Jim Hightower's Radio Lowdown

There’s a hunter’s nightmare in which a group of them flush some rabbits out of the brush. But rather than scampering away, the furry bunnies turn toward their stalkers. “Run,” shouts one of the hunters. “Run for your life – the rabbits have guns!”

Arming animals would make the sport of hunting a bit more sporting, wouldn’t it? Well, what if we did give all wildlife a fighting chance against the destructive firepower of profiteers who so carelessly ravage their habitats and kill them off? Of course, we can’t arm nature with guns, but we could recognize that other species and ecosystems are living creatures with intrinsic legal rights to exist and flourish, thus giving nature its day in court to defend its well-being.

Like us humans, the lakes, forests, wildlife, etc. could have legal status to sue and be represented by lawyers to protect themselves from mindless exploitation, injury, and death. This Rights-of-Nature concept is already being applied in such countries as Ecuador and New Zealand – and more than three dozen US cities and towns have passed ordinances acknowledging that various natural resources in their areas have inherent rights to take polluters and other despoilers to court.

Ironically, the corporate powers – who have perverted law, logic, and nature to have their lifeless, profiteering entities declared “persons” – are aghast that Mother Nature can have rights that can counter the corporate claim that their right to profit is absolute.

At its core, the Rights-of-Nature movement is asserting the obvious: Earth’s biosphere is not a free candy store for our taking. We are one with the natural world and must find ways to cooperate fully with it for our own survival. To learn more and connect to action, go to the Community Environmental Legal Defense Fund: www.celdf.org.

Jim Hightower's Lowdown is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber.

E-I-E-I-O! If Republican agriculture policy was a crop, farmers would plow it under. Why? Because it’s worthless.

Worse than worthless, GOP policy: 1) bilks taxpayers to pay billions of dollars a year to bail out the biggest corporate farms; 2) it forces productive family farmers out of business by intentionally eliminating their markets; and 3) it rips-off consumers by letting food conglomerates gouge us with monopolistic price hikes.

Consider Trump’s ideological tariff nonsense. It has needlessly shut off multibillion-dollar markets that America’s farmers count on, while simultaneously jacking up the price they must pay for essentials like fertilizer and diesel fuel. The Republican tariff war has crushed farm income, leading the GOP’s once proud “free market” lawmakers racing to rebrand themselves as Big Business Socialists. So far this year, they have handed out $55 billion in crop welfare payments, with trainloads of that going to the biggest agribusiness operators.

Of course, Trumpers don’t really care about saving farmers, but saving their own political hides. Notice that while they’re doling out government welfare checks to Big Ag, they’re coldly dismissing the real pain of workaday families who’re being knocked flat by skyrocketing food prices.

Meanwhile, Trump himself admits his agbiz giveaways are just partisan politics. Campaigning in Kansas for Roger Marshall, one of his sycophantish congress critters, he promised to enact another subsidy for the region’s corn farmers. BUT ONLY if Kansans re-elect Marshall next week. If the people choose the Democratic contender, Potentate Trump says: “I’m not doing it.”

There you have it: Farm vote bribery, another example of the current GOP Kakistocracy – government by the very worst people in society.

Do something!

If you’re mad as hell about Big Ag’s exploitation of, well, just about everything to do with farming, here are some groups to follow and support:

* Kansas Farmer’s Union: Executive Director Nick Levendofsky is one of our favorite people to watch for both political insights and biting commentary. KFU works to protect family farmers, ranchers and their communities through policy, education and activism.

* Environmental Working Group maintains a database of farm subsidies and publishes indispensable research on all kinds of farming issues.

Jim Hightower's Lowdown is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber.

We’re being told that an earth-shaking, transformative age of “generative artificial intelligence” is already upon us.

We’re told not to worry though, just accept it, because an elite clique of über-smart, über-rich tech barons have our backs. These Big Thinking Visionaries, we’re told, are already devising plans to shape humanity’s new future.

But wait – who’s telling us all this? Why the barons themselves! Yes, the same self-enriching Silicon Valley hucksters who have unleashed this invasive digital force on our world, now say they are planning to “save humanity.” How? By remaking our economy, laws, social systems, etc. to fit their new AI structure World Order.

