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The Rick Smith Show 7-13-2026 · The Rick Smith Show

0:00
[SPEAKER_06]: It's time for the Rick Smith show!
0:05
[SPEAKER_07]: Now, here is the voice of a working class, Rick Smith.
0:15
[SPEAKER_05]: And welcome brothers, sisters working class heroes.
0:20
[SPEAKER_05]: This is the Rick Smith show.
0:22
[SPEAKER_05]: Thanks so much for being here.
0:24
[SPEAKER_05]: Today on the big program, lots to get to.
0:25
[SPEAKER_05]: Let's talk about interesting email.
0:29
[SPEAKER_05]: That sent me a writer's article that talked about.
0:32
[SPEAKER_05]: Donald Trump and the the acronyms of Mexican food that I found quite interesting because we all know Taco Trump always chicken's out But then there was the empanada which I had not seen before everybody makes promises and nobody actually delivers anything Which was kind of funny and not show was there as well not a chance or moves opens
0:54
[SPEAKER_05]: good.
0:55
[SPEAKER_05]: Well, this latest one is tamales standing for Trump always messes around leaves everybody shafted.
1:03
[SPEAKER_05]: And you go, kind of it, which is why the economies where it's at, which is why even the the most dire hardcore supporters not as loud and boisterous as they once were,
1:20
[SPEAKER_05]: and which is why I think Republicans are looking and grasping for straws on how they rig the next election and this is what a power grab looks like Trump just emptied out the election assistance commission by email fired both Democratic commissioners on the loan Republican resigned now the agency that helps keep fair elections you know happening and and also
1:50
[SPEAKER_05]: uh... that's not draining the swamp folks that's draining the referees before the game starts and this is what they do i've been saying this for years republicans are masters at stealing elections they just do it well before anybody ever casts a ballot now remember uh... the eac remember that election assistance commission
2:14
[SPEAKER_05]: It doesn't run elections.
2:16
[SPEAKER_05]: It sets best practice standards, certifies voting systems, gives non-partisan guidance to local officials.
2:24
[SPEAKER_05]: That's the point of it.
2:26
[SPEAKER_05]: It is an independent oversight agency.
2:30
[SPEAKER_05]: Guiding it right after the Supreme Court decision that lets Trump fire independent regulators, at will isn't an accident.
2:40
[SPEAKER_05]: This is the strategy.
2:42
[SPEAKER_05]: Break the guardrails, then pretend the wreck was, well, it's just, yeah, you know, it just happens.
2:52
[SPEAKER_05]: Now, look, he's trying to lock in the Republican advantage with his so-called save out, and that was blocked.
3:00
[SPEAKER_05]: No, he said, you know, at the Teddy Roosevelt opening, he said, if we pass the save back,
3:14
[SPEAKER_05]: I got blocked.
3:15
[SPEAKER_05]: So now it's Plan B, purge the bodies that make bipartisan recommendations, freeze over sight and guidance, and leave secretaries of states scrambling without a neutral cup on the beat so that why they can do whatever they want.
3:31
[SPEAKER_05]: Which is how you get a Chris Cobak in Kansas.
3:35
[SPEAKER_05]: And when you fire the people whose job it is to help everyone play by the same rules, you're
3:43
[SPEAKER_05]: you're rigging the game before a single vote is even cast.
3:46
[SPEAKER_05]: You're choking off standards, stalling security upgrades, and making it easier to so chaos.
3:53
[SPEAKER_05]: And then, and then, and you know this is common, when they lose, it's all gonna be, it's all gonna be crying fraud later.
4:02
[SPEAKER_05]: The Democrats, they cheated.
4:04
[SPEAKER_05]: Now, this is coming from the people who are claiming that the Democrats cheated, even though they hold the White House, the Senate and the House.
4:13
[SPEAKER_05]: They control all the levers of power, but still, we've got to be in defense of the cheaters.
4:20
[SPEAKER_05]: We've got to pass something that is draconian and overreach it.
4:26
[SPEAKER_05]: Now, here's the thing.
4:31
[SPEAKER_05]: in an American accent, there it is, it looks exactly like this, dismantle the independent agencies, purge the bipartisan boards, take control of the machinery, then tell working people, relax, it's all about fairness.
4:50
[SPEAKER_05]: it's not it's about power and we know that it's about them holding on to power keeping it no matter what the voters say.
4:58
[SPEAKER_05]: And this isn't new look Republicans have been doing this for for years.
5:03
[SPEAKER_05]: You go back to 2000 with the whole voting while black thing.
5:08
[SPEAKER_05]: Where the Florida Governor Jew just happened to be George Bush's brother had an attorney general who just said,
5:19
[SPEAKER_05]: because we think one guy they thought he would commit a felony in 2007 if I remember right.
5:24
[SPEAKER_05]: So anybody whose name sounded like a felon, they just purged.
5:28
[SPEAKER_05]: They've been doing this for decades now.
5:31
[SPEAKER_05]: And look, I remember here in my state of Pennsylvania, Mike Turside, the speaker of the house said, you know, they passed voter ID, so Mitt Romney could win.
5:41
[SPEAKER_05]: because they knew that they were gonna try and rig the vote before because they could hold those people.
5:48
[SPEAKER_05]: You know, poor people.
5:50
[SPEAKER_05]: If you can hold those people away from the polls, you've got to throw a chance of winning.
5:55
[SPEAKER_05]: And now they've got these strict voter ID.
5:57
[SPEAKER_05]: They're going after this.
5:58
[SPEAKER_05]: And understand, I'm not entirely against it.
6:03
[SPEAKER_05]: When you start putting in, well, it can only be this one.
6:07
[SPEAKER_05]: It's got to be certified birth certificates, which you generally don't get.
6:11
[SPEAKER_05]: You got to go then find and pay for.
6:14
[SPEAKER_05]: I know for middle class people, it's not that much of a burden.
6:17
[SPEAKER_05]: But for poor people who don't live on a bus line and who have to work two or three jobs, it is.
6:26
[SPEAKER_05]: Also, you know, they've gone after groups that have done voter registration drives.
6:31
[SPEAKER_05]: I think the League of Winner women voters think rock the vote.
6:36
[SPEAKER_05]: They've done so much they've cut early voting in places.
6:39
[SPEAKER_05]: Think Sunday souls to the polls in Georgia.
6:43
[SPEAKER_05]: They've closed polls and moved polls and done all of this stuff because hey, they can't.
6:48
[SPEAKER_05]: Now they want their limiting mail in voting and drop boxes.
6:52
[SPEAKER_05]: And don't, let's not forget about 2004 with the Caging Operations.
6:56
[SPEAKER_05]: and all of the stuff that they've done spreading misinformation and intimidation, all of this.
7:03
[SPEAKER_05]: And I haven't even gotten into the extreme jerrymandering to skew the maps.
7:09
[SPEAKER_05]: But this is what they do, because they know if they can keep all of us from the polls, they got a better chance of winning.
7:16
[SPEAKER_05]: When we get out and vote, when working people get out and vote, they don't stand a chance.
7:24
[SPEAKER_05]: I'm Rick Smith and this is Labor History Into.
7:31
[SPEAKER_05]: This day in Labor History, the year was 1894.
7:35
[SPEAKER_05]: That was the day that Labor Leader Eugene V. Debs was arrested for supporting the strike of Paulman-Pathas' car company workers.
7:44
[SPEAKER_05]: In May, the workers who made the popular train sleeping cars had walked off the job.
7:49
[SPEAKER_05]: George Pullman had slashed the worker's wages, but kept the rents in his company town steady.
7:56
[SPEAKER_05]: The striking workers called on Eugene Debs to support their strike.
8:00
[SPEAKER_05]: Debs had made a name for himself in the labor movement by successfully founding the American Railway Union.
8:06
[SPEAKER_05]: The Union joined together railroad workers in an unprecedented force of solidarity across job types.
8:14
[SPEAKER_05]: In June, the Union voted to boycott pulmon in support of the train car makers, as rail traffic ground to a halt.
8:22
[SPEAKER_05]: The federal government moved in to end the strike.
8:25
[SPEAKER_05]: Federal troops were called out.
8:27
[SPEAKER_05]: A federal court issued an injunction against Deb's and the boycott.
