Latest / The Rick Smith Show / The Rick Smith Show 9-22-2026

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The Rick Smith Show 9-22-2026 · The Rick Smith Show

0:00
[SPEAKER_03]: It's time for the Rick Smith show.
0:05
[SPEAKER_03]: Now, here is the voice of a working class, Rick Smith.
0:14
[SPEAKER_02]: And welcome, brothers, sisters working class heroes.
0:19
[SPEAKER_02]: This is the Rexmet Show.
0:21
[SPEAKER_02]: Thanks so much for being here.
0:23
[SPEAKER_02]: Today on the big program, lots to get to, lots to talk about, oh, the fun.
0:28
[SPEAKER_02]: The fun over the weekend of watching social media and the bots, because understand, we are now in the post-human social media world since more than half of the traffic on social media right now.
0:42
[SPEAKER_02]: is non-human.
0:44
[SPEAKER_02]: So we got a lot of bots throwing stuff out, a lot of paid messengers.
0:49
[SPEAKER_02]: So when I saw the social media post of, I don't care if Gus goes to $20 a gallon, I'll never vote for a Democrat.
0:56
[SPEAKER_02]: My mind went, I'm sure someone spending a lot of money pushing this into the red hat world with the hopes that some of the ink will bleed and cause the kind of thinking.
1:07
[SPEAKER_02]: And then, then, the other part of it is
1:11
[SPEAKER_02]: You know, it's not a new Democrat versus Republicans.
1:14
[SPEAKER_02]: It's Americans versus Communists.
1:17
[SPEAKER_02]: And the funny punchline is vote red.
1:22
[SPEAKER_02]: And I saw that in so many places in my mind what, vote read for Republican or vote read for communist because it's weird that the people who keep posting this stuff don't quite get what either, I guess what either means.
1:36
[SPEAKER_02]: And that's kind of frightening, but again, it's mostly, and I'm gonna swim, given we humans, a little credit, I think we're watching what the AI bot world will bring us.
1:48
[SPEAKER_02]: But it's about pushing that narrative.
1:50
[SPEAKER_02]: It's about, you know, just hammering on the fact that I'd rather vote for Donald Trump It paid $20 a gallon for diesel than have have health care Because that's basically what that's say it and the weird thing is is there was a story that I'm Friday that broke That I think was really important and it's one of those things where you go
2:14
[SPEAKER_02]: Here's the thing, we got a president who can't get over a grudge, just can't do it.
2:19
[SPEAKER_02]: And like a lot of people who can't get past the grudge don't burn down their own house despite the guy who built the porch.
2:26
[SPEAKER_02]: And that's Donald Trump, unfortunately everything, but this time it's on energy.
2:31
[SPEAKER_02]: And Trump doesn't really have an energy strategy, doesn't have a plan, he's got a grudge.
2:36
[SPEAKER_02]: He seems to wake up every morning with one thing banging around between his ears and that's how can I undo anything that Obama or Biden touched and how fast can I break what they did?
2:47
[SPEAKER_02]: That's basically it.
2:48
[SPEAKER_02]: And that's the whole energy policy of the United States.
2:51
[SPEAKER_02]: Erase the other guy's name off the wall and call it winning.
2:54
[SPEAKER_02]: So an August when his EPA killed the solar for all program.
2:59
[SPEAKER_02]: About $7 billion, I guess that was already appropriated, already obligated, meant to put solar on the roofs of more than 900,000 low-income households in this country, you know, working people like you and me, people who are still like us, staring at utility bills wondering which one doesn't get paid this month.
3:18
[SPEAKER_02]: Well, the EPA Administrator Lee's album called it a boondoggle, a boondoggle.
3:23
[SPEAKER_02]: That's a rich guy's word for something that was never going to help him personally.
3:28
[SPEAKER_02]: And on Friday, federal judge in Rhode Island told him that he broke the law by not allocating these funds.
3:35
[SPEAKER_02]: Judge Mary McElroy wrote that Congress clearly intended the EPA to keep administering those grants and the EPA had no statutory authority to pull them.
3:47
[SPEAKER_02]: She vacated determination and who dragged them in the court?
3:53
[SPEAKER_02]: The Rhode Island AFFL CIO, Patrick Crowley, who's been on this program, their president, called it a big victory, said the program, if it ever gets up and running, means thousands and thousands of union jobs across the country, and yes, thousands and thousands of union jobs.
4:10
[SPEAKER_02]: And then all you have by the way, cheaper bills for about 900,000 families, cleaner air for our kids, and what happened, well, the administration went to court to stop it, not because it's a failure, but because Biden did it.
4:24
[SPEAKER_02]: Now, here's where the grudge gets expensive.
4:28
[SPEAKER_02]: While we're still re-litigating 2020, somebody else's build it, and it's China.
4:34
[SPEAKER_02]: China is eating our lunch on this.
4:35
[SPEAKER_02]: They're building solar panels, they're building batteries.
4:39
[SPEAKER_02]: The grid business of the 21st century is going to be theirs, and they're not doing it because they're the greatest or their genius.
4:47
[SPEAKER_02]: They're doing it because we handed it to them giftcraft on a spite over one got.
4:53
[SPEAKER_02]: In May, for the first time in this country's history, solar put more electricity in the grid than coal.
5:00
[SPEAKER_02]: I don't know, that's not a press release.
5:03
[SPEAKER_02]: That's the market talking.
5:05
[SPEAKER_02]: And our response was the canceled the program that would have let poor people participate in it.
5:13
[SPEAKER_02]: You wanna know what dependency looks like?
5:16
[SPEAKER_02]: It looks like our grandkids buying solar panels and inverters and batteries from Shenzhen.
5:21
[SPEAKER_02]: because we here in this country, we just sat it out.
5:25
[SPEAKER_02]: The whole race, all because of one guy, one guy's hard feelings.
5:31
[SPEAKER_02]: And I think as we've seen this movie before, with the solar panels of the late 70s that went into the 80s, thank you Ronald Reagan.
5:37
[SPEAKER_02]: We handed them steel, we've handed them electronics, and now handed them solar cells because literally bell labs invented it, Carter put solar panels on the White House, Reagan ripped it off.
5:47
[SPEAKER_02]: And every time, every time the guy who made that call got richer and richer and richer, and yep, that's not a Trump and what did we get?
5:55
[SPEAKER_02]: We got dollar stores.
5:59
[SPEAKER_02]: Is there a situation?
6:01
[SPEAKER_02]: Is there a version where spite builds anything?
6:04
[SPEAKER_02]: And the answer is no.
6:06
[SPEAKER_02]: $7 billion was ready to go.
6:10
[SPEAKER_02]: Allocated.
6:11
[SPEAKER_02]: Workers are there.
6:13
[SPEAKER_02]: Ready to go.
6:13
[SPEAKER_02]: Actricians, roofers, laborers.
6:15
[SPEAKER_02]: People with union cards in their pockets and no work on the boards.
6:19
[SPEAKER_02]: And for everybody else, our bills are going up.
6:24
[SPEAKER_02]: We can invest.
6:25
[SPEAKER_02]: We can.
6:30
[SPEAKER_02]: we can get lower bills, we can get a country that makes things again, because all I hear Trump talking about is, he's making manufacturing great again.
6:38
[SPEAKER_02]: He keeps talking about all this investment pouring, he keeps talking about all these manufacturing jobs, and yet I go to the store and keep finding anything made here.
6:48
[SPEAKER_02]: Everything I pick up in any hardware store, it's all made in China, because we gave it away.
6:55
[SPEAKER_02]: So we can invest in the future, we can do smart things.
7:00
[SPEAKER_02]: with good policy.
7:03
[SPEAKER_02]: Or are we can continue to really re-litigate and salt with Trump and say dumb stuff like, oh, $20 a girl and before I vote for a Democrat, which is the dumbest thing you can ever say.
7:13
[SPEAKER_02]: Because here's the weird thing.
7:14
[SPEAKER_02]: Here's the weird thing.
7:18
[SPEAKER_02]: It may happen.
