POLITICAL CORRUPTION Archives • Page 3 of 4 • Hightower Lowdown

Right-wing groups receiving major grants from the Koch Family Foundations

Right-wing groups receiving major grants from the Koch Family Foundations (Charles Koch, David Koch, and Claude Lambe Foundations) Amounts granted from 1976 through 2007, the latest year for which data is avai... Read more...

The Thinkers

To put an intellectual gloss on their hard-core antigovernment beliefs, the Kochs founded and funded their own think tank: the Cato Institute. Headquartered in Washington, it is home to a flock of leading right... Read more...

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

Two multibillionaire brothers are remaking America for their own benefit Despite a constant racket from the forces of the far-out right (Fox television's yackety-yackers, just-say-no GOP know-nothing... Read more...

ACORN’s real “crime” is that it empowers the poor

Time to defund those who've really ripped off our government The name Felix Walker is not one you would recognize, but this 19th-century congressman inadvertently contributed a word to America's poli... Read more...

Obama’s reform plan is to “watch” Wall Street rather than restructure it

Where's the audacity? Where's the hope? Out in West Texas, an oxymoronic weather phenomenon known as a "dry rainstorm" often occurs. It's particularly tough on farmers. These storms build with all of... Read more...

Everyone hates corporate healthcare– now, public demand could really change it

Insurance giants panic at the prospect of competition Now is the time for boldness! Instead, we're getting Baucusness. Sen. Max Baucus, that is--Montana Democrat, chair of the Senate Finance Committe... Read more...

Time for real workplace democracy– not the phony company version

Since Reagan, unions have been squeezed out of the workplace Last October, Home Depot cofounder Bernie Marcus blew a gasket, spewing outrage in all directions. "This is the demise of civilization," h... Read more...

Union faces down banker greed

IRONICALLY, AT THE VERY TIME that boneheaded senators in Washington were working furiously to impose their anti-union extremism on our country, most Americans were captivated by some 250 feisty union members in... Read more...

Congress gives Citi all it wants

A DECADE AGO, CITIGROUP led a full-court lobbying press on Washington, ultimately winning what big bankers, insurance giants, and high-rolling investment wizards wanted: government deregulation. By forcing the ... Read more...

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

Hawking the myth of the $73/hour auto-worker THE 8,000-MEMBER GREATER GRACE TEMPLE in Detroit is the home church of many autoworkers, and its Sunday service on December 7 spoke directly to their trou... Read more...

The bailout bonanza

The Bushites' trillion-dollar giveaway started out as a bailout for banks with big holdings of investment schemes based on home mortgages. Then lobbyists got "any other financial instrument" included. Then fore... Read more...

Political outsiders are the only change we can count on

Whoever wins, we need Kevin, Heather, A.J., Monisha, Stan, Debbie, and Peter At a time when We The People have been vociferously and unequivocally demanding that our political aspirants offer Big Ide... Read more...

McCain opens the spigots

"I am very angry, frankly, at the oil companies, not only because of the obscene profits they've made, but at their failure to invest in alternate energy to help us eliminate our dependence on foreign oil." ... Read more...

Why the McCain drill-more-oil campaign is pure flim flam

Big Oil already leases huge tracts of federal land; giving it more won't help Here they come--America's Drill Team! Out front are the two high-strutting leaders, John McCain and George W, thrusting t... Read more...

Rise of the Rovians

The nasty fellow whose attack-dog, smear-tactic, lie-and-distort brand of politics lifted George W into the White House twice has quietly slipped back into this year's presidential game. Yes, none other than Ka... Read more...

Heartless Phil and “honorable lobbyists” would run McCain’s White House

Even though a few of them have been dumped from the campaign The political media establishment is enrapturedby John McCain. Mainline media sparklies, as well as the blatherers on the Fox channel, rou... Read more...

What Obama calls “old politics”

Old Congress critters never die, they just go to K Street. Take Dennis Hastert. Actually, he's already taken. The longtime Republican lawmaker retired last November, but rather than return to Illinois, he ha... Read more...

Who are the big-money givers behind the candidates?

Identifying the friends of Clinton, McCain, and Obama: Dallas Oilman H.L. Hunt was a billionaire in a time when such massive wealth was unusual, back in the 1950s and '60s. H.L. was also politically ... Read more...

Immigrants come here because globalization took their jobs back there

Stop blaming workers--the bosses made this mess THE WAILING IN OUR COUNTRY ABOUT the "invasion of immigrants" has been long and loud. As one complainant put it, "Few of their children in the country ... Read more...

America to D.C. — Democrats included: We’re mad as hell and you’re not listening!

Stop making war, globalizing poverty, and trashing our Constitution IN A SEASON THAT SHOULD BE CONVIVIAL AND COMFORTING -- filled with family, friends, fun, spiritualism, good food, song, and high sp... Read more...

The presidency is taking over the courts and Congress

While most of the Democrats in Washington cower WHERE IS CONGRESS? It's way past time for members to stand up. Historic matters are at stake. The Constitution is being trampled, the very form of our ... Read more...

This is the Marx Brothers, bumbling around Animal Farm!

The lunatic National Animal Identification System A FRIEND OF MINE TELLS A STORY about the political demise in the 1950s of an entrenched Oklahoma state representative, whom we'll call Elmer Goodenuf... Read more...

Where Bush’s arrogance has taken us

Living under the imperial presidency DURING HIS GUBERNATORIAL DAYS IN TEXAS, George W let slip a one-sentence thought that unintentionally gave us a peek into his political soul. In hindsight, it sho... Read more...

Politicians are selling our bridges rather than building them

Based on the lie that companies do everything better than governments do WILL ROGERS SOMETIMES TUCKED little moral messages into his one-liners. For example: "I'd rather be the man who bought the Bro... Read more...

The Bushites have outsourced our government to their pals

There may be as many rent-a-troops in Iraq as U.S. military THE SPRAWLING $43 BILLION HOMELAND SECURITY DEPARTMENT (HSD) is known chiefly for being the agency in charge of America's color-coded terro... Read more...

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