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The Rick Smith Show 9-17-2026 · The Rick Smith Show

0:00
[SPEAKER_02]: It's time for the Rick Smith show.
0:02
[SPEAKER_02]: Now, here is the voice of a working class, Rick Smith.
0:14
[SPEAKER_04]: And welcome, brothers, sisters working class heroes.
0:19
[SPEAKER_04]: This is the Rick Smith show.
0:20
[SPEAKER_04]: Thanks so much for being here today on the big program lots to get to lots to talk about.
0:26
[SPEAKER_04]: I had a weird conversation today that I want to spend a little time on because it seems to me that working people have had for far too long a bad case of Stockholm syndrome where we've kind of identified with our captors.
0:41
[SPEAKER_04]: We've kind of gone all in on corporate America is
0:51
[SPEAKER_04]: To lay the little background, I spent most of my working life in the less than truckload trucking industry.
0:58
[SPEAKER_04]: When I started, it was 85% unionized.
1:04
[SPEAKER_04]: Before, it was nearly a hundred percent unionized.
1:09
[SPEAKER_04]: Then Carter and everybody in the political system voted for the Motor Carrier Active 1980 deregulating the trucking industry, much like they did
1:21
[SPEAKER_04]: And I'll get to that in a minute, but this guy's argument was that, you know, because UPS is, you know, paying such a good wage, you know, the teamsters shouldn't ask for more because you could ask for too much.
1:33
[SPEAKER_04]: And that's the reason in his mind why the freight industry went the way it did.
1:38
[SPEAKER_04]: And the reality is, the reason the freight industry went the way it did is, well, one really, really stinking bad policy.
1:46
[SPEAKER_04]: and two on a larger scale, a society that believed in the sales pitch that awaited the next gimmick.
1:56
[SPEAKER_04]: Understand, during the 70s, you had the oil embargo, cost were really high, fuel was really high.
2:03
[SPEAKER_04]: We had the stack, inflation going on.
2:05
[SPEAKER_04]: They were sold on the idea if we just deregulated, trucking an airline and other things.
2:11
[SPEAKER_04]: If we just unleash the free market that that'll bring costs down.
2:16
[SPEAKER_04]: And Democrats and Republicans, Kumbaya marched right into it head first.
2:22
[SPEAKER_04]: In fact, the Motor Carrier Act of 1980 that destroyed the less than truckload trucking.
2:26
[SPEAKER_04]: Well, the trucking industry has a hole, but the less than truckload trucking industry, as we know, as we knew it, was voted on 367 to 13 in the house.
2:37
[SPEAKER_04]: One Republican in the house voted against it.
2:39
[SPEAKER_04]: That's it.
2:40
[SPEAKER_04]: In the Senate, it was 70 to 20.
2:43
[SPEAKER_04]: Two Republicans voted against it in the Senate.
2:45
[SPEAKER_04]: And that wasn't just trucking.
2:47
[SPEAKER_04]: It was the same thing that happened to the airline deregulation.
2:51
[SPEAKER_04]: Again, this idea, this scheme, this fantasy of abundance and cheap stuff.
2:57
[SPEAKER_04]: If only we did this latest new gimmick.
3:02
[SPEAKER_04]: And the same thing happened with NAFTA, look.
3:05
[SPEAKER_04]: Yeah, again, this person's responsible, oh, Clinton, deregulated NAFTA, you know, signed NAFTA, and NAFTA was bad, it was caused, and he's right.
3:14
[SPEAKER_04]: Clinton did sign NAFTA, but understand, NAFTA was birth during the Reagan years.
3:20
[SPEAKER_04]: It was fully negotiated during H.W.
3:22
[SPEAKER_04]: Bush's term, and Clinton slapped a little lipstick on the pig and signed it.
3:27
[SPEAKER_04]: But understand, the election of 1992,
3:30
[SPEAKER_04]: both the democrats and the republicans were sold on the idea of NAFTA.
3:35
[SPEAKER_04]: There was not a shade really between them other than Clinton ran on some labor and environmental stuff.
3:42
[SPEAKER_04]: We're going to slap some lipstick on the pig and make it a little more palatable for working people.
3:46
[SPEAKER_04]: Maybe put some trade adjustment assistance in there.
3:49
[SPEAKER_04]: Kind of dull the edges a little bit.
3:52
[SPEAKER_04]: But it was the consensus was go.
3:55
[SPEAKER_04]: It was only Ross Perot who said we shouldn't do this because
4:00
[SPEAKER_04]: But again, we were sold this idea.
4:02
[SPEAKER_04]: If we do this, abundance, we're gonna have cheap goods.
4:06
[SPEAKER_04]: It's gonna be great.
4:09
[SPEAKER_04]: You know, so we're gonna have to, you know, get rid of some of those people.
4:13
[SPEAKER_04]: And I understand, again, another one of these examples of a Democrat signed it, but Republicans were all in.
4:21
[SPEAKER_04]: In fact, the vote was 234 to 200, 156 Democrats voted against it,
4:32
[SPEAKER_04]: So you go, but wait, but I thought this was a Democrat thing.
4:36
[SPEAKER_04]: No, this was by partisanship in the Senate.
4:39
[SPEAKER_04]: It was 61, 38, only nine Republicans voted against it in the Senate.
4:44
[SPEAKER_04]: So you go, wait a second, I thought Democrats suck.
4:46
[SPEAKER_04]: You go, yeah, Democrats do suck on some of these issues, but Republicans have been far, far worse.
4:53
[SPEAKER_04]: At least Democrats have tried to again, slap a little lipstick on the pig.
5:01
[SPEAKER_04]: And the reason I bring this up now is it's the same thing we're hearing about AI.
5:06
[SPEAKER_04]: It's the same kind of messaging only now it's the Republicans who are Donald Trump who's all in.
5:15
[SPEAKER_04]: And again, it's another one of these schemes that they're selling us on the idea that it's going to be the land of abundance.
5:22
[SPEAKER_04]: We're going to get cheap stuff.
5:23
[SPEAKER_04]: We're not going to have to work as hard.
5:25
[SPEAKER_04]: We don't have to do those dirty jobs anymore.
5:27
[SPEAKER_04]: It's going to be great.
5:33
[SPEAKER_04]: stuff.
5:34
[SPEAKER_04]: But we'll get great stuff out of it.
5:37
[SPEAKER_04]: And my frustration is as we've gotten so attuned to my party's good, your party's bad.
5:44
[SPEAKER_04]: This is the black and white thinking that the conservative movement is really, really hammered into the working class.
5:52
[SPEAKER_04]: The good or bad with us are against us, you know, right or wrong, instead of going look, bad policy put us in in a bad place.
6:03
[SPEAKER_04]: situationally we were sold on the idea that deregulation ultimately free trade these these these new gimmicky things that Wall Street and corporate America were selling us the Madison Avenue sales job was great And what ended up happening is well we lost a we lost a prosperous working class We lost the ability for people who work with their hands in their backs in their brows to make it into this this this mythical middle class
6:32
[SPEAKER_04]: because we'd like to talk about middle class instead of working class, because then that makes us sound like we're workers.
6:40
[SPEAKER_04]: And until we wake up to the reality that, sorry, we're not going to probably never going to make it into the top 10%.
6:48
[SPEAKER_04]: We're probably not going to make it into the, or definitely not going to make it into the 1%.
6:53
[SPEAKER_04]: And that maybe we should start thinking about how we enact policies that benefit us first.
7:03
[SPEAKER_04]: And until we come to that, I'm not sure.
7:06
[SPEAKER_04]: I listen to people talk about, again, we've got a feed business because we've been sold, that only business will save us.
7:14
[SPEAKER_04]: It's kind of twisted.
7:16
[SPEAKER_04]: And that anything that we do for ourselves through our government is somehow socialism.
7:23
[SPEAKER_04]: You know, if we want health care, somehow having a national health care plan, that's socialism.
7:29
[SPEAKER_04]: You know, if we had social security, that's socialism, a way to say, and we have social security.
7:34
[SPEAKER_04]: Never mind.
7:35
[SPEAKER_04]: Skip that one.
