Latest / The Rick Smith Show / The Rick Smith Show 10-19-2026

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The Rick Smith Show 10-19-2026 · The Rick Smith Show

0:00
[SPEAKER_01]: It's time for the Rick Smith show.
0:02
[SPEAKER_06]: Now, here is the voice of a working class, Rick Smith.
0:15
[SPEAKER_08]: And welcome, brothers, sisters working class heroes.
0:20
[SPEAKER_08]: This is the RixMet Show.
0:22
[SPEAKER_08]: Thanks so much for being here.
0:24
[SPEAKER_08]: Today I'll the big program lots to get to.
0:26
[SPEAKER_08]: Lots to talk about 18 days until Election Day.
0:32
[SPEAKER_08]: Got to remember, got to get out, got to vote, make sure you're registered, make sure you got a plan, make sure you got a ride, make sure you know what your place is, make sure that if something happens, you know who you're going to call where you're going to go vote 411.org, I'll place to get some information, but understand, today's one of those days where we have to start talking about
0:53
[SPEAKER_08]: What issues are we looking at?
0:54
[SPEAKER_08]: And look, I fair days work for a fair days pay.
0:57
[SPEAKER_08]: One of those things that should be right at the very top of every voter's mind, who is going to be out there fighting for affordability, fighting for good wages now.
1:06
[SPEAKER_08]: As I've been saying, look, prices aren't going to come down.
1:09
[SPEAKER_08]: They're not going to fall.
1:11
[SPEAKER_08]: Or at least they're not going to fall enough that our lives are going to get better.
1:15
[SPEAKER_08]: What has to happen is wages have to go up.
1:17
[SPEAKER_08]: Our standard, our living has to get better.
1:21
[SPEAKER_08]: And that comes from not begging corporate America.
1:24
[SPEAKER_08]: Oh, please lower your prices.
1:25
[SPEAKER_08]: And that comes from, well, you know, not starting stupid wars.
1:29
[SPEAKER_08]: Let's go there first and stopping the idiocy of, of cutting taxes for the very wealthy.
1:36
[SPEAKER_08]: It seemed like a simple thing to be, to be doing.
1:40
[SPEAKER_08]: Don't give people who already have everything more.
1:45
[SPEAKER_08]: But these midterms are quickly coming in luck.
1:48
[SPEAKER_08]: The resound reality isn't.
1:49
[SPEAKER_08]: I was just reading a piece over an Axios that most voters right now are out there with sand.
1:56
[SPEAKER_08]: Uh, that, you know, we're dis, we as voters, we as, as the voting populists, uh, how did they put it, uh, disgruntled, dizzy and down on the man in the White House, and you go, yeah, because some people bought what he was selling.
2:13
[SPEAKER_08]: Some people were dumb enough to fall for the con.
2:17
[SPEAKER_08]: And understand, I've been saying Donald Trump is a con man through and through.
2:22
[SPEAKER_08]: He's a guy who's going to try and sell you snake oil.
2:27
[SPEAKER_08]: It's how he's made his money over the years.
2:28
[SPEAKER_08]: It's how he's kept himself wealthy while screwing everyone else.
2:32
[SPEAKER_08]: And what we're doing to our government is classic Donald Trump.
2:36
[SPEAKER_08]: It's classic pump and dump.
2:39
[SPEAKER_08]: Understand, and this is the weird part of my right-wing friends.
2:43
[SPEAKER_08]: You through any type of democrat is off in office.
2:46
[SPEAKER_08]: All you hear is about the debt, the debt and the deficit.
2:49
[SPEAKER_08]: Oh my god, the debt, it's crushing us.
2:53
[SPEAKER_08]: I don't hear that very much anymore, especially when the guy who's responsible for more than 30% of it is in the White House.
3:01
[SPEAKER_08]: And it's gonna get worse.
3:04
[SPEAKER_08]: It's interesting how when Republicans are in power, don't worry about it.
3:08
[SPEAKER_08]: We're going to spend our way out of it and then they blow up the debt and the deficits and eventually the debt and we're told, don't worry about that.
3:17
[SPEAKER_08]: Democrats will clean it up and look, the reality is it's not surprising that voters want another change.
3:29
[SPEAKER_08]: In fact, I was just looking at a poll that nearly half of voters want total upheaval on an AP North Pole, almost half what a complete total upheaval.
3:42
[SPEAKER_08]: And I got to tell you, I got to tell you, that is not that is not the sign of a sound democracy.
3:49
[SPEAKER_08]: And this was always been my fear, always been my fear.
3:53
[SPEAKER_08]: These swings of ideology without and look, it's our elected class.
3:59
[SPEAKER_08]: because they no longer fear we the voters because they know we're sufficiently divided we're in our camps we bought our hats and of course they've got the checkbook from their billionaires so republicans don't fear their base because like you know like thirty percent of them are glued to trumps behind so and he's right he could say the dumbest stuff and they would applaud he probably could shoot a couple of them
4:28
[SPEAKER_08]: and not lose any support.
4:30
[SPEAKER_08]: But it's not surprising that people are tired.
4:33
[SPEAKER_08]: People are upset people are angry.
4:35
[SPEAKER_08]: And I think Republicans are going to take take it on the well, take it more than on the chin.
4:40
[SPEAKER_08]: Come November.
4:41
[SPEAKER_08]: But 18 days, stay focused.
4:44
[SPEAKER_08]: Stay the course.
4:45
[SPEAKER_08]: Want to hear your thoughts?
4:46
[SPEAKER_08]: Rick at theworksmithshow.com right back.
4:54
[SPEAKER_08]: I'm Rick Smith, and this is Labor History Inter.
4:58
[SPEAKER_08]: On this day in Labor History, the year was 1979.
5:01
[SPEAKER_08]: That was the day that the United Nations established the idea of holding an annual world food day.
5:08
[SPEAKER_08]: The aim of the day is to bring global attention to the problem of hunger and build international solidarity to fight the problem.
5:16
[SPEAKER_08]: The first World Food Day was observed two years later.
5:20
[SPEAKER_08]: One feature of the day is a teleconference that brings together some of the world's top experts in the field of agriculture, nutrition, and human rights.
5:29
[SPEAKER_08]: Each year, a different theme is chosen for the day.
5:32
[SPEAKER_08]: For the first two years, the theme was simple.
5:34
[SPEAKER_08]: Food comes first.
5:36
[SPEAKER_08]: In 1984, the chosen theme was women in agriculture.
5:40
[SPEAKER_08]: Women were again the focus in 1998 with the theme Women Feed the World.
5:45
[SPEAKER_08]: In 1986, the day featured Fisherman and Fishing Communities.
5:50
[SPEAKER_08]: Small farmers with a theme in 1987, and in 2014, the theme was Family Farming, feeding the world, caring for the Earth.
5:59
[SPEAKER_08]: That year, the United Nations declared 2014 International Year of Family Farming, a UN report
6:09
[SPEAKER_08]: make up over 98% of farming holdings.
6:13
[SPEAKER_08]: And we're responsible for at least 56% of agricultural production.
6:18
[SPEAKER_08]: In the United States, family farmers produced 84% of all produce.
6:23
[SPEAKER_08]: The website for the 2014 World Food Day in the United States in Canada,
6:28
[SPEAKER_08]: recognize the importance of family farm workers.
6:31
[SPEAKER_08]: It's stated, quote, and yet, despite their critical importance, a large majority of family farmers are among the world's most vulnerable populations.
6:41
[SPEAKER_08]: Ironically, it's not uncommon for many of the families who produce food to actually go hungry themselves.
6:48
[SPEAKER_08]: Today, on World Food Day, take a moment and thank a farmer.
6:57
[SPEAKER_06]: Welcome back to the Rick Smith Show.
6:59
[SPEAKER_06]: Now, here is Rick Smith.
7:06
[SPEAKER_08]: So a couple of days ago, you had Mike Johnson, Speaker of the House, say that the reason that costs are high right now is directly related to the straight of her moves.
7:15
[SPEAKER_08]: This is his quote, I'm not making this up.
7:17
[SPEAKER_08]: And what he called the, the, the under resolved conflict and Iran, it's such a nice way of going, we really screwed up and open Pandora's box.