8:31
[SPEAKER_05]: The basis for Deb's arrest was the claim that the boycott interfered with the delivery of the US male by the train.
8:39
[SPEAKER_05]: Deb's served a six-month jail sentence in Woodstock.
8:42
[SPEAKER_05]: Illinois.
8:43
[SPEAKER_05]: His case went all the way to the U.S. Supreme Court, which decided in favor of the injunction.
8:49
[SPEAKER_05]: When Deb's was released from prison, he delivered a speech he called liberty.
8:54
[SPEAKER_05]: In it, he declared, quote, the people have seen the money power practicing at every art of duplicity, growing more arrogant and despotic as it robbed one and crushed another.
9:05
[SPEAKER_05]: building its fortification of the bones of its victims and its palaces out of the profits of its piracy.
9:13
[SPEAKER_05]: The Pullman Strike and the American Railway Union were crushed, and in junctions became a powerful tool against the labor movement.
9:22
[SPEAKER_05]: Labor history in two brought to you by the Illinois Labor History Society and the Rick Smith Show.
9:38
[SPEAKER_05]: So what a week last week was and what a week this week's band what what what a year and a half it's bad I mean now we're front row red baiting warmongering and massive waste fraud abuse and all by the way corruption corruption
9:56
[SPEAKER_05]: That's why I point to this article written by my good friend, Alex Lawson, over at Common Dreams, Trump's latest corruption, hijacking social security, because not what they're telling us.
10:05
[SPEAKER_05]: We've got to go after the fraudsters.
10:06
[SPEAKER_05]: There's all this fraud out there, puns of fraud, fraud, everywhere.
10:11
[SPEAKER_05]: It's riddled with fraud.
10:13
[SPEAKER_05]: And the reality is, when you look at the reality,
10:16
[SPEAKER_05]: not so much.
10:17
[SPEAKER_05]: The fraud was putting Elon Musk in charge of Doge and then stealing all of our information.
10:24
[SPEAKER_05]: But here to talk about his most recent piece over there at Common Dreams, my good friend Alex Lawson, he's the Executive Director of Social Security Works.
10:30
[SPEAKER_05]: Social Security Works.org, the website, Alex, thanks for taking time for us.
10:35
[SPEAKER_01]: Always Rick, always.
10:37
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, the corruption, the fraud was coming from inside the house.
10:43
[SPEAKER_05]: Of course.
10:44
[SPEAKER_05]: So if this, if this fraud fable sticks and people go, well, there's all those waste fraud debuts out there because Donald Trump said so, what's going to happen to social security?
10:53
[SPEAKER_05]: What happens to retirees, getting social security now?
10:56
[SPEAKER_05]: What happens to me in a couple of years when I start going anywhere is it?
11:00
[SPEAKER_05]: What about my kids?
11:01
[SPEAKER_05]: What happens here?
11:03
[SPEAKER_01]: So the first thing to just note is that fraud in the social security system is infinitesimally low.
11:11
[SPEAKER_01]: There's nothing in the private sector.
11:13
[SPEAKER_01]: It even looks similar to it.
11:14
[SPEAKER_01]: They would all be given V number one prize if they were as good at rooting out fraud as social security is.
11:23
[SPEAKER_01]: It's got an entire system set up to do it, including the Inspector's General.
11:27
[SPEAKER_01]: The problem is Donald Trump is interested in rooting out fraud.
11:31
[SPEAKER_01]: He's interested in committing fraud, right?
11:33
[SPEAKER_01]: That's always what it is.
11:35
[SPEAKER_01]: So the first thing he did, he fired all the Inspector's generals.
11:38
[SPEAKER_01]: Why?
11:38
[SPEAKER_01]: Because they want to create a narrative to undermine the system.
11:43
[SPEAKER_01]: the security that people have in social security so that they can cut benefits.
11:47
[SPEAKER_01]: That's always their goal, right?
11:49
[SPEAKER_01]: They want to undermine confidence so that people think they're going to get nothing and then they can come in and offer them less than their owed and then people might accept it.
11:59
[SPEAKER_01]: So what's going to happen in your future when you go to claim benefits, Rick, is as long as we don't give in, as long as we don't say, oh, okay, yeah, you can cut our benefits.
12:12
[SPEAKER_01]: You're going to get every penny of benefits that you have earned the choice that we have to make in the next presidency.
12:19
[SPEAKER_01]: Right, so senators right now are going to be it in power when this decision is made 2032 are we going to have a 22% benefit cut across the board for the people who've been playing by the rules doing the right thing or are we going to finally ask the billionaires in the ultra wealthy to pay the same rate as the rest of us.
12:40
[SPEAKER_01]: prevent the 22% benefit cut.
12:42
[SPEAKER_01]: And in fact, expand benefits for everyone.
12:45
[SPEAKER_01]: It's a really, it's not even a choice.
12:47
[SPEAKER_01]: People just have to know how simple the right option is and everyone chooses it.
12:52
[SPEAKER_05]: No, look, I've gotten the narrative that there's all these people cheating, especially the illegal's, Alex.
12:57
[SPEAKER_05]: The illegal's are cheating social security.
13:00
[SPEAKER_05]: Now you say it's less than 1%.
13:02
[SPEAKER_05]: But to, you know, to, to musk in the Trump, you know, that, it's, it's, it's just massive fraud.
13:08
[SPEAKER_05]: That, that is, as you pointed out, an infinitesimal number when you think about, you know, just your local bank or your the healthcare system or or other places.
13:18
[SPEAKER_05]: I would like, I would like that kind of return on an enforcement on everything.
13:24
[SPEAKER_01]: Absolutely, that's what we should be aiming for, rooting out even in the single case of fraud, right?
13:30
[SPEAKER_01]: And that's what a functioning system that's well staff that has the dedicated civil servants taken oath to the Constitution and the people of the United States.
13:39
[SPEAKER_01]: That's how you root out fraud, as low as it is, we should root out all of it.
13:44
[SPEAKER_01]: And we do that with really dedicated workforce, with a really dedicated workforce.
13:50
[SPEAKER_01]: That's what we need across the board in government in public service, right?
13:56
[SPEAKER_01]: You look at the Mamdoni model in New York and what he's done, you know, they argue about his label and everything, but that's not what it's about.
14:04
[SPEAKER_01]: It's about actually doing the thing that it's set up to do, right?
14:09
[SPEAKER_01]: The government is there for the people, all the power is ours.
14:14
[SPEAKER_01]: And they say, we're going to make your life better by doing these things.
14:18
[SPEAKER_01]: Municipal things, filling pot bowls, right?
14:21
[SPEAKER_01]: But also, some visionary things, like child care.
14:25
[SPEAKER_01]: These are all within our reach because we can build whatever country we want.
14:32
[SPEAKER_01]: All we have to do is use our power and the wealth that we create, which is all wealth comes from labor, to force the reality that we want and not let the billionaires like Elon Musk,
14:45
[SPEAKER_01]: who took a chain saw through social security to try to wreck it so they can rob it.
14:49
[SPEAKER_01]: We have to say, no, we're not gonna live in the billionaires, you know, demonic fantasy where they get everything and everyone else's left scrambling for the scraps that fall off their table.
15:03
[SPEAKER_01]: No, we're gonna build a world and a country and a community that works for us and not the billionaires.
15:10
[SPEAKER_05]: So a couple of quick things that were the fraud is because I'm told there.
15:14
[SPEAKER_05]: We know where the fraud is.
15:15
[SPEAKER_05]: I'm told I want it's the illegal's because the illegal's evidently
15:20
[SPEAKER_05]: I don't know how they apply, I don't know how they show up to government buildings and do things, but we're told it's the illegals, and then we're told there are people 100, 150, 200, I think maybe Jesus is collecting Social Security, I don't know, but we're told really old people are collecting Social Security for hundreds of years.
15:41
[SPEAKER_05]: Uh, any truth to any of those things, any reality and then how do you respond to that when someone believes it when they tell you I know because I heard on what whatever, how do you respond to that?
15:54
[SPEAKER_01]: So, one of the things about political communication you know is that if you're defending you're losing, if you're responding you're losing, you have to actually just stay on offense and talk about how incredibly robust and amazing the social security system is.
16:08
[SPEAKER_01]: But at the same time, you can actually check lies, right?
