The Rick Smith Show

July 5, 2024 After last week’s debate, Dems have a very real dilemma on their hands, but it seems that they’re also split on the subject of solutions to the problem. And with an authoritarian dictator waiting in the wings, there’s not a whole lot of time to set things right. We discuss this and more with Law Professor Eric Fink, and Alphecca Muttardy of the National Infrastructure Bank Coalition. ...

July 4, 2024 As much as we hate to say it – it’s time to have the conversation. With Biden’s candidacy in an uncertain place, The Supreme Court taking us back to the days of King George, and Trump waiting in the wings to burn down what’s left of American Democracy, we need to discuss the best ways to secure our freedoms before the right-wing corporate flunkies turn us all into nothing more than ch...

July 3, 2024 With its recent immunity ruling, the United States Supreme Court has announced itself as a partisan entity entirely owned by big money corporate interests, so much so that they are willing to install a king to replace our presidents. We discuss both the immunity ruling and the end of the Chevron Doctrine with former OSHA Administrator Jordan Barab, and “The Aggressive Progressive” Chr...

June 20, 2024 Elections have consequences, but none are so drastic as those that might have been. For example, if the 2016 election had gone the other way, we would probably be living in the last months of the second Clinton term. We’d likely have a 6-3 liberal Supreme Court, the Trump tax cuts would have never happened, and the Trump Train, so to speak, would have never left the station. We norma...

June 19, 2024 While all we see in our corporate media is doom and gloom and anger and division, the reality is that, while working families are struggling in this economy, the economy itself is booming. The problem is not how we turn the economy around, but how we can unrig it so that working people get their fair share of all this American success. We discuss this and more on today’s show. Don’t...

June 18, 2024 If the American right does one thing well, that thing is selling junk to its true believers. And they’ll buy anything, from Trumpy Bears to gold sneakers to foreign-made red hats. And considering that the GOP has no platform and has not had one since before the 2020 election, it seems that selling stuff might be the only thing today’s GOP does. Fleecing the flock, it seems, is the ne...

June 17, 2024 Anyone paying attention knows that there is a big difference between how the two campaigns for President of The United States are being covered by our bought-and-paid-for corporate media, and those paying close attention know that even the traditionally “left-leaning” media sources are doing everything they can to cash in on the horse race, even if it means creating a horse race that...

June 14, 2024 Unions and workers (particularly immigrant workers) are common targets for right-wing politicians. And now that election season is upon us, those attacks are ramping up. Chris Kobach, Attorney General of Kansas, is leading the charge, and lots of red states are about to follow suit. This and more on today’s show. Don’t miss our daily TV show on Free Speech TV:  www.freespeech.org Fin...

June 13, 2024 Election season is always full of lies and promises that will never be kept. But this year, the candidates on the right appear to be trying to set records for empty rhetoric. Yet, for some reason only known in the boardrooms, our corporate media never bothers to challenge the lies. We discuss this and more with former GOP Congressman Bob Ney, and J. Albert Mann, author of “Shift Happ...

June 12, 2024 Trump is losing it. Anyone who listens to him speak can’t help but come to this conclusion, or something very close to it. As he appears more and more unhinged each day, we are forced to ask the question “Is this tired old demagogue really going to help working people?” We discuss this and more with Ted Pappageorge of the Culinary Workers Union Local 226 in Las Vegas, and Scott Paul...

June 11, 2024 The GOP is rolling out plans for what it calls a “post-Constitutional” America, and it’s just as terrible as one might expect. We will discuss this, and also talk about DC corruption with Brody Mullins, author of “The Wolves of K Street.” Don’t miss our daily TV show on Free Speech TV:  www.freespeech.org Find us on: ·      DirecTV (Channel 348) ·      Dish (Channel 9415) ·      Slin...

June 10, 2024 It’s graduation season again, and whether it’s high schoolers heading off to college or college grads finishing their academic careers, we are thinking about the worlds they are entering, and how unnecessarily difficult their journeys will be thanks to our wealth class and how they have stolen so much opportunity from America’s youth. We also discuss the week’s events with Reporter S...

