I love these articles and Jim's dedication to tracking these stories. His "glass half full" attitude needs to take root in our souls so that we don't go stupid nuts with all the negativity. There is a "light at the end of the tunnel" and it resides with the groups of people working quietly (as in not in the news) to foment positive change.

Thanks for posting sooz.

I enjoy all his articles but this last one is great. I sometimes tend to forget that not all Americans or American politicians are just Grabem clones.

Another GREAT read from Jim Hightower ~ ~ for me, he's 100% correct ~ the DiC and his cabal have definitely reawakened a rebellious streak in me personally and obviously in [literally] millions of others ~ we've got to keep the fire burning ~ Sooz

Jim Hightower: Is a New Populist Movement Stirring?
The Donald's deep darkness has sparked a prairie fire of mass opposition.
By Jim Hightower / AlterNet / April 19, 2017

In high school, I had a girlfriend who was involved in student government and all sorts of good works. While she paid attention to all that was happening in those years of the early '60s, she essentially was a moderate—certainly not some movement rebel. Or so we thought... until one lazy, Sunday afternoon. As we aimlessly cruised the drag of our small town in a '54 Chevy, we paused at a red light across from a root beer stand where some teens were hanging out. Suddenly, my "moderate" girlfriend lunged halfway out of the backseat window and shouted, "Wake up and piss, kids, the world's on fire!"

I stared at her wide-eyed and whopperjawed, wondering where that came from.

I've thought of that moment recently as I've seen instance after instance of the innate rebelliousness of the American people erupting across the country in surprising ways, unexpected numbers and with astonishing intensity. No need to wonder where this comes from, however. The outbursts are a spontaneous, rapidly expanding mass rejection of Trumpism.

Our Twitter-president plays to his most frenzied partisans with his daily rata-tat-tat of executive orders and public fulminations, firing at refugees, federal judges, Chuck Schumer, the media, Nordstrom, the EPA, Mexico's president, Elizabeth Warren, laws that protect consumers from Wall Street greed, Sweden, Arnold Schwarzenegger, and no telling who's next. But while some delightedly squeal at his wild moves, many more see Trump as not merely unpresidential, but bull goose bonkers! And dangerous, recklessly using the enormous power of the presidency as a personal cudgel to attack, stigmatize and seriously harm individuals, entire religions and races, the Bill of Rights and our nation's basic values of tolerance, fairness and opportunity for all.

In a twist of ironic justice, the Donald's deep darkness has sparked a prairie fire of mass opposition, raging political activism and movement organizing for the long haul.

Many of us are activists already, ranging from occasional campaigners to us warped gluttons for full-time, full-tilt punishment. No matter your past involvement, with our ship of state entering dire straits, each of us must do a bit extra. And we can help focus the anger roiling the countryside by sharing some how-to-make-a-difference tips to friends, co-workers, et al. "Traump-atized" by Washington's new extremist kakistocracy (government by the worst).

After all, millions of our neighbors have long been disengaged, viewing the political scrum as somewhere between irrelevant and repugnant. But, suddenly they're back -- alert not only to Trump, but to their congress critters and to that menagerie of freaky, rightwing corporate mutants that Trump-Pence has put in charge of our government. In January, one red-district Texan told a reporter: "I think of politics the way I think of my car. I just want it to run [without my spending] a lot of time." Only a few weeks into the Trump-Does-Washington spectacle, he learned a fundamental lesson: "You get the politics you work for."

So, it's time to get to work. This is not just a one-time, resist-and-dump Trump campaign we're undertaking, but the mobilization of a long-term grassroots movement to reject the systemic corporate takeover of our elections and government at every level, from our local school boards to our White House. Simply ousting Trump won't do that. The job, then, is as simple as it is difficult: To have a People's government, we must build it. Democracy requires us common folk to join together, with each of us doing as much as we can, as strategically as we can, for as long as we can. http://www.IndivisibleGuide.com, http://www.OurRevolution.com and http://www.MovementVote.org are just a few organizations you can check out to help you get active and start building a more democratic way of governing.

http://www.alternet.org/activism/jim-hightower-new-populist-movement-stirring

Quite possibly the BEST Hightower read yet ~ ~ Sooz

Hightower: What Populism Really Is—And It Is Not Mobs, Rants or Opinion Polls
The true political spectrum in our society does not range from right to left, but from top to bottom.
By Jim Hightower / AlterNet / May 3, 2017

If a political pollster asked whether I consider myself a conservative or a liberal, I'd answer, "No."

