, there are so many unanswered questions that we have about AI and how will impact not just the economy but people are humanity that it's very true Congress really has dropped the ball so far in understanding this and regulating it appropriately.
10:09
[SPEAKER_04]: And look, all the tech pros, they've got what they've wanted over the years, very lacks regulations, if any at all, massive subsidies, Wall Street's been in love with them.
10:18
[SPEAKER_04]: We've, we've, we've steamrolled people's privacy concerns, especially when you're talking about social media and all the stuff that's online.
10:25
[SPEAKER_04]: We've basically let the, not just a cat, but
10:29
[SPEAKER_04]: but an entire herd of cats out of the bag.
10:32
[SPEAKER_04]: And I don't, look, I don't know that there's any way to bring this bag, put the genies back in the bottle or whatever, however you wanna frame that.
10:40
[SPEAKER_04]: I don't know.
10:41
[SPEAKER_04]: Any thoughts on, is it possible?
10:45
[SPEAKER_02]: I think it's still possible.
10:46
[SPEAKER_02]: And I think that's why we've seen so many people recently who are working at some of these AI companies come out and say, hey, this is really dangerous stuff and there needs to be some sort of regulation.
10:59
[SPEAKER_02]: This is not terribly surprising though because Congress has a history of being far behind technology and we know with the makeup of Congress that a lot of folks just aren't tech savvy that we know that staffers are using AI more and more and so you know this is one of those situations where AI
11:20
[SPEAKER_02]: is going to be its own era and when it comes to surveillance, when it comes to the economy, when it comes to how we interact with one another, it's important that people are thinking thoughtful and policy makers are thinking thoughtfully about what this can do and where it's going.
11:37
[SPEAKER_04]: Is it the end of privacy?
11:38
[SPEAKER_04]: Look, I grew up in an era where privacy was a thing.
11:41
[SPEAKER_04]: Where you might my grandfather, you have a saying, you don't put your behind out in the street.
11:46
[SPEAKER_04]: You kept your personal affairs in close to the vest in your four walls, but it seems like nothing is private.
11:53
[SPEAKER_04]: And you can't step outside your door and look, even inside your door with Alexa and your cell phone, someone's tracking everything you do every movement you make, every place you go,
12:05
[SPEAKER_04]: And with the cell phone, virtually every thought is being tracked.
12:11
[SPEAKER_04]: So are we looking at potentially the end of what my generation thought was privacy?
12:16
[SPEAKER_02]: I don't think we're at the end of privacy.
12:19
[SPEAKER_02]: But this new era that we're moving into has the potential to end privacy.
12:25
[SPEAKER_02]: When I think about this, I think about kind of the fundamental thing that has me in public policy, policies of choice.
12:33
[SPEAKER_02]: We get to decide in a democracy how far the government gets to go with a lot of different things.
12:42
[SPEAKER_02]: And I think one of the challenges that we've seen is this technology is moving so fast, much faster than people who may have been old enough to remember that the jump from pay phones to cell phones, right?
12:56
[SPEAKER_02]: We're moving much faster than that.
12:57
[SPEAKER_02]: And we're moving with a technology that has the potential to become more powerful on its own.
13:03
[SPEAKER_02]: And so
13:05
[SPEAKER_02]: It's really important that we're talking about privacy, that we're talking about limitations on what data can be collected, and how AI can utilize that data.
13:14
[SPEAKER_04]: Should this be a utility?
13:15
[SPEAKER_04]: I mean, this should we be regulating as we used to do in the old days?
13:19
[SPEAKER_04]: I know we're in the era of deregulation, and I know it's the reason all the tech pros and all of the money and interests have gotten behind Trump.
13:26
[SPEAKER_04]: Because he's basically smashing all the regulations and unleashing the wonders of the quote-unquote free market, which mean a handful of people benefit wildly while everyone else gets screwed.
13:38
[SPEAKER_04]: Is that where we are?
13:44
[SPEAKER_02]: That's a really interesting question.
13:45
[SPEAKER_02]: I haven't thought that that much.
13:49
[SPEAKER_02]: My focus tends to be more on this or beyond space of things.
13:53
[SPEAKER_02]: But I could see a point where maybe this does become some sort of utility.
13:59
[SPEAKER_02]: I mean, you think about some of the other communications technologies that we have, right?
14:03
[SPEAKER_02]: uh... and how we look at them now uh... AI again has to change the opportunity or the as the possibility of changing the world so no no i think you don't have to step into this and i'm looking at congress going
14:18
[SPEAKER_04]: Yeah, I want them to be the adults, but, you know, they look like petulant children, is it possible that they could even do their job because, look, they've not done anything all of these years.
14:29
[SPEAKER_04]: So do I have any faith that they're going to do it?
14:31
[SPEAKER_04]: But here's my problem.
14:32
[SPEAKER_04]: I vacillate between being a lullite and saying we should just smash all those machines.
14:37
[SPEAKER_04]: It's the hot stove, don't touch it, put it in a lockbox, never go near it.
14:42
[SPEAKER_04]: And the reality that if, well, if we don't do it, the Chinese most certainly will, or the Iranians, or who knows what, and then will be at a deficit, so I'm stuck in that kind of weird bipolar kind of situation.
14:58
[SPEAKER_02]: Well, I think in that regard, the cat is out of the bag.
15:01
[SPEAKER_02]: There are so many people who use different AIs, whether it's Gemini or Claude or been chatGPT.
15:08
[SPEAKER_02]: And I don't know if we're going back to the days of no one having any access to AI at all.
15:14
[SPEAKER_02]: I think the bright line is what happens if we get to a point where we have artificial intelligence agents.
15:27
[SPEAKER_02]: pretty much autonomously, or we have a general AI which would be four more powerful than the narrow AI that we currently have.
15:39
[SPEAKER_02]: That's where I think we need to think about what the line is, how does the government regulate that, how does it protect against bad actors using incredibly
15:54
[SPEAKER_04]: Hi, hacking of critical infrastructure now look this Huggie face things out everybody freaked out and it's amazing how quickly this changed The narrative for a lot of people because it was for a while all I was hearing how wonder if it was gonna be It was gonna be utopia We were gonna get all kinds of great stuff we were never gonna have to think or work or interact with anyone we could have wonderful relationships with our AI
16:16
[SPEAKER_04]: And now this has gotten some people freaked out that it did It committed some felonies from what I'm told.