June 7, 2024 Now that the GOP has taken away abortion rights, they’re planning to go after contraception next. That’s right, if the bad guys win in November, they’re going after birth control next. And if they win, we are going to have a lot more unwanted pregnancies, and a lot less freedom. We discuss this and more with Laura Packard of Health Care Voter, and Randy Korgan of the Teamsters. Don’t...

June 6, 2024 Florida Republican Congressional Candidate Anthony Sabatini says he’s running so he can “imprison as many Democrats as possible.” In Kansas, the state Supreme Court just ruled that voting is not a right according to their Constitution. Everywhere we look these days, there seem to be fascists doing what fascists do, and that is normalizing hate, oppression, and anti-democratic nonsense...

June 5, 2024 All over America, the GOP is ramming through all kinds of really unpopular legislation, and in most cases, they are paying no price at all for doing so. Why is this so? It’s simple. The GOP took voters out of the equation years ago when they used corporate money to buy state legislatures as part of what they called Project REDMAP, and then they redrew all the lines and made themselves...

June 4, 2024 Now that the verdict has been read and absorbed by the American public, it’s time to discuss the effects that verdict will have on the American people, on the way we vote, and on how we see ourselves now that we have successfully held a former president accountable for the first time in our history. Can Trumpism survive? Will Trump become more unhinged? Is widespread violence a real p...

June 3, 2024 There’s really only one headline in America today, and for good reason. Trump has been found guilty on all 34 charges, and for the first time in American history, we have charged, tried, and convicted a former President of The United States. Our guest today is Sarah Burris, Reporter at Raw Story. Don’t miss our daily TV show on Free Speech TV:  www.freespeech.org Find us on: ·      Di...

May 31, 2024 Lewis Hine was an American sociologist, and he is best know for a series of photographs he took during the years close to the turn of the 20 th  century. The images depicted the conditions common to America’s working children at that time, and those conditions were disgusting, and dangerous. Today, as red states are doing their best to make child labor great again, we talk about the w...

May 29, 2024 Donald Trump celebrated Memorial Day by ranting on Truth Social about “Human Scum,” the “Radical Left,” and the “Trump Hating Federal Judge” presiding over one of his many criminal trials. It’s a message that would have ended any political career ever, yet Trump gets away with this sort of thing over and over again. It’s a dynamic so odd that it actually says more about us than it doe...

May 30, 2024 All over America, forced labor is alive and well. We force kids into meat packing plants. We force convicts to work for major corporations as a condition of their incarceration. Why do we do this? For the same reason we do everything else in America – for the money. We discuss this and more with Pat LaMarche of The Bucks County Beacon and Matias Vernengo, Economics Professor at Buckne...

May 24, 2024 Florida Governor Ron DeSantis has declared this to be “Freedom Summer” in Florida. We start the show today with a discussion of Freedom Summer in 1964 and whether or not DeSantis has ever heard of it, and if he has, what he might mean by making this declaration while leading the most freedom-restricting state administration in half a century. Our guests today are Hamilton Nolan of In...

May 23, 2024 While we put very little faith in polls these days, sometimes the numbers are overwhelming. For example, recent polling tells us that Americans feels they are doing well financially … but at the same time they believe the country is on the verge of collapse. Only a well-funded corporate rage machine can make the masses disbelieve what they experience every day and instead believe what...

May 22, 2024 After Singapore Air announced record profits, they thanked their workers by giving them a bonus equal to almost 8 months of pay. If that sounds like a big number, that’s probably because you’re an American worker, and your employer thanks you for its profitability by throwing the occasional pizza party. We talk about this and more with Everett Kelley, President of AFGE (American Feder...

May 21, 2024 In a close vote last week, workers at Mercedes in Alabama chose not to join a union. To understand this result, we must understand just how much power corporations have to bust unions, the tactics they use, and the laws they consistently break, and why they break those laws. We also discuss the attacks on public schools with Professor & Author Josh Cowan, and we get a state-of-the...

May 20, 2024 America is the richest country in the history of history, and we are at its richest moment. So how is it that so many still go hungry, or go without a roof over their heads, or die because they cannot afford healthcare? Simply put, the programs that make us great, or at least the ones that make us great to those in need, are under constant assault from the richest among us. It seems t...