Not to be cute -- I have a bit of both in me -- but because, like most Americans, my beliefs can't be squeezed into either of the tidy little boxes that the establishment provides.

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 high or low that spectrum. 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.

Few people today call themselves populists, but I think most are. I'm not talking about the recent political outbursts by confused, used and abused Trumpian ranters who've been organized by corporate front groups to spread a hatred of government. Rather, I mean the millions of ordinary Americans in every state who're battling the real power that's running roughshod over us: out-of-control corporations. With their oceans of money and their hired armies of lobbyists, lawyers, economists, consultants and PR agents, these self-serving, autocratic entities operate from faraway executive suites and Washington backrooms to rig the economic and governmental rules so that they capture more and more of America's money and power.

You can shout yourself red-faced at Congress critters you don't like and demand a government so small it'd fit in the back room of Billy Bob's Bait Shop, but you won't be touching the corporate and financial powers behind the throne. In fact, weak government is the political wet dream of corporate chieftains, which is why they're so ecstatic to have Trump out front for them. But the real issue isn't small government; it's good government.

This is where populists come in. You wouldn't know it from the corporate media, but in just about every town or city in our land you can find some groups or coalitions that, instead of merely shouting at politicians, have come together to find their way around, over or through the blockage that big money has put in the way of their democratic aspirations. Also, in the process of organizing, strategizing and mobilizing, these groups are building relationships and creating something positive from a negative.

This is the historic, truly democratic, grassroots populism of workaday folks who strive to empower themselves to take charge economically as well as politically.

With the rebellious spirit and sense of hope that has defined America from the start, these populists are directly challenging the plutocratic order that reigns over us. This populism is unabashedly a class movement -- one that seeks not merely to break the iron grip that centralized corporate power has on our country, but also to build cooperative democratic structures so that ordinary people -- not moneyed interests -- define and control our country's economic and political possibilities.

It's necessary to restate the solid principles of populism and reassert its true spirit because both are now being subverted and severely perverted by corporate manipulators and a careless media establishment. These debasers of the language misapply the populist label to anyone who claims to be a maverick and tends to bark a lot. Although the targets they're usually barking at are poor people, teachers, minorities, unions, liberals, protestors, environmentalists, immigrants, LGBTQ or other demonized groups that generally reside far outside the center of the power structure -- the barkers are indiscriminately tagged as populist voices -- even when their populist pose is funded by and operates as a front for one or another corporate interest. That's not populism; it's rank hucksterism, disguising plutocrats as champions of the people. And it is important that we call them out on it.

http://www.alternet.org/activism/hightower-populism-not-about-mobs-anti-government-rants-or-opinion-polls

LOVE Jim Hightower's mind! ~ the GOP/TPers, just like the DiC himself, are their own worst enemy ~ they want to win <whatever> ... at ANY cost to anyone other than themselves ~ they are NOT even related to "true conservatives" ~ both McConnell and Ryan should be pegged as "domestic terrorists", with Nancy Pelosi not far behind ~ ~ Sooz

Jim Hightower: The GOP Will Free You from Having Health Care
Instead of affordable care, we now have the freedom to suffer.
By Jim Hightower / AlterNet / June 14, 2017, 7:31 AM GMT

When I think of freedom, I think of it in positive, aspirational terms -- our First Amendment freedoms, for example, or FDR's "Four freedoms" or the uplifting songs of freedom sung by oppressed people around the globe.

