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The Rick Smith Show 10-16-2026 · The Rick Smith Show

0:00
[SPEAKER_04]: It's time for the Rick Smith show.
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[SPEAKER_03]: Now, here is the voice of a working class, Rick Smith.
0:13
[SPEAKER_04]: And welcome, brothers, sisters working class heroes.
0:17
[SPEAKER_04]: This is the Rick Smith show.
0:19
[SPEAKER_04]: Thanks so much for being here today on the big program.
0:22
[SPEAKER_04]: I must have got two lots to talk about, 19 days until election day.
0:27
[SPEAKER_04]: That's right, 19 days.
0:29
[SPEAKER_04]: On 19 days, it's a hue of the opportunity to throw some bombs out.
0:34
[SPEAKER_04]: especially those who have failed to hold this administration accountable with all the griffed, all the theft, all the corruption, all the chaos, oh by the way, the wars, the tariff idiocy, all of the craziness and all of the, the
0:50
[SPEAKER_04]: The chaos that this administration has brought on.
0:54
[SPEAKER_04]: And look, no one has done a better job at dividing this country than Donald J. Trump.
1:00
[SPEAKER_04]: No one.
1:01
[SPEAKER_04]: And if you look at the rallies that have been going on, evidently now it's okay to start beating people in the stands that we disagree with.
1:08
[SPEAKER_04]: Yeah, that's Trump world.
1:09
[SPEAKER_04]: And I find it interesting that Marjorie Taylor Green, I find this discussing, this isn't what Maggie is.
1:15
[SPEAKER_04]: No, this is exactly what Maggie always was.
1:18
[SPEAKER_04]: this is where we knew we were going to end up.
1:21
[SPEAKER_04]: And the reality is until we figure out how to the rest of us come together and push in the right direction, that's going to only get worse.
1:30
[SPEAKER_04]: And this is where Democrats have an opportunity to come out and say, look, we need to start, we need to start having a plan to make life better.
1:38
[SPEAKER_04]: And I gotta tell you, a health care is that place where I think we can start.
1:42
[SPEAKER_04]: We as Americans deserve reasonable, affordable health care.
1:48
[SPEAKER_04]: I'm afraid a fan of cradle to grave and what have Republicans brought us?
1:53
[SPEAKER_04]: Well, slogans, repeal and replace.
1:57
[SPEAKER_04]: couldn't even do that, but what they've done masterfully is they've neutered and have done everything they can do to destroy the ACA.
2:06
[SPEAKER_04]: And whether you like the ACA or not, you know, Obamacare, it did some important things for instance, you know, in my world, the the pre-ACA, there was like a million dollar cap on most insurance policies.
2:22
[SPEAKER_04]: And I'd be bankrupt, and one of the things that I pulled together, because I'm working on another project for storytelling project, for caregivers, since my wife's accident, I've become kind of someone who wants to promote caregivers' rights, and especially men caregivers.
2:41
[SPEAKER_04]: But my health insurance is the reason that we're not bankrupt.
2:45
[SPEAKER_04]: but I compiled this visual and it's six inches of EOB's explanations of benefits from my insure.
2:54
[SPEAKER_04]: Again, my union is, my union fund is my insure.
2:58
[SPEAKER_04]: The teamsters health and welfare fund.
3:00
[SPEAKER_04]: They are the insure.
3:01
[SPEAKER_04]: I don't get bills.
3:03
[SPEAKER_04]: Like I haven't gotten a bill from the hospital for all this stuff.
3:06
[SPEAKER_04]: I haven't gotten a bill from the doctor's offices.
3:08
[SPEAKER_04]: Those bills go to the insurance.
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[SPEAKER_04]: They pay it and they send me this explanation of benefits.
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[SPEAKER_04]: This six inch stack of explanations.
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[SPEAKER_04]: Or about seven million dollars in build care.
3:22
[SPEAKER_04]: Our insurance is paid somewhere around a little under two million of it.
3:25
[SPEAKER_04]: But pre-ACA, I had been responsible for everything over a million,
3:32
[SPEAKER_04]: And for me, there's a moment where we can go folks, you know, what Rick Smith got, everybody should have, everyone should have the kind of security to know that if something bad happens, if life happens, you're gonna be okay.
3:47
[SPEAKER_04]: You're not gonna be bankrupt, your life isn't gonna be in total chaos and disarray, that you're gonna, you're gonna get through it.
3:53
[SPEAKER_04]: and far too many people don't have that.
3:56
[SPEAKER_04]: And our political leaders don't seem to really, especially on the Republican side who have been trying to kill what little we have.
4:06
[SPEAKER_04]: This is an opportunity to bring people together.
4:09
[SPEAKER_04]: Now, again, the ACA, not perfect.
4:11
[SPEAKER_04]: It was not a huge fan.
4:12
[SPEAKER_04]: It would have rather at the minimum of public option and at the better end, Medicare for all, you know, one giant insurance pool, not socialism, not socialism, not socialism, not socialism, Rick, no.
4:24
[SPEAKER_04]: It's basic insurance.
4:27
[SPEAKER_04]: It's having a large enough risk pool.
4:30
[SPEAKER_04]: It's economies of scale.
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[SPEAKER_04]: This is capitalism 101.
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[SPEAKER_04]: If it's anything,
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[SPEAKER_04]: and having one giant insurance pull the mitigate risk and spread it out over everybody so that we don't have a system like we have now, which is the most expensive are on the taxpayers' dime.
4:49
[SPEAKER_04]: And those folks who are able to get up and go to work can be cherry picked by industry.
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[SPEAKER_04]: Because understand, you use the mass of your health care in your first five years in your last five years of life.
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[SPEAKER_04]: In the middle, you've got some bumps in the roads, kids, maybe, you know, oh, gallbladder surgery or who knows what?
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[SPEAKER_04]: But the mass is first five last five.
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[SPEAKER_04]: And Medicaid pays for what?
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[SPEAKER_04]: Over half of the children born in this country and Medicare is everyone over 65.
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[SPEAKER_04]: So we have taken the most expensive out of the pool.
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[SPEAKER_04]: and given the profit here is the ability to cherry pick the rest of us instead of saying everybody in cradle to grave we're going to ensure that everyone is cared for and I don't know maybe pursue policies to keep us healthier you know stuff like that Republicans have failed us at every turn and this is where come election time 19 days from today the hope is that we're paying attention.
5:45
[SPEAKER_04]: The hope is that we go when we do something positive.
5:48
[SPEAKER_04]: And I'll look, I'm watching these rallies like everyone else, Trump's out doing his idiocy again.
5:56
[SPEAKER_04]: And you're seeing people literally beating people they disagree with.
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[SPEAKER_04]: You got Marjorie Taylor Green saying, this is disgusting, this isn't what Maga is, no, Marjorie.
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[SPEAKER_04]: This is exactly what Maga always was.
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[SPEAKER_04]: This is what Maga is always wanted to be.
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[SPEAKER_04]: And it's the rest of us and good luck, March, good on you for getting away from it and coming to a somewhere near the sand line.
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[SPEAKER_04]: Bring some more with you.
6:24
[SPEAKER_04]: Because there's an opportunity here to reunite this country in ways that we have it in a while.
6:29
[SPEAKER_04]: Oh, there's a lot of anger and rightfully so.
6:34
[SPEAKER_04]: And the, I hope the Red Hat crowd is realized they're savior, not their savior.
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[SPEAKER_04]: In fact, their savior doesn't care about them at all.
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[SPEAKER_04]: And never did.
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[SPEAKER_04]: He has been this chaotic all along.
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[SPEAKER_04]: He was this chaotic in the first term.
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[SPEAKER_04]: The difference was, there were actually sane rational people around him.
6:57
[SPEAKER_04]: There were people were going, yeah, no, we're not gonna do that crazy stuff.
7:01
[SPEAKER_04]: Go ahead and say it and then we'll move on.
7:05
[SPEAKER_04]: Now, you've got a government full of sick offense and yes men who are gonna say, whatever you want dear leader,
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[SPEAKER_04]: They know all of this chaos is what we're going to pay attention to while they are literally robbing us blind.
