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…

“Summertime, and the living is easy, fish are jumping, and”… wait a minute, what the hell is this? A summer camp for kids – but with a disturbing corporate twist. Some outlets of Chick-fil-A, the fast food chicken chain, are promoting a summer camp where children as young as 5 can learn “how to be a Chick-fil-A worker.” Isn’t this fun? The corporat…

What’s wrong with Neil Gorsuch? His soul, I mean. As one of the domineering right-wing extremists on the Supreme Court, Gorsuch routinely supports enthroning plutocracy, autocracy, and his own brand of Christian theocracy over people’s democratic rights. But he also uses his unelected, unchecked judicial position to take power and justice away from…

If the six right-wing dogmatists who now literally rule the Supreme Court wonder why 70 percent of the American people consider them somewhere between politically corrupt and grotesque, they might re-read their Kafkasesque decision last month perverting the meaning of bribery. Upgrade your subscription Appropriately enough, the case involved garbag…

What is a SCOTUS? Sounds like a prehistoric critter scuttling along some seabed. But, no, it is the acronym for our Supreme Court of the United States. SCOTUS is meant to be the impartial arbiter of legal disputes over what our laws mean. Yet, who are these arbiters, how are they elected, why don’t we even know their names, and if they go rogue, im…

Being a lifelong Texan, I’m used to hot summers. But what the hell – 99 degrees in June! Last year, we had 80 days of 100-plus temperatures, and we’re looking at 90 days this year. I can’t moan in self-pity, though, for the globally-warming furnace is now searing the whole country, even in northern climes where people are used to having days in Aug…

For us Texans, there’s nothing new about Bible-thumping politicians bedevilling us with the foolishness of their dogmatic Christian piety. A century ago, for example, a proposal was made to offer bilingual education to Spanish-speaking school kids. But it was quashed by the governor, who solemnly declared: “If English was good enough for Jesus Chri…

“OMG, it’s all over! We’re doomed! Biden lost the debate!” But wait, the election is not a debate contest. It’s a choice between two visions of what America is and what it can become. We’re not just electing a person, but a government… and a future. Of course I wish Biden had performed better Thursday night, but we’re not choosing “debater of the y…

We see it everywhere these days, don’t we? Glorious, beautiful Pride flags all around—even in the store windows and on the websites of major mainstream corporations. Wow, we think, equality for all sexualities is really hitting its stride! And then we see that those same corporations are donating to MAGA conservatives, hateful Republicans, and othe…

Wow: Big political news, folks! In an astonishing twist, some far-right-wing Republican groups and politicians are demanding that their longtime corporate allies – such as Walmart, the Koch brothers, GE, and Wall Street banks – stick to their business and stop interfering in the people’s political decisions. One group, the National Center for Publi…

Here’s a member of Congress with too much time on his hands… and way too little of anything on his mind. Greg Steube of Florida, is a run-of-the-mill, extremist Republican specializing in such partisan slapstick as trying to nullify Joe Biden’s election and install GOP loser, Donald Trump, as president. Upgrade your subscription But Steube went ful…

When it comes to agitating and organizing for change, there are lots of tools at our disposal: protesting, running for office, legal actions, and, of course, VOTING. And the right is making it increasingly more difficult to get to the polls, to get to the correct polls, to know who—and what—is on the ballot… ugh. Fortunately, there’s a nationwide o…

What if Labor Day was not about giving working families one measly Monday off to sleep in, rush to the beach, do some 12-oz elbow bends – then report back first thing Tuesday to start another 364 days of pulling the corporate plow? Upgrade your subscription Instead, imagine if working stiffs themselves took hold of this day, putting it to work rall…

Excellent news, people: Republican officials are mounting an all-out political push for a massive cut in our taxes next year! Well… by “our taxes,” they don’t mean yours. Rather, here they come with another absurd sob story about giant corporations and the super-wealthy suffering unbearably from excessive taxation. Claiming to feel the pain of thes…

Attacks on reproductive freedom! Attacks on queer & trans folk! Attacks on books! It’s enough to make you want to scream into the void. Thankfully, there’s an alternative to screaming into the void that you might not have heard of yet—and solid action you can take. Let us introduce you to EducateUS. Read more…