National – Jim Hightower

Today, for the first time, I am officially notifying the honchos of Bain Capital, Blackstone Group, Carlyle Group, Kohlberg Kravis Roberts and other big-time private equity funds that I am available. My little company, Saddle Burr Productions, can be had. For a price. I publish this notice in response to a recent news item revealing […]

Let us now access the state of the free press in this land of … well, of press freedom. The assessment? Pathetic. Not because of any government clampdown, but because of increasing press pusillanimity. In recent years, newspaper reporting had already been severely weakened by drastic cutbacks in newsrooms. But the latest decline comes from […]

Elites in Washington, on Wall Street and in the corporate suites have taken exquisite care of themselves. They’ve increased their take by offshoring our middle-class jobs, slashing American wages and benefits, busting the ability of unions to fight back, deregulating their nefarious corporate and financial operations, dodging their tax obligations, privatizing and gutting public services […]

Poor Mitt Romney. He keeps trying to prop up his bad policy proposals with gimmicky political props that flop. He recently unveiled his energy policy, for example, in Hobbs, N.M., rather than in ExxonMobil’s boardroom, which is the only place his oil-soaked proposal would actually receive genuine, full-throated huzzahs. But a group of hip-hip-hooraying fat-cats […]

While it’s hard to fathom right-wing nuttiness, it’s sure not hard to find these days. We saw it bloom spectacularly recently, popping right out of the head of Todd Akin, the GOP’s Senate candidate in Missouri. The learned congressman gave America a twisted tutorial on the imaginary science of “legitimate rape,” including an astonishing assertion […]

Hope you had a Happy Labor Day! And what better time than the annual celebration of America’s working stiffs to draw attention to our national economic recovery? As those attached to the Dow Jones Average can attest, the economy is now perking along quite nicely, with the Dow up 57 percent since the dark days […]

Let’s talk budget! Yes, the wonky wonderland of the federal budget, with page after page of numbers – what fun, eh? No. Most people would prefer a root canal to a budget discussion (indeed, I’ve heard that some dentists use a recording of budget numbers to anesthetize their root-canal patients – everything from the neck […]

Question: If you mix a cocktail of “black liquor,” biofuels, diesel and a generous splash of tax subsidies – then have it shaken vigorously by a U.S. senator and served in a golden goblet by corporate lobbyists – what do you call it? Answer: Koch Brothers Moonshine. Black liquor is the key ingredient here, though […]

If you thought right-wing politicos couldn’t get any goofier, take a peek at Texas on “Cruz Control.” Ted Cruz is America’s latest tea party darling, having just pulled off a political contortion in Texas that few would have thought humanly possible: He got to the right of Gov. Rick Perry! The “Oops” governor is himself […]