7:19
[SPEAKER_04]: And ultimately what this comes down to is the wealth class getting more of what they want and the rest of us get in the short end of the stick until we wake up until we stand up, speak out, fight back.
7:30
[SPEAKER_04]: It's only going to continue.
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[SPEAKER_04]: So 19 days, 19 days to election time, and we could make some changes.
7:37
[SPEAKER_04]: You want to hear your thoughts, rickethworksmithshow.com, quick break, right back.
7:44
[SPEAKER_04]: I'm Rick Smith, and this is Labor History Inter.
7:47
[SPEAKER_04]: This day in Labor History, the year was 1990.
7:50
[SPEAKER_04]: That was the day that President George H. W. Bush signed the Radiation Exposure Compensation Act.
7:57
[SPEAKER_04]: Worker safety at the Nevada Nuclear Test Site.
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[SPEAKER_04]: had been sacrificed during the Cold War era, as the United States rushed to keep pace with the Soviet Union's nuclear arsenal.
8:07
[SPEAKER_04]: The result was an increase in cancers, including leukemia, from workers being exposed to deadly radiation.
8:14
[SPEAKER_04]: For more than a decade, these workers tried to get Congress to pass legislation for compensation for radiation sickness.
8:21
[SPEAKER_04]: Uranium miners from states including Nevada, Utah, Arizona, New Mexico, Colorado and Wyoming also join the effort filing a suit against the government.
8:31
[SPEAKER_04]: The courts ruled against the workers, ruling that national security needs trumped the safety of workers.
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[SPEAKER_04]: Democratic representative Wayne Owens from Utah sponsored a bill to give the workers compensation.
8:43
[SPEAKER_04]: In a statement carried by the New York Times, representative Owens called the bill quote an apology to those people and their errors on behalf of the government and the American people that were subjected and sacrificed for the Cold War nuclear weapons.
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[SPEAKER_04]: President Bush explained the scope of the act
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[SPEAKER_04]: At the signing ceremony, saying, quote, the bill provides compassionate payments to persons with specified diseases who fear that their health was harmed because of the fallout from atmospheric atomic testing at the Nevada test site.
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[SPEAKER_04]: Regardless of whether causation could be scientifically established, the bill entitles each person meeting specific criteria to a payment of $50,000.
9:26
[SPEAKER_04]: Uranium miners, meeting separate criteria, will be entitled to compassionate payments in the amount of $100,000.
9:33
[SPEAKER_04]: The bill established a $100 million fund for the workers and residents who lived downwind of the Navada test site.
9:47
[SPEAKER_03]: Welcome back to the Rick Smith Show.
9:49
[SPEAKER_03]: Now, here is Rick Smith.
9:53
[SPEAKER_04]: So every election cycle, we hear the same thing.
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[SPEAKER_04]: Congress is corrupt.
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[SPEAKER_04]: In fact, we hear it all year long.
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[SPEAKER_04]: The whole institution, nothing but corruption, except my guy, my guy is a good one.
10:04
[SPEAKER_04]: You know, they do this with education too.
10:06
[SPEAKER_04]: All teachers are bad, except well, my kids' teachers are wonderful.
10:09
[SPEAKER_04]: And I'm not sure what the dynamic of that is.
10:11
[SPEAKER_04]: Maybe it's that you think you know your guy.
10:15
[SPEAKER_04]: But it's, we're in an interesting moment.
10:18
[SPEAKER_04]: And the anger level just keeps getting higher and higher in the distrust level.
10:22
[SPEAKER_04]: And and rightly so, look at all the corruption that's going on, all the grift that's coming out of this White House.
10:27
[SPEAKER_04]: Um, I don't know how you can look at any of this stuff and not, not look at it with a jaundice eye.
10:34
[SPEAKER_04]: That's why I've asked them Tim Stratton to come share some thoughts with us.
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[SPEAKER_04]: Tim is the director of the congressional overnight oversight initiative.
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[SPEAKER_04]: They're at the project on government oversight.
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[SPEAKER_04]: You can check out their website pogo.org.
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[SPEAKER_04]: Tim, thanks for taking time for us.
10:48
[SPEAKER_01]: No, thanks for having me.
10:50
[SPEAKER_04]: So, I'm sure you hear this a lot.
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[SPEAKER_04]: Congresses corrupt, they're all corrupt, they're all bad, they all suck, they're all no good.
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[SPEAKER_04]: But my guy, my guy's good.
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[SPEAKER_04]: He's one of the good ones, Tim.
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[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, I will say, you know, time and time again, people.
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[SPEAKER_01]: have a long distrust for Congress, negative view, Congress is consistently failing.
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[SPEAKER_01]: But that being said, most people generally will that also say, well, I like my number of Congress.
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[SPEAKER_01]: My number of Congress serves me well.
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[SPEAKER_01]: But as the institution shows a whole, they oftentimes have a very, very negative view of the body.
11:27
[SPEAKER_04]: But, you know, here's the thing, we see numbers out there, 80, 85% of people are distrustful of Congress, believe they're corrupt, and you hear it a lot, they're all bad, and we hear stories of, you know, all the trading that's going on and how, you know, someone goes in and some magically they become multi-millionaires.
11:44
[SPEAKER_04]: It seems like the self-dealing, the self-interest is at an all-time high where serving the public doesn't seem to be the priority, or at least that's the appearance.
11:55
[SPEAKER_04]: So I guess the question is, how'd we get here and is there a way out of it?
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[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, absolutely.
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[SPEAKER_01]: And I think that's completely fair.
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[SPEAKER_01]: I think, you know, if we just look at what's going on right now, you know, that Americans are feeling, you know, increased cost of living, you know, grocery prices are going or,
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[SPEAKER_01]: constantly getting higher and higher, healthcare, gas prices, and so constituents oftentimes look, they put members of Congress in to office, but yet those members of Congress don't oftentimes focus on the issues that affect everyday Americans, and that contributes to the growing distrust of Congress.
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[SPEAKER_01]: What is Congress ultimately doing to your point, you know?
12:41
[SPEAKER_01]: It's, we can't go to the grocery store now without, you know, break it the bank.
12:46
[SPEAKER_01]: But yeah, you see, you know, stories of government officials,
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[SPEAKER_01]: mere purchasing stocks, you know, ultimately what seems to be profiting while in their position.
12:57
[SPEAKER_01]: So of course that makes Americans distrustful.
13:01
[SPEAKER_01]: But I think that also creates an opportunity for Congress, especially come January when there's a new Congress, you know, installed a fresh start to really start prioritizing, you know, oversight in focusing on issues that affect every
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[SPEAKER_01]: the Iran War, conflicts of interest of government officials and their close family members, to really send the message that we've heard what voters have said in November and by conducting that oversight, uncovering what went wrong in ideally identifying reforms that can be passed into a lot to prevent future misconduct.
13:47
[SPEAKER_04]: Yeah, I mean, the level of shamelessness now, though, seems like an all-time high, and the level of concern about actually getting something done seems like at an all-time low.
13:57
[SPEAKER_04]: And it seems like there's an economic interest here.
14:00
[SPEAKER_04]: And like I think most people that I talk to and most voters agree that there should be accountability, no one should be above the law.
14:07
[SPEAKER_04]: And I think, again, we're a very divided country politically.
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[SPEAKER_04]: We've got red hats and blue hats and green hats and no hats.
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[SPEAKER_04]: But the one thing that I think can unite us and bring us somewhere back to some sanity is going to look you know We're all Nobody's above the law and we should be holding people accountable Who are doing shady stuff like I don't know like the kind of insider trading that none of us get the ability to do correct
14:37
[SPEAKER_01]: No, I couldn't agree more, and I will say, you know, I think that, again, creates a real opportunity for Congress here, you know, to look at existing conflicts of interest laws, first of all, are they being enforced, conflicts of interest laws are only as strong as the enforcement mechanism and if they're being enforced at all.
14:56
[SPEAKER_01]: I think we can look just, the hatch act isn't a very similar example to that, you know, which it's the federal law that prevents government officials from engaging in election, and election hearing.