7:36
[SPEAKER_04]: But if we had universal child care, socialism, if we had something to take care of, old people when they get old and get them health insurance, something like, I don't know, Medicare, that would be socialism, a way to second.
7:49
[SPEAKER_04]: We have that.
7:50
[SPEAKER_04]: Never mind.
7:52
[SPEAKER_04]: But you get my point.
7:55
[SPEAKER_04]: The reality is, as we've been so, so hammered with these messages that we've identified with our captors, that we know even before we have a chance to fight for things that we want and need.
8:11
[SPEAKER_04]: We're being hammered with the idea that, no, we can't have those because corporate America would be angry.
8:17
[SPEAKER_04]: It's quite frightening.
8:23
[SPEAKER_04]: It really is.
8:24
[SPEAKER_04]: It's remarkable to me that in this day and age, that working people who have been getting screwed over for far too long are still, are still eating from the the same hand that is beating them.
8:41
[SPEAKER_04]: And or trying to.
8:43
[SPEAKER_04]: That's right,
8:57
[SPEAKER_04]: I'm Rick Smith, and this is Labor History Inter.
9:01
[SPEAKER_04]: On this day in Labor History, the year was 2004.
9:04
[SPEAKER_04]: That was not a good day for hockey fans.
9:08
[SPEAKER_04]: The National Hockey League owners locked out the players.
9:11
[SPEAKER_04]: The owners and the players union could not come to an agreement on issues including pay, free agency rules, and drug testing.
9:18
[SPEAKER_04]: League owners also wanted to implement a salary cap.
9:22
[SPEAKER_04]: The Players Association objected.
9:24
[SPEAKER_04]: The first game of the season was supposed to take place on October 13th, but across the country, the arenas stood silent.
9:32
[SPEAKER_04]: As the impasse dragged on, in February the league announced the season was canceled.
9:38
[SPEAKER_04]: The Associated Press reported, quote, a hockey season on the brink is now a season gone bust.
9:44
[SPEAKER_04]: The NHL canceled what was left of its decimated schedule Wednesday after a round of last gasp negotiations failed to resolve differences over a salary cap.
9:55
[SPEAKER_04]: The flashpoint issue that led to a lockout.
9:58
[SPEAKER_04]: The article continued, quote, No Stanley Cup Champion will be crowned.
10:02
[SPEAKER_04]: The first time that's happened since 1919.
10:06
[SPEAKER_04]: When the two-year-old League called off the finals because of a flu epidemic.
10:10
[SPEAKER_04]: It was the first time that a North American professional sports league lost a full season to a labor dispute.
10:17
[SPEAKER_04]: Some of the players found work in the European leagues at greatly reduced pay.
10:22
[SPEAKER_04]: It's estimated that the league lost $2 billion in the lockout and that players lost a billion in salaries.
10:28
[SPEAKER_04]: The impact of the lockout rippled throughout restaurants and other businesses that relied on the hockey crowds causing layoffs for weight staff.
10:37
[SPEAKER_04]: Finally, in July, an agreement was reached.
10:39
[SPEAKER_04]: The players gave in to the owner's demand for a salary cap.
10:44
[SPEAKER_04]: In 2012, another lockout by management cost NHL players another half of the season.
10:50
[SPEAKER_04]: For more information, go to laborhistoryin2.com, like us on Facebook, follow us on Twitter at LaborHistoryIn2.
11:00
[SPEAKER_02]: Welcome back to the Rick Smith Show.
11:02
[SPEAKER_02]: Now, here is Rick Smith.
11:09
[SPEAKER_04]: So I can tell you, the news today, very interesting.
11:11
[SPEAKER_04]: The right wing think tanks are all tingling in the panties over the Trump administration's gutting of the clean air rack.
11:18
[SPEAKER_04]: And I know anything that Biden did is bad, anything that Trump does is good.
11:25
[SPEAKER_04]: And what they're saying in their words, they're just happy about the fact that this rule is important to address government overreach, you know, like clean air, being clean water, being a government overreach.
11:40
[SPEAKER_04]: The claim is going to help address the affordability concerns and make sure that America, when you flip on the light switch, the power is going to come on.
11:50
[SPEAKER_04]: and they're thrilled that it gets rid of every Obama and Biden era requirement that we make fossil fuels in their terms on economic and infeasible now I quite quite honestly said the reality is what they've done and good for them I guess you know maybe there's maybe there's an association that wants to make asthma great again but as a kid who grew up in the 70s with high pollution
12:19
[SPEAKER_04]: I didn't find my asthma to be all that entertaining and fun, but here to share some thoughts on why the right wing is all tizzy in the panties and and maybe what all this is about I've asked our good friend Katie Harris Come share some thoughts Katie these device president of federal affairs.
12:33
[SPEAKER_04]: They're at the blue green alliance.
12:35
[SPEAKER_04]: You can check out their website blue green alliance dot org Katie next week and time for us Happy to be here Rick.
12:42
[SPEAKER_04]: So let's start making asthma great again
12:49
[SPEAKER_01]: Yes, that's exactly what this new rule is trying to do.
12:53
[SPEAKER_01]: But the very short version is that it removes any kind of ability for the EPA, which is supposed to protect people, supposed to protect their health, right?
13:04
[SPEAKER_01]: That's the whole mission of that agency.
13:07
[SPEAKER_01]: It removes their ability to really regulate any kind of climate pollution things like carbon dioxide, but beyond that, right?
13:17
[SPEAKER_01]: It also to make matters worse, depending on how things play out in the courts could hamper any kind of future attempts, right, at lowering pollution.
13:27
[SPEAKER_04]: But we need carbon dioxide, carbon dioxide is good for us.
13:30
[SPEAKER_04]: Yeah, you're brilliant.
13:31
[SPEAKER_01]: You do, but it only has certain levels.
13:34
[SPEAKER_04]: And this is where the nuance comes in.
13:35
[SPEAKER_04]: This is where actually having scientists and why the war on science is so important.
13:40
[SPEAKER_04]: But I wanted to take a step back because look, there was a reason Biden did what they did.
13:45
[SPEAKER_04]: There was a reason the Obama administration did what they did.
13:48
[SPEAKER_04]: Can you maybe give us a little history?
13:51
[SPEAKER_04]: Maybe how we got to this point because look, I'm watching all of these right wing think tanks talking about government overreached and they're destroying our economy and all of this stuff and I'm going
14:01
[SPEAKER_04]: You know, um, I don't know that we quite grasp, and I don't think our mainstream media has done a good enough job of explaining why we needed these things.
14:10
[SPEAKER_04]: Can you walk me through a little bit of that?
14:13
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, absolutely.
14:14
[SPEAKER_01]: So this particular rule has been around in some form or another since about 2015.
14:21
[SPEAKER_01]: That was during the Obama administration.
14:24
[SPEAKER_01]: Look, it's been around because when you burn fossil fuels, you end up with a lot of different types of pollution in the air.
14:33
[SPEAKER_01]: It's not just,
14:34
[SPEAKER_01]: carbon dioxide, it can also be sort of like ash and other pollutants like that, right?
14:40
[SPEAKER_01]: And so the goal when the Obama administration released their rule and then the Biden in 2024, Biden administration released it, was to really try to set limits not just to protect the climate, but also to protect human health.
14:56
[SPEAKER_01]: That was really the the biggest point of it.
14:59
[SPEAKER_01]: And in fact, the EPA for a long time when they when they make these regulations and they do their there's sort of cost benefit analysis one of the big things that they're looking at is the total economic benefits to human health that's that's considered alongside, you know, cost of businesses things like that.
15:18
[SPEAKER_01]: So that's the whole reason why it was seen as being a good thing, right?
15:22
[SPEAKER_01]: The net benefits were really positive.
15:26
[SPEAKER_01]: And this administration, in addition to putting this rule, rolling back this rule, they also have stopped calculating that economic benefits of protecting human health entirely.
15:37
[SPEAKER_01]: They stopped doing that at the beginning of this year.
15:40
[SPEAKER_01]: So with this rule rule back, we don't even know if we know it's going to be bad for health, but we don't know
15:45
[SPEAKER_01]: How bad it's going to be because they just won't even talk about it.