Excuse me, but have any of those barons asked if you want to go there? I’ve not been consulted by them, have you? When did We The People elect such egomaniacal, anti-social, profiteering billionaires as Musk, Bezos, Zuckerberg, Altman, and Huang to decide humanity’s future? If you want to see their idea of a technocratic social order, visit one of Bezos’ hellish Amazon warehouses that has made him so royally rich. Or ask locals how Elon rampages autocratically over their communities, resources, homes, and rights.

No need to imagine what autocracy they might impose over us – just note that the trillion-dollar tech empires they already run routinely assert corporate property rights over all human rights, and how their lobbyists routinely rush to outlaw any public interference with the rapid spread of AI’s economic, environmental, and social greed.

These billionaire geniuses don’t want to save us from AI dominance, they’re trying to stampede us into their “kakistocracy.” What’s that? Government by the very worst people in society.

Do something!

To keep fighting Big Tech, check out the Athena Coalition, an organization of dozens of local and national groups who are “coming together to create an economy where everyone can thrive, safeguard our planet, and protect our democracy.” We can get with that! athenaforall.org

Jim Hightower's Lowdown is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber.

You probably won’t believe this, boys and girls, but there was a time when government regulatory officials believed it was their public duty to – get this – serve the public!

How? By enforcing laws intended to protect consumers, workers, the environment and other targets of raw corporate greed. Today, though, far-right plutocrats behind Trump’s Project 2025 have turned our national protection agencies into private escort services for corporate predators.

Consider the monopolistic airline giants that have made price gouging and passenger abuse their normal business practice. It got so bad the Transportation Department finally mandated a handful of minimal reforms a few years ago. How minimal? The rules included such basic stuff as requiring airlines to tell customers the actual price of their ticket up front – no hidden fees. And requiring airlines to compensate customers if corporate mismanagement causes their flight to be disrupted. Also, making airlines liable for damages they do to wheelchairs of disabled passengers.

Any honest business would already be doing such things as a matter of personal integrity, but Sean Duffy has now screeches that corporate integrity is none of the public’s business. Who is Duffy? A run-of-the-mill laissez-faire extremist, former Republican Congressman, MTV reality show personality – and former Washington lobbyist for a firm representing the Big Three Airlines!

He’s now ensconced as Transportation Secretary in Trump’s cabinet, where he is pushing a sweeping agenda to repeal consumer protections. His agenda reads like a wish list put forth by the airline executives he had lobbied for. If this seems like profiteering corporate elites are making public rules to serve their own selfishness… Bingo! To keep tabs on their corporate thievery, go to TheRevolvingDoorProject.org.

Jim Hightower's Lowdown is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber.

Years ago, a Texas lawmaker got caught using his official position to enrich himself by taking money from special interests, in exchange for voting their way. The culprit did not deem this as corrupt, but just the normal ethic of an enterprising business transaction: “I seen my chances,” he explained, “and I took ‘em.”

This is the Clarence Thomas code-of-ethics. As has been widely reported, this Supreme Court judge (who reliably rules for corporate supremacy over the people’s interests) has secretly been on the take for years from a billionaire corporate right-winger. Real estate tycoon Harlan Crow, an extremist activist for plutocratic government, has been lavishing millions of dollars’ worth of luxury vacations, private jet travel, family housing and educational payments, and other gratuities on Thomas.

Yet, this supposedly-supreme lawyer says he detected no whiff of bribery, nor did he see any need to inform us commoners of it. He simply seen his chances and took ’em.

But Thomas knew damn well that it was improper, corrupting, and disgusting. After all, during the last three decades, he has consistently voted for court rulings to make such obvious graft legal. For example, he has voted again and again to drain common sense from our anti-corruption laws, declaring that it is legal for a corporation to keep a public official on private retainer, that it’s okay for political officials to sell access to their offices, that the “appearance of corruption” is not corrupt – and, directly relevant to Harlan Crow, Thomas voted that it is technically not bribery to try influencing public officials by bestowing a series of gifts to them over time.

If it seems to you like the system is rigged to favor the powerful, there you have it. Thomas is both the rigger and the beneficiary of the system.

Jim Hightower's Lowdown is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber.

When corporations try to bamboozle us commoners, they fire three levels of deceit at us. First comes their basic lies… then they escalate to a barrage of damn lies… and finally they resort to their nuclear option: A PR campaign.