15:08
[SPEAKER_01]: Many times the hatch act is violated, but there really is no enforcement mechanism.
15:14
[SPEAKER_01]: It's up to the ultimately the executive to put a penalty on or not.
15:19
[SPEAKER_01]: So a lot of times when there is a violation, it's a slap on the wrist.
15:25
[SPEAKER_04]: You said that's up to the executive.
15:28
[SPEAKER_01]: Correct.
15:29
[SPEAKER_04]: Who's the executive?
15:31
[SPEAKER_01]: Well, it ought to be the... Like you said, in this case, it would be the president.
15:36
[SPEAKER_04]: So it was completely lawless in this moment.
15:39
[SPEAKER_04]: And none of this... No rule seemed to apply.
15:43
[SPEAKER_01]: Well, that's why Congress needs to step forward and really exert themselves as a co-equal branch and really defend against the separation of powers.
15:53
[SPEAKER_01]: You know, Congress for decades has consistently seated their authority.
16:00
[SPEAKER_01]: uh to the executive branch, and that's what puts us in a position that we're in today.
16:04
[SPEAKER_01]: So, you know, come January, they have the opportunity to really claw some that power back and, you know, conduct that oversight and, you know, hold them accountable.
16:15
[SPEAKER_04]: I know the project on government oversight is a non-partisan organization.
16:18
[SPEAKER_04]: I know you're not picking sides, you're not picking winners.
16:21
[SPEAKER_04]: But it sounds like you just made it a ringing endorsement for everyone to run to the polls in November and vote for Democrats to maybe a little bit restore some balance in this check and balance system since it seems like there isn't any.
16:38
[SPEAKER_01]: Well, first I'll say, I am a strong believer that if you are eligible to vote, you should vote.
16:43
[SPEAKER_01]: But that is completely, you know, everyone's individual choice that they vote in ultimately who they vote for.
16:49
[SPEAKER_01]: I'm not going to tell you when who they should vote for.
16:52
[SPEAKER_01]: But I will say, you know, asking these questions of an executive.
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[SPEAKER_01]: just like any cornerstone of oversight should be nonpartisan.
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[SPEAKER_01]: And time and time again, Congress has historically done bipartisan investigations.
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[SPEAKER_01]: Oversight shouldn't be done based on what party you're a part of and what party controls the administration.
17:16
[SPEAKER_01]: Unfortunately, we've seen that in recent years that I think that is contributed to where we're at now, but oversight shouldn't be nonpartisan.
17:24
[SPEAKER_01]: And historically, it hasn't been
17:29
[SPEAKER_04]: Yeah, no, but here's the thing I'm sure you've seen the clips as I have and everyone else has of Mike Johnson, the Speaker of the House, and Steve Bannon Coming out and saying, look if Democrats take power they're gonna be investigations and we're all gonna go to jail Because you know, they they're trying to make this a partisan thing I would say there's probably a lot of climbing that's going on that an investigation might uncover Maybe from the the janitor all the way up and
17:55
[SPEAKER_04]: Maybe it's something that we need to do to clean house a bit on all sides of the equation So the question that I have is, you know, how do we get to that because I think I think we the people want that It's just the day the the elected leaders the people who we've put into those seats
18:13
[SPEAKER_04]: I kind of think they're happy with the way things are.
18:15
[SPEAKER_04]: You know, they get to blame each other for not doing anything.
18:18
[SPEAKER_04]: They got to blame each other for things not going the right way.
18:21
[SPEAKER_04]: They get to blame each other because hey, this is the prices are going up.
18:25
[SPEAKER_04]: It's a nice system of just pointing the fingers at each other while nothing seems to really get done.
18:31
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah.
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[SPEAKER_01]: Well, and depending on what happens, you know, in November, we'll see if, you know,
18:41
[SPEAKER_01]: is viewed as successful or not, or is there a message that's shown to, you know, the new Congress that constantly pointing the finger, you know, isn't enough and that we actually need to start working in former forms and passing legislation to restore confidence and having a
19:05
[SPEAKER_04]: No, I see, I see this is a, I'm generally not an optimistic person, but I got a, I have to be in this moment because if I, if I remain negative, the negative path takes me to civil war.
19:17
[SPEAKER_04]: The negative path takes me to seeing more of what we saw at the Trump rallies of, you know, just people beat and they're not out of people they don't agree with in the crowd.
19:26
[SPEAKER_04]: So I, I got to get off of that path.
19:29
[SPEAKER_04]: So how do we get
19:30
[SPEAKER_04]: on a direction where we find each other, where we get off the sidewalks, yelling at each other, we get back into the middle of the streets, reuniting and moving in a direction of accountability, of affordability, of being able to, I don't know, use our government to do the things that we want collectively that we can't do individually.
19:49
[SPEAKER_04]: What's that look like?
19:51
[SPEAKER_04]: Do you do a sense of what could reunite us?
19:56
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, I think.
19:58
[SPEAKER_01]: I actually don't think it's that complicated.
20:00
[SPEAKER_01]: I really don't.
20:01
[SPEAKER_01]: I think Congress needs to themselves be a better messenger that they are in fact working for the American people.
20:10
[SPEAKER_01]: In a simple way of doing that is acting more united, trying to actually get bills passed and be able to show that they are getting work done.
20:20
[SPEAKER_01]: You know, we just had a training two weeks ago for two days with
20:27
[SPEAKER_01]: about 32 bipartisan congressional staffers.
20:31
[SPEAKER_01]: People talk about how Congress is broken, you know, bipartisanship doesn't is dead.
20:37
[SPEAKER_01]: We had an equal number of Republicans, Democrats together.
20:43
[SPEAKER_01]: When the cameras aren't rolling, members of Congress themselves actually do get along better than we see.
20:48
[SPEAKER_01]: And that is definitely true on the staff a little too.
20:51
[SPEAKER_01]: So by working together, you know, and I think conducting, you know, some investigations, it doesn't have to be something very, you know, newsworthy, but trying to help improve some government programs, asking tough questions, making small tweaks,
21:09
[SPEAKER_01]: you know, in getting something over the finish line and signed into law and explaining how this is going to help you, how it's going to help this federal program help you.
21:18
[SPEAKER_01]: I would be surprised if that doesn't help move the public opinion.
21:24
[SPEAKER_04]: It's interesting that you went there because there's a legislator, a Republican legislator here who is asked, you know, what one thing would you do?
21:30
[SPEAKER_04]: To work together to be able to do stuff and he said take the cameras out of the out of the chamber And he took a lot of grief for it, and I got to be honest, you know, there's part of me that love C-span But there's also part of me who you know has been part of negotiating contracts to where you you want to be able to say things in an argue about things and and have the The schoolhouse rock fight behind closed doors that I grew up believing was going on without somebody over your shoulder waiting for a gotcha moment
21:59
[SPEAKER_04]: So is that a way forward?
22:02
[SPEAKER_01]: Well, I will say, I think, you know, in any kind of democratic system, like ours, transparency and how, you know, government operations, especially Congress works, I think is important.
22:13
[SPEAKER_01]: So I'm not quite ready to say take the cameras out of the hearing rooms.
22:17
[SPEAKER_01]: But I do, I, I get the point.
22:21
[SPEAKER_01]: But I do think there's opportunities for members to work together more.
22:25
[SPEAKER_01]: I mean, they used to be in DC on the weekends, where they actually got to know each other more.
22:30
[SPEAKER_01]: Sometimes now, they only see each other in hearing rooms or on the way to votes.
22:36
[SPEAKER_01]: But I will say, you know, and I've seen this working together, like I think some of the issues we're seeing right now, AI, healthcare, prediction markets,
22:51
[SPEAKER_01]: conflicts of interest that we've now, you know, seen from both sides, right?
22:55
[SPEAKER_01]: Both sides can point to these issues saying they need to be looked at.
22:59
[SPEAKER_01]: We'll have both sides are saying it.
23:00
[SPEAKER_01]: It just takes one or two members to get together and say, let's do something about this.
