Jim Hightower's Lowdown

Besides being founders of our Republic, what did Thomas Jefferson and George Washington have in common? Answer: Hemp. America's founders were strong promoters of this extraordinarily-useful agricultural crop, and both Jefferson and Washington grew it. The first draft of our Constitution was written on hemp paper, and as late as World War II, the government urgently pushed farmers to grow the crop as part of a "Hemp for Victory" program. So why are American farmers today prohibited from producing this patriotic, profitable, pesticide-free plant? Political nuttiness. Most recently, in a frenzy of reefer madness, US drug police decided that President Nixon's "Controlled Substance Act of 1970" not only outlawed marijuana, but also its non-narcotic cousin, industrial hemp. If ignorance is bliss, they must've been ecstatic, yet their nuttiness remains the law of our land. The good news is that a wave of sanity is now wafting across America. In Colorado, for example, Farmer Michael Bowman and Denver hemp advocate Lynda Parker helped pass Amendment 64 in last fall's election. It legalizes personal pot use, which got all the media attention, but it also directs the legislature to set up a program for "the cultivation, processing, and sale of industrial hemp." Bowman now hopes to be the first American farmer in generations to plant a legal crop of it – hoping to do so on April 30th, the 80th birthday of family-farmer hero and hemp champion, Willie Nelson. The red state of Kentucky is also on the move. Its Republican ag commissioner, backed by its chamber of commerce, is campaigning to legalize hemp farming, and Kentucky Sen. Rand Paul is co-sponsoring a national bill with Oregon Democrat Ron Wyden to take hemp off the controlled substance list. To help spread this seed, go to www.votehemp.com.

Wall Street bankers have such fun! I don't merely mean at their year-end bonus bashes, when each one rakes in more dollar bills than a tall tree has leaves, but year round. For example, one group of scamps are paid to invent crazy investment packages that go "Bang!" after unsuspecting suckers (otherwise know as customers) buy them. Called CDOs – collateralized debt obligations – such packages were the nuclear whoopee cushions that in 2007 crashed the housing market and our entire economy. Yet, not a single one of these financial rascals was held accountable by federal authorities, so we commoners have not even been told about the details of the destructive inside jokes they were playing on us. However, a lawsuit filed against Morgan Stanley by a Taiwanese bank has now laid bare one of these prank investment packages, titled "Stack." This $500-million CDO was literally stacked against those who bought it, including the Taiwan bank, because Morgan's fun-loving packagers deliberately filled it with bad housing loans. Here's the punch line: Morgan Stanley secretly put down a $170-million bet that the load of investment garbage it put in Stack would cause the CDO to fail, which it did. In short, these Wall Street jesters created Stack so Morgan Stanley could bet against it and cash in, even as the bank peddled it around the world as a safe and sound investment. The lawsuit unleashed an especially-fun set of exchanges among the bankers over what to name their mischievious CDO. "Hitman" suggested one; "Nuclear Holocaust," offered another; but the most telling title idea was: "A bag of [excrement]." Of course, they are the real bags of excrement. Yet, by refusing to prosecute them, the government has winked at their hilarity, allowing them to keep doing their slapstick CDO routines.

Since being thumped hard by voters last November, Republican leaders have gone through a period of reflection, introspection, and contemplation – and they now say they must make fundamental internal changes to become realistic political contenders. Does this mean they're finally going to quit being a political front for the Koch brothers' plutocratic fantasies, jettison their tea party nuttiness about everything from nullification to "legitimate rape," or stop their destructive fixation on budget slashing? No, no – it's not their own, deeply-flawed fundamentals they intend to change, but the inner workings of America's election mechanics. The problem, they say, is not their unpopular policies or their offensive strategy of attacking whole swaths of the electorate – but that states are not allocating their electoral votes in ways that would throw the election to Republicans. For some time, we've seen GOP governors and election officials openly rigging rules and voting procedures to shut out students, minorities, seniors, and other likely Democratic voters from casting ballots. But now top Republicans are going all out to "fix" vote allocation rules in selected swing states, enabling their presidential candidates to "win," even though they lose. For example, last fall, Obama won Florida, Michigan, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Virginia, and Wisconsin. But, with Republicans in control of those state governments, the GOP is scheming to award the electoral votes of those states in the future not to the statewide winner, but to the winner in each congressional district. If it had been fully-implemented for last years election, this arbitrary slicing and dicing would have diverted enough electoral votes to Romney to hand him the presidency. For more on the GOP's plot to steal the White House, see a full report at www.americanprogressaction.org.

