The Rick Smith Show

April 12, 2024 The American economy is the strongest in the world, and every indicator says we are doing well … so why don’t Americans feel optimistic about it? There are a number of reasons, and many powerful entities involved, and on today’s show, we talk not only about the numbers and the positive effects of Joe Biden’s policies, but also about the incredibly powerful forces that shout doom and...

April 11, 2024 Today we have a special guest - Michael Harrison of Talkers Magazine. With decades of experience in the industry, Michael has been a witness to massive changes over the years, yet no matter how many new forms of media emerge, talk radio manages to keep a substantial audience, and in political circles, it holds tremendous power. The demise of talk radio has been greatly exaggerated....

April 11, 2024 At election time, we tend to forget that a president is not a single person, but an entire team, not only when they campaign, but when they actually govern. For working people, a president is who he appoints to critical roles that govern labor relations, trade, and the agencies that reign in corporate greed and lawlessness. So those choosing between Trump and Biden are actually choo...

April 10, 2024 The American economy is booming. Huge job numbers. Record-breaking unemployment. But with how we funnel all the profits to the immorally rich, working people are seeing very little of this success. Instead, we are making a small number of billionaires, and those billionaires are taking everything and leaving nothing for the rest of us. We discuss this and more with Employment Lawyer...

April 8, 2024 Over the weekend, Trump held a fundraiser, and he claims he raised $50 million (which just happens to be twice what Joe Biden raised at his fundraiser last week). And true to form, our media covered the claims as if they were true, or as if they could be true, as they typically do when Trump is obviously lying. Even the left-leaning outlets just couldn’t resist platforming the lie, a...

April 8, 2024 Many of the right-wing attacks on everything from education to democracy itself, can be traced back to a foundational document called The Powell Memo, which is a document written by a former Supreme Court Justice and designed to “save capitalism” by using the power of corporations to control everything from the courts to media to what we teach to how we govern. To put it lightly, thi...

April 5, 2024 In red states all over America, strange things are happening. Schools are being crippled and replaced with scam voucher programs, child labor laws are being rolled back, and Republicans are openly attacking Social Security and Medicare. Generations of gains for working Americans are being clawed back, and we may just be looking at another Gilded Age in the near future, where the rich...

April 4, 2024 When Roe fell, many sounded the alarm that the extreme right in America would not stop at ending bodily autonomy, and they were right. Now the right is going after IVF procedures and targeting contraception as well. Trump is on the stump calling immigrants “animals” and asking his followers daily to commit violence against his opponents, again and again promising a “bloodbath” if he...

April 2, 2024 Trump Media, like Trump University, Trump Vodka, and Trump Steaks, and a dozen others, is losing money – a lot of money. In 2023, Trump Media lost $58 million while generating only $4 million in revenue. We discuss this newest business flop with our guest Bartlett Naylor, Financial Policy Advocate at Public Citizen. Then we speak to Zach Carter, Author and contributor at Slate.com ab...

April 2, 2024 The Supreme Court is preparing to decide on Grant’s Pass v. Johnson, a case that essentially makes homelessness illegal by removing any and all safe places for those who do not have a home. For the first time, homelessness itself may just become a crime in our communities. We discuss this case with Author & Journalist Pat LaMarche, and then we discuss the Baltimore bridge collaps...

April 1, 2024 Throughout our history, working people have had to fight for just about everything. Things we take for granted today had to be fought for by those who came before us. And now that corporate wealth is growing in ridiculous ways, it’s time to share that wealth with the working people who create it. To this end, it’s time to talk about shorter work weeks, higher pay, better benefits – a...

March 29, 2024 These days, with the Trump campaign flailing and Trump himself in need of massive amounts of cash to pay off his legal bills and judgements, the right-wing machine is in need of new and more creative ways to sheer its flock. The newest grift is a Trump bible that caters to Christian Nationalists and those who believe that religion should replace democracy in America. We discuss this...

