Jim Hightower's Lowdown

This plot line could have come from one of Charles Dickens’ novels about upper-class depravity: “Miserly governors refuse to provide gruel for poverty-stricken ragamuffins.” Unfortunately, this is not a novel, but modern-day reality taking place in 15 states, where

With the chaos of both global and domestic events pounding us each daily, it can feel like the struggle for justice is too much to conquer. Sometimes, reminders of the work we’ve accomplished, along with a healthy dose of history lessons and perspective, are just what the doctor ordered. We thought this

Heeere they come again: The wrecking crew of Alito, Barrett, Gorsuch, Kavanaugh, Roberts & Thomas – the six plutocratic judicial supremacists determined to force their personal political biases on all of us.

Farming can be a deeply satisfying life – you’re connecting directly to nature, you are your own boss, and you do work that’s real, benefitting humanity. But then there are the pests – such as invasive bugs, monopolistic profiteers… and a new, exceptionally destructive plague: Billionaires. Yes, flocks of predatory ultra-billionaires, wanting not just to gouge farmers, but to take away their farms.

Last week, the Journal of the American Medical Association released a study on the number of rape-related, forced-pregnancies since the horrendous Supreme Court decision to roll back reproductive rights for women. Since the end of Roe, there have been

In the 1980s, many Texans were alarmed that hordes of immigrants were fleeing Rust Belt states and pouring across the Red River to take our jobs. So, my friend Steve Fromholz recommended a big beautiful wall across our northern border to keep them out.

Writers in the entertainment industries have been on strike since May 2nd, and then this month, the actors have joined them. Hollywood seems like one of those glamorous industries rolling in cash, far removed from the reality of everyday life in America. But, that’s not the whole picture, and these strikes have revealed some ugly truths about worker exploitation, and how this fight is about much more than pay rates-- it’s about the future of work for us all.

Listen now (2 min) | As John Mellencamp sings: “If you don’t stand for something, you’ll fall for anything.” True. And here’s and equally true twist on that aphorism: “If you stand for everything, you won’t amount to anything.”

The old saying goes that no one wants to see how the sausage gets made. But, that’s the kind of stuff that Hightower and the rest of us here love to learn about! So, we thought you’d enjoy a peek behind the curtains and see how Hightower’s work gets from his brain to your eyeballs and eardrums.

Listen now (2 min) | Rube Goldberg would marvel at Sen. Joe Manchin’s wacky, convoluted machinations to rig the system so fossil fuel polluters can run roughshod over nature, local people, and democracy. Goldberg was a master of satirical cartoons, drawing hilarious schematics of convoluted contraptions to do silly tasks. His “Self-Operating Napkin,” for example, involved a spoon, cracker, toucan, skyrocket, sickle, and a pendulum attached to a napkin – all operating sequentially to automatically wipe the chin of a soup eater.

Our first Friday Open Thread yielded such a cornucopia of comments and recommendations, it’s taken us a couple weeks to read through them all. Here are a few that stood out to me.

Listen now (2 min) | Unfortunately, it’s 1984 again in America. Not the year. The book. George Orwell’s classic novel tells of a far-right totalitarian clique that uses “newspeak” and “doublethink” to impose their rigid, anti-democratic doctrine on society. Their regime held power through mind control – they had T a “Ministry of Truth” for perverting language and manipulating facts, while their “Thought Police” enforced ideological purity and suppressed dissent.

Yes, the 4th of July has passed, but beaucoup summer picnics lie ahead, so here are the makings of a classic State Fair staple: The American Corn Dog! This is the original. Way before Hebrew National franks and the Oscar Meyer Wienermobile came into play, Mesoamericans pioneered

Listen now (2 min) | All those firecrackers on July 4 got me thinking about the headline revolutionaries who signed the 1776 Declaration, fought the Brits for independence, hammered out the Constitution and installed our Bill of Rights. Old Ben, Monticello Tom, General George, Alex, “Pamphleteer Tommy” Paine, Jimmie and Dolly, Tea Party Sam, and others got America’s democratic experiment started, and they’re rightly saluted today, from school rooms to political gatherings of both major parties, as true patriots.

Building power in rural Western Wisconsin