7:27
[SPEAKER_08]: He also, what's so important to say that
7:29
[SPEAKER_08]: Once it's all settled, once we've resolved the conflict prices are going to come down, it's going to be the utopia we were all promised.
7:39
[SPEAKER_08]: And here to share some thoughts on, well, how that resolution process is coming along.
7:44
[SPEAKER_08]: I've asked Andrew Miller to come share some thoughts.
7:45
[SPEAKER_08]: He's a senior fellow over at the Center for American Progress.
7:48
[SPEAKER_08]: He specializes on national security and international policy to check out their website americanprogress.org.
7:55
[SPEAKER_08]: Andrew, thanks for
7:57
[SPEAKER_07]: Thanks for having me.
7:58
[SPEAKER_07]: It's great to be on.
8:00
[SPEAKER_08]: So let's start with the simple question.
8:02
[SPEAKER_08]: How's that resolution process coming along?
8:04
[SPEAKER_08]: How are we doing with Iran?
8:05
[SPEAKER_08]: How is this, you know, is the straight open?
8:08
[SPEAKER_08]: Is it still closed?
8:10
[SPEAKER_08]: Where are we?
8:12
[SPEAKER_07]: The strait is still closed, both to Iranian traffic, but also to US Allied traffic.
8:21
[SPEAKER_07]: There had been some reporting in recent weeks that more ships were getting through.
8:26
[SPEAKER_07]: There were estimates that up to 70% of pre-war levels of oil were making it through the strait.
8:34
[SPEAKER_07]: I'm personally very skeptical of those numbers, because the way they were measuring them,
8:41
[SPEAKER_07]: was not the accepted practice and they were making certain assumptions about ships that they were able to see in satellite pictures and without knowing how much oil those ships were carrying.
8:57
[SPEAKER_07]: But in any event, I think it's clear and even those organizations that were suggesting there
9:08
[SPEAKER_07]: Iran has significantly intensified its attacks on shipping in the Strait of Hormuz once again, against both oil tankers and other types of cargo vessels, and that has led to a major reduction once more in the transit of ships through the Strait of Hormuz, and it is caused insurance rates
9:36
[SPEAKER_07]: It's not just a question of physically blocking the straight of poor moves.
9:40
[SPEAKER_07]: These are companies and they're dealing with profits and profits and costs can be passed on to the consumer and when the cost of doing business, paying insurance rates because there is a high risk that a ship could be destroyed and a ship owner is going to be out of several hundred million dollars.
10:01
[SPEAKER_07]: that is going to reflect itself in the prices Americans are paying at the pump, the prices are paying for their electricity for other important goods that are being shipped through the straight.
10:13
[SPEAKER_07]: So there doesn't appear to be any discernible strategy or theory of the case for how they're going to overcome this other than, you know, blocking Iranian vessels in a
10:29
[SPEAKER_07]: ultimately, you know, open up traffic for other golf states to ship through the straight-up or moves.
10:37
[SPEAKER_07]: So we're stuck.
10:39
[SPEAKER_07]: And we've been in the same position and Trump has increasingly desperate, which is part of the reason he struck this diesel agreement with Russia, which is just beyond comprehension.
10:52
[SPEAKER_07]: And, you know, to be clear, we'll not do anything for the
10:57
[SPEAKER_07]: You know, a large part of the problem with diesel prices is not the supply, it's the refining capacity.
11:08
[SPEAKER_07]: And some of the refining capacity is located within,
11:13
[SPEAKER_07]: within the straight of Hormuz and the Persian Gulf.
11:17
[SPEAKER_07]: And that refined diesel can't make its way out.
11:21
[SPEAKER_07]: The Russians can't make up for that lost refining capacity.
11:25
[SPEAKER_07]: And we can't make up for it either, because US oil companies have
11:30
[SPEAKER_07]: under invested in refining capacity deliberately for many years in order to maximize profits.
11:37
[SPEAKER_08]: So, I was told it was all Democrats fault.
11:39
[SPEAKER_08]: All of us, the Donald Trump said if he was president, Russia wouldn't have gone into Ukraine, he would have had to go into Iran because he would have gotten the very best deal and, oh, by the way, you know, it's Democrats who didn't didn't allow the poor oil companies, the poor victim oil companies,
11:56
[SPEAKER_08]: to build more refineries.
11:58
[SPEAKER_08]: What am I missing?
11:59
[SPEAKER_08]: It's all the Democrats fault.
12:00
[SPEAKER_08]: It's all Biden's fault.
12:01
[SPEAKER_07]: Andrew, the disgusting and repulsive irony in all of this is that as Americans consumers and consumers around the globe are either having to pay more or in some cases, having to go without.
12:19
[SPEAKER_07]: these oil companies are making it hand over fist.
12:22
[SPEAKER_07]: So their profits are accelerating and reaching and reaching extremely high levels, precisely because the price of oil and price of gas is high.
12:34
[SPEAKER_07]: So they don't need to maintain the production of high volumes of oil and gas to make a profit.
12:41
[SPEAKER_07]: This is actually a sweet spot for them in many respects.
12:44
[SPEAKER_07]: And some
12:45
[SPEAKER_08]: wouldn't this be a place where you would go, hey, you know, we're in war, we're in war with I wear I ran, the should there be some kind of, you know, war profits tax going on now?
12:56
[SPEAKER_07]: You would think so.
12:57
[SPEAKER_07]: It's, it's profit hearing.
12:59
[SPEAKER_07]: It's nothing short of that.
13:01
[SPEAKER_07]: And, you know, at moments like these, there are authorities available to the President of the United States.
13:08
[SPEAKER_07]: Trump has not been shy about using them.
13:10
[SPEAKER_07]: He's not been shy about abusing them.
13:13
[SPEAKER_07]: If he were ever to use those provisions, now would be a time where, you know,
13:17
[SPEAKER_07]: It would be appropriate to put a cap on gasoline prices on electricity prices for the American people or for the US government to provide a subsidy to defray those costs because the American people are suffering while the corporate elite are making amounts of money that are incomprehensible to most Americans.
13:41
[SPEAKER_08]: it's crazy and look yeah things are going so well and i ran i read a story that uh... we're actually thinking about dropping this moab this mother of all bombs and i ran so things are going so well and also i read something we're uh... trump made a promise not to take out any more i ran in leaders uh... which i'm like i don't know why you would make that but according to him he doesn't know who to talk to over there anymore because he's he's according to him he's killed
14:08
[SPEAKER_07]: Yeah, according to him, he's killed everyone except for the most extreme, you know, extreme figures within the Islamic Republic, which was precisely what many people had predicted.
14:20
[SPEAKER_07]: I know I wrote a piece in Foreign Affairs before the war started, suggesting that one risk is even if he succeeds in neutralizing the pre-war leadership,
14:33
[SPEAKER_07]: the people who were most likely to replace the long-time serving Iranian officials would almost certainly be more extreme in their views, would be more willing to pursue hostile policies to the United States and take risks.
14:51
[SPEAKER_07]: And unfortunately, that's exactly what's happened.
14:54
[SPEAKER_08]: Um, bro real quick because you know, I get this all the time you'll Andrew we we had to do this.
14:59
[SPEAKER_08]: This was an as an imperative and all of the pain and all that the pain at the pump and the price is going up.
15:04
[SPEAKER_08]: It's just the cost of freedom.
15:07
[SPEAKER_08]: Because I ran as you know was, you know, like five minutes from having a nuke that could wipe out, you know, half the country.
15:16
[SPEAKER_08]: Is there anything that's accurate about that statement?
15:20
[SPEAKER_07]: There is a kernel of truth in that Iran is what's theoretically closer to developing, to accumulating sufficient fissile material for a bomb that it had ever before, but that's a long leap.
15:38
[SPEAKER_07]: from having sufficient material for a nuclear device to actually having a nuclear weapon.
15:45
[SPEAKER_08]: And I can pass you the hit us.
15:47
[SPEAKER_08]: So that's exactly.
15:48
[SPEAKER_08]: Because North Korea has a, they got a nook.
15:51
[SPEAKER_08]: They just can't get it here.