The high-tech profiteers of artificial intelligence and political enablers are now going nuclear. Grassroots Americans didn’t swallow Silicon Valley’s opening deceit that AI data centers would be a bonanza for local communities. And when the billionaires escalated their land-water-and-power grab by assailing opponents as luddites and political extremists, people of all political stripes erupted in open rebellion against the self-serving arrogance of Musk, Bezos, Zuckerberg and other tone-deaf AI autocrats.

So now comes their PR onslaught. AI’s moneyed powers—desperate to control government policy, the media message and then public debate—are now dumping untold billions into mass market propaganda, portraying AI as somewhere between benignly beneficial and endearingly human.

Multitrillion-dollar tech goliath Google, for example, is producing movies and streaming a series of microdramas depicting AI generally (and Google specifically) as a source of loving comfort and human connection in an alien future. And, gosh, not only do their novellas tell sweet tales of artificial love as though it’s real, but Google’s technology allows viewers to “interact” with the AI movie characters.

Google’s maestros of deceit assure us that the intent of their recent rush of movies about AI is merely to tell the story about this dazzling technology “authentically.” Authentic? I was born at night, but not last night! A trillion-dollar profiteering behemoth peddling the razzle-dazzle robotic future is hardly to be trusted as an unbiased source. Google’s movies are pure PR propaganda trying to authenticate its own profiteering scheme.

Do something!

Hate how artificial intelligence is being wielded in the creative arts? Check out the Human Artistry Campaign, a coalition of ~200 unions and artist organizations who are working to make sure technology never replaces human expression and creativity.

Jim Hightower's Lowdown is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber.

Warning: This is a sob story that might bring you to tears. Or make you upchuck in disgust.

It’s about hogs – both the four-legged species and the more piggish, two-legged breed of agribusiness executives. The latter have long profited from cruel abuse of millions of hogs caged in their monopolistic system, and now the agbiz giants have launched a lobbying campaign called SOB – “Save Our Bacon.” It’s not a plea to save the abused animals, but to save the abusers’ profits!

It turns out that most consumers don’t like animal abuse, so states are passing laws to prevent such corporate practices. This has led to a vibrant new market for humanely-raised pork, already gaining more than a fourth of national pork sales.

“Ouch,” squealed the factory farm giants, feeling the pinch of real competition. Rather than clean up their methods, though, the monopolists have raced to Washington, demanding that Congress “save their bacon” by artificially and autocratically rigging the market. Their Save-Our-Bacon act would usurp states’ rights to set their own standards for animal welfare.

This is not an “academic free market issue.” In recent state ballot initiatives, voters have overwhelmingly endorsed ethical standards for animal agriculture. Moreover, responsible family farm producers have quickly responded to this growing new market, upgrading their facilities to meet the new state standards of humane production.

Yet, rather than embracing this success for animals, farmers, and consumers – here come tiny cliques of corporate profiteers like the National Pork Producers Council. They’re wielding their Big Money lobbying muscle, trying to overrule the public interest… and the political will of America’s majority.

Which side is your member of Congress on? For information, go to Compassion In World Farming: ciwf.org.

Jim Hightower's Lowdown is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber.

I’ve got to hand it to Washington’s Republican policy makers. They’ve come up with a truly remarkable way that, they promise, will vastly expand the number of small businesses in America. Great!

This is personal for me, for I grew up in a family that had a Main Street business in small-town Texas, so I know how hard it is for little guys to battle the raw monopoly power of corporate chains. Thus, I cheered the GOP… until I learned that their small business proposal is just another big business scam.

Far from actually increasing the number of small enterprises, Trump bureaucrats are merely redefining “small” to include BIG. For example, the Small Business Administration has long categorized a business small if it had less than $25 million in yearly sales. But they’ve now jacked that definition up by 1,000 percent! Indeed, even some billion-dollar giants can now – HOCUS POCUS – qualify as small.

This is much worse than a statistical ruse, for it means that very large outfits with Wall Street backing, Washington lobbyists, and slick corporate lawyers will suddenly take the grants, contracts, and other government benefits intended to advance genuine Main Street innovators and competitors. In short, the GOP’s cynical scheme is using the small business label to overpower those very enterprises. It’s a deliberate rigging of the rules by today’s right-wing government officials to help big business grab public money – increasing the power of corporate elites to eliminate competitors… and further monopolize our economy.