7:21
[SPEAKER_02]: I know, I know, no, it never happened, you know, someone told me not too long go seven bucks for diesel was never gonna happen.
7:30
[SPEAKER_02]: I know, never going to happen, but it's happening.
7:34
[SPEAKER_02]: And who's it crushing?
7:36
[SPEAKER_02]: It's crushing the working poor of this country.
7:38
[SPEAKER_02]: The billionaire class, it doesn't matter to them.
7:41
[SPEAKER_02]: Not at all.
7:42
[SPEAKER_02]: They just write it off on their taxes or raise prices for someone else.
7:46
[SPEAKER_02]: It's a person at the bottom that's struggling.
7:51
[SPEAKER_02]: And another person sent me, I'll but you won't say that the medium income is higher than it's ever been.
7:57
[SPEAKER_02]: And I'm going, yeah, and so is the price of a hamburger.
8:02
[SPEAKER_02]: And so is the price of everything that we pay.
8:04
[SPEAKER_02]: Because inflation does pull wages up the problem is inflation outpaste wages.
8:12
[SPEAKER_02]: Had we stronger labor unions?
8:14
[SPEAKER_02]: Had we, I don't know, a third of the workforce, members, card carrying members of a union, maybe the wages would have exceeded inflation, and maybe our billionaires wouldn't have gotten his rich.
8:26
[SPEAKER_02]: They'd still got rich, but not as rich, and maybe that trickled down of wages into the workers' pockets could pay the electric bill, could put food on the table.
8:36
[SPEAKER_02]: Maybe even, you know, pay that $40 McDonald's bill.
8:41
[SPEAKER_02]: Oh, and by the way, I understand our fast food industry is gobbling up the imported beef because again, really great policies by our dear leader, real smart policies.
8:56
[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah.
8:57
[SPEAKER_02]: So if you're one of the folks who, and this is, I got to find you, if you're an actual person who believes you would pay 20 bucks a gallon for diesel or gasoline before you vote for a Democrat, I want to hear you.
9:09
[SPEAKER_02]: Rick at therixmithshow.com right back.
9:19
[SPEAKER_02]: And I'm Rick Smith, and this is Labor History in 2.
9:23
[SPEAKER_02]: On this day in Labor History, the year was 1991.
9:27
[SPEAKER_02]: That was the day that members of the Culinary Workers Union Local 226 went out on strike against the frontier hotel and casino in Las Vegas.
9:37
[SPEAKER_02]: What they did not know was that the strike would last for more than six years, becoming one of the longest work actions in U.S. labor history.
9:45
[SPEAKER_02]: The frontier was the second casino to open on the Vegas strip in 1942.
9:51
[SPEAKER_02]: At the time of the strike, the Allerdy family owned the historic casino.
9:55
[SPEAKER_02]: The authorities were vehemently anti-union.
9:58
[SPEAKER_02]: They renovated the old facility and then reopened refusing to sign a contract to pay its workers the same rate provided at most other Vegas casinos.
10:08
[SPEAKER_02]: Cleaming that the frontier was too small to match the wages of the larger outfits, management refused to budge from their position.
10:16
[SPEAKER_02]: In response, local 226 members mobilized.
10:19
[SPEAKER_02]: The year before, Haddy Canty had been elected president of the local.
10:23
[SPEAKER_02]: She was a black mother of 10 children and a widow.
10:26
[SPEAKER_02]: She had worked as a hotel maid.
10:28
[SPEAKER_02]: Her leadership brought a new determination to the culinary workers union.
10:32
[SPEAKER_02]: Local 226 set up 24-hour picket lines outside the frontier.
10:37
[SPEAKER_02]: The strike was joined by bartenders local 165.
10:41
[SPEAKER_02]: Teamsters local 995.
10:43
[SPEAKER_02]: The operating engineers' local 501 and the Carpenter's local 1780, the strike became an important moment in Vegas Labor History.
10:52
[SPEAKER_02]: As other casino owners looked on, watching the labor battle unfold.
10:57
[SPEAKER_02]: The unions stood strong.
10:59
[SPEAKER_02]: The picketers demand that the owners should, quote, sell, shut down or sign, became the call.
11:05
[SPEAKER_02]: In the end, the authorities decided to sell.
11:08
[SPEAKER_02]: The new ownership signed a union contract and re-hired 280 striking workers.
11:13
[SPEAKER_02]: Try umphitt union members cut a red ribbon at the hotel to mark their victory.
11:30
[SPEAKER_02]: So on Tuesday, the Clarity Act died as it couldn't get past the Cloture Vote.
11:37
[SPEAKER_02]: Alright, to be honest, couldn't win a simple majority, because 50 Senators voted against it only 49 in favor, but have no fear of the Trump administration there.
11:49
[SPEAKER_02]: Because just two days later you had the securities and exchange commission and the commodity future trading commission, each published documents that the industry has been asking Congress for.
12:01
[SPEAKER_02]: So I guess the question is, while the act is dead, are our pension safe from speculative crypto schemes?
12:09
[SPEAKER_02]: And that's why I've asked Patrick Moranda to come share some thoughts with us.
12:11
[SPEAKER_02]: He's a newly elected president of AFSCME the American Federation of State County and municipal employees.
12:17
[SPEAKER_02]: You can check out their website at AFSCME.org.
12:20
[SPEAKER_02]: Their union came out and said, look, this is going down.
12:23
[SPEAKER_02]: I major victory for retirees and all working people who want to retire with dignity, Patrick.
12:29
[SPEAKER_02]: Thanks for taking time for us.
12:31
[SPEAKER_04]: Thanks for having us free.
12:32
[SPEAKER_02]: So let's start with the main point.
12:35
[SPEAKER_02]: What is the Clarity Act?
12:37
[SPEAKER_02]: Because you assume there might be some clarity, but it seems like this kind of model the lot, what is the Clarity Act?
12:46
[SPEAKER_02]: Or what is it now that it's dead?
12:48
[SPEAKER_04]: Yeah, well, let's just start rig with the fact that too many Americans right now are struggling to afford even the basics everything from gas to groceries, we're seeing diesel fuel hit what six bucks right now.
13:01
[SPEAKER_04]: Health care is getting more expensive and, you know, the administration and its anti worker allies continue to rig the system against us.
13:10
[SPEAKER_04]: They tried to do it again just this past week with the Clarity Act.
13:14
[SPEAKER_04]: And this bill would have allowed Wall Street to gamble with people's pensions, workers pensions, and 401k's by making it easier to invest.
13:23
[SPEAKER_04]: in retirement savings, in cryptocurrency.
13:26
[SPEAKER_04]: Working people don't want to see their heart and money, put into an unregulated, unpredictable casino, a Ponzi scheme is what it is.
13:35
[SPEAKER_04]: And during this time right now, so much financial uncertainty, elected officials need to stay focused on bringing down the costs of everything for people.
13:46
[SPEAKER_04]: and helping working families for retirement, not putting it into, you know, schemes.
13:51
[SPEAKER_04]: Like we saw in 2008 with the, um, with the horrible mortgage schemes and that product and who ended up paying for that?
13:58
[SPEAKER_04]: We did the working people, the taxpayers, the taxpayers ended up, and they got off stop free.
14:04
[SPEAKER_04]: No one went to jail, maybe one person did.
14:06
[SPEAKER_04]: I don't know, but you know thousands about thousands of these folks were involved in this and millions of working people suffered and then all of the taxpayers all of us paid the bill on this.
14:17
[SPEAKER_04]: So we don't need, uh, you know, retirement security threatened by crypto grifters enough.
14:24
[SPEAKER_04]: like let's let's do the right thing and let's make sure people are able to afford the the necessities of life and then they have a secure retirement when they decide to go into the sunset.
14:35
[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah I mean especially when you're talking about pension money that's your secure money.
14:39
[SPEAKER_02]: That's not something you should be speculating with and gambling with with with who knows what and but here's the thing a lot of my crypto bros Who are big their big crypto folks they see what they need is they need federal regulations We we need to we need to regulate the industry so that we can Do all these things and bring the wonders of crypto into the pension world.
