Jim Hightower

Jim Hightower America's #1 populist! NYT bestselling author, former twice-elected Ag Commissioner of Texas, radio commentator and populist agitator for over 80 (!) years.

Visit jimhightower.substack.com for essays, commentaries, podcasts & more.

06/19/2026

Hightower's lead-off witness against the pesticide lobby? Willie Nelson .

His second witness? Barbara Jordan.

The hearing room they'd booked was too small — they had to move it to the biggest room in the Texas Capitol. Not one lawmaker would even make the motion to pass the bill.

This is the kind of story we're sharing this month for free. Paid subscribers get a lot more of it.

What would it take to move YOUR statehouse?

Read the full commentary at the link in the comments.

06/18/2026

What if treating your workers well was the business model?

P. Terry's Burger Stand in Austin has 38 locations, 1,800 employees — and just launched company-wide profit-sharing AND an employee ownership trust. Because Patrick and Kathy Terry believed "taking care of people and building a great business were not competing ideas."

This is what good business looks like. Why isn't it the norm?

Full commentary at the link in the comments, and learn more with National Center for Employee Ownership (NCEO).

06/16/2026

Sam Altman wants you to "share in the upside" of AI. Convenient — because OpenAI is losing hundreds of billions and quietly admitting this might not work.

The plan: get taxpayers to become "partners." Then when they go bust, demand a government bailout. Heads they win. Tails you pay.

Sound familiar?

Read the full commentary at the link in the comments.

06/11/2026

The people who rigged the system are mad we keep saying it's rigged.

A right-wing pundit calls it "socially destructive" to talk about corporate oligarchs. He says it "undermines trust in government."

But lawmakers sell themselves to corporate bidders. The White House is a shopping mall for rich donors. The Supreme Court is a corporate subsidiary.

We don't have to shut up — we have to get louder.

What's the most obvious sign to you that the system is rigged?

Read the full commentary at the link in the comments, and take action with Common Cause.

06/09/2026

A million seconds is 11 days. A billion seconds is 32 years.

That gap — right there — is what billionaires are buying in Washington. And both parties are too busy swimming in the money to do anything about it.

Congress has two simple fixes sitting on the table. Zero action.

When did a billion-dollar bribe stop being a scandal?

Read the full commentary at the link in the comments and take action with Campaign Legal Center.

Data centers get right to the heart of what I’ve always said about politics: it’s not left vs right, it’s top vs. bottom...
06/07/2026

Data centers get right to the heart of what I’ve always said about politics: it’s not left vs right, it’s top vs. bottom. And Clayton Tucker is leading the charge here in Texas.

06/05/2026

I sat down for a couple beers with author , who’s just released WHEN DEMOCRATS WON THE HEARTLAND and who is a professor at the University of Wisconsin, Stevens Point. Cory has brilliantly documented how, as the national Democratic Party moved towards corporate cash in the 1980s, maverick politicians throughout the Midwest and Plains states practiced good ol’ fashioned populism—and won. Not only did they win, but they also executed on the policies that they had championed while campaigning. Imagine that!

Here's a moment from our chat that I loved-- subscribers can watch the whole show at the link in the comments.

06/04/2026

They called this Black neighborhood "the point of least resistance."

Valero Energy and Plains All-American Pipeline wanted to run a dirty pipeline through Boxtown, Tennessee — a historic Memphis community settled by formerly enslaved people. They figured nobody would stop them.

They were wrong.

What corporate giant has tried to steamroll YOUR community? Link to the full post in the comments.

06/02/2026

The Justice Department is now protecting Big Oil from the public.

DOJ just sued Hawaii and Michigan to block their right to sue energy companies for climate damage. Meanwhile, a GOP coalition wants a federal liability shield that would excuse oil, gas, and coal from all responsibility for climate destruction. Exxon knew for decades. They funded the denial. Now they're buying immunity.

Who's your Justice Department working for?

Read the full commentary at the link in the comments, and take action with Center for Climate Integrity

05/28/2026

Coal industry donors gave Trump millions. In return, he got a bronze trophy — "Undisputed Champion of Beautiful Clean Coal." Then he ordered five power plants to reopen.

These plants spew mercury, carbon dioxide, and other toxins into our air and bodies. We already replaced them with wind and solar. Electric bills went down. Mercury pollution plummeted.

Trump brought the poison back. For donor cash and a trophy.

Who's running energy policy — voters, or coal barons?

Read the full commentary at the link in the comments, and take action with Sierra Club's Beyond Coal and End Citizens United.

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