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The Rick Smith Show 10-12-2026 · The Rick Smith Show

0:00
[SPEAKER_02]: It's time for the Rick Smith show!
0:05
[SPEAKER_01]: Now, here is the voice of a working class, Rick Smith.
0:14
[SPEAKER_02]: And welcome, brothers, sisters working class heroes.
0:18
[SPEAKER_02]: This is the Rexbeth Show.
0:20
[SPEAKER_02]: Thanks so much for being here.
0:22
[SPEAKER_02]: Today on the big program, lots to get to, lots to talk about.
0:24
[SPEAKER_02]: Gotta start off with Ken Paxton for all the folks who send me emails.
0:30
[SPEAKER_02]: Uh, every week going, no, Rick, you're you're you're you're you're doing the the skies falling chicken little hair on fire stuff when you're talking about Republicans wanting to cut social security they don't really they want to save social security I get this all the time and the reality is is no they don't
0:51
[SPEAKER_02]: They don't want to save it, to save it to them means killing it.
0:56
[SPEAKER_02]: So we'll kill it so we can save it.
0:58
[SPEAKER_02]: Whatever that means.
1:01
[SPEAKER_02]: So you've got this Ken Paxton audio that just came out that just broke of Ken talking about, you know, hey, we're just gonna have to suck it up.
1:09
[SPEAKER_02]: We're just gonna have to, you know,
1:12
[SPEAKER_02]: We're going to have to do the reasonable thing and we need to grow a lot of it.
1:16
[SPEAKER_02]: Listen to this Ken packs and nonsense.
1:18
[SPEAKER_03]: We have to growing out of this as part of the solution and making some reasonable cuts in the inventory.
1:24
[SPEAKER_03]: You're going to have to do it.
1:26
[SPEAKER_03]: Or we were going to be there is no solution that's just a reality of the suck it up and we put you from all good presence to the developer.
1:34
[SPEAKER_03]: But we've been spending like crazy and no one seems to care.
1:39
[SPEAKER_03]: It's going to be a proposal.
1:42
[SPEAKER_06]: No, it's not.
1:43
[SPEAKER_06]: I would really like to pay my fair share of taxes, which is less than I'm paying for that.
1:49
[SPEAKER_03]: I'm a big deal.
1:51
[SPEAKER_06]: There's something to keep it down.
1:53
[SPEAKER_03]: I think tax cuts will actually generate more of that.
1:57
[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, I've had enough.
1:57
[SPEAKER_02]: The tax cuts are going to generate more revenue.
2:00
[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, we haven't heard that kind of art before.
2:02
[SPEAKER_02]: But lucky.
2:04
[SPEAKER_02]: uh... i'm sure he didn't want that heard uh... and again the republican line is we just need to grow the economy we need to grow so that we could get more more more more tax revenue to come in you mean by shrinking wages as we've been doing look
2:19
[SPEAKER_02]: Had we grown the economy for working people from Reagan era forward?
2:23
[SPEAKER_02]: Had we been growing these last 40, 50 years?
2:26
[SPEAKER_02]: Had wages kept going up, we wouldn't be in any problem.
2:29
[SPEAKER_02]: There would be plenty of money for social security, the problem is, wages have been stagnant.
2:35
[SPEAKER_02]: And this nonsense that we have to make reasonable cuts.
2:38
[SPEAKER_02]: You know, it's just reasonable.
2:40
[SPEAKER_02]: You know, we just have to be reasonable.
2:41
[SPEAKER_02]: You, you old people, just be reasonable.
2:44
[SPEAKER_02]: Will you?
2:46
[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, I know you spent your whole life working to pay and do it, but you just have to be reasonable.
2:51
[SPEAKER_02]: We can't tax rich people.
2:54
[SPEAKER_02]: We gave them all the money.
2:55
[SPEAKER_02]: We created them.
2:57
[SPEAKER_02]: We, they're a national treasure.
3:00
[SPEAKER_02]: We can't, we can't do anything.
3:03
[SPEAKER_02]: And we just have to suck it up.
3:04
[SPEAKER_02]: You just have to suck it up.
3:05
[SPEAKER_02]: Because nobody cares that they're spending on old people or poor people or infrastructure.
3:10
[SPEAKER_02]: Nobody, nobody.
3:13
[SPEAKER_02]: and then this this lobbyist woman haggardy who uh... i got to be honest you know that this is the republican i pay too much taxes i'm taxed enough already oh woe is woe is mean yet you go wait a second you're the mega idiots running around going we need to make a burger grade like it was you know back when our grandparents were around and yet a top marginal tax rate of 92 percent and they're complaining about 37
3:42
[SPEAKER_02]: I pay you enough already and then the sad reality in all this is there is going to be a Republican who's going to reach out to me and say no Rick you know that's not what he meant he meant we just need to grow the economy like he said he said we need to grow the economy we need to be more worker more more business friendly we need to keep doing the same dumb stuff we've been doing for the last 40, 50 years.
4:11
[SPEAKER_02]: and folks like you are just gonna have to suck it up because understand, the reasonable thing here, the reasonable thing is to ask for any to take less.
4:19
[SPEAKER_02]: The reasonable thing is to ask workers to take less.
4:22
[SPEAKER_02]: The reasonable thing here is to tighten the belt of people who the belt is strangling.
4:29
[SPEAKER_02]: That's the, in their world, understand, in Republican land, in this alternative reality, in this, this, this, this, this hyperwell billionaire funded reality that they find themselves, the reasonable thing.
4:43
[SPEAKER_02]: The reasonable thing is to tax you or to take from you or to make you suck it up.
4:51
[SPEAKER_02]: Because to them, it's wholly unreasonable.
4:54
[SPEAKER_02]: that we would tax the very wealthy who have benefited so mightily over the last 50 years.
5:02
[SPEAKER_02]: The fact that we have created a billionaire class out of whole cloth when we had pretty much done away with them is quite remarkable.
5:13
[SPEAKER_02]: And to be able to say that, and then to have a bunch of doofuses, run, look, yeah, it's really bad.
5:20
[SPEAKER_02]: Oh, that's common to it.
5:20
[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, let's do that.
5:24
[SPEAKER_02]: Anyone who hears that should be I'm hoping I'm hoping people are planning to vote So we can throw these pubs out.
5:32
[SPEAKER_02]: I don't know where else to go with that.
5:33
[SPEAKER_02]: I want to hear your thoughts Rick at the Ricksmith show dot com right back
5:41
[SPEAKER_02]: I'm Rick Smith, and this is Labor History in 2.
5:45
[SPEAKER_02]: This day in Labor History, the year was 1997.
5:49
[SPEAKER_02]: That was the day that a group of female employees at the investment firm Smith Barney came to a tentative agreement to settle a sexual harassment lawsuit against the firm.
5:59
[SPEAKER_02]: Smith Barney was one of the oldest Wall Street firms, with a reputation for respectability.
6:05
[SPEAKER_02]: But behind closed doors, the firm more resembled what the Chicago Tribune described as a fraternity house atmosphere.
6:13
[SPEAKER_02]: The accounts women told of their treatment at the firm were rude and disgusting.
6:17
[SPEAKER_02]: In the basement of the Garden City New York office, there was a room called the Boom Boom Room, where female employees were told to entertain clients.
6:26
[SPEAKER_02]: Fed up with this treatment more than 20 women joined together and filed a class action lawsuit.
6:32
[SPEAKER_02]: To settle the suit, the firm agreed to invest $15 million in diversity training along with settlements to each of the harassed women.
6:40
[SPEAKER_02]: Sexual harassment of women in the financial industry was not only a problem at Smith Barnett.
6:46
[SPEAKER_02]: Female brokers in Chicago filed a suit against Merrill Lynch, who agreed to a settlement with the plaintiffs.
6:52
[SPEAKER_02]: Smith Barney also did not learn their lesson, just over a decade later, the firm again settled another sexual harassment suit to the tune of $33 million.
7:03
[SPEAKER_02]: This time, according to Forbes magazine, the suit was filed by four female brokers who accused Smith Barney of preventing them from competing fairly for new accounts, promotions and pay, and depriving women of equal training and sales support.