15:00
[SPEAKER_02]: Do you buy any of that?
15:01
[SPEAKER_04]: No, and here's one of the reasons why I don't because they're like 1500 different crypto currencies in the United States alone from what I understand, right?
15:11
[SPEAKER_04]: So what they're all going to be competing against each other and I know they're all your own competition competition.
15:17
[SPEAKER_04]: It's backed by nothing.
15:18
[SPEAKER_04]: It's like Confederate money during the Civil War.
15:22
[SPEAKER_04]: It's garbage.
15:23
[SPEAKER_04]: It's total garbage.
15:24
[SPEAKER_04]: But Patrick, he's doing everything.
15:26
[SPEAKER_04]: And not only that, Rick, not only that, it's going to drive down the value of the dollar across the world.
15:32
[SPEAKER_04]: Which is then going to have a horrible effect on the economy overall.
15:36
[SPEAKER_04]: Let's, you know, the dollar is the world standard right now.
15:38
[SPEAKER_04]: Let's keep that.
15:40
[SPEAKER_02]: But Patrick, Donald Trump has a creptocurrency.
15:42
[SPEAKER_02]: We could decide, we could decide on one crypto coin.
15:46
[SPEAKER_04]: Yeah.
15:49
[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, but here's the thing, I mean, you represent a lot of public sector workers who depend on a defined benefit pension one again one of the few workers in this country that know where the defined benefit pension is why is the volatility of crypto something you're so afraid of I mean again my crypto front say this is the future are you are you against the future.
16:12
[SPEAKER_04]: Right.
16:13
[SPEAKER_04]: No, what I'm against is is grifters and speculators profiting off of retirees and hardworking people that have put their investments into their pensions and into the stock market.
16:28
[SPEAKER_04]: So I, what I don't want to see is another gamble like we saw in 2008 where they said, oh, this is fine.
16:34
[SPEAKER_04]: This everyone's doing it.
16:35
[SPEAKER_04]: Well,
16:36
[SPEAKER_04]: everyone was not doing it and we all paid the price and those folks got away Scott free and they made millions of dollars off of regular working people they got sucked into it because there was no regulation and again it's it's just a gamble and enough for Wall Street is a gamble let's why are we going to expand that why we're going to make it more volatile and more dangerous for for retirees and working people in general.
17:01
[SPEAKER_02]: One of the things that came out of the 2008 collapse, that sticks with me is Alan Greenspan testifying that he didn't realize that one that things that people would do fraudulent things and two his belief that the instruments that brought down our economy back then were so complicated that they couldn't be regulated and I remember thinking at the time if they're that complicated and that difficult to understand why we didn't want to exist.
17:27
[SPEAKER_02]: exactly and I see this is kind of the same thing.
17:30
[SPEAKER_02]: Nobody and I love the the or well the in language of the Clarity Act that just muddies the water even more.
17:37
[SPEAKER_02]: I'm curious if you got a thought.
17:39
[SPEAKER_04]: Well I mean again the Clarity Act was it was a lot of it was voluntary if they wanted
17:51
[SPEAKER_04]: the various agencies.
17:52
[SPEAKER_04]: And it's not even in the SEC's, you know, which, which these securities exchange commission, which overseas securities, right, which, you know, would be a natural place for it.
18:04
[SPEAKER_04]: They're avoiding that like the plague they chose.
18:07
[SPEAKER_04]: you know an agency that's still prepared, ill staffed, you know, good people that work there and are trying to do the right thing, but totally inappropriate.
18:16
[SPEAKER_04]: Why?
18:17
[SPEAKER_04]: Because they knew they saw a week point and they were going after him.
18:20
[SPEAKER_04]: Look, that's what, unfortunately, that's what business does.
18:22
[SPEAKER_04]: That's their nature.
18:24
[SPEAKER_04]: And that's why you have regulation.
18:26
[SPEAKER_04]: That's why you have government to make sure that they don't go too far.
18:29
[SPEAKER_04]: And you know, they didn't go far enough last time, they allowed these other these bogus mortgages to persist and thrive and what happened, it collapsed and we all ended up paying for why you're not going to get the same result by beating your head against the wall over and over and over and over again, you're ending up with the bruised head and a, you know, probably a black eye and a broken nose so why are we going to do that to ourselves again.
18:55
[SPEAKER_02]: and in a medical bankruptcy probably on top of it because we don't have national health care.
19:00
[SPEAKER_02]: Now, but here's the part of this as someone who represents union members who have defined benefit pensions and generally have some say and how that money is allocated in pension funds.
19:09
[SPEAKER_02]: Do you if this were to pass, do you think you would be insulated from some of the gambling because unions do have some say, but the reality is is that the majority of workers who aren't in unions would be the most vulnerable or is this just bad across the board?
19:23
[SPEAKER_04]: So I think it's bad across the board, that's one.
19:27
[SPEAKER_04]: And again, this doesn't deal with the problems we're seeing right now.
19:31
[SPEAKER_04]: The growing costs of everything from groceries, to gasoline, to rents, to health care costs.
19:40
[SPEAKER_04]: That's where they should be focusing their attention.
19:44
[SPEAKER_04]: That's where they should be helping
19:47
[SPEAKER_04]: working people and the majority of people, working people and the majority of people in our country, and that's where they should be focusing.
19:54
[SPEAKER_04]: So I don't think it, you know, whether you're in a defined benefit pension and a public employee or a private employee or you're not.
20:03
[SPEAKER_04]: It's not going to help us either way.
20:05
[SPEAKER_04]: Who's going to help is the speculators and the grifters.
20:09
[SPEAKER_04]: It's not going to help, you know,
20:12
[SPEAKER_02]: So last question on this topic that I've got for you because, you know, it's dead in the Senate.
20:16
[SPEAKER_02]: Hopefully it's it will go a silent death, but the sad reality is the Trump administrations, SEC and CFTC.
20:25
[SPEAKER_02]: They've published some documents, maybe moving in this direction.
20:27
[SPEAKER_02]: Do you fear that there's a back door way of doing this without congressional approval?
20:33
[SPEAKER_04]: look, there's some very creative people in Congress and if they can find an avenue to do it, just like they did, the big beautiful build.
20:41
[SPEAKER_04]: They went through a narrow path there.
20:46
[SPEAKER_04]: They're probably going to look to do the same thing.
20:48
[SPEAKER_04]: And that's why we have to keep the heat on.
20:50
[SPEAKER_04]: Every American needs to
20:53
[SPEAKER_04]: Senators and their Congress people and say, hey, this is a bad bill, this is bad policy.
20:58
[SPEAKER_04]: This is not going to help me as the average person in this country.
21:02
[SPEAKER_04]: It's only going to help the schemers and the speculators.
21:06
[SPEAKER_04]: And those aren't the majority of the people.
21:08
[SPEAKER_04]: The majority of the people are hardworking, tax-paying citizens like UNI and they want fairness and they want dignity in their work and they want to secure retirement.
21:18
[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, look, most people I know they don't want to make a killing on Wall Street.
21:21
[SPEAKER_02]: They just want to make a living.
21:22
[SPEAKER_02]: They want to be able to make sure that there's a roof for their head and food on the table.
21:26
[SPEAKER_02]: And as I've been saying for the 21 years I've been doing this show.
21:29
[SPEAKER_02]: The best way to get to that place is to have a strong union and a strong labor movement.
21:33
[SPEAKER_02]: And I want to congratulate you on on becoming president of AFSME.
21:37
[SPEAKER_02]: You know, we've had past presidents on the program.
21:40
[SPEAKER_02]: who have done great work and I've got great hope for you, but you're taking over it in a very interesting time.
21:45
[SPEAKER_02]: You've got a Trump administration that's hostile to public sector workers.
21:49
[SPEAKER_02]: There's this move to destroy public sector workers and unions.
21:54
[SPEAKER_02]: I'm curious what the vision for today and tomorrow, what's Patrick Moran planning on doing over the next several months.
22:00
[SPEAKER_04]: But our priorities are growing our union and protecting our members, right?
22:05
[SPEAKER_04]: Which then has an effect of helping working people across the spectrum in the United States.