Remember this deceit when Republican congress critters run corporate-financed election ads this fall claiming to “looove” small business. Yeah… love it to death.

Do something!

The SBA has extended the deadline for public comment on the proposed rule changes to November 20, 2026. You can read the proposed rules and then submit a comment here. The SBA has a guide for comment letter writing here.

Congresswoman Nydia Velázquez, ranking member on the House Small Business committee, is circulating a letter to other congress critters to sign on to, opposing the rules change. Ask your reps to sign on, too!

Jim Hightower's Lowdown is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber.

What’s wrong with us? Our nation’s moral compass, I mean.

I don’t like being a downer, just focusing on wrongs, but some wrongs stand out as morally abominable, such as this one. It’s about hundreds of thousands of our low-income elders who, toward the end of life (when frail and most vulnerable) find themselves cast into a part of the Medicaid system that has been deliberately structured by Congress to subject them to needless deprivations and daily indignities.

These are our loved ones with serious health problems who need long term care in nursing homes, and two-thirds of them rely on Medicaid to cover their costs. To get this benefit, they surrender all of their income, which goes to defray their nursing home expenses. Of course, for a decent existence beyond mere survival, we all rely on a few little things that are basic to our humanity. So, Medicaid authorizes each state to set a monthly “personal needs allowance,” so their elderly patients can cover hygiene and grooming products, a book or CD, a small gift for grandchildren, a chocolate bar, etc.

Good! But then Mr. Mingy walked in. In 1987, Congress set the minimum for this allowance at a meager $30 a month – under $8 a week! Congress has not raised it in the decades since, and most states still provide only a pittance, despite inflation and monopoly price gouging on practically everything. So, our state and national “leaders” (who freely dole out massive corporate subsidies and tax giveaways to billionaires) are leaving ill seniors with so little spending money that they must ration their toothpaste and scrimp pennies to buy a rare treat from the vending machine.

I know this is small in the global scale of human indignities, but that makes it an even bigger moral failure for our society. It would take so little to do so much for so many.

Do something!

* There are 2 bills sitting in the Energy and Commerce committee in Congress right now: H.R.5685, sponsored by Rep Gwen Moore, and H.R.7778, sponsored by Rep. Suhas Subramanyam. If you’ve got a representative on the committee—hello, AOC and longtime friend of the Lowdown Jan Schakowsky— call as a constituent and find out what’s going on with these bills.

* Want to fight poverty in senior communities, and get support/ideas/resources if you’re in need? Check out Justice in Aging!

Jim Hightower's Lowdown is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber.

It’s the fall harvest season, when many farm stands and homes decorate with pumpkins, corn stalks, and maybe even a straw man.

How to make a straw man? Easy – stuff a couple of burlap bags with hay and dress your “man” in an old flannel shirt, overalls, and straw hat. But today’s billionaires, corporate elites, and other political megadonors have come up with their own version of this creature – stuff a couple of silk pillows with thousand-dollar bills, dress him in a fine-tailored suit, and – voilá! – they turn a common straw man into a congress man.

The stuffing is what allows corporate powers to create a government that routinely serves their avarice at the expense of the rest of us. Indeed, in this election season, they’ve already stuffed about two billion dollars into congress creatures who’ll support their AI data centers, tax breaks, and other boondoggles.

Who are these money stuffers? Ahh, that’s the secret to their corruption. In 2010, America’s partisan, corporatized Supreme Court handed a legalistic, anti-democracy weapon called “Dark Money” to giant corporations.

By judicial dictate, the Court’s Republican majority ruled that executives can give unlimited sums of corporate cash to SuperPACs to elect their straw men – without telling us commoners who is buying which lawmakers and at what price.

Secret money equals secret government. Yet, both parties are going along with this corruption, claiming to be “powerless” to overturn the Court’s edict.

Powerless? What about asking The People to intervene? An overwhelming majority of Americans of every political stripe despise the Dark Money trick and will rally behind any serious effort to kill it. A bipartisan effort to do just that is now underway in Montana. Learn about it from transparentelection.org – then go forth and multiply.

Jim Hightower's Lowdown is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber.