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The Rick Smith Show 7-15-2026 · The Rick Smith Show

0:00
[SPEAKER_02]: It's time for the Rick Smith show.
0:02
[SPEAKER_02]: Now, here is the voice of the working class, Rick Smith.
0:13
[SPEAKER_03]: And welcome, brothers, sisters working class heroes.
0:18
[SPEAKER_03]: This is the Rick Smith show.
0:19
[SPEAKER_03]: Thanks so much for being here.
0:21
[SPEAKER_03]: Today, on the big program, lots to get to, lots to talk about.
0:26
[SPEAKER_03]: Freedom, freedom is a funny word.
0:29
[SPEAKER_03]: Funny word in this country.
0:30
[SPEAKER_03]: We slap it all over everything.
0:32
[SPEAKER_03]: Freedom fries, freedom fuel, freedom phones.
0:36
[SPEAKER_03]: Probably feed, freedom hemorrhide cream is coming soon.
0:40
[SPEAKER_03]: But I went to one of Trump's shiny new, newly branded freedom gas stations because of course, now we've got government branded gasoline and I ran into a guy with a Trump bumper sticker.
0:52
[SPEAKER_03]: I didn't get gas.
0:52
[SPEAKER_03]: I just was looking for someone but he was proudly popping his freedom fuel like he was personally defending the alamo.
1:00
[SPEAKER_03]: So I asked him, I go, hey, how's it going?
1:02
[SPEAKER_03]: I feel about, you know, let's go on on, he got me good.
1:07
[SPEAKER_03]: on the war side, the chaos doing well by you.
1:11
[SPEAKER_03]: And every time I got the same line, cost freedom, cost freedom, and it hit me that these folks keep talking about the cost of freedom like they're actually paying it.
1:22
[SPEAKER_03]: When in reality, it's working people who are getting build every month.
1:26
[SPEAKER_03]: Here's the truth.
1:28
[SPEAKER_03]: Nobody on the freedom fuel billboard wants to say it out loud, but you're not free if you can't feed your family.
1:36
[SPEAKER_03]: You're not free if missing one paycheck means you have to choose between rent and medicine.
1:41
[SPEAKER_03]: You're not free if your boss can can you for any reason or well no reason and you have no recourse.
1:48
[SPEAKER_03]: That's not freedom.
1:49
[SPEAKER_03]: That's dependency with a flag staple to it.
1:52
[SPEAKER_03]: And we've built this entire mythology around economic freedom that boils down to this.
1:57
[SPEAKER_03]: Corporations are free to do whatever they want, whenever they want to, whomever they want, and workers are free to stop for the consequences.
2:05
[SPEAKER_03]: CEOs call it the free market.
2:08
[SPEAKER_03]: Then when you ask them how they decide how they're paying people they admit, well, we don't really know.
2:12
[SPEAKER_03]: Kind of a mix, a mysterious mix of vibes, tradition, and whatever we can get away with or how desperate you are.
2:19
[SPEAKER_03]: They can't explain the pay structure, but they're absolutely certain it's the invisible hand of freedom.
2:25
[SPEAKER_03]: Not just their thumb on the scale.
2:28
[SPEAKER_03]: So I keep hearing that word free, and for the working class, it's anything but, free market, but not free healthcare, free enterprise, but no free time, you're free to choose between the three crummy jobs, but not free to say no without losing your home.
2:43
[SPEAKER_03]: It's not liberty, it's a hostage negotiation where the ransom is your dignity.
2:48
[SPEAKER_03]: We tell workers if you don't like it quit, and go where.
2:52
[SPEAKER_03]: to what?
2:53
[SPEAKER_03]: Another job where your schedule drops it on some app at 10 p.m. and your wages are decided by an algorithm and your benefits disappear faster than a Trump ethics lawyer.
3:02
[SPEAKER_03]: Really, that's our freedom.
3:05
[SPEAKER_03]: And the guy at the Freedom Station thinks the pain at the pump is just the cost of freedom.
3:10
[SPEAKER_03]: But the real cost is every hour of your life sold cheap because you don't
3:20
[SPEAKER_03]: And here's the twisted part, most workers have way more power than they think, and most of the people in charge have way less moral right to the power they wield.
3:31
[SPEAKER_03]: But as long as we believe that freedom is what happens to us, instead of what we build together, the game stays rigged.
3:39
[SPEAKER_03]: If you want real freedom, the kind where you're not terrified of a pink slip or a medical
3:45
[SPEAKER_03]: We've got a build power, real power.
3:47
[SPEAKER_03]: And there are ways of doing that.
3:49
[SPEAKER_03]: You can join in for me, Union, collective bargaining, turns my boss can fire me anytime into my boss has to follow a contract.
3:59
[SPEAKER_03]: Organize your coworkers, even informally, unite in the workplace.
4:04
[SPEAKER_03]: Know your rights, use those rights.
4:06
[SPEAKER_03]: Learn labor laws in your state.
4:08
[SPEAKER_03]: Document abuse is filed complaints.
4:10
[SPEAKER_03]: Don't let employers skate just because, well, that's how we've always done it.
4:15
[SPEAKER_03]: support pro-worker candidates, vote, volunteer, pressure politicians for higher minimum wages, stronger safety rules, and real penalties for wage theft.
4:26
[SPEAKER_03]: And then beyond the workplace, build a community mutual aid society, tenant rights unions, caregiver groups, network our actual power, because understand freedom is in at the gas pump, it's at the union hall.
4:43
[SPEAKER_03]: It's not a word on a bumper sticker.
4:44
[SPEAKER_03]: It's the ability to look your boss in the eye and say, no, I don't think you get the ruin my life on a whim.
4:51
[SPEAKER_03]: And the reality is if we want the kind of freedom where we're going to have to stop worshiping at the altar of the free market and start building a free people.
5:01
[SPEAKER_03]: I've been talking about this for years because the sad reality is we believe what we're shoveled,
5:12
[SPEAKER_03]: that when it trickles down to the reality, he's still got to get up, he's still got to go to that same crummy job, he can still deal with the same crummy boss and still not getting ahead.
5:23
[SPEAKER_03]: And what do they feed us?
5:25
[SPEAKER_03]: They feed us a steady diet of outrage, candy pointed at each of us.
5:31
[SPEAKER_03]: You know, I love the J.
5:32
[SPEAKER_03]: Gold quote of I can pay half the working class to murder the other half because as long as they keep us eating each other, as long as they keep us looking to our right and to our left instead of way up ahead of us, at the people who have such enormous wealth and power that, well, we're not evidently not comprehending because we think that that immigrant or that person that's working that minimum wage, somehow
6:02
[SPEAKER_03]: And this is where I come back to what the employer class doesn't want, what the billionaire class never wants is an activated engaged workforce that's unionized, that's that understand that's empowered, that understands that collectively, only collectively do they have power.
6:22
[SPEAKER_03]: We've been sold this idea that we're in our army of one and that we can make our own bad deals.
6:32
[SPEAKER_03]: and we have made our own bad deals.
6:33
[SPEAKER_03]: And it's harmed not just ourselves, but everyone else.
6:34
[SPEAKER_03]: So for me, freedom, yes, I'm all in favor.
6:35
[SPEAKER_03]: But do you think we have it?
6:36
[SPEAKER_03]: I wanna hear your thoughts.
6:36
[SPEAKER_03]: What are your thoughts of freedom in America?
6:37
[SPEAKER_03]: Email me, RickardTheRixMistory.com, right back.
6:38
[SPEAKER_03]: [♪ music playing in background music playing in background music playing in background music playing in background music playing in background music playing in background music playing in background music playing in background music playing in background music playing in background music playing in background music playing in background music playing in background music playing in background music playing in background music playing in background music playing in background music playing in background music playing in background music playing in background music playing in background music playing in background music playing in background music playing in background music playing in background music playing in background music playing in background music playing in background music playing in background music playing in background music playing in background music playing in background music
6:58
[SPEAKER_03]: On this day in Labor History, the year was 1877.
7:01
[SPEAKER_03]: That was the day that would become known as the Great Apeevil, or the Great Aprising, which began in Martin'sburg, West Virginia.
7:10
[SPEAKER_03]: Railroad workers were angry.
7:11
[SPEAKER_03]: They had seen their wages cut twice in six months by the Baltimore and Ohio Railroad.
7:16
[SPEAKER_03]: The workers went on strike, refusing to let the trains move.
7:21
[SPEAKER_03]: 600 trains jam the rail yard, and soon the strike spread the Baltimore.