22:12
[SPEAKER_04]: You know, at heart, I'm an organizer and that's how I'm going to lead our union.
22:17
[SPEAKER_04]: I'm on the road, I'm traveling across the country to help on organizing campaigns, get out the vote, and grow work or power.
22:25
[SPEAKER_04]: not just for at asking members, but for not asking members that want to join our movement and want the opportunity to have what we have.
22:33
[SPEAKER_04]: Because it's not an issue of why do you have it?
22:35
[SPEAKER_04]: No, the issue is why don't doesn't everyone have it?
22:38
[SPEAKER_04]: And that's the message we're spreading and that's what we're doing across the country.
22:42
[SPEAKER_02]: That's the most curious question that I ask people all the time, you know, because I hear I've got friends who are like, we don't need to stick in unions, those are the things of the past.
22:50
[SPEAKER_02]: They won't do anything for me, but I don't have health care and I don't have a pension.
22:54
[SPEAKER_02]: But your members and other union members who do seem to, you know, the argument is, well, they shouldn't have it because I don't, instead of how do I get it.
23:03
[SPEAKER_02]: So I'm glad to hear that that's kind of the central theme.
23:06
[SPEAKER_02]: because I do think at the end of the day, everybody should have retirement and their jobs, retirement in their families, and retirement in old age.
23:16
[SPEAKER_02]: So the hope is is that now the message turns a little bit, especially after what we've been watching this administration do, which is, I don't know, you said gas is over six bucks.
23:28
[SPEAKER_02]: I saw diesel 717 a gallon.
23:31
[SPEAKER_02]: Oh, wow.
23:32
[SPEAKER_02]: 717 a gallon here in central Pennsylvania.
23:34
[SPEAKER_04]: Well, in central Pennsylvania, that's shocking, but not surprising at this point.
23:40
[SPEAKER_02]: So again, this is where I'm hopeful that this kind of organizing happens.
23:45
[SPEAKER_02]: So coming out of the convention, a lot of energy, what's the first goal?
23:49
[SPEAKER_02]: I mean, obviously, you're finding your way around a little bit.
23:52
[SPEAKER_02]: What's the first goal going forward?
23:54
[SPEAKER_04]: Okay, at the first goal going forward is just getting out there and listening to folks, listening on what's what's what's what they're facing, we know what our members are facing across the country and we listen very closely to what's going on and we observe what's going on, but then trying to act on that and you know, getting out and talking to people that want to join our union.
24:16
[SPEAKER_04]: You know, I'm spending the time on the road right now, as I mentioned earlier, going to
24:24
[SPEAKER_04]: during the midterms, we're going to be going out and talking to members on the doors about what's going on and supporting candidates that support our issues, that support working people to make sure we have secure retirement, good wages, good work rules, like state work, good workers, safety rules to ensure that you go home in the same condition you went to work in the morning and having affordable health care, health care is going to be a big battle over in the
24:53
[SPEAKER_04]: Because of the disassembly of the Affordable Care Act, it's going to drive up healthcare costs once again, and we're going to have to turn that around.
25:02
[SPEAKER_04]: And that's going to be a big fight at every single bargaining table, and not only that, it's going to be a big fight for every single working person in this country.
25:10
[SPEAKER_04]: Because the insurance companies aren't going to take the hit.
25:13
[SPEAKER_04]: They're going to make sure they get their money as middlemen, right?
25:17
[SPEAKER_04]: And that's just long.
25:19
[SPEAKER_04]: That's, you know, we went into the wrong line of work, Rick.
25:22
[SPEAKER_04]: We should have become insurance providers because the cost of insurance never goes down.
25:28
[SPEAKER_04]: And we need to drive that message that we're not going to take it anymore and they need to take a cut, not working people.
25:35
[SPEAKER_02]: as an organizer and I've done some organizing in the past not not to the extent that you have but there's a lot of anger out there and anger is what generally generates organizing activity so it's got to be fertile ground especially with this administration who has set their sights on federal employees I mean the fact that they've gone after federal employees the way they have trying to steal collective bargaining rights from what a million people
25:58
[SPEAKER_02]: It seems like it's fertile ground, so as you're out there talking to people, are they getting it?
26:04
[SPEAKER_02]: Do you see that there's an appetite now given the attacks that are going on?
26:10
[SPEAKER_04]: Yeah, I mean, our response when we're out there talking to people has been phenomenal because people see the difference they see the union difference and they want in on that they want the opportunity that our members have and but it's hard it's very hard when you have administrations that push back.
26:29
[SPEAKER_04]: you have, whether that's at the city, state, county, or federal level.
26:33
[SPEAKER_04]: And then in addition to that, you know, there's a lot of place that places over the years that have just been, you know, indoctrinated and programmed with anti-union, you know, animes.
26:45
[SPEAKER_04]: So it's focusing on that, overcoming that, it's not easy, but that's the work.
26:52
[SPEAKER_04]: That's the work I've done for 32 years and I will continue to do because it's important work.
26:58
[SPEAKER_04]: But it has the opportunity of changing people's lives, changing whole communities, and I thrive on that.
27:06
[SPEAKER_02]: No, I tell the story all the time.
27:07
[SPEAKER_02]: Look, I'm an eight-year-old kid growing up in a housing project on the West Side of Cleveland.
27:11
[SPEAKER_02]: The neighbor got a job at Ford, immediately their lives got better.
27:15
[SPEAKER_02]: So even as an eight-year-old kid, a union job better life was the message.
27:20
[SPEAKER_02]: They had food at the end of the month, and eventually within a year, they moved out of the projects all together.
27:25
[SPEAKER_02]: So for me, I'm in,
27:26
[SPEAKER_02]: I hope people see that message as well, and Patrick, I hope you'll come back and share some thoughts, share some victories, and help us find out where the battles are so we can help along.
27:35
[SPEAKER_04]: Absolutely, thank you, Rick, and thanks for everything you do.
27:38
[SPEAKER_02]: Thanks so much, Pat Moran, the president of AFSME, the American Federation of State, County, and Municipal employees check out their website at AFSME.org.
27:46
[SPEAKER_02]: Want to hear your thoughts?
27:47
[SPEAKER_02]: What do you think of the Clarity Act?
27:49
[SPEAKER_02]: Is it Clarity, Gladys, Dead, or should we be
28:00
[SPEAKER_02]: I'm Rick Smith, and this is Labor History in 2.
28:03
[SPEAKER_02]: On this day in Labor History, the year was 1934.
28:06
[SPEAKER_02]: That was the day nearly half a million textile workers from Maine to Alabama walked off the job in a general strike.
28:14
[SPEAKER_02]: The United textile workers had launched an organizing campaign the year before.
28:18
[SPEAKER_02]: Within months, their membership had grown from 15,000 to well over 250,000, working conditions and pay were abysmal.
28:26
[SPEAKER_02]: Normal, work weeks averaged 55 hours.
28:29
[SPEAKER_02]: Child labor was widespread, and workers were always in fear of mill closings, pay cuts, and fireings for suspected union activity.
28:38
[SPEAKER_02]: In the south, the industry had essentially been in a depression since the early 20s.
28:43
[SPEAKER_02]: The key issue was the stretch out.
28:45
[SPEAKER_02]: Workers were routinely expected to complete an increasing amount of work at the same rate and wage.
28:51
[SPEAKER_02]: For a brief moment, workers hoped their conditions would change when President Roosevelt signed the code of fair competition the previous summer.
28:59
[SPEAKER_02]: It raised wages, limited hours, and prohibited child labor.
29:03
[SPEAKER_02]: It also allowed for union organizing, but the mill owners maneuvered around the code effectively and the textile relations board refused most workers' complaints.
29:13
[SPEAKER_02]: Fed up, workers walked out of the mill by the hundreds of thousands.
29:17
[SPEAKER_02]: They used the flying squadron tactic employed by Minneapolis Teamsters earlier that year, traveling from town to town, from mill to mill, calling workers out on strike.
29:27
[SPEAKER_02]: Mill owners were shocked.