16:11
[SPEAKER_01]: And just
16:12
[SPEAKER_01]: bold face lies like illegals or people who aren't authorized to work in this country can get benefits is just a lie.
16:22
[SPEAKER_01]: You cannot get benefits in this country.
16:24
[SPEAKER_01]: You cannot get social security benefits in this country if you are not authorized to work.
16:30
[SPEAKER_01]: in this country.
16:31
[SPEAKER_01]: In fact, many people pay into the system, people who aren't authorized to work here, pay into the system and they'll never get benefits.
16:40
[SPEAKER_01]: So again, this is the oldest trick of the tyrant, right?
16:44
[SPEAKER_01]: They say, oh yeah, it's not the billionaires who are taking all the money to buy a golden yacht to sail to Epstein's Island.
16:51
[SPEAKER_01]: It's definitely not the billionaires.
16:55
[SPEAKER_01]: uh... who profit off of uh... health care system that's actually a wealth extraction system you know it's these other guys it's the oldest trick of tyranny and solidarity is how we fight back so we have to understand that working people are not the problem working people didn't take anyone's jobs the bosses the billionaires sent our jobs overseas the bosses are the problem the billionaires absolutely
17:21
[SPEAKER_05]: but the billionaires are calling social security of Ponzi stick scheme and look, they're smart.
17:26
[SPEAKER_05]: So they've got to know, and I know you say that we shouldn't be pushing back against these lies and look, they're lies, and then they're lies, and then they're like, oh my God, that's just BS.
17:35
[SPEAKER_05]: But some of this stuff that people seem to internalize like you know, I've had so many people tell me, you know, it's just a big Ponzi scheme because we're just paying for these people.
17:44
[SPEAKER_05]: And there's gonna be nobody to pay for me and I'm gonna be left holding the back.
17:47
[SPEAKER_05]: Walk me through some of the response that because I know I know we're social securities great my grandparents lived out there entire lives in their home with dignity and respect and never needed much It worked the system worked for them.
18:01
[SPEAKER_05]: They're defined benefit pension their savings and their social security the three-legged school stool held for them Walk me through
18:11
[SPEAKER_01]: So the first thing is that a Ponzi scheme is an illegal criminal activity that enriches one person through the perpetration of fraud.
18:22
[SPEAKER_01]: So you bring more investors in and use that money to pay off the old investors.
18:27
[SPEAKER_01]: And there's no money put anywhere or invested anywhere.
18:31
[SPEAKER_01]: And the point is that somebody profits off of it.
18:35
[SPEAKER_01]: It's a criminal enterprise that somebody profits off
18:41
[SPEAKER_01]: is not at all similar.
18:43
[SPEAKER_01]: This is a legal system that's built, a social insurance program where everyone pays in, including the generation after.
18:51
[SPEAKER_01]: So the idea that it's a Ponzi scheme, you just have to look around and say,
18:57
[SPEAKER_01]: You know, are did people not have children after the baby boom?
19:03
[SPEAKER_01]: No, the millennial generation is bigger than the baby boom.
19:06
[SPEAKER_01]: So we're not facing a demographic crunch.
19:09
[SPEAKER_01]: And in fact, you know, really we need comprehensive immigration reform because it's immigration that does an enormous amount to for our economy and for social security by creating economic activity.
19:21
[SPEAKER_01]: But the biggest thing
19:23
[SPEAKER_01]: I think that people can get through because again, sympathy for the calm, none for the comment, right?
19:29
[SPEAKER_01]: So a lot of people are hit with all this propaganda and rip what you're talking about is just people being afraid.
19:34
[SPEAKER_01]: They're just saying, I'm scared that it's not going to be there for me.
19:37
[SPEAKER_01]: I paid in my whole life.
19:38
[SPEAKER_01]: And what do I get?
19:39
[SPEAKER_01]: What guarantee do I have that is going to be there for me?
19:42
[SPEAKER_01]: They're trying to undermine confidence, but the key is no one makes a penny off of social security.
19:48
[SPEAKER_01]: No one's profiting off of this system.
19:50
[SPEAKER_01]: It's just workers paying in for themselves and future generations and current generations, right?
19:58
[SPEAKER_01]: So this is the beauty of a social insurance system.
20:02
[SPEAKER_01]: Otto von Bismarck was actually one of the first people to put this into practice.
20:07
[SPEAKER_01]: And a big part of it is that you do have the authority of this is a universal system.
20:14
[SPEAKER_01]: So everyone in the United States is in this system.
20:18
[SPEAKER_01]: You don't run out of people because as long as there are workers, there's a social security system.
20:23
[SPEAKER_01]: So it is the opposite of any sort of criminal scheme.
20:28
[SPEAKER_01]: It is a beautiful structure built by working people for working people.
20:32
[SPEAKER_05]: But, you know, for the for the billionaire class to call it a Ponzi scheme.
20:35
[SPEAKER_05]: It's like, you know, wow, it's the longest Ponzi scheme in history, I think.
20:39
[SPEAKER_05]: But I think you hit it at the beginning there when you said no one makes a profit.
20:43
[SPEAKER_05]: I think that's why they don't like it.
20:45
[SPEAKER_01]: Let's say, yes, bingo, right?
20:48
[SPEAKER_01]: I mean, don't listen to the billionaires because whatever they're complaining about, what they're actually saying is, I don't like that thing that I don't make money off of.
20:56
[SPEAKER_01]: That's how they became billionaires, right?
20:57
[SPEAKER_01]: That they exploit people and systems to enrich themselves.
21:01
[SPEAKER_01]: So generally, if the billionaires hate something, you're like, that must be a good thing.
21:06
[SPEAKER_01]: Oh, yeah.
21:06
[SPEAKER_01]: Because, right, it's almost a perfect test.
21:09
[SPEAKER_05]: No, I think I'll go back to my grandfather, my grandfather always said if a rich guy is going to take a buck out of his pocket to tell you you don't need something you better spend two to get it because they understand return on investment and this is that he's been dead for a while You know 20 years now this what's this still sticks
21:29
[SPEAKER_05]: So let me ask you, because I have people who truly believe Trump wants to save social security.
21:34
[SPEAKER_05]: And I know, save it by killing it is kind of the model.
21:37
[SPEAKER_05]: If he truly did want to save social security, what would he be doing?
21:42
[SPEAKER_05]: What would he be doing on staffing levels?
21:44
[SPEAKER_05]: What would he be doing on technology?
21:46
[SPEAKER_05]: What would we be doing if truly, honestly, you were advising him on how we actually say it.
21:54
[SPEAKER_01]: It's really simple, just have billionaires pay in and the ultra wealthy pay in at the same rate as everyone else, right now there is a cap, a maximum cap on the amount of income that you pay into social security on.
22:06
[SPEAKER_01]: It's right now $184,500.
22:09
[SPEAKER_01]: After that, you don't pay in a nickel on any dollar after that.
22:13
[SPEAKER_01]: So the vast majority of Americans pay in on 100% of their income, but the richer you are, the less of your income you pay in on,
22:21
[SPEAKER_01]: We just get them to pay in on all of their income, like the rest of us do, prevent the cut in 2032, expand benefits, and have more than enough money left over to ensure a robust staffing level of dedicated civil servants who can make sure the system functions as it's supposed to.
22:42
[SPEAKER_01]: That's the only path forward for social security.
22:45
[SPEAKER_01]: Anything,
22:46
[SPEAKER_01]: other than that is just a garden path because they want to destroy it, they want to privatize it.
22:52
[SPEAKER_01]: They want to wreck it so they can rob it.
22:54
[SPEAKER_05]: No, no, it was explained to me, go, look, you got, you got some people in our country.
22:59
[SPEAKER_05]: Some of our billionaires who, you know, by a minute after midnight on January 1st of paid every bit of social security that they're going to pay while someone who's going swinging a hammer or driving a truck or taking care of our children, they pay every day.
23:14
[SPEAKER_05]: 365 every day of their life, and you go, maybe we have some equality, some bit of share in this, just a thought.
23:24
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, and Rick, I mean, we're not saying pain more either, right?
23:29
[SPEAKER_01]: And in a lot of cases, I think that, you know, we're increasing.
23:33
[SPEAKER_01]: a progressive income tax, for example, in the general fund, that makes a ton of sense, wealth taxes.
23:39
[SPEAKER_01]: We can talk about those where they belong, which is in the general fund.