23:05
[SPEAKER_01]: Let's ask some tough questions.
23:07
[SPEAKER_01]: Let's do a bipartisan letter.
23:09
[SPEAKER_01]: It's really small steps and those can lead to bigger bigger steps along the way.
23:14
[SPEAKER_04]: Yeah, I think we saw that.
23:16
[SPEAKER_04]: I think we saw that when Trump wanted to sell his access to his early truth social posts.
23:22
[SPEAKER_04]: I did see some people going away in a second.
23:24
[SPEAKER_04]: That sounds illegal.
23:26
[SPEAKER_04]: Correct.
23:29
[SPEAKER_01]: And I will say, you know, just what you said now and what you said before with conflicts of interest, it doesn't necessarily need to be a legal for it to be a problem, right?
23:37
[SPEAKER_01]: The appearance of a conflict of interest is just as bad.
23:41
[SPEAKER_01]: So I think it was great that, you know, or earlier the series, we saw members on both sides race concerns and all that.
23:48
[SPEAKER_01]: And I think you're seeing it more and more now.
23:50
[SPEAKER_01]: I think people are recognizing that when there's one
23:59
[SPEAKER_04]: Now I know there's we're in a moment and look I'm I'm a lifelong teamster and my teamster's unions all in on the bipartisan ship right now But I got to be honest with you in the moments that we've been the most bipartisan It's been moments when the working class is kind of taking it on the chin look as a truck driver Yeah, I go back to you know the the motor carrier active 1980 over well-mingly bipartisan I think only like 13 people in the house voted against it
24:26
[SPEAKER_04]: I, you know, you look at a lot of the stuff that the reforms that happened during the the Gingrich Clinton era went against working people.
24:33
[SPEAKER_04]: So for me, I'm like, yeah, I'm okay with we should be working together, but it I guess the devil is always in the details and this is where having some conversations with working people, there's an unease of knowing that generally they're the ones who get screwed in these and these environments.
24:50
[SPEAKER_04]: Any thoughts in that world?
24:53
[SPEAKER_01]: Um, I don't, I think, you know, I, I would, all I would say to that is really, I think Congress needs to do a better job of making the case of what they're doing and how it's going to benefit everyone.
25:07
[SPEAKER_01]: Um, I think is important.
25:09
[SPEAKER_01]: But then also, I will say it's important on the issues they take up.
25:13
[SPEAKER_01]: Right.
25:13
[SPEAKER_01]: Are they, are they going to initially start on day one with, you know,
25:18
[SPEAKER_01]: big partisan priority areas or are they going to maybe set the tone and pick out stuff that really, you know, affects everyone, you know, with the cost of living index or consumer price index, just announcing like 3.7% starting to look at things to bring costs down, who can argue that that's not they're not going to benefit from that.
25:46
[SPEAKER_01]: You know, choosing the right issues to focus in on.
25:48
[SPEAKER_04]: Yeah, I'm one who believes costs aren't going to come down that much.
25:53
[SPEAKER_04]: I think it raises, wages need to go up.
25:55
[SPEAKER_04]: I think you need to be able to continue to, if inflation's going to keep going up, wages have got to keep up.
26:00
[SPEAKER_04]: It's least with inflation if not a touch ahead so that we don't have our standard of living continually eating away, which is why I think, you know, some labor legislation would be a great thing.
26:10
[SPEAKER_04]: But again, not a bipartisan issue.
26:13
[SPEAKER_04]: And sadly, something I fear goes by the way, so it's the last question I've got for you.
26:18
[SPEAKER_04]: Obviously, the election's coming up.
26:20
[SPEAKER_04]: Any, do you have hope that what we're talking about?
26:23
[SPEAKER_04]: Can happen?
26:24
[SPEAKER_04]: Do you have hope that we're going to write the ship and kind of bring us back somewhere near the same line?
26:31
[SPEAKER_01]: You know.
26:33
[SPEAKER_01]: Similarly to you, I'm not always the most optimistic person at times, but one thing I'll say that really gives me a little bit of, you know, some degree of optimism.
26:42
[SPEAKER_01]: You know, I've seen in several races, this cycle, you know, either in individual messaging, messages, things that have been said in debates around oversight, accountability, which I don't remember hearing as much
27:00
[SPEAKER_01]: So that does give me a little bit of confidence that come January, we're going to have a Congress that prioritizes oversight at least more than it has been in on three.
27:13
[SPEAKER_04]: Or at least takes back their job.
27:14
[SPEAKER_04]: I mean, ultimately their job is the power of the purse.
27:17
[SPEAKER_04]: Their job is a co-equal branch of government.
27:21
[SPEAKER_04]: Instead of just being a bunch of loyalist and sick of fans, we'll see, I'm hoping,
27:26
[SPEAKER_04]: Things turn out in November and come January.
27:28
[SPEAKER_04]: We write the ship, but Tim, I appreciate you sharing some thoughts.
27:32
[SPEAKER_04]: I hope folks will check out the website, pogo.org, the project on government oversight, Tim Stretten, the director of their congressional oversight initiative.
27:41
[SPEAKER_04]: Thanks so much, Tim.
27:41
[SPEAKER_04]: I appreciate it.
27:43
[SPEAKER_01]: Thanks for having me.
27:44
[SPEAKER_04]: Want to hear your thoughts?
27:44
[SPEAKER_04]: Do you have faith?
27:45
[SPEAKER_04]: Do you think Tim's right?
27:47
[SPEAKER_04]: Maybe we can do some of this?
27:48
[SPEAKER_04]: Can we walk and chew gum at the same time?
27:51
[SPEAKER_04]: Is it possible?
28:00
[SPEAKER_04]: I'm Rick Smith, and this is Labor History Into.
28:03
[SPEAKER_03]: On this day in Labor History, the year was 1886.
28:07
[SPEAKER_04]: That was the day Henry George accepted the nomination to run for mayor of New York on the United Labor Party ticket.
28:14
[SPEAKER_04]: In cities across the country, trade units met to found state labor parties and to hammer out political platforms for local and state elections.
28:28
[SPEAKER_04]: and nominated Henry George as the U.L.P.
28:31
[SPEAKER_04]: candidate for the mayoral race.
28:33
[SPEAKER_04]: George had gained prominence with the 1879 publishing of his book, progress and poverty.
28:39
[SPEAKER_04]: In it, he addressed private land ownership as the basis for inequality and advocated for a single-tax system at New York's Cooper Union that evening where thousands of supporters gathered.
28:50
[SPEAKER_04]: George addressed the crowd.
28:52
[SPEAKER_04]: He presented the U.L.P.
28:54
[SPEAKER_04]: platform of higher wages,
28:55
[SPEAKER_04]: shorter hours better working conditions government ownership of railroads and communications and the end to police repression.
29:03
[SPEAKER_04]: Burrows in Wallace described the scene that night in their book, Gotham, a history of New York City to 1898.
29:10
[SPEAKER_04]: During his speech, George declared, quote, this government of New York City, our whole political system is rotten to the core.
29:17
[SPEAKER_04]: He argued that politicians had made a trade out of assembling votes and selling them to powerful interests.
29:24
[SPEAKER_04]: What business got in return was police protection, blacks enforcement of housing and health codes, friendly judges and fat franchises.
29:33
[SPEAKER_04]: To purify the political order, working class voters had to sever ties to all the established parties and choose from their own ranks.
29:42
[SPEAKER_04]: For a party that had just been founded weeks before, George came in second, but like its sister organization in Chicago,
29:54
[SPEAKER_04]: Labor history in two brought to you by the Illinois Labor History Society and the Rick Smith Show.
30:01
[SPEAKER_00]: Years ago, a Texas lawmaker got caught using his official position to enrich himself by taking money from special interests in exchange for voting their way.
30:11
[SPEAKER_00]: The culprit did not deemed this as corrupt, but just the normal ethic of an in-apprising business transaction.
30:18
[SPEAKER_00]: I've seen my chances he explained, and I took him.
30:21
[SPEAKER_00]: This is the Clarence Thomas Code of Ethics.