15:53
[SPEAKER_07]: Exactly.
15:54
[SPEAKER_07]: The major technological challenge is creating a nuclear device that is sufficiently small that you can put it on an ICBM, you can put it on a rocket, and that's something that even established nuclear states have had difficulty with.
16:10
[SPEAKER_07]: So for Iran, a country that has not yet developed any nuclear delivery device to jump ahead to that most sophisticated device,
16:22
[SPEAKER_07]: You know, we were not looking at a time horizon of a few weeks or even a few months.
16:28
[SPEAKER_07]: I mean, a minimum, you know, we, I think we were probably a year and a half, the two years away, and you know, it's certainly conceivable that it could have been much longer than that.
16:39
[SPEAKER_07]: So, this time and space for diplomacy, for other types of non-military coercion,
16:46
[SPEAKER_07]: still existed and the Trump administration president Trump chose not to pursue it.
16:51
[SPEAKER_07]: And it's important to recognize he also deputized two people to deal with a nuclear weapons issue who have no conception of what nuclear weapons, you know, entail.
17:06
[SPEAKER_07]: I mean, they, you'll recall they were sent to Oak Ridge for a crash course over a weekend.
17:12
[SPEAKER_07]: I'm not a nuclear physicist and I will never be a nuclear physicist.
17:16
[SPEAKER_07]: I don't think I have those capabilities, even if I did, I'm not going to learn that in two days.
17:21
[SPEAKER_08]: Oh, come on.
17:22
[SPEAKER_08]: You don't give yourself enough credit.
17:23
[SPEAKER_08]: You could watch a YouTube video and do your own research.
17:27
[SPEAKER_08]: You could figure it out because look, you know, we've now got, you know, all kinds of verogogists and all kinds of nuclear scientists.
17:34
[SPEAKER_08]: So we got all these people though.
17:36
[SPEAKER_08]: They watch a video.
17:37
[SPEAKER_08]: They know it all.
17:37
[SPEAKER_07]: Yeah, yeah, it's, yeah, I mean, maybe just to use AI and they can come up with the, you know, the formula and there we, you know, and there, there you go, but I mean, this is, it's an issue we struggled with during, you know, the Biden administration because, um, it,
17:54
[SPEAKER_07]: There was a genuine concern about Iran's ability to stockpile highly enriched uranium, which we should remember is a direct result of the Trump administration decision to withdraw from the JCPOA.
18:07
[SPEAKER_08]: I was just going to ask you about that because we had a deal.
18:11
[SPEAKER_08]: That deal would have, would, let me ask the, in a question form.
18:16
[SPEAKER_08]: And would that deal have kept us from worrying about there being a new court?
18:20
[SPEAKER_08]: Or would it have been Trump just going, hey, I needed a reason or distraction?
18:24
[SPEAKER_08]: I wanted to go blow some stuff up.
18:26
[SPEAKER_08]: This was convenient.
18:26
[SPEAKER_08]: Because that's all that seems to me.
18:28
[SPEAKER_08]: There doesn't seem to be a cogent explanation on why you would do what no other president wasn't dumb enough to do.
18:36
[SPEAKER_07]: Under the GCPOA, we had a minimum one-year breakout time.
18:40
[SPEAKER_07]: And breakout time is the time it would take a run to enrich enough nuclear material for a single bomb.
18:49
[SPEAKER_07]: And so we would have a year in which we could detect any Iranian moves to break the agreement, even before we had the consider the possibility of weaponization.
19:01
[SPEAKER_07]: After Trump withdrew,
19:03
[SPEAKER_07]: Iran got, you know, within, you know, in theory a few weeks of being able to have a sufficient stock pile of highly enriched uranium at the at the 90% level, which is the weapon is the weaponized level.
19:21
[SPEAKER_07]: to feel at least one, if not many nuclear weapons.
19:25
[SPEAKER_07]: And that is the failure, was brought upon ourselves.
19:27
[SPEAKER_07]: We had time, and time is the most precious commodity, and he flushed it down the toilet.
19:36
[SPEAKER_07]: And he was left dealing with this mess, and he doubled down with the strikes on Iran
19:42
[SPEAKER_07]: You know, in the summer of 2025 claiming he had obliterated the program and then year later he said, well, we have to less than a year later, we have to go back in because, you know, Iran is a danger and they're going to develop a nuclear weapon, but I thought.
19:57
[SPEAKER_07]: That nuclear program was destroyed.
19:59
[SPEAKER_07]: Oh, they reconstituted it and all of it.
20:02
[SPEAKER_07]: I mean, it's live built on lie, misinformation, built on misinformation.
20:08
[SPEAKER_07]: It's impossible to to derive a coherent and faithful story from all of this.
20:15
[SPEAKER_07]: Yeah, you're your impulse.
20:17
[SPEAKER_08]: But let me ask you this, because we live through the first administration where there was a lot of talk about coordination with Russia and them being involved in the 2016 election and some people were saying collusion, I was saying that it was just coordination, these are people that work together all the time, their buddies already, they were just helping each other to get along.
20:40
[SPEAKER_08]: And it seems like especially the last week,
20:43
[SPEAKER_08]: That Trump has done everything he can do to bend over backwards, the help Putin, this oil deal is insane.
20:51
[SPEAKER_08]: And then we find out, you mentioned satellites before, evidently on that day, the weather was good.
20:56
[SPEAKER_08]: Because we've now evidently pulled satellite data from from the Ukrainians, which has caused them to get hit again in the energy sector.
21:06
[SPEAKER_08]: And there's part of me that goes, if I'm Zelensky,
21:13
[SPEAKER_07]: No, it's the only thing that seems to matter and to ask Zelensky to refrain from targeting Russian energy production, which is their primary source of foreign currency, the only thing that is keeping the Russian economy functioning at even a minimal level, at the same time that, you know, Putin is
21:37
[SPEAKER_07]: not only targeting the Ukrainian energy facilities but increasingly targeting civilian locations is mind-boggling.
21:48
[SPEAKER_07]: I don't know how you can ask.
21:49
[SPEAKER_07]: I was in Europe last week for for meetings with some European officials and in multiple capitals and they were all talking about this.
21:56
[SPEAKER_07]: The cutoff of Starlink and of the Intel which is indispensable to Ukrainian
22:05
[SPEAKER_07]: What side are we on here, and the Ukrainians who are trying to preserve their territorial integrity or the Russians who have invaded Ukraine in two separate occasions and are engaged in hybrid warfare against NATO allies?
22:20
[SPEAKER_07]: And it's only a matter of time until they're going to take similar tactics to, if not the United States directly,
22:30
[SPEAKER_07]: to some of our Western European countries that are near and dear to people's hearts.
22:35
[SPEAKER_08]: And here's the weird part.
22:36
[SPEAKER_08]: It's not even on a lot of diesel that, well, I guess from reports, I've this first 300,000 metric tons is about 14 hours of our consumption.
22:46
[SPEAKER_08]: So it's not even a lot but we're giving them a whole bunch of money.
22:51
[SPEAKER_08]: And also, according to Trump and he helped me with this here, he said it's not coming here.
22:56
[SPEAKER_08]: It's going to go into the
22:59
[SPEAKER_08]: So are we, are we taking sanctions off of Russia for the entire world or just for ourselves until April of 27th?
23:08
[SPEAKER_07]: I mean, it does appear that, you know, it does appear that the sanctions are being suspended writ large and not just for the United States that the idea is to get as much Russian, you know, Russian fossil fuels into the international market as possible and the hope that it will depress prices, but as you noted not only is it not enough the power the United States, it's not enough to have an appreciable effect on the price of
23:37
[SPEAKER_07]: any of the major petroleum products.
23:41
[SPEAKER_07]: So it's simply not going to do what it's intended to achieve.
23:48
[SPEAKER_07]: And you also have to wonder, what isn't being disclosed about these deals.
23:54
[SPEAKER_07]: There were some discussions of it was in conversations with folks.
24:00
[SPEAKER_07]: that, you know, Putin was considering offering ownership stakes in some of the Russian oil companies to Trump family, to Trump friends.