29:29
[SPEAKER_02]: Within days, strikers confronted thousands of police and scams.
29:33
[SPEAKER_02]: More than 40,000 national guardsmen were called out in 16 states.
29:38
[SPEAKER_02]: Over the course of the strike, 16 people would be killed and hundreds more injured.
29:43
[SPEAKER_02]: After 22 days, Union leaders called off the strike when President Roosevelt promised a government survey of industry conditions.
29:51
[SPEAKER_02]: It was an outrage at Betrayal and a defeat felt for decades.
29:56
[SPEAKER_02]: Like what you hear, check out more at laborindustrial.com.
30:00
[SPEAKER_00]: It's one thing for someone like me to say that the Republican Party has dived off the highboard into the abyss of political delirium.
30:09
[SPEAKER_00]: But it's another thing when the party is self-confirms its collective delirium for two whole days in a made for TV political talkathon.
30:19
[SPEAKER_00]: Their theme was, bring back Joe McCarthy.
30:22
[SPEAKER_00]: Let's not forget what a horror McCarthyism was, a 1950s dissent into totalitarian repression.
30:30
[SPEAKER_00]: Fominated by Joe, a brutish and slimy Republican senator who terrorized America for a decade with a vicious red-baiting crusade to crush liberals, unions, minorities, government employees, homosexuals, professors, and others he and his rich backers hated.
30:49
[SPEAKER_00]: Indeed, given Joe's direct parallels to today's White House, you'd think GOP strategists would not want to resurface that disgraceful chapter of their heritage.
30:59
[SPEAKER_00]: But there they were this month proudly pushing McCarthyism 2026.
31:05
[SPEAKER_00]: Not just the party's friends, but his top leaders were squalking from the podium like chicken littles that Democrats are anti-American communists.
31:14
[SPEAKER_00]: Trump himself, bellied maniacally, that, Demms even intend to destroy Mount Rushmore, quote, they want to blow it up, he squealed.
31:22
[SPEAKER_00]: A parade of top Republican officials literally shouted at the audience's maga faithful to fear of Democrats.
31:28
[SPEAKER_00]: Tim Scott, chair of the party's senatorial fundraising arm, explain that Democrats are fiends who quote, hate what it means to be American.
31:37
[SPEAKER_00]: So they are coming to quote, rip that heart out of our chest.
31:43
[SPEAKER_00]: Sure, Tim, it's evil for Democrats to fight for social security, health care for all, affordable housing, voting rights, and, you know, communist stuff like that.
31:53
[SPEAKER_00]: So please, you do you, keep running your mouth, and let the people decide who's crazy.
32:13
[SPEAKER_02]: So, uh, just in the last 10 days, uh, the Trump Republican National Messaging Machine, uh, Trump himself supposedly, I guess now supposedly he was joking about whether or not registered voters should be able to vote or unregistered voters or whether they're registered or not to register, but vote or you're going to have, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah,
32:38
[SPEAKER_02]: I conditioned a $5,000 bribe on the Republicans winning the mid-terms, claimed, you know, all we need to regulate AI is a strong president, like him, of course, and of course, blacklisting several news outlets who he didn't like how they covered him.
32:55
[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, now the weird thing is these aren't isolated social media posts.
32:58
[SPEAKER_02]: I didn't get it from his truth social Some of them, but these were actually stories reported on by writers the AP all of them.
33:06
[SPEAKER_02]: The ones that haven't been banned yet I got to wonder well this get get them banned in here to share some thoughts on that Best my good friend Sarah Burst to come share some thoughts.
33:15
[SPEAKER_02]: She's a senior editor over at alternate.
33:17
[SPEAKER_02]: You can check out their work at alternate dot org Sorry, thanks for looking time for us
33:22
[SPEAKER_02]: Hey Rick how are you so if you guys been banned yet over at alternate if you got in band from the White House Or I mean we were never allowed there So already banned so what do you make it that's what are you making the fact that you know, well you've gotten major news outlets Who he just decides I don't like you I don't like what you say I don't like that you report anything that I say And you're banned what what
33:49
[SPEAKER_01]: We, we tried this once before, remember with Jim Acosta and he tried to ban Jim Acosta from the White House and the problem with that case is that so Jim Acosta sued CNN sued like you like you would and.
34:07
[SPEAKER_01]: and eventually they let they gave them as credentials back and let them back in.
34:11
[SPEAKER_01]: And so that case never actually went forward.
34:14
[SPEAKER_01]: And so there's no specific case law about this.
34:17
[SPEAKER_01]: There's sort of a tent general case law.
34:21
[SPEAKER_01]: When Trump tried to ban different websites, press people from seeing his Twitter account, that went to court and the courts were just like,
34:37
[SPEAKER_01]: So I think that's a pretty good piece of case lot of being using in this instance.
34:43
[SPEAKER_01]: What was interesting to me is so when this went down on Friday and then into Saturday, the AP asked Trump, they were just like, you know, are you, is this because you want to ban the free press and he made a comment similar to that, where he was just like, yes, I'm going to ban the free press.
35:07
[SPEAKER_01]: what free it is, right?
35:08
[SPEAKER_01]: If you get how that sounds.
35:10
[SPEAKER_02]: You get that number one thing that I know everyone, I know on the right, they're focused on number two, but number one's really important because number two doesn't happen without number one.
35:22
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, no, turns out.
35:25
[SPEAKER_01]: The other piece of this is that I'm pretty sure the entire purpose.
35:30
[SPEAKER_01]: of the White House correspondence association is for this specifically like the whole group of them are supposed to leave.
35:39
[SPEAKER_01]: So is that the threat?
35:40
[SPEAKER_02]: And shouldn't that have happened?
35:42
[SPEAKER_02]: I mean, this was when the Acosta thing happened, I was like, what happened to solidarity?
35:46
[SPEAKER_02]: What happened to, you know, people going, hey, it could be me next because look, when you said CNN, I don't watch CNN very much if at all,
35:54
[SPEAKER_02]: You know, I mess now.
35:55
[SPEAKER_02]: I don't pay a lot of attention to that political.
35:58
[SPEAKER_02]: I don't look at at all So it didn't matter to me those aren't my new where I get news from but I'm like, you know What happens if a Democrat takes over and well no more OAN and no more news max and no more bright bar And no more no more news organizations that I don't recognize as news organizations none of them let alone You know CNN which is a which is one of the big ones
36:23
[SPEAKER_02]: or these cable though, I'm wondering what happens and this is where the press association, where the correspondence association should show a little backbone.
36:32
[SPEAKER_02]: I mean, still little.
36:34
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah.
36:34
[SPEAKER_01]: I mean, everybody's sent out, you know, their statements.
36:37
[SPEAKER_01]: The, there's been some stuff from Washington Post since
36:41
[SPEAKER_01]: messages of solidarity and the networks is sent messages.
36:44
[SPEAKER_01]: The AP is sent something out, of course, bond into association, something out.
36:48
[SPEAKER_01]: I'm wondering what is going on behind the scenes that we don't know about.
36:52
[SPEAKER_01]: The other piece of this, too, I will say, is I want to know why now.
36:58
[SPEAKER_01]: We've gone, it's been two years.
37:01
[SPEAKER_01]: Like, he's been doing this for two years.
37:04
[SPEAKER_01]: Caroline, love, it's been gone for a couple of weeks.
37:10
[SPEAKER_01]: that he doesn't want people to see or what is happening next week.
37:14
[SPEAKER_01]: And one piece that we know is that so there's a thing called the pool rotation.
37:21
[SPEAKER_01]: And there's a reporter and a camera person at all times who are like on call.
37:26
[SPEAKER_01]: It's like being me on call cardiologist or whatever to hospital where if the president calls people
37:33
[SPEAKER_01]: you know, the press back because there's been like, we killed us.
37:36
[SPEAKER_01]: I'm in London, you know, then then those two like that pool reporter and that that camera guy are the ones who send everything out to all of the networks and they they pool it together.
37:52
[SPEAKER_01]: CNN is the pool on Monday.
37:55
[SPEAKER_01]: So the first thing I thought was, why now?