7:25
[SPEAKER_03]: When the Maryland Governor called out the National Guard, workers in the city rose up and attacked them.
7:31
[SPEAKER_03]: The guards been fired on the crowd, killing 10 people.
7:34
[SPEAKER_03]: The strike continued to spread to Pittsburgh, Chicago, and East St. Louis.
7:39
[SPEAKER_03]: More than 100,000 workers stopped working.
7:42
[SPEAKER_03]: This was not an organized strike by a central labor union, but rather a popular revolt by workers fed up with their wages and working conditions.
7:51
[SPEAKER_03]: Everywhere the workers went on strike, they were met with armed troops.
7:55
[SPEAKER_03]: Workers, police and guardsmen were at battle.
7:57
[SPEAKER_03]: Workers tore up railroad tracks and burnt railroad buildings.
8:01
[SPEAKER_03]: The chairman of the Pennsylvania Railroad voiced his opinion that those on strike should be given, quote, a rifle diet for a few days and see how they liked that kind of bread.
8:12
[SPEAKER_03]: In Chicago, thousands of workers clashed with police, and what came to be known as the Battle of Viaduct.
8:21
[SPEAKER_03]: the country.
8:21
[SPEAKER_03]: The events of the summer of 1877 were a turning point in US labor history.
8:26
[SPEAKER_03]: Industrialists became convinced that they needed an armed response to labor uprisings.
8:32
[SPEAKER_03]: The violence of 1877 forewarn the bloody conflict of labor versus capital that would continue over the decades to follow across the United States.
8:42
[SPEAKER_03]: Labor History in two brought to you by the Illinois Labor History Society and the Rick Smith Show.
8:47
[SPEAKER_03]: For more information, go to LaborHistoryInto.com, like us on Facebook and follow us on the Twitter's at LaborHistoryInto.
8:57
[SPEAKER_02]: Welcome back to the Rick Smith Show.
8:59
[SPEAKER_02]: Now, here is Rick Smith.
9:04
[SPEAKER_03]: So as we talked about yesterday on the program, Lindsey died over the weekend, Lindsey Graham gone, I guess the sister now going to take over, she's going to be tapped to be his replacement until January 3rd when who knows what worse replacement we're going to get out of South Carolina, but equally as dead, I guess the ceasefire has gone, I guess that's over maybe.
9:27
[SPEAKER_03]: I guess we're going to start blocking the street or her moves again 20% toll and the question I have is you know, are we're going to obliterate the entire country now is that back on the table?
9:40
[SPEAKER_03]: So much going on and so much that you know, it's been a couple of minutes.
9:44
[SPEAKER_03]: I'm sure everything's changed, but that's why I've asked Sam Ratner to come share some thoughts with us Sam is the policy director there at when without war you can check out their website at when without war dot com.
9:58
[SPEAKER_03]: Sam, thanks for taking time for me.
10:00
[SPEAKER_05]: Rick, thanks so much for having me back.
10:03
[SPEAKER_03]: So where are we?
10:04
[SPEAKER_03]: I mean, all this news, I'm just completely bombarded with the ceasefire's done.
10:10
[SPEAKER_03]: It's not done, maybe we can salvage parts of it.
10:13
[SPEAKER_03]: We're going back to blockading the straight, oh, by the way, you know, there are people who say, well, we need to go full in in honor of Lindsey's passing.
10:21
[SPEAKER_03]: We need to go back full, full board, you know, to make Lindsey's time worthwhile.
10:29
[SPEAKER_05]: Well, hopefully we are not back on the precipice of realizing Lindsey Graham's dream of a full scale United States war in and against Iran.
10:40
[SPEAKER_05]: But things are not looking very good.
10:42
[SPEAKER_05]: We have seen over the course of the weekend and the last few days.
10:50
[SPEAKER_05]: You know, both both sides of this conflict really seem to repudiate the memorandum of understanding that was sort of buttressing the ceasefire that was was spent ongoing for the past few weeks.
11:14
[SPEAKER_05]: And, you know, as you mentioned today, you've got Donald Trump saying that the U.S. is going to reimpose a blockade on the straight and that, you know, we're now going to be charging a 20% toll to use the straight despite the fact that that in theory the U.S. is supposed to be in favor of freedom of navigation through the straight.
11:32
[SPEAKER_05]: And I think that, you know, it's a little bit unclear whether we are, you know, headed to full-scale war, but we are certainly headed in that direction.
11:42
[SPEAKER_05]: And I think that, you know, it's changed in the last time we talked is, you know, we talked sort of at the beginning of this ceasefire.
11:47
[SPEAKER_05]: And, you know, then this war was deeply unpopular, which it still is.
11:53
[SPEAKER_05]: Then this war had caused deep economic harm to folks around the country and around the world and it still has and it still does.
12:00
[SPEAKER_05]: We saw gas prices spike today or prices rather spike today.
12:05
[SPEAKER_05]: But what hadn't happened yet is that Congress had not yet actually sort of enacted the will of the people who really paid this war.
12:14
[SPEAKER_05]: And order the president to withdraw US forces from from hostilities.
12:19
[SPEAKER_05]: And that has happened, you know, if I partisan resolution passed in both houses of Congress, I, you know, a war-powered resolution that makes it very clear that the law of the land is that the president is supposed to to withdraw forces from hostilities where they're on.
12:35
[SPEAKER_05]: And instead, we see Trump to any opposite.
12:37
[SPEAKER_05]: Instead, we see a return to war, we see a threatened expansion of the war, threatening to put U.S. boots on the ground.
12:45
[SPEAKER_05]: And you know, even more so than last time, but we're left with it seeing a lawless president fight a lawless war and all of us are paying the price.
12:55
[SPEAKER_03]: But you know, are we surprised by it?
12:57
[SPEAKER_03]: I mean, to be honest, you know, this is exactly what I would have expected out of Donald Trump.
13:00
[SPEAKER_03]: And if had you had given me this scenario in 2024 during the campaign, I would have said, this is exactly what he would do because this is what people voted for.
13:09
[SPEAKER_03]: He's, you know, he's a strong man.
13:10
[SPEAKER_03]: He's these are authoritarian.
13:12
[SPEAKER_03]: We want some, we want a CEO president.
13:14
[SPEAKER_03]: I was told, and this seems like a CEO decision.
13:18
[SPEAKER_05]: I'll say this is certainly a thing that Donald Trump would do, and this is he has never yet found a problem that he doesn't think it could be solved with more violence, but I wouldn't say that I don't think this is what people who voted for Donald Trump by a large voted for.
13:33
[SPEAKER_05]: I think that, you know, Trump made a lot of promises over the course of of all of his campaigns that he was going to end the era forever worse than he was not going to get involved in foolish destructive expensive wars in in the Middle East and instead of delivering on that promise he's he has done back on it in a massive and world changing way.
13:53
[SPEAKER_05]: And we see, you know, that we could see how angry people are about this, right?
13:57
[SPEAKER_05]: Like this war is is, you know, it's always been underwater with, with democratic Democrats and independence.
14:04
[SPEAKER_05]: It's only gotten more so over time.
14:06
[SPEAKER_05]: And, you know, even Republicans, both in Congress and around the country are looking around of this and saying, this is a disaster.
14:13
[SPEAKER_05]: We need to be allowed, this isn't, you know, what we voted for, and it's, you know, we're not going to bring us anything worthwhile.
14:21
[SPEAKER_03]: But, you know, here's, here's, I've had a couple of conversations with my red hat friends who have, they've now come around to the fact that, yeah, we, we had to do this.
14:29
[SPEAKER_03]: This is, this is the red hat view that I've gotten.
14:31
[SPEAKER_03]: It may not be widespread across MAGA world, but what's been sold to me is,
14:36
[SPEAKER_03]: We didn't ask for this, but we had to stop them from getting the nuke and at any cost and our military is so powerful, so strong that we could go and basically wipe 90 million people off the planet if we so chose and they should surrender because we are that powerful.
14:52
[SPEAKER_03]: And it won't be forever, this is a short-term thing, we'll get past it and this is the cost of freedom.
14:59
[SPEAKER_03]: That's what I've been told.
15:01
[SPEAKER_03]: Now if that's accurate and across the the breadth of Maga world, I don't know, but that's the response that I've been given most often, which scares the living you know what out of it.
15:13
[SPEAKER_05]: Yeah, I do.
15:13
[SPEAKER_03]: There's a scary response.
