Jim Hightower

Ho-ho-ho! Wait till you hear about the gifts I gave some of America’s power elites for Christmas. To each of our Congress critters, I sent my fondest wish that, from now on, they receive the exact same income, health care and pensions that we average citizens get. If they receive only the American average, it […]

In corporations, universities, government offices and elsewhere, there is usually an oppressive male culture and a repressive power structure that routinely shortchanges women on pay and on promotions. That’s bad enough, but adding insult to injury, prevailing conventional wisdom blames women for this! They’re not “career-oriented,” or they’re too thin-skinned, or they’re not aggressive enough, […]

D.T. is really quite good at one special skill: branding. He has slapped his name on a ridiculous range of consumer merch – teddy bears, steaks, made-in-China ties, vodka, underwear and even a urine test. Then, of course, there’s his very own post office. Yes, he bought a 60-year lease on the “Old Post Office […]

In 2006, then-president George W. Bush, congressional Republican leaders, the powerful “privatizer lobby” and Koch-funded think tanks and Astroturf front groups colluded to put a one-of-a-kind paper “debt” on the books of USPS. Congress enacted a postal-service “enhancement” provision requiring the public postal corporation to pre-fund the health and pension benefits for all postal-service retirees […]

Donald Trump hates you. But don’t take it personally; he hates me, too. The billionaire’s antipathy is not directed at us as individuals, but as users of publicly provided services. He sees no need for them, apparently unaware that the great majority of people clearly do need, use – and want – more of them! […]

Here come the real spine-chilling horrors of the season: office-seeking politicians of the extreme right demanding votes on Election Day. With devilish signals to their base, they promise to be more Trumpian than Trump, offering a Mephistophelian agenda ranging from the harsher treatment of the poor to the more plutocratic alchemy enthroning the rich over […]

Ideally, elections are about ideas. In our dark times of money-soaked and bitterly negative campaigns, however, policy discussions are being shoved aside by raw partisanship and vitriol. This not only means that good ideas are ignored, but also that downright bad ideas can become public policy without the public knowing it. For example, one idea […]

If you despair that a mysterious plague of incurable political knuckleheadism has swept our country, turning previously progressive white working-class people into mindless Trump worshippers, check out “The Promise of a Progressive Populist Movement” (http://PeoplesAction.org/the-promise-of-a-progressive-populist-movement). This report is the work of People’s Action, a multiracial grassroots coalition. This year, its volunteers knocked on more than […]

A consortium of national, state and local officials of Republican persuasion have mounted a tawdry campaign over the past decade to slam the ballot box shut on entire segments of America’s electorate. In a concerted effort, these rabidly partisan officials have targeted African-Americans, students, Latinos, the elderly, union households, the poor, immigrants and other communities […]