23:43
[SPEAKER_01]: But on social security, we're just talking about them paying the same rate, the same rate as a minimum wage worker, the same rate as the vast majority of the American people.
23:55
[SPEAKER_01]: And it's so obvious.
23:57
[SPEAKER_01]: That the billionaires have to spend an enormous amount of money pretending that it's not straightforward because they know what the people want Republicans independence Democrats all want but we have the polling even self identified the battarians majority we want to have.
24:14
[SPEAKER_01]: The ultra wealthy pay into social security at the same rate as the rest of us and expand benefits for everyone.
24:21
[SPEAKER_01]: That's what the billionaires are afraid of is the people finding out that this problem isn't actually a problem.
24:29
[SPEAKER_01]: Social security is not a problem.
24:31
[SPEAKER_01]: It's a solution.
24:32
[SPEAKER_01]: The problem are billionaires.
24:35
[SPEAKER_01]: That's what they know and they're doing their darn this to make sure the American people don't look at it too long and be like,
24:43
[SPEAKER_01]: The billionaires are the problem.
24:45
[SPEAKER_05]: No, but, but we need billionaires, Alex, how are we going to get our, our White House fix that the ballroom was going to be paid for by billionaires?
24:53
[SPEAKER_05]: I guess Trump just, just got past one of the hurdles for his big arch thing, the triumphal arch idea that he wants.
25:01
[SPEAKER_05]: I guess we're going to be spending money on that.
25:04
[SPEAKER_05]: I look at all of this what really kind of is waste fraud in abuse and say you know the guy who's me appointing his finger They're still three point in back at him
25:14
[SPEAKER_01]: It's always for on abuse.
25:16
[SPEAKER_01]: It's authoritarianism 101, you know?
25:19
[SPEAKER_01]: It's also just straight up corruption, right?
25:22
[SPEAKER_01]: Like everything he does is just to enrich himself in his family.
25:26
[SPEAKER_01]: So you know, it's just gonna be the reflecting pool 2.0, 3.0, every one of them is gonna be a catastrophic failure because of the malice, greed, and incompetence that runs this regime.
25:40
[SPEAKER_01]: And so that's what it's all about.
25:44
[SPEAKER_05]: Let me ask you last question that I've got for it because you brought up failure, something that Trump businesses have done repeatedly.
25:51
[SPEAKER_05]: And it appears to me that, you know, in watching what Trump is doing and knowing what his business record has been, it's, it's a lot of pump and dump.
26:02
[SPEAKER_05]: And it kind of seems, I don't know, if you're watching the same things, I'm watching, kind of seems like we're doing it, not just doing isolated business, but to our entire country.
26:12
[SPEAKER_05]: And the concern is, is once they dump it like his crypto, he's going to walk away, just find the billionaires are going to walk away, just find it's going to be working people.
26:21
[SPEAKER_05]: If we don't deal with this issue, it's going to be me as you.
26:24
[SPEAKER_05]: It's going to be our grandparents, our parents.
26:26
[SPEAKER_05]: Those are the folks who are going to really suffer in all this.
26:29
[SPEAKER_01]: are suffering right i mean right now they cut a trillion dollars the republicans cut a trillion dollars out of Medicaid to give trillions of dollars of tax handouts to the riches people in the history of the world um that's what's happening people are dying and are hurt right now hospitals are closing right now hospitals have closed and so many more will close
26:51
[SPEAKER_01]: That's the pump and dump.
26:53
[SPEAKER_01]: That's what they're doing.
26:54
[SPEAKER_01]: They're just hollowing out our country And it's not like we haven't seen this before.
26:58
[SPEAKER_01]: That's what they did with manufacturing jobs That's the they is billionaires and private equity Wall Street all different names the tech brologarchs all different names For the billionaires the billionaires have one model of making money It's looting our money, right?
27:14
[SPEAKER_01]: It's reaching their greedy hands in and stealing our money
27:18
[SPEAKER_01]: And in whatever form it, it takes, right, they just steal it, they wreck it so they can rob it.
27:24
[SPEAKER_01]: And that's, that's what we're up against.
27:26
[SPEAKER_01]: That's what they're trying to do to socialize a lot to do.
27:28
[SPEAKER_01]: Medicare to everything.
27:29
[SPEAKER_05]: A lot of, a lot of work to do, and come November, the hope is we throw a bunch of bombs out.
27:33
[SPEAKER_05]: But Alex, great piece.
27:35
[SPEAKER_05]: I hope folks will check it out over at Common Dreams, Trump's latest corruption, hijacking social security.
27:40
[SPEAKER_05]: We'll get links out at social media.
27:42
[SPEAKER_05]: But Alex,
27:45
[SPEAKER_05]: want to hear your thoughts email me Rick at the ricksmithshow.com.
27:48
[SPEAKER_05]: What do you think or you concerned?
27:51
[SPEAKER_05]: I know I am quick break right back after this.
28:00
[SPEAKER_05]: I'm Rick Smith, and this is Labor History in 2.
28:03
[SPEAKER_07]: On this day in Labor History, the year was 1918.
28:06
[SPEAKER_05]: That was the day machinist John Connelly was fired from General Electric's sprawling River Works in West Lin, Massachusetts.
28:14
[SPEAKER_05]: Firings of several more labor activists prompted 14,000 workers, 40% of them women, to walk off the job and flood the ranks of the IAM and the IBEW.
28:25
[SPEAKER_05]: The newly established War Labor Board in Bolton, GE workers.
28:29
[SPEAKER_05]: They looked to the board for help in beating back yellow dog contracts and to organize bonafide unions.
28:35
[SPEAKER_05]: A metal trade's council had finally been established at the GE Plant in Skinnectity, New York.
28:41
[SPEAKER_05]: Workers hoped to do the same at Lynn.
28:43
[SPEAKER_05]: After Connelly's discharge, GE managers fired another 14 activists three days later.
28:49
[SPEAKER_05]: As Joseph McCarton describes in his book, Labor is Great
28:52
[SPEAKER_05]: War, thousands of outraged workers met the evening of the firings and determined there was nothing left to do but strike.
29:00
[SPEAKER_05]: The walkout began the following Monday.
29:02
[SPEAKER_05]: David Montgomery describes the scene in the fall of the House of Labor writing, quote, early in the afternoon, union sound trucks outside the building, blared, fighting songs and called to down tools.
29:14
[SPEAKER_05]: Within an hour, the GE River Works were emptied.
29:18
[SPEAKER_05]: The strike lasted three weeks.
29:20
[SPEAKER_05]: In that time, strikers defeated a temp set arbitration, demanding the board rule on their behalf as it had done for GE workers insconnected it.
29:28
[SPEAKER_05]: In October, the board adjusted wages, ordered reinstatement of all but two of the fired workers and established minimum pay for women.
29:37
[SPEAKER_05]: It also ordered the election of shop committee.
29:44
[SPEAKER_05]: Victory was short lived, however.
29:46
[SPEAKER_05]: In the post-war period, unions at GE and elsewhere were some merely defeated in vigorous, open shop drives across the country.
29:55
[SPEAKER_05]: Labor history in too brought to you by the Illinois Labor History Society and the Rick Smith show.
30:02
[SPEAKER_00]: From QAnon Nuttiness to J.D.
30:04
[SPEAKER_00]: Vance's deep-state quackery, wacko-right-wing conspiracies have oozed into the center of Republican politics.
30:12
[SPEAKER_00]: But don't let their goofiness obscure the fact that there is indeed a very real plot to rig America's economic and political system, causing wealth and power to flow uphill,
30:23
[SPEAKER_00]: from the work-a-day majority to money deletes.
30:26
[SPEAKER_00]: This rigging is not done by some cartoonish cabal of ogres in a secret layer, but by prominent AI tech barons and other poobas of America's corporate royalty.
30:37
[SPEAKER_00]: They are soft-handed thieves, discreetly robbing us from the cozy confines of corporate boardrooms or night courtrooms and legislative backgrounds.
30:47
[SPEAKER_00]: Why should they dirty their hands in public scuffles with workers' consumers' local communities and other pests, when they can deploy public officials to do their grub work?
30:58
[SPEAKER_00]: Consider the Gabillionaire Huxter Elon Musk.