15:15
[SPEAKER_05]: I think that, you know, people who are willing to say sort of with one side of their mouth that the U.S. should be willing to kill 90 million people for rightly any reason, but, but, you know, for a goal that had been accomplished previously through diplomatic means, it could have been accomplished that way again.
15:32
[SPEAKER_05]: And then on the other side, they're about to say, ah, it's no big deal.
15:36
[SPEAKER_05]: This war is a small price to pay to accomplish the goals that they've sort of conveyed after the fact that this war is for.
15:43
[SPEAKER_05]: I think, you know, I don't buy either side of it.
15:46
[SPEAKER_05]: The reality of this situation is that there was a robust deal to prevent the Iranian government seeking a nuclear weapon, and that that was a deal that Donald Trump tore up.
15:58
[SPEAKER_05]: The as he thought that trying to accomplish this through violence was was a better approach.
16:03
[SPEAKER_05]: We've seen that has completely failed.
16:06
[SPEAKER_05]: And on the flip side, also the idea that you know, Trump has been saying from the start that, oh, the cost of this war, you're even noticing this war will be over in in days and weeks.
16:16
[SPEAKER_05]: And now, you know, we're, we're bumps in the costs are, are massive and growing.
16:21
[SPEAKER_05]: The president is about to ask for another over one trillion dollars in money for the Pentagon to continue this war and people are fed up about it.
16:30
[SPEAKER_03]: So let me ask you this because, okay, so Congress has said, no, we don't want to want to fund this.
16:35
[SPEAKER_03]: The ceasefire, I think it's probably is dead.
16:37
[SPEAKER_03]: Or I guess I should ask, there's a question, is the ceasefire dead?
16:41
[SPEAKER_03]: And if it is, what options are left?
16:44
[SPEAKER_03]: other than either, you know, now pulling out and realizing that he really blundered this badly and we've lost and Iran's going to toll the the straight or going all in are there other options that maybe we don't that I don't I don't know about.
17:00
[SPEAKER_05]: Yeah, I think as with just about everything Trump does, this is, you know, the ceasefire is dead, and also it's easy to imagine a version of it continuing on as sort of a zombie.
17:11
[SPEAKER_05]: The, the president has signaled pretty clearly that he intends to, you know, continue firing, which is sort of the dictionary definition of not accepting the ceasefire anymore.
17:23
[SPEAKER_05]: But on the flip side, I think that the poor deal for a ceasefire that I was laid out in the MOU can still certainly be on the table, right?
17:33
[SPEAKER_05]: It is where we're not on sort of a one-way train to a massively expanded war.
17:40
[SPEAKER_05]: There are still many opportunities to choose anything else.
17:51
[SPEAKER_05]: from Congress, from the American people, and, you know, potentially from markets as well.
17:56
[SPEAKER_03]: But I don't think he cares about the pressure, right?
17:58
[SPEAKER_03]: I don't think there's part of me that goes, he doesn't care that this is an ego-driven thing.
18:03
[SPEAKER_03]: And that, you know, it's only going to get worse before it gets any better.
18:09
[SPEAKER_03]: So if that's the case,
18:12
[SPEAKER_03]: Where again, where are we left?
18:14
[SPEAKER_03]: I mean, because I don't, I don't see him as someone who backs up to his own detriment and to hours.
18:21
[SPEAKER_03]: So, you know,
18:23
[SPEAKER_03]: Where does that leave us again?
18:24
[SPEAKER_03]: I'm not because I know I've asked this question, but I'm still trying to figure out Because I don't see a positive end to this, especially with the fact that look if I'm my ran I don't trust a word that comes out of his mouth.
18:38
[SPEAKER_03]: I don't trust anything that's been written down that he's put his his giant signature on I don't think he's trustworthy on any level about anything So how do you how do you move forward on diplomacy with someone that you cannot trust?
18:54
[SPEAKER_05]: Yeah, absolutely.
18:56
[SPEAKER_05]: Trump's continued failures of diplomacy has made the job harder.
19:01
[SPEAKER_05]: There's no question.
19:03
[SPEAKER_05]: But I think two things here.
19:04
[SPEAKER_05]: One is that the Trump often is very stubborn, but I do think he is actually responsive to pressure on.
19:14
[SPEAKER_05]: So I think pressure is how we ended up with the ceasefire in the first place.
19:18
[SPEAKER_05]: We saw a huge uprising of anti-war sentiment across the country.
19:24
[SPEAKER_05]: That made itself felt in the halls of Congress.
19:26
[SPEAKER_05]: It made itself felt among the president's political advisors.
19:29
[SPEAKER_05]: And a youth invent is Donald Trump is not someone who wants to negotiate a ceasefire.
19:36
[SPEAKER_05]: You know, unless he feels like that is a political win and anything else would be a political loss.
19:42
[SPEAKER_05]: So I think that political pressure does tell you.
19:45
[SPEAKER_05]: And I think, you know, the other thing about the potential for future diplomacy is, you know, Barack Obama famously said, you know, you don't need to do diplomacy with your friends, right?
19:55
[SPEAKER_05]: You don't, you don't need to have complex negotiations with you.
19:59
[SPEAKER_05]: And the thing to pose, you can do, is it provides outlet for real engagement between adversaries, between parties that don't feel like they can trust each other.
20:10
[SPEAKER_05]: And obviously acting in good faith makes those negotiations easier, enacting a bad faith makes them more difficult, and Trump's horrible mismanagement of every part of U.S. or on relationship has made this much more difficult.
20:22
[SPEAKER_05]: And it's also done ideal that an eventual deal that's almost certainly going to be worse for
20:27
[SPEAKER_05]: you know, the world in the United States, and then what was happening before the war, but I don't think that's the reason to think that there is no diplomatic path forward.
20:36
[SPEAKER_05]: I think there is a diplomatic path forward, if there's always a diplomatic path forward.
20:40
[SPEAKER_05]: And I think in this case, that it is a path that that, you know, the president and the country need to seize because as we've seen, there's no profit in continuing the military path.
20:52
[SPEAKER_03]: So if diplomacy is the pathway forward, where's our top diplomat?
20:56
[SPEAKER_03]: Where's Marco?
20:57
[SPEAKER_03]: Where's Little Marco?
20:58
[SPEAKER_05]: Oh, he would have to ask him.
21:00
[SPEAKER_05]: He seems like he's very busy sort of doing some shadowy controlling of Venezuela and oil revenues at a time when people invent its oil are trying to dig out from a massive and massively destructive earthquake natural disaster.
21:16
[SPEAKER_05]: Yeah, I think that that, you know, this is yet another example of the administrations use huge failures.
21:23
[SPEAKER_05]: I think we've seen, you know, Marco Rubio is M.A.
21:26
[SPEAKER_05]: on this.
21:26
[SPEAKER_05]: We've seen JD Vance sort of pop his head up and you're trying to make an aim for yourself and then and then disappear.
21:33
[SPEAKER_05]: You know, Steve Wickoff, you know, the president's son-in-law, like our all sort of coming in and out of this thing, but the reality seems to be that, you know, the president is very happy to slash maybe is incapable of doing anything, anything beyond sort of studdling such work as they're doing with, you know, sort of his canterms and tweets.
21:58
[SPEAKER_03]: Yeah, I got to tell you the one thing that I'm happy about.
22:01
[SPEAKER_03]: I'm not happy that Lindsey Graham's dead.
22:03
[SPEAKER_03]: I'm not going to be I'm not that far.
22:04
[SPEAKER_03]: I mean, look, I've said enough bad things about him over the years.
22:06
[SPEAKER_03]: I'm not going to make him an angel, but I don't want anybody to dead.
22:09
[SPEAKER_03]: My concern right when I heard the news is that it was going to be spun that somehow the Iranians took him because our took him out.
22:16
[SPEAKER_03]: Yeah, because there's been all this talk of the Iranians who tried to assassinate Trump and and there's been all of that.
22:21
[SPEAKER_03]: So my fear right when I heard the news was,
22:23
[SPEAKER_03]: You know, they're going to say it was the Iranians and this is going to be the the impetus of for the Senate to rise up and go, we got to go.
22:29
[SPEAKER_03]: So, I guess that's a good fortune, maybe a little of the, no.
22:36
[SPEAKER_05]: I know, absolutely.
22:38
[SPEAKER_05]: I think, I think, yeah, I mean, I'm very glad we're not in a situation where we're seeing the Iranian government, you know, assassinating, you know, US political figures.
22:47
[SPEAKER_05]: And, you know, and frankly, on Lindsey Graham, I think that
22:52
[SPEAKER_05]: I, you know, I, I, I, I hope that that, you know, the Romney government is a, you know, out here, that is happening in anyone.