Does the name Dirk Kempthorne mean anything to you? He was a little-known Idaho politico before becoming George W. Bush's industry-coddling secretary of the interior in 2006. While Dirk was not big on protecting our nation's public lands and natural resources from polluters and exploiters, he was very big on protecting the privileges of his own office – in particular the environment in which he was expected to (excuse the crude reference)… pee. It seems that the secretary's personal, private-office toilet had leaks, so, in 2007, he had it renovated. No problem with that – except that the cost to us taxpayers was $222,000. Yes, his 10-foot-by-10-foot water closet cost more to renovate than many people pay for an entire house! Good grief, is that even possible? Well, yes, if you're a former corporate executive who expects the facility to be worthy of your exalted station in life. Thanks to a Freedom of Information request, details of his palatial potty purchase have finally come to light. They include $26,000 for custom cabinetry – but he apparently thought that made sense, for he was, after all, a cabinet official. And the $689 faucet added a needed touch of elegance to a room that, otherwise, would merely be functional. But what took Kempthorne's throne over the top – all the way to interior design majesty – was the inclusion of a $3,500 sub-zero refrigerator and freezer, tucked tastefully behind wood paneling. As I think we can all agree, a latrine without a proper fridge is just another crapper. And while the bears in our national parks do indeed defecate in the woods, Dirk, is no bear. While we taxpayers are not allowed to use the secretary's luxurious loo, you can see some photos of it by going to www.wsbtv.com, then search for the name, “Kempthorne.”

Big Ag has a big problem – but it's come up with a neat solution. The problem is that the meat, eggs, and dairy that are marketed to us as "wholesome" foodstuffs by such giants as Tyson, Smithfield, and Borden are actually produced in mammoth, mega-messy, monstrous factory farms. Known by the baleful industrial acronym, CAFO, these Confined Animal Feeding Operations amount to animal concentration camps. They cram thousands of cows, pigs, chickens, and other pastoral creatures into torturously-tiny cages enclosed in metal, prison-like buildings. The animals never see the light of day, they're routinely dosed with antibiotics and growth hormones, and they are frequently ravaged by epidemic diseases. In turn, we human animals suffer from wide-spread salmonella, E. coli, and other food contaminants that are an inevitable by-product of CAFO production, as well as suffering from the gross air and water pollution caused by the unbelievable mass of manure coming out of these animal factories. It's ugly in there, but such a reckless system produces big corporate profits, so they want to keep the uglies a secret from consumers. Problem is, in this age of watchdogs and whistleblowers with cellphone cameras and direct access to the public through YouTube, there's been a spate of barf-inducing exposés. But, problem solved: Big Ag's lawyers and lobbyists have simply coughed up a nasty legalistic hairball called the "Animal and Ecological Terrorism Act." Yes, it's an "Ag-Gag" bill that criminalizes use of cameras to expose the horrors inside CAFOs and prosecutes participants as terrorists. You'd think such a repressive act would gag a legislature, but Iowa, Missouri, and Utah have already passed it, and at least 10 other states are considering it. To keep up and fight back, go to www.organicconsumers.org.

Peg CeeCee knows that it's not enough to work hard in these perilous financial times, but you also have to work smart. And that's exactly what she's doing on behalf of American taxpayers. Well, not us common taxpayers, but uncommonly-rich ones. They are "private equity" hucksters who make fabulous incomes by using other rich people's money to take over corporations, fire thousands of employees, sell off chunks of the entity, and siphon out profits for themselves and their rich investors. Also, Peg CeeCee is not a person, but PEGCC, the acronym for a lobbying group called the Private Equity Growth Capital Council. PEG is hard at work on Capitol Hill to protect its wheeler-dealer members (including their national poster boy, Mitt Romney) from having their taxes hiked. Incredibly, their tax rate has been a mere 15 percent, lower even than what teachers and factory workers pay. But now, with Congress threatening to whack Social Security and Medicare, these privileged ones can't justify their low rate and are in danger of being treated (oh, the unspeakable horror of it!) like commoners. PEG knows that last year's exposure of Romney's private equity profiteering and tax dodging has made the continuation of such pampering politically untenable. So, this year, the group is smartly shifting from outright opposition to minimization of any "burden" on their phenomenal wealth. Raise the rate just a little bit, their lobbyists are quietly telling lawmakers, and delay the implementation of the increase so our lawyers can carve out loopholes and build more escape hatches, such as offshore tax shelters and phony corporate fronts. What's on display here is the raw selfishness of the entitled rich. To keep up with their tax-dodging scams, connect with Citizens for Tax Justice www.ctj.org.