7:19
[SPEAKER_02]: Over the course of 15 years, Merrill Lynch paid out almost a half a billion dollars in discrimination suits to women and minority brokers.
7:29
[SPEAKER_02]: Labor history and too brought to you by the Illinois Labor History Society and the Rick Smith Show.
7:33
[SPEAKER_02]: For more information, go to laborhistoryintube.com, like us on Facebook, and follow us on the Twitter's At Labor History in too.
7:44
[SPEAKER_01]: Welcome back to the Rick Smith Show.
7:45
[SPEAKER_01]: Now, here is Rick Smith.
7:52
[SPEAKER_02]: See you, man, remember a couple of weeks ago, I guess.
7:54
[SPEAKER_02]: And this September, beginning of October, Donald Trump announced that there was a steel mill.
7:59
[SPEAKER_02]: We're getting a big, beautiful steel mill.
8:03
[SPEAKER_02]: and it's gonna be the biggest ever the biggest ever 15 billion dollars $1,750 permanent jobs at 49 bucks an hour or 6,000 construction jobs this sounds like This sounds like good stuff sounds like something that I'd be all behind
8:22
[SPEAKER_02]: Until you start looking at the the the facts the details the devil always in the details especially when talking about Trump Because there's always an announcement.
8:30
[SPEAKER_02]: There's always a grand roll out and then there's well what comes after which never seems to well Reach the hype and as I said When he came out with it, I guess I need to get some details and here to share some thoughts on maybe what some of those are if there are any
8:48
[SPEAKER_02]: I've asked my good friend.
8:49
[SPEAKER_02]: Iowa State Representative, J.D.
8:51
[SPEAKER_02]: Shulton, come share some thoughts with us on this.
8:54
[SPEAKER_02]: I guess they're being asked for something, some tax breaks, something, J.D.
8:58
[SPEAKER_02]: Thanks for taking time for us.
9:00
[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, thanks for having me.
9:01
[SPEAKER_02]: So you're getting a big, beautiful steel mill.
9:03
[SPEAKER_02]: It's going to be the biggest ever.
9:04
[SPEAKER_02]: It's going to be, I gotta assume it's going to be gold, and there's going to be Trump's name on it.
9:09
[SPEAKER_02]: It's going to be, it's going to be nobody'll ever see anything as big.
9:12
[SPEAKER_02]: Nobody's going to ever see anything like it.
9:14
[SPEAKER_02]: It's coming, right?
9:16
[SPEAKER_04]: Well, we could go Monday.
9:17
[SPEAKER_04]: They announced it in the Oval Office.
9:20
[SPEAKER_04]: And when asked, are there state incentives that are still being negotiated?
9:26
[SPEAKER_04]: However, let me say, nope, I believe this deals done.
9:28
[SPEAKER_04]: We wouldn't be here.
9:29
[SPEAKER_04]: We don't bring it to Donald Trump unless the deal is done.
9:32
[SPEAKER_04]: And that was a lie and Donald Trump saying that, oh, they're already moving things already and building that was a lie.
9:42
[SPEAKER_04]: There's no permits yet.
9:43
[SPEAKER_04]: There's no deal yet.
9:45
[SPEAKER_04]: There's no nothing.
9:46
[SPEAKER_04]: But what happened was on Monday, they make the announcement and then by Friday, the governor already called a special session and we were down back into boy in last week.
9:57
[SPEAKER_04]: to vote on the incentives.
9:59
[SPEAKER_04]: And so, a lot of questions very much rushed.
10:02
[SPEAKER_04]: And I think the big thing is, like, there's so much uncertainty in this, we don't know why it had to go all of a sudden.
10:10
[SPEAKER_04]: And then here we are just five weeks before the election, that might have something to do with it.
10:17
[SPEAKER_02]: I see, that's where my mind went, it just seems very curious that this big announcement, the biggest steel mill ever and the biggest one built in 50 years or you all this time, it seems like, I don't know, it seems, it's the timing was curious, but this hurry up in rush, you as a state representative, I mean, the first question I asked is, if it's a done deal, as you pointed out to Howard Lottnik said, is there a location, which I've been told there, there's not an actual,
10:45
[SPEAKER_04]: you know definitive location yet do we have a location is there a place we go this is where it's going to be they we were we were given a short little presentation and they think it might go somewhere right now that land is farmland and they think it might
11:09
[SPEAKER_04]: So if it is farmland, well, the company that owns the steel mill is from India and we have strong laws here in the state of Iowa that no foreign entity can buy Iowa farmland.
11:24
[SPEAKER_04]: So that's a whole another issue amongst the many that we are seeing.
11:29
[SPEAKER_04]: It's been pretty rushed.
11:30
[SPEAKER_04]: They like to get the headlines,
11:37
[SPEAKER_04]: waiting and seeing and so they make a decision and we're just not we just don't know at this point Seems like I got to be honest, Judy, and look I love Iowa.
11:46
[SPEAKER_02]: I love my time there I love you and you you took us around and showed us an incredible time Love the people there, but I always seems like a curious place to build a steel mill when you're you're talking about the iron ore coming out of Minnesota Which is like 500 miles away if I again if the map is right
12:04
[SPEAKER_02]: I seem like a curious place seems like they're again going back to what you said a moment ago.
12:08
[SPEAKER_02]: There's elections coming up.
12:09
[SPEAKER_02]: Seems like a curious place to go, hey, this is where we're going to put it.
12:13
[SPEAKER_04]: Yeah.
12:14
[SPEAKER_04]: Allegedly, our competition is Kentucky and Arkansas for this.
12:18
[SPEAKER_04]: And for some reason, Kentucky just won't work.
12:21
[SPEAKER_04]: And so it's between us and Arkansas and Arkansas is the second most steel producing
12:32
[SPEAKER_04]: I don't really know what to think of all of this, like we would love to have a steel mill.
12:36
[SPEAKER_04]: We would love to have those jobs.
12:38
[SPEAKER_04]: We would love to have high quality jobs.
12:40
[SPEAKER_04]: But again, all this, and there's so much uncertainty around it that at the end of the day, we're not holding our breath here.
12:48
[SPEAKER_02]: As I think everybody would want those jobs.
12:50
[SPEAKER_02]: So this is where this talk of subsidies and talk of tax breaks.
12:54
[SPEAKER_02]: This is where this comes in because there's generally if something is this big,
12:59
[SPEAKER_02]: I think back to Amazon shopping around their second headquarters and the frenzy that came out of that and communities across the country gathering data and information and giving the baby in the bath water and the spigot in the house and the water lines and everything away to get to win this.
13:19
[SPEAKER_02]: It seems bizarre that they didn't do that kind of sweepstakes.
13:23
[SPEAKER_02]: to get the steel mill and now after they've announced where it is, they come to you and go, we want something.
13:30
[SPEAKER_02]: So when you voted, what is your vote on and is it any, have you given them the tax breaks?
13:35
[SPEAKER_02]: I don't even know if they wanted them.
13:37
[SPEAKER_02]: Have they given them tax breaks?
13:40
[SPEAKER_04]: So that's what we were voting on, not if the steel mills should come here or not.
13:45
[SPEAKER_04]: We voted on the incentives.
13:47
[SPEAKER_04]: And so there was a bill called the mega bill, which M.E.G.A.
13:52
[SPEAKER_04]: That we passed several years ago.
13:54
[SPEAKER_04]: I was one of four people to not support that bill.
13:58
[SPEAKER_04]: And the bill was meant for incentives to bring economic development to our state.
14:04
[SPEAKER_04]: Because economically, we are in the bottom.
14:08
[SPEAKER_04]: like, I think anywhere from 48th to 49th in a lot of economic development, which stats, when it comes to all that stuff, we're just, we're not growing as a state.
14:21
[SPEAKER_04]: And we're, that's a huge problem because you see a lot of our kids who grow up here, they move away because of that because they're a lack of opportunity here.
14:30
[SPEAKER_04]: And so it's been 10 years of Republican rule at the state level.
14:35
[SPEAKER_04]: We have Republicans at the federal level, and here we are.