16:23
[SPEAKER_04]: I broke some laws It did some things that they weren't expecting it to do to get out of their quote-unquote Sandbox and yet our stable ingenious president says all we really need to do is have a strong president to hold AI and check Of course someone who doesn't understand it.
16:40
[SPEAKER_04]: Should we should we be concerned that maybe the utopia we sold is probably the death card
16:47
[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, for sure, you know, we should be in a trust but verify error or maybe don't trust any one kind of error.
16:56
[SPEAKER_02]: That's why you have laws and policies in place to ensure that people aren't stepping over the line and that they're thinking about the consequences of the the technologies that they're building.
17:06
[SPEAKER_02]: And so
17:08
[SPEAKER_02]: You know, it, I think the last few weeks have made it clear to a lot of people, including folks on Capitol Hill, that this is something that is rapidly escalating and it needs some sort of oversight and regulation, but Congress can't just think about where the technology is now.
17:26
[SPEAKER_02]: They need to think about where the technology is going.
17:28
[SPEAKER_02]: Where it's going.
17:30
[SPEAKER_04]: Not scary stuff.
17:31
[SPEAKER_04]: And look, as someone who holds onto my privacy with every last ounce of my energy, I have been on this fear of technology for kind of a while.
17:41
[SPEAKER_04]: Look, I'm, I've, you use it because you have to, but you know, I've been fighting against the accumulation of data by corporate America for free, for decades now.
17:52
[SPEAKER_04]: on you know that when they came out with store cards and like this is a bad idea when they started slapping cameras on street corners going yeah and you may feel safer still a bad idea we're heading in this direction to where everything that you do everything that you think everything is everything is going to be findable and usable against you you no longer have the right to remain silent because they already know what you're thinking
18:14
[SPEAKER_04]: How bad is this surveillance state today and how concerned should someone like me who's already kind of freaked out by how much date is out there about me?
18:22
[SPEAKER_04]: How much should the average person be concerned?
18:25
[SPEAKER_04]: And I know if you're not doing anything wrong, Rick, you don't have anything to worry about.
18:29
[SPEAKER_04]: Yeah, I'm not buying that, but I want to hear your thoughts.
18:33
[SPEAKER_02]: Well, let's take that on first.
18:35
[SPEAKER_02]: You know, the idea that
18:38
[SPEAKER_02]: Just because you're not doing anything wrong is completely irrelevant to the constitution, the constitution provides protections against government being so powerful and so heavy handed that it's constantly monitoring everyone all the time and so.
18:55
[SPEAKER_02]: It doesn't really matter if you're doing something wrong or not, the Constitution exists to protect all of us and then there's that you know small thing of what you maybe doing today that's not wrong could arbitrarily be declared something wrong and worthy of surveillance next day by the next government right and so you know that that argument just falls flat to me.
19:16
[SPEAKER_02]: When we're talking about privacy and surveillance more generally, yeah, people have a lot to worry about.
19:22
[SPEAKER_02]: I think we're at a tipping point as we move into this AI era.
19:26
[SPEAKER_02]: We at Progo have been working very hard to close something called the data broker loophole.
19:31
[SPEAKER_02]: That's basically preventing the government from doing what it does now, which is basically getting around a fourth amendment or requirement to buy your data.
19:40
[SPEAKER_02]: and your data is constantly collected, as you mentioned, by your cell phone, all of the apps that you use, the geolocation stuff that you use, you know, this is scooped up by data brokers and then sold to the highest bidder, essentially.
19:55
[SPEAKER_02]: And the federal government in particular has been a really big
20:00
[SPEAKER_02]: And that, I think, is unconstitutional.
20:04
[SPEAKER_02]: The Supreme Court seems to be moving on that direction.
20:06
[SPEAKER_02]: And we need to stop it now before AI is so powerful that it's able to pull through those data streams.
20:13
[SPEAKER_04]: Because look, with AI now, they can go through, it used to be, it didn't matter that there were a thousand cameras there.
20:20
[SPEAKER_04]: They're not going to go through, and unless it's a real, not a terrorist attack or something, they're not going to go looking after every time Dick and Harry, you know, made J walked.
20:29
[SPEAKER_04]: But now the technology is such that I don't know if there was a, I did a story not too long ago that Ford has a patent for You know, the car to be able to report you to the police when you're speeding and not just you But the cars are round you by picking up the cameras in your car to report someone else.
20:48
[SPEAKER_04]: It's that kind of Really this is where we're going and the sad reality is yes, unfortunately I think Americans hear these kinds of stories and they
20:59
[SPEAKER_02]: Think of it in the same line of thinking that they think with lock cameras.
21:03
[SPEAKER_02]: It's gone too far.
21:05
[SPEAKER_02]: You know, we recently a few months ago actually feels like recently, we were joining with a number of other organizations to bring in a AI public policy company to do demonstrations for members and staff on Capitol Hill to show how dangerous AI
21:28
[SPEAKER_02]: And so they came in and they did a demonstration.
21:30
[SPEAKER_02]: The first part of the demonstration was basically they had built a relatively basic AI agent, right?
21:37
[SPEAKER_02]: And AI that can work independently.
21:40
[SPEAKER_02]: And they purchased a couple of data broker subscriptions.
21:45
[SPEAKER_02]: And in this demonstration, they told VAI, kind of like a Google prompt, pull up a dossier on this person who works at Planned Parenthood, where this person who
21:57
[SPEAKER_02]: Within seconds, this AI was able to pull all kinds of information on these people with just basic and data broker subscriptions.
22:06
[SPEAKER_04]: Yeah, just to stuff that's online.
22:08
[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, just to stuff that's not even hacking yet.
22:11
[SPEAKER_04]: Not even hacking into your personal medical records, your insurance or any of that's not even doing the nefarious stuff.
22:17
[SPEAKER_04]: Just what's available.
22:19
[SPEAKER_02]: Just what's available in the crazy thing was for one of the demonstrations, one of the pieces of the dossier was passwords that were on the dark web as part of this dossier.
22:30
[SPEAKER_02]: So that was one part of the demonstration.
22:32
[SPEAKER_02]: The other part was they basically drew a circle around a place, and VAI was able to use the location history that it had used from data brokers to
22:42
[SPEAKER_02]: track people who are gone to and from that place.
22:46
[SPEAKER_02]: It's incredibly dangerous stuff and if Congress doesn't get a whole event, doesn't wake up, then we will be on the precipice of the end of privacy.
22:58
[SPEAKER_04]: So what do we do?