Four year's ago, Michelle Obama picked up a shovel to make a powerful symbolic statement about America's food & farm future: She turned a patch of White House lawn into a working organic garden. So I'm guessing that now, as she begins another four years in the people's mansion, the First Lady is asking herself: "What next? What can I do this time around to plant a crop of common sense in our country's political soil that will link America's farmers, consumers, environment, and grassroots economy into one big harvest of common good?" Thanks for asking, and I'm happy to offer a one-word answer to your query: Hemp. Plant a good healthy stand of industrial hemp next to your organic garden! Yes, hemp is a distant cousin of marijuana, though the industrial variety of cannabis lacks the psychoactive punch of pot. Industrial hemp won't make anyone high, but it certainly can make us happy, because it would deliver a new economic and environmental high for America. Our nation is the world's biggest consumer of hemp products (from rope to shampoo, building materials to food), yet the mad masters of our insane "drug war" have lumped hemp and marijuana together as "Schedule 1 controlled substances" – making our Land of the Free the world's only industrialized country that bans farmers from growing this benign, profitable, job-creating, and environmentally-beneficial, plant. As Michael Bowman, a Colorado farmer, so aptly asks: "Can we just stop being stupid?" He's one of the leaders of a national, bipartisan movement to legalize hemp production. As one small step, he's seeking 100,000 signatures on a White House petition that simply asks President Obama to include the words "industrial hemp" in his February 12 State of the Union speech. To sign, go to this website: petitions.whitehouse.gov.

The Powers That Be say that the bulk of America's middle-class manufacturing jobs are gone and won't be coming back. High tech jobs are being outsourced, too, as are accountants, lawyers, and some other professional positions. So, where does that leave us? Grasping at straws, the most abundant of which are retail jobs. But wait, those aren't jobs, they're "jobettes" – part-time, poverty pay, no benefits, lousy schedules, little training, and no advancement opportunity. Most big retail chains treat their employees as nothing but a drain on profits, not an asset to invest in. Sales people are typically paid only $10 an hour, clerks get only $9.70, and cashiers just $9 – worse, 94 percent of retailers define full-time work as only 30 hours a week. People can't make ends meet on that, and America can't have a healthy economy without a solid middle class – yet 15 million people are in retail work now, and it's to be our second biggest source of new jobs for the next decade. Well, shrug the Powers That Be, the retail giants must compete on low prices, so they have no choice but to keep cutting corners on their workforce. As we say in Texas: Bovine excrement! Look at Trader Joe's (where full-time jobs start at $40,000), or at Costco (where employee retainment is a priority and 98 percent of managers are promoted from within). Low-price chains that invest directly in workers are reaping industry highs in performance, morale, customer satisfaction, and profits. Bad jobs are not a retail necessity – just a corporate choice. This week, a Retail Justice Alliance has been launched to push America's employers and policymakers to turn retail jobs into good jobs that spread a middle-class standard of living and rebuild our grassroots economy. To learn more and join in, go to www.retailjusticealliance.org.

I'm told that many Americans long to return to the idyllic days of yesteryear, to the small-town wholesomeness of the 1950s, when everyone valued freedom, truth, church, community, baseball, and Walt Disney. Never mind that such a fantastic time and place didn't actually exist, the important thing is that there is someone today – a unique visionary – who plans to build just such a utopia for all who yearn to have a life of harmony and happiness: Glenn Beck. Yes, the walking-talking ego of the far, far, far-out right! Beck has built his lucrative career on fostering fear, disparaging whole segments of our society, promotion plutocratic elitism, and spreading divisive lies and conspiracy theories – but lately he's been humming Kumbaya and offering himself as the recreator and guru of the elusive "yesteryear." In early January, he revealed that his dream is to build a place that is some hybrid of a small town, a theme park, an entrepreneurial incubator, a re-education center to instill right-wing "truth" in young people, and – in his words – "a retreat from the world." He wants to call it: Independence, USA. It will have everything – a residential area where rich and poor will live as neighbors; a marketplace with "real businesses and stores;" a media center for himself and others (including a school "where aspiring journalists would learn to be great reporters" ); a ranch where residents will grow food and where visitors "can learn how to farm;" a theme park, possibly based on Ayn Rand's "creators"-versus-"moochers" dichotomy; and a church that, oddly, would be "modeled after the Alamo." What a place, huh? All he needs, Beck says, is a couple of billion dollars to build it. Of course, the downside to living in Glenn's DreamWorld is that… he'd be there, too. That'd definitely spoil the perfection.