24:12
[SPEAKER_07]: I don't think any of us would be surprised if that came the past.
24:15
[SPEAKER_08]: So that would make sense.
24:18
[SPEAKER_08]: So the last question I've got for you, Andrews, because you look, I'm not a national security expert.
24:22
[SPEAKER_08]: I'm not well-versed in international affairs,
24:27
[SPEAKER_08]: And I understand Trump is his art of the deal, especially his throw a bunch of you know what at the wall and see what sticks.
24:35
[SPEAKER_08]: Is there any, can you make any type of rational argument that there's, there's five D chess being played here that none of us are seeing other than it seems like we're handing over Ukraine to a dictator in Russia.
24:51
[SPEAKER_08]: We're just expanding resources in Iran
24:57
[SPEAKER_08]: Are we missing?
24:58
[SPEAKER_08]: Am I missing anything?
25:00
[SPEAKER_07]: The only thing that has a semblance of coherence is Trump believes that Iran may feel compelled or may be incentivized to cut a deal right before the elections because Iran's leverage will be greatest at that point after the midterms take place and the Trump and the Republicans don't
25:28
[SPEAKER_07]: Iranian efforts to drive up prices will continue to hurt Americans, but the Republicans will not be subjected to popular review and popular consent.
25:42
[SPEAKER_07]: So it may be trying to plan to demonstrate to the Iranians that you're not going to get a better deal than you are now.
25:51
[SPEAKER_07]: It's going to get worse afterwards, so you might as well cut it.
25:58
[SPEAKER_07]: in the same way that the information about Russian diesel production doesn't add up and doesn't actually is not tantamount to what would be required to provide relief.
26:11
[SPEAKER_07]: It just stretches, it strains crudulity to argue that any of these measures are going to affect the calculus
26:19
[SPEAKER_07]: of an Iranian regime that believes it has the upper hand and still believes that the United States wants to oust it.
26:25
[SPEAKER_07]: So the combination of those two things, having the advances they can press and, you know, fearing that if they show weakness, it may invite the United States to eliminate the regime, it is going to incentivize
26:39
[SPEAKER_07]: Iranian conduct that is more hostile.
26:42
[SPEAKER_07]: And certainly make them less willing to make concessions or cut a deal that would be remotely favorable to the American public.
26:50
[SPEAKER_07]: So he set up a situation that is all in it.
26:55
[SPEAKER_07]: It's tempting to say it was designed to punish the American people.
27:00
[SPEAKER_08]: No, look, I can see his, you know, he wanted the loose because there, there's no victory in my view.
27:06
[SPEAKER_08]: There was no upside to doing this.
27:08
[SPEAKER_08]: It just seems either he was really stupid or his advisors, you know, didn't bother to tell him.
27:15
[SPEAKER_08]: He surrounded himself with yes man and sick of fats and patronage, patronage hires and this is what you get.
27:21
[SPEAKER_08]: But Andrew, I appreciate the time, great stuff.
27:24
[SPEAKER_08]: I'd like to have you come back because this isn't going to go away and keep us up to date on what's going on.
27:30
[SPEAKER_07]: I'd love to come back.
27:31
[SPEAKER_07]: Thanks very much.
27:32
[SPEAKER_07]: I appreciate it, Rick.
27:32
[SPEAKER_08]: Thanks so much, Andrew Miller.
27:34
[SPEAKER_08]: Senior fellow there at the Center for American Progress.
27:36
[SPEAKER_08]: His specialty is National Security International Policy.
27:39
[SPEAKER_08]: Check out their work over at americanprogress.org.
27:41
[SPEAKER_08]: Want to hear your thoughts?
27:43
[SPEAKER_08]: You support the grand Trump deal.
27:45
[SPEAKER_08]: Mr. Art of the Deal.
27:47
[SPEAKER_08]: And how's that working for you at the pub?
27:49
[SPEAKER_08]: Want to hear it, Rick at therixmithshow.com, right back.
28:00
[SPEAKER_08]: I'm Rick Smith, and this is Labor History in 2.
28:03
[SPEAKER_05]: On this day in Labor History, the year was 1917.
28:07
[SPEAKER_08]: That was the day civil rights leader, Fanny Lou Hamer, was born in Montgomery County, Mississippi.
28:13
[SPEAKER_08]: She was the youngest of 20 children.
28:15
[SPEAKER_08]: Her parents were sharecroppers, and she began working in the fields at the age of six.
28:20
[SPEAKER_08]: By the age of 12, Fanny had to drop out of school to sharecropped to meet the needs of her family.
28:26
[SPEAKER_08]: marrying in 1944, she and her husband continued to work as sharecroppers on a plantation near ruleville.
28:33
[SPEAKER_08]: After decades of abject poverty and southern political repression, Fanny Lou Hamer joined up with voter registration activists in 1962.
28:42
[SPEAKER_08]: When she and 17 others traveled to Indian Ola to register, Fanny was fired from her job and driven from the plantation she had worked at for decades.
28:52
[SPEAKER_08]: She began working with the student non-violent coordinating committee and played a central role in organizing freedom summer.
28:59
[SPEAKER_08]: In a short time, Fanny was repeatedly arrested, beaten, and shot at for her activism.
29:05
[SPEAKER_08]: She suffered kidney damage after police beat her near to death in a winona Mississippi jail as she traveled home from a literacy workshop.
29:14
[SPEAKER_08]: By 1964, she helped to found the Mississippi Freedom Democratic Party, which challenged the all-white delegation to the Democratic Convention.
29:23
[SPEAKER_08]: President Lyndon Johnson was so threatened by live testimony she was giving before the conventions credential committee.
29:29
[SPEAKER_08]: that he organized an emergency press conference to preem the broadcast.
29:33
[SPEAKER_08]: When the committee attempted a backroom deal to seat just two MFDP delegates with no voting rights, Hammer and other delegates left in disgust.
29:43
[SPEAKER_08]: Hammer continued her activism, but her life was tragically cut short in 1977 from hypertension and breast cancer.
29:50
[SPEAKER_08]: She was just 59.
29:52
[SPEAKER_08]: For more information, go to laborhistoryintu.com, like us on Facebook, follow us on Twitter
29:58
[SPEAKER_08]: Play for history into it.
30:16
[SPEAKER_00]: The high-tech profiteers of artificial intelligence are now going nuclear.
30:20
[SPEAKER_00]: Grassroots Americans did not swallow Silicon Valley's opening deceit that AI data centers would be a bonanza for local communities.
30:29
[SPEAKER_00]: And when the billionaires escalated their land, water, and power grab by assaling the opponents as luttites,
30:35
[SPEAKER_00]: People of all political stripes erupted in open rebellion against the self-serving arrogance of Musk, Bezos, Zuckerberg, and other toned-f-a-i-i-order crats.
30:46
[SPEAKER_00]: So now comes their PR on slot.
30:49
[SPEAKER_00]: A-i's money powers desperate to control government policy, the media message and public debate, are now dumping untold billions into mass market propaganda, portraying a-i-i somewhere between
31:05
[SPEAKER_00]: Multi-trillion dollar tech July 5th Google, for example, is producing movies and streaming a series of macro dramas, depicting AI as a source of loving comfort and human connection in an alien future.
31:18
[SPEAKER_00]: And gosh, not only do their novellas tell sweet tales of artificial love as though it's real, but Google allows viewers to, quote, interact with the AI characters.
31:29
[SPEAKER_00]: This is Jim Heiter saying, Google is my straws of deceit, assure us that the intent of their recent rush of movies about AI is merely to tell the story about this dazzling technology authentically.
31:42
[SPEAKER_00]: Authentic?
31:43
[SPEAKER_00]: I was born at night, but not last night.
31:45
[SPEAKER_00]: A trillion dollar profiteering behemoth, peddling the AI robotic future is hardly to be trusted as an unbiased source.
31:53
[SPEAKER_00]: Google's movies are pure PR propaganda,
31:57
[SPEAKER_00]: It's only profitering skiing.
32:03
[SPEAKER_06]: Welcome back to the Rick Smith Show.
32:05
[SPEAKER_06]: Now, here is Rick Smith.
32:10
[SPEAKER_08]: So the reflecting pool, saga continues.