22:58
[SPEAKER_04]: I mean, this is where we wrap this up because you know, I could talk I could talk with you about this all day long because this is it's it's it's right now the thing that most people have no idea what it is and most people are either in love with the idea because we've been sold that it's going to be the greatest things in sliced bread or people like me they're not so not so I'm bored what do we do about this.
23:21
[SPEAKER_02]: So this is a time where people are paying attention, and people are upset about what they're seeing.
23:26
[SPEAKER_02]: I think it is important to let your member of Congress know that they, firstly, don't understand what AI is.
23:36
[SPEAKER_02]: Unfortunately.
23:37
[SPEAKER_02]: It's a very basic term.
23:39
[SPEAKER_04]: So stuff, it's that A1s, you put on your steak, is that what that is?
23:44
[SPEAKER_02]: Well, there was an article today about,
23:47
[SPEAKER_02]: You know, members of Congress who are asked if they use AI and some of the answers were pretty interesting, but the first thing is people need to let their members of Congress know that they need to pay attention to this and they need to do something now.
23:59
[SPEAKER_02]: They need to close the data broker loophole so that a red camp buy your data and they need to have regulations on AI so that AI isn't used for domestic surveillance.
24:11
[SPEAKER_04]: because they're doing it now as I understand, right?
24:14
[SPEAKER_04]: I mean, this stuff is kind of happening already.
24:16
[SPEAKER_04]: It's already being done and just nobody's minding the store or am I wrong, haven't they gotten to that point yet?
24:23
[SPEAKER_04]: Or is this just in the testing realm?
24:27
[SPEAKER_02]: The surveillance is there in some regard, right?
24:30
[SPEAKER_02]: So when we talk about the data broker loop haul, we know that the government's purchasing that data.
24:35
[SPEAKER_02]: It's unclear yet whether we are seeing widespread use of AI for surveillance purposes.
24:42
[SPEAKER_02]: Um, and that's why I think we're on the precipice.
24:45
[SPEAKER_04]: Yeah.
24:45
[SPEAKER_04]: No, because I remember talking about my see a story of, you know, we found a truck that got, what was it?
24:49
[SPEAKER_04]: It was tungsten that got stolen in California and they tracked it all the way to Indiana.
24:54
[SPEAKER_04]: And they were going, this is the, this is why we need flat cameras in AI because we were able to get, you know, this company back its stolen merchandise.
25:02
[SPEAKER_04]: And you know, every time we hear one of those stories, it's supposed to make us feel better because somehow we're now safer that that company's got its tungsten back.
25:10
[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, there's a whole lot of surveillance that's happening.
25:13
[SPEAKER_02]: And I think part of the problem is that particularly with this administration, there's not a whole lot of transparency on what's happening.
25:21
[SPEAKER_02]: But we know there's a whole lot of surveillance going on because of all of the news stories that we're seeing.
25:25
[SPEAKER_02]: So Congress, I think, as a first step needs to provide some oversight, get real answers on how extensive those surveillance state actually is.
25:37
[SPEAKER_02]: and then utilize that to draw up the kind of guardrails and laws that will rain this in.
25:44
[SPEAKER_04]: Yeah, I got to tell you what you just said there gives me no hope whatsoever at all.
25:52
[SPEAKER_02]: Sometimes I feel the same way, but look, we are still in a democracy, we need to demand that the people who represent us, do their job.
26:01
[SPEAKER_02]: And if they, if they can't do the most basic things, then we're, you know, in a much more dangerous and dark place, then we're talking about right now.
26:12
[SPEAKER_04]: No, I mean, the sad reality is they can't name a post office.
26:16
[SPEAKER_04]: How are they going to, how are they going to take on something this complex that they've ignored and basically, you know, promoted all of these years and are in bed with all of these years.
26:29
[SPEAKER_02]: I don't know how they, I don't know how they, I don't know if I can just say, I think what makes this a little bit different is the really dire warnings that we're getting from.
26:41
[SPEAKER_02]: some of these folks who have come from these AI companies, right?
26:44
[SPEAKER_02]: It's one thing if you feel like you can put things off because of politics.
26:48
[SPEAKER_02]: It's another thing if people are saying, hey, this could kill everybody.
26:52
[SPEAKER_02]: You really need to do something about it.
26:55
[SPEAKER_02]: So, you know, I have a little more long-term hope that
27:00
[SPEAKER_02]: Policy makers will be able to fully wrap their heads around this and do something.
27:05
[SPEAKER_02]: But look, like anything, it's going to be a struggle.
27:08
[SPEAKER_02]: There are people on all kinds of sides of this issue, but we need to remember that policy is a choice and our privacy is not optional under the Fourth Amendment.
27:15
[SPEAKER_04]: There you go.
27:16
[SPEAKER_04]: Don Bell, I appreciate the time.
27:18
[SPEAKER_04]: Policy Council at the Constitution Progress project.
27:21
[SPEAKER_04]: There at the project, I'm government oversight.
27:23
[SPEAKER_04]: You can check out their work at pogo.org.
27:26
[SPEAKER_04]: Bell, thanks so much.
27:28
[SPEAKER_02]: Thank you.
27:29
[SPEAKER_04]: I don't want to hear your thoughts.
27:30
[SPEAKER_04]: You can surn about your privacy or are you buying into the, it's going to be utopia.
27:34
[SPEAKER_04]: It's going to be great.
27:35
[SPEAKER_04]: We won't have to do anything.
27:37
[SPEAKER_04]: I don't have to think.
27:37
[SPEAKER_04]: I can write them.
27:38
[SPEAKER_04]: I don't have to write my own papers.
27:41
[SPEAKER_04]: And for all the folks who send me the hate mail with semi-colons and perfect grammar, are you going to miss your AI hate mail?
27:47
[SPEAKER_04]: I want to hear it.
27:48
[SPEAKER_04]: Rick at therxmitcer.com, right back.
28:00
[SPEAKER_04]: I'm Rick Smith, and this is Labor History Into.
28:03
[SPEAKER_01]: On this day in Labor History, the year was 1947.
28:06
[SPEAKER_04]: That was the day workers at the International Harvestor Plant in Louisville, Kentucky had had enough.
28:13
[SPEAKER_04]: They had just rejected a pay scale lower than that of Harvestor Workers' elsewhere.
28:17
[SPEAKER_04]: In her recent article for Leo Weekly, historian Tony Gilpin refers to the lower pay as the Southern differential.
28:24
[SPEAKER_04]: Harvestor workers walked off the job in a 40 day strike.
28:28
[SPEAKER_04]: Black and white Louisville workers were united in a rare form of solidarity.