15:48
[SPEAKER_04]: Yeah, but we're making I've definitely were making coal great again Which in turn will will will will make asthma great again because you know, we need cheap energy and this is this is the argument that they're making
16:00
[SPEAKER_04]: because of Obama, because of Biden, our electricity prices are going up, not because of, you know, a whole bunch of things that they've done, but because of just these onerous regulations, if we could just unleash the power of American energy, we could have abundance and plentiful and it'd be cheap and it'd be awesome.
16:21
[SPEAKER_01]: Look, I mean, it is true that a lot of coal plants and coal mines have shut down in the last 15, 20 years, so you can look at graphs, you can see that right, but a lot of that is actually due to the shift to natural gas.
16:36
[SPEAKER_01]: And a lot of us just play in economics, right, it's cheaper and easier to burn.
16:43
[SPEAKER_01]: Well, well, it's true that it has affected coal communities.
16:49
[SPEAKER_01]: Like the other thing that the 2024 regulation did, the Biden regulation did was it actually created transparency for if utilities were going to say shut down a plant.
16:59
[SPEAKER_01]: They had to give a certain amount of notice to the workers or the communities who might be affected.
17:04
[SPEAKER_01]: So that way, it's not just harming public health.
17:06
[SPEAKER_01]: It's also harming the sort of transparency that the 2024 rule was building in and trying
17:13
[SPEAKER_01]: of, you know, calls at them.
17:14
[SPEAKER_04]: Now somebody who's older like I am and remembers the 1970s when we didn't have a lot of these regulations, that we lived through the smog era, we lived through choking, unleaded gasoline fumes.
17:28
[SPEAKER_04]: We choked on, you know, just the, the, the, un,
17:30
[SPEAKER_04]: really just the unscrupbed pollution and and we now I actually have friends who think you know if we we just got rid of these regulations the industries learned Katie they're not going to go back and do those things again we're better than that now so I'm trying to remind people it wasn't great I mean sitting in traffic you were literally eating exhaust fumes
17:52
[SPEAKER_04]: And, you know, I can still, to this day, you know, 50 years later, I can still taste the fumes coming out of the tailpipe and the car and front of us, but there are people who believe that, you know, they've learned.
18:04
[SPEAKER_04]: We're better now.
18:05
[SPEAKER_04]: We won't do that again.
18:08
[SPEAKER_04]: Is that safe?
18:09
[SPEAKER_04]: Is that same?
18:11
[SPEAKER_01]: It's, it's not safe.
18:12
[SPEAKER_01]: I, I don't think that we have learned and, and honestly, I think,
18:17
[SPEAKER_01]: right now overall folks are taking for granted the fact that we have clean air and clean water right as the result partially of the EPA.
18:27
[SPEAKER_01]: So no, it's not safe.
18:28
[SPEAKER_01]: It's not saying it's completely crazy to me that the EPA is just stopped thinking about human health entirely.
18:35
[SPEAKER_01]: They've literally just stopped calculating it.
18:38
[SPEAKER_04]: Yeah, no, look, I grew up in Cleveland and I often coin it the home of the reason you need an EPA in the Clean Water and Air Act because look, like Gary when I was a kid was not a place you went into.
18:48
[SPEAKER_04]: Yeah, you know, every fish that I saw in like Gary was kind of floating sideways with one eye looking up at the sky because they were dead.
18:56
[SPEAKER_04]: And the lake was basically dead and because of these regulations, because of sane, rational, well-thought-out, good policy, that lake is now thriving.
19:07
[SPEAKER_04]: And fact, you know, they've got so much, they don't know what to do with the zebra muscles that they brought in the cling things up, but still, I don't see fish floating with one eye looking up at the sky anymore.
19:17
[SPEAKER_04]: It's a thriving ecosystem, and that's policy driven.
19:21
[SPEAKER_01]: Right, exactly, but the result of some of the policies that were put in the place in the 70s, right?
19:27
[SPEAKER_04]: In the next year and this is why I bring this up because this used to be non-partisan and I don't know how we got into this moment where you go.
19:38
[SPEAKER_04]: My team believes in this, your team believes in this, and our health be damned, our jobs be damned, our community, our kids, our future, all that be damned, my colored team, Red Hat or Blue Hat, we, we're right, and well, cost be damned, our health be damned, I don't know how we got here.
19:58
[SPEAKER_01]: Right.
19:58
[SPEAKER_01]: People are shocked when they realized that Nixon is the one who signed the EPA into existence.
20:05
[SPEAKER_01]: And I don't think that health should be a blue or a red thing, right?
20:10
[SPEAKER_01]: We all care about being able to breathe.
20:13
[SPEAKER_01]: We all care about having clean water.
20:16
[SPEAKER_01]: And so this is just a really politically motivated stunt.
20:20
[SPEAKER_04]: Yeah, so let's go back ahead because the argument from the right that I've been seeing is that it's just going to make electricity cheaper and we're in the we're in the moment of we're in the moment of affordability everybody's concerned about costs I know my electric bill has gone just insane I look I've got solar panels on my house we produce about 40% of our own electricity.
20:44
[SPEAKER_04]: But the argument is, is that we're gonna save money.
20:46
[SPEAKER_04]: And I'm gonna argue that it's short-term.
20:49
[SPEAKER_04]: It's really tip of the nose thinking because I look at my own life, growing up as a kid, as a horrible asthma, was in and out of the doctor's office constantly.
21:00
[SPEAKER_04]: And as soon as I moved into an area where it wasn't as polluted, like miraculously, it just kind of cleared up.
21:07
[SPEAKER_04]: So it seems to me that on the,
21:11
[SPEAKER_04]: I think a Ben Franklin, you know, what is it?
21:12
[SPEAKER_04]: Pennywise pound foolish?
21:14
[SPEAKER_04]: This seems like a Pennywise pound foolish kind of thing.
21:18
[SPEAKER_04]: I'm curious if you agree.
21:21
[SPEAKER_01]: I mean, yeah, it is.
21:23
[SPEAKER_01]: I don't think they've actually done the calculations, right?
21:28
[SPEAKER_01]: And looked out beyond just what's happening right this second.
21:33
[SPEAKER_01]: The affordability crisis is a real thing.
21:35
[SPEAKER_01]: But I think ultimately, this is a give away to their industry friends, to their wealthy millionaire billionaire friends.
21:45
[SPEAKER_04]: So I know we can't get inside of their heads, and this is one of those things that I'm not even going to try.
21:49
[SPEAKER_04]: But you know, it's one of those things that do they just not know is this ideological is this, you know, just Trump going, hey, this is Biden Obama.
21:56
[SPEAKER_04]: I got to crush everything Biden and Obama.
21:59
[SPEAKER_04]: Or is this really kind of nefarious going look?
22:02
[SPEAKER_04]: Our corporate masters, they want coal, they demand their literal pound of flesh because they're not the ones having to suffer the negative external consequences of these actions.
22:17
[SPEAKER_04]: I don't know, but maybe it's a mishmash of all of it, but what I do know is I'm looking at China who every time my right-wing friends say, well, China's burning coal.
22:26
[SPEAKER_04]: Yeah, they're moving away from it fairly quickly.
22:30
[SPEAKER_04]: They're the largest user of wind and solar on the planet.
22:34
[SPEAKER_04]: And yet this administration is running from it.
22:37
[SPEAKER_04]: And not just running from it, crushing everything that Obama and Biden did.
22:42
[SPEAKER_04]: I guess just because Obama and Biden did it, but we're all going to pay the cost in the long run, I think.
22:49
[SPEAKER_01]: I think that's right.
22:50
[SPEAKER_01]: I think you're right.
22:52
[SPEAKER_01]: It's a mishmash, right of answering to sort of their corporate masters of just doing things because they they don't like Obama and they don't like Biden and they want to destroy anything that they did.
23:06
[SPEAKER_01]: But I don't think they're really thinking about communities or workers is very much while they're doing this, right?
23:11
[SPEAKER_01]: I think they're just sort of...
23:13
[SPEAKER_01]: going on vibes as the younger folks would say.