32:14
[SPEAKER_08]: And I'm sure you saw last week that the Washington Post reported that in at least 85 places of the the lining, the the coding that they put out down failed.
32:26
[SPEAKER_08]: and look it's it's error on on the people who did it and I said when they when they did this is what happens when you have no bid contracts in backroom deals this is what patronage government looks like and this is what happens when you have non union contractors who yeah I can slap some pain out it no big deal without actually understanding the complexities of the job
32:46
[SPEAKER_08]: not surprised at all and not surprised is going to cost us a whole lot more money in the future to undo the damage that these folks did and that's why look I'm a big supporter of the union trades and I'm sure you saw last week we talked about the trades women
33:02
[SPEAKER_08]: build the nation's conference that was held down in Houston.
33:05
[SPEAKER_08]: That was an October 9th through the 11th.
33:08
[SPEAKER_08]: They had like some 6,000 tradeswoman from across the globe showed up marking the largest gathering of unionized tradeswoman in the world.
33:18
[SPEAKER_08]: with the express goal of getting access for women to the trades, opportunities for women, and equity for women in the trades.
33:25
[SPEAKER_08]: And that's why I've asked Samara Samara to come to share some thoughts with us.
33:28
[SPEAKER_08]: Samara is a journey person with smart local 285.
33:32
[SPEAKER_08]: She also sits on the leadership committee of the Ontario building and construction tradeswoman also serves on the smart union international women's committee.
33:41
[SPEAKER_08]: I don't know what she's got time to work.
33:47
[SPEAKER_04]: Thank you.
33:47
[SPEAKER_04]: Thank you for having me.
33:48
[SPEAKER_04]: I'm glad to be here.
33:49
[SPEAKER_08]: Wow, quite a resume.
33:51
[SPEAKER_08]: So let's get right into the big conference.
33:54
[SPEAKER_08]: Some 6,000 women from across the globe.
33:57
[SPEAKER_08]: That's got to be kind.
33:58
[SPEAKER_08]: It's got to be kind of impressive.
34:00
[SPEAKER_04]: It is.
34:01
[SPEAKER_04]: It is.
34:01
[SPEAKER_04]: I've been to many conferences, but I will say that this one.
34:05
[SPEAKER_04]: It's the energy is unmatched.
34:08
[SPEAKER_04]: It's made of mostly rank and file, working trades people.
34:13
[SPEAKER_04]: I believe they were saying it's not only the largest conference of trades women in the world, but it's the largest conference of unionized trades people in the world.
34:24
[SPEAKER_04]: that is how large it has grown.
34:26
[SPEAKER_04]: Wow.
34:27
[SPEAKER_08]: And and look, you know, I remember, you know, because I'm a lot older than you are, where maybe you had one woman on a job, but it was not something that that was there was the norm.
34:37
[SPEAKER_08]: My son now is in an apprenticeship program and it's the norm.
34:39
[SPEAKER_08]: And that's a good thing, I think, right?
34:42
[SPEAKER_04]: I think so too.
34:43
[SPEAKER_04]: I think so too.
34:44
[SPEAKER_04]: My.
34:45
[SPEAKER_04]: You there may be an age gap, but my story is very much the same.
34:51
[SPEAKER_04]: I went through as the only woman at my company, the only woman in all levels of my training in my classrooms.
34:59
[SPEAKER_04]: I was the only woman on site for quite a long time and now I have seen an uptick in women that are getting interested and now it's our job to keep them here to work on.
35:10
[SPEAKER_04]: the retention piece that comes along was recruiting and that's what our initiatives are all about.
35:15
[SPEAKER_08]: Do you think it's that that women haven't been interested in the past or do you think it's more that the trades are doing a much better job of actively pursuing women to get into the trades or or is it a combination of both?
35:29
[SPEAKER_04]: I was going to say I think it's a combination of both.
35:31
[SPEAKER_04]: I think that there has been a big push from government levels, schooling levels to bring light to these jobs and showcasing them as careers and not just a job that you do if you're not good at school.
35:45
[SPEAKER_04]: There's been different avenues.
35:46
[SPEAKER_08]: No, when I was in school, it was a fallback.
35:50
[SPEAKER_08]: Yeah, it was one of those things.
35:52
[SPEAKER_08]: It was like the military.
35:52
[SPEAKER_08]: It was a fallback.
35:53
[SPEAKER_08]: If you didn't go off to college, you know, we were all going to have corner offices.
35:57
[SPEAKER_08]: We were all where white shirts and thighs.
35:59
[SPEAKER_08]: It was going to be this utopia of very clean living and now we're reverting back to where we should have never gotten away from because we got a lot of work to do when I think, you know, the fact that we're bringing everybody in, it seems like an all hands on deck kind of thing.
36:13
[SPEAKER_08]: Is it good thing because we got a lot of work to do, don't we?
36:17
[SPEAKER_04]: There is a lot of work.
36:18
[SPEAKER_04]: There is a lot of work and women only make up about 11.4% of trades people in the United States and that's not tools and hands, right?
36:30
[SPEAKER_04]: Like if you're looking at the actual building trades, the number is closer to 4%.
36:35
[SPEAKER_04]: So we have to start marketing and showcasing that women can do these jobs because there is that other piece where many women have said,
36:45
[SPEAKER_04]: I could do this job.
36:46
[SPEAKER_04]: It's a second career for many women because they thought it was something out of their scope out of their capabilities.
36:54
[SPEAKER_04]: They didn't realize that many trades have many different avenues that you can go within the trade.
37:01
[SPEAKER_08]: Yeah, look, even me as an old white guy, you know, the reality is, I've gone to a lot of conferences, I've gone to a lot of union conferences where, you know, the brick layers have a display and and I learned that there are women brick layers and I'm like, I don't even want to be a brick layer because that's like real world.
37:18
[SPEAKER_08]: It's like, no, I'm not, I'm not, I'm not, I'm not watering down on the brick layers.
37:22
[SPEAKER_08]: That is an incredible job, it's, it's a skillful job, but something that I got to be honest, you know, it's, it's, it's a difficult job.
37:29
[SPEAKER_08]: And yet, you know, to my surprise, and maybe to my education.
37:32
[SPEAKER_08]: And I think, generationally, we have to have that.
37:35
[SPEAKER_08]: But I was surprised to know that there were women brick layers.
37:39
[SPEAKER_04]: Yeah, there have been many, many of double takes on site trying to figure out what's in the tool pouch, what trade am I there doing, and I have I have dealt with being the first that somebody has encountered on site, maybe what what trader you and what what's your specialty, what can you do better than me, what can you do better than me.
38:02
[SPEAKER_04]: Within sheet metal, my whole career doing residential age back installs.
38:08
[SPEAKER_04]: So I was installing age back systems in newly built homes, specifically low-rise residential homes.
38:14
[SPEAKER_04]: So I was working on large brand new projects that were upwards of 500, 600, hundreds of homes being built all cookie cutter homes.
38:26
[SPEAKER_08]: And so you're the person responsible for keeping us cool in the winter and in warm in the summer and warm in the winter.
38:33
[SPEAKER_04]: Absolutely, absolutely, HVAC.
38:35
[SPEAKER_08]: So how did you get into this?
38:38
[SPEAKER_08]: I mean, you know, because again, you know, it's not something that I, that's not something that most people are pushing their daughters into.
38:44
[SPEAKER_08]: And I, on the other hand, was very trying to push my kids into the trades because I know what good jobs they are.
38:50
[SPEAKER_08]: How did you get into it?
38:51
[SPEAKER_08]: What's your story?
38:53
[SPEAKER_04]: In that case, my story is a little bit different.
38:57
[SPEAKER_04]: It's more so a story of support from the start, both my parents and even my high school teachers were very,
39:06
[SPEAKER_04]: They were very supportive of me pursuing a trade.
39:09
[SPEAKER_04]: I took an automotive technician course in high school, and that's when the instructor introduced an old welding machine that had been donated.
39:19
[SPEAKER_04]: And I got the opportunity.
39:20
[SPEAKER_04]: I think it was about 15 minutes a class that every student got.