28:33
[SPEAKER_04]: International Harvestor had had a long labor-hating history.
28:37
[SPEAKER_04]: Its four-runner had been the McCormick Reaper Works, the site that sparked the 1886 Haymarket Incident in Chicago.
28:43
[SPEAKER_04]: Harvestor had been able to keep the unions out until the farm equipment workers of the CIO finally organized there in 1941.
28:51
[SPEAKER_04]: and the FE followed Harvester as they attempted to escape to the Union Free South.
28:57
[SPEAKER_04]: The FE successfully organized the new Louisville plant just two months before the strike.
29:03
[SPEAKER_04]: Workers learned quickly that they were paid much less, making the same equipment as their brothers in Chicago, Indianapolis and elsewhere.
29:10
[SPEAKER_04]: Gilpin adds that the FE literature, fourth rightly stated, quote, once the Negro and white workers were united, the low wage system of the South would collapse.
29:20
[SPEAKER_04]: Workers pressed for their demands, and appealed to area farmers for support.
29:25
[SPEAKER_04]: They stressed that farmers would not pay less for equipment, simply because local workers were paid less.
29:31
[SPEAKER_04]: Black and white workers pick it together, eight together, and planned their strike together at their new Union Hall.
29:38
[SPEAKER_04]: Harvestor initially tried to red-bait F.E.
29:41
[SPEAKER_04]: leaders.
29:41
[SPEAKER_04]: When that failed, the company was forced to grant steep wage increases.
29:46
[SPEAKER_04]: Gilpin Cites F.E.
29:47
[SPEAKER_04]: News, which reported quote, two smashing victories in hand.
29:51
[SPEAKER_04]: One over international harvestor, the other over the Mason Dixon, low wage line.
29:56
[SPEAKER_04]: Like what you hear, check out more at laborhistoryintu.com.
30:00
[SPEAKER_00]: A West Texas cowboys saying advises never sign nothing by neon.
30:06
[SPEAKER_00]: But that's exactly the key operational method of the AI data center hucksters who are foisting their expoative multi-billion dollar scams on local folks all across America.
30:17
[SPEAKER_00]: corporate slicks for outfits like Amazon, meta, open AI, and Google are slithering through the countryside, luring locals to surrender land, water, electric power, and democratic rights to profiteering billionaires who promise pie in the sky prosperity.
30:34
[SPEAKER_00]: These deals are typically cut and the dim light of secret meetings where corporate lawyers whisper to bedazzle local officials just sign here cowboy.
30:44
[SPEAKER_00]: The key to this mass deception is a legalistic corporate contravence called an NDA, non-disclosure agreement.
30:52
[SPEAKER_00]: It allows data-centered owners and a small group of insiders to negotiate a raw deal for area residents.
30:59
[SPEAKER_00]: They hide essential details from the public.
31:02
[SPEAKER_00]: Details like, who pays, how much, who profits, what are the side effects, who's responsible for damages, and what the hell is this room so dark?
31:13
[SPEAKER_00]: These NDAs even have corporate code names like Project Lightning.
31:17
[SPEAKER_00]: What's the rush?
31:19
[SPEAKER_00]: As one opponent of a Louisiana Rush job said, we live here.
31:22
[SPEAKER_00]: We want to know how it impacts us.
31:25
[SPEAKER_00]: The inside schemers pushing that deal, clocks sympathetically, winked at each other, then assured bothersome locals that an independent study had shown the proposed data center would cause no harm.
31:37
[SPEAKER_00]: Maybe, but the profiteers then said, the study itself could not be released for public review.
31:43
[SPEAKER_00]: Why?
31:44
[SPEAKER_00]: Because the developer had covered it with an NDA.
31:47
[SPEAKER_00]: This is Jim Heichauer saying, government by corporate impose secrecy is totalitarianism.
31:53
[SPEAKER_00]: Didn't we, the people, have an armed revolution against that 250 years ago?
32:10
[SPEAKER_01]: Welcome back to the Rick Smith show now here is Rick Smith.
32:16
[SPEAKER_04]: According to New Government Accountability Office report, the Trump administration last year spent nine and a half billion dollars paying federal workers to not work.
32:28
[SPEAKER_04]: And I guess this is how they were going to shrink the size of government without making it look like they were just doing mass fireings.
32:35
[SPEAKER_04]: So I guess nearly $10 billion provides a little bit of political cover, but the question is, who's doing those jobs?
32:44
[SPEAKER_04]: And I look at this story over at Fedweek, that's saying that the VA is not looking at massive severe shortages.
32:53
[SPEAKER_04]: you know, taking care of our heroes and it kind of makes you wonder, you know, the guy who's running our government into the ground, does he, does he really care about you?
33:02
[SPEAKER_04]: I know it's about, you know, Doji was going to save us some money.
33:05
[SPEAKER_04]: We're going to get those Do's checks.
33:07
[SPEAKER_04]: Keep holding your breath for that.
33:10
[SPEAKER_04]: But...
33:12
[SPEAKER_04]: Seriously, and here to share some thoughts on just how crazy it is now working for the federal government.
33:17
[SPEAKER_04]: I've asked my good friend Phil Glover to come share some thoughts.
33:20
[SPEAKER_04]: Phil is the district three national vice president there at AFGE.
33:24
[SPEAKER_04]: You can check out their website afge.org.
33:27
[SPEAKER_04]: Phil, thanks for taking time for us.
33:29
[SPEAKER_03]: Thanks for your time.
33:30
[SPEAKER_03]: I appreciate you having this one.
33:31
[SPEAKER_04]: So, look, I look at this story, and you're the $10 billion basically firing people so that our government is smaller, isn't doing enough, and now you see these reports.
33:43
[SPEAKER_04]: It seems like it seems like we're killing it to save it, or we're just killing it.
33:49
[SPEAKER_03]: Well, I think it goes back to what Grover Norquist, many, many decades ago, he wants to get government small enough he can drown it in a bathtub.
33:58
[SPEAKER_03]: I think that's what this was supposed to be, Russell Vow, Heritage Foundation, Project 2025, they came in with this idea that, you know,
34:09
[SPEAKER_03]: Elon Musk came up with a Twitter where first we're going to send out this thing hey all of you should quit then you know they did this deferred resignation program and now we have found out that they had so many federal employees they sent home on.
34:25
[SPEAKER_03]: eight months of paid admin leave that it was 9.5 billion dollars a worth of salary.