14:39
[SPEAKER_04]: Amongst all of that, we have a cancer crisis.
14:42
[SPEAKER_04]: We got a lot going on here, and then when we're about starting harvest, I think this week is I finally saw some combines out in the fields after a very wet last two weeks.
14:53
[SPEAKER_04]: But at the same time, you have a diesel cost that are skyrocketing.
14:57
[SPEAKER_04]: You have
14:58
[SPEAKER_04]: terrace on this along with years of consolidation.
15:02
[SPEAKER_04]: So at the end of the day, like this, what what costs are we going to do this steel mill?
15:11
[SPEAKER_04]: And so that's, that's what ultimately what we voted on.
15:14
[SPEAKER_04]: I was in no on it, but I mean, there is, there is no's from Republicans and Democrats, and there is, yes, it's from Democrats.
15:21
[SPEAKER_04]: Well, over the map.
15:22
[SPEAKER_02]: Because the question I have for you, because look, your state's been battered by bad Republican policy, especially on the tax front, you basically defunded your schools, you've done a lot of really bizarre stuff with education.
15:35
[SPEAKER_02]: It seems like, you know, there's a lot to clean up at home before you're going to be lowering businesses in and giving away money that you don't really have in hand, seems counterintuitive to trying to get the ship turned around so to speak.
15:50
[SPEAKER_04]: Exactly.
15:50
[SPEAKER_04]: And you see in this a lot with sports stadiums too where you get this massive incentive to build a stadium and to keep teams there and yet you have these billionaire owners and we're kind of seeing that with other industries too.
16:06
[SPEAKER_04]: And so.
16:07
[SPEAKER_04]: At what point do you say enough is enough in the, I mean, we all want the jobs, but we, we also need a way to protect ourselves.
16:16
[SPEAKER_04]: And the other thing by doing this, we gave the next company who wants to come in, what was originally the ceiling, we now gave them the floor to negotiate with state of Iowa.
16:27
[SPEAKER_02]: Wow, that's crazy.
16:29
[SPEAKER_02]: Now you brought up, I wanted to get to the diesel prices and the farm,
16:35
[SPEAKER_02]: And Kansas is now, and I'm being told, Kansas is in play for the Senate, which hasn't had a Democrat.
16:44
[SPEAKER_02]: What was it that 107 years?
16:47
[SPEAKER_02]: They haven't had a Democrat in that Senate seat in 107 years, and they haven't had a Democratic Senator in the state, since I think 1932.
16:56
[SPEAKER_02]: So the fact that, you know, and I go back to what I talked about, you know, the book, what's a matter with Kansas.
17:03
[SPEAKER_02]: And I think what's the matter now is they're waking up to the reality that the culture issues aren't so important when they can't put food on the table and well the trucks cost and you know, an arm and a leg to fill up.
17:17
[SPEAKER_04]: Well, I think everybody is getting worn out by you see the same ads in the same arguments.
17:23
[SPEAKER_04]: across the nation in these Senate races.
17:26
[SPEAKER_04]: And it's the same old playbook where they talk about immigration, they talk about trans kids, they talk about, they're just trying to stir up their base.
17:36
[SPEAKER_04]: Because the reality is Trump's underwater in a lot of these places.
17:39
[SPEAKER_04]: And here in Iowa, the state that voted for him in double digits every single time, or by double digits almost every single time, but definitely this last time,
17:49
[SPEAKER_04]: Here he is, 17 points underwater last poll I saw with in the with his economy, 20 points under and with the war with Irene, 24 points underwater.
18:02
[SPEAKER_04]: And with those types of numbers, that definitely gives us Democrats here in Iowa, some hope.
18:08
[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, so look, since Kansas is in play, what does that mean for Iowa is Iowa seriously in play?
18:13
[SPEAKER_02]: I mean, if you'd asked me a year ago, if there was a chance of for a Democrat to win in Iowa, the Senate race there, I would have said no, but now we're, I mean, Trump has done everything he can possibly do to shoot himself in the foot and really screw the Republican party over pretty badly with his war at Iran, with his tariffs, with just the absolute chaos
18:38
[SPEAKER_02]: It just seems like it seems like he wants a beating in November.
18:44
[SPEAKER_04]: Well, I hope we can give them one.
18:49
[SPEAKER_04]: The issue here, it's interesting because you have the woman running is Congresswoman Ashley Henson.
18:57
[SPEAKER_04]: And when she announced, she said, she was gonna be Trump's strongest ally in the Senate.
19:02
[SPEAKER_04]: And then now, she, year later, now that he's underwater, she's changing her tune.
19:07
[SPEAKER_04]: And she's like, oh, I'm gonna be so bipartisan and work all this stuff.
19:12
[SPEAKER_04]: But at the same time, she voted for the things that are hurt in I went to, I came out today that there was a study that showed the inflation that cost added cost to every one of us was directly related to the terrorists and she voted for that five times and then.
19:29
[SPEAKER_04]: You add the diesel prices that you mentioned while a lot of that comes from the worth Iran and she wrote it for that seven times and after her seventh vote literally the next week she started saying oh we need to end the war while you had a chance to vote for that and and she chose her partisan ways and here we are all stuck with cost.
19:47
[SPEAKER_02]: It's kind of hard to be a partisan and then trying to be on every side of every issue, which Trump does masterfully.
19:52
[SPEAKER_02]: A Trump can get away with it oddly enough, day to day changing, where he is.
19:57
[SPEAKER_02]: But I don't know that the average politician going back home to their constituents.
20:02
[SPEAKER_02]: I don't know that that's going to, at least I hope not.
20:04
[SPEAKER_02]: I hope that people are paying attention to how bad things are.
20:08
[SPEAKER_02]: and we're we get away from the culture warrior kind of stuff and start talking about what we've been talking about for years.
20:14
[SPEAKER_02]: It comes back down to the bread and butter economic issues that every one of us sitting at our kitchen table worry about.
20:21
[SPEAKER_04]: Exactly and we have a wonderful candidate for a U.S. Senate here in Iowa, Josh Kirk, he's a good friend of mine.
20:27
[SPEAKER_04]: We've been the only two Democrats in the Iowa legislature on this side of the state for three of the last four years in
20:36
[SPEAKER_04]: So we kind of joke that we're the Western Iowa Democrat coalition, but he's a prairie populist, just like myself, and he's going out there and working his tail off.
20:46
[SPEAKER_04]: He's a wheelchair Olympic gold medalist, and just salt to the earth, you know.
20:52
[SPEAKER_04]: He's a guy that has faced a lot of adversity in his life, and he's the type of person you want.
20:59
[SPEAKER_04]: in the U.S. Senate representing you just because he's gone through so much and his life and he understands what most diamonds are going through right now.
21:06
[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, look, we need people who have who have seen some stuff.
21:10
[SPEAKER_02]: We need people who know what struggle is like and I look at the debate.
21:13
[SPEAKER_02]: I don't know if you saw the main debate.
21:16
[SPEAKER_02]: Susan Collins and Troy Jackson.
21:18
[SPEAKER_02]: The for me, the big line in the in the thing was Troy Jackson going, hey, you know, most people are struggling with health care.
21:25
[SPEAKER_02]: You know Susan Collins, you've had health care, you know, your whole life because you've worked for the government.
21:30
[SPEAKER_02]: You've had a steady paycheck and her response her response was laughable.
21:35
[SPEAKER_02]: No, no, there was one year, one year back in 1994 when I was running for governor.
21:41
[SPEAKER_02]: I'm like the average person isn't going, I chose not to have health care because I was pursuing my dream job.
21:48
[SPEAKER_02]: That's not how this works.
21:50
[SPEAKER_04]: Exactly, I mean, like, most of my 20s was balancing whether I should pay rent or health care when I was trying to play professional baseball.
21:59
[SPEAKER_04]: And that shaped me into my politics of what they are today, you know?
22:03
[SPEAKER_04]: That's what most folks are going through, and...