March 28, 2024 Right-wing political elites are simply laughing at the justice system here in America … and they are paying no consequences for it. In just the last week, Trump had his bond in the NY fraud case reduced, Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton had federal fraud charges dropped, and CPAC goon Matt Schlapp settled his harassment case without ever facing a judge. Meanwhile, a new report just...

March 27, 2024 For as long as there have been corporations, those corporations have wanted full control of their industries so they can make the maximum profit with a minimum of responsibility to the public. And every time we give corporations this kind of power, they put profit over safety, and people end up getting hurt, or killed. Boeing is the latest example of this, and their willingness to c...

March 25, 2024 During the Reagan administration, we started a massive selloff of American manufacturing, choosing to buy cheap goods from China rather than make things here to be used here. It was a massive windfall for the wealth class, but since this time, the working class has lost trillions in wealth, and it all went to the top 1%. Now the Biden administration is trying to bring American manuf...

March 25, 2024 Saying things that aren’t entirely true has long been an American tradition during election season, but this time around, there appear to be no guardrails of any kind between the truth and the boldest of lies. Depending on which network they’re on, Republicans are either openly laying out their plans to gut Social Security & Medicare in order to “save” them, or they’re angrily d...

March 22, 2024 Corporations will do anything – and we mean anything – to keep profits away from workers and funnel them to the rich. Layoffs, stock buybacks, offshore tax havens – that’s where most of the money you earn goes, and the way to get it back is to join a union. We discuss this and more with Raymond Jensen of the United Auto Workers on today’s program. Don’t miss our daily TV show on Fre...

March 21, 2024 Many of us use Tik Tok. Some of us are fully addicted to it. But whether it’s an addiction or an occasional distraction, this much is true: every bit of data we create as we watch is being mined by foreign adversaries who will use whatever info they get to hurt us. And the real owner of Tik Tok is the Chinese Communist Party. We discuss the proposed Tik Tok ban – and if it’s going t...

March 20, 2024 Every time we privatize a public need to create a profit motive, people get hurt. Nowhere is this more evident than in our push to privatize Medicare. Our guest today is Jenn Coffey, a former State Representative and EMT who bought into the privatized Medicare Advantage program, and then had the audacity to get sick and need care. Since then, it’s been denial after denial, and red t...

March 19, 2024 American workers are more productive now than they have been at any point in human history, yet this increase in productivity is not leading to better lives for American families. The massive increase in profits is being entirely gobbled up by the wealth class. Bernie Sanders has just proposed a bill to address part of this injustice by creating a standard 32-hour workweek. Tune in...

March 18, 2024 While the right-wing media machine has always fed its audience a ridiculous amount of lies and conspiracy theories, they seem to have created more “believers” for these lies ever since Trump came down that escalator in 2015. Now we can’t leave the house without running into half a dozen tinfoil hat-wearing flat-earthers who believe vaccines have microchips in them. We discuss the ap...

March 15, 2024 It never ceases to amaze us just how cruel working-class Americans can be to one another, and we discuss this, and what we believe is causing it, at length in today’s episode. We also highlight the dysfunction in today’s GOP, in which Donald Trump has taken over the RNC and turned it into his personal slush fund, and how this ongoing march toward authoritarianism is causing GOP Hous...

March 14, 2024 Both Biden & Trump have now crossed the delegate thresholds to win the nominations of their parties, setting up what will be the longest and likely the ugliest general election campaign in American history. The two candidates couldn’t be farther apart on policy issues, and we will discuss some of those differences with our friend and guest Mike Williams, Senior Fellow at The Cen...

March 13, 2024 Now that there are only two candidates left in the presidential race, it’s time to talk about their differences. Not this poll or that poll, or who has more trouble speaking in public – but what each man will do should he become (or remain) the leader of the free world. We discuss these differences, and trump’s recent threats to cut Social Security and Medicare, with Alex Lawson of...

March 12, 2024 People are still talking about Alabama Senator Katie Britt’s dark and unsettling response to Joe Biden’s State of the Union speech, and we have a few things to say about it as well. Also, we take some time to break down trump’s massive and growing debts, and what most believe he will do to get out of paying them. As hostile foreign powers line up to purchase an American presidential...