23:17
[SPEAKER_04]: Now, the EPA guys, Elden and his clan, they've moved, they're destroying this.
23:24
[SPEAKER_04]: Is this a done deal?
23:25
[SPEAKER_04]: Is there any way that this gets stopped?
23:27
[SPEAKER_04]: Is there any way to turn back from this?
23:29
[SPEAKER_04]: Is there a court proceeding?
23:31
[SPEAKER_04]: Is there a way for people to get angry and rise up and say, no, I kind of like breathing.
23:38
[SPEAKER_04]: I kind of like my water without chunks in it.
23:40
[SPEAKER_04]: I mean, is there a way for us to push back on this or is this kind of a midterm thing?
23:44
[SPEAKER_04]: Where you got to go and go, look, we've got to put some sane, rational people back in our government.
23:51
[SPEAKER_01]: It's definitely a midterm thing, but voting matters.
23:55
[SPEAKER_01]: That's how we get people in office who care about health.
24:00
[SPEAKER_01]: There will be legal cases and there's probably already some being filed right now that try to stop this rule or at least, you know, dead in the impact of the rule and live to fight another day, basically.
24:14
[SPEAKER_01]: But we'll see how those play out in a little, it'll be months if not years before those are kind of settled.
24:19
[SPEAKER_04]: Yeah, kind of the last line of question in because, you know, one of the things that I find interesting is the Wall Street, we do, we do, we do things for two groups in this country.
24:30
[SPEAKER_04]: All the military, it's either got to feed the military, it's got to be good for, for war or it's got to be good for Wall Street.
24:37
[SPEAKER_04]: And I don't see how this is good for Wall Street because I think they were kind of adjusting to the idea that you know, maybe we don't get to pollute, you know, without with our consequences.
24:47
[SPEAKER_04]: Maybe we're going to be responsible for what we put out and maybe we have to pay for some of the external costs of our businesses and I think they were kind of moving in that direction.
24:57
[SPEAKER_04]: This kind of swings the pendulum in the other way to go, you know what, you know, why don't last go on?
25:02
[SPEAKER_04]: the certainty that businesses want to expect from government, this seems to be another one of those pendulum things that I think we kind of have to figure out because it's bad for them or are we so broken that we've got to wait for Wall Street to make the decision?
25:17
[SPEAKER_01]: Right.
25:18
[SPEAKER_01]: I've got to ask you myself that question a lot of who asked for this right every time I see a regulation like this come out that just clearly is is unhelpful or or hostile to communities of workers is who asked for this.
25:32
[SPEAKER_01]: And many times I'm not sure anybody did.
25:34
[SPEAKER_01]: I think that that the administration is just doing it because they are corrupt and they can.
25:40
[SPEAKER_04]: Yeah, let me put Don Blank and ship.
25:42
[SPEAKER_04]: I think he could ask for it, but yeah, yeah, but I know my neighbors didn't ask for this, but what they want is they want investment and infrastructure what they want is a better grid what they want is investment that in in the next technologies that are going to help make.
26:00
[SPEAKER_04]: energy, a little more plentiful, a little less costly, and they're going to be able to support their families, and I see none of those investments.
26:07
[SPEAKER_04]: I see nothing but negatives coming down the bikes to last.
26:09
[SPEAKER_04]: Lastly, what do we do?
26:10
[SPEAKER_04]: What's the action?
26:12
[SPEAKER_04]: You at the blue green alliance?
26:13
[SPEAKER_04]: What's the pitch?
26:14
[SPEAKER_04]: What do you guys work enough?
26:17
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, well, right now we're really focused on what could happen in the next Congress and trying to get good policy is kind of going.
26:25
[SPEAKER_01]: It takes a long time right for for something to get passed by Congress in the best of circumstances and then we're really looking ahead frankly to to 2028 and 2029 and just trying to
26:36
[SPEAKER_01]: Tell everybody how bad the the corruption of this administration is until then no, but here's the I guess I got to follow up on that.
26:43
[SPEAKER_04]: You see we're going to tell them how bad it is.
26:45
[SPEAKER_04]: Do you think telling them matters at this point or do they really have to just does it have to hit you right between the eyes of how bad it is because I keep believing and I said nothing's going to change until like the old labor friend you're when your stomach's empty your head gets right I don't see us changing anything until it hits us right between the eyes.
27:04
[SPEAKER_01]: I mean, this is a classic Cuban problem, right?
27:07
[SPEAKER_01]: We don't change anything unless it really impacts us.
27:10
[SPEAKER_01]: And as much as I don't want anybody to see pollution or asthma, maybe something will change after this rule, right?
27:19
[SPEAKER_01]: It might take a while to see the negative impacts of this rule, we'll see.
27:22
[SPEAKER_04]: There you go, Katie Harris, I appreciate you taking time for us.
27:24
[SPEAKER_04]: Thanks so much.
27:25
[SPEAKER_04]: Thanks.
27:26
[SPEAKER_04]: Katie Harris, Vice President of Federal Affairs there at the Blue Green Alliance.
27:30
[SPEAKER_04]: You can check out their website, bluegreenaliance.org.
27:33
[SPEAKER_04]: We'll get links to that on social media.
27:34
[SPEAKER_04]: I can take a look at the work that they do.
27:35
[SPEAKER_04]: Want to hear your thoughts?
27:36
[SPEAKER_04]: You're ready for it?
27:38
[SPEAKER_04]: You're ready to bring back the pollution of the old days, ready for your kids to breathe.
27:42
[SPEAKER_04]: And when they talk, they wheeze, making wheezing great again.
27:46
[SPEAKER_04]: Yeah, it's going to be awesome, isn't it?
27:49
[SPEAKER_04]: Rick at TheRixMithshow.com.
27:51
[SPEAKER_04]: Back after this.
28:00
[SPEAKER_04]: I'm Rick Smith, and this is Labor History In 2.
28:03
[SPEAKER_04]: On this day in Labor History, the year was 1945.
28:07
[SPEAKER_04]: That was the day oil workers walked off the job.
28:10
[SPEAKER_04]: The strike soon spread to 20 states and involved more than 43,000 workers at 22 oil companies.
28:18
[SPEAKER_04]: After years of wartime wage freezes, the Union's demand was 52 for 40, 52 hours pay for 40 hours work.
28:26
[SPEAKER_04]: Workers demanded a 30% pay increase, shift differentials, and an eventual return to the 36 hour work week.
28:34
[SPEAKER_04]: The strike began in Michigan at this economy vacuum refinery in Trenton, from there it's spread to golf, sinclair and shell, by October 4th.
28:43
[SPEAKER_04]: President Truman signed Executive Order 9639, allowing the Secretary of the Navy to seize petroleum operations.
28:51
[SPEAKER_04]: The oil workers' international union CIO immediately called off the strike and ordered its members back to work.
28:58
[SPEAKER_04]: A month later, the Navy had still not relinquished control of operation.
29:02
[SPEAKER_04]: The union considered Truman's seizure a betrayal.
29:05
[SPEAKER_04]: There was no mechanism
29:11
[SPEAKER_04]: By January 1946, the oil panel created by the Secretary of Labor, finally awarded oil workers and 18 percent wage increase.
29:20
[SPEAKER_04]: Though disappointed, the Union considered it a victory.
29:23
[SPEAKER_04]: They asserted the strike action was significant on a number of levels.
29:27
[SPEAKER_04]: The first nationwide industry strike had just forced the oil companies to meet with the Union for the very first time.
29:33
[SPEAKER_04]: The OWI believed the groundwork for industry-wide bargaining had been finally established.
29:39
[SPEAKER_04]: It had been the first post-war strike and had forced the government to begin moving away from wartime wage controls.
29:47
[SPEAKER_04]: Of the post-war strikes, it won the largest pay increase.
29:51
[SPEAKER_04]: And importantly, it broke the power of standard oil to dictate wages to the industry through its dealings with its independent union.
30:00
[SPEAKER_00]: Greg Evans, the right-wing hack who is Governor of Texas, probably doesn't know what a petard is, but he's now been hoisted by a big one.
30:10
[SPEAKER_00]: Hoist on a petard is a Shakespearean phrase, referring to a bomb maker being blown sky high by his own creation.