34:32
[SPEAKER_03]: And they could have been working for the federal government while the agencies took a look at what they did and and and really took a dive into should we change what what we do is their way to streamline things.
34:46
[SPEAKER_03]: Things like that can be done.
34:47
[SPEAKER_03]: It was done back in the 90s by Bill Clinton
34:56
[SPEAKER_03]: And then the worst part is they started hiring people back after they paid all this money.
35:01
[SPEAKER_03]: Yeah, we started hiring people back because they found out they couldn't do all of the work with who was left.
35:08
[SPEAKER_04]: That was going to be my next line of questioning because look, you know, the job still has to get done.
35:12
[SPEAKER_04]: And I know that there are those who believe that that the federal government can't won't and shouldn't do anything.
35:19
[SPEAKER_04]: But there are some very essential jobs that have to be done.
35:22
[SPEAKER_04]: And, you know, you see these ghost offices at Social Security offices where you people can't get a hold of anyone.
35:29
[SPEAKER_04]: How much of this is do you think want a pure hatred of government or two, you know, they bought into Elon Musk's idea that we can just do everything with automation.
35:36
[SPEAKER_04]: We can have robots do it all.
35:39
[SPEAKER_03]: Well, that seems to be a big part of this is like the Social Security Commissioner.
35:44
[SPEAKER_03]: He wants to move a lot of Social Security applications and approvals to run through AI without staff.
35:53
[SPEAKER_03]: Now, he claims
35:55
[SPEAKER_03]: different when he gets in front of Congress or something.
35:57
[SPEAKER_03]: Oh, no, this is just the helping place.
35:59
[SPEAKER_03]: Well, if you've cut half the employees and now they're using AI, it's not about helping employees.
36:07
[SPEAKER_03]: And then you have veterans of benefit administration who's
36:10
[SPEAKER_03]: you know, looking at a similar thing.
36:12
[SPEAKER_03]: Doug Collins wants to run all VA benefits through AI to see if people fraudulently got benefits.
36:20
[SPEAKER_03]: Well, it takes forever to get VA benefits, not forever, but takes a while to get VA benefits.
36:25
[SPEAKER_03]: You have to have, you know, doctors appointments and evidence to get your claim passed.
36:31
[SPEAKER_03]: And humans do that work on the end.
36:34
[SPEAKER_03]: and make sure that that we as veterans and among of them puts in the proper paperwork, goes through the appointments.
36:42
[SPEAKER_03]: And now, well, let's run them through AI and see if there's any fraud.
36:46
[SPEAKER_03]: You know, this is their whole thing with government.
36:47
[SPEAKER_03]: It's fraudulent, everything's fraudulent.
36:49
[SPEAKER_03]: And we know it's bullshit.
36:52
[SPEAKER_03]: You know, we just know it.
36:54
[SPEAKER_04]: You know, I remember back, it's been about 10 years now since we did one of our hungry and homeless for the holiday food drives.
37:01
[SPEAKER_04]: There was a of that, who was homeless, who stayed with us the entire time.
37:05
[SPEAKER_04]: We were living in the parking lot, and it took us three months of, of jumping through hoops to get him VA benefits to get him into a VA house.
37:12
[SPEAKER_04]: Somewhere out in your Pittsburgh, actually.
37:15
[SPEAKER_04]: Um, that, you know, like I kind of a halfway residence because he was he was disabled and you know, just just sadly a mess.
37:21
[SPEAKER_04]: I mean, we as taxpayers spent hundreds of thousands of dollars to keep this guy alive only to then shove him out on the street with no roof over us and it's just an absolute shame.
37:32
[SPEAKER_04]: But to your point that there isn't all that fraudulent stuff that they want us to believe is out there.
37:37
[SPEAKER_04]: In fact, it's too difficult and I'll be honest with you.
37:40
[SPEAKER_04]: I would be okay with a little bit of fraud.
37:43
[SPEAKER_04]: If it meant that guy didn't have to live in the woods for three months while they were processing his client.
37:48
[SPEAKER_03]: Right.
37:49
[SPEAKER_03]: I mean, that's the thing, Rick, is this this whole, what they have done with government and what they constantly talk about every day.
37:57
[SPEAKER_03]: is, and his administration and the secretaries and these press conferences, federal employees are just milking you the taxpayer for their salaries.
38:10
[SPEAKER_03]: Well, most federal employees live outside of Washington, DC.
38:15
[SPEAKER_03]: Most federal employees make 50 to anywhere from 50 to maybe $80,000 a year, depending on what their education
38:27
[SPEAKER_03]: And it takes a lot of training.
38:28
[SPEAKER_03]: I mean, it takes six to eight months of training to train a Social Security case worker to process and approve and work through Social Security benefits, disability benefits, and the same with VBA.
38:43
[SPEAKER_03]: It's like a six to eight month training program.
38:46
[SPEAKER_03]: and doge came in and fired all those people or told them to go take the deferred resignation.
38:52
[SPEAKER_03]: And now they have to rehire, they have to retrain these folks and it takes forever to get this done.
38:59
[SPEAKER_03]: These are technical jobs.
39:01
[SPEAKER_03]: This is not, you know, and I don't want to
39:05
[SPEAKER_03]: So, you know, make it sound like this is a bad thing.
39:07
[SPEAKER_03]: It's not, but this isn't, you're not for burgers, you're not doing yoga, you're not leaning up, you know, offices, or something, you know, these are technical jobs.
39:18
[SPEAKER_03]: And they have just come at these people, and it's just terrible to watch.
39:26
[SPEAKER_03]: And it's terrible to watch some in the public and I'm gonna say 30% 20% whatever it is, but still follow this guy off a cliff,
39:34
[SPEAKER_03]: to cheer this stuff that it's like they want people to hurt.
39:38
[SPEAKER_03]: I don't know why.
39:39
[SPEAKER_03]: I don't know what they what happened to them when they were kids, but man, that talk about some vitriol and social media has just expanded it made of worse.
39:49
[SPEAKER_03]: So.
39:49
[SPEAKER_04]: Yes, I'm right there with you.
39:51
[SPEAKER_04]: As I've said, you know, social media is where people are the worst versions of themselves Because they want they want other people to be and this has been my experience They want other people to be as miserable as they are because look the average American out there is struggling and if they're being Constantly told time and time again on right-wing media that you know these federal governments They've got healthcare these workers got healthcare.
40:12
[SPEAKER_04]: They they don't pay for anything.
40:14
[SPEAKER_04]: They get it till the day they die.