38:00
[SPEAKER_01]: What's he trying to hide this weekend?
38:02
[SPEAKER_01]: And then I was like, and then I found out that CNN was the pool, and I'm like, what's happening on a Monday that he does on people to see?
38:09
[SPEAKER_01]: And I mean, like, he spent the weekend in camp day but any eats camp day, but.
38:18
[SPEAKER_01]: And so then you're just like, okay, well, what crazy treatment is he getting up there, you know, like what what Ivy is he getting stuck in his hand this time is he going to have a bad bruise that he's going to try and cover up again or I mean, there's that piece of it, but I mean I don't care about that not even a little bit.
38:37
[SPEAKER_02]: I care about you know, are we escalating a war with Iran?
38:40
[SPEAKER_02]: Are we are we putting boots on the ground and I ran?
38:43
[SPEAKER_02]: You know, are we are we have we decided that we're gonna completely walk away from Ukraine?
38:50
[SPEAKER_02]: Are they gonna continue going after, you know, escalating Gaza?
38:54
[SPEAKER_02]: All of this war stuff is where my mind immediately goes.
38:57
[SPEAKER_01]: Xi Jinping is supposed to be here next week.
39:01
[SPEAKER_01]: uh, or this week.
39:02
[SPEAKER_01]: God, it's already this week.
39:03
[SPEAKER_01]: Oh, uh, so I don't know if you saw it last week, Xi Jinping had a stroke, and it was supposed to be what was weird is they kept the way that they described it was a very severe, small stroke.
39:18
[SPEAKER_01]: It was like, what?
39:18
[SPEAKER_01]: Okay, I'll make sense.
39:21
[SPEAKER_01]: So, um, so then I started wondering, okay, is there some, is she the one who's saying I'm not going
39:30
[SPEAKER_01]: different outlets there is something going to happen with the Chinese that we shouldn't know.
39:36
[SPEAKER_01]: I mean, that was my the on the policy spectrum that was one of the things that I kept thinking about, you know, is he is he just like does he have like a major defect because of his stroke and he's, you know, got some problem that media is going to see, it's like
39:57
[SPEAKER_02]: has a camera like this is not so I don't know yeah I don't know my mind was just really trying to figure this out yeah it's going to be interesting to see how this week plays out but but at least hey we've we're all going to get the five grand right guaranteed as long as this long as we're public we're all going to get the five grand I mean we're going to need it to pay for gas prices but hey we're going to have five grand oh my god and then he made some comment about how he really is going to go and get all that oil from Venezuela and it's just like
40:25
[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, yeah, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no
40:53
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, it turns out there's a lot of court roblox.
40:57
[SPEAKER_01]: I think he thought that this Supreme Court would let him do whatever he wanted.
41:01
[SPEAKER_01]: And the Supreme Court basically said, no, you can't.
41:04
[SPEAKER_01]: you can't tell the U.S.
41:05
[SPEAKER_01]: Postal Service not to deliver the mail.
41:08
[SPEAKER_01]: That's just not how that works.
41:09
[SPEAKER_01]: You can't pick and choose who gets the mail.
41:11
[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, that's not a thing.
41:12
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, and so that was the one when I think was a real awakening for him because the people that he appointed to the Supreme Court voted against him.
41:23
[SPEAKER_01]: But it's just like dang that constitution, sometimes it gets in the way.
41:27
[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, especially when they actually read it.
41:31
[SPEAKER_02]: Now, the weird thing is, is other than the convention, I haven't seen him doing an awful lot of stopping.
41:36
[SPEAKER_02]: I mean, he's going to a couple of places.
41:38
[SPEAKER_02]: I want him to be out on the campaign trail.
41:40
[SPEAKER_02]: I want him to stop and for every Republican, because one, it's pure gold every time he opens his mouth.
41:47
[SPEAKER_02]: The Manusha and the blather and the nonsense that just rolls off his tongue.
41:52
[SPEAKER_02]: But the Murray talks, the more I think, I hope people are waking up to the reality that
42:01
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, and so he had made some comment where he said, you know, I'm going to the top 35 congressional districts like I'm going there and I'm going to I'm going to stop for all these people and I was like I believe you better hurry because you got what 43 days now you've been like 43 days before the election so you better hurry up on this you're going to have to hand a couple.
42:23
[SPEAKER_01]: at the, you know, the same day.
42:25
[SPEAKER_02]: And then he's out there stomping.
42:28
[SPEAKER_02]: He's not, he's not breaking anything else.
42:30
[SPEAKER_02]: I mean, think of the amount of damage that he's done in two years.
42:33
[SPEAKER_02]: I mean, just, just, the limited amount of time he's been there.
42:36
[SPEAKER_02]: The enormous damage that it's going to take decades to clean up.
42:40
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah.
42:41
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, and it's, I mean, I really wish that there were some think tanks in place, you know, on the on the pro democracy side who could really start talking about these are the outline, these are the things that need to be done, the typical norms that we have in government that you can enshrine in actual law, so like that needs to happen, there needs to be a whole, you know,
43:09
[SPEAKER_01]: process of everybody who was hired in the last couple of years and whether or not they're trustworthy or experienced enough for their jobs, finding experts that, you know, retired or said, that's it.
43:21
[SPEAKER_01]: I'm going to the, I'm going to the private sector to make some money.
43:25
[SPEAKER_02]: So you're talking an actual meritocracy?
43:30
[SPEAKER_01]: I know, right?
43:31
[SPEAKER_01]: Like it would be nice if we had
43:37
[SPEAKER_02]: If we value that.
43:38
[SPEAKER_02]: No, I guess the question I have for the midterms is, you know, the polling is not good for Republicans.
43:43
[SPEAKER_02]: They're going to certainly lose the house, it's just a matter of, by how much, potentially lose the Senate, you know, is the, given Trump has no loyalty to anyone and who knows what happens afterwards is Carl Rove Wright should, should, should Republicans run away from Trump now.
44:01
[SPEAKER_02]: Is it time to, to cut Baton run?
44:04
[SPEAKER_01]: Well, I think they already are, and I think that's actually the real reason that you're not seeing Trump stump for 35 different members because those members are like, no, we're good.
44:14
[SPEAKER_01]: Thanks.
44:15
[SPEAKER_01]: You know, JD Vance has been out to a couple of places.
44:19
[SPEAKER_01]: I figured he would dispatch Vance, but JD Vance has like the personality of a cardboard box.
44:24
[SPEAKER_01]: So I don't know how he rallies the troops and gets people really excited about areas candidates.
44:32
[SPEAKER_01]: And I mean, the kinds of stuff he's been saying on this dump doesn't even make sense.
44:38
[SPEAKER_01]: Like he's trying to
44:40
[SPEAKER_01]: come up with excuses for why things haven't been fixed.
44:44
[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, give us a chance.
44:45
[SPEAKER_02]: You know, it's only been two years.
44:46
[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, let's give us a chance.
44:48
[SPEAKER_01]: Let's bring like, where's that's your message?
44:50
[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, let's bring some more stuff.
44:52
[SPEAKER_01]: That's your commitment.
44:53
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, I just am like, really.
44:55
[SPEAKER_01]: And then fall back.
44:56
[SPEAKER_01]: You're going to get five grand.
44:59
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, went in doubt.
45:00
[SPEAKER_01]: Don't worry.
45:00
[SPEAKER_01]: We're gonna we're gonna send you some money.
45:03
[SPEAKER_01]: I mean, that's gonna have to pass through Congress and already I can tell you right now It's not gonna pass like Republicans are furious about it and they're fighting in months amongst themselves over it There was a meeting where people were screaming at each other.
45:19
[SPEAKER_01]: There were some extra bombs dropped
45:23
[SPEAKER_01]: Somebody from the Freedom Caucus was called out by some other random person who was like well here's this thing that you said about Joe Biden during the pandemic when he wanted to give us some money.
45:33
[SPEAKER_01]: And you said that this was really awful.
45:35
[SPEAKER_01]: And I'll let stuff.
45:36
[SPEAKER_01]: So why are you, why are you saying that it's different now?
