“The Wreck of the Old Ninety-Seven” is a classic bluegrass song recounting a spectacular train crash in 1903, caused by... Read more...
Stuff happens, right? I mean, who could’ve thought that in these modern times of digital monitoring of everything, something as... Read more...
Your doctor is out and unable to see you now. Not out for lunch or out on vacation — but... Read more...
People are baffled by the surreal saga of George Santos, the bizarre Republican congress critter who is a bottomless sink... Read more...
I’ve never been a farmer, but I’ve learned quite a bit about being one from the many I’ve known. Start... Read more...
Who were the robber barons? The originals, I mean. They were a class of minor lords in feudal Germany who’d... Read more...
Sure enough, opportunists have rushed into America's local news void, sowing thousands of poisonous "imposter" news sites that churn out lies and partisan hackery in the guise of legitimate reporting. Read more...
It’s not the people who’ve “gone conservative,” it’s the Democratic establishment. Too many progressive organizations, especially larger Washington-based groups, have been too willing for too long to follow what in essence is the party’s business-as-usual corporate hierarchy. Read more...
Most intolerable is the steady drip-drip-drip of power it drains from America's democratic ideals and commitment to the Common Good. I can't say that Abbott and DeSantis are the worst that the GOP will try to put in the White House in 2024, but either one is a signpost of an increasingly assertive American fascism. Read more...
For two decades, the GOP’s network of corporate and right-wing operatives has painstakingly fabricated the Supreme Court as its own... Read more...
You've probably never heard of Leonard Leo, but this obscure, far-right ideologue is a major capo in the tight little world of the anti-democracy extremists who hold an iron grip on today's Republican leadership. Read more...
For two decades, the GOP’s network of corporate and right-wing operatives has painstakingly fabricated the Supreme Court as its own... Read more...
Today’s six-member GOP majority has surrendered all claim to being an impartial force for justice. Instead, the GOP’s network of corporate and right-wing operatives has fabricated and weaponized the court to increase their power over the rest of us. Read more...
What the GOP bemoans as America's inflation problem, is actually a corporate greed problem. Read more...
Because cartooning is an expression of the human spirit that has been irrepressible since cave drawings, generation after generation of pen-and-ink champions of democracy have blossomed. Moreover, the general public's appreciation and demand for the cartoonist's sharp-pointed honesty and satire have never flagged, even increasing whenever the artists come under public assault by autocrats, plutocrats, theocrats, cultists, racists, demagogs, screwballs, and assorted other censors. Read more...
Sometimes, when watching Congress in action, I can’t decide whether to laugh, cry, or check myself into an insane asylum.... Read more...
Should the future of America's ag economy be controlled by industrializers and monopolizers who view food strictly as a profit center to be manipulated by and for the few? Or, should the future be modeled on the principles of grassroots producers, artisans, chefs, and consumers who understand that food is an essential element of life, community, and culture to be shared for the Common Good? Read more...
When looking for a sign of the times, sometimes it might literally be on a sign. That was true in Lincoln, NE, on July 9, when the tall billboard in front of a Burger King boldly informed customers: "We all quit. Sorry for the inconvenience." The impetus for the workers' mass public resignation was the "We're not gonna take it anymore" rebellion that is sweeping across workaday America and fueling a rejuvenation of unionization. Read more...
Today's Exxon executives have ambushed Golden Triangle unions. In a little-reported maneuver, they launched a crude attack this spring on the Steelworkers, attempting to bust the union, disempower the middle-class workforce, and entrench corporate autocracy in the oil industry. What's occurring in Beaumont is not a union strike, but a corporate lockout. Read more...
Unbeknownst to the general public (and still largely undiscovered by national media), oil giants and other multinational corporations have quietly colluded with the legislators and governors they've purchased. Together, they've rammed through a series of autocratic state laws criminalizing our right to protest at sites they imperiously designated "critical infrastructure." Encompassed in the sweeping lockdown inherent in this often-specious designation are public demonstrations that the sneaky new laws defined as "criminal interference." Read more...
The rapidly widening divide between the rich and the rest of us is neither natural nor accidental. America needs a "Lizzie"--a way to re-balance the tax burden fairly between wages and wealth. Sen. Elizabeth Warren has taken the lead on this fundamental democratic reform by proposing a return to America's historic tax principle of "ability to pay." Her idea is to shut down the elites' shameful tax dodging with a straight-forward tax on extreme wealth. Read more...
In these sultry, dog days of August, the Lowdown presents a summer picnic of political snacks, meaty developments, both sweet and sour sides, and--of course--some mixed nuts. Read more...
Global trade deals are and always have been large-scale hustles, filled with hypocrisy, deceit, and greed. Promoted as fair and good for all, they're invariably rigged with profiteering schemes that lock into law advantages for corporations over the common good of consumers, the environment, labor, independent businesses, governments, and all other democratic forces. The USMCA is no different-- and is, in fact, worse. Read more...
A massive depression has been building for years across our vast rural expanse, but don't feel alone if you didn't know, for most of our media and political establishments have failed to notice, much less inform the general public. In America's power centers, farming is almost entirely ignored as something arcane and "out there"--and out of mind. Read more...
Time flies when you're having fun, so those of us who merrily pull together this little newsletter each month were surprised recently when it dawned on us that--Holy Moly!--we've reached a milestone of populist pamphleteering: The 20th anniversary of The Lowdown. This retrospective issue is meant to be a contemplation on the progressive movement itself--what it's up against and how far it has progressed in these two decades. Read more...