NewsTrust - Most Recent Stories

The Big Three secret funders of the $75 million campaign to trash Democratic candidates

Fri, 15 Apr 2011 00:00:00 -0700

Hightower Lowdown - By Jim Hightower - Apr. 15 (Investigative Report) - It's unlikely that you have heard of a novel entitled Alpaca, but it was a remarkably portentous piece of political writing by one of America's first billionaires, Dallas oilman H. L. Hunt. Self-published in 1960, the 191-page book laid out his vision of

NewsTrust Rating: 4.2 average - 7 Reviews » - Review It Visit NewsTrust | About | Sign Up | Disclaimer

The top four victories handed to corporate America by today's Supreme Court--so far

Thu, 17 Feb 2011 00:00:00 -0800

Hightower Lowdown - By Jim Hightower - Feb. 17 (Opinion) - this slim majority of five unelected, unaccountable government officials with lifelong tenure has been hurling bombs at our democracy. They've hit us with decision after decision enhancing the power of corporations at the direct expense of workers, consumers, local communities, our air and water, voters, the elderly, and... well, anyone and everyone who stands up in court to resist the rise of corporate hegemony in America.

NewsTrust Rating: 4.5 average (not enough reviews) - See Review » - Review It Visit NewsTrust | About | Sign Up | Disclaimer

A new Wall Street sin tax could raise $100B a year to reinvest in Main Street America

Thu, 27 Jan 2011 00:00:00 -0800

Hightower Lowdown - By Jim Hightower - Jan. 27 (Opinion) - After two years of watching Obama in action, we can now see him for who he is: Bill Clinton. Yet another corporate Democrat who refuses to rock the boat.

NewsTrust Rating: 4.3 average (not enough reviews) - See Review » - Review It Visit NewsTrust | About | Sign Up | Disclaimer

Postcards from the frontroads and backroads of the 2010 election campaigns

Mon, 27 Dec 2010 00:00:00 -0800

Hightower Lowdown - By Jim Hightower - Dec. 27 (Opinion) - DeLay's crassly partisan conspiracy between big business, political front groups, and GOP operatives was the precursor of this year's nationwide power play by the same trio. While the media establishment declared on election night that the big story of 2010 was the rise of the Tea Party, it ignored the much bigger story: the ascension of America's narcissistic moneyed elite to the political throne. The Koch brothers, Rupert Murdoch, and a few other merchants of plutocracy and kleptocracy--working with such hired hands as Karl Rove, Dick Armey, Grover Norquist, and the US Chamber of Commerce--have become the controlling power in the US House of Representatives.

NewsTrust Rating: 4.7 average (not enough reviews) - See Review » - Review It Visit NewsTrust | About | Sign Up | Disclaimer

Name those nuts!

Fri, 15 Oct 2010 00:00:00 -0700

Hightower Lowdown - By Jim Hightower - Oct. 15 (Opinion) - The media establishment, however, doesn't want us to notice this ideological devolution, so it's still referring to the current crop of corporate-funded, hate-the-government extremists as "conservatives." Trying to squeeze this bunch into that moderate concept is a worse fit than trying to dress a bull in a pink tutu.

NewsTrust Rating: 3.5 average (not enough reviews) - See Reviews » - Review It Visit NewsTrust | About | Sign Up | Disclaimer

THE FRAUD OF AFGHAN "DEMOCRACY"

Mon, 11 Oct 2010 00:00:00 -0700

Hightower Lowdown - By Jim Hightower - Oct. 11 (Opinion) - "What the hell are we doing in Afghanistan," you ask? According to Washington's war hawks, we're there to win the hearts and minds of the Afghan people. Key to this strategy, we're told, is to establish the legitimacy of the central government, led by the famously incompetent, vain, arrogant, aloof, and corrupt president, Hamid Karzai. "And how's that going?"

NewsTrust Rating: 4.1 average (not enough reviews) - See Review » - Review It Visit NewsTrust | About | Sign Up | Disclaimer

Corporate kings grab our tax subsidies but create no new jobs. Obama fiddles.

