Jim Hightower

Just when you thought that Big Banker greed surely bottomed out with 2008’s Wall Street crash and bailout, along comes Wells Fargo, burrowing even deeper into the ethical slime to reach a previously unimaginable level of corporate depravity. It’s one thing for these giants of finance to cook the books or defraud investors, but top […]

Revolutions R Us! From the big one in 1776 that created our nation to Bernie Sanders’ 2016 political uprising against America’s new plutocratic elites, democratic change comes when workaday people start standing up to the bosses, bankers, big shots, bastards and BSers who are knocking us down. But wait, you say, Bernie lost. Where’s the […]

In a 1932 dissenting opinion, Supreme Court Justice Louis Brandeis noted that the benefit of America’s federal structure is that “a single courageous state may, if its citizens choose, serve as a laboratory and try novel social and economic experiments without risk to the rest of the country.” During my two terms as Texas agriculture […]

To many hard-working people, this is a time of economic uncertainty. Thus, it is important to point out that America’s superrich are intentionally and brazenly knocking down the middle class and poor to further enrich themselves. They are aided by clueless, corrupt politicians who don’t care about the future of ordinary Americans or of America […]

Although most of us take it for granted, the U.S. Postal Service is an amazing bargain. For only 47 cents, you can purchase a “Forever” postage stamp. Buy one 47-cent stamp, and postal workers will deliver your envelope to any address in the country by plane, train, bus, boat, truck, car, bike, pushcart, mule, on […]

Jim Hightower PHOTO BY LARRY D. MOORE Being a muckracking political writer often makes me feel like a custodian in a horse barn, constantly shoveling manure. Indeed, I’m now a certified Equine Excrement Engineer, having developed a narrow but important professional specialty: cleaning off the horse stuff that careless politicos and sloppy media types keep […]

Jim Hightower PHOTO BY LARRY D. MOORE Corporate price gouging is never nice. But gouging people on the price of medicines they rely on to stay alive is worse than not nice – it’s predaceously evil. And if you think corporate morality can’t go lower than that, how about gouging people on the price of […]

Jim Hightower PHOTO BY LARRY D. MOORE Instead of griping about the greedheads of Wall Street and the rip-off financial system they’ve hung around our necks – why don’t we “Take On Wall Street”? You don’t have to be in Who’s Who to know what’s what. For example, if tiny groups of Wall Street bankers, […]

Jim Hightower PHOTO BY LARRY D. MOORE An old saying asserts that falsehoods come in three escalating levels: “Lies, damn lies and statistics.” Now, however, we’ve been given an even higher level of intentional deception: Policy speeches by Donald Trump. Take his recent highly publicized address outlining specific economic policies he would push to benefit […]

Jim Hightower PHOTO BY LARRY D. MOORE Some corporations engage in such abusive consumer rip-offs that they’re just plain evil. But then there are some profiteers that dig even deeper into the dark void of their corporate souls to achieve the ultimate status: truly evil. Consider the gang of debt collection firms that are thugglishly […]

Jim Hightower PHOTO BY LARRY D. MOORE What an amazing Democratic primary season it was. And we now have this happy result: We won! “We” being the millions of young people, mad-as-hell working stiffs, independents, deep-rooted progressives and other “outsiders” who felt The Bern and forged a new, game-changing, populist force of, by and for […]

Jim Hightower PHOTO BY LARRY D. MOORE The fervent prayer of old-line Democratic operatives and corporate funders is that the Sanders Storm will dissipate now that Hillary Clinton will get the nomination, thus allowing politics-as-usual to reestablish its grip on the system. Here’s why I think they’re dead wrong: First, whatever else you think of […]