23:00
[SPEAKER_05]: And also I think it would be particularly foolish of them to assassinate Lindsey Graham, a guy who spent a career making inadvertently making war with Iran seem like an incredibly dumb idea.
23:13
[SPEAKER_05]: And here we are, he has come as close to getting his wish as ever, and it is everything that everyone who posted warned that it would be.
23:23
[SPEAKER_03]: So last line of the question I've got for you know going forward because again, we don't know it's going to happen in five minutes with this administration because hey he's unpredictable and that's the reason that is the reason people voted for him so this unpredictability of the global economies not happy with
23:47
[SPEAKER_03]: uh... but what do you see in the coming days uh... does this escalate does cooler do color cooler heads uh... you know prevail a little bit uh... is a sort of walking back if you got the crystal ball what do you think you're saying you know i i had to make a uh... a big prediction here but what i will say is that i think we'll see sort of the the locus of decision making shift to capital hill
24:10
[SPEAKER_05]: The Senate later on this week is going to be taking up the Pentagon budget, which many senators are already saying, they're basically considering, you know, litmus test for Trump's illegal war with a rod, right?
24:25
[SPEAKER_05]: That many senators are going to oppose this budget.
24:30
[SPEAKER_05]: This unbelievably large budget is over $1 trillion budget.
24:35
[SPEAKER_05]: Because, you know, the president has refused to follow the law and refused to engage with Congress about this war and I think, you know, how those votes shake out will will have a big effect about, you know, sort of the amount of pressure Trump is dealing on this and we'll also see, you know, the house has has made noises.
24:57
[SPEAKER_05]: I think very positive noises about the need for accountability when the president ignores the will of Congress We will have a people on questions of warrant peace.
25:05
[SPEAKER_05]: So let me have you stop him.
25:07
[SPEAKER_03]: What is that accountability that because here's the scenario that I see Congress digs in says no he digs in says this is where we're going you're putting the troops in arms way I'm doing it anyway because it's good for the country.
25:18
[SPEAKER_03]: It's good for the national security
25:20
[SPEAKER_03]: who enforces this where does this is going to our Supreme Court do what what then happens for folks who who who don't really know.
25:28
[SPEAKER_05]: I mean, I think at the very least we've seen in addition to this this wild Pentagon budget, we've seen the White House come to Congress demanding another $67 billion specifically for this war specifically to to expand and and escalate this war.
25:42
[SPEAKER_05]: And I think at the very least what Congress can do is is say that that request that supplemental request is dead on a run.
25:49
[SPEAKER_05]: that if the president is going to continue to fight a war that Congress and the American people have specifically said, absolutely, that is illegal to continue doing this, they're not going to get another dime to do it.
26:03
[SPEAKER_05]: And I think you're opposing that supplemental bill, opposing the Pentagon budget, having utilizing the power of the purse to enforce these, you know, enforce law powers resolution.
26:18
[SPEAKER_05]: I think is the bare minimum of the way forward.
26:21
[SPEAKER_05]: And we'll see what else members come up with in terms of
26:24
[SPEAKER_03]: Yeah, that would take a little bit of a charge, though, Sam.
26:27
[SPEAKER_03]: That's going to take some political courage, and I just, you know, I don't know.
26:31
[SPEAKER_03]: I don't know that the Republicans have that kind of courage.
26:34
[SPEAKER_03]: I know Democrats will because it's the other party, but I don't know they want to go back home and go, hey, you're sending our boys in the harms way.
26:41
[SPEAKER_03]: We're going to have to have big sales to get them flat jackets again.
26:46
[SPEAKER_03]: I'm concerned about that, that messaging that comes out of that.
26:51
[SPEAKER_05]: I mean, I think that, you know, there are a lot of problems with, you know, how long we have members of Congress hanging around around Washington, but I think enough members remember enough of the Iraq war to remember that going back to your district and saying that that actually, you know, we need to continue, you know, paying for and and robbing from your, your Medicare in order to pay for.
27:13
[SPEAKER_05]: a war that is not going well and that everyone opposes and as clearly said, you know, we want to end, that that doesn't play.
27:21
[SPEAKER_05]: It doesn't play for, for a public, it doesn't play for Democrats.
27:25
[SPEAKER_05]: And I say to that that the politics of this work and clear from the start and the only to come more clear as we've gone forward.
27:30
[SPEAKER_03]: There we go.
27:31
[SPEAKER_03]: Sam, I appreciate the input near insight.
27:33
[SPEAKER_03]: I hope folks will check out when without war dot or we'll get links out on social media
27:40
[SPEAKER_03]: station electric one of your thoughts are we ready for this does congress have the stones will there be profiles encourage you know five minutes i'm sure it's all going to change but i want to hear your thoughts work at the ricksmith show dot com right back stick around
28:00
[SPEAKER_03]: I'm Rick Smith, and this is Labor History in 2.
28:03
[SPEAKER_03]: On this day in Labor History, the year was 1978.
28:06
[SPEAKER_03]: That was the day municipal workers in Cleveland, Louisville, and Philadelphia walked off the job.
28:13
[SPEAKER_03]: That summer was rocked with public sector strikes, starting with a firefighter strike in Memphis.
28:18
[SPEAKER_03]: In Cleveland, municipal services came to a virtual halt as city workers honored a police work stoppage.
28:25
[SPEAKER_03]: In Louisville, firefighters walked off the job after the Kentucky Labor Relations Board found the city guilty of unfair labor practices.
28:33
[SPEAKER_03]: And in Philadelphia, 20,000 AFS members, including sanitation, highway, and health department workers, rejected a last-minute contract offer.
28:42
[SPEAKER_03]: They demanded wage increases.
28:44
[SPEAKER_03]: But they were also furious when the city announced it would have to lay off city workers to pay an arbitration award to the police.
28:51
[SPEAKER_03]: Sanitation strikes soon followed in New Orleans, San Antonio, Detroit, and Tuscaloosa.
28:56
[SPEAKER_03]: By the third week of July, transit workers in Washington DC staged a wildcat strike as did postal workers in California and New Jersey.
29:05
[SPEAKER_03]: Labor historian Joseph McCarton notes,
29:08
[SPEAKER_03]: that public sector strikes peaked in 1975 and again in 1978.
29:13
[SPEAKER_03]: By the late 1970s, the volatile recipe of rising public sector union militancy, inflation, and anti-tax reform made public sector unions more vulnerable than at any other time.
29:25
[SPEAKER_03]: Suddenly, the union became a convenient scapegoat for public officials dealing with declining relative tax revenues, demands for improved public services and taxpayer unrest.
29:36
[SPEAKER_03]: McCarton adds that by 1978, public employers came out swinging in labor disputes.
29:41
[SPEAKER_03]: Public sector unions would struggle to hold their own in an increasingly hostile environment as their ability to strike was being severely eroded.
29:50
[SPEAKER_03]: The backlash against public sector militancy set the stage for President Reagan's smashing of the Pat Co. Union just three years later.
30:01
[SPEAKER_00]: Here they come again, billionaires wailing the Congress must, act immediately to slash the monthly Social Security checks that middle class and poor retirees count on.
30:13
[SPEAKER_00]: Putocratic elites in their anti-government ideologues periodically erupt in outrage that elderly Americans who've earned retirement benefits are depleting the Social Security trust fund.
30:25
[SPEAKER_00]: So they exclaim, government must cut the payments these old folks are getting.
30:30
[SPEAKER_00]: It's not the government's money, it belongs to the retirees themselves.
30:35
[SPEAKER_00]: They've paid monthly payroll taxes into the fund for years on the guarantee that they would later draw benefits out.
30:43
[SPEAKER_00]: Maybe so, Bark Uponents, but the money oil is going dry, so that when they wait to save the program, it's to chop payments owed to beneficiaries.
30:53
[SPEAKER_00]: In three words, that's a lie.
30:56
[SPEAKER_00]: What the super wealthy don't want us to notice is that the social security tax is spectacularly unfair.
31:03
[SPEAKER_00]: If you're yearly income is less than $185,000, which includes 95% of us, every penny of your earnings are subject to retirement tax.
31:13
[SPEAKER_00]: But if you're paid a million a year or a billion or even more,
31:23
[SPEAKER_00]: Wait, there's more, instead of being paid wages, most Uber wealthy people draw their annual income from a Wall Street scheme called unrealized capital gains.