40:15
[SPEAKER_04]: They've got pensions
40:17
[SPEAKER_04]: Do you have pensions?
40:18
[SPEAKER_04]: They're paying for that.
40:19
[SPEAKER_04]: Of course there's going to be some jealousy and some anger.
40:22
[SPEAKER_04]: And this is where the organising from labor should be really using this as a, hey, they've got it, maybe ask how you can get it instead of taking it away from them.
40:32
[SPEAKER_04]: But I want to go back to you brought up Doge and I think at some point don't we have to go back and examine the crime that was the department of government efficiency and all of the theft of the data and and maybe I don't know figure out what exactly they did because the claims of all these savings and oh our does check never really ever materialized.
40:56
[SPEAKER_03]: No, they didn't.
40:57
[SPEAKER_03]: And the GAO report, which has been published as August 6th, it goes down through this.
41:04
[SPEAKER_03]: And it talks about how they came in.
41:06
[SPEAKER_03]: They tried to say that some of their savings were things that had already been phased out, leases, various things.
41:17
[SPEAKER_03]: Their wall of receipts that still online,
41:22
[SPEAKER_03]: Don't have backup for their claims, a lot of their claims, and they have no methodology on how according to GAO if no methodology on how they came up with these savings
41:33
[SPEAKER_03]: And so, you know, in some places, it says, you know, they saved 108 out of 264 leases.
41:41
[SPEAKER_03]: When many of these were already in the process of going away, so it was a 15.3 million supposed savings there, which 53 million of these leases were already going out.
41:55
[SPEAKER_03]: There's discussion about the report has a discussion about defense health agency and IT contract, where they said they were going to be cut, those IT checks or IT contracts were never gotten rid of because they were necessary.
42:11
[SPEAKER_03]: DOD, Department of Defense, or whatever you want to call it today,
42:15
[SPEAKER_03]: didn't end up getting rid of those.
42:17
[SPEAKER_03]: But they're listed as savings on the on the doge site.
42:20
[SPEAKER_03]: And you're right, this needs, this is gonna have to be looked at probably by the next Congress to see.
42:28
[SPEAKER_03]: You know, what exactly they did, you know, we're still in federal lawsuits on the data breaches from Doge where they took federal employees data.
42:39
[SPEAKER_03]: They tried to take workers' comp data from the Department of Labor.
42:43
[SPEAKER_03]: They tried, you know, they got hold of tax information.
42:46
[SPEAKER_03]: We know that.
42:47
[SPEAKER_03]: And we know that they were trying to get so security information.
42:51
[SPEAKER_03]: And so we still don't know what all that looks like because again, there's no transparency.
42:57
[SPEAKER_04]: Yeah, we don't know what Big Ball's got to hold of.
42:59
[SPEAKER_04]: And the fact that, no, I mean, it sounds like a joke.
43:03
[SPEAKER_04]: It sounds like a joke, but a kid named Big Balls had access to all of this information.
43:08
[SPEAKER_04]: And we don't know what he stole.
43:10
[SPEAKER_04]: And nobody's looked into it.
43:11
[SPEAKER_04]: So for me at some point, that's got to be part of the question.
43:16
[SPEAKER_04]: But also an opportunity for you guys
43:21
[SPEAKER_04]: the reality is is we do a damn good job.
43:24
[SPEAKER_04]: Things run efficiently and you didn't find all the waste fraud and abuse that you claimed was out there because we were told it was that they were just going to slash and burn and save us billions in fact they were going to save so much.
43:36
[SPEAKER_04]: We were all getting five grand fill.
43:39
[SPEAKER_03]: Yeah, you were going to get a big check.
43:41
[SPEAKER_03]: Now you might get another one if you vote right.
43:43
[SPEAKER_03]: You know, I don't know if you, if you vote right, if you vote right, if you vote right, if you're vote right, you get the right, do you get a check.
43:50
[SPEAKER_04]: Yeah, here's the thing.
43:51
[SPEAKER_04]: I just saw a diesel 709 in my neck of the woods.
43:56
[SPEAKER_04]: I don't know what, what brain dead, puddle, puddle brain flag monkey would vote for this administration.
44:03
[SPEAKER_04]: uh... get based on the policies that have brought us to this moment but i would love to meet that person to find out the values all that they have because the reality is is all of the promises i know are our genius stable genius president said he's kept all his promises um... i'm still waiting for that bucket gallon gas yeah that's not uh... obviously
44:27
[SPEAKER_03]: That's not happening, we still have people that claim that gas was higher under Biden.
44:33
[SPEAKER_03]: uh, it was not even just coming out of the, obviously gas prices went up coming out of the COVID pandemic, but they, they stabilized fairly quickly and by the end of Biden, I can remember here, where I'm at, uh, 284 gallon.
44:51
[SPEAKER_03]: Um, not that that was, you know, what I like it to be 240.
44:54
[SPEAKER_03]: Yeah.
44:55
[SPEAKER_03]: What I like it to be $1.99.
44:56
[SPEAKER_03]: Sure.
44:57
[SPEAKER_03]: But it surely wasn't $4.80.
45:02
[SPEAKER_03]: or five dollars, which is where it's heading now, this is crazy and to blame Biden for it now is just more ridiculous, you know, 600 days into this administration, they're blaming their inflation on him, they're blaming gas prices.
45:23
[SPEAKER_04]: No, and this is what JD Vance's great midterm message is.
45:27
[SPEAKER_04]: Yes, yes, go back to your constituents, hear them complain about how bad life sucks, and then blame Biden, it's all Biden's fault, it's the Democrats' fault, the Democrats did this, even though the Democrats have zero power.
45:40
[SPEAKER_04]: And I want to go back to what's going on because the government accountability office, I guess is recommending that the executive office of the president, which I don't know why you would even make a recommendation to Trump's office, but they're recommending through the US DO service to clearly disclose known data limitations on its quote unquote wall of receipts.
46:01
[SPEAKER_04]: Do you think disclosure is enough?
46:04
[SPEAKER_04]: Or do you think there should be a pause or
46:08
[SPEAKER_04]: before they claim any more quote unquote savings and and you know justify any more of the firings that they've done or service cuts that they've done.
46:18
[SPEAKER_03]: I believe that the inspector generals that are still left, you know, obviously Trump fired 17 of them out of different agencies, but the inspector generals are supposed to do this work anyway.
46:30
[SPEAKER_03]: They're the ones that are supposed to look for fraud ways to abuse.
46:34
[SPEAKER_03]: They should go back through and open investigations on what those did if federal agencies.