But right-wing, corporate-funded ideologues have fabricated a new negative notion of "freedoms" derived from individual choice. You're free to be poor, free to be politically powerless or free to be ill and uncared for -- it's all a matter of decisions you freely make in life, and our larger society has no business interfering with your free will

This is what passes for a philosophical framework behind many of the policies of today's Republican congressional leaders. For example, they say their plan to eliminate health coverage for millions of Americans and do away with such essential health benefits as maternity care for millions more is just a matter of good 'ol free-market consumerism. As explained by Jason Chaffetz, a Utah tea party Republican, "Americans have choices. And so maybe, rather than getting that new iPhone that they just love and they want to go spend hundreds of dollars on that, maybe they should invest in their own health care."

Lest you think that Jason must simply be an oddball jerk, here's a similar deep insight from the top House Republican, Speaker Paul Ryan: "Freedom is the ability to buy what you want to fit what you need." Yes, apparently, you are as free as you can afford to be. As Vice President Mike Pence recently barked at us, Trumpcare's you're-on-your-own philosophy is all about "bringing freedom and individual responsibility back to American health care."

The GOP's austere view is that getting treatment for your spouse's cancer should be like buying a new pair of shoes -- a free-market decision by customers who choose their own price point from high-dollar Neiman Marcus to bargain-basement Dollar General. And some go barefoot ... but, then that's their choice.

So, that's what Republicans' Trumpcare is offering us, this so-called "freedom" from health care. Well, good news, people -- at last, congressional Democrats have gotten a clue, grown some spine and are beginning to act like... well, like Democrats!

In particular, a majority of Dems in the U.S. House are responding to the rising public demand that decent health care be treated as a right for everyone, rather than being rationed by profiteering insurance conglomerates. Nearly 6 of 10 Dems in the House have now signed on to Rep. John Conyers' "Medicare for All" bill, which is being carried in the Senate by Bernie Sanders.

So -- Hallelujah, progress!

Yes, but many speed bumps remain on the Democratic Party's entry ramps onto the moral high road of politics. Rep. Nancy Pelosi, for one. When the leader of House Democrats was asked if the party should make health care for all a major issue in Congress and in the 2018 elections, she replied with a flat "no." Basically, Pelosi says "the American people" aren't ready for it -- by which she really means that the narrow slice of the public that inhabits her world -- health industry executives, lobbyists and big campaign donors -- aren't ready. Meanwhile, a good 60 percent of regular Americans are damned sure ready, telling pollsters flat out that our government has a responsibility to ensure that everyone gets the care they need.

Let's be blunt: When it comes to the fiery leadership that America's grassroots people want and need, the Democratic Party establishment is weaker than Canadian hot sauce. When you've got 60 percent of your party's rank-and-file congressional members ready to go on such a basic issue, and 60 percent of the public is also ready to go -- it's time to go! The national party's "leadership" must get going on health care for all, or the leadership itself must go.

http://www.alternet.org/jim-hightower-gop-will-free-you-having-health-care

#31 BAM!

Another DOOZY of a commentary ~ I agree this is a significant failure ~ but with so many failures to wade thru, I confess I'm not sure I agree that this is his "... greatest failure ..." ~ ~ Sooz

Jim Hightower: Trump's Puny Poll Numbers Are About to Crash into His Ego
Trump's greatest failure is that he has no understanding of grassroots democratic idealism.
By Jim Hightower / AlterNet / June 22, 2017, 11:11 AM GMT

What's the matter with these people? The Trumpsters in the White House and Congress, I mean.

Start with The Donald himself, a guy who can't pass a mirror without casting an adoring eye at his own reflection. What is it about him that requires the top officials of his government to humiliate themselves publically in the White House cabinet room, making them try to outdo each other in a groveling Worship-a-thon of praise for this magnificence? And what's wrong with his Cabinet members? One after another, the Vice President, Chief of Staff, Treasury Secretary, Secretary of State and all the other supposedly-powerful luminaries of the Government of the United States of America were called upon in June's televised cabinet session to say their name, then meekly offer their smarmiest praise of Trump's integrity, agenda and manly leadership. This spectacle of forced adulation of