31:34
[SPEAKER_00]: Big surprise, those gains are totally exempted from our nation's retirement tax.
31:39
[SPEAKER_00]: This is Jim Hi-Tower saying, so let's make Musk, Zuckerberg, Bezos, and other tax dodging billionaires pay on all of their income, like the rest of us do.
31:50
[SPEAKER_00]: That's only fair.
31:51
[SPEAKER_00]: Then America can increase benefits, so everyone can have a dignified retirement.
31:57
[SPEAKER_00]: Now that's true fairness.
32:12
[SPEAKER_03]: So as I said earlier, the reality is, if the ceasefire is dead, at least I think it is not a military expert, but it seems like Trump's, you gotta screwed that up.
32:22
[SPEAKER_03]: I mean, this whole thing was a nightmare from the beginning and the question, you know, as we just talked about, what, what are gonna be the profiles encouraged?
32:29
[SPEAKER_03]: You know, where are going to be the Republicans who are gonna step forward, say, you know, maybe not?
32:36
[SPEAKER_03]: Because the only way we're going to stop what's coming and what I've been saying all along is we need better people in Congress and My next guest somebody who I think would be awesome in the halls of power a working class hero Somebody who served this country for 24 years in the army has been in the political trenches has done the hard work And we great to see a North Carolina congressman by the name of Rich Ojada rich.
33:02
[SPEAKER_03]: Thanks for taking time for us
33:04
[SPEAKER_04]: You know, always enjoy coming on your show, Rick.
33:06
[SPEAKER_03]: I hope folks will check out ojeta4nc.com because, look, when you said you were going to run them like, good, we need more working class people who know what it's like to get their hands dirty, who know what it's like to at the end of the day that they're back to hurt and the paycheck not to go far enough, I said, that's the guy and I'm so how are things going?
33:26
[SPEAKER_03]: I'm sure you're out there pressing the flush, kissing babies, all that stuff.
33:29
[SPEAKER_03]: What do you find them?
33:31
[SPEAKER_04]: So, you know, polling is looking pretty good for us.
33:34
[SPEAKER_04]: You know, we are putting boots on the ground everywhere when my opponent doesn't.
33:39
[SPEAKER_04]: A lot of people, the polling showed that for the people that get to know who I am, they support me two to one over top of my opponent.
33:47
[SPEAKER_04]: So, you know, we're just going to continue showing up because that's the one thing that the other side does not do right now.
33:55
[SPEAKER_04]: The other side is ignoring the people because they don't really have a lot of good things that they can say.
34:01
[SPEAKER_04]: So, uh, I'm going to capitalize on that.
34:03
[SPEAKER_04]: I'm, you know, my opponent said no more town halls, told all the Republicans to stop and, and I'm going to do town halls.
34:09
[SPEAKER_04]: I've already done one town hall up in Alabama, Scotty, and it was an outstanding event.
34:15
[SPEAKER_04]: Uh, I am showing people what right looks like, and uh, I'm going to continue doing that all the way to November 3rd.
34:20
[SPEAKER_03]: Now you're your district that district is where Fort Bragg is correct.
34:24
[SPEAKER_04]: Yes.
34:25
[SPEAKER_04]: Yes.
34:26
[SPEAKER_03]: And I got to imagine what's going on in Iran, what's going on with the straight ahead of her moves.
34:29
[SPEAKER_03]: We find out that the blockade is back that Trump wanted.
34:33
[SPEAKER_03]: There's a 20 percent toll even though we weren't going to toll.
34:35
[SPEAKER_03]: There's all this chaos going on.
34:38
[SPEAKER_03]: The people who are going to be the ones who are going to have to sacrifice in this are in that district.
34:43
[SPEAKER_03]: What are you hearing from them?
34:44
[SPEAKER_04]: I will tell you right now that there is a lot of people that are not happy.
34:48
[SPEAKER_04]: This is the one thing that my opponent doesn't understand.
34:51
[SPEAKER_04]: This is the one thing that Donald Trump doesn't understand.
34:53
[SPEAKER_04]: They've never ever had to kiss their children and sneak out like a thief in the night so that they wouldn't have to watch their children's heart get crushed when they leave for a year to time for a combat zone.
35:06
[SPEAKER_04]: And, you know, that's what has happened.
35:08
[SPEAKER_04]: We have a lot of the anti-secondary bone division in places all across the Middle East.
35:13
[SPEAKER_04]: They are in harm's way.
35:17
[SPEAKER_04]: And once again, for what?
35:18
[SPEAKER_04]: I mean, what is the reason for this?
35:21
[SPEAKER_04]: There was no reason for us to get involved with this.
35:23
[SPEAKER_04]: We know that Benjamin Netanyahu for the past three decades has been looking for somebody, a useful idiot to drag them into a war with Iran.
35:33
[SPEAKER_04]: And he finally got that with Donald Trump.
35:35
[SPEAKER_04]: And that's what we're at right now.
35:37
[SPEAKER_04]: And you know what, Donald Trump can sit and give us speech about how they want to deal.
35:40
[SPEAKER_04]: They want to deal.
35:41
[SPEAKER_04]: They want to deal.
35:42
[SPEAKER_04]: He can say that this war has been won the 30, 40 times
35:47
[SPEAKER_04]: The truth is it's not over and it's not going to be over and the Iranian people are not going to be bullied into this and as much as you know Look, I mean, I want the fighting to stop
35:59
[SPEAKER_04]: But once again, we have allowed ourselves to commit ourselves to war for what?
36:06
[SPEAKER_04]: For Benjamin Netanyahu?
36:08
[SPEAKER_04]: I mean, this is unacceptable, you know, and, and, and, and, oh, by the way, we are literally watching people in Washington, DC beat the drums of war while they're actively trying to gut the veterans administration.
36:21
[SPEAKER_04]: And that right there tells you exactly where we are.
36:23
[SPEAKER_04]: and the people that are in leadership and how they really think about our soldiers, sailors, airmen and marines.
36:29
[SPEAKER_04]: They don't think very highly of them, and that's unacceptable.
36:31
[SPEAKER_03]: Let's talk about that for a minute, because look, there's more money being requested for war.
36:35
[SPEAKER_03]: There's more money.
36:36
[SPEAKER_03]: In fact, you know, Trump has said that, you know, where we can't solve daycare, we can't solve a lot of these problems, because we need money for war.
36:44
[SPEAKER_03]: that's got to be something that's resonating with people that you're meeting because look everybody I talked to there to try to keep fuel in the gas tank food on the on the table and and get to work where the kids are somewhere safe when when the president says we we can't we can't deal with that we got this even though it's a war that nobody wants and nobody is really made a cogent argument of why it was so so imperative that's got a motivate people to go
37:12
[SPEAKER_04]: everything that he promised he has failed to follow through with.
37:19
[SPEAKER_04]: Everything he promised no new wars.
37:21
[SPEAKER_04]: Here we are.
37:22
[SPEAKER_04]: You know, he promised to lower grocery costs, lower gas prices, to do all kinds of things.
37:28
[SPEAKER_04]: And he has accomplished none of those things.
37:31
[SPEAKER_04]: And now, looked into the camera and tells people,
37:38
[SPEAKER_04]: You know, I mean, when are we, you know, where the richest nation on earth and other countries are doing things that we could do in this country, but we just choose not to, you know, other countries.
37:52
[SPEAKER_04]: make medicine and health care as cheap as they can.
37:56
[SPEAKER_04]: But in the United States of America, we're too busy trying to make sure that Big Farmer can make more money than anybody could have ever expected because Big Farmer greases the pockets of legislators.
38:08
[SPEAKER_04]: And that's why we're at in this country.
38:09
[SPEAKER_04]: We have plenty of people in Washington, D.C. that will push garbage as long as they get their pockets greased.
38:16
[SPEAKER_04]: Let's not speak ill of the dead.
38:18
[SPEAKER_04]: But once again, Lizzie Graham was one of the biggest war hawks that we have in Washington, D.C.
38:24
[SPEAKER_04]: There has never been a war that he doesn't love because there's never been a war that he doesn't profit from.
38:31
[SPEAKER_04]: And once again, as long as we got people that are able to profit from this stuff in positions of authority like in Congress, we will always find ourselves in the situation that we are where we have plenty of people who will commit us to war.
38:46
[SPEAKER_04]: I will tell you this.
38:47
[SPEAKER_04]: There was no reason for us to go into Iraq.
38:50
[SPEAKER_04]: There was no weapons of mass destruction.
38:52
[SPEAKER_04]: And we now know that.
