Everyday we are hearing story after story about John McCain's position changing.  Today he is against handing our Social Security fund over to Wall Street vipers and the next he is all in favor.  John McCain claims he wants to strengthen the middle class yet his campaign apparel is made overseas, his baseball style caps are made in Vietnam of all places.  John McCain is calling for the largest tax increase on working people in history, even larger than Ronald Reagan's massive tax hike, by ending the employer deduction for health insurance.  This single move will usher in a new era of cutthroat me first policies that will cost thousands of working people their lives.  John McCain claims he believes in America first yet he was the most influential figure in Airbus, a French company, being given a contract to build refueling tanker plane over Boeing, an American company.  Let it be known that Airbus has never built a refueling tanker and they sell to our supposed enemies.  Who is John McCain kidding?  Does he really think everyone is asleep?  I guess he is again taking lessons from George W. Bush who so eloquently stated, "You can fool some of the people all of the time, and those are the ones you have to focus on."  McCain voters, the people fooled every time. 

For the majority of us, being homeless is not something we spend much time worrying about. We have family and friends to support us when times get rough. We have savings accounts, credit cards, and home equity lines of credit to help tide us over when the rent or mortgage is due and the cupboards are empty. We are fortunate. 

On Saturday June 28, 2008 Rick and his daughter Samantha journeyed to Silver Spring, MD for the commencement ceremony at the National Labor College. Former North Carolina Senator, 2004 Vice President Candidate and 2008 Presidential Candidate John Edwards gave a rousing speech to the union faithful bringing the newly capped graduates to their feet. Rick and Samantha got to spend several minutes with Senator Edwards. While Rick asked questions of the Senator Samantha video taped the occasion.  Rick is looking forward to getting Senator Edwards to appear on the show during the 2^nd Annual Hungry and Homeless for the Holidays Event July 11^th-20^th at the Giant Parking Lot located at 255 South Spring Garden Street in Carlisle.

HUNGRY AND HOMELESS FOR THE HOLIDAYS

X-MAS IN JULY

The Rick Smith Show is sponsoring an essay contest for the children and grandchildren of all union members. There will be 3 First Place winners of $100, 3 Second Place winners of $50 and 3 Third Place winners of $25. The Rick Smith Show is promoting family unionism. The question of, “How has the Union helped your family?” is a very important one for kids to be able to answer. All winners will have their entries read on air Labor Day Weekend 2008. So join in the fun.

This week the Pennsylvania AFL-CIO held its 38^th annual convention in Philadelphia, PA. Outside of the convention sat a 48 foot Boeing trailer highlighting their KC-787 plane. Visitor could take a shot at flying the large fuel tanker that our military is not purchasing and see the history of in air refueling. The big question is WHY are we buying military planes from any foreign country? Why are the same people who brought us the ridiculous Freedom Fries and Freedom Toast rhetoric the same

 

Democratic California Representative George Miller’s staff at the House Committee on Education and Labor put together a striking map mashup that represents the thousands of Americans who died on the job in 2007. The markers on the image represent just 10% of the work-related deaths last year - as the site notes, this mashup clearly “demonstrates the need to strengthen worker safety protections.”

Transportation Secretary Mary Peters is the latest member of the Bush administration to break the law: She continues to give dangerous Mexican trucks access to our highways despite overwhelmingly bipartisan measures passed by Congress and signed by President Bush.

The facts are what they are. One only needs to view this chart to realize the policies of the conservative movement are destroying our nation. Under conservative rule we have seen our manufacturing prowess eviscerated, our stature in the world obliterate, and our standard of living spiraling toward another Great Depression.