National – Jim Hightower

Jim Hightower PHOTO BY LARRY D. MOORE Surprisingly, this week’s prize for “Stupidest Political Comment in the Presidential Race” doesn’t go to Donnie Trump or Ted Cruz. Rather, the honor goes to the clueless cognoscenti of conventional political wisdom. These pundits and professional campaign operatives have made a unilateral decision that Bernie Sanders must now […]

Jim Hightower PHOTO BY LARRY D. MOORE It’s always educational to observe the behavior of wildlife in their natural habitat. For example, we learn that there’s nothing more vicious than a wild animal that’s cornered. I would add that there’s nothing more devious than a top political or corporate official caught in a scandalous hypocrisy. […]

Jim Hightower PHOTO BY LARRY D. MOORE In my travels and conversations this year, I’ve been encouraged that grassroots people of all progressive stripes (populist, labor, liberal, environmental, women, civil libertarian, et al.) are well aware of the slipperiness of “victory” and want Washington to get it right this time. So over and over, question […]

Jim Hightower PHOTO BY LARRY D. MOORE Elites tend to be … well, elite. As in, “clueless” about what your everyday working stiff is thinking. Cluelessness about the masses can become a major occupational hazard for political elites. And while this is a problem for the establishments of both major political parties, today’s Republican establishment […]

Jim Hightower PHOTO BY LARRY D. MOORE I’ve found it! I’ve discovered the original document from which today’s tea party pontificators have drawn their political creed. Tea-infused Republicans are the “anti” party – anti-science, anti-public, anti-worker, anti-environment, anti-Obama … anti-anti-anti. Where does all this unrelenting bombastic negativity come from? It turns out that their sour […]

Jim Hightower PHOTO BY LARRY D. MOORE If you take the word f-r-e-e and rip the “r” out of it, what do you get? Two things, actually: One, instead of “free” you get “fee” – and then you get mad. This is happening to millions of airline passengers who’re discovering that the advertised price of […]

Jim Hightower PHOTO BY LARRY D. MOORE OK people, we need to discuss billboards Billboards must be living creatures for they appear to propagate, spreading everywhere growing to enormous size, shouting corporate messages at us – and even watching and tracking us with their digital eyes. Now, though, rather than billboards becoming human, we humans […]

Jim Hightower PHOTO BY LARRY D. MOORE The financial transaction tax is not an idea whose time has just now come; it simply has returned. From 1914 to 1966, our country taxed all sales and transfers of stock. The tax was doubled in the last year of Herbert Hoover’s presidency to help us recover from […]

Jim Hightower PHOTO BY LARRY D. MOORE Antonin Scalia is gone. The nastiest and noisiest of right-wingers on the Supreme Court is dead. But he can’t be any more brain dead than Mitch McConnell, the Republican leader of the U.S. Senate. In a blatantly partisan ploy to prevent President Obama from nominating a successor to […]

Jim Hightower PHOTO BY LARRY D. MOORE Big news, people! Especially for those of you upset by the skyrocketing prices of the essential prescription medicines you take – including thousands of patients who were hit last year with a 5,000 percent price increase for one lifesaving drug. Determined to do something about those despised price […]