38:53
[SPEAKER_04]: There was a time when we had Osama bin Laden held up in the Torah board mountains.
38:58
[SPEAKER_04]: I'm going to tell you, the military was said stop, pull back.
39:02
[SPEAKER_04]: Rumsfeld said, get him back, pull him out of there.
39:04
[SPEAKER_04]: They let him get away.
39:06
[SPEAKER_04]: If we were to send three Delta Force operators into those caves, they would have killed everybody in those caves and dragged Osama bin Laden out.
39:14
[SPEAKER_04]: But instead, we had to pull back.
39:16
[SPEAKER_04]: Why?
39:17
[SPEAKER_04]: Because the military industrial complex wanted to get their beaks went to.
39:22
[SPEAKER_04]: And that's exactly what happened.
39:23
[SPEAKER_04]: We got to stop allowing this mentality to continue moving forward.
39:27
[SPEAKER_04]: Because innocent, men and women die because of this.
39:30
[SPEAKER_04]: And they don't care because they get paid for it.
39:32
[SPEAKER_03]: No, I think back to the smudley, the smudley butler piece of war as a racket makes rich people rich and poor people dead.
39:39
[SPEAKER_03]: And I think if you know Eisenhower that we're spending more on guns than we're spending on butter and look, it's never changed.
39:47
[SPEAKER_03]: So how do we, how do we get to the point where we can change this?
39:51
[SPEAKER_03]: And look, there are no profiles encouraging Congress right now.
39:54
[SPEAKER_03]: I know that there's some trying.
39:56
[SPEAKER_03]: But I don't think there's enough any thoughts of what as a congressman you do?
40:01
[SPEAKER_04]: Well, first and foremost, we have to get rid of this administration and in many cases prosecution, you know, we need to impeach people and then we need to prosecute people.
40:14
[SPEAKER_04]: Pete Higgs said for one, we know over 200 people have lost their lives in the Caribbean, and we know without a shadow of a doubt.
40:22
[SPEAKER_04]: that there have been war crimes committed.
40:25
[SPEAKER_04]: We know that.
40:26
[SPEAKER_04]: He needs to be prosecuted for that.
40:28
[SPEAKER_04]: Christy Nome, Christy Nome, Tom Homan, Marco Rubio, these are people, Steven Miller.
40:36
[SPEAKER_04]: They need to be prosecuted for snatching people off the streets and giving them their new process and sending them into Gulogs all over the back on the world.
40:44
[SPEAKER_04]: And all by the way, only 8% of the people who have been snatched off the streets and given no new process have had a criminal record.
40:51
[SPEAKER_04]: So we need to hold these people accountable.
40:53
[SPEAKER_04]: And I really believe that if we are able to take back the house and we believe that we can take back the house.
41:00
[SPEAKER_04]: And we take it back with enough ferocity that we absolutely can't hold these people accountable.
41:07
[SPEAKER_04]: And that's one of the reasons why, you know, they're gonna put up such a fight.
41:10
[SPEAKER_04]: That's why they're doing what they're doing.
41:11
[SPEAKER_04]: You know, Donald Trump is putting fences around everything.
41:13
[SPEAKER_04]: I really believe that Donald Trump is going to plan to basically at the last minute say, we're not gonna go anywhere.
41:20
[SPEAKER_04]: Yeah, yeah, yeah, they may have won, but we're not going to let them come up and take power.
41:24
[SPEAKER_04]: Nothing would surprise me with this administration, but make no mistake about it.
41:28
[SPEAKER_04]: It's not going to work.
41:29
[SPEAKER_04]: Donald Trump has about a 23% approval rating right now, and you know what?
41:33
[SPEAKER_04]: A lot of his administration is in that same area right there.
41:37
[SPEAKER_04]: And people are tired and people are done and people are sick and tired of not being able to put food on the table for their family.
41:45
[SPEAKER_04]: People are tired of not being able to
41:49
[SPEAKER_04]: If they're, you know, instead of getting married and moving into your first starter home with your with your new bride or husband, you can't do that anymore because you just can't afford it.
41:59
[SPEAKER_04]: Now everybody is still living with their mothers and fathers and grandmothers and grandmothers.
42:04
[SPEAKER_04]: People are tired of this.
42:06
[SPEAKER_04]: And I'm telling you right now, we're going to see that.
42:10
[SPEAKER_04]: It's going to happen at the polls.
42:12
[SPEAKER_04]: And we're going to benefit from this.
42:13
[SPEAKER_04]: This
42:17
[SPEAKER_04]: show up with the ferocity that the Republicans aren't even ready for.
42:22
[SPEAKER_04]: But make no mistake about it.
42:23
[SPEAKER_04]: I believe we are going to take it all back.
42:26
[SPEAKER_04]: And I think we're going to take the Senate back as well.
42:30
[SPEAKER_03]: Yeah, no, that's the hope because look at the end of the day.
42:34
[SPEAKER_03]: The pendulum has to swing somewhat back, but I don't want to swing back to where it was before Trump.
42:38
[SPEAKER_03]: I want to swing back to where it was before Reagan.
42:41
[SPEAKER_04]: Oh no, when it swings back, look, everybody knows that we cannot sit and drag our feet.
42:49
[SPEAKER_04]: We have to show things immediately.
42:52
[SPEAKER_04]: Look, this big horrible bill that my opponent was one of the architects of.
42:58
[SPEAKER_04]: let me tell you something what they have done and if you've never read the big horrible bill you might want to look at when things are expected to take place okay because what you will find is that they specifically did this to take place after the midterms so they can act like all the big horrible bills not bad and all it's good for us but in December when all of a sudden you don't have health care anymore
43:22
[SPEAKER_04]: in December if you can't afford groceries any more because of some of the things that they put in these bills, then it's going to anger a lot of people.
43:31
[SPEAKER_04]: And if they are able to maintain control and then this stuff actually kicks in later on, I'm going to tell you right now, it's going to make people hate them even more.
43:42
[SPEAKER_03]: I got to tell you though, Rich, and this is what I've been saying since election 1924, that it's going to have to get really bad.
43:47
[SPEAKER_03]: My view is that kind of pain has to hit us.
43:51
[SPEAKER_03]: The kind of pain that we have never felt in our lifetimes, that's the only time that change really happens, and I fear that Winston Churchill was right, Americans always do the right thing after doing everything else first, and here we are doing everything else first.
44:07
[SPEAKER_04]: Hey, look, the average Americans right now is having a hard time putting food on the table.
44:12
[SPEAKER_04]: You know, they're working long hours and they're getting less from it, you know, putting gas in your car, truck drivers, farmers with these will cause and, oh, by the way, the straight-of-home news is closed again.
44:26
[SPEAKER_04]: So you can guarantee that when you saw that price of gas going down and have all the Republicans like, hey, Donald Trump is following through.
44:33
[SPEAKER_04]: Guess what?
44:34
[SPEAKER_04]: It's about ready to start going right back up again because Iran isn't playing this game.
44:39
[SPEAKER_04]: You know, they are not playing.
44:41
[SPEAKER_04]: We've got a lot of stuff going on all over the globe right now.
44:44
[SPEAKER_04]: This the earth is practically on fire and Donald Trump and his and Ablers are not making things any better.
44:52
[SPEAKER_04]: That's an absolute fact.
44:55
[SPEAKER_03]: I've got to tell you, it's, um, uh, I don't feel any, any happiness in saying that, that has to get better, you guys to get worse before it gets better.
45:03
[SPEAKER_03]: So the question I have for you that, you know, when you hit the halls of, of power, when you get into Congress, you know, what's the agenda?
45:11
[SPEAKER_03]: I mean, you know, what's the first thing you do?
45:12
[SPEAKER_03]: Is it holding them accountable?
45:14
[SPEAKER_03]: Is it making lives better?
45:15
[SPEAKER_03]: Or can we walk and chew gum at the same time?
45:18
[SPEAKER_04]: okay so first and foremost there's a lot of things that we need to go ahead and do number one is and they're going to come to me on day one and say hey we want you to vote for so and so for speaker the house and the first thing i'm going to ask is what is his plan to end citizens united because once again when we take back power we have to start making things happen immediately
45:39
[SPEAKER_04]: Or we're going to find ourselves looking like we're just dragging our feet and we'll lose power again within the next two to four years.
45:46
[SPEAKER_04]: We've got to end citizens united.
45:48
[SPEAKER_04]: We've got to go against right to work legislation.