46:40
[SPEAKER_03]: Um, I would say the justice department, but there's no trust in the justice department under Todd Blanch.
46:46
[SPEAKER_03]: Um, and, and so who knows what would happen there?
46:50
[SPEAKER_03]: There used to be a very good OIG at the Department of Justice.
46:54
[SPEAKER_03]: Um, I think he is now retired.
46:57
[SPEAKER_03]: Uh, he was there when I was with the Bureau of Persons and he was a very fair person and he looked at stuff very, uh, clearly.
47:05
[SPEAKER_03]: I don't know what you have over just to say anymore.
47:10
[SPEAKER_03]: Right.
47:10
[SPEAKER_03]: But I do think that this should be reopened, I think, you know, OIGs across the government should relook at this, find out what happened, you know, and recommend to Congress, at least, some changes to how this stuff gets worked on, especially, I guess, hopefully after January,
47:36
[SPEAKER_04]: you know, but here's the thing, you know, this is where my where I come back to is, you know, they've made all these wild claims you listen to Trump, the economy's great, they he's kept every promise, you know, we're respected around the world, they they they broadcast this stuff as if it's certainty, but you talk to the average person, not so much.
47:57
[SPEAKER_04]: So all of this is an election era of kind of message, you know, what's what's the way forward here?
48:04
[SPEAKER_04]: I mean,
48:04
[SPEAKER_04]: the only accountability is going to come is with a change of leadership in the house and in the Senate.
48:11
[SPEAKER_04]: What do you see the pathway forward on this this being?
48:15
[SPEAKER_03]: Well, that's I think that is the only thing right now that's going to have any relief for the federal government is if the house and hopefully the Senate can flip you will get
48:31
[SPEAKER_03]: You know, the chairmanship of these major committees, you will have subpoena power then there will be changes to oversight.
48:40
[SPEAKER_03]: I don't think they should.
48:41
[SPEAKER_03]: I really believe and I've said this to many of my friends, frankly, and both sides of the eye.
48:49
[SPEAKER_03]: that I hope they don't go into this as a impeach and peach and peach thing.
48:55
[SPEAKER_03]: They're not going to have enough votes in the Senate for that.
48:58
[SPEAKER_03]: But I do think they should be doing legislation to help workers.
49:01
[SPEAKER_03]: I think they need to focus and not fail this time.
49:05
[SPEAKER_03]: You can't focus on one issue like, you know, healthcare, like they did in the, you know, under Obama every time we went to talk to them about other labor things, well, we're doing healthcare.
49:17
[SPEAKER_03]: Well, we're doing healthcare.
49:18
[SPEAKER_03]: They have got to be able to walk and chew gum.
49:20
[SPEAKER_03]: here.
49:21
[SPEAKER_03]: Absolutely.
49:22
[SPEAKER_03]: And they've got to let the committees operate and do different things instead of everything going through the leadership.
49:28
[SPEAKER_03]: And hopefully they'll do that.
49:31
[SPEAKER_03]: But I do think that's really one of the only ways this gets dealt with is to open this up and get subpoenas and get documents
49:48
[SPEAKER_03]: which we know are false.
49:49
[SPEAKER_03]: Most of these claims are false about how great things are right.
49:53
[SPEAKER_03]: Now, if people can feel it, so I would hope that the public is not to get some panic, goes into the midterms, makes the right choices.
50:03
[SPEAKER_04]: I would hope you're right, but let me ask you about your members finally, because look, it's Ben, what we're 20 months into this nightmare.
50:12
[SPEAKER_04]: the abuse that they've taken over this this this this administration.
50:16
[SPEAKER_04]: It's got to be taking it's toll.
50:19
[SPEAKER_04]: Do you see a sense of fatigue?
50:20
[SPEAKER_04]: Do you see a sense of a fight?
50:22
[SPEAKER_04]: Do you see a sense of surrender?
50:24
[SPEAKER_04]: Where do you or do you see your members?
50:26
[SPEAKER_03]: I think there's a mix of that, Rick.
50:29
[SPEAKER_03]: I think our members, you know, summer like it doesn't matter what we do.
50:35
[SPEAKER_03]: They always have the upper hand.
50:37
[SPEAKER_03]: I think there's others that will stand until the last, the last, you know, person standing and fight for what they can.
50:47
[SPEAKER_03]: You know, we've been out, I've been out to three areas of my district recently, the defiliate, I've been to Pittsburgh and I've been to Northease PA. And I can tell you that there are a lot of members we've had people come out.
51:00
[SPEAKER_03]: Want to hear about our legal fight, want to hear about legislation and where we are there, what they can do to help.
51:08
[SPEAKER_03]: I've raised more political committee action committee money in the last month and I had in several months.
51:16
[SPEAKER_03]: So, people are reacting, what I like to be bigger, yes, what I like to be stronger, yes, but we're out there, we're going to be in Harrisburg, actually tomorrow night, and needing with some members from the two bases out there and the park service and some others that are going to come and visit with us and hear that message.
51:40
[SPEAKER_04]: Good on you see where it seems like now would be the time that new people would be flocking back Because they're under assault, but we'll see how it goes fill as always.
51:48
[SPEAKER_04]: I appreciate your thoughts great stuff Thanks, we have a good night.
51:52
[SPEAKER_04]: Thanks so much our good friend Phil Glover a FGE district three national vice president check out their website AFGE.org Wanna hear your thoughts you a government worker a federal worker how you take in how you take in the abuse?
52:05
[SPEAKER_04]: How you doing?
52:06
[SPEAKER_04]: I want to hear it.
52:07
[SPEAKER_04]: Rick at the Ricksmith show dot com right back
52:23
[SPEAKER_03]: I'm Rick Smith, and this is Labor History Inter.
52:26
[SPEAKER_04]: On this day in Labor History, the year was 1868.
52:31
[SPEAKER_04]: That was the day that Susan B. Anthony and a committee on female labor called for a vote for equal pay for equal work at the National Labor Congress.
52:41
[SPEAKER_04]: It was the second annual meeting of labor leaders from throughout the nation.
52:45
[SPEAKER_04]: Anthony had begun publication of a newspaper, the Revolution.
52:48
[SPEAKER_04]: The paper advocated for an eight-hour work day and equal pay for equal work, working on the paper, Anthony met women in the printing and sewing trades who were excluded from men's trade unions.
53:00
[SPEAKER_04]: These women began to form the working women's association.