Wall Streeters are all atwitter about the comeuppance of Jamie Dimon, the haughty CEO of JPMorgan Chase. Last year, poor Jamie presided over a $6 billion loss by the bank's chief investment office, so he's now had his own pay cut in half, knocking him down to $11.5 million. I suppose that's really a "come-downance," but by whatever name, having his paycheck whacked by JPMorgan's board of directors is widely viewed on Wall Street as a harsh rap on the knuckles. But asked about the board's actions, Dimon himself merely said: "I respect their decision." Of course he does! He walked away with his job intact, an $11.5-million wad in his pocket, and a sly grin on his face. Indeed, many investors and bank regulators (not to mention us commoners) don't consider that level of "punishment" to be much of a deterrent to the kind of executive narcissism and carelessness that characterizes today's Wall Street elite. Yet, members of the bank's board are actually puffing out their chests, claiming to be bold bank directors. The vote to cut Dimon's pay, they say, shows that – By Gollies – we're an effective, take-charge watchdog over the top management of the nation's biggest bank. That they can even say something so absurd speaks volumes about the laissez-faire myth that corporations don't need government regulation, since they have private boards that oversee them. Who are JPMorgan's directors? Lee Raymond, for one. In fact, he heads the board's compensation committee and took the lead in giving Dimon his haircut. Raymond is congenitally-gentle on CEO pay, because he was a lavishly well-paid corporate chieftain himself. As CEO of Exxon Mobil for 13 years, his paycheck totaled $686 million – or $144,000 a day! Plus a car. "Corporate governance" is a joke – and not at all funny.

Can't those constantly-complaining consumer advocates ever be satisfied? The government extracted a $10 billion payment from a dozen major mortgage lenders as punishment for their unlawful eviction of homeowners, yet consumer groups say it's not nearly enough. Come on – $10 billion is real money! Well, yes – for you and me. But for Bank of America, Citigroup, Goldman Sachs, JPMorgan, and the eight others, $10 billion is not even .1 percent of their revenues for one year. And it's certainly not enough to make these 12 scofflaws go straight. Moreover, as pointed out by alert consumer watchdogs at US Public Interest Research Group, there's another tricky hickey on this deal: The IRS is allowing the banks to treat the payouts to wronged homeowners as a cost of doing business, meaning the banksters will simply deduct most of the $10 billion from their corporate tax payments. Yes, that means that we taxpayers are being made to subsidize their "punishment." Angry about this coddling of criminals, Republican Sen. Chuck Grassley said, "The government is abetting the [bankers] behavior by not preventing the deduction," adding "That's unfair." Well, yes – as well as morally despicable and scummy. Also, unnecessary. Federal agencies have the authority to stipulate in these settlement deals that the price of bad corporate behavior includes the violators having to foot the entire penalty, with no portion of it passed to taxpayers. Having that authority, government has a moral responsibility to use it – both to protect our public treasury and to make such legal settlements punitive enough that a corporate wrongdoer will hesitate to repeat the violation. To see the consumer group's report on stopping these taxpayer subsidies for corporate penalties, go to www.uspirg.org.

What a satisfying sight it would've been for the public to see Lloyd Blankfein, Jamie Dimon, and other high-rolling Wall Street banksters in handcuffs for having illegally foreclosed on the homes of hundreds of thousands of American families. But, no. Instead of the kingpins of finance finally having to take responsibility for evicting so many people and wrecking the nation's housing market, not a single one has even been pursued by the law. Rather, federal regulators have negotiated a secret deal with Goldman Sachs, JPMorgan Chase, Bank of America, Wells Fargo, Citigroup, and nine other mortgage lending giants, letting banks pay $10 billion in penalties to end the case against them. The lesson here is clear: If your crime is vast enough, forget doing time, you don't even personally pay the fine – you just unleash your mad dog lawyers to cut a deal, shifting the cost of your felonious profiteering scheme onto your bank's shareholders. Letting the chief schemers deflect responsibility also has zero deterrent effect on their future scheming, and it destroys public trust in the notion of equal justice for all. "It's not fair," we shout in exasperation. But the big shots shout back: "Fair? That’s where you take your pig to win a blue ribbon. This is Wall Street, baby – grab all you can!" So they're still there, still scheming, profiting, and grinning. In the same week that Goldman Sachs agreed to pay a fine for its illicit treatment of homeowners, it announced that CEO Lloyd Blankfein was awarded some $19 million in pay (including a $6 million bonus) Likewise, JPMorgan agreed to a sweetheart settlement for its mortgage malfeasance, then – a week later – it delivered an $11.5 million paycheck to its chief, Jamie Dimon. Anyone who says "crime doesn't pay" simply isn't paying attention to Wall Street.