45:39
[SPEAKER_02]: Now look at 1400 bucks.
45:41
[SPEAKER_02]: If 1400 bucks caused the inflation during the Biden years, what's five grand going to do?
45:45
[SPEAKER_02]: And I'm still waiting on my five grand from Doge.
45:47
[SPEAKER_02]: And I'm still waiting on my two grand from the tariffs.
45:49
[SPEAKER_02]: I'm still waiting on the nine grand that they promised that if you have a kid, you'll be able to get that kind of a credit.
45:54
[SPEAKER_02]: I'm still waiting on all these promises.
45:56
[SPEAKER_02]: And again, from the guy who's kept all his promises, I'm still waiting.
46:00
[SPEAKER_02]: I haven't held my breath because I know better.
46:03
[SPEAKER_02]: You know, it is what it is.
46:05
[SPEAKER_02]: I got to get your thoughts on, um, um, I had forgotten about the the anti-weaponization fund.
46:12
[SPEAKER_02]: Something like, oh, it was a 1.8 billion dollars that they wanted to that they wanted to tuck aside to go after people they don't like, they want to weaponize the 1.8 billion dollars in a fund called anti-weaponization.
46:25
[SPEAKER_02]: Is that, I thought there was dead?
46:27
[SPEAKER_02]: Where is this?
46:29
[SPEAKER_01]: So a Todd Blanch had testified before the Senate, yes, this is dead.
46:33
[SPEAKER_01]: I told you guys, I said it under oath, why don't I need to write something down?
46:37
[SPEAKER_01]: Why don't I need to sign something?
46:40
[SPEAKER_01]: And that showed up in court last week where where a judge was basically talking about this thing deciding whether or not to.
46:49
[SPEAKER_01]: to say, this is over so we can, you know, we don't need to move forward with the case.
46:54
[SPEAKER_01]: I can dismiss this case.
46:55
[SPEAKER_01]: Instead, the judge was like, well, everything that you've indicated to be pretty much tells me that the fund isn't dead, that you are either going to call it by a different name, you're going to use it.
47:06
[SPEAKER_01]: There is a plan in place for actual lawsuits that people bring against the federal government
47:17
[SPEAKER_01]: And that fund is supposed to be for those.
47:20
[SPEAKER_01]: So what they have done in the past two years is they've given money to Michael Flynn.
47:27
[SPEAKER_01]: They gave money to Ashley Babitz, mother, a bunch of the people who claimed that they were wrong.
47:34
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, it's a conservative flush, slush fund is what you're saying.
47:37
[SPEAKER_01]: It's a slush fund.
47:39
[SPEAKER_01]: And so what the judge basically said is, you know, you can,
47:43
[SPEAKER_01]: Poll at apples or oranges, it's the same thing.
47:46
[SPEAKER_01]: So this thing is alive and well as far as I can see.
47:49
[SPEAKER_01]: And so we're moving forward with this case and banning you from being able to use it.
47:53
[SPEAKER_02]: It's good.
47:54
[SPEAKER_02]: Good.
47:55
[SPEAKER_02]: Finally, I got to get to my thoughts on the Kennedy Center.
47:57
[SPEAKER_02]: I understand.
47:58
[SPEAKER_02]: I was listening to some ramblings by Trump.
48:02
[SPEAKER_02]: And I actually checked a couple of places.
48:05
[SPEAKER_02]: It's believed that there is a bipartisan
48:10
[SPEAKER_02]: bipartisan solution to this and and Trump's Trump's reasoning how he I guess he's put it is that they're going to put his name on the Kennedy Center It will be the Trump John F Kennedy Center.
48:22
[SPEAKER_02]: Oh, this way.
48:23
[SPEAKER_02]: He will need to save it not tear it down And the reasoning is because he's a Republican and Kennedy was a Democrat That's bipartisan that that's somehow in his in his twisted vessel That's bipartisan jet
48:40
[SPEAKER_01]: Well, and by that logic, why are we not putting Trump's name on the whole face of the Washington Monument?
48:47
[SPEAKER_01]: Because Washington was a totally different party.
48:51
[SPEAKER_01]: So I think that's definitely bipartisan.
48:56
[SPEAKER_01]: He has been shut down by every court that he's gone to so far.
48:59
[SPEAKER_01]: And what happens last week is the court stepped in and said, OK, nothing can be done without a 30 days notice.
49:09
[SPEAKER_01]: They said that it's not safe, that's why they need to close it, but it's not safe because we had a big storm at the beginning of September, and there were some plaster that fell off the ceiling because there was a leak.
49:24
[SPEAKER_01]: Right.
49:26
[SPEAKER_01]: And so they have now erected a whole fence around the entirety of the Kennedy Center to fix this patch of plaster the broke.
49:35
[SPEAKER_01]: I was like, you'll just get the scaffolding and I can get a bucket of mud and tape and and I got a spackled, you know, nice that I can bring myself we could fix it, but instead we're going to just tear it down.
49:51
[SPEAKER_02]: And I actually know people in DC who are organizing a human shield so that they don't tear it down.
49:57
[SPEAKER_02]: How crazy is that?
49:58
[SPEAKER_02]: 55 years the Kennedy Center was fine.
50:00
[SPEAKER_02]: Trump's the chairman one year.
50:02
[SPEAKER_02]: And we're talking about tearing it down and demolishing it because it's bankrupt.
50:06
[SPEAKER_02]: That is Trumpian leadership.
50:09
[SPEAKER_01]: Well, the thing is, is it wasn't bankrupt until Trump stepped in?
50:12
[SPEAKER_02]: Exactly.
50:13
[SPEAKER_01]: The Kennedy Center was turning a profit.
50:15
[SPEAKER_01]: They had like almost $7 million profit in 2024.
50:21
[SPEAKER_01]: Now that was in 23 and 24 it was even higher.
50:23
[SPEAKER_01]: They had even in a higher profit.
50:24
[SPEAKER_01]: So they were at the very least, have always broke even.
50:28
[SPEAKER_01]: And some years they have larger profits than others.
50:32
[SPEAKER_01]: And there was a small renovation as in there was a whole new building built in 2019 for the Kennedy Center.
50:44
[SPEAKER_01]: So there was some work already done on it
50:48
[SPEAKER_01]: I'm just like you guys like this none of this makes any sense.
50:52
[SPEAKER_01]: I think the good piece of this is that there's already been lawsuits in place over this whole thing.
50:58
[SPEAKER_01]: Whereas with the east wing of the White House.
51:01
[SPEAKER_01]: there nobody knew what was going to happen.
51:03
[SPEAKER_01]: No, no, this is the thing.
51:04
[SPEAKER_01]: We've been with a ball, you know, ball and change.
51:07
[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, ball.
51:07
[SPEAKER_02]: All the thing is, if we were to allow Trump to put his name on it, immediately it would be the best place ever, and it would be phenomenal, it would be tremendous, and it'd be incredible.
51:15
[SPEAKER_02]: Because that's how the P-brain works.
51:18
[SPEAKER_02]: Sarah, as always, amazing work.
51:20
[SPEAKER_02]: I hope folks will check out alternate.org and the work that you do over there.
51:24
[SPEAKER_02]: Sarah Burst, thanks so much.
51:25
[SPEAKER_01]: Thanks.
51:26
[SPEAKER_01]: Have a great rest of the week, everyone.
51:30
[SPEAKER_02]: Trumpian leadership, what else is he going to bankrupt?
51:34
[SPEAKER_02]: What else does he want to tear down?
51:36
[SPEAKER_02]: Oh, yeah, democracy.
51:37
[SPEAKER_02]: Rick at TheRicksmithshow.com.
51:39
[SPEAKER_02]: Right back, stick around.
51:50
[SPEAKER_02]: I'm Rick Smith, and this is Labor History in 2.
51:54
[SPEAKER_02]: On this day in Labor History, the year was 1912.
51:57
[SPEAKER_02]: That was the day that Labor activists, Mother Jones, led a march of miners children through the streets of Charleston, West Virginia.
52:05
[SPEAKER_02]: Her aim was to illustrate the effects of poverty.
