The Rick Smith Show

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...

March 11, 2024 In one of the most critical and high-pressure moments of the Biden presidency, Joe delivered a fiery speech, taking on his rivals and the corporate media’s constant attacks on the ability of a man of his age to run the country. And while the post-speech reviews will take on their expected partisan slants, the idea that “Joe is too old” is quickly becoming a silly position that only...

March 7, 2024 Put simply, when we engage with the world through free trade, some of our partners just don’t play fair. Some countries artificially manipulate everything from wages to safety to child labor, or they simply dump junk products into the market at low prices to chase competition away. In emerging markets, like clean energy, electric vehicles, and more, this manipulation is making compet...

March 7, 2024 We start our show with a discussion of the latest right-wing puppet to quit Congress, and the potential of a third-party spoiler entering the 2024 race. Then we pivot to a discussion of American Airlines and the AA employees and flight attendants who are demanding fair wages, hours, and conditions that are over a decade overdue. Our guest is Julie Hedrick, National President of the A...

March 6, 2024 The Heritage Foundation, perhaps the most powerful and harmful of the right-wing think tanks, has released its latest “Index of Economic Freedom” – a report that magically calls us free or oppressed based entirely on whether or not there’s a Republican in the White House. Join us for a discussion on phony scholarship and how the right spends tons of money to fake legitimacy for some...

March 5, 2024 Legacy media is running story after story about a new CBS poll that has Trump leading Biden nationally, telling us why we should all panic about it. We take a different approach, pointing a finger at media itself and the unwillingness of Democrats and left-leaning interests to engage at all in the ongoing information war that is so clearly happening every day in America. We have surr...

March 4, 2024 We start the show talking about the “Truckers for Trump” and their threats to “shut down New York City.” As expected, the movement was just a PR stunt, and has amounted to no real action of any kind … but loads of right-wing TV coverage. Then we host a discussion about the infamous topic of “Right to Work” which has once again been defeated – this time in New Hampshire. Our guest tod...

March 1, 2024 Greedflation is a problem everywhere, but most families feel it the most when they’re trying to feed themselves and their loved ones. In this episode, we start with a discussion about the fast-food chain Wendy’s and its new “surge pricing” program, and then we discuss the proposed Kroger/Albertson’s merger, and why it could be a disaster for consumers. Our guest is Morgan Harper of T...