31:01
[SPEAKER_00]: He barged into Mississippi to build a massive AI data center that would have 57 gas turbines spewing toxic pollution over several black neighborhoods without even bothering to get required environmental permits.
31:16
[SPEAKER_00]: It was a gross violation of the Clean Air Act, so the endangered families sued in April to stop the imperious profiteur.
31:24
[SPEAKER_00]: But instead of facing the perp himself, surprise, the locals were confronted by federal lawyers deployed by Trump to kill the people's lawsuit and protect must-toxic project.
31:35
[SPEAKER_00]: going further, Trump's justice department asserted that we, citizens, have no legal right to pursue clean air enforcement if the federal government objects.
31:45
[SPEAKER_00]: This is Jim Hi-Tar saying, did I mention that Musk gave $157 million to Trump's last election campaign?
31:54
[SPEAKER_00]: And that poison girl's is how the system gets rigged against us.
32:10
[SPEAKER_05]: So the hot topic in the email box over the last bit of time has been all about Grand Platner and all about the main Senate race and all about you, you defended a sex offender and I'm like, yeah, calm the jets.
32:24
[SPEAKER_05]: Uh, I, I simply said that politicians are not saviors.
32:29
[SPEAKER_05]: I don't care about their personal life.
32:31
[SPEAKER_05]: I care about their policy.
32:32
[SPEAKER_05]: And as I said yesterday on the show, he can go for all I care.
32:35
[SPEAKER_05]: I hope the policy stay.
32:38
[SPEAKER_05]: That's what I care about.
32:40
[SPEAKER_05]: Just because he was a flawed vessel doesn't mean the policies aren't where we should be moving and where the Democratic Party should be moving.
32:47
[SPEAKER_05]: Uh, and I, I fear they're going to, they're going to do what they do.
32:52
[SPEAKER_05]: kind of snatch victory and they're going to stretch the feet from the jaws of victory and here to share some thoughts on well everything that is main my favorite mainer who now lives in my neighborhood neck of the woods she is a two-time former main gubernatorial candidate ran in 2004 as the Green Party vice president candidate also a journalist in our area patlamar thanks for taking time for us
33:16
[SPEAKER_04]: Hey, I would like to say I'm really happy to see your Rick, but oh, y'all, y'all, both of them.
33:22
[SPEAKER_05]: Yeah, look, I, so ago, I mean, the reality is is, you know, walk me through this from your perspective.
33:32
[SPEAKER_04]: Well, okay.
33:34
[SPEAKER_04]: I supported Graham Plattener also.
33:37
[SPEAKER_04]: I think that Graham Plattener 80% I am not a Democrat.
33:42
[SPEAKER_04]: I'm a green, but 80% of Maine's Democrats supported Graham Plattener.
33:47
[SPEAKER_04]: So if people are beating up on you, Rick.
33:51
[SPEAKER_04]: They're going to have to beat up on 80% of Maine's Democrats, right?
33:55
[SPEAKER_04]: I mean, this wasn't even a horse race.
33:59
[SPEAKER_04]: This was a blowout.
34:00
[SPEAKER_04]: Absolutely.
34:01
[SPEAKER_04]: He took a by storm.
34:03
[SPEAKER_04]: More people voted for him than have ever voted for any candidate in a primary in the history of Maine.
34:11
[SPEAKER_04]: So this was a guy with a message that was magnificent.
34:17
[SPEAKER_04]: Yes.
34:17
[SPEAKER_04]: And people are hungry for it.
34:19
[SPEAKER_04]: And what I have said is there isn't a single person who voted for Grand Platner hoping they would find out that he would have committed some sort of assault.
34:28
[SPEAKER_04]: but every single one of them voted for his message and his platform.
34:34
[SPEAKER_04]: And if main replaces him with Janet Mills or who couldn't fight a way out of a paper bag in that primary, then the Democratic Party has done its dastardliest and dirtiest.
34:49
[SPEAKER_04]: And I mean if this guy literally has committed a
34:56
[SPEAKER_04]: There should be charges.
34:58
[SPEAKER_05]: That was my point.
34:59
[SPEAKER_04]: If a guy is raping people, it shouldn't be that for his career.
35:05
[SPEAKER_04]: Oh, oh, he's gonna have to make different career choices now because he likes to rape.
35:12
[SPEAKER_04]: Rapists should be in prison.
35:15
[SPEAKER_04]: They should pay for their crime.
35:16
[SPEAKER_04]: I agree.
35:18
[SPEAKER_04]: And so, if that's what we're really talking about, this shouldn't be a deal breaker for the campaign, this should be a serious issue.
35:26
[SPEAKER_05]: Now, it does seem, the timing does seem interesting.
35:28
[SPEAKER_05]: Again, you know, I, and Plattener said that in his, his, his, his, his, his, his 11-minute feel, the timing does seem interesting.
35:35
[SPEAKER_05]: And, um, you know, look, I'm not, I'm not saying that the person is lying.
35:40
[SPEAKER_05]: I'm not saying they're wrong.
35:41
[SPEAKER_05]: It just seems fairly, very interesting to the timing.
35:46
[SPEAKER_04]: Well, I thought it was interesting that the reporter who broke though, this is all what I've read on the internet, I don't have any inside poop or anything, but what I have read on the internet is the reporter who broke the story did not include the text messages prior to the exchange with the therapist where this was clearly an extremely ugly breakup.
36:14
[SPEAKER_04]: So, you know, if you're going to run the whole story, here's a really ugly breakup, a really hurt and wounded person, would that person do something to, you know, heard somebody else's potential dreams?
36:29
[SPEAKER_04]: Possibly, I've dated people, luckily up most of my breakups and people are like my still my friends, but you've dated people are like really mad when you bring up, so who knows?
36:42
[SPEAKER_04]: But all I know is Grand Planner had a self-destruct button and eventually somebody tapped it.
36:58
[SPEAKER_04]: I don't care if my father was a cytogenatysis, he was a genius, he was the director of a of the pediatrics unit in one of May's largest hospitals and then he was the chief of medicine.
37:11
[SPEAKER_04]: But if someone had said, I'm not taking my kid to Dr. Lamarche, unless he's a good husband, then he would have saved far fewer lives.
37:21
[SPEAKER_04]: My father was a terrible husband.
37:23
[SPEAKER_04]: He was a mediocre dad, but he was a phenomenal doctor.
37:29
[SPEAKER_04]: He was an amazing genius.
37:31
[SPEAKER_04]: And he had a bunch of reasons for why he had his own problems, right?
37:35
[SPEAKER_04]: He had an abusive dad himself.
37:38
[SPEAKER_04]: He had all these other reasons why he turned out the way he did.
37:41
[SPEAKER_04]: But if you wanted your kids life saved and you worried about my father's marriage, you were a fool.
37:48
[SPEAKER_05]: But does that equate down to Graham Plattener?
37:50
[SPEAKER_05]: I mean, look, here's somebody who, you know, serve the country, served in time of war.
37:55
[SPEAKER_05]: We know that, you know, people who come back from war, come back with scars and some, some bit of being broken.
38:01
[SPEAKER_05]: Does, does any of this matter?
38:04
[SPEAKER_04]: I'd tell you something.
38:05
[SPEAKER_04]: I know who broke my dad and it was my grandfather.
38:08
[SPEAKER_04]: And I know who broke Graham Plattener and it was Susan Collins.
38:12
[SPEAKER_04]: If Graham Platner's broken, Susan Collins and the Republicans who voted for every war they ever met, broke her.
38:21
[SPEAKER_04]: And the Lambie Pam Democrats, they get out of their own egg and couldn't stop the Republicans from invading countries that didn't have weapons of master's or action.
38:34
[SPEAKER_04]: The Lambie Pam B. Democrats and the Republicans broke Graham Planner.
38:38
[SPEAKER_04]: So if he's broken, they broke him.
38:41
[SPEAKER_05]: Yeah, but he volunteered.
38:43
[SPEAKER_05]: Did you hear Susan Collins, he volunteered?
38:46
[SPEAKER_04]: Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
38:49
[SPEAKER_04]: Yeah, so I heard that Susan Collins is now excited because now she can nominate him to the Supreme Court.
38:56
[SPEAKER_04]: Now that she knows he's in a abuser, he fits right in, right?
39:00
[SPEAKER_04]: He can get their right between Clarence Thomas and Kava.