22:06
[SPEAKER_04]: I mean, you have health care costs guyrocketing, you have housing skyrocketing across the grocery skyrocketing gas and just life getting a lot harder and unnecessarily, a lot of it stems from just Trump's decisions in the last two years and so at the end of the day, there's a lot of frustration in this state and that means there's a lot of opportunity as well.
22:33
[SPEAKER_04]: And especially as we go into harvest here with diesel costs, I think there's a good opportunity to do something special.
22:40
[SPEAKER_02]: So you said a moment ago, you're a prairie populist, and look, I think we need some of that kind of grounding, some of the kind of re-centering of our politics, and look, Democrats need to be competing in Iowa, in Kansas, in Wyoming, in Montana, which obviously enough, there are a couple of spots in Montana that are looking fairly bright.
23:03
[SPEAKER_02]: I think, I think now, given the fact that Trump and the GOP and the whole magazine hasn't produced the promises of the promised utopia that they were spewing, there isn't opportunity, but I think you do need to have those, those working class common sense economic populists at the front of it.
23:24
[SPEAKER_02]: Because I think that's what unites us more than the fringe stuff that we're divided on.
23:29
[SPEAKER_02]: It's how we're going to put food on the table, how we're going to make sure if we get sick, we don't go broke.
23:33
[SPEAKER_02]: And how do we make sure that when we get old, we don't end up with cat food or worse?
23:39
[SPEAKER_04]: Exactly, there's an economic populist movement waiting to happen in this country and Trump tapped into it and it's only gotten worse since He's been involved, you know, we keep on hearing about the K-shaped economy where the haves are continuing to do well But the rest of us are struggling and and I see that in day-to-day life here in suesity, Iowa, and so I continue to lead my politics in a way that that
24:08
[SPEAKER_04]: It just based off of where I'm from and what I've experienced in my life, and I just think a lot of people have related to it, and so in my entire political career, that's two congressional campaigns and two statehouse races.
24:24
[SPEAKER_04]: I've over performed every single time, and the huge part of that is because I've focused on economic populism.
24:31
[SPEAKER_02]: No, so what I've been saying for the longest time, like, and this is where, you know, I took a lot of heat when we were at the height of the transgender argument, the bathroom argument, all of that stuff, and I kept saying this is not an issue.
24:45
[SPEAKER_02]: We've got to stop talking about it.
24:47
[SPEAKER_02]: Honestly, I don't care about people's lives.
24:50
[SPEAKER_02]: I don't care what they do in the confines of their forewalls I believe and I think the Democratic message should have been don't care But I believe in life liberty pursue to happiness Everyone has the right to pursue their happiness and no one has the right to tell them sorry You don't get to pursue your happiness
25:08
[SPEAKER_02]: and I think that was the right that would have been the right approach other than falling into the Republican trap of defending every last little thing and not talking about the issues that I do think United us, which is the 99% of us who are getting screwed over while the one set one percent's walking away with literally all of the economic gains and that is that's not hyperbole that's what's happened over the last 50 years.
25:34
[SPEAKER_04]: And at the end of the day, my transgender friend goes to the same grocery store I do, and she's struggling with grocery costs.
25:41
[SPEAKER_04]: You know, that's the common thread in a lot of this stuff.
25:45
[SPEAKER_04]: And so you point to a lot of things that are happening, especially here the wealth in this state is being extracted to Wall Street.
25:54
[SPEAKER_04]: You know, we have all these farmers, we have all this.
25:57
[SPEAKER_04]: We produce so much.
25:59
[SPEAKER_04]: And that money isn't staying here.
26:00
[SPEAKER_04]: We have an extra activity economy and people are having to move away for opportunity.
26:04
[SPEAKER_04]: It's just, it's one of those things where there is a common thread out there.
26:08
[SPEAKER_04]: And I think whoever can tap into that in 2028, I think could do something pretty special on the presidential level.
26:14
[SPEAKER_02]: That is the hope.
26:16
[SPEAKER_02]: But steel mill, getting the big, beautiful steel mill, the one that nobody's ever seen before, getting it?
26:23
[SPEAKER_04]: Well, I mean, there's no agreement yet.
26:28
[SPEAKER_04]: I think, officially, what I understand is that there's an MOU to negotiate, and there's a 60 day window that started in late September.
26:40
[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, and how long to 60 days go, I think it was after the election, right?
26:46
[SPEAKER_04]: We could have done it after the election, but there is worry, though, that, I mean, there's, we've been worried about this because our governor's race, Rob Sands were on a great race here, and he's favored to win the Democrat and to flip this at the state level here, which is a big, an important thing to have.
27:06
[SPEAKER_04]: And so there's a lot of us state legislators are worried that we're going to have to go back to they're going to do some laws to restrict what he can and cannot do just like they did when as because he was so successful as a state auditor and they restricted his abilities.
27:21
[SPEAKER_02]: So what they do, a lot of pre-election laws maybe maybe in your future.
27:25
[SPEAKER_04]: Yeah.
27:25
[SPEAKER_02]: That stuff.
27:26
[SPEAKER_02]: Oh my.
27:27
[SPEAKER_02]: JD always great talk with you.
27:29
[SPEAKER_02]: I hope you'll come back and share some more down the road.
27:31
[SPEAKER_02]: Maybe maybe once the big beautiful steel mills built,
27:34
[SPEAKER_04]: Yeah, absolutely.
27:34
[SPEAKER_02]: We should do a show from there some day, absolutely not hold my breath, but maybe we will.
27:39
[SPEAKER_02]: JD Schulten, I appreciate the time, man.
27:42
[SPEAKER_04]: Good seeing you.
27:43
[SPEAKER_02]: Oh, thanks so much.
27:43
[SPEAKER_02]: Want to hear your thoughts?
27:45
[SPEAKER_02]: Email me, Rick at theRicksmithsshow.com, really, is Iowa, Iowa, and play?
27:49
[SPEAKER_02]: Wouldn't that be something right back after this, the crop?
28:00
[SPEAKER_02]: I'm Rick Smith, and this is Labor History in 2.
28:03
[SPEAKER_02]: On this day in Labor History, the year was 1823.
28:06
[SPEAKER_02]: That was the day abolitionist and women's suffragist, Mary Anne Shad Kerry, was born.
28:12
[SPEAKER_02]: Her parents were free blacks of color in the slave state of Delaware.
28:16
[SPEAKER_02]: They were involved with many prominent abolitionists and active in the underground railroad.
28:20
[SPEAKER_02]: The family moved to Pennsylvania, where Mary and her siblings were educated in Quaker schools, as a young woman.
28:27
[SPEAKER_02]: Mary became a teacher and returned to Wilmington, Delaware, where she opened a school for black children.
28:32
[SPEAKER_02]: Once the fugitive slave law was passed in 1850, Mary and many other free blacks fled to Canada to safely continue their abolitionist work.
28:41
[SPEAKER_02]: She opened a school for fugitive slaves in Windsor, Ontario, just across the river from Detroit.
28:46
[SPEAKER_02]: Mary soon came under fire in the local press for insisting the school be racially integrated.
28:52
[SPEAKER_02]: She responded by starting her own newspaper The Provincial Freemep.
28:55
[SPEAKER_02]: She and her husband Thomas often traveled to the United States to continue their anti-slavery work.
29:01
[SPEAKER_02]: They were present at John Brown's 1858 Constitutional Convention.
29:06
[SPEAKER_02]: Mary worked with Osborne Perry Anderson to publish his 1861 memoir A Voice From Harper's Ferry.
29:12
[SPEAKER_02]: Anderson had participated in Brown's raid and was the lone African-American survivor.
29:17
[SPEAKER_02]: After her husband's death, Mary returned to the United States with her children to help recruit black soldiers for the Union Army.
29:25
[SPEAKER_02]: Once the Civil War was over, Mary moved to Washington DC to teach.
29:29
[SPEAKER_02]: She enrolled in Howard University where she earned a law degree.
29:33
[SPEAKER_02]: There she joined the National Women's Suffrage Association and worked with Elizabeth Katie Stanton and Susan B. Anthony.
29:39
[SPEAKER_02]: She continued to advocate for civil rights and women's equality until her death in 1893.
29:46
[SPEAKER_02]: Labor history in two brought to you by the Illinois Labor History Society and the Rick Smith Show.
