Every once in a great while, a major media celebrity comes along who puts his or her talent and – well, celebrity – to work for the Common Good. Many generous artistic souls support good causes – and bless them for that! But there are a few who put the public interest at the center of their professional calling, and it’s been my joy to know a coupl…

Seeing two bloated egos like Elon Musk and Donald Trump hug-up recently in their marriage of political convenience, made me think: “Boy, there’s two who really do deserve each other!” The only question is which one will betray the other first. Upgrade your subscription My money is on Musk. Yes, Trump has built his entire career on the art of high-p…

Just before Labor Day, FTC Chairwoman Lina Khan kicked off a momentous antitrust lawsuit, challenging the $24 billion monopolistic plan by grocery giant Kroger to take over the Albertson supermarket chain. The mega-merger would drastically shrivel competition, raise our grocery prices, eliminate thousands of jobs, and reduce bargaining power for un…

Hey y’all, Deanna, here! As someone who grew up in a rural area (where’re my Southern Tier of New York people at?!), it’s often frustrating to see how people who aren’t from the countryside react to rural politics. We make a lot of assumptions, and I’ve long felt like those assumptions have cost us in electoral votes and solid policy. But working w…

Right-wing ideologues are mounting a three-pronged fraud trying to delegitimize Social Security, slash its benefits, then – zzzzzt – kill it. First, they tried to demonize our public retirement program as a socialist horror. That hasn’t worked, since this pension literally works, allowing millions of workaday American families to escape old age pov…

“I’ve got those Payday-Friday Grocery store blues.” That working-class-lament is from an old bluegrass song, but millions of working stiffs are singing it today. While many workers have finally seen an uptick in their paychecks, they’ve been dismayed to see the increase quickly gobbled up by jacked-up grocery prices. What the hell? Kamala Harris ha…

As summer is starting to wind down, our gang here thought we’d share a little bit from what’s been on our radar the last few weeks. What have you been reading, watching and listening to? Let us know in the comments! Leave a comment Read moreעל ידי Jim Hightower

“Big Boss Man,” an old song by blues legend Jimmy Reed, still packs a potent political punch for today’s working class: You got me workin’, boss man, working round the clock I wanna little drink of water, but you won’t let Jimmy stop Big boss man, can’t you hear me When I call? But then, Reed urges workers to see how small the boss man really is: W…

Here’s a hard-right political twist I wasn’t expecting, and Tim Walz is probably surprised, too. Within the confines of Trump’s MAGAworld, some are appalled by Walz’s wealth. Wealth? They’re claiming this former high school teacher is rich? No… and that bothers them. Upgrade your subscription Walz gets a gubernatorial paycheck and a modest public p…

Challenging conventional wisdom can advance society’s understanding of truth. Good. Arrogantly challenging the complex balance of nature, however, can go kablooie! Very bad. Upgrade your subscription In recent times, there’s been an unfortunate tendency for some scientific hot shots to send society off on techno-tangents to “remake” nature, promisi…

We’ve recently learned about Project 2025, the GOP’s scheme to let corporate agents take over our government. But what about the less-visible effort to make Democrats install corporate-subservient officials who’ll expand their monopoly power? High-finance finaglers of Wall Street and Silicon Valley are quietly demanding that Kamala Harris commit to…

Who is JD Vance, you might ask? Well, which JD? He keeps flipping his bio, politics, and persona, trying to advance his fortunes. A decade ago, he was posing as a Kentucky hillbilly spokesman – only, he’s not from Kentucky and expresses disdain for actual hillbillies. Still, he did go from a hardscrabble childhood to an Ivy League law school, later…

Photo: Tim Walz on Facebook In 2006, I went Walzing across southern Minnesota in support of a “nobody” named Tim Walz. At the time, he was running an upstart, underdog congressional campaign as a plain-spoken progressive populist in what was then considered a solid-red rural district. He didn’t have a chance against the lobbyist-funded, Bush-backed…

You know that American politics is turning into a sad joke when a supposedly-serious presidential campaign tries to demonize laughter. Yet, bizarrely, Donald Trump’s humorless gaggle of strategists decided that their first point of attack on Kamala Harris would be: Her laugh. No, seriously! Donald himself launched the offensive – “I call her Laffin…

Are you fired up to make sure that The Donald doesn’t get a chance to implement his and his cronies’ authoritarian agenda this fall? If you’re a Lowdowner, we suspect that you also want to not just cheer folks on from the sidelines, but to actually do something. It can be confusing in ordinary times to figure out how best to spend your time on elec…

Photo by Ron Cogswell on Flickr Ted Cruz actually spoke the truth once. In 2016, when running for president against Trump, he said: “Donald has a problem with strong women. This is not subtle; it’s not complicated.” Right! This truth is resurfacing now that Trump finds himself unexpectedly matched against a very formidable woman: Kamala Harris. Res…

Hightower was under the weather and unable to record new commentaries for this week, so we wanted just to quickly let our podcast listeners know that you can check out new written content being posted to our Substack all week, at jimhightower.substack.com. Jim Hightower's Lowdown is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support m…

My instant feeling upon hearing that President Biden was stepping down was not political anxiety (aw jeez, another earthquake!), and certainly not any joy in seeing Joe deposed—but pure relief. Suddenly, the deck was shuffled, and now (not a moment too soon), we have a good hand, allowing us to focus squarely on Donald’s dangerous dementia, Project…