30:24
[SPEAKER_00]: As has been widely reported, this Supreme Court judge, who reliably rules for corporate supremacy over the people's interests, has secretly been on the take for years from a billionaire corporate right-winger.
30:36
[SPEAKER_00]: Real estate tycoon Harlan Crow, an extremist activist for a plutocratic government, has been lavishing millions of dollars worth of luxury vacations, private jet travel, family housing, and educational payments, and other gratuitties on Thomas.
30:51
[SPEAKER_00]: Yet, this supposedly supreme lawyer says he detected no whiff of bribery, nor did he see any need to inform us commoners of it.
31:00
[SPEAKER_00]: He simply seen his chances and took him.
31:03
[SPEAKER_00]: But Thomas knew damn well that it was improper, corrupting and disgusting.
31:07
[SPEAKER_00]: After all, during the last three decades, he has consistently voted for court rulings to make such obvious graphed legal.
31:15
[SPEAKER_00]: For example, he's voted again and again to drain common sense from our anti-corruption laws, declaring that it is legal for a corporation to keep a public official on private retainer.
31:27
[SPEAKER_00]: That it's okay for political officials to sell access to their offices, that the appearance of corruption is not corrupt.
31:35
[SPEAKER_00]: and directly relevant to Harland Crow, Thomas voted that it is technically not bribery to try influencing public officials by, bestowing a series of gifts to them over time.
31:47
[SPEAKER_00]: This is Jim Hytaire saying, if it seems to you, like the system is rigged to favor the powerful, there you have it.
31:53
[SPEAKER_00]: Clarence Thomas is both the rigor and the beneficiary of the system.
32:03
[SPEAKER_03]: Welcome back to the Rick Smith show.
32:05
[SPEAKER_03]: Now, here is Rick Smith.
32:10
[SPEAKER_04]: So you know, as I've said for years now, we have the best corporate controlled court system effort.
32:18
[SPEAKER_04]: You know, the the billionaires have the best democracy get money can buy.
32:23
[SPEAKER_04]: And the, you know, the the best robed folks.
32:27
[SPEAKER_04]: and the folks over at demand just as have a new report out uh... the oligarchies bench which i think is perfect in a must read you can check that out over at demand just as dot org but they go through the last fifty years from the palm emmo all the way through to the federalist society and and corporate funded judicial training um...
32:48
[SPEAKER_04]: As I say every time we confirm a new judge, I don't know why we ask any questions because everybody already knows what the judges are going to do.
32:57
[SPEAKER_04]: What they say doesn't matter.
32:59
[SPEAKER_04]: They've been so well-vetted that their answers don't matter.
33:02
[SPEAKER_04]: It's like it's like blinking.
33:04
[SPEAKER_04]: They already know, but here to share some thoughts on this report, which I think is again incredibly important.
33:11
[SPEAKER_04]: I've asked our good friend, Celas Drake to come share some thoughts.
33:13
[SPEAKER_04]: He's chief counsel there at demand justice.
33:15
[SPEAKER_04]: You can check out the website demandjustice.org.
33:18
[SPEAKER_04]: She's also the one who wrote this little ditty.
33:21
[SPEAKER_04]: Celas, thanks for taking time for us.
33:23
[SPEAKER_02]: Thanks for having me.
33:24
[SPEAKER_02]: It's so great to be here.
33:25
[SPEAKER_02]: I'm good to see you again.
33:26
[SPEAKER_04]: Good to see you.
33:27
[SPEAKER_04]: Now, when I look at our Supreme Court, I've been saying this for years that it doesn't matter right, left, it doesn't matter.
33:34
[SPEAKER_04]: You read, had blue hat.
33:35
[SPEAKER_04]: It's all about up, down.
33:36
[SPEAKER_04]: It's all about the rich and the rest of us, that when the when the chamber of commerce decides to get involved in the Supreme Court test, when they put in a brief, they win like 75% of the time.
33:49
[SPEAKER_04]: And so it doesn't matter, you know, what color hat you were on, the color that matters is green and the chamber of commerce wins.
33:56
[SPEAKER_02]: Yes, and in fact, the chamber of commerce in the last Supreme Court term actually did better than what you just mentioned and a new report that came out a couple of days before our report from the constitutional accountability center.
34:09
[SPEAKER_02]: Actually said the US Chamber batted a thousand for the just completed Supreme Court term.
34:15
[SPEAKER_02]: So it's even worse, they think.
34:18
[SPEAKER_04]: Well, I guess you look good good best money spent.
34:20
[SPEAKER_04]: I mean, because we see a lot of money being spent on on politicians.
34:24
[SPEAKER_04]: We got the best democracy money can buy our billionaire class spends a lot Elon spending a couple hundred million dollars now and it equates to a really great return on investment because these decisions they never seem to benefit you or me or any working person, but they always seem to side with well with corporate America and the very wealthy.
34:44
[SPEAKER_02]: That's one of the key takeaways from the support and one of the points we try to make is that, you know, a lot of Americans, they, they know that Congress is corrupt and often takes anti measures that are anti working people or takes half measures, but doesn't really get the job done in creating economic justice.
35:04
[SPEAKER_02]: rights for working people and the presidency, the same.
35:07
[SPEAKER_02]: And we know that a big problem in the Congress and the presidency is what you just said, that's sort of unlimited money to spend for campaigns.
35:16
[SPEAKER_02]: But there's a misperception among some people that the courts are different.
35:21
[SPEAKER_02]: They're not political.
35:22
[SPEAKER_02]: They call balls and strikes.
35:23
[SPEAKER_02]: And what we really try to emphasize in this report is
35:34
[SPEAKER_04]: John Roberts said gonna call ball strike now.
35:36
[SPEAKER_04]: We didn't ask what game he was playing.
35:38
[SPEAKER_04]: We assumed it was baseball But he you know he he said he's gonna be balls and strikes
35:45
[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, well, he's wrong or he's trying to get us to believe that the courts are fulfilling this role or all they're doing is saying hey government you can't step in here here and here but the interesting thing and this is what's revealed in our report the courts and we focus on the lower courts because there's always so much tension on the Supreme Court, but we look at ten justices on the lower courts in particular.
36:12
[SPEAKER_02]: When the rule would help working people, for instance, by making more people eligible to receive over time pay, by making sure that if you work for a franchise company or on a contract basis, you could make it easier to organize through the joint employer rule or banning non-compete agreements so that you can't go try and get higher pay up with your skills from another employer.
36:41
[SPEAKER_02]: government, you can't do that.
36:43
[SPEAKER_02]: That's outside the realm.
36:45
[SPEAKER_02]: But interestingly, if it's that, the executive branch wants to have the death penalty in a particular way or to deport people in a particular way, well, those kinds of uses of power are fine.
37:00
[SPEAKER_02]: So it's really not the same thing
37:07
[SPEAKER_02]: played straight shall we say.
37:09
[SPEAKER_02]: And so we look at why does the U.S. Chamber and all the other corporations, why did they strike up all these wins?
37:17
[SPEAKER_02]: And yet, working people, average families, don't get any.
37:22
[SPEAKER_04]: Well, no, look, every time there's a Supreme Court Justice, and this is the lower courts as well, because it's like a whole farm team.
37:29
[SPEAKER_04]: The Federalist Society has done an amazing job, and in your report, you point out that it's the best cap to open secret in D.C. that there's this structure that understand Democrats don't really have.
37:42
[SPEAKER_04]: This is a very conservative, at least this is my opinion of it.
37:45
[SPEAKER_04]: This is a very conservative part of what the right wing think tank world has created, this federal society, where from, basically, from high school, they're kind of, they're ushering people in a direction.
37:58
[SPEAKER_04]: They know how they think they're being trained from day one, from college through the lower courts all the way up until maybe they make it to the Supreme Court.
38:06
[SPEAKER_04]: So there's, there are no questions.
38:08
[SPEAKER_04]: There was never a question of how John Roberts was going to
38:15
[SPEAKER_04]: They already know and that's what I think the important part of what you're doing is is making people like me go, yeah, of course, this is the game
38:24
[SPEAKER_02]: Absolutely, this is the game.