39:04
[SPEAKER_04]: So, I mean, what I hope mean does.
39:08
[SPEAKER_04]: is Troy Jackson, who I absolutely love and I and I have known for figured it out today 28 years and don't him since he was a young kid lumberjack a legit and immediately a lumberjack.
39:21
[SPEAKER_04]: The other thing I really am sick of is hearing that
39:24
[SPEAKER_04]: Graham Platte, there was an oyster farmer.
39:27
[SPEAKER_04]: So he says, all right, you come up in a farm oysters for five minutes, you know, whatever.
39:33
[SPEAKER_04]: But, but Troy Jackson is a lumberjack.
39:36
[SPEAKER_04]: He's a great guy.
39:38
[SPEAKER_04]: He was also president of the Senate.
39:40
[SPEAKER_04]: He passed 40 bills that would help man at the miners.
39:43
[SPEAKER_04]: And Janet Mills vetoed all of them.
39:46
[SPEAKER_04]: Right.
39:47
[SPEAKER_05]: So why wasn't he the choice from the beginning?
39:48
[SPEAKER_05]: How did we get into this?
39:50
[SPEAKER_04]: Because it was a big year in Maine and he ran for governor.
39:54
[SPEAKER_05]: okay.
39:55
[SPEAKER_04]: Graham Platter came out of nowhere and rumor has it this this is these are rumors I'm I'm I'm telling rumor now but rumor has it that Schumer didn't want anyone to run against Mills got the word out to all the Democratic Party so when when Graham Platter came out of nowhere it was great Bernie supported him and the only other candidate main Bernie supported was Troy Jackson
40:21
[SPEAKER_04]: He's a Democratic socialist.
40:23
[SPEAKER_04]: He's a great guy.
40:25
[SPEAKER_04]: He's navigated state politics for 20 years.
40:30
[SPEAKER_04]: He came out of the main woods, Aligash, which is a county as big as Massachusetts.
40:36
[SPEAKER_04]: It's as big as all the rest of the main but together.
40:39
[SPEAKER_04]: It's a giant place full of poor people who needed an advocate and Troy Jackson was their advocate.
40:46
[SPEAKER_05]: So I'm going to go back to this, you know, why wasn't that the guy that got through this process?
40:50
[SPEAKER_05]: How is it?
40:51
[SPEAKER_04]: Because because he wanted to, because Graham Platner was boom on the stage, big his life, I mean, charisma.
40:58
[SPEAKER_04]: I did the first week he ran, I saw him.
41:01
[SPEAKER_04]: I went to see him at a family at a small house gathering, which those were gone within two weeks, right?
41:08
[SPEAKER_04]: I mean, he was speaking of crowds of 500 or more after about two weeks rep, but when I met him, it was me and 30 other people.
41:16
[SPEAKER_04]: And he was just on fire.
41:20
[SPEAKER_04]: And so Troy and other really great, really very, very respectable Democrats, Shena Ballows, the Attorney General Secretary of State, who has been fighting Trump tooth and nail to make sure he can't get the voting rolls in Maine.
41:39
[SPEAKER_04]: I mean, these people ran for the governor's primary,
41:43
[SPEAKER_04]: because Graham Platner was running away with the Senate like, what's the run against him?
41:47
[SPEAKER_04]: He's going to take it.
41:48
[SPEAKER_05]: Yeah, no, he did.
41:49
[SPEAKER_05]: Look, I mean, but here's the thing, I think he's going to the bone.
41:53
[SPEAKER_05]: Here's the thing that I think nobody, including me.
41:55
[SPEAKER_05]: I mean, I'll be honest.
41:57
[SPEAKER_05]: I flirted with the idea of running for office.
41:59
[SPEAKER_05]: I've had people ask me for for years.
42:02
[SPEAKER_05]: to run for things and I got to be honest.
42:04
[SPEAKER_05]: I don't want to be in the fishbowl because I don't want whatever's in my closet.
42:08
[SPEAKER_05]: If there are things deep in my closet that I don't want that stuff coming out.
42:11
[SPEAKER_05]: I don't know how you put yourself out there knowing that that you've got some some serious serious things maybe in the background and you don't have a way to inoculate them.
42:24
[SPEAKER_05]: I don't know how you throw yourself out in the middle of that.
42:27
[SPEAKER_04]: I think the guy's a little broken, or maybe a lot, I do think he's broken though.
42:33
[SPEAKER_04]: And I also do think that there is an affliction that happens to many white men, where they think the world's different for them.
42:42
[SPEAKER_04]: And you know what?
42:43
[SPEAKER_04]: They hate to break into you.
42:44
[SPEAKER_04]: The world is different from white men.
42:46
[SPEAKER_04]: It's different for white men than it is for anybody else.
42:49
[SPEAKER_04]: They get away with more.
42:51
[SPEAKER_04]: If he just wanted to screw people,
42:54
[SPEAKER_04]: I mean, you know, in general, the way Susan Collins does, he could join the political party of screw and people, you know, I mean, we have a president grabbing people's private areas and bragging about it, and that's just fine in a certain political party.
43:11
[SPEAKER_04]: But thankfully, I mean, I'm not a Democrat, but I will say at least they hold a certain bar that says,
43:22
[SPEAKER_04]: then they attack people differently.
43:26
[SPEAKER_04]: So, you know, the whole Chuck Schumer saying, you can't run, we won't support you, you can't have money.
43:32
[SPEAKER_04]: I mean, I want Troy Jackson to run.
43:34
[SPEAKER_04]: I think Troy Jackson is, it he is running.
43:38
[SPEAKER_04]: I think he's a powerful candidate.
43:40
[SPEAKER_04]: I think he's a wonderful man.
43:42
[SPEAKER_04]: I know that personally.
43:43
[SPEAKER_04]: He's probably in his late 50s.
43:46
[SPEAKER_04]: He's got brand new grandchild.
43:47
[SPEAKER_04]: He's just a lovely person.
43:50
[SPEAKER_04]: But are they going to go after him?
43:52
[SPEAKER_04]: Oh, yeah, you're absolutely the.
43:54
[SPEAKER_04]: Oh, my God.
43:55
[SPEAKER_05]: This is a big seat, but you'll look you.
43:57
[SPEAKER_05]: You're someone who's run a lot of campaigns.
44:00
[SPEAKER_05]: And you know, one of the arguments I had someone make to me is this is why we can't have outsiders, this is why we can't have untested people.
44:07
[SPEAKER_05]: We need people who have gone through the political process, starting at school board and working their way up, kind of like you're talking about with Troy Jackson, they have the fact that, you know, he's been in the Senate.
44:18
[SPEAKER_05]: He's been in the in the main political machine for a while, is that the take from this, is there a take from this?
44:26
[SPEAKER_04]: I don't know.
44:26
[SPEAKER_04]: I think that if there's a way to marginalize a person, an awful lot of people are going to take it.
44:31
[SPEAKER_04]: And I remember when my daughter went and voted for me for Vice President.
44:36
[SPEAKER_04]: And I said to her when she left the house, look.
44:39
[SPEAKER_04]: I understand this is an important race.
44:41
[SPEAKER_04]: It was John Kerry and George Bush.
44:44
[SPEAKER_04]: By the way, I was running against Dick Cheney and John Edwards.
44:49
[SPEAKER_04]: One man shot his friend in the face.
44:51
[SPEAKER_04]: And the other guy got his photographer pregnant while his wife was dying of cancer.
44:55
[SPEAKER_04]: So I was the better choice.
44:59
[SPEAKER_04]: But I didn't have a snowballs chance in hell of winning.
45:01
[SPEAKER_04]: So my daughter goes to vote and I say, back yet, don't want you to feel, you know, any burden, because the first time she could vote, she was 18.
45:11
[SPEAKER_04]: And so when she came home, I said, I wasn't always voting.
45:15
[SPEAKER_04]: I'm so happy for you.
45:16
[SPEAKER_04]: I'm so proud of you.
45:17
[SPEAKER_04]: And she said, Mom, I know you sent me free.
45:21
[SPEAKER_04]: But I want you to know that when I voted for you, I voted for you because it was absolutely certain I was voting for someone who loved me.
45:29
[SPEAKER_05]: Wow, that's that.