45:51
[SPEAKER_04]: There's a lot of things that we really need to do to really let people know that, hey, the Democrats are actually making things happen.
45:57
[SPEAKER_04]: That's what has to happen.
45:59
[SPEAKER_04]: If we go there and we drag our feet, if we go there and do nothing,
46:04
[SPEAKER_04]: But basically, the same thing that the Republicans do, then we will deserve to lose power.
46:09
[SPEAKER_04]: Look, I'm not going to Washington DC because I want to live up there for the next 25 years.
46:15
[SPEAKER_04]: I don't want to live up there.
46:16
[SPEAKER_04]: I want to go to Washington DC.
46:18
[SPEAKER_04]: I want to push legislation.
46:20
[SPEAKER_04]: I want to try to bring back the fairness doctrine that requires honesty and integrity in our news media.
46:26
[SPEAKER_04]: Because that's one of the reasons while we have so many people in this country that are completely lost in the sauce
46:34
[SPEAKER_04]: that absolutely lies to them, and in a court of law, we'll say we're not really news.
46:39
[SPEAKER_04]: We're entertainment.
46:41
[SPEAKER_04]: So this is the thing, we've got to, we've got to immediately stop the things in this big horrible bill that are going to hit after the midterms.
46:51
[SPEAKER_04]: Because once again, if we let that hit, then it's going to blow up in our faces.
46:55
[SPEAKER_04]: You know, we need to hold people accountable.
46:58
[SPEAKER_04]: People need to see people like Stephen Miller be held accountable for the things that have happened.
47:05
[SPEAKER_04]: We need to hold ICE accountable.
47:07
[SPEAKER_04]: People need to see ICE being held accountable.
47:10
[SPEAKER_04]: Because right now, this administration isn't holding anybody accountable.
47:14
[SPEAKER_04]: You know, I saw something the other day.
47:16
[SPEAKER_04]: Pete Hexeth once again has jumped in and saved a bunch of helicopter pilots.
47:20
[SPEAKER_04]: Now, you may think, hey, that's okay, that we're doing flyby's, but you gotta understand when you are in the military and you're flying a military vehicle and you decide that you want to fly away from your course to go over here and do a flyby with a bunch of people on the beach.
47:37
[SPEAKER_04]: It may seem cool, the people may love it, but what happens if there is an accident?
47:43
[SPEAKER_04]: Because when the helicopter crashes, it's catastrophic.
47:46
[SPEAKER_04]: And if a helicopter crashes on a beach, filled with people, it could be really catastrophic.
47:51
[SPEAKER_04]: And then, the military is in a world of hurts, because everybody is going to vilify our military.
47:57
[SPEAKER_04]: That's the reason why, when a helicopter pilot gets in a helicopter and goes someplace, they are a flight path that they have to swim.
48:05
[SPEAKER_04]: to follow and veering off because they want to be a cowboy is something that can cause you to lose your job and anybody else who has done that before Pete Hexeth found themselves in a world of hurt because we don't play that game of the military.
48:18
[SPEAKER_04]: Pete Hexeth just doesn't care because he thinks it makes him look cool.
48:22
[SPEAKER_04]: The truth is, if somebody gets killed, I bet you money, Pete Hexeth would not stand behind the pilots and they're going to try to defend him.
48:30
[SPEAKER_04]: He would allow that person that pilot to be absolutely ripped apart because that's the kind of person he is.
48:37
[SPEAKER_03]: But it was a photo op with Kid Rock.
48:39
[SPEAKER_03]: I mean, come on.
48:41
[SPEAKER_04]: It was, once again, though, wrong.
48:43
[SPEAKER_04]: It is a wrong thing to do.
48:44
[SPEAKER_04]: What if that helicopter would have crashed right there at Kid Rocks?
48:48
[SPEAKER_04]: And what if, what if, it would have burned Kid Rocks house down?
48:51
[SPEAKER_04]: You think Kid Rock would have been like, don't worry about it guys?
48:54
[SPEAKER_04]: He would have probably sued our government.
48:56
[SPEAKER_03]: Yeah, but I think a lot of people would have been happy about that, so I'm not letting that run through my head.
49:00
[SPEAKER_04]: No, I mean, I'm not a fan of Kid Rock either, but I don't want to see his house burn down.
49:06
[SPEAKER_04]: But no, I don't, and I don't want to see people in the military lose their career because let me tell you something.
49:12
[SPEAKER_04]: If you get away with it with with with Pete Higgs-Ath, I can tell you when Pete Higgs-Ath is no longer the secretary of war and we've got somebody else in there and something like that happens, those people are going to be at a world of hurt.
49:26
[SPEAKER_04]: They are probably going to basically be told the promotion you have right now on your collar is as high as you're going to go, period.
49:34
[SPEAKER_03]: last question I've got for you because, you know, obviously, you know, as we've been talking about, the idea is to make people's lives better.
49:40
[SPEAKER_03]: I'm sure you saw the story from the federal reserve that right now, the working class of this country is getting the lowest amount of the pie, the economic pie that we've gotten since they've been keeping these numbers since the 40s.
49:54
[SPEAKER_03]: Oh, the means of the people who go to work every day, create this wealth, our productive, our loyal dedicated employees are getting less and less and less and our billionaire class.
50:04
[SPEAKER_03]: Well, they're doing wildly well.
50:06
[SPEAKER_03]: In fact, we got a trillionaire class now.
50:08
[SPEAKER_03]: You know, this, this is something I think people should be focused on.
50:12
[SPEAKER_03]: This is the kind of good outrage I want for folks.
50:15
[SPEAKER_03]: Don't just stand that this is wrong.
50:17
[SPEAKER_03]: How do we fix that?
50:18
[SPEAKER_03]: What's the message for people who are going, look, I work hard.
50:22
[SPEAKER_03]: I play by the rules.
50:23
[SPEAKER_03]: I want to get ahead.
50:24
[SPEAKER_03]: I release it.
50:25
[SPEAKER_03]: You know, not fall behind.
50:27
[SPEAKER_04]: It is time for us to start taxing the rich.
50:31
[SPEAKER_04]: It's time for us to start holding them accountable.
50:34
[SPEAKER_04]: You know, 95% of Americans are having their taxes rise.
50:39
[SPEAKER_04]: 95%.
50:40
[SPEAKER_04]: Do you know the 5% that's not getting their taxes raised?
50:43
[SPEAKER_04]: Do you know who they are?
50:44
[SPEAKER_04]: They're the top 5%, that's the people, the wealthy people, they're the ones that aren't paying any taxes.
50:51
[SPEAKER_04]: They're the ones that are paying less in taxes than a nurse or a teacher pays.
50:56
[SPEAKER_04]: This is why we have to turn this around and we can turn this around.
51:01
[SPEAKER_04]: 5% wealth tax over a billion dollars creates $4.5 trillion over the course of 10 years.
51:07
[SPEAKER_04]: Now imagine what we can do with $4.5 trillion if we're not giving it to people who don't need it and have never needed it.
51:16
[SPEAKER_04]: Imagine if we use that money to elevate teachers in school service personnel.
51:21
[SPEAKER_04]: Imagine if we created opportunities like programs for people that are combat soldiers when they get out of the military to go into apprenticeship programs like unions.
51:32
[SPEAKER_04]: that will teach them a skill and then a union that will give them a find them a job and then they got union protection for the rest of their lives.
51:41
[SPEAKER_04]: That's what right looks like that's what we need to do and people need to know when we take this back nobody gets to drag their feet.
51:49
[SPEAKER_03]: There you go rich I appreciate the time as always love the passion.
51:53
[SPEAKER_03]: I hope the folks in the ninth congressional district there in North Carolina get to know you are.
51:57
[SPEAKER_03]: And they can go to rojeta4nc.com.
52:00
[SPEAKER_03]: We'll get links out on social media.
52:02
[SPEAKER_03]: Rich.
52:03
[SPEAKER_03]: Great seeing you, brother.
52:04
[SPEAKER_04]: Always a pleasure, brother.
52:05
[SPEAKER_04]: Always enjoy being on your show, Rick.
52:07
[SPEAKER_03]: Thanks so much.
52:07
[SPEAKER_03]: My good friend, Richard.
52:09
[SPEAKER_03]: I want to hear your thoughts.
52:12
[SPEAKER_03]: Do we need more people in Congress who I don't know have the fire in their belly?
52:17
[SPEAKER_03]: I want to hear your thoughts.
52:18
[SPEAKER_03]: Rick at therixmithshow.com, right back.
52:24
[SPEAKER_03]: I'm Rick Smith, and this is Labor History Inter.