38:26
[SPEAKER_02]: And it's no accident.
38:28
[SPEAKER_02]: So you mentioned it in your opener.
38:30
[SPEAKER_02]: A lot of this started with the Palo memo in 1971, the US Chamber hired this preeminent lawyer to write a memo about, wow, it seems like we might be losing our power because look people of color women workers, they're all gaining power.
38:45
[SPEAKER_02]: How do we get our government back?
38:47
[SPEAKER_02]: In other words, how do we re rig it in our favor?
38:51
[SPEAKER_02]: And the Powell memo said, well, put more money into politics, challenge rules that you don't like in the courts.
38:57
[SPEAKER_02]: Make sure that you have a feeder system to the courts.
39:00
[SPEAKER_02]: Well, Powell went on to actually sit on the Supreme Court.
39:04
[SPEAKER_02]: And this is a coordinated campaign.
39:08
[SPEAKER_02]: So it's funded by the same folks who fund the candidates who favor the corporations over the people.
39:20
[SPEAKER_02]: on the courts.
39:21
[SPEAKER_02]: And it's even more insidious than that, because let's say that you get somebody who was appointed by a Democrat and seems to have good values and will take the job seriously and call balls and strikes.
39:33
[SPEAKER_02]: Well, then they offer these judges all expense paid.
39:39
[SPEAKER_02]: Training sessions at Resorts in Bar Harbor, Maine, or San Diego, California, or Las Vegas, Nevada, and they sit them in classrooms, and they say, look, we're going to teach you about economics, so that you can use economics in your decisions, and you'll make better decisions that are better for our economy, because they'll be so efficient.
40:00
[SPEAKER_02]: Well, what kind of economics do you think they're teaching them?
40:02
[SPEAKER_04]: Chicago School.
40:04
[SPEAKER_02]: Exactly, that neoliberal, free market fundamentalism, Milton Friedman, all of that stuff, and, you know, many of these judges, they take it and they feel, oh, wow, I'm so much smarter now because I understand dead weight loss and all of these things in white taxes are bad and regulations distort the economy and there's actually studies out there that show.
40:28
[SPEAKER_02]: If you take this course, your decisions as a judge change, you are more likely to rule against agencies that protect workers, like the NLRB, like the Department of Labor, you are more likely to rule against agencies that protect the environment.
40:46
[SPEAKER_02]: the environmental protection administration.
40:48
[SPEAKER_02]: So this is a real thing and it's not just a partisan problem and we really, you know, people I think have an inkling that the economy is rigged, they know something is up, but not all of them have the information or the language to talk about the fact that it's not just Congress and the president, it is the courts too.
41:09
[SPEAKER_04]: Now, this is just one small part of that hole you talked about the Paul memo, the same right around the same time, the heritage foundation, you know, sprung into action and with it, the beginnings of what is the the state policy network, where there's a stink tank and in every state and some got to where there are rich people are paying smart people a lot of money to dream up really bad ideas.
41:32
[SPEAKER_04]: So with that when the next crisis comes around, it's the stuff that's
41:37
[SPEAKER_04]: And we're seeing it right now.
41:38
[SPEAKER_04]: Project 2025 was really the wet dream of every right-wing stink tank in this country.
41:45
[SPEAKER_04]: And this is just what you're talking about as a small part of it.
41:49
[SPEAKER_04]: Much like Alex, the American Legislative Exchange Council, and the other one for county executives and for for local folks, they've really figured out how to take billionaire money and spread it
42:05
[SPEAKER_04]: to think like them instead of like us.
42:08
[SPEAKER_04]: And even when one of us get into one of those positions, there's a whole lot of reeducation, as you've pointed out in this, that seems to go along.
42:17
[SPEAKER_02]: Oh, absolutely, and it's the same even when you have a majority in Congress or the person in the White House that you think is going to be pro-working families and sort of rebalance the economies so that it actually gives us a fair shot to have a decent life.
42:35
[SPEAKER_02]: A lot of times you find out that the votes don't go the way you expect.
42:38
[SPEAKER_02]: You and I used to talk about trade a lot.
42:40
[SPEAKER_02]: And a lot of times we said, well, why are all of these Democrats voting for these trade agreements
42:46
[SPEAKER_02]: destroy jobs and undermind labor rights and all of these other things.
42:51
[SPEAKER_02]: Well, because there's somehow this perception in this education that smart people, smart members of Congress will vote for the free trade agreement, they will do this kind of neoliberal economics and that was good for us.
43:07
[SPEAKER_02]: Right.
43:08
[SPEAKER_02]: And we'll be a good Democrat when it comes to civil rights or reproductive rights, but when it comes to economic rights, no, we're going to go with the smart folks.
43:16
[SPEAKER_02]: And it's the same thing.
43:17
[SPEAKER_02]: There's a misperception.
43:19
[SPEAKER_02]: And it's not smart.
43:20
[SPEAKER_02]: It's just doing the corporations bidding.
43:23
[SPEAKER_02]: But sometimes it's not so obvious.
43:25
[SPEAKER_04]: And then the point is, I had a friend who was in Congress years ago.
43:27
[SPEAKER_04]: He got swept out in the Tea Party part.
43:30
[SPEAKER_04]: But he said, look, no one's ever bought my vote.
43:33
[SPEAKER_04]: but you buy my ear 10 minutes at a time every time I've got to ask you for money.
43:37
[SPEAKER_04]: So ultimately money and politics is a huge part of this because he's calling all of these rich people going hey right me a max check and they're going hey well I gotcha this is what's important to me and he said look as you hear it over and over and over and over.
43:51
[SPEAKER_04]: You know, the repetitions like, hey, maybe this is a real problem and you begin to lose touch with who you were and who where you came from.
43:59
[SPEAKER_04]: And he said, look, it wasn't it wasn't an overnight process.
44:02
[SPEAKER_04]: It's it's the system that is broken and ultimately isn't it money in politics that's just polluting all of this.
44:09
[SPEAKER_02]: It is what's polluting all of the, yeah, once carried interest starts to sound like a normal phrase that you need to protect, you know, you've gone over over the edge, but it is it's the same money that sort of feeds this this ecosystem to rig the courts is the exact same money that is going into all the races in all the congressional districts and all the states that have
44:33
[SPEAKER_02]: Senate seats in play and all the governor's races, all of them, it's the same money and what they want is it's fairly simple.
44:42
[SPEAKER_02]: Don't regulate us, which means.
44:46
[SPEAKER_02]: unsafe products, unsafe jobs, pollution in the air and water, they don't have to disclose vital information about who owns the company and who might be accountable if we could ever get a decision against them.
45:03
[SPEAKER_02]: Keep our costs low, which means don't raise the minimum wage.
45:07
[SPEAKER_02]: Don't make more people eligible for overtime.
45:09
[SPEAKER_02]: Certainly don't make it easy for workers to organize together for a union and engage in collective bargaining.
45:16
[SPEAKER_02]: And we see that.
45:17
[SPEAKER_02]: Some of the cases that we flag in the report are specifically around this, two separate judges in Texas.
45:24
[SPEAKER_02]: And they're just district judges.
45:26
[SPEAKER_02]: They're not a pellet judges.
45:27
[SPEAKER_02]: They're not the Supreme Court.
45:33
[SPEAKER_02]: that would be eligible for over time and they took it down and they just said, well, the Department of Labor doesn't have the power to do this.
45:40
[SPEAKER_02]: Well, why?
45:41
[SPEAKER_02]: Because we say so.
45:42
[SPEAKER_04]: Because we say the Trump doctrine.
45:45
[SPEAKER_02]: Exactly, and that actually hurts people.
45:48
[SPEAKER_04]: Of course.
45:49
[SPEAKER_04]: So the question then comes, you know, because we asked the question all the time.
45:52
[SPEAKER_04]: How is it that that we working people never Never seem to get what we want and need from our government.
45:58
[SPEAKER_04]: But yet the Bayzos is in the musks and the gates and that crowd always get what they need.
46:05
[SPEAKER_04]: How do we fix this?