30:18
[SPEAKER_00]: Abbott's bombastic saga began last year when he noticed that high-tech billionaires were waving political cash at lawmakers who would help them build massive AI data centers across America.
30:31
[SPEAKER_00]: Sniffing a quid pro-quobanenza, Abbott shoved his way to the front of that money hustle, loudly proclaiming that by Gales, he would make Texas the quote,
30:43
[SPEAKER_00]: Not only did he pour massive taxpayer subsidies into the billionaire's pockets, but he even passed a law making it illegal for local officials to interfere with the profiteers.
30:54
[SPEAKER_00]: Sure enough, Texas has now the world's top location for these corporate invaders.
30:59
[SPEAKER_00]: So, wait a go, Governor!
31:01
[SPEAKER_00]: But oops, the governor's giveaway is now called Greg's Folly for the vast majority of Texans, especially rural Republicans.
31:10
[SPEAKER_00]: Don't just oppose his AI data centers.
31:13
[SPEAKER_00]: They despise, abominate, hate them.
31:16
[SPEAKER_00]: And they're now in angry grassroots revolt against the perpetrators, including Greg.
31:21
[SPEAKER_00]: So, hoist on his own petard, Abbott has now flipped flopped from Heipster to reformer, comically demanding an end to the tax giveaways he created, frantically trying to regulate AI projects he deregulated, and crying that the rural voice he silenced must be heard.
31:41
[SPEAKER_00]: This is Jim Heiter saying, sadly for him, those billionaires he corded so passionately are now laughing at him.
31:49
[SPEAKER_00]: When he recently commanded all data-centered owners to report their water usage to him, more than 70%, simply ignored the petty tyrant.
32:18
[SPEAKER_04]: so we find out that dumb junior got married uh... don junior the president's idiots son uh... we find out that uh... that dumb junior got married uh... i guess back in may uh... on two islands in the Bahamas what is it with with rich people in island uh... evidently the the wedding ceremony the the fireworks that the dancers the uh...
32:42
[SPEAKER_04]: all of it evidently paid for by a Russian oligarch but dumb junior says you know look we're just friends and you know that why why does everything have to come with a you know with someone asking for something can someone just be generous and be nice
32:56
[SPEAKER_04]: Yeah, and yeah, we're supposed to buy that.
32:59
[SPEAKER_04]: I mean, that's the part that I'm kind of stuck on.
33:02
[SPEAKER_04]: That we're supposed to just kind of buy that some Russian oligarch tied to Putin who went to China with Putin holding hands, somehow that there's no quid pro quo there.
33:13
[SPEAKER_04]: Just kind of makes you think, and that's why I've asked my good friend Will Bunch to come share some thoughts.
33:17
[SPEAKER_04]: Well, a national columnist over at the Philadelphia inquire.
33:21
[SPEAKER_04]: Get check out his work there at inquire.org.
33:26
[SPEAKER_04]: Hey, hey, Rick, next time we'll be back.
33:28
[SPEAKER_04]: So, um, when you got married, uh, did you, who paid for your wedding?
33:32
[SPEAKER_04]: Did you get a Russian oligarch to come, you know, maybe shoot some fireworks, uh, pay for the booze, anything?
33:40
[SPEAKER_03]: I know.
33:42
[SPEAKER_03]: I think we paid for ourselves, which is probably why we were at a Japanese restaurant and not on two private islands in the pommets.
33:52
[SPEAKER_03]: So, if I had a Russian old dark friend, you know, who knows what kind of bash we could have had.
33:58
[SPEAKER_03]: It could have been another fire festival.
34:01
[SPEAKER_04]: It could have been, but you know, here's the thing, we're led to believe we're told that there's there's nothing here there's nothing there's smoke, but there's no fire don't worry about it.
34:11
[SPEAKER_04]: As I asked on my other show, if we just changed one word in the story, if we changed it from Trump to Biden, how do you think the story would have been received?
34:24
[SPEAKER_03]: Well, yeah, we know, because we know what we know what they thought about Hunter Biden selling his paintings, which, you know, and look, you know, I mean, Hunter Biden comes up a lot.
34:34
[SPEAKER_03]: And I'm not, I'm not a huge Hunter Biden fan.
34:38
[SPEAKER_03]: I don't, I don't defend.
34:39
[SPEAKER_03]: I think, I think there's too much play to,
34:43
[SPEAKER_03]: too much pain to play type stuff in politics, you know, and it happens to some extent in both parties, but you know what, I mean, 100 Biden did was garden variety, presidential relative stuff.
34:58
[SPEAKER_03]: Yeah, it's like a Billy Carter's ability to actually he was like, or he was like a vice presidential.
35:03
[SPEAKER_03]: relative even at the time, but garden variety stuff that we saw, you know, we're all enough for it to remember Billy Carter, Billy Beard, Neil Bush.
35:13
[SPEAKER_03]: Yeah, yeah, we remember him, all those guys, all relative's a president, all of them making kind of shady business deals, whatever, there's no comparison any of that to what the Trump family is doing.
35:32
[SPEAKER_03]: The hotels that are now going up and golf courses and every dictator ship around the world.
35:40
[SPEAKER_03]: You know, the defense contracts that again, Don Jr. is very involved in getting all kinds of, you know, drone like drone protection like.
35:51
[SPEAKER_03]: You know, they start a war, they start a war, and then they could all these companies.
35:55
[SPEAKER_04]: But well, but well, yeah, Donald Jr. is the foremost expert on drones.
36:01
[SPEAKER_04]: He has spent his entire life learning about drones.
36:04
[SPEAKER_04]: He knows all of the thermodynamics.
36:06
[SPEAKER_04]: He knows everything there is to know about drones evidently.
36:09
[SPEAKER_03]: Well, he does, he does, he does drone a lot when he does his podcast or whatever.
36:14
[SPEAKER_03]: So I don't, I thought maybe that's where you're going with that.
36:17
[SPEAKER_03]: But no, but you know, I think, I think what's relevant to this whole wedding scandal.
36:25
[SPEAKER_03]: And I mean, I posted on this, you know, like a lot of people, you know, I read the pro public story.
36:33
[SPEAKER_03]: You see, as it came out, I think I
36:39
[SPEAKER_03]: view so far, which is incredible, but you know, I read it and I immediately thought back to the story that I've told from time to time, just to me, it explains kind of the mystery of political corruption into some people, because
36:56
[SPEAKER_03]: I mean, however, sort of rich you might have been before his dad got elected president, Donald Trump through your now is supposed to be worth at least 500 million.
37:09
[SPEAKER_03]: And I think that's probably an underestimated this point because they're doing so many deals in the crypto and cashing in and everything.
37:18
[SPEAKER_03]: So 500 million dollars, you could, you know,
37:24
[SPEAKER_03]: cut loose the couple million or whatever it is to rent those two islands for the weekend.
37:28
[SPEAKER_03]: So why, you know, why have this Russian old dark who is a direct associate, not even, you know, not even twice removed, but an actual associate friend of Vladimir Putin, you know, why have this guy pay for the wedding when you're a multi-multime millionaire yourself?
37:47
[SPEAKER_03]: And the answer is because they can do it.
37:50
[SPEAKER_03]: It's a power thing.
37:51
[SPEAKER_03]: It's a power trip.
37:54
[SPEAKER_03]: I worked at Newstay on Long Island in the 80s and I was paired up on a project with this great old school investigative journalist, his name is Joe Damma.
38:03
[SPEAKER_03]: And we had to do a couple of stakeouts with kind of like, you know, imagine like pull fiction, except journalists, you know, we're sitting there in the car, you know, eating
38:12
[SPEAKER_03]: eating burger royals and talking about stuff.
38:14
[SPEAKER_03]: And he would tell me his stories about covering the mafia.
38:17
[SPEAKER_03]: And he would say, you know, people ask me what the mafia is like.
38:20
[SPEAKER_03]: I tell people, there's these guys, there are these guys who have got giant rolls of $100 bills in their pocket.
38:28
[SPEAKER_03]: And they go through a toll booth on the Throgsneck Bridge.