39:24
[SPEAKER_04]: And I was, I was very interested in it.
39:26
[SPEAKER_04]: And he said, you're picking this up really quickly.
39:30
[SPEAKER_04]: You could consider
39:31
[SPEAKER_04]: a career in the trades, it does actually pay pretty well.
39:34
[SPEAKER_04]: So I thought, okay, this is what I've been told I'm good at.
39:39
[SPEAKER_04]: I do enjoy it.
39:40
[SPEAKER_04]: This is what I'm going to do.
39:41
[SPEAKER_04]: So I went to college because I didn't know anything about apprenticeship programs.
39:54
[SPEAKER_04]: very hard to find work.
39:56
[SPEAKER_04]: So that's what led me to search for union opportunities.
40:00
[SPEAKER_04]: And I was kind of it kind of was a fork in the road.
40:03
[SPEAKER_04]: There's tons of welding opportunities within sheet metal.
40:06
[SPEAKER_04]: It just so happened that the local I went with primarily does residential installs.
40:12
[SPEAKER_04]: So while I could have taken that course I guess I kind of veered off a little bit just to see what it was going to be like and I really enjoyed it.
40:21
[SPEAKER_04]: It was like getting to do puzzles every day.
40:23
[SPEAKER_08]: No, it's awesome.
40:24
[SPEAKER_08]: No, like in my son, he comes home every day, just thrilled about son.
40:27
[SPEAKER_08]: He's learned something new.
40:28
[SPEAKER_08]: He's, he's tweaked something a little differently.
40:30
[SPEAKER_08]: It's it's really fun to watch his his development.
40:34
[SPEAKER_08]: And I got to be honest, you know, I, I think it's great that we've expanded this because I don't know if you've noticed, but we've kind of went away from it for a while, especially here in the, in the States, where all of the vote tech trades were were basically stripped out of schools.
40:48
[SPEAKER_08]: We've kind of had a brain drain.
40:50
[SPEAKER_08]: So we're
40:51
[SPEAKER_08]: to get people to build the things that we need.
40:54
[SPEAKER_08]: Our roads, our bridges, our future technology.
40:56
[SPEAKER_08]: So there's a lot of opportunities.
40:58
[SPEAKER_08]: And I'm sure you talked a lot about that in Houston during the conference.
41:01
[SPEAKER_08]: Can you walk through some of what you got out of the conference?
41:06
[SPEAKER_04]: Yes, it's a it's a great hub to network and figure out not only what's going on within the nation, but what's going on within your organization.
41:14
[SPEAKER_04]: Every every union will have their own caucus by trade.
41:18
[SPEAKER_04]: So we had 450 smart members all in one room discussing what are what are unique issues are.
41:27
[SPEAKER_04]: What kind of initiatives we have out there such as the tutors child care that was launched this year, the maternity benefit top up that was launched this year between our contractors association smakma and smart and then the be for all initiative that's come out of our committees and with that we have through our international such as our international women's committee and our be for all committee and our rise committee, which are all committees that are.
41:55
[SPEAKER_04]: just committed to getting the message out there, working on resources and initiatives that can help get new members in and keep our members here and teach them and educate them along the way.
42:07
[SPEAKER_04]: Because really that's the best advice I could give to anybody out there who's in a union or in any trade, you got a mentor, you have to get that message through to the next one.
42:19
[SPEAKER_08]: No, and the great thing about the building trades and I say this all the time, because my son, he got into one of these programs and he is learning every day and he's earning probably more than, more than I much more than I did at his edge, but a lot more than most people and he's not having to go into debt to get the education to do it.
42:38
[SPEAKER_08]: He's learning a skill, he's learning the trade and he's making a good living doing it.
42:43
[SPEAKER_08]: And I think that's a pathway forward for any kid.
42:46
[SPEAKER_08]: So what do you, what,
42:48
[SPEAKER_08]: if you could go back and tell the 18-year-old version of yourself or some 18-year-old kids standing in front of you, what's the message there?
42:56
[SPEAKER_04]: Do it now.
42:57
[SPEAKER_04]: Do it now and don't worry.
42:58
[SPEAKER_04]: You earn while you learn.
43:02
[SPEAKER_04]: you were there to learn.
43:04
[SPEAKER_04]: I started knowing nothing about sheet metal.
43:07
[SPEAKER_04]: I knew some basic hand tools and some basic power tools from taking that welding program and the programs that I had in high school, but I was only expected on day one to show up with a list of tools I was given, and that was it.
43:22
[SPEAKER_04]: I was
43:23
[SPEAKER_04]: taught the whole way through.
43:25
[SPEAKER_04]: You don't have to know anything start now.
43:27
[SPEAKER_04]: That's the one thing I regret is not coming right out of high school and going into an apprenticeship program because I could have saved a whole lot of money.
43:37
[SPEAKER_04]: Had I skipped.
43:38
[SPEAKER_04]: going to college.
43:40
[SPEAKER_08]: It all sounds great.
43:41
[SPEAKER_08]: But again, as you've said a moment ago, you were for a lot a long time, the only woman on the job.
43:47
[SPEAKER_08]: It could not have been easy.
43:48
[SPEAKER_08]: So maybe maybe attempt to delay some of the fears of people like me who have daughters who, you know, kind of fearful, kind of concerned, kind of worried, kind of overprotective, maybe of my daughters going into that kind of environment.
44:02
[SPEAKER_08]: Have you had, have you had issues, have you had problems?
44:06
[SPEAKER_04]: There have been issues.
44:08
[SPEAKER_04]: I couldn't sit here and say it's been all easy.
44:11
[SPEAKER_04]: That's for sure.
44:11
[SPEAKER_04]: And I'm sure there's going to be more challenges ahead.
44:14
[SPEAKER_04]: But the most important thing that I have to remind myself is that I'm not alone.
44:20
[SPEAKER_04]: There are many sisters that are in my corner.
44:24
[SPEAKER_04]: And I have so many brothers that are amazing allies and that are there for me and stand beside me and behind me.
44:31
[SPEAKER_04]: And
44:32
[SPEAKER_04]: And amplify my voice, so you just have to, you have to find, just like anything else, you have to find your people, and you are, and you will.
44:42
[SPEAKER_04]: We're here.
44:42
[SPEAKER_08]: Ultimately, it comes back down, at least from my, as an outsider's view of being part of a union, and, and having that mechanism to help fight that, because look, you know, there's nothing perfect.
44:54
[SPEAKER_08]: But I'll tell you, having a voice on the job, having a mechanism to solve problems on the job is a much better way of going about things than just having a boss doing what they do.
45:08
[SPEAKER_04]: Absolutely, your union is your family, those are your brothers and sisters.
45:13
[SPEAKER_04]: And that's why the beef role has come out with the I got your back campaign.
45:17
[SPEAKER_04]: It's a way that we can recognize each other on site as somebody who will have your back.
45:23
[SPEAKER_04]: So, there's...
45:25
[SPEAKER_04]: There is there is some bad, but there's a lot of good to it.
45:29
[SPEAKER_04]: And like you said, having a union to back you and to protect you to have that hiring hall list so that I could get a job.
45:36
[SPEAKER_04]: I didn't have to.
45:37
[SPEAKER_04]: It was a complete night and day experience coming out of college and searching for work on my own to joining the union and.
45:45
[SPEAKER_04]: just being placed work.
45:46
[SPEAKER_08]: Yeah, and ultimately I want to go back to as you talked about, and you showed up on the job just with a couple of tools and you learned the trade and you learned it well.
45:55
[SPEAKER_08]: I mean, it's something that it's an incredible program.
45:58
[SPEAKER_08]: And the reason I brought up the reflecting pool is any idiot with a tool can make something worse.
46:06
[SPEAKER_08]: And I look at what happened to our reflecting pool, you got a bunch of idiots out there who clearly didn't know what they were doing or what they were getting into, which is why you do need to have good training programs, why you need to have solid training programs, which I believe the building trades do better, the unionized building trades do better than anyone.
46:26
[SPEAKER_04]: absolutely absolutely many most locals have their own training center where they send all of their apprentices to go for their in school portion of their apprenticeship.