29:51
[SPEAKER_02]: For more information, go to laborhistoryinter.com, like us on Facebook and follow us on the Twitter's at Labor History in two.
30:14
[SPEAKER_00]: This is personal for me, for I grew up in a family that had a main street business in small town, Texas.
30:20
[SPEAKER_00]: So I know how hard it is for little guys to battle the raw monopoly power of corporate chains.
30:26
[SPEAKER_00]: Thus, I cheered the GOP.
30:29
[SPEAKER_00]: Until I learned that their small business proposal is just another big business scam.
30:35
[SPEAKER_00]: far from actually increasing the number of small enterprises, Trump bureaucrats are merely redefining small to include big.
30:44
[SPEAKER_00]: For example, the small business administration has loan categorized a business as small if it had less than $25 million in yearly sales.
30:53
[SPEAKER_00]: But they've now jacked that definition up by 1,000 percent.
30:57
[SPEAKER_00]: Indeed.
31:04
[SPEAKER_00]: This is much worse than a statistical ruse for it means that very large outfits with Wall Street backing Washington lobbyists and slick corporate lawyers will suddenly take the grants, contracts and other government benefits intended to advance genuine Main Street innovators and competitors.
31:22
[SPEAKER_00]: In short, the GOP's cynical scheme is using the small business label to overpower those very enterprises.
31:30
[SPEAKER_00]: It is a deliberate rigging of the rules but today's right-wing government officials to help big business grab public money, increasing the power of corporate elites to eliminate competitors and further monopolize our economy.
31:44
[SPEAKER_00]: This is Jim Hi-Tower saying, remember this deceit when Republican Congress critters run corporate-financed election ads this fall, claiming to love small business.
31:55
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, love it to death.
32:03
[SPEAKER_01]: Welcome back to the Rick Smith show.
32:05
[SPEAKER_01]: Now, here is Rick Smith.
32:09
[SPEAKER_02]: So, Kansas, Kansas isn't play.
32:14
[SPEAKER_02]: I'm just talking to J.D.
32:15
[SPEAKER_02]: Schulton.
32:15
[SPEAKER_02]: Iowa in play.
32:17
[SPEAKER_02]: I got a friend out in Montana running for Congress.
32:19
[SPEAKER_02]: That's in play.
32:20
[SPEAKER_02]: Huh, places Democrats were supposed to be dead.
32:25
[SPEAKER_02]: Not existent.
32:27
[SPEAKER_02]: There seems to be an audience.
32:28
[SPEAKER_02]: There seems to be some folks there.
32:34
[SPEAKER_02]: If this enthusiasm doesn't translate into in the votes, it's all much to do about nothing.
32:39
[SPEAKER_02]: And here to help get people to decide to vote, make a plan to vote, check your voter registration and yes, yes, actually, actually go and vote.
32:50
[SPEAKER_02]: I've asked Rebecca Carellers to come and share us some thoughts with us.
32:53
[SPEAKER_02]: Rebecca is the president and CEO of the Fair Elections Center.
32:57
[SPEAKER_02]: You can check out their website, fairelectionscenter.org.
33:01
[SPEAKER_02]: Rebecca.
33:03
[SPEAKER_05]: Thank you so much for having me on the show.
33:05
[SPEAKER_02]: So we're wrapping up national voter education week, walk me through what national education week is and what the goal is.
33:16
[SPEAKER_05]: So the goal of national voter education week is very simple as in the name.
33:21
[SPEAKER_05]: We know that in certain states, early voting has started through both by mail.
33:26
[SPEAKER_05]: Their states are starting to go into early voting in person,
33:31
[SPEAKER_05]: And then there are other states like Alabama and we'll get the weight until election day, and November 3rd, in order to vote.
33:37
[SPEAKER_05]: And so we want to make sure that voters would be voters have all of the information that they need in order to successfully be registered to vote to cast their ballot and for their ballot to count.
33:48
[SPEAKER_02]: So election day is November 3rd.
33:50
[SPEAKER_02]: I just want to be perfectly clear.
33:52
[SPEAKER_02]: It's a Tuesday.
33:53
[SPEAKER_02]: It's the first Tuesday.
33:54
[SPEAKER_02]: Like every election's not been moved Wednesday, as been postponed the next Tuesday.
33:59
[SPEAKER_02]: They haven't conveniently rearranged it to fit Saturday to fit our schedules.
34:05
[SPEAKER_02]: None of that.
34:05
[SPEAKER_02]: It's on the third.
34:07
[SPEAKER_05]: Well, to be clear for federal elections is laid out in the
34:13
[SPEAKER_05]: And the Constitution focuses around the presidential election, which is, we know, you know, the presidential years, but we're in a federal midterm year, but the Constitution says the first Tuesday after the first Monday, that's the reason why you elect federal elections will never occur on Tuesday, November 1st.
34:33
[SPEAKER_05]: it has to be the first Tuesday after the first Monday is in the constitution.
34:39
[SPEAKER_02]: Thank you for correcting that.
34:40
[SPEAKER_02]: But here's the weird thing.
34:41
[SPEAKER_02]: We get all of these shenanigans.
34:43
[SPEAKER_02]: Every election cycle, there's always some kind of of play going on, whether it was in 2000 in Florida.
34:50
[SPEAKER_02]: while they were purging people, whether it was in 2004 in the Caging, while it was crossed checked for the last several years, whether it's more purging like they're doing down in Georgia.
35:00
[SPEAKER_02]: They're always seems to be a gimmick, and now we've got this the save nonsense and this Supreme Court ruling.
35:07
[SPEAKER_02]: Walk me through what's going on and what people need to know to protect their vote, because look, I don't want people to show up on election day November 3rd and go, oh gee, I thought I was registered.
35:21
[SPEAKER_05]: Talking about the year 2000, I thought you were going to start talking about Chaz and hanging Chaz and Brown, that election was stolen.
35:28
[SPEAKER_02]: Well, that election was stolen way before the hanging Chaz.
35:32
[SPEAKER_02]: There were 90,000 people in Florida who were purged because they might be felons and it just happened to be a lot of them had your complexion and not mine.
35:41
[SPEAKER_02]: And we threw them off because their names sounded wrong.
35:45
[SPEAKER_02]: And there was one guy that they found.
35:48
[SPEAKER_02]: They believed was going to commit a
35:51
[SPEAKER_02]: So they threw him off the voting rolls.
35:54
[SPEAKER_05]: Sure, so that's the issue with using databases like the save system.
35:59
[SPEAKER_05]: Any time you have a database that's not meant to be used for a particular thing and then you decide you want to use it for that, that's where you start to get errors.
36:07
[SPEAKER_05]: So, for years, states have done an incredible job of making sure that those who are eligible to vote who show up to register to vote indeed are the ones who are getting registered to register to vote.
36:20
[SPEAKER_05]: But what we've seen is a push by this administration, a push by this federal government.
36:26
[SPEAKER_05]: to use all sorts of various miscellaneous databases in order to try to cross-reference.
36:34
[SPEAKER_05]: And if people aren't correctly in this database, when it comes to their voter registration and all of a sudden they won't be eligible to vote.
36:44
[SPEAKER_05]: The issue is that there are lots of documented errors in these databases.
36:50
[SPEAKER_05]: And so to make somebody have to affirmatively prove
36:54
[SPEAKER_05]: based upon an issue in an era where they federal database, that is in the direction that we want to go.
37:00
[SPEAKER_05]: We know that states have known who the people in their states are, and so when you show up to register, we bring the documentation in to register to vote.
37:09
[SPEAKER_02]: say it's unable to double check and verify that you indeed are eligible to vote right now look I moved from Ohio to Pennsylvania years ago and I was on both registered because I was registered to vote in Ohio as a registered to vote in Pennsylvania some people would say that that's that's voter fraud and I'm like no dummy I didn't vote in both places so there's there seems to be some confusion about there are dead people on the voting rolls yeah there there are but did
37:39
[SPEAKER_02]: In fact, most of the cases of voter fraud that they found oddly enough are the people who are screaming that there's all kinds of voter fraud out there and they want to commit voter fraud just one so they can or two in defense so that their vote costs more, which is weird, but it just seems that that we've we've hyper politicized this to the point where it's it's now kind of kind of stupid.