45:31
[SPEAKER_05]: Look, you're one of the only people who can tell that story, because that is, that's like every parent's dream.
45:38
[SPEAKER_05]: The first time my child gets the vote, they voted for me and wanted to.
45:42
[SPEAKER_05]: That's awesome.
45:44
[SPEAKER_04]: Yeah.
45:44
[SPEAKER_04]: Well, but the other thing is, I didn't just love Becky.
45:48
[SPEAKER_04]: I loved the people of Maine.
45:52
[SPEAKER_04]: I loved the people of the United States of America.
45:54
[SPEAKER_04]: I loved their children.
45:56
[SPEAKER_04]: I, the most important people in this country can't even vote because they're too young.
46:01
[SPEAKER_04]: You don't get elected to an office to represent the people of the voter for you.
46:05
[SPEAKER_04]: You get elected when you're off the road.
46:08
[SPEAKER_04]: represent everyone, especially the people too young to vote for you.
46:12
[SPEAKER_04]: So the problem I think I learned was people don't want to vote for someone who loves them.
46:19
[SPEAKER_04]: They want to vote for some absolute poll who's going to rip on the shreds and take away their health care and some guy put some guy put on one of my posts today.
46:34
[SPEAKER_04]: Um, you're just a radical socialist and I said, is, are those the talking points your old guard friends gave you?
46:41
[SPEAKER_04]: Like, you, you, you sir, I would like to set you free to vote against your own better interest, but right now you're screwing it up for the rest of us, so I can't let you.
46:50
[SPEAKER_04]: Because you voting against your better interest is voting against my better interest.
46:54
[SPEAKER_04]: So right now we need a candidate that is going to be there for the people.
47:00
[SPEAKER_04]: And yeah,
47:02
[SPEAKER_05]: Because that isn't the question I had for it, because look, you know, a platter went down and there gonna be a lot of people, you know, running around with this scalp, uh, some, some believing rightly so, some feeling, feeling wrong.
47:13
[SPEAKER_05]: But for me, it's not about platter, it's about the message.
47:16
[SPEAKER_05]: And my fear is that this kills that momentum of, of government that needs to do things, of creating a safety net, of loving thy neighbor as thyself, you know, that kind of Christian nation stuff that they keep telling us we are, but we never do.
47:31
[SPEAKER_04]: you know feeding the hungry caring for the sick you know all that stuff that's in the book but they kind of gets cut left on the cutting room floor so does the message die here do you think I hope not it won't die if Troy is the candidate I don't think it'll die if Shanna Bellows is the candidate it won't be as strongly upheld people have thrown around that maybe
47:56
[SPEAKER_04]: Maybe Shelley Pingray, who's the first district Congresswoman and has been there for, I don't know, maybe 20 years, I mean, she's been in that seat for a long time.
48:07
[SPEAKER_04]: That maybe she would be great as senator, I think she would be great as senator, but I don't think she's going to move.
48:13
[SPEAKER_04]: I see Troy as the solution to this problem.
48:19
[SPEAKER_04]: Bernie loves them.
48:20
[SPEAKER_04]: I love them.
48:21
[SPEAKER_04]: I don't know if you can get too better endorsements, but I doubt it.
48:25
[SPEAKER_04]: I would want to, to other endorsements.
48:27
[SPEAKER_04]: There you go.
48:28
[SPEAKER_04]: Chuck Schumer won't love him.
48:30
[SPEAKER_04]: That's another endorsement.
48:32
[SPEAKER_04]: And he's a good man who cares and knows that, you know, somewhere down the road, everybody needs a labor union, everybody, no matter what job you're doing, you need a labor union.
48:46
[SPEAKER_04]: I can't speak for him.
48:47
[SPEAKER_04]: I'm not on his campaign, but these are the things I believe.
48:50
[SPEAKER_04]: He knows that we got to get rid of fossil fuels.
48:52
[SPEAKER_04]: I can't take this frigging heat much longer.
48:55
[SPEAKER_04]: We got to get renewables.
48:58
[SPEAKER_04]: and he knows that everybody in the country needs healthcare and it shouldn't be a question.
49:03
[SPEAKER_04]: And so he knows those things.
49:06
[SPEAKER_04]: And that's what Grand Platter knew.
49:08
[SPEAKER_04]: It was just the Grand Platter was so...
49:12
[SPEAKER_04]: He... he was so char...
49:15
[SPEAKER_04]: I'm sure so charming.
49:17
[SPEAKER_04]: I think the reason I say he's got to self-destruct button, and I'm not in dieting him.
49:21
[SPEAKER_04]: I'm not saying he did it or he didn't do it.
49:23
[SPEAKER_04]: I'm certainly not saying he didn't do it, right?
49:26
[SPEAKER_04]: I mean, the B2 movement, I have a friend who called me two-moment, the Thanos of the 21st century, because it took out half the man, right?
49:35
[SPEAKER_04]: The B2 movement was the B2 movement because so many men have attacked women.
49:40
[SPEAKER_04]: So many men have made us miserable in our workplace or our being out in public.
49:47
[SPEAKER_04]: But all I know is if he did it or if he didn't do it, his message was what the people of Maine voted for and his message must move forward.
49:56
[SPEAKER_05]: There it is right there.
49:57
[SPEAKER_05]: That's the hope we'll sing.
49:59
[SPEAKER_05]: We'll see how this plays out and we'll with the forces of evil when I always pat, I appreciate your input and the thoughts and great seeing you again.
50:08
[SPEAKER_05]: Wonderful to see you, take care.
50:10
[SPEAKER_05]: my good friend Pat and the Marsha.
50:11
[SPEAKER_05]: I want to hear your thoughts.
50:13
[SPEAKER_05]: Do you think that the message dies or could this actually be saying, look, the system worked?
50:18
[SPEAKER_05]: We got rid of somebody who maybe shouldn't have been there and maybe the guy who should have been or the person who should have been, maybe the message continues.
50:27
[SPEAKER_05]: I want to hear your thoughts.
50:28
[SPEAKER_05]: Rick at the ricksmithshow.com.
50:29
[SPEAKER_05]: Right back.
50:29
[SPEAKER_05]: It's a run.
50:36
[SPEAKER_05]: I'm Rick Smith, and this is Labor History in 2.
50:40
[SPEAKER_05]: On this day in Labor History, the year was 1902, a powerful gas and dust explosion occurred in the rolling mill mine in John's town, Pennsylvania.
50:50
[SPEAKER_05]: John's town was rich in coal resources.
50:53
[SPEAKER_05]: The coal industry in Cambria County gradually grew thanks to the rise of the industry in the region.
50:59
[SPEAKER_05]: The first large-scale mining in Cambria County occurred in 1856 when the newly formed Cambria iron company opened the rolling mill mine.
51:08
[SPEAKER_05]: Most of the miners who were killed were recent immigrants from Central and Eastern Europe.
51:13
[SPEAKER_05]: 110 miners were killed in the explosion.
51:16
[SPEAKER_05]: The explosion was caused by fire damp.
51:19
[SPEAKER_05]: a term used by miners to mean a mixture of methane gas.
51:23
[SPEAKER_05]: Miners working in one section of the mine were killed immediately, while many other miners were killed by after-down.
51:29
[SPEAKER_05]: And as fixating gas, that spread through the mine as the miners tried to flee to the only other exit from the mine.
51:36
[SPEAKER_05]: The mine reopened on July 14th.
51:39
[SPEAKER_05]: However, the disaster devastated the immigrant community in
51:47
[SPEAKER_05]: The Rolling Mill Mine continued to operate until 1931.
51:51
[SPEAKER_05]: In the mines latter years, it was part of the Bethlehem mines corporation.
51:56
[SPEAKER_05]: The Rolling Mill Mine disaster still ranks as one of the deadliest mining accidents in the history of mining in this country.
52:04
[SPEAKER_05]: There are still mind disasters to this day.
52:06
[SPEAKER_05]: In March of 2015, there was a deadly mine collapse at the Murray Energy Colmine in Marshall County, West Virginia.
52:14
[SPEAKER_05]: Thus, we remember that all workers deserve to work in a safe environment.
