I would call Josh Hawley a fool, but he keeps demonstrating the proof of that faster than I can say the word. The latest embarrassing stunt by the right-wing senatorial harlequin from Missouri is to try matching wits with Woody Guthrie! Apparently, Hawley thought (always a danger zone for him) that no one would notice if he appropriated and totally perverted Woody’s most famous anthem for his own political gain. So when Josh introduced a racist, anti-immigrant bill that would ban thousands of Chinese-Americans from owning US farmland, he decided it would be clever in a Super-MAGA-Patriot sort of way to title his piece of legislative nastiness the “This Land Is

Listen now (2 min) | Profiteering is always bad, but there are degrees of profiteer. Level 1 includes your everyday price gougers, like banks and airlines. At Level 2, you’ll find the more demonic outfits like loan sharks and for-profit college hucksters. Then top of the heap at Level 3, you’ll find Eli Lilly.

Did the Texas Department of Agriculture really endorse donkeys for farm defense in the 1980s?

Listen now (2 min) | Not so long ago, book burnings were considered a festive group activity by assorted right-wing zealots. Today, though, burning seems so old-fashioned, and well… crude. Yet, the concept is burning hotter than ever among a gaggle of testosterone-driven Republican leaders eager to show voters that they will go to extremes to incinerate progressive ideas and people’s personal liberties. Rather than lighting bonfires, though, the new fad for GOP politicians is simply to use government power to

Watch now (5 min) | Hightower recounts the story of longtime activist John Henry Faulk’s appearance at a community meeting about an X-rated movie theater on South Congress Avenue in Austin. Featuring the brilliant and much-missed Molly Ivins!

Listen now (2 min) | Obviously, the main social problem in America is that Black people run everything and us white folks as a group just can’t get a fair break, right? So says Texas Gov. Greg Abbott. As a lifelong white Texan, I can’t tell you how “amazing” it is to see our governor, come out unapologetically for a return to old-time institutional bigotry. Absolutely *Freaking* Amazing! Apparently, Abbott fantasizes that hordes of Black people are seizing control of our government, universities, banks, media… and other power centers, shoving aside more qualified and entitled whites. Going from fantasy to hallucination, he concludes that this takeover is caused by corporate and government hiring policies that bolster diversity and inclusiveness in our society. Even attempting to implement this democratic goal, he barks, is illegal because – get this – it violates federal law against discrimination.

Listen now (2 min) | Many of today’s right-wing governors and state legislators have a problem. By constantly pushing an extremist ideological agenda of nonsense about nutty conspiracy theories – while imposing autocratic laws to ban everything from voting to library books – they’ve become widely ridiculed as some combo of kooky, clownish, and embarrassingly corrupt.

Listen now (2 min) | “The Wreck of the Old Ninety-Seven” is a classic bluegrass song recounting a spectacular train crash in 1903, caused by the company’s demand that the engineer speed down a dangerous track to deliver cargo on time.

Listen now (2 min) | Stuff happens, right? I mean, who could’ve thought that in these modern times of digital monitoring of everything, something as massive as a freight train could become a toxic fireball rolling undetected and unslowed into an Ohio town? But a Norfolk Southern train did just that, derailing in East Palestine and contaminating the air, water, land, and families with tons of cancer-causing chemicals. Gosh exclaimed Norfolk Southern’s CEO; gosh exclaimed the Ohio Governor; gosh exclaimed the US transportation chief; gosh exclaimed the GOP chair of the rail transportation committee – this is a terrible, unexpected accident, and we’re all appalled by it!

“The Wreck of the Old Ninety-Seven” is a classic bluegrass song recounting a spectacular train crash in 1903, caused by the company’s demand that the engineer speed down a dangerous track to deliver cargo on time.

One hundred twenty years later we have the “Wreck of the Norfolk Southern” – a devastating crash caused by the corporate demand that it be allowed to run an ill-equipped, understaffed, largely-unregulated, 1.7 mile train carrying flammable, cancer-causing toxics through communities, putting profit over people and public safety.

This rolling bomb of a train was hardly unique, for the handful of multibillion-dollar railroad giants that control the industry also control lawmakers and regulators who’re supposed to protect the public from public-be-damned profiteers.  A measure of their arrogance came just two years ago, when an Ohio legislative committee dared to consider a modest proposal for just a bit more rail safety. Norfolk Southern executives squawked like Chicken Little, asserting a plutocratic doctrine of corporate supremacy on such decisions. They even imperiously proclaimed that state lawmakers have no right to interfere in safety matters.

Ohio’s Chamber of Commerce dutifully echoed Norfolk’s concern for profit over people, testifying that “Ohio’s business climate would be negatively impacted” by the bill. Never mind that Ohio’s public safety climate can literally be “negatively impacted” by train wrecks! Plunging deeper down the autocratic rabbit hole, the Chamber insisted that corporate control over workers is sacrosanct. It postulated that a crew-safety provision in the Ohio bill is illegal because it “would interfere with the employment relationship between employers and their employees.” Yes, that’s a corporate claim that executives have an inalienable right to endanger workers.

Sure enough, bowing to the corporate powers, Ohio lawmakers rejected the 2021 safety bill. And that, boys and girls, is why train catastrophes keep happening.