38:01
[SPEAKER_05]: You know, like the example that you use often times when people move from one state to another, they don't always affirmatively reach out to that their former state's board of election and say, hey, go ahead and deactivate me from the voter rolls because I have moved.
38:17
[SPEAKER_05]: You know, as if you're, I have never done that.
38:20
[SPEAKER_05]: Never.
38:21
[SPEAKER_02]: I've, I've, I've most people never.
38:23
[SPEAKER_05]: Most people don't do that, like in fact, if I remember currently in the District of Columbia, you actually have to mail something or go in person to the DC Board of Elections to remove yourself off of the voting roles.
38:36
[SPEAKER_05]: It's not something that you could even do online.
38:38
[SPEAKER_05]: And so it's not always convenient.
38:40
[SPEAKER_05]: And also it's not what people aren't thinking about.
38:42
[SPEAKER_05]: Usually they're trying to think about,
38:44
[SPEAKER_05]: Okay, my utility started at the new place.
38:48
[SPEAKER_05]: It's my cable, it's my internet on, you know, has my mail been properly forwarded to the new location in which, you know, where I'm moving.
38:56
[SPEAKER_05]: And so, like, to the example you use, you did not vote in both Ohio and Pennsylvania for the same election.
39:03
[SPEAKER_05]: You vote it correctly in the state, in which you were domiciled.
39:07
[SPEAKER_05]: And so, what we see is a lot of misinformation out there.
39:11
[SPEAKER_05]: a lot of claims and those claims aren't back with actually data or evidence.
39:16
[SPEAKER_02]: But it is dangerous because look, if you can then go, well, Rick Smith is registered vote in Ohio and Pennsylvania.
39:23
[SPEAKER_02]: We don't know where Rick Smith is.
39:24
[SPEAKER_02]: We're going to purge both of them.
39:26
[SPEAKER_02]: Now I don't get the vote and I've been voting in the same place over 20 years.
39:31
[SPEAKER_02]: If you could find me on another role and kick me off of both, you've just taken my, my vote away.
39:37
[SPEAKER_05]: That's why we have weeks like national voter education week because we want people to take the time.
39:44
[SPEAKER_05]: to go double check with their locality, double check their voter registration, make sure it's up to date, make sure it's accurate, make sure it is current.
39:54
[SPEAKER_05]: Because you don't wanna wait until election day or during the early voting period and depending on your state, it might be too late to update your voter registration.
40:03
[SPEAKER_05]: We want people who want to vote, who are eligible to vote to be able to cast their ballot during this midterm season.
40:10
[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, absolutely.
40:11
[SPEAKER_02]: Now we're going back.
40:13
[SPEAKER_02]: We're here in the voter ID thing.
40:14
[SPEAKER_02]: We're proof of citizenship.
40:16
[SPEAKER_02]: Now I guess is a thing.
40:17
[SPEAKER_02]: Even though there isn't, there doesn't seem to be a big non citizen voting block, or at least enough that's going to determine any election.
40:27
[SPEAKER_02]: Because I don't know if you're here in an undocumented fashion, I doubt you're showing up at a government office going, hey, I'm here.
40:33
[SPEAKER_02]: It seems kind of kind of seems kind of dumb that
40:39
[SPEAKER_05]: Largely non-citizens are not registering to vote and they're not casting ballots.
40:44
[SPEAKER_05]: Yes, we heard a story earlier this year about something that happened a couple years ago in New Jersey.
40:52
[SPEAKER_05]: It turns out it was a clerical error.
40:54
[SPEAKER_05]: I think it was maybe a couple hundred or maybe four hundred folks.
40:58
[SPEAKER_05]: I'm who aren't eligible to vote, who got registered to vote.
41:03
[SPEAKER_05]: And it's unclear if whether or not they even cast a ballot.
41:06
[SPEAKER_05]: And so when we see instances, like you said, it's usually out of error.
41:13
[SPEAKER_05]: It's not people who are showing up and trying to do something maliciously.
41:17
[SPEAKER_05]: And the times where we've seen out and out fraud,
41:22
[SPEAKER_05]: I'm thinking about that guy from Texas who decided he was going to fly up to Pennsylvania and try to vote and it turns out he was someone associated with this current administration.
41:34
[SPEAKER_05]: And so he was trying to prove that there's voter fraud to people to commit crimes in order to prove that a crime can be committed.
41:43
[SPEAKER_05]: It's nonsense to go.
41:44
[SPEAKER_05]: And so we're not seeing, like you said,
41:49
[SPEAKER_05]: who often time if they're in this country is to try to carve out a better life because it's tried to make money and perhaps send money back home.
41:56
[SPEAKER_05]: They're not showing up to the south side of Chicago saying, hey, you know what I'm going to do?
42:01
[SPEAKER_05]: I'm going to go vote.
42:02
[SPEAKER_05]: That's not what's happening, but that is what this administration wants people to believe.
42:07
[SPEAKER_02]: Now, the guy who, you know, I'm going to prove that the system can be as fallible and I'm going to go commit a crime.
42:12
[SPEAKER_02]: If I'm the judge, I throw books at him, not just one, not just the book.
42:16
[SPEAKER_02]: I throw the library at him because I think that's someone you need to make an example of just because you can do something because you can try something.
42:24
[SPEAKER_02]: Doesn't mean you should look, I might be able to go rob a bank.
42:28
[SPEAKER_02]: but it's illegal.
42:29
[SPEAKER_02]: And if I get caught, I should go to jail for a very long time.
42:32
[SPEAKER_02]: This is the same kind of thing.
42:34
[SPEAKER_02]: These people who, oh, I was just doing it because I wanted to show that it was a problem.
42:39
[SPEAKER_02]: No, you are the problem.
42:41
[SPEAKER_05]: You know, it is very problematic for people to who are so a young bit on trying to bring our voting system down.
42:50
[SPEAKER_05]: Like, that doesn't make sense.
42:51
[SPEAKER_05]: If you have an issue with our system of voting, that you do reforms, but the bottom line is this, is that really what we're seeing is people who get sick and tired of certain people in this country voting.
43:07
[SPEAKER_05]: There are certain people, there's a certain ideology in this country.
43:10
[SPEAKER_05]: that doesn't think people who look like me, whether it's my gender, whether it's my race, whether it's even my age, don't think that people like me should be able to vote.
43:20
[SPEAKER_05]: And this isn't something new.
43:21
[SPEAKER_05]: This isn't something the last one.
43:23
[SPEAKER_02]: You are responsible for Joe Biden.
43:27
[SPEAKER_05]: I think Joe Biden's mother is responsible for Joe Biden.
43:32
[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, that's the narrative and you're right.
43:35
[SPEAKER_02]: I mean, the sad reality is this is a country of foreign by we, the people, all of us, not one group of people except, and this is where I'm going to make a defense.
43:44
[SPEAKER_02]: because at least the conservatives are saying, look, we don't believe in any changes to the constitution.
43:49
[SPEAKER_02]: We want to go back to that original intent.
43:52
[SPEAKER_02]: And I'm sure you've heard that phrase before the original intent of the Constitution, which is, uh, one, you know, women don't get the vote because, well, you're not a white landowning male over 21.
44:02
[SPEAKER_02]: Uh, you know, in minorities don't get the vote because you're not a white landowning male over 21.
44:08
[SPEAKER_05]: Well, I think you could make a argument if you want to go to originalism, then we need the Congress to be an actual independent French then because according to the original constitution, Congress is the people's house.
44:24
[SPEAKER_05]: It was the first branch of government that was a numerator.
44:27
[SPEAKER_05]: It was the first branch of government that was a numerator for a reason.
44:31
[SPEAKER_05]: It's supposed to represent the people.
44:33
[SPEAKER_05]: So for those originalists out there, then maybe it's time to start representing the people.
44:38
[SPEAKER_02]: There you go.