Given his own cool reserve and his first-term penchant for pursuing a tepid, middle-right governing agenda, I didn't expect to get much warmth from Obama's inaugural address. I was surprised. In his speech, the re-elected president actually showed some FDR, jut-jawed, presidential flair. Rooting his address in America's solid progressive values, he issued a call for the Great Majority of our people – the middle class and the poor – to join him in a nationwide campaign to rebuild our country's infrastructure, our ladder of upward mobility, and (most importantly) our sense of shared purpose. Predictably, right-wing pundits and defenders of the corporate order decried his address as partisan and socialist. But, in fact, the best word to characterize the speech is simply "American." It was a straightforward restatement of the grassroots principles that the founders first articulated. It's no accident that his most-used phrase (five times) was "We the people" – the opening words of the remarkably-progressive preamble to our nation's founding document. "We the people still believe that every citizen deserves a basic measure of security and dignity," Obama reminded us. "We do not believe that in this country, freedom is reserved for the lucky, or happiness for the few... The commitments we make to each other – through Medicare, and Medicaid, and Social Security – these things do not sap our initiative; they strengthen us. They do not make us a nation of takers; they free us to take the risks that make this country great." At this difficult juncture in America's long and uncertain journey toward egalitarianism, when powerful forces of elitism are trying to push our society down the dark alley of plutocracy, this was the speech we needed. Read it for yourself at www.whitehouse.gov/blog/inaugural-address/.

Last year, Sheriff Tommy Gage of Montgomery County, Texas, was eager to show off his new surveillance toy. Having been given a $300,000 Homeland Security grant by the federal government, his office had become the first police agency in the nation to have its very own drone, a pilotless aircraft to monitor and, yes, spy on people. This beauty came with the deluxe eye-in-the-sky package, including infrared detection equipment and a power zoom camera. Filled with pride, the sheriff summoned the media to a big photo-op last March to witness him and the drone strutting their stuff. To add drama to this show of police power, Gage also had his SWAT team attend in full riot regalia, positioning them in their “Bearcat,” an armored vehicle. The ground controller launched the pilotless aircraft as the sheriff beamed – but the demonstration went horribly wrong. Coming in for a landing, the high-tech marvel suddenly went on the fritz, losing contact with the controller. Not only did it crash in front of the startled media – but, even more startling to Sheriff Gage, it crashed right into his SWAT squad’s Bearcat. Luckily, the armored vehicle held up, so none of the SWAT teamers were injured. But what a show! For one thing, the photo-op showed that if the American people don’t stop the reckless rush by the police-industry complex to deploy thousands of domestic drones in the next few years, all of us had better be shopping for Bearcats to drive. Oh, in case you’re also concerned that these spy machines will crash into our Constitution and be used to invade our privacy rights, Sheriff Gage says not to worry: “No matter what we do in law enforcement, somebody’s going to question it," grumps the Lone Star sheriff, "but we’re going to do the right thing, and I can assure you of that.” Hmmm… how assured does that make you feel?

Perhaps you thought that, surely, the far right wing in American politics couldn't get any nuttier. If so, you clearly hadn't factored in Glenn Beck. Since losing his glory-spot as a Fox-TV yackety-yacker, Beck has been less visible, but no less busy, continuing to promote himself as leader of the political wacky, and still delighting them as the P.T. Barnum of conspiracy theories. His hottest-selling shtick in recent months is a piece of fear mongering about an entity that few other people in the world consider at all fearsome: The United Nations. "Agenda 21," wails the Beckster on his subscription-TV show and other forums, referring to an obscure, innocuous, and non-binding resolution approved by UN members (including the US) 21 years ago. Be very afraid, Beck bleats in alarm, for this document lays out the secret, diabolical scheme of internationalists to seize America's autonomy. Under the guise of promoting "sustainable" development, goes the theory, the United Nations intending to ban our suburbs, take our golf courses from us, usurp our freedoms, and impose a global dictatorship. To depict the horror of Agenda 21, the cover of Beck's new book on the topic features the UN logo looming over an American landscape, which is imprisoned behind barbed wire. Subtle! Silly, too. But it's the hot new thing on the far right. "Heroic" lawmakers in Alabama and Tennessee have already banned any implementation of Agenda 21-style provisions in their states – even though none were proposed. Five other state legislatures are considering the same this year. Also, the new tea party senator from Texas, Ted Cruz, says the UN takeover of America will be a top issue for him. And, of course, the big rumor on the right is that Barack Obama is using CIA mind-control-techniques to implement the UN dictatorship. Do these people ever even visit reality?