46:06
[SPEAKER_04]: How do we repair this to a way to where?
46:10
[SPEAKER_04]: you know, kind of somewhere near what we grew up believing was possible that our judicial system, you know, lady liberties blind there.
46:17
[SPEAKER_04]: You know, we're just way in the scales and what's right is right and, you know, fair is fair.
46:23
[SPEAKER_04]: What, what balls and strikes?
46:24
[SPEAKER_04]: How do we, how do we get track to somewhere near there?
46:27
[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah.
46:28
[SPEAKER_02]: So first is paying attention to the branches that you can vote for, right?
46:36
[SPEAKER_02]: The presidency in Congress.
46:37
[SPEAKER_02]: And if you look back at the Biden years, I know it's controversial, but there were steps taken.
46:43
[SPEAKER_02]: You know, President Biden created the first ever made in America office.
46:46
[SPEAKER_02]: And he was focusing on how do you use the power of government spending to promote jobs in America?
46:52
[SPEAKER_02]: He did a whole bunch of really interesting things with the bipartisan infrastructure on the Chips Act and all of those things, the things that he did that were rules like over time, like the non-compete ban, like the joint employer rule, those got stripped out by the courts.
47:12
[SPEAKER_02]: So you cannot stop at, I'm going to vote and campaign for the right people that I think will do the right things to protect me.
47:20
[SPEAKER_02]: The next thing that you have to do is say, we need to demand of all of these candidates across the board.
47:27
[SPEAKER_02]: And by the way, it does a matter which party.
47:30
[SPEAKER_02]: We have to demand that they take the court as seriously as I do.
47:35
[SPEAKER_02]: And what that means is demanding, for example, that they expand the Supreme Court.
47:41
[SPEAKER_02]: So the next time that we happen this country,
47:43
[SPEAKER_02]: a pro-democracy president, which is not right now, and a pro-democracy congress that they can go in and say, we're going to take this supreme court that has an illegitimate supermajority of six versus three that was put in there because the system was game to hold.
48:02
[SPEAKER_02]: Merrick Garland out to advance Amy Coney Barrett's nomination, all those things.
48:06
[SPEAKER_02]: And we're going to make it.
48:07
[SPEAKER_02]: We're going to add justices so that the six person majority becomes a six person minority because you have to do that to then go back and make the laws make the rules do the other things that will create the kind of fair and decent economy that we all want and need.
48:26
[SPEAKER_02]: So these things have to move together.
48:28
[SPEAKER_02]: It's not that.
48:29
[SPEAKER_02]: court reform is more important and then you go fix the economy or or the opposite, they have to move together so that the courts, which are the least democratic institution that we have are not there as a backstop for the US Chamber of Commerce.
48:46
[SPEAKER_04]: Yeah, but you know, here's the thing.
48:47
[SPEAKER_04]: I've got red hats who are they're thrilled with our Supreme Court because they went got row.
48:52
[SPEAKER_04]: And if you remember 20 to the 2016 election, it was, you know, Donald Trump may be a dirt bag.
48:57
[SPEAKER_04]: He may be a philander or maybe doing all of these things, but he's going to do the right thing on the courts.
49:02
[SPEAKER_04]: And this is where the right, I think, has done a much better job of organizing and messaging.
49:06
[SPEAKER_04]: then Democrats in the left have done because they know the importance of the court.
49:10
[SPEAKER_04]: They've been trained to understand how important the courts are.
49:14
[SPEAKER_04]: All this is the left that's kind of come around to it.
49:16
[SPEAKER_04]: In fact, some of the left are celebrating the courts have held Trump in check.
49:21
[SPEAKER_04]: And like not as much as you want to believe.
49:23
[SPEAKER_02]: Not as much as you want to believe.
49:25
[SPEAKER_02]: And by the way, think about the major cases that people celebrate that Trump was kept in check.
49:31
[SPEAKER_02]: The tear of case for one.
49:33
[SPEAKER_02]: isn't it interesting that where the big corporations were was exactly where the Supreme Court came out.
49:39
[SPEAKER_02]: The corporations don't want the tariffs anymore than you and I want like silly misguided tariffs, right?
49:45
[SPEAKER_02]: Not all tariffs are bad, but these sort of like pointless.
49:49
[SPEAKER_02]: I'm going to tariff everybody and it's just going to cause like massive price increases.
49:53
[SPEAKER_02]: Those were bad.
49:54
[SPEAKER_02]: Well, the court disagreed with Trump because it went with the US Chamber.
49:57
[SPEAKER_02]: The other big one,
49:59
[SPEAKER_02]: of that the Supreme Court denied what Trump wanted was birthright citizenship.
50:03
[SPEAKER_02]: Well, think about all the employers in the country.
50:06
[SPEAKER_02]: Did they want disarray and who they were hiring and it is somebody who works for me now unauthorized to work in the United States?
50:14
[SPEAKER_02]: They didn't want that.
50:15
[SPEAKER_02]: They wanted stability.
50:17
[SPEAKER_02]: So they supported birthright citizenship.
50:19
[SPEAKER_02]: So it's really, is it a question of the court's challenging president Trump?
50:26
[SPEAKER_02]: big corporations, but I do take your point and think you're right that the Republican Party for years, my lifetime, for sure, has really built up this narrative that people should vote based on the court.
50:43
[SPEAKER_02]: And the Democratic Party never did that.
50:46
[SPEAKER_02]: And to the extent that the Democratic Party talks about the courts, it's often in varying limited spaces.
50:53
[SPEAKER_02]: which are critically important.
50:55
[SPEAKER_02]: It's around race and civil rights, which are critically important.
50:59
[SPEAKER_02]: But the Democratic Party is not told the story of the courts denying our economic rights.
51:06
[SPEAKER_02]: And that's part of what we're trying to do.
51:08
[SPEAKER_04]: Yeah, we're reliving the beginnings of the lockner era.
51:10
[SPEAKER_04]: And I would say we're right in the middle of it.
51:12
[SPEAKER_04]: So last question I've got for you, you know, what do we do about it?
51:15
[SPEAKER_04]: We got it.
51:15
[SPEAKER_04]: I don't know.
51:16
[SPEAKER_04]: Maybe you've heard there's in like 20 days, 19 days.
51:20
[SPEAKER_04]: There's this little election coming up.
51:24
[SPEAKER_02]: Well, we've got a vote for people who we know will not only enact our vision of what the economy should look like, rain-in, corporate power, lift up working people and working families, protect working families with all kinds of protections for job safety, health care, all of those kinds of things.
51:47
[SPEAKER_02]: But then a final question, not only for this race, but looking ahead
51:54
[SPEAKER_02]: We've got to ask the Democrats in the Senate to stop voting for Trump nominees to the court.
52:02
[SPEAKER_02]: That's step one, right?
52:03
[SPEAKER_02]: When you're in the whole stop digging, step two is to demand of all of those who would be president and run for that office in 2028 to say, we need court reform.
52:16
[SPEAKER_02]: We need court expansion to get rid of this current supermajority that is way off-base from
52:24
[SPEAKER_02]: But we need enforceable ethics rules and a person who will actually make sure that those rules are enforced.
52:31
[SPEAKER_02]: They have to stop taking gifts and all expense paid junkets so that they can learn more about how to screw us with their economic decisions.
52:40
[SPEAKER_02]: So things like that.
52:41
[SPEAKER_04]: That's a good start.
52:42
[SPEAKER_04]: No, look, but understand, Celeste.
52:44
[SPEAKER_04]: You know, that trip to Sam Alito took to Alaska.
52:47
[SPEAKER_04]: The plane was going there anyway.
52:48
[SPEAKER_04]: It wasn't any extra cost.
52:51
[SPEAKER_04]: He just, he was actually doing them a favor by filling the seat and being there.
52:56
[SPEAKER_04]: And the RV that Clarence Thomas got, you know, it was gonna be on the lot anyway.
53:01
[SPEAKER_04]: He was just, he was just bombarded from a body.
53:02
[SPEAKER_04]: That's all.
53:03
[SPEAKER_02]: Here's what I can tell you, Rick, as a former Hills Stafford.