46:38
[SPEAKER_04]: I know for us it was three levels of schooling and you do three levels of night schooling and then three levels of day schooling all throughout.
46:46
[SPEAKER_04]: working as well.
46:47
[SPEAKER_08]: Yeah, and so there's a whole continual learning thing.
46:50
[SPEAKER_08]: There's all of that that goes out.
46:51
[SPEAKER_08]: So exactly.
46:52
[SPEAKER_04]: That's just to learn.
46:53
[SPEAKER_04]: That's just to get your license.
46:54
[SPEAKER_04]: They still, you can still continue your education.
46:56
[SPEAKER_04]: You can pick up welding tickets.
46:58
[SPEAKER_04]: You can, you can continue your safety training.
47:01
[SPEAKER_04]: Become a four person.
47:02
[SPEAKER_04]: There's
47:03
[SPEAKER_04]: many, many options through training that you can get in training through your union.
47:08
[SPEAKER_08]: So last question I've got for you.
47:09
[SPEAKER_08]: Coming out of the conference, you know, what's the what's the mission going forward?
47:13
[SPEAKER_08]: You did all this networking, you've done this organizing, you've gotten the lay of the groundwork.
47:18
[SPEAKER_08]: What's the final mission and how can people help get involved?
47:22
[SPEAKER_08]: What can we do?
47:23
[SPEAKER_04]: We keep the energy going, we keep we keep the messaging going, we got to keep that that spark that we get at this conference every
47:32
[SPEAKER_04]: and it's important that we don't we don't forget the work in between because we have next yes we have next year to look forward to.
47:39
[SPEAKER_04]: But what can we do to hold the door open to let more sisters in behind us?
47:44
[SPEAKER_08]: There you go.
47:44
[SPEAKER_08]: And then I got to imagine it was a fun weekend in Houston.
47:47
[SPEAKER_04]: Absolutely.
47:48
[SPEAKER_04]: Absolutely.
47:49
[SPEAKER_04]: The weather was good.
47:50
[SPEAKER_04]: The parade was amazing.
47:51
[SPEAKER_04]: There was so much energy.
47:53
[SPEAKER_04]: There was so many great speakers who told their story in front of 6,000 people.
47:59
[SPEAKER_04]: It was, it always is something to learn a lot and take a lot from.
48:05
[SPEAKER_08]: All good stuff.
48:06
[SPEAKER_08]: Samara, I appreciate taking time for us.
48:08
[SPEAKER_08]: Good on you.
48:09
[SPEAKER_08]: Keep up the fight and the great work.
48:10
[SPEAKER_08]: And I hope we'll talk to you again real soon.
48:12
[SPEAKER_08]: Thank you.
48:13
[SPEAKER_08]: Appreciate it.
48:13
[SPEAKER_08]: Thanks so much.
48:14
[SPEAKER_08]: I want to hear your thoughts of the big conference.
48:17
[SPEAKER_08]: Is this a good thing, right?
48:19
[SPEAKER_08]: For my men friends, do you want your daughters in the trades?
48:23
[SPEAKER_08]: Good jobs, man.
48:24
[SPEAKER_08]: Good wages.
48:25
[SPEAKER_08]: Good benefits.
48:26
[SPEAKER_08]: Job security.
48:27
[SPEAKER_08]: All the kind of things that that we probably would want for ourselves.
48:31
[SPEAKER_08]: I want to hear your thoughts.
48:31
[SPEAKER_08]: Rick and the ricksmithshow.com.
48:33
[SPEAKER_08]: Right back.
48:33
[SPEAKER_08]: Stick around.
48:37
[SPEAKER_02]: I'm Rick Smith, and this is Labor History in 2.
48:40
[SPEAKER_06]: On this day in Labor History, the year was 1859.
48:45
[SPEAKER_08]: That was the day that abolitionist John Brown led a raid at the Armory in Harper's Ferry in what is now West Virginia.
48:53
[SPEAKER_08]: His goal was to strike a blow toward ending slavery.
48:56
[SPEAKER_08]: John Brown was born in Connecticut, the son of a tanner.
48:59
[SPEAKER_08]: Like many sons, he took up his father's trade.
49:02
[SPEAKER_08]: He also took up his father's deep-seated belief
49:07
[SPEAKER_08]: When Brown was 12 years old, he witnessed the brutal beating of an enslaved boy.
49:12
[SPEAKER_08]: The memory of that event would shape his determination to bring down the slave system.
49:17
[SPEAKER_08]: Brown took part in the underground railroad.
49:19
[SPEAKER_08]: He became more and more convinced that the only way to end slavery was through armed resistance.
49:26
[SPEAKER_08]: In 1855, he moved to the Kansas Territory.
49:29
[SPEAKER_08]: Kansas was in the midst of a bloody fight over whether it would be admitted into the United States as a free state or a slave state, Brown joined the conflict, leading a raid that killed five pro-slavery settlers.
49:43
[SPEAKER_08]: He went on to help free a group of enslaved people in Missouri, but Brown believed that more dramatic action was needed.
49:50
[SPEAKER_08]: He led a group of 21 men on a raid against the federal armory at Harper's Fairyt.
49:55
[SPEAKER_08]: He hoped the action would inspire a slave insurrection.
49:59
[SPEAKER_08]: The men held the armory for two days, until military forces arrived led by Robert E. Lee, who defeated Brown and his followers.
50:07
[SPEAKER_08]: Brown was captured and executed for the attack on November 2nd.
50:12
[SPEAKER_01]: He captured Harpa's story with his 90 men's so true.
50:16
[SPEAKER_01]: He frightened old Virginia till she trembled through and through.
50:20
[SPEAKER_01]: They hanged him for a traitor.
50:22
[SPEAKER_01]: They hate themselves, the traitor grew.
50:24
[SPEAKER_01]: His soul goes.
50:25
[SPEAKER_08]: Labor history in two brought to you by the Illinois Labor History Society and the Rick Smith Ship.
50:29
[SPEAKER_08]: For more information, go to laborhistoryinter.com like us on Facebook and follow us on the Twitter's at Labor History in two.
50:40
[SPEAKER_06]: You're listening to the Rick Smith show.
50:42
[SPEAKER_06]: We're working people, come to talk.
50:44
[SPEAKER_08]: You think about the reflecting pool for a second?
50:52
[SPEAKER_08]: And I got to go back to that, because it's really infuriating.
50:55
[SPEAKER_08]: The millions of dollars are that we spent, because it was our money.
51:00
[SPEAKER_08]: It was taxpayer dollars that went into this.
51:03
[SPEAKER_08]: the millions of dollars we spent to get the kind of halfway job that you knew you were going to get and this is why the bidding process is in place this is why you have the kind of protections and the oversight and all of that in place to ensure that your buddy doesn't do a halfway job.
51:22
[SPEAKER_08]: more than 85 places of failure.
51:25
[SPEAKER_08]: I mean, I think you could have just got, you know, a couple of guys, you know, at a home Depot and said, here's a bucket of paint, go to work, and gotten a better job out of what, what we got for millions of dollars.
51:38
[SPEAKER_08]: I think just a couple of beers on a weekend, you'd have gotten guys to do a better job than this.
51:43
[SPEAKER_08]: And in understand, it's gonna cost us more in the long run, we're gonna pay for it.
51:48
[SPEAKER_08]: And that's why I think, you know, people like Samara and my building trades friends, why it's so important to have that kind of high trained high skilled, you know, that industry standard that they set, not the fastest cheapest, most profitable for the boss.
52:06
[SPEAKER_08]: but the people who actually know what they're doing.
52:08
[SPEAKER_08]: And look, my union brothers and sisters, they make it good living.
52:12
[SPEAKER_08]: Now, they do get paid more than the folks and the shoemakers there that slapped a little pain on our reflecting pool.
52:19
[SPEAKER_08]: You know they do, but they're worth it.
52:22
[SPEAKER_08]: And I gotta tell you, this is another one of those learning experiences.
52:27
[SPEAKER_08]: And I hope we, I hope we come up with.
52:30
[SPEAKER_08]: I really do.
52:31
[SPEAKER_08]: Ah, no, look, we're, uh, what, what, 18 days, 18 days?