44:38
[SPEAKER_02]: So I want to go back to voter ID because a lot of people right now are still on the voter ID train.
44:44
[SPEAKER_02]: I have been against it.
44:46
[SPEAKER_02]: Not because I'm against people having ID.
44:49
[SPEAKER_02]: I want everyone to have an ID.
44:52
[SPEAKER_02]: But it's because it seems like a poll tax.
44:54
[SPEAKER_02]: It seems like for a lot of people and like I grew up in a housing project on the west side of Cleveland.
44:58
[SPEAKER_02]: I grew up in a place where most people didn't have cars.
45:02
[SPEAKER_02]: You know, we weren't even on the bus line.
45:04
[SPEAKER_02]: So the need for an ID probably at least then wasn't very high.
45:08
[SPEAKER_02]: And I've said, look, if we want to have voter ID, if we're going to push it, then you got to pay for it.
45:12
[SPEAKER_02]: We've got to have a way to make sure people can get to it, make sure it's accessible, and make it the government's responsibility to make sure that everyone has one.
45:19
[SPEAKER_02]: If we're going to put this roadblock in front of the one constitutional mandate that we all have, and that's the access to the ballot box, do you have any problem with that idea?
45:29
[SPEAKER_02]: Because you look, I got some folks who are like, no, we shouldn't have anything, and I'm willing to give, but not everything.
45:39
[SPEAKER_05]: So here's the thing, like we discussed before, we don't see widespread voter fraud that's happening in this country.
45:48
[SPEAKER_05]: And states for many decades have had the ability to have certain requirements where they understood who people were.
45:58
[SPEAKER_05]: I want people to show it up to register to vote.
46:00
[SPEAKER_05]: They were verified.
46:02
[SPEAKER_05]: And so now when we see this push for burdensome, like you described in very honorist, voter ID, and voter ID requirements, now we have to start asking, why are we changing that policy?
46:13
[SPEAKER_05]: If we already know who people are, they're going to come surround for tax season.
46:17
[SPEAKER_05]: It's amazing.
46:18
[SPEAKER_05]: We know exactly who people are, but when it comes to exercising the right to vote,
46:23
[SPEAKER_05]: Oh, I don't know if you're really Rick Smith, are you really Rebecca Carrothers, even though we know that you pay taxes, you know, it becomes disingenuous.
46:33
[SPEAKER_05]: So we see states like Ohio, which has most honoris, voter ID law in the country.
46:39
[SPEAKER_05]: And when we look at the save act, that's before the Congress, they want to bring in the honorist voter ID that Ohio has.
46:51
[SPEAKER_05]: And there's several issues with it.
46:53
[SPEAKER_05]: Like you mentioned, the cost associated with it.
46:55
[SPEAKER_05]: And you reference documentary proof of citizenship.
47:00
[SPEAKER_05]: And so for people to understand, you have to have your original birth certificate.
47:06
[SPEAKER_05]: There are tens of millions of people in this country.
47:09
[SPEAKER_05]: When I think about people who are my grandparents age, and when I think about your not my grandparents age, but when I think about some of those people who are born in localities, who are they more automatically issue birth certificates, depending on the county,
47:23
[SPEAKER_05]: and many rural areas that that was the case.
47:26
[SPEAKER_05]: Or I could think I mentioned this before when I think about my grandfather.
47:31
[SPEAKER_05]: He was born with his birth suit is when he was born.
47:35
[SPEAKER_05]: His last name, Carothers C-A-R-R-U-T-H-H-E-R-S. You see, that's felt mine with one R, if I'm getting better.
47:42
[SPEAKER_05]: AAR-UTH-ERS.
47:45
[SPEAKER_05]: My grandfather moved from the south to the north and he registered with the civil service.
47:50
[SPEAKER_05]: They dropped one of the R's.
47:52
[SPEAKER_05]: So one government agency recorded it with two R's.
47:56
[SPEAKER_05]: Another government agency dropped one of the R's.
47:59
[SPEAKER_05]: And so with these honorist bills in front of Congress, he wouldn't be able to have a match with his with his with his documentary
48:11
[SPEAKER_05]: versus what his current ID would have been, had he still been alive.
48:15
[SPEAKER_05]: And so when I think about that story, there are countless other people with that story.
48:21
[SPEAKER_05]: Even with documentary professors and ship, another way to prove it would be to show a passport, we know over 50% of the country does not have a passport.
48:31
[SPEAKER_05]: And so it has to make sense.
48:33
[SPEAKER_02]: Now you're right, and this is where what I've said is once they get this and they get this mandate, what's the next thing?
48:39
[SPEAKER_02]: Because all this really is as a way to keep people from exercising that right to the franchise, is the next step after voter ID, we're just going to have to chip you.
48:49
[SPEAKER_02]: We don't believe we are, so now we're going to have to chip you, everyone will be chipped at birth, so we know who they are, and we can know where you are, and we can track you and and sell you stuff.
48:57
[SPEAKER_02]: You can buy vending machine stuff.
49:00
[SPEAKER_05]: Well, so here's the thing, this president said something that I think people really need to pay attention to.
49:09
[SPEAKER_05]: He said, if you vote, this will be the last time you'll have to vote.
49:13
[SPEAKER_05]: I need people to think about what that means and what this president is suggesting.
49:21
[SPEAKER_05]: If you and I need as many people as possible to show up to vote, we need to overwhelm and have so many votes.
49:30
[SPEAKER_05]: We need so many people going to vote this year, because people have to make a determination of what they want the future of the country to be.
49:42
[SPEAKER_05]: And whether or not you believe in the Constitution, whether or not you believe in democracy.
49:47
[SPEAKER_02]: Last line of questioning, I've got for you.
49:49
[SPEAKER_02]: What do we do?
49:50
[SPEAKER_02]: Obviously out of this, this being the education week, what do we want people to do?
49:55
[SPEAKER_02]: Monday, what do we want people to do to make sure that they don't get turned away?
50:03
[SPEAKER_05]: If at soon as you're listening to this, I need you to pull out your phone.
50:07
[SPEAKER_05]: And if you're listening to this on your phone, I need you to go to www.fairelectionscentre.org.
50:19
[SPEAKER_05]: Click on your state.
50:21
[SPEAKER_05]: And you will see a toolkit that will have all of the information that you need in order to make sure you consistently vote.
50:29
[SPEAKER_05]: You will have an information and where you can see the dates for what's the last day to register to vote in your jurisdiction.
50:36
[SPEAKER_05]: Whether you can see the dates was the last day to request a vote by mail if you're on jurisdiction allows for that on what is the last day, you know, you know, when is your ballot do if you're able to do vote by mail.
50:51
[SPEAKER_05]: So you need to check out those dates as soon as you are able to cast a ballot in your state.
50:58
[SPEAKER_05]: You need to cast your ballot.
50:59
[SPEAKER_05]: If you don't have to wait till election day, as soon as your precinct opens, I need you the brush your teeth, wash your face, though vote.
51:08
[SPEAKER_02]: There you go.
51:08
[SPEAKER_02]: Make the plan, fairelectioncenter.org, the website, we'll get links out in social media.
51:14
[SPEAKER_02]: Rebecca Carethers, I appreciate you taking time for us.
51:16
[SPEAKER_02]: Always great talk with you.
51:18
[SPEAKER_02]: Hope you come back and share some more with us down the road.
51:20
[SPEAKER_02]: Thank you.
51:21
[SPEAKER_02]: I want to hear your thoughts.
51:22
[SPEAKER_02]: If you made your plan yet, you got this.
51:25
[SPEAKER_02]: We ready, November 3rd again, not the second, not the fourth, the third one of your thoughts.
51:31
[SPEAKER_02]: Rick at therixmithshow.com.
51:32
[SPEAKER_02]: Quick break, break backstagram.
51:44
[SPEAKER_03]: I'm Rick Smith, and this is Labor History Inter.
51:48
[SPEAKER_02]: On this day in Labor History, the year was 1888.
51:52
[SPEAKER_02]: That was the day that the United Hebrew trades was founded in New York City.
51:56
[SPEAKER_02]: The new effort was patterned after the United German trades.