53:04
[SPEAKER_04]: Unfortunately, the male delegates to the National Labor Congress decided not to take up the push for equal pay.
53:11
[SPEAKER_04]: Today, a woman earns about $80 for every dollar earned by a man.
53:15
[SPEAKER_04]: In January 2009, President Barack Obama signed the Lilly Ledbetter Fair Pay Restoration Act.
53:21
[SPEAKER_04]: The act was named for a woman who fought for equal pay for equal work.
53:26
[SPEAKER_04]: Obama said the very first Bill I signed in the law as president was the lily led better fair pay restoration act.
53:33
[SPEAKER_04]: It was a big step toward making sure every worker in this country, man or woman receives equal pay for equal work.
53:41
[SPEAKER_04]: He continued saying, I signed this law for women like my mother, a single mother who paid her way through college and made huge contributions to a workforce that wasn't always fair to her.
53:52
[SPEAKER_04]: However, the wage gap has not really changed since the signing of that act.
53:57
[SPEAKER_04]: Even now, the amount a woman loses to the pay gap over the course of her life could feed a family of four for 37 years.
54:04
[SPEAKER_04]: There is still much work to be done to ensure all workers are paid a fair days pay for
54:11
[SPEAKER_04]: Labor History in 2 brought to you by the Illinois Labor History Society and the Rick Smith Show.
54:15
[SPEAKER_04]: For more information, go to laborhistoryintu.com, like us on Facebook, and follow us on the Twitters at Labor History in 2.
54:35
[SPEAKER_04]: So really, it is the Trump M-O, you know, making all these huge grandios promises, claim you've done so much.
54:44
[SPEAKER_04]: take credit for stuff you didn't actually do and the bad stuff is someone else's problem look he said it right at the very beginning of his term everything that's good I do everything that's bad Biden did also everything that's ever going to happen is someone else's fault if if he happens to stumble over something that works out well for you he's going to take credit for it and the doshing you know right when they came out with it you knew it was going to be a disaster but you also knew it wasn't about what they said it was about
55:13
[SPEAKER_04]: These aren't people who believe in good governance.
55:14
[SPEAKER_04]: These aren't certainly aren't people who believe in fiscal responsibility.
55:18
[SPEAKER_04]: 30% of our national debt run up under Trump's name.
55:25
[SPEAKER_04]: I don't.
55:26
[SPEAKER_04]: I don't know how else to put it when you when you look at a pumping and dumping a company as Trump has done in the past as corporate America has gotten used to doing especially the vulture capitalist.
55:37
[SPEAKER_04]: I don't know that you can look at the US and go, yeah, they invested well that that 30% yeah.
55:48
[SPEAKER_04]: And then what they told us they were going to do is they're going to go, we're going to
55:59
[SPEAKER_04]: waste.
56:01
[SPEAKER_04]: Billions of dollars.
56:03
[SPEAKER_04]: Handout contracts, the buddies, fire people, anybody who has any role of accountability, I'll get rid of them, any inspectors, anything that would hold them to account, got to go because, you know, the heist is in.
56:19
[SPEAKER_04]: And this is where I'm hoping, in this way, I'm angry at Al Green, the congressman from Texas, who came out to Oregon and peach, no, no, let's investigate.
56:30
[SPEAKER_04]: If it comes to impeachment after you've investigated, I'm on board, because I know it will.
56:37
[SPEAKER_04]: But you got to lay the case out first.
56:39
[SPEAKER_04]: You've got to go back and go and look at all of these, look at all these crimes.
56:43
[SPEAKER_04]: American people, look at these crimes.
56:47
[SPEAKER_04]: Red hats, look at these crimes, look what they look what they did in your name.
56:54
[SPEAKER_04]: You voted for this, you wanted this, you wanted government run like a Trump business.
57:01
[SPEAKER_04]: And here we are, lots of shady accounting, lots of shady dealings, lots of enriching the Trumposphere and basically screwing over the poor in the working class and the people
57:18
[SPEAKER_04]: turning what, you know, look, I grew up in an era where work was work, we had an aspirational economy.
57:26
[SPEAKER_04]: If you worked hard and played by the rules, you got ahead.
57:29
[SPEAKER_04]: We're now in a desperation economy.
57:31
[SPEAKER_04]: People are just hanging on and to see the kind of waste that this administration is
57:44
[SPEAKER_04]: Even if you bought the hat and the t-shirt and our fly in the flag and you painted your face with Trump's name on it at some point the light bulb has to go on that you're still hungry that your kids still have two year old shoes that life isn't what you were what you were promised it's not the utopia
58:05
[SPEAKER_04]: And that's why elections matter.
58:07
[SPEAKER_04]: So for me, come, come November, the hope is throw a lot of bumps out, bring some people in with a, with a magnifying glass, and we go through all of these shady dealings.
58:19
[SPEAKER_04]: Because understand, they already know.
58:20
[SPEAKER_04]: My Johnson said it, Steve Bannon said it, there's been a bunch of people who have said, if Democrats get control, we're all going to jail.
58:29
[SPEAKER_04]: They already know that what they've done,
58:34
[SPEAKER_04]: And it's one of those things where Democrats, hello, if you get the keys, if you get the the gavel, you gotta do it.
58:43
[SPEAKER_04]: You gotta do that hard work.
58:45
[SPEAKER_04]: You gotta hold them accountable while simultaneously chewing, gum and walking all at the same time, by doing the things that need to be done for us as well.
58:55
[SPEAKER_04]: Raising the minimum wage, doing some things on labor law, making things a little bit more affordable, ending the war on Iran,
59:05
[SPEAKER_04]: and then putting Trump in a box.
59:08
[SPEAKER_04]: Until we can get rid of him in a couple of years.
59:12
[SPEAKER_04]: Unless by miraculous sake, he's willing to actually do things that help people.
59:18
[SPEAKER_04]: Don't hold your breath.
59:20
[SPEAKER_04]: Want to hear your thoughts?
59:22
[SPEAKER_04]: Rick at therixmithshow.com.
59:23
[SPEAKER_04]: Miss any portion of the program, grab the podcast where if you get your favorite podcast, you'll find hours and as always, thanks so much for being here.
59:32
[SPEAKER_04]: We'll see you back here next time.
59:42
[SPEAKER_01]: you've been listening to the Rick Smith show.
59:46
[SPEAKER_01]: Email Rack at Rick at RickSmithshow.com.
59:54
[SPEAKER_01]: Until next time, this has been the Rick Smith show.
59:57
[SPEAKER_01]: We're working people, come to talk.