Sun, 12 Sep 2010 22:13:48 -0700

Hightower Lowdown - Sep. 12 -

NewsTrust Rating: 2.0 average (not enough reviews) - See Review » - Review It Visit NewsTrust | About | Sign Up | Disclaimer

Big biz wants to own the information superhighway while We the People bump along the backroads

Fri, 16 Jul 2010 00:00:00 -0700

Hightower Lowdown - By Jim Hightower - Jul. 16 (Opinion) - four telephone and cable giants: AT&T, Comcast, Time Warner, and Verizon. This cabal of special interests controls 94 percent of the national ISP market, and the monopolistic group is now asserting its market dominance and political muscle in an autocratic effort to impose corporate censorship over what information the public will be allowed to get via the internet.

NewsTrust Rating: 4.8 average (not enough reviews) - See Review » - Review It Visit NewsTrust | About | Sign Up | Disclaimer

To put the progress back in "progressive," we need a real populist movement

Tue, 15 Jun 2010 00:00:00 -0700

Hightower Lowdown - By Jim Hightower - Jun. 15 (Opinion) - As I've rambled through life, I've observed that the true political spectrum in our society does not range from right to left, but from top to bottom. This is how America's economic and political systems really shake out, with each of us located somewhere up or down that spectrum, mostly down. Right to left is political theory; top to bottom is the reality we actually experience in our lives every day--and the vast majority of Americans know that they're not even within shouting distance of the moneyed powers that rule from the top of both systems, whether those elites call themselves conservatives or liberals. For me, the "ism" that best encompasses and addresses this reality is populism. What is it? Essentially, it's the continuation of America's democratic revolution. It encompasses and extends the creation of a government that is us. Instead of a "trickle down" approach to public policy, populism is solidly grounded in a "percolate up" philosophy that springs directly from America's founding principle of the Common Good.

NewsTrust Rating: 4.5 average (not enough reviews) - See Reviews » - Review It Visit NewsTrust | About | Sign Up | Disclaimer

300 ex-Congress critters are among the hired guns who kill progressive reforms

Thu, 15 Apr 2010 00:00:00 -0700

Hightower Lowdown - By Jim Hightower - Apr. 15 (Opinion) - ... to be a self-governing people -- we have to cure this money sickness that is within us. One preventive step is to adopt the clean-elections model that such states as Arizona, New Mexico, North Carolina and Maine have pioneered, providing public campaign funds for congressional candidates who reject private-interest money.

NewsTrust Rating: 4.6 average (not enough reviews) - See Review » - Review It Visit NewsTrust | About | Sign Up | Disclaimer

Giving corporations more power to buy political influence

Tue, 23 Mar 2010 00:00:00 -0700

Hightower Lowdown - By Jim Hightower - Mar. 23 (Opinion) - "For too long," wailed the senator in a heart-tugging cry for justice, "some in this country have been deprived of full participation in the political process." Mitch McConnell, the Republican leader of the U.S. Senate, has never been a bleeding heart liberal. He was not talking about poor, downtrodden citizens but about CORPORATIONS

NewsTrust Rating: 4.5 average - 3 Reviews » - Review It Visit NewsTrust | About | Sign Up | Disclaimer

How corporate money took over Washington--and created the mobs who rant against reform

Mon, 22 Feb 2010 00:00:00 -0800

Hightower Lowdown - By Jim Hightower - Feb. 22 (Opinion) - In other words, the foxes who ate the chickens keep being put in charge of designing the new hen house--so nothing really changes. This is more than frustrating, it's infuriating --and it's debilitating for our democracy. As a fellow said to me about the lack of real changes in national policy during the Clinton presidency, "I don't mind losing when we lose, but I hate losing when we win." Why does this keep happening to us, and who's doing it? It's not merely a matter of too many fickle and pusillanimous politicians--they're the on-stage actors in this drama, but not the producers, not the ones behind the scenes plotting to thwart the people's democratic will. Who, specifically, are these plotters, and how do they impose their narrow agenda of self-interest over the public interest?

NewsTrust Rating: 4.2 average (not enough reviews) - See Review » - Review It Visit NewsTrust | About | Sign Up | Disclaimer

Renewable energy can green America's environment, economy, and democracy

Thu, 27 Aug 2009 00:00:00 -0700

Hightower Lowdown - By Jim Hightower - Aug. 27 (Opinion) - The Bible tells us that on the sixth day, God created man, allowing him to live in the lush Garden of Eden and be steward of the whole Earth. That hasn't worked out so well. As we can see all around us, God's great mistake on that day was failing to demand a damage deposit before turning the place over to such a calamitous creature. What a mess we've made.

