Jim Hightower's Common-Sense Commentaries

Years ago, Coca-Cola excitedly debuted a new formula for its soda, dubbing it “New Coke.” Consumers hated it, and sales plummeted – a marketing fiasco. But here comes Coke again, pushing an...

https://jimhightower.substack.com/p/the-true-story-about-coca-colas-plastic

While 4,300 workers in Volkswagen’s auto factory in Chattanooga, Tennessee, were about to vote on whether to join the United Auto Workers (UAW), thus making their plant the first in the South t...

https://jimhightower.substack.com/p/special-recognition-for-six-gop-gubernatorial

And now: A special report from the Department of Really Bad Ideas. And this one is a doozie. It comes from Hizzoner Eric Adams, the present mayor of New York City. Like mayors everywhere, Adams i...

https://jimhightower.substack.com/p/the-big-apples-mayor-takes-a-big

When we hear the term “canvassing” with regard to politics, it often brings up ideas of well-meaning volunteers going door-to-door in communities outside of their own to help persuade those r...

https://jimhightower.substack.com/p/friday-signpost-learn-how-to-listenand

If you think the GOP’s Congress of Clowns represents the fringiest, freakiest, pack of politicos that MAGA-world can hurl at us – you haven’t been to Texas. It’s widely known, of course, ...

https://jimhightower.substack.com/p/wheres-george-orwell-today-texas

Former New Mexico Gov. Bruce King once opposed a bill because, he said, he feared it would “open a whole box of Pandoras.” An odd rhetorical twist, but it would be helpful if today’s ego-bl...

https://jimhightower.substack.com/p/cant-oil-barons-ever-be-honest-hint

Breaking the two-party duopoly, poor people’s food, Netanyahu versus Gaza, how Texas turned red, who’s doing good grassroots organizing, Thomas Paine, and much more

https://jimhightower.substack.com/p/happy-hour-with-hightower-april-ask

Before there was a USA – before our Constitution was adopted, and even before our 1776 Declaration of Independence – one of America’s best democratic institutions was already delivering for...

https://jimhightower.substack.com/p/why-are-we-letting-greedheads-and

“Somebody better investigate soon.” That’s a lyric in Bob Dylan’s “Oxford Town,” a 1962 song deploring the relentless murdering of Black people and civil rights activists in the Deep ...

https://jimhightower.substack.com/p/what-nation-besides-israel-is-killing

Join us on Tuesday, April 9th at 7pm ET / 6pm CT

https://jimhightower.substack.com/p/reminder-live-happy-hour-with-hightower

If your home or business is suddenly being engulfed in flames, you count on a quick response from the fire department. But who rushes to aid firefighters when so many of the burning buildings the...

https://jimhightower.substack.com/p/how-many-dead-firefighters-does-it

Join us here on Tuesday, April 9th at 7pm ET for an open thread live Q&A

https://jimhightower.substack.com/p/live-happy-hour-with-hightower-and-082

Free Market ideologues fabricate some of the most preposterous yarns trying to justify their assertion of corporate greed over public need. Consider their far-fetched of Laissez-fairyland tale th...

https://jimhightower.substack.com/p/why-big-corporations-get-special

If you’re concerned about fossil fuels and climate change, consider an energy source that, according to its backers, will make everyday living “comfortable and healthier.” What is this mira...

https://jimhightower.substack.com/p/how-oily-is-big-oils-latest-pr-campaign

When a fox attacks a hen house, is it uncivil for the hens to raise a ruckus? Two Supreme Court justices say it is. Elevating collegiality above social justice, right-wing extremist Amy Coney Bar...

https://jimhightower.substack.com/p/should-we-be-polite-as-the-gop-stomps

Too many American newspapers have shut down or shriveled to irrelevance, but, luckily, we still have such bastions of local journalism as the Chicago Chronicle and New York News Daily. But wait�...

https://jimhightower.substack.com/p/why-are-we-letting-financial-hucksters

Did you know that that yesterday was National Agriculture Day? We didn’t! In fact, some of us didn’t even know such a designated day existed until we saw Farm Aid’s post about it on Faceboo...

https://jimhightower.substack.com/p/happy-national-agriculture-day

Poor Katie Britt, the Republican senator from Alabama. She was set up by her party’s operatives to do the GOP’s televised response to Joe Biden’s State-of-the-Union speech. Sadly, her momen...

https://jimhightower.substack.com/p/sen-katie-britt-plays-a-cruel-political

Yesterday, Hightower had the great pleasure to head over to the Luck Reunion, an annual festival of music, food and more held on Willie Nelson’s infamous Luck Ranch. It’d be enough to just at...

https://jimhightower.substack.com/p/friday-signpost-a-lotta-luck-happening

In my view, the greatest of America’s “Founding Fathers” was not Washington or Jefferson – nor, technically, he wasn’t even an American. Rather, he was a British immigrant and itinerate...

https://jimhightower.substack.com/p/tom-paine-what-a-guy