52:18
[SPEAKER_06]: A boat, a boat, a boat, a boat, a boat, a boat, a boat, a boat, a boat, a boat, a boat, a boat, a boat, a boat, a boat, a boat, a boat, a boat, a boat, a boat, a boat, a boat, a boat, a boat, a boat, a boat, a boat, a boat, a boat, a boat, a boat, a boat, a boat, a boat, a boat, a boat, a boat, a boat, a boat, a boat, a boat, a boat, a boat, a boat, a boat, a boat, a boat, a boat, a boat, a boat, a boat, a boat, a boat, a boat, a boat
52:39
[SPEAKER_07]: We were listening to the Riggs Men's show.
52:41
[SPEAKER_07]: We're working people, come to talk.
52:47
[SPEAKER_05]: Showed my last defense of this, because look, I got a lot of people.
52:51
[SPEAKER_05]: Are you defended, Grand Blattnery?
52:53
[SPEAKER_05]: Yeah, yeah, I defended a personality present of the vote.
52:59
[SPEAKER_05]: But as I've said, I don't believe in heroes.
53:01
[SPEAKER_05]: I don't believe in saviors.
53:04
[SPEAKER_05]: I believe in the message.
53:06
[SPEAKER_05]: And what platters message was this stuff that I've been talking about for for more than two decades.
53:11
[SPEAKER_05]: Not fighting the oligarchy, fighting a rigged system that benefits the the Uber elites.
53:18
[SPEAKER_05]: The benefits corporate America and not we the working people.
53:21
[SPEAKER_05]: I've been saying that for years and I hope that message isn't lost.
53:26
[SPEAKER_05]: We need to build a working class movement.
53:28
[SPEAKER_05]: That was a center to his campaign.
53:32
[SPEAKER_05]: framed his entire campaign as a grassroots movement, a working class movement called for unions, called for local organizing stuff again, 100% on board with, wanted Medicare for All or Universal Health Care, pushed for a guaranteed health care system so that working people get a shot at getting ahead.
53:56
[SPEAKER_05]: His word.
54:01
[SPEAKER_05]: No one's coming to save us, and this is to my central point, there are no saviors.
54:06
[SPEAKER_05]: He even said it himself.
54:08
[SPEAKER_05]: There's no one coming to save us.
54:10
[SPEAKER_05]: We have to be our saviors.
54:14
[SPEAKER_05]: These are core messages, taxing the wealthy, taxing wealth over wages.
54:20
[SPEAKER_05]: How come we tax wages higher than we tax gambling on Wall Street?
54:28
[SPEAKER_05]: He wanted to overturn citizen United, 100% on board, restored, wants to restore congressional war powers, 100% on board, holding corporations accountable, 100% on board, centering poverty and economic dignity so that no one who works for a living should ever live in poverty, make economic security a moral and political priority.
54:53
[SPEAKER_05]: All things I'm 100% on board with,
54:59
[SPEAKER_05]: That message repeatedly said him apart from Susan Collins.
55:05
[SPEAKER_05]: So whomever is the next person to step into those shoes?
55:09
[SPEAKER_05]: And we won't know if I guess for a couple of days or for a bit.
55:13
[SPEAKER_05]: But it's got to be about the message.
55:15
[SPEAKER_05]: It's got to be about how are you going to make people's lives better?
55:18
[SPEAKER_05]: And yes, they're running in the state of man.
55:21
[SPEAKER_05]: But in the US Senate, you have a vote to make everyone's life better.
55:26
[SPEAKER_05]: And that's what I want.
55:27
[SPEAKER_05]: I want someone who's going to support strong, robust, powerful labor unions.
55:33
[SPEAKER_05]: Why?
55:34
[SPEAKER_05]: Because it's the only balance of power with corporate power.
55:40
[SPEAKER_05]: And I want somebody who's going to tell the truth, can understand what it's like to, to, I don't know, pump their own gas and realize, oh my gosh, the freedom fuel that I'm buying is still more expensive than it was before the war.
55:56
[SPEAKER_05]: and get politicians to stop lying to us, for instance, this is one of those things that caught my attention.
56:03
[SPEAKER_05]: Adam Smith, the representative from Washington, I've had on his Facebook page, this clip, and I gotta tell you, it's one of those things that I,
56:14
[SPEAKER_05]: I love this back and forth.
56:16
[SPEAKER_05]: The person questioning him is Virginia Fox.
56:19
[SPEAKER_05]: She's a Congresswoman from North Carolina's fifth congressional district, a Republican.
56:24
[SPEAKER_05]: She's chair of the House Rules Committee.
56:27
[SPEAKER_05]: And she's so certain, so very certain she knows.
56:32
[SPEAKER_05]: Much like every conservative I've ever met is so certain that they know.
56:37
[SPEAKER_05]: But here's Virginia Fox.
56:42
[SPEAKER_03]: in the history of this country from, I think, John F. Kennedy, when we cut taxes, revenues go up.
56:50
[SPEAKER_03]: That's completely false.
56:52
[SPEAKER_02]: And there's no, no, it's completely false.
56:54
[SPEAKER_02]: Look, it doesn't go down by as much as you would have expected it to.
56:59
[SPEAKER_02]: But it's simply, I heard that argument over and over again, and it simply doesn't play out.
57:03
[SPEAKER_02]: We cut taxes in 2001, okay?
57:07
[SPEAKER_02]: Significantly.
57:09
[SPEAKER_02]: And yes, as the overall growth, I mean, it grows just in general, even if you didn't do anything.
57:15
[SPEAKER_02]: But it grew by less than it would ever had cut taxes.
57:18
[SPEAKER_02]: If cutting taxes reduced, or sorry, increased revenue, then the most effective tax rate would be zero.
57:24
[SPEAKER_02]: And we would have the easiest job in the world.
57:26
[SPEAKER_02]: Okay, you can't tell me the cutting taxes increases revenue because it doesn't.
57:31
[SPEAKER_05]: Because it doesn't.
57:32
[SPEAKER_05]: And this is one of those things that I've tried to tell my red hat friends, because they believe it.
57:37
[SPEAKER_05]: They're grover-norquist people say it.
57:38
[SPEAKER_05]: They said it does.
57:39
[SPEAKER_05]: It must.
57:40
[SPEAKER_05]: It must.
57:42
[SPEAKER_05]: I want people in the halls of power who are going to be like that guy and call and call and be us out.
57:49
[SPEAKER_05]: So whomever main chooses, I hope it's the right messenger with the right message.
57:56
[SPEAKER_05]: Because I understand, to me, and this is my last word on Platner, he was never our savior.
58:03
[SPEAKER_05]: He was a guy who delivered the lines that were important, and I believe would have voted for policies that would make our lives better.
58:14
[SPEAKER_05]: As I've said, I don't care about people's personal lives.
58:16
[SPEAKER_05]: If what he did, if what he's accused of, he did, there is a process for that.
58:26
[SPEAKER_05]: But this idea that we're going to take people down on accusation, that's a problem for me.
58:34
[SPEAKER_05]: Now, the other part of this is, I gotta tell you, I don't know who ran his campaign that didn't see this coming.
58:43
[SPEAKER_05]: And it's interesting that you would throw yourself into the middle of a fishball, and I think Pat was right, I think he himself is broken, but it's interesting to me
58:57
[SPEAKER_05]: and not, not have done just a little bit of their own apple research.
59:03
[SPEAKER_05]: Just my thoughts, I want to hear yours.
59:05
[SPEAKER_05]: What do you make of all of this mess?
59:07
[SPEAKER_05]: And do you hope like I do?
59:09
[SPEAKER_05]: That it really is about how are we going to make the lives of working people better?
59:14
[SPEAKER_05]: That it's not about one person, it's not about a cult of personality, it's not about any of that.
59:18
[SPEAKER_05]: The Republicans have the corner on that.
59:24
[SPEAKER_05]: What policies should we be moving?
59:26
[SPEAKER_05]: How do we make lives better?
59:28
[SPEAKER_05]: You are as mine, our children.
59:30
[SPEAKER_05]: That's what I want to hear.
59:31
[SPEAKER_05]: Email me, ricketerricksmithshow.com.
59:33
[SPEAKER_05]: Miss any portion of the program grab the podcast and as always, thanks so much for being here.
59:38
[SPEAKER_05]: We'll see you back here next time.
59:54
[SPEAKER_07]: Until next time, this has been The Rick Smith Show.
59:57
[SPEAKER_07]: We're working people, come to talk.