38:30
[SPEAKER_03]: That's a quarter.
38:31
[SPEAKER_03]: and they throw in a slug instead of paying the toll.
38:35
[SPEAKER_03]: And that's an old for people to remember what that is anymore before, for easy paths.
38:39
[SPEAKER_04]: You did it yourself.
38:41
[SPEAKER_03]: Yeah, I did, I know, but, but the point is, and he's like, why did they do it?
38:46
[SPEAKER_03]: It's because they can, it's the thrill of getting away with something, it's the thrill of cheating.
38:51
[SPEAKER_03]: And I would argue with the next step though, well, I would take that the next step.
38:54
[SPEAKER_03]: It's not just about cheating.
38:56
[SPEAKER_03]: It's about you knowing that they've cheated and they've gotten away with it.
39:00
[SPEAKER_03]: Yeah, I mean, what's interesting, I mean, you see all the time with these, you know, when there are these corruption stories about Trump and or Trump's family, you know, they never they never did not have, they always, they always come out in a minute because that's part of.
39:18
[SPEAKER_03]: what they perceive as their superpower, that not only that they can be corrupt, but they can be corrupt and they can tell you about it and they can tell you exactly what they did and who brought them and how much money they got, and there's nothing you can do about it.
39:32
[SPEAKER_03]: And I don't know, we'll see, I mean, at this moment on
39:37
[SPEAKER_03]: On this day on September 15th, 2026, there's not much we can do about it because they control the justice department.
39:46
[SPEAKER_03]: They control both houses of commerce that the majority party is the one who gets the issue of the subpoenas.
39:57
[SPEAKER_03]: There's no like blue steak or whatever that has jurisdiction over this.
40:01
[SPEAKER_03]: they control right now, they control every mechanism that can investigate this.
40:07
[SPEAKER_03]: Now that might change, I mean, the best thing would be to have an honest justice department that would investigate these people and send them to jail for a long time.
40:18
[SPEAKER_04]: But that's not coming until 29.
40:20
[SPEAKER_03]: But yeah, I was going to say, all right, that's what I was going to say.
40:23
[SPEAKER_03]: We're not going to have that.
40:24
[SPEAKER_03]: Next year, we are going to hopefully have at least one house.
40:29
[SPEAKER_03]: I think the house is a done deal.
40:31
[SPEAKER_03]: Maybe the Senate looks better every day, but I think I have at least one.
40:36
[SPEAKER_03]: legislative body and maybe two, it's going to have subpoena power and do investigations.
40:44
[SPEAKER_03]: January 20, 27, let's get it all out there, everything, and there's so much.
40:50
[SPEAKER_03]: I just, you know, not to change the subject away from Don Jr's wedding, but I mean, every day I see like two or three new things online that are Trump corruption that I didn't know about.
41:06
[SPEAKER_03]: Our good friend Elizabeth Warren put out, put out a news release, she and a couple other Democrats are investigating what's going on with Trump's library project, which is kind of fascinating, you know, a library for a guy who's never read a book in a life, but, you know, he's been raising money for this library.
41:26
[SPEAKER_03]: And a couple things, one is they got $50
41:35
[SPEAKER_03]: for Trump's library, it's just gigantic donation.
41:39
[SPEAKER_03]: Right before the government did soft bank, a favor in terms of getting power for a data center that it wants to build here in the US.
41:47
[SPEAKER_03]: So you've got everything, you've got privies, you've got data centers, all one story.
41:52
[SPEAKER_03]: But in the meantime, I'm reading this press release that was a bit more and put out.
41:56
[SPEAKER_03]: And they just casually mentioned, oh, by the way, you know, this other money, because he's got another money from ABC,
42:02
[SPEAKER_03]: these legal settlement settlements, and other monies that have gone to the Trump quote library on quote.
42:09
[SPEAKER_03]: So, you know, it's supposed to be millions of dollars.
42:12
[SPEAKER_03]: Some of them are huge chunk of the money has already gone missing.
42:17
[SPEAKER_04]: Of course.
42:17
[SPEAKER_04]: And this is one of the, you know, your piece.
42:20
[SPEAKER_04]: We don't talk enough about Trump's $850 million paid a place, less fun article over at theinquirer.org.
42:27
[SPEAKER_04]: You know, this spurred a conversation with a friend of mine, asking that exact question, why don't we talk about all of this corruption?
42:35
[SPEAKER_04]: Why aren't we talking about it?
42:36
[SPEAKER_04]: And even myself, and my response to him is, there is so much.
42:42
[SPEAKER_03]: It's overwhelming.
42:43
[SPEAKER_03]: It's almost impossible to keep up with.
42:46
[SPEAKER_03]: It is, and there's new things every day, but I do think, I mean, I wrote that piece, you know, I do think it would be good to see more focus on Trump's political fundraising and part of the reason why is, I mean, to me what's so going about all of this is you're talking about a person who is barred from money for president ever again.
43:09
[SPEAKER_03]: And you know, I know when you say
43:16
[SPEAKER_03]: You know, I mean, I believe a lot of the worst things about Trump, but I don't think he is.
43:20
[SPEAKER_03]: He's going to live that long, but you know, he may not live that long.
43:24
[SPEAKER_03]: If he is, he's not going to be, you know, he can barely get up the stairs now, but of course, so can I, I shouldn't talk, but, but, you know, you know,
43:36
[SPEAKER_03]: He's not going to run at age 82, but it's why he's trying to make as much money as he can now, because he's only got these two more years of cash, even not all his power.
43:45
[SPEAKER_04]: And the reason he's slapping his name all over everything.
43:48
[SPEAKER_04]: Oh, because yeah, you know, as the rumor goes, he knows when he leaves, nobody's putting his name on anything, not like they did with Reagan.
43:55
[SPEAKER_03]: Sure, he's thinking about immortality, right?
43:58
[SPEAKER_03]: But he's also thinking about...
44:00
[SPEAKER_03]: money, I guess money is the form of immortality for him, but so back to my original point though, so we know he's not running in in 2028.
44:10
[SPEAKER_03]: So why and how can he raise so much campaign money?
44:15
[SPEAKER_03]: I mean, most of it goes to these two organizations, one's one's
44:19
[SPEAKER_03]: ones the mega ink pack, which gets some publicity, maybe you heard of it.
44:24
[SPEAKER_03]: That's raised $400 million.
44:28
[SPEAKER_03]: Since he became president and wasn't running anymore for $400 million for this political fund.
44:33
[SPEAKER_03]: He also has another fund.
44:34
[SPEAKER_03]: I'm going to forget the second.
44:37
[SPEAKER_03]: I think sharing America's greatness.
44:40
[SPEAKER_03]: Great, thank you.
44:41
[SPEAKER_03]: I was going to, I was going to call something else.
44:44
[SPEAKER_03]: which is it's a dark money organization.
44:47
[SPEAKER_03]: They don't have to, unlike a normal super PAC, they don't have to disclose all of their donors.
44:53
[SPEAKER_03]: We found out the names of a few because they, you know, leaked on to other documents that they did have to disclose something.
45:01
[SPEAKER_03]: but most of the donors we don't know, that supposedly has another $450 million, no people even knows about this, right?
45:08
[SPEAKER_03]: We don't know who these people give in money for this are, but we do know what we do see the donations that we can track to, to like to mega-ing where they do have to report the donations.
45:20
[SPEAKER_03]: It's all, it's all people seeking government contracts, government favors.
45:24
[SPEAKER_03]: I mean, there seem to be two major, there seem to be two major
45:31
[SPEAKER_03]: those horrible people who run the squalid ice detention centers.
45:37
[SPEAKER_03]: They gave a couple million and immediately got like a hundred sixty five million dollar.
45:42
[SPEAKER_03]: It's a nice return on investment days later.
45:44
[SPEAKER_03]: Yeah, exactly who wouldn't make that, who wouldn't make that kind of investment.
45:48
[SPEAKER_03]: That kind of return on investment.