52:00
[SPEAKER_02]: The goal of the organization was to organize yet as speaking workers.
52:04
[SPEAKER_02]: Individual Jewish workers had been active in the burgeoning U.S. trade union movement since the 1850s.
52:10
[SPEAKER_02]: But the United Hebrew trades marked the first time for such a broad-based collective effort to organize Jewish workers.
52:18
[SPEAKER_02]: Three of the early founders were Bernard Weinstein, Morris Hilquit, and Abe Kamm.
52:22
[SPEAKER_02]: Weinstein was a young, short-maker, turned union activist.
52:26
[SPEAKER_02]: Morris Hillquit would become one of the leaders of the American Socialist Party in the United States.
52:31
[SPEAKER_02]: Hillquit was born in Latvia and moved with his family to the lower east side of New York.
52:36
[SPEAKER_02]: Like many Jewish workers, Hillquit found a job in the city's garment industry.
52:40
[SPEAKER_02]: He later graduated from law school.
52:42
[SPEAKER_02]: Abe Kane was born in Belarus.
52:44
[SPEAKER_02]: He was one of the leading voices in Jewish journalism in the United States.
52:48
[SPEAKER_02]: In 1877, he founded the newspaper The Jewish Daily Forward.
52:53
[SPEAKER_02]: which still exists today.
52:55
[SPEAKER_02]: Under the leadership of these men, the United Hebrew trades quickly became a presence in New York City in March of 1890, 4,000 Jewish workers commemorated the Paris commune with a march through the city.
53:07
[SPEAKER_02]: They more than doubled that number just two months later on May Day by Labor Day, 15,000 Jewish workers marched together.
53:15
[SPEAKER_02]: These public demonstrations showed the power of Jewish workers.
53:19
[SPEAKER_02]: By 1910, the United Hebrew trades had swelled to 106 units, 150,000 men and women were members, including thousands of Italians and other nationalities.
53:30
[SPEAKER_02]: By the 1930s, the United Hebrew trades had reached its peak of a quarter of a million members.
53:36
[SPEAKER_02]: Labor history in two brought to you by the Illinois Labor History Society and the Rick Smithsia for more information go to laborhistoryintu.com.
53:47
[SPEAKER_01]: We're listening to the Rick Smith show, we're working people coming to the hall.
53:58
[SPEAKER_02]: So, for the last six years, we've had to listen to the whining of Donald Trump.
54:04
[SPEAKER_02]: Someone stole the 2020 election, and the weird thing is, and again, I've had this conversation with my Red Hat friends, who, um, who don't seem to get
54:16
[SPEAKER_02]: that Joe Biden wasn't president in in 2020, he won the 2020 election, but he wasn't president and and interestingly enough, Antifa wasn't responsible for January 6 because why would Antifa want to stop the certification of the election when they wanted Joe Biden?
54:41
[SPEAKER_02]: But again, no
54:46
[SPEAKER_02]: uh... because we heard that we've heard all the whining all the blue rick machines fake ballots they never proved anything everything that they said uh... on on fox news or one of their other bus stations never made it into the court uh... in full economy Georgia for instance in twenty the twenty-twenty ballots were counted three times and the results held each time
55:11
[SPEAKER_02]: And now we're watching this administration lining up for November 3rd, so much so that you've got Nevada's top election official Cisco Aguier who told the New York Times that he's bracing for immigration agents to show up at polling places, federal agents who are that he expects are going to try and seize ballots.
55:35
[SPEAKER_02]: and the president disputing the results.
55:37
[SPEAKER_02]: And I'm no kidding.
55:39
[SPEAKER_02]: Of course, when he loses, the sore loser is going to go, no, no, I won, I won, I won, I won, I cheated, cheated.
55:48
[SPEAKER_02]: In fact, EGR says, it's a very high probability that that's going to happen.
55:55
[SPEAKER_02]: His office has already gone through the trouble of drafting lawsuits with just the names left blank
56:05
[SPEAKER_02]: I don't understand that's not paranoia.
56:07
[SPEAKER_02]: That's preparedness.
56:08
[SPEAKER_02]: It's what government should be doing.
56:10
[SPEAKER_02]: Because if you remember, Jim, in January, the FBI hauled roughly what 700 boxes of 2020 ballots out of Fulton County.
56:21
[SPEAKER_02]: The Justice Department is hitting a vow with seven voters of subpoenas this last year.
56:28
[SPEAKER_02]: Homeland Security flag 16,000 Nevadans as non-citizens without any proof.
56:37
[SPEAKER_02]: And when it finally sent records on 185 of the 16,000 they accused, Nevadas says that each and every one of those 185 that they said, well, we know those are illegal.
56:52
[SPEAKER_02]: Oh, they were actually all citizens.
56:55
[SPEAKER_02]: And so there's a pattern here, and it's simple.
56:57
[SPEAKER_02]: Accusing the guy of doing stuff that you're going to do.
57:03
[SPEAKER_02]: Really, I mean, it's classic.
57:07
[SPEAKER_02]: Official officials meddling with the count, ballots disappearing, results getting thrown out.
57:13
[SPEAKER_02]: That's what they said happened in 2020.
57:16
[SPEAKER_02]: So what do you think they're doing?
57:18
[SPEAKER_02]: They're setting it up for now.
57:19
[SPEAKER_02]: They're setting it up because it's like, they're like, you know, they did it.
57:23
[SPEAKER_02]: So it's justified that we do what we've been wanting to do.
57:28
[SPEAKER_02]: And who gets hurt?
57:30
[SPEAKER_02]: Clearly, it's going to be working people.
57:32
[SPEAKER_02]: The bus driver who can't take three hours off the challenge is refusal of being able to vote.
57:40
[SPEAKER_02]: A new citizen scared off by a badge at the door.
57:44
[SPEAKER_02]: The reality is, don't wait.
57:46
[SPEAKER_02]: It's time to check your registration early often.
57:49
[SPEAKER_02]: And then vote.
57:51
[SPEAKER_02]: Vote early if your state allows it, but vote.
57:54
[SPEAKER_02]: Track your ballot.
57:55
[SPEAKER_02]: If you really want to be anal about it, do the mail in things, so you can actually track it that way too.
58:01
[SPEAKER_02]: Sign up to be a poll worker.
58:03
[SPEAKER_02]: There's a lot of things that should could must be done.
58:06
[SPEAKER_02]: And you can find a lot of information over at vote411.org.
58:12
[SPEAKER_02]: And save the election protection hotline, you know, maybe write it on your hand, put it on a scrap of paper in your wallet, and that's 866 hour vote.
58:23
[SPEAKER_02]: Make sure you remember that.
58:26
[SPEAKER_02]: Because they're counting on people staying home.
58:28
[SPEAKER_02]: They're counting on.
58:30
[SPEAKER_02]: They're counting on apathy.
58:31
[SPEAKER_02]: They're counting on.
58:32
[SPEAKER_02]: Fear.
58:35
[SPEAKER_02]: And so I say, don't.
58:36
[SPEAKER_02]: Don't stay home.
58:37
[SPEAKER_02]: You got to get out and vote every election cycle, every election cycle and understand if if you stay home, I'm going to use a George Bush liner.
58:49
[SPEAKER_02]: If you stay home, the terrorists win, pretty much the way it goes.
58:57
[SPEAKER_02]: So I want to hear, are you planning on voting?
58:59
[SPEAKER_02]: Do you have your plan in place?
59:01
[SPEAKER_02]: Do you, do you have ready to vote?
59:03
[SPEAKER_02]: November 3rd, I think it's kind of important because I don't know if you've noticed how crazy things are getting around here.
59:13
[SPEAKER_02]: We need some, we need some ship straightened.
59:18
[SPEAKER_02]: Also I want to hear what your thoughts are and maybe how we, we straighten the ship a bit.
59:23
[SPEAKER_02]: save social security save well democracy I want to hear your thoughts work at the ricksmith show dot com miss any portion of the program make sure you grab the podcast review your favorite podcasts you will find hours and as always thanks for being here we'll see you back here next time you've been listening to the ricksmith show email wreck at rick at the ricksmith show dot 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.