NewsTrust Rating: Not rated yet - See Info » - Review It Visit NewsTrust | About | Sign Up | Disclaimer

Obama's reform plan is to "watch" Wall Street rather than restructure it

Mon, 20 Jul 2009 00:00:00 -0700

Hightower Lowdown - By Jim Hightower - Jul. 20 (Opinion) - This hard experience is why you'll sometimes hear farm folks use a cautionary expression when others have high expectations that something good is about to happen. "I hope so," they'll say, "but remember--thunder ain't rain."

NewsTrust Rating: 4.3 average (not enough reviews) - See Reviews » - Review It Visit NewsTrust | About | Sign Up | Disclaimer

Populism is Not a Style, It's a People's Rebellion Against Corporate Power

Sat, 09 May 2009 00:00:00 -0700

Hightower Lowdown - By Jim Hightower - May. 09 (Opinion) - The very essence of populism is its unrelenting focus on breaking the iron grip that big corporations have on our country--including on our economy, government, media, and environment. It is unabashedly a class movement. Try to squeeze Lord Limbaugh into that philosophical suit of clothes! He's just another right-wing, corporate-hugging, silk-tie elitist--an apologist for plutocracy, not a populist.

NewsTrust Rating: 4.5 average (not enough reviews) - See Review » - Review It Visit NewsTrust | About | Sign Up | Disclaimer

Time for real workplace democracy-- not the phony company version

Fri, 13 Mar 2009 00:00:00 -0700

Hightower Lowdown - By Jim Hightower, Phillip Frazer - Mar. 13 (Opinion) - It's always touching to hear top management almost sob with concern about employee rights, but Mr. Marcus is flat wrong. EFCA does not eliminate the secret ballot. The entire NLRB process is left in place, still available if workers choose to use it. EFCA simply restores the original intent of the 1935 National Labor Relations Act. The card-check method was authorized in that law--but, over the years, corporate interests were able to kill it by chiseling into NLRB rules a provision that management can veto the use of card checks. EFCA eliminates that corporate veto, thus expanding the democratic possibilities of working folks.

NewsTrust Rating: 4.6 average (not enough reviews) - See Reviews » - Review It Visit NewsTrust | About | Sign Up | Disclaimer

Senators bail out their banker buddies but stiff workers and their unions

Thu, 01 Jan 2009 00:00:00 -0800

Hightower Lowdown - By Jim Hightower - Jan. 01 (Opinion) - The reason that the Wall Street bailout has not worked is quite elementary. Congress and the White House attached no requirement whatsoever that the recipients of our money use it to make loans! It seems that Washington didn't feel that it should "interfere" in the decisions of the financial deities. Country rubes attending their first carnival sideshow are not this gullible.

NewsTrust Rating: 4.3 average (not enough reviews) - See Reviews » - Review It Visit NewsTrust | About | Sign Up | Disclaimer

DoSomething!

Thu, 01 Jan 2009 00:00:00 -0800

Hightower Lowdown - By Jim Hightower - Jan. 01 (Advocacy) - At least since the days of Ronald Reagan, corporate interests have aggressively spread the myth that the American people hate unions. Not so. In fact, 68% of the public today say that unions are necessary to protect working families, and nearly 60 million unorganized American workers say they would form a union tomorrow if they could.

NewsTrust Rating: 3.1 average (not enough reviews) - See Review » - Review It Visit NewsTrust | About | Sign Up | Disclaimer

Heartless Phil and "honorable lobbyists" would run McCain's White House

Fri, 01 Aug 2008 00:00:00 -0700

Hightower Lowdown - By Jim Hightower - Aug. 01 (Opinion) - "Tell me with whom you walk," goes the old adage, "and I'll tell you who you are." Candidate McCain is walking cozily with a coterie of corporate lobbyists, executives, and fund-raisers who are shaping his policies... and expecting to walk right into the White House with him.

NewsTrust Rating: 4.4 average (not enough reviews) - See Review » - Review It Visit NewsTrust | About | Sign Up | Disclaimer

SPECULATORS AND OUR FOOD: EIEIO!