45:51
[SPEAKER_03]: Or, you know, people who want parties from this whole, you know, I guess sixty minutes, not anybody watches it anymore, but did something on the
46:01
[SPEAKER_04]: uh... the trump pardon factory you know and uh... uh... well what do you say the person who goes look you know bill Clinton did a lot of partens that people help me a mark rich is one of the names that pops up others the occasional one of these that pops up that there's there's the the claim that there was some kind of quid pro quo nine i've not heard what that quid pro quo is with the rich the mark rich but we know
46:25
[SPEAKER_04]: What Trump is basically doing is selling partens in yet to your point earlier.
46:30
[SPEAKER_04]: We're really not paying much attention to it because there's so much other corruption.
46:35
[SPEAKER_03]: Yeah, I mean, I mean, the microch thing was bad.
46:37
[SPEAKER_03]: There's no doubt about it, but I think the reason one of the reasons it got so much attention was it was kind of an anomaly, you know, the, you know, Clinton, and, you know, I'm not a giant Clinton fan, but, you know, like most presidents, Democrat or Republican, before Trump, there is actually a process
46:58
[SPEAKER_03]: For getting partens, you're supposed to fill out an application.
47:01
[SPEAKER_03]: It's supposed to go through an office in the Justice Department.
47:04
[SPEAKER_03]: They're supposed to evaluate it.
47:06
[SPEAKER_03]: And going back in history, the idea that somebody suddenly did a bad thing when they were 25 years old, and they spent some time in prison.
47:15
[SPEAKER_03]: And now they're 50 years old, and they're a humanitarian, or they work with a church group.
47:22
[SPEAKER_03]: They do good stuff.
47:24
[SPEAKER_03]: Um, you know, the idea of giving those kind of people a pardon, I think it's something most of us would support right, but that's not that's that was happening here.
47:32
[SPEAKER_03]: These are, you know, crypto scammers and you have drug dealers in some cases.
47:39
[SPEAKER_03]: uh who's crimes are very recent or you know they just got sent to jail like six months ago on a six or seven year sentence and they get instantly pardoned by Trump because somebody like their mom gave him million you know there's a one guy who got a pardon because his mom gave like a million dollars the magga ink.
47:59
[SPEAKER_04]: Um, and if I did stop here right there, if I did something wrong, my mother wouldn't wouldn't give a no, she didn't have a million dollars, but she wouldn't give someone a million dollars.
48:10
[SPEAKER_04]: You get me out of trouble.
48:10
[SPEAKER_04]: She'd probably smack me and make the the penalty worse.
48:14
[SPEAKER_03]: Yeah, she probably make you give her give her some money.
48:18
[SPEAKER_03]: So yeah, well, I guess that's, you know, the rich are really different from you and me.
48:24
[SPEAKER_03]: Yeah, I don't know.
48:26
[SPEAKER_03]: I don't know.
48:26
[SPEAKER_03]: It's a different mentality, honestly.
48:29
[SPEAKER_04]: So let me bring it back to this because, you know, again, you know, the person I was talking to earlier is like, you know, you know, give me something to go back to my red hat friends with and I'm like, there is just so much.
48:39
[SPEAKER_04]: I don't know what one thing you're looking for because the corruption is so vast.
48:45
[SPEAKER_04]: So when you when you're looking when you're having these conversations with folks.
48:48
[SPEAKER_04]: And you as someone who pays, you know, ultimate attention to our keenly aware of all of this stuff.
48:54
[SPEAKER_04]: How do you, how do you break this stuff down?
48:56
[SPEAKER_04]: How do you filter it to kind of understand that, you know, each individual bit of corruption is part of the bigger scheme, and other than just throwing up your hands and going, it's all bad.
49:07
[SPEAKER_04]: It's all corrupt, which is kind of where I think we are.
49:10
[SPEAKER_03]: How do you watch it, you know, I think that's, you know, I think I think embedded in your friend's question is this idea of there's so much of it, well, how do we make the average voter care about this, right, that they're so overwhelmed that they don't know.
49:27
[SPEAKER_03]: what to think of any of this and they don't really care about any individual one scandal because there's like 75 of them, right?
49:35
[SPEAKER_03]: Well, one thing I would tell the average voter is think about how much time
49:41
[SPEAKER_03]: Trump spends of his day on getting himself richer or supposed to do anything that helps you the person who voted for him.
49:53
[SPEAKER_03]: I just saw another gobsmacking statistic today, which is that
50:00
[SPEAKER_03]: This year or in the last year, I don't know the exact time frame, but Trump made more stock trades than all of Congress put together.
50:10
[SPEAKER_03]: That's 535 people, and he had more stock transaction.
50:13
[SPEAKER_03]: So, I mean, he's practically day trading, you know?
50:21
[SPEAKER_03]: I'm surprised he's not sitting there with, you know, e-trade on an e-trade program on a laptop except we know he doesn't really use computers, but if somebody's there with him, you know.
50:31
[SPEAKER_04]: So is there somebody's following his trades?
50:33
[SPEAKER_04]: I mean, I know there's someone following Nancy Pelosi's.
50:36
[SPEAKER_04]: Can we get down on what Trump's doing?
50:38
[SPEAKER_04]: Because clearly, I know he wanted to sell access to his early posts so that you could, you know, maybe day trade along with him on early information.
50:46
[SPEAKER_04]: But is there a way for us to follow that?
50:48
[SPEAKER_03]: Or is because there is I mean, well, there is, I mean, he does, I mean, it's kind of weird.
50:56
[SPEAKER_03]: I guess this gets back to the idea of at this point.
51:00
[SPEAKER_03]: They don't care.
51:00
[SPEAKER_03]: You know, and how they are because because they actually in and this little surprising given how many.
51:05
[SPEAKER_03]: Other laws they don't follow, but they do seem to follow at least some of the laws on disclosure and so he's been disclosing these stock trades And that's that's how we know that he's made so many of them and he's kind of disclosed which stocks he's buying Yeah, well real time that would be good because because it went because when you can go back in time Yeah, one month later when they're reported
51:29
[SPEAKER_03]: You can see that, you know, he said something good about a company at a press conference sir.
51:36
[SPEAKER_03]: What was it?
51:36
[SPEAKER_03]: Oh, I know.
51:37
[SPEAKER_03]: It was a, you know, a pallin tier that the tech company, he bought some of their stock.
51:44
[SPEAKER_03]: And it was starting to go down because,
51:46
[SPEAKER_03]: people had some like AI concerns or something and the stock had fallen off like 10%.
51:52
[SPEAKER_03]: And he just went on through social and he said, you know, by the way, talent here is this great company.
51:57
[SPEAKER_03]: Everybody, everybody should invest in it.
51:59
[SPEAKER_03]: You know, I mean, I mean, it's very, very blatant.
52:02
[SPEAKER_03]: Like, you know, I mean, I don't know what is deal with,
52:06
[SPEAKER_03]: Scott's Miracle Grow is, but he's out there every couple days saying where a great job Scott Scott's Miracle Grow did.
52:13
[SPEAKER_04]: Beautiful the grass is the last one last question I got for you.
52:16
[SPEAKER_04]: What do we do with all of this information?
52:18
[SPEAKER_04]: You're doing a great job reporting this.
52:20
[SPEAKER_04]: I don't know that the rest of our mainstream corporate controlled media is doing enough.
52:26
[SPEAKER_04]: What should we be doing?
52:29
[SPEAKER_03]: Well, you know, we should, I think right now this fall, we should be making sure that we elect people who are pledged to really fully investigate this with the full force of Congress that, you know, that there will be issues of cleanness, that, you know, that they send the,
52:50
[SPEAKER_03]: What do they call the sergeants of at arms of the house or whatever that they, you know, when when when these people defy this, it can is drag, you know, gentlemen kicking and scraggamy get the capital police or whatever drag drag them in there.
53:03
[SPEAKER_04]: So actual real live accountability.
53:07
[SPEAKER_03]: That's I'm with you come November.
53:08
[SPEAKER_03]: The hope is it's just you know, just you know, a lot of these crimes, right?
53:19
[SPEAKER_03]: a lot of a lot of these things that we think that are definitely criminal.
53:23
[SPEAKER_03]: This is not too much.
53:26
[SPEAKER_03]: Lots of that.
53:27
[SPEAKER_04]: Yeah, yeah, well, yeah.