52:27
[SPEAKER_03]: On this day in Labor History, the year was 1912.
52:30
[SPEAKER_03]: That was the day that Woody Guthrie was born in Okuma, Oklahoma.
52:36
[SPEAKER_03]: Guthrie became one of the most prolific songwriters to ever sing the stories of the working class.
52:43
[SPEAKER_03]: His most well-known song is this land is your land.
52:47
[SPEAKER_03]: and Anthem whose lyrics claim America for the common man.
52:51
[SPEAKER_03]: During the Great Depression, Guthrie traveled from Oklahoma to California with farmers driven off their land by the ravages of the Dust Bowl.
53:00
[SPEAKER_03]: He talked with them and learned their stories and songs.
53:04
[SPEAKER_03]: He spent the rest of his life singing the songs of those downtrodden.
53:08
[SPEAKER_03]: His guitar bore the message, this machine kills fascists.
53:12
[SPEAKER_03]: Guthrie believed in the power of music.
53:15
[SPEAKER_03]: His songs serve as a lasting impression for many musicians.
53:19
[SPEAKER_03]: From his own son, Arlo Guthrie, to Bob Dylan, Bruce Springsteen, and many more.
53:25
[SPEAKER_03]: Even today, Guthrie's music asks powerful questions about how we, as a nation, treat workers.
53:31
[SPEAKER_03]: In his song, Dportese, Guthrie tells the story of migrant Mexican farm workers.
53:37
[SPEAKER_03]: His lyrics explain, we died in your hills, we died in your deserts, we died in your valleys, and died in your plans.
53:45
[SPEAKER_03]: We died beneath your trees, we died in your buses.
53:48
[SPEAKER_03]: Both sides of the river, we died just the same.
53:52
[SPEAKER_03]: He ends the song by asking, is this the best way we can grow our big orchards?
53:57
[SPEAKER_03]: Is this the best way we can grow our good fruit?
54:00
[SPEAKER_03]: Like so many of Guthrie songs, these questions remain unanswered.
54:05
[SPEAKER_01]: If you won't have a name when you ride the beer plate, or they will call you the baby for me.
54:16
[SPEAKER_03]: Labor history in two brought to you by the Illinois Labor History Society and the Rick Smith Show.
54:20
[SPEAKER_03]: For more information, go to laborhistoryintool.com.
54:34
[SPEAKER_03]: Without question, we need more working class voices in the halls of power and look.
54:40
[SPEAKER_03]: I've gotten a lot of email around Graham Platner the last couple of days, and oddly enough, and this is the weird part of this.
54:49
[SPEAKER_03]: Most of the people that I've gotten responses from are people who are defending him.
54:54
[SPEAKER_03]: And maybe not him, not his behavior.
54:58
[SPEAKER_03]: not him personally, but the campaign.
55:01
[SPEAKER_03]: And the one thing that keeps coming, and I hope this is the thing that Democrats get a hold of.
55:06
[SPEAKER_03]: Because yesterday on the program, Greg Palace came and just, you know, torched all of it, that's why I love Greg.
55:12
[SPEAKER_03]: Greg gives a different perspective.
55:14
[SPEAKER_03]: But that idea of hope.
55:19
[SPEAKER_03]: Like I said, I didn't know a lot about the Platner campaign.
55:23
[SPEAKER_03]: I know I liked what I saw on social media.
55:25
[SPEAKER_03]: I know I liked the message.
55:28
[SPEAKER_03]: And if that were manufactured or not, I don't know, but people that I know in Maine said that he was on the ground.
55:36
[SPEAKER_03]: He was doing the hard work.
55:38
[SPEAKER_03]: So whether he was manufactured or not in my view is not all that important, it's about the message, though, because as I've said a number of times, and I'll say it a million more times, because I, to my core believe it, there are no saviors.
55:52
[SPEAKER_03]: These politicians, they're not our saviors, there are tools.
55:57
[SPEAKER_03]: And they're not perfect, and I don't want perfect people.
56:00
[SPEAKER_03]: I don't want perfect people in those positions.
56:05
[SPEAKER_03]: I don't want people who are going to cast judgment on everyone else.
56:09
[SPEAKER_03]: I want people to do what they're supposed to do, what we want them to do.
56:14
[SPEAKER_03]: Yeah, I get into this conversation with the friend of mine.
56:16
[SPEAKER_03]: And I love him, dearly.
56:19
[SPEAKER_03]: But he believes that that everything's going to work out.
56:21
[SPEAKER_03]: Okay, and that we should be doing things for the right reason He's got this this incredible optimism that I don't share Because I believe life isn't fair.
56:31
[SPEAKER_03]: I believe that people with power will abuse it.
56:35
[SPEAKER_03]: I believe that This idea that Our our birthright is to get ahead is not accurate.
56:42
[SPEAKER_03]: I think our birthright is to grab power and to make our lives better and we can should and must do that
56:49
[SPEAKER_03]: But I don't believe anything is the natural order.
56:51
[SPEAKER_03]: I think chaos is the natural order.
56:53
[SPEAKER_03]: I think suffering is a natural order.
56:55
[SPEAKER_03]: I think only by us coming together and saying, no, we don't want those things does that make it better, like my grandparents' generation did.
57:05
[SPEAKER_03]: And this is where I look at someone like Platner and I'll be honest, I said it and I'll say it again.
57:11
[SPEAKER_03]: I don't really care what he did in his personal life that is not my concern.
57:16
[SPEAKER_03]: If he broke the law, if the allegations are what they are, there is a path for that.
57:22
[SPEAKER_03]: And I want that path to be followed.
57:24
[SPEAKER_03]: If you break the law in those ways, you should be tried and convicted and you should go to jail.
57:31
[SPEAKER_03]: That's simple.
57:33
[SPEAKER_03]: But this idea that now somehow, because I'm seeing this kind of, well, that was all just a bad idea.
57:39
[SPEAKER_03]: No, the message, the message gave people hope.
57:44
[SPEAKER_03]: the message was get out there and actually do some hardcore campaigning get out there and talk to people where they are.
57:53
[SPEAKER_03]: That should be the lesson.
57:54
[SPEAKER_03]: And yet a lot of my elite liberal friends are saying, well, you know, this is why you don't pick someone from the working class.
57:59
[SPEAKER_03]: And this is why you don't you don't pick, you know, manufacturer, I'm okay.
58:04
[SPEAKER_03]: What about the message?
58:07
[SPEAKER_03]: And this is where I don't want this to get overshadowed.
58:10
[SPEAKER_03]: They made a lot of mistakes.
58:11
[SPEAKER_03]: I have no idea why you would run a campaign without knowing your own laundry.
58:19
[SPEAKER_03]: It's the message.
58:22
[SPEAKER_03]: It's how do we make work, pay?
58:26
[SPEAKER_03]: How do we give people real freedom?
58:30
[SPEAKER_03]: The freedom to not have to look in their children's eyes and know that they're hungry.
58:35
[SPEAKER_03]: I've told this story before, and it's one of the things that has driven me my whole life.
58:40
[SPEAKER_03]: I know my mother looked in my eyes as a child, and knew I was hungry.
58:46
[SPEAKER_03]: And also knew simultaneously, there was nothing, nothing she could do about it.
58:55
[SPEAKER_03]: I want that for no one.
58:57
[SPEAKER_03]: And for me that's why worker power is so important, that's why policy is so important
59:04
[SPEAKER_03]: No parents should ever look their child in the eyes and go no matter what I do.
59:07
[SPEAKER_03]: I can't help you.
59:11
[SPEAKER_03]: There's something wrong with that plan.
59:13
[SPEAKER_03]: One of your thoughts.
59:15
[SPEAKER_03]: Email me Rick at therixmithshow.com.
59:16
[SPEAKER_03]: Are we free?
59:18
[SPEAKER_03]: Is this the land of the free?
59:20
[SPEAKER_03]: Can you be free if you're in debt?
59:24
[SPEAKER_03]: Rick at therixmithshow.com.
59:26
[SPEAKER_03]: Miss any portion of the program grab the podcast and as always, thanks so much for being here.
59:31
[SPEAKER_03]: We'll see you back here next time.
59:42
[SPEAKER_02]: You've been listening to the Rick Smith show.
59:46
[SPEAKER_02]: Email, Rick, and Rick at RickSmithshow.com.
59:54
[SPEAKER_02]: Until next time, this has been the Rick Smith show.
59:57
[SPEAKER_02]: We're working people coming to talk.