Sat, 19 Jul 2008 00:00:00 -0700

Hightower Lowdown - By Jim Hightower - Jul. 19 (Special Report) - Speculators have long messed with farmers by artificially manipulating prices on everything from corn to soybeans. But now they're pooling up billions of dollars from global investors to go after the farms themselves, as well as fertilizer plants, grain elevators, ships and barges, and other basic tools for producing, shipping, and storing our food supply. As one hedge-fund operator says; "It's going on big time. There is considerable interest in what we call 'owning structure.'" By "owning structure," they mean centralizing control of food in the hands of financial manipulators who have only one crop in mind: fat profits.Jim

NewsTrust Rating: 4.5 average (not enough reviews) - See Review » - Review It Visit NewsTrust | About | Sign Up | Disclaimer

Who are the big-money givers behind the candidates?

Tue, 10 Jun 2008 00:00:00 -0700

Hightower Lowdown - By Jim Hightower, Phillip Frazer - Jun. 10 (News Report) - The Democratic party certainly needs to be re-engineered to meet the massive democratic potential of the internet and to open itself to the demands of a restive electorate. Also it's not new (nor is it a negative) for a transformative figure with big ideas to redefine the terms of debate and to restructure the political system--think FDR. But it is not a moment too soon for progressives to be thinking about ways to make sure that an Obama presidency is progressive--in structure as well as in policies.

NewsTrust Rating: 4.8 average (not enough reviews) - See Review » - Review It Visit NewsTrust | About | Sign Up | Disclaimer

MADE TOXIC IN CHINA -- FOR USA ONLY

Wed, 06 Feb 2008 00:00:00 -0800

Hightower Lowdown - By Jim Hightower - Feb. 06 (Special Report) - The shocker is not that Chinese-made toys are laden with lead, but that America's Consumer Product Safety Commission employs exactly one inspector to oversee the safety of all toys sold in the U.S. Likewise, the Food and Drug Administration has licensed 714 Chinese plants to manufacture the key ingredients for a growing percentage of the antibiotics, painkillers, and other drugs we buy, but provides practically no oversight of these plants.

NewsTrust Rating: 3.8 average (not enough reviews) - See Review » - Review It Visit NewsTrust | About | Sign Up | Disclaimer

Subsidizing Manure Lagoons

Wed, 06 Feb 2008 00:00:00 -0800

Hightower Lowdown - By Jim Hightower - Feb. 06 (Special Report) - In 2002, as these massive-scale livestock operations were spreading across rural America, corporate lobbyists quietly changed a farm conservation program to make these outfits eligible for funding-and to declare that manure lagoons could be paid for with government funds as a "conservation measure." How ironic since these lagoons are notorious for leaking into groundwater, overflowing into nearby streams, and fouling the air for everyone downwind. The factory operations also are squeezing small, sustainable farmers out of business.

NewsTrust Rating: 3.3 average (not enough reviews) - See Review » - Review It Visit NewsTrust | About | Sign Up | Disclaimer

BushCheney really is planning to attack Iran!

Wed, 14 Nov 2007 00:00:00 -0800

Hightower Lowdown - By Jim Hightower - Nov. 14 (Special Report) - For such neocon zealots as Norman Podhoretz, bombing and even invading Iran are about protecting "our" Mideastern oil, strengthening Israel's regional power, and continuing Western control of the restive Muslim majority in the Middle East. Podhoretz and other true believers assert that there's an urgent need for Israel and the West to crush Iran's Muslim government now, frantically wailing that it intends to destroy America and control the world. Even though Iran has made no threats to the US.

NewsTrust Rating: 4.8 average (not enough reviews) - See Reviews » - Review It Visit NewsTrust | About | Sign Up | Disclaimer

The Subprime Mortgage Disaster

Wed, 15 Aug 2007 00:00:00 -0700

Hightower Lowdown - By Jim Hightower - Aug. 15 (Opinion) - "Subprime market" is just another way of saying modest-income people---including the working poor who dream of owning a home and retirees on meager pensions who might need to refinance the house they have. With little cash and poor credit rating, these people had not been deemed desirable customers for conventional mortgages, known as "prime," and were mostly ignored...until the mid-1990s. That's when avaricious mortgage hucksters and high-finance manipulators looked upon this broad pool of needy, vulnerable castoffs and suddenly shouted, "Eureka, GOLD!" With interest rates remarkably low, housing prices seemingly on a nonstop rise, and (this is the Big One) practically no regulation of this low-income market, the money changers promptly began to devise clever, Eronian schemes to entice such "subprime" borrowers into high-interest, high-fee loans.

NewsTrust Rating: 4.7 average (not enough reviews) - See Review » - Review It Visit NewsTrust | About | Sign Up | Disclaimer