52:09
[SPEAKER_02]: In the speech she gave that day, Mother Jones declared tyranny robbery and oppression of the people must go.
52:15
[SPEAKER_02]: The children must be educated.
52:18
[SPEAKER_02]: Her march took place during the 1912 to 1913, paint Creek cabin Creek coal miners strike in that state.
52:26
[SPEAKER_02]: During the strike, gunfire was exchanged between members of the United Mine Workers and the mine owners hired private army.
52:33
[SPEAKER_02]: The governor declared martial law on three separate occasions.
52:36
[SPEAKER_02]: Mother Jones was arrested in February of 1913.
52:40
[SPEAKER_02]: She was accused of conspiring to commit murder and brought before a military court.
52:45
[SPEAKER_02]: She refused to recognize the legitimacy of her court martial.
52:49
[SPEAKER_02]: Mother Jones was sentenced to 20 years in the state penitentiary.
52:53
[SPEAKER_02]: While she was under house arrest for 85 days, mother Jones contracted a dangerous case of pneumonia.
52:58
[SPEAKER_02]: She was 76 years old.
53:01
[SPEAKER_02]: Her support of the miners and subsequent trial helped build the reputation of mother Jones as a tough union activist and the miners' angel.
53:10
[SPEAKER_02]: It also helped lead the U.S. Senate to launch an investigation into conditions in the West Virginia coal mines.
53:16
[SPEAKER_02]: When Henry D. Hadfield was elected governor of West Virginia, he was determined to end the labor crisis.
53:22
[SPEAKER_02]: He released those who had been convicted under the military court.
53:26
[SPEAKER_02]: On May 8, Mother Jones was set free.
53:29
[SPEAKER_02]: Mother Jones, the grandmother of all agitators, continued her fight for working people.
53:34
[SPEAKER_02]: Mother Jones's trial helped to spotlight the low wages coal miners earned the long
53:39
[SPEAKER_02]: hours they worked and the dangerous working conditions under which they toil.
53:44
[SPEAKER_02]: One of her most remembered quotes is pray for the dead but fight like hell for the living.
54:03
[SPEAKER_02]: So, uh, China's coming to town, I guess, right?
54:06
[SPEAKER_02]: Xi Jinping, who, I guess, had a, as Sarah said, had a, a, a, a, a minor severe stroke, and I don't know what that means.
54:13
[SPEAKER_02]: Um, not quite sure what that means, but, uh, they're coming to town, the, the Bloomberg story of the caught my attention is, uh, China's exports of rare earth magnets, uh, fell last month.
54:26
[SPEAKER_02]: So are they pulling that back and this for me is one of those 1984 moments because they've dropped down there They're exporting here into the U.S. or us importing them and Trump is going to probably bring it back to where it was and Call it a major victory for his negotiating skills or we may actually get a little bit less
54:49
[SPEAKER_02]: So Xi Jinping can go home and go, what an idiot that guy is and Trump's still going to call it a victory because no matter what Whatever Trump does is it's the best ever.
54:58
[SPEAKER_02]: It's the greatest.
54:58
[SPEAKER_02]: It is amazing What's it?
55:02
[SPEAKER_02]: It's his favorite word It's tremendous
55:07
[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, not luck, you know, the midterms are coming up important and Republicans are spending money like it's basically going out of style.
55:14
[SPEAKER_02]: In fact, according to the most recent Wall Street Journal article I read, Republican advertisers have spent across 10 Senate races in the first 18 months of September, about $204 million or 83 million, then the Democrats have spent.
55:34
[SPEAKER_02]: So the rich people are digging deep man.
55:36
[SPEAKER_02]: They're digging deep because they know if Democrats take the Senate The gravy train is is going to be over And and they're going to spend because look they're getting what they want out of this administration More deregulation more more power than they know what to do with and access to the government trust
56:00
[SPEAKER_02]: The deals that our deal maker are making, our Bob Barker, the deals that he's making are bad.
56:11
[SPEAKER_02]: It's that simple.
56:13
[SPEAKER_02]: And look, I'm not a genius.
56:15
[SPEAKER_02]: I look at the return on our investments and I'm not seeing it.
56:20
[SPEAKER_02]: And as I started today off, there are bots out there and I'm sure there's a couple of idiot people who go, I hope I $20 to gallon before I vote for a Democrat.
56:31
[SPEAKER_02]: It's being regurgitated so often.
56:34
[SPEAKER_02]: And the reality is, we're in a weird spot.
56:40
[SPEAKER_02]: Internationally, our favorite ability rates internationally are fairly low.
56:47
[SPEAKER_02]: The trust other nations, our friends have fairly low.
56:52
[SPEAKER_02]: So much so that, you know, guess what?
56:54
[SPEAKER_02]: They're going our allies are going to China to look for some kind of a deal.
57:00
[SPEAKER_02]: And this is what's going on in our ran this this was the this was history is going to look back at this moment go this is really the dumbest thing you could have done.
57:09
[SPEAKER_02]: But according to him best ever according to him this is this is this is going to be amazing.
57:15
[SPEAKER_02]: I and I won't what do you say last week gas prices are going to come down like a rocket ship in reverse.
57:23
[SPEAKER_02]: Which.
57:26
[SPEAKER_02]: Really.
57:29
[SPEAKER_02]: Now, over the weekend, I'm sure you saw that I ran in the U.S. or trading barbs, you know, Trump again, making threats of annihilation.
57:38
[SPEAKER_02]: We're going to crash your economy, and we're going to annihilate wipe out all you people and the Iranian military said it's going to, uh, going to launch another first set of attacks.
57:49
[SPEAKER_02]: Now, the weird thing is, and this is one of the, I'm going to weird spot here, because, you know, I saw last week a number of soldiers had,
57:58
[SPEAKER_02]: had put out some stuff that maybe our military didn't want to have ready to see.
58:02
[SPEAKER_02]: No, I'm for full transparency, but as a soldier, I'm, I got, I got to, I got to wonder, and I got to wonder my, my veteran crowd if you're comfortable with that.
58:16
[SPEAKER_02]: No, I have, I have, I have some friends going there, they're heroes, they're pointing stuff out, and I understand that thinking, but,
58:24
[SPEAKER_02]: Um, a little little weirded out by, uh, no, Trump's moving to cripple the international criminal court, which no kidding, uh, why would, why am I not surprised that that's happening?
58:35
[SPEAKER_02]: Because look, I still think what we've done in Iran is wrong.
58:40
[SPEAKER_02]: Not because I am in favor of the Iranian regime, not because they're good people, not because they obey any laws, not because any of that, but we should be.
58:56
[SPEAKER_02]: We should be better than this.
58:58
[SPEAKER_02]: Want to hear your thoughts?
59:00
[SPEAKER_02]: Email me, RicketTheRixMithshow.com.
59:03
[SPEAKER_02]: Happy where we are.
59:04
[SPEAKER_02]: What are fuel prices in your neck of the woods?
59:07
[SPEAKER_02]: Happy with that?
59:08
[SPEAKER_02]: My red hat friends, would you pay more?
59:11
[SPEAKER_02]: Would you happily pay more?
59:12
[SPEAKER_02]: The price of freedom?
59:15
[SPEAKER_02]: I want to hear it work at the ricksmithshow.com.
59:17
[SPEAKER_02]: Miss any portion of the program, grab the podcast where we find your favorite podcasts.
59:22
[SPEAKER_02]: You will find ours also.
59:24
[SPEAKER_02]: Check out our new program, the Daily Joltz.
59:26
[SPEAKER_02]: You can find that at your dailyjolt.com.
59:30
[SPEAKER_02]: We'll get links out on social media.
59:33
[SPEAKER_02]: Thanks so much for being here.
59:35
[SPEAKER_02]: We'll see you back here next time.
59:40
[SPEAKER_03]: You've been listening to the Rick Smith show.
59:45
[SPEAKER_03]: email wreck at wreck at thericksmithshow.com.
59:52
[SPEAKER_03]: Until next time, this has been The Rick Smith Show.
59:55
[SPEAKER_03]: We're working people, come to talk.