53:28
[SPEAKER_03]: I mean, when we get into that, well, what up this 82 year old?
53:31
[SPEAKER_03]: There we go.
53:32
[SPEAKER_04]: But as all right, we'll appreciate the time.
53:34
[SPEAKER_04]: Hope folks will check out your work over it.
53:37
[SPEAKER_04]: Inquirer.org, the most recent one, we don't talk enough about Trump's $850 million paid a pay for slush fund written by Will Bunch.
53:45
[SPEAKER_04]: Thanks so much, ma'am.
53:47
[SPEAKER_03]: All right, thanks.
53:48
[SPEAKER_03]: Inquirer.com, we're actually trying to make money.
53:51
[SPEAKER_03]: We're not that non-profit.
53:53
[SPEAKER_03]: there you go.
53:54
[SPEAKER_03]: Yeah.
53:55
[SPEAKER_03]: Appreciate it.
53:56
[SPEAKER_03]: Yeah.
53:56
[SPEAKER_03]: Yeah.
53:56
[SPEAKER_03]: Thanks a lot, Rick.
53:57
[SPEAKER_03]: It was great.
53:58
[SPEAKER_03]: It was great to be back.
53:59
[SPEAKER_04]: Thanks so much.
53:59
[SPEAKER_04]: Our good friend will bunch.
54:00
[SPEAKER_04]: Want to hear your thoughts?
54:02
[SPEAKER_04]: Email me, Rick at therixmithshow.com right back.
54:05
[SPEAKER_04]: Stick around.
54:15
[SPEAKER_04]: I'm Rick Smith, and this is Labor History in 2.
54:18
[SPEAKER_04]: On this day in Labor History, the year was 1920.
54:22
[SPEAKER_04]: At noon, a horse-drawn wagon containing 100 pounds of dynamite pulled up across the street from the J.P. Morgan Company on Wall Street in New York City.
54:31
[SPEAKER_04]: 500 pounds of cast iron slugs were packed in with the dynamite, a timer.
54:36
[SPEAKER_04]: detonated at 12 O1PM.
54:38
[SPEAKER_04]: The explosion destroyed the horse in wagon, shrapnel from the explosion ripped through the air, killing 38 people and injuring hundreds more.
54:46
[SPEAKER_04]: The unknown driver of the wagon was believed to have escaped, authorities blamed anarchists.
54:51
[SPEAKER_04]: Meanwhile, the company's workers who died in the attack were mostly young messengers, stenographers, clerks, and brokers, most of the wounded suffered severe injuries.
55:00
[SPEAKER_04]: Just minutes after the blast, the president of the New York Stock Exchange suspended trading in order to prevent a panic.
55:07
[SPEAKER_04]: Since the target had been the J.P. Morgan company, the New York State District Attorney suggested the bomb was planted by radical anti-capitalists.
55:15
[SPEAKER_04]: The Bureau of Investigation, the four runner to the FBI, pursued the bombing for three years.
55:20
[SPEAKER_04]: They never found the culprit in 1944.
55:23
[SPEAKER_04]: The FBI reopened the investigation and decided the bomb was the work of Italian anarchists.
55:29
[SPEAKER_04]: There was speculation that the bomb was planted by an Italian.
55:33
[SPEAKER_04]: in retaliation for the executions of Sako in Vensetic.
55:36
[SPEAKER_04]: Three days after the bombing, the New York Times reported it was said today at the Department of Justice that Attorney General Palmer would recommend in his annual report to Congress that drastic laws for dealing with anarchists and other disturbing elements be enacted.
55:52
[SPEAKER_04]: At the same time, he will ask for larger appropriations which were denied in the past.
55:58
[SPEAKER_04]: Over the next two years, the Palmer Raids arrested and deported many accused leftists, not surprising, most of the accused and deported were the loudest voices for workers' rights and a united working class.
56:11
[SPEAKER_04]: Like what you hear, check out more at laborhistoryintu.com.
56:30
[SPEAKER_04]: It's amazing.
56:30
[SPEAKER_04]: I gotta be honest, the amount of a grift that is going on in this administration.
56:36
[SPEAKER_04]: And the thing is, and look, the conversations I've had with people about this face to face anyway, people are just, they are overwhelmed.
56:45
[SPEAKER_04]: It's hard to keep up with, and that's part of it.
56:47
[SPEAKER_04]: I mean, you're drinking from a fire hose, and it's just in your face and look, to Trump's credit.
57:01
[SPEAKER_04]: for those people who during the elections and I just want to run like a business.
57:05
[SPEAKER_04]: He's running it like a Trump business.
57:07
[SPEAKER_04]: He's loading the country up with a massive amount of debt.
57:09
[SPEAKER_04]: We're about about 30% of our debt has been run up under Trump's tutelage, under his leadership.
57:18
[SPEAKER_04]: We've run up about 30% of our $40 trillion debt.
57:23
[SPEAKER_04]: So it seems like it seems like a pumping dump.
57:25
[SPEAKER_04]: We're going to pump the government and the taxpayer with a bunch of
57:31
[SPEAKER_04]: And where are they gonna go and get the money?
57:32
[SPEAKER_04]: Where do you think they're going to get it?
57:34
[SPEAKER_04]: Well, they think they're gonna get it from you and me.
57:37
[SPEAKER_04]: I have a solution, because understand, the top 10% of people in this country have about $120 trillion worth of wealth.
57:45
[SPEAKER_04]: So this idea that we don't have the money, I don't know, it rings hollow, because we do.
57:51
[SPEAKER_04]: In fact, the top 10% got three times what we need.
57:54
[SPEAKER_04]: So we could easily, if we're gonna be accused to be in socialists, we could easily go get a third of that,
58:01
[SPEAKER_04]: and pay the debt.
58:02
[SPEAKER_04]: If we were really serious, and this is the part that I've been saying for years, if we were really serious, if it were really that big of a deal, if it were really, really going to take the country down and they really cared.
58:17
[SPEAKER_04]: The patriotic thing to do,
58:19
[SPEAKER_04]: would be the saved the country and the people who have the means and the wealth to do it as have in the past.
58:26
[SPEAKER_04]: They would be the people to step forward and say we got this.
58:29
[SPEAKER_04]: We're going to learn the lesson.
58:30
[SPEAKER_04]: We're not going to do it again.
58:31
[SPEAKER_04]: We promise no more tax cuts for rich people and put it on the credit card.
58:37
[SPEAKER_04]: We got our return on investment.
58:38
[SPEAKER_04]: It's time to kick a little bit back because we care.
58:41
[SPEAKER_04]: think that's going to happen.
58:43
[SPEAKER_04]: No, they're going to want to get it from you or me or from especially from poor people who don't have lobbyists and legal teams to be able to avoid paying taxes or any of that.
58:53
[SPEAKER_04]: And they're getting away with it.
58:56
[SPEAKER_04]: So I got to be honest, I'm not optimistic that we're going to solve our debt crisis, because I don't want to, I don't think it's a crisis yet.
59:05
[SPEAKER_04]: But I would like to spend that money a little bit better in the future.
59:09
[SPEAKER_04]: just a thought.
59:10
[SPEAKER_04]: But I would like to make sure that we go after the people who have it.
59:13
[SPEAKER_04]: Want to hear your thought email me Rick at theriksmithshow.com.
59:16
[SPEAKER_04]: Does the amount of corruption this administration's pulling off?
59:20
[SPEAKER_04]: Does it bug you?
59:21
[SPEAKER_04]: Does their nose being at the bottom of the trough bother you while you're struggling to keep food on the table?
59:28
[SPEAKER_04]: I want to hear it Rick at theriksmithshow.com.
59:29
[SPEAKER_04]: Miss any portion of the program grab the podcast and as always thanks for being here.
59:34
[SPEAKER_04]: We'll see you back here next time.
59:42
[SPEAKER_02]: You've been listening to the Rick Smith show.
59:46
[SPEAKER_02]: Email, Rick, and Rick at RickSmithshow.com.
59:54
[SPEAKER_02]: Until next time, this has been The Rick Smith Show.
59:57
[SPEAKER_02]: We're working people, come to talk.