52:35
[SPEAKER_08]: It's a little action day.
52:37
[SPEAKER_08]: I hope everyone's got their plan in place.
52:39
[SPEAKER_08]: I hope, uh, everyone's thinking about what, uh, what they're going to do.
52:43
[SPEAKER_08]: How they're going to get to where they're going to going.
52:45
[SPEAKER_08]: I hope they've checked their voter registration.
52:49
[SPEAKER_08]: make a plan, because it's kind of important.
52:53
[SPEAKER_08]: Now what we're finding out is, I love these stories that tell us, you know, this is going to be the most expensive mid-term in history.
53:02
[SPEAKER_08]: And you go, yeah, they generally are.
53:05
[SPEAKER_08]: Every one of these elections that our billionaire friends can continue to
53:08
[SPEAKER_08]: To fund so that they can hold on to power and keep control.
53:12
[SPEAKER_08]: Yeah, I'm going to be expensive.
53:13
[SPEAKER_08]: I'm going to dig deep in fact Elon.
53:16
[SPEAKER_08]: Oh, there.
53:16
[SPEAKER_08]: There was a big money bomb.
53:17
[SPEAKER_08]: They said that hit taxes and Evidently Elon must donate it $158 million to the Senate leadership fund in the third quarter alone The reporting says the vast majority of that To the Senate GOP super PAC
53:39
[SPEAKER_08]: Um, I've definitely musk has made tube giant contributions.
53:43
[SPEAKER_08]: Now, understand, um, I think musk has got some radical self interest in there, because he's building the, he's building muskville.
53:50
[SPEAKER_08]: You know, it's going to be a company town again.
53:53
[SPEAKER_08]: We're going to make that group.
53:54
[SPEAKER_08]: We're making that great again.
53:57
[SPEAKER_08]: So am I surprised?
53:58
[SPEAKER_08]: No.
54:00
[SPEAKER_08]: He wants to keep it.
54:02
[SPEAKER_08]: Well, the Wild West for him, so that he can control whatever he wants.
54:06
[SPEAKER_08]: Now what's funny is they're already planning to lose taxes.
54:11
[SPEAKER_08]: A lot of the Republican operatives, a lot of the scuddle has kind of been, yeah, we're kind of losing Texas and the story that I love the most, CNBC came out with a story that it's basically saying, Trump's going to blame Chuck Rournan and Carl Rove.
54:30
[SPEAKER_08]: Yeah, we're pulling Carl Rove out of this because, you know, the reality is Trump
54:41
[SPEAKER_08]: and an understand had a John Cronin bend the the senator I don't know that the incumbent loses I don't know but compact and is flawed from top to bottom is probably the weakest of of all the possible candidates
54:59
[SPEAKER_08]: his own party doesn't even really want him so interesting to see where this is going to take us but understand this isn't Trump's fault no not Trump's fault at all nor will be any of the other losses that are going to come and if you believe the polling and Republicans are more and more coming on board with the reality that uh-oh gonna be a bad midterm
55:24
[SPEAKER_08]: Um, they all know Trump is not going to take responsibility and look, the reality is is it is not hard to sit here and say, you know, Trump's not going to take responsibility because Trump has never taken responsibility.
55:39
[SPEAKER_08]: So why would now be different?
55:41
[SPEAKER_08]: Why would this moment in history be any different than the thousands of other moments
55:53
[SPEAKER_08]: Now again, it's going to be corn and it's going to be Carl Roe, it's going to be anybody in everybody, but him and this is where Democrats don't get sucked into the game.
56:04
[SPEAKER_08]: If you do take power in January.
56:07
[SPEAKER_08]: I'll have an agenda, start moving stuff, start getting things done, start putting stuff on his desk, start putting things on the desk and make him either veto it or sign it.
56:20
[SPEAKER_08]: Now will he sign anything?
56:23
[SPEAKER_08]: I don't know, it was my view from the beginning.
56:26
[SPEAKER_08]: Had Democrats handled all this differently from the start,
56:31
[SPEAKER_08]: He just wanted to be lying.
56:33
[SPEAKER_08]: He just wanted his ego stoked.
56:35
[SPEAKER_08]: He just wanted to have Rose Garden ceremonies.
56:37
[SPEAKER_08]: He just wanted people to say nice things about him.
56:40
[SPEAKER_08]: Even if he is, you know, pushing for the little dictator title, which I did find interesting.
56:47
[SPEAKER_08]: I did find it really interesting that
56:51
[SPEAKER_08]: I've got to play this.
56:52
[SPEAKER_08]: He's being interviewed, and he says, says this about Putin.
56:58
[SPEAKER_05]: New and Senator Sullivan, you see IDI on virtually everything.
57:03
[SPEAKER_05]: Almost 100% voting record that Senator Sullivan has with you.
57:07
[SPEAKER_05]: You don't see IDI on one issue in particular Mr. President and that is the issue of Russia and President Putin.
57:14
[SPEAKER_05]: Senator Sullivan is called President Putin
57:17
[SPEAKER_05]: a dictator and authoritarian mafia regime leader.
57:21
[SPEAKER_05]: He's against that diesel deal that you announced last week.
57:24
[SPEAKER_05]: Why Mr. President are you right and Senator Sullivan is wrong on this?
57:28
[SPEAKER_02]: Well, look, I have to make deals with people.
57:30
[SPEAKER_02]: So I don't go around calling them names.
57:32
[SPEAKER_02]: I'm a deal maker.
57:33
[SPEAKER_02]: I've always been out.
57:33
[SPEAKER_02]: Very good deal maker.
57:34
[SPEAKER_02]: I became very rich because it deals, so I can't let it go any further.
57:39
[SPEAKER_08]: The point here is I don't call anybody names because I've got to work with them.
57:44
[SPEAKER_08]: Let's let's roll that back a bit.
57:46
[SPEAKER_08]: I don't call people names because I have to work with them.
57:49
[SPEAKER_08]: I've got to make deals with them Have we not seen the things he said about Democrats?
57:57
[SPEAKER_08]: So let me let me let me just throw a thought out there Gonna be nice to have led Gonna be nice to Kim Jong-un Gonna be nice to the Xi Jinping.
58:09
[SPEAKER_08]: Gonna be nice to actual dictators
58:13
[SPEAKER_08]: but to Democrats who he should be working with to make life a little bit better for working people, we're going to call them a slew of childhood sandbox next.
58:26
[SPEAKER_08]: I'm still trying to figure out how that in between the ears there, how that is justified.
58:33
[SPEAKER_08]: Well, what's he saying?
58:34
[SPEAKER_08]: Look, I'm never going
58:40
[SPEAKER_08]: Um, every day, there's something that comes up where you go, we learn a little bit more about dear leader, don't we?
58:47
[SPEAKER_08]: We learn a little bit more than next step in the evolution of of waking up the working class of this country, uh, that voted for.
58:55
[SPEAKER_08]: That's the scary part.
58:57
[SPEAKER_08]: want to hear your thoughts email me rick at the ricksmith show dot com something i said major think major happy major sad rick at the ricksmith show dot com miss any portion of the program make sure you grab the podcast where you get your favorite podcast you'll find hours and hey
59:13
[SPEAKER_08]: check your voter registration.
59:14
[SPEAKER_08]: We just got 18 more days.
59:17
[SPEAKER_08]: 18 more days of all of the campaigning, all of the finger pointing, all of the negative ads filling up our mental space.
59:24
[SPEAKER_08]: Just 18 more days.
59:26
[SPEAKER_08]: We got a hold on.
59:27
[SPEAKER_08]: You got to get to the polls.
59:29
[SPEAKER_08]: You got a vote.
59:30
[SPEAKER_08]: Because here, as I've always said, you don't get the complain unless you vote.
59:34
[SPEAKER_08]: Thanks so much for being here.
59:36
[SPEAKER_08]: We'll see you back here next time.
59:42
[SPEAKER_06]: You've been listening to the Rick Smith show.
59:46
[SPEAKER_06]: Email Rack at RackAtRackAtTheRickSmithShow.com.
59:54
[SPEAKER_06]: Until next time, this has been The Rick Smith Show, where working people come to talk.