53:07
[SPEAKER_02]: There were very strict rules that applied to me as a staffer that was on a that's because you're down there at the bottom.
53:13
[SPEAKER_02]: You're mega salary.
53:15
[SPEAKER_02]: I couldn't go have anyone buy me a meal, right?
53:20
[SPEAKER_02]: Like a lobbyist could not buy me a meal.
53:22
[SPEAKER_02]: I could go to a reception and have like meats on sticks.
53:26
[SPEAKER_02]: in the words if there's something about Mary.
53:28
[SPEAKER_02]: But that's basically it.
53:30
[SPEAKER_02]: And these guys at the Supreme Court, they have a set of guidelines.
53:35
[SPEAKER_02]: They call them rules, but they all say should, maybe shouldn't and should.
53:39
[SPEAKER_02]: And nobody enforces those should's and shouldn't.
53:43
[SPEAKER_02]: And it's not clear what could happen if you tried to enforce them, right?
53:47
[SPEAKER_02]: There's always impeachment.
53:49
[SPEAKER_02]: But we've seen where that goes in this hyperpartisan environment.
53:53
[SPEAKER_02]: So they need if whatever rules apply to those folks who are working at Congress and those folks who are working in the executive branch also need to apply to judges.
54:05
[SPEAKER_02]: We cannot have Supreme Court judges say,
54:08
[SPEAKER_02]: How dare you question me of course I will be fair.
54:12
[SPEAKER_02]: That's not the rule.
54:13
[SPEAKER_04]: The rule is, and I hope you, right?
54:16
[SPEAKER_04]: No, absolutely.
54:17
[SPEAKER_04]: And I hope folks will check out the report and we cause we got to get on board with this demand justice dot org the website, the the piece, the oligarchies bench.
54:25
[SPEAKER_04]: Celestric, the author of it.
54:27
[SPEAKER_04]: I highly suggest they can look at it.
54:29
[SPEAKER_04]: Celest great talk with you.
54:30
[SPEAKER_04]: I hope you'll come back and this isn't going away.
54:33
[SPEAKER_04]: I would love to.
54:34
[SPEAKER_04]: Thanks, Rick.
54:34
[SPEAKER_04]: Thanks so much, our good friend Celeste.
54:36
[SPEAKER_04]: I want to hear your thoughts should this be an issue?
54:40
[SPEAKER_04]: Should be something you vote on?
54:42
[SPEAKER_04]: I want to hear it, Rick at TheRicksmithsure.com.
54:44
[SPEAKER_04]: Right back.
54:50
[SPEAKER_04]: I'm Rick Smith.
54:51
[SPEAKER_04]: And this is Labor History into it.
54:54
[SPEAKER_04]: On this day in Labor History, the year was 1914.
54:58
[SPEAKER_04]: That was the day that President Woodrow Wilson signed the Clayton Anti-Trust Act.
55:02
[SPEAKER_04]: The act also became known as Labor's Magna Carta.
55:06
[SPEAKER_04]: Prior to the passage of the law, it was common for business owners to describe labor unions as unlawful conspiracies.
55:13
[SPEAKER_04]: In 1890, Congress had passed the Sherman Anti-Trust Act.
55:17
[SPEAKER_04]: The original intent of this act was aimed at disrupting the powerful business monopolies of the day, not surprisingly, instead of going after the enormously powerful corporate monopolies, industrialists used the Sherman Anti-Trust Act to go after Union organizing.
55:32
[SPEAKER_04]: The Clayton Anti-Trust Act challenged that anti-labor practice.
55:36
[SPEAKER_04]: It's stated that the labor of human being is not a commodity.
55:40
[SPEAKER_04]: It would, on to say, quote, nothing contained in the anti-trust laws, shall be construed to forbid the existence of labor, agriculture, or horticulture, organization.
55:50
[SPEAKER_04]: And it announced that labor organizations were not illegal combinations or conspiracy.
55:56
[SPEAKER_04]: It's message on the labor question could not be clearer.
55:59
[SPEAKER_04]: But law also strengthened the existing rules against business monopolies.
56:03
[SPEAKER_04]: It made it unlawful for one person to sit on the board of directors of two competing companies.
56:08
[SPEAKER_04]: It also set up rules against mergers and corporate acquisitions that would limit market competition.
56:14
[SPEAKER_04]: All of these steps were meant to better protect consumers and workers.
56:19
[SPEAKER_04]: The act was named after its author, Democratic Congressman, Hendi De LaMar Clayton from Alabama.
56:24
[SPEAKER_04]: Most importantly for labor, Clayton's act made it legal for workers to engage in boycotts, strikes, and pickets.
56:32
[SPEAKER_04]: It was a blow to the practice of owners filing injunctions to stop labor organizing.
56:37
[SPEAKER_04]: It was an important legal victory for the rights of working people.
56:41
[SPEAKER_04]: After all these years, the Clayton Anti-Trust Act still makes news headlines.
56:45
[SPEAKER_04]: Whenever large corporations discuss mergers.
57:04
[SPEAKER_04]: So make sure you check out the oligarchies badge.
57:07
[SPEAKER_04]: You can find that at demandjustice.org and luck.
57:12
[SPEAKER_04]: You know, we're right back.
57:13
[SPEAKER_04]: I mentioned at the end of the segment.
57:15
[SPEAKER_04]: We're right back in the lockner era.
57:18
[SPEAKER_04]: We're right back in the era where corporate dominance is the rules of the day.
57:24
[SPEAKER_04]: We're any rules that help working people and he laws that would benefit us seem to get struck down as unconstitutional.
57:34
[SPEAKER_04]: would benefit working people, seems to get pushed to the way side and anything that expands corporate or wealth class power.
57:43
[SPEAKER_04]: That seems to find its way home.
57:46
[SPEAKER_04]: And this is, you know, look, the right is this, built this over 50 years.
57:50
[SPEAKER_04]: This is not new.
57:53
[SPEAKER_04]: The report, something that, you know, for the last 20 years I've been talking about, they just did an incredible job of pulling it together and talking about just 10 lower court justices.
58:04
[SPEAKER_04]: because this is systemic.
58:06
[SPEAKER_04]: This isn't just a couple of people on the Supreme Court.
58:09
[SPEAKER_04]: This is top to bottom.
58:10
[SPEAKER_04]: This is what this is going to be the Trump legacy.
58:14
[SPEAKER_04]: the corporate legacy because understand the people who really backtrump not the idiots who show up to the to the rallies The people who are the moneyed people the people who are pushing him from behind Those are the folks who know what they're getting they know why they're voting for him They know why they've put him out because he does a great job of dividing the working class
58:37
[SPEAKER_04]: He does a great job of getting us to hate each other.
58:39
[SPEAKER_04]: He gets a great job of causing chaos and division while they literally are robbing us blind while they are literally robbing the treasury.
58:53
[SPEAKER_04]: While they are literally destroying all of the guardrails of democracy and of sanity, of workplace safety, everything that built the prosperity of the working class of the 50s, 60s, and into the 70s, they have done a masterful job of dismantling.
59:09
[SPEAKER_04]: And you got to get credit.
59:10
[SPEAKER_04]: You know, they invested in it.
59:11
[SPEAKER_04]: Oh, they understood what they were doing.
59:13
[SPEAKER_04]: They planned it.
59:14
[SPEAKER_04]: They plotted it.
59:15
[SPEAKER_04]: They executed.
59:17
[SPEAKER_04]: It's us.
59:18
[SPEAKER_04]: We're the ones who have constantly let ourselves down.
59:22
[SPEAKER_04]: want to hear your thoughts, though email me, rickettorexmithshow.com.
59:24
[SPEAKER_04]: If there's any portion of the program, make sure you check out the podcast, demandjustis.org, the oligarchy's bench, check that out, and as always, thanks so much for being here.
59:34
[SPEAKER_04]: We'll see you back here next time.
59:54
[SPEAKER_03]: Until next time, this has been The Rick Smith Show.
59:57
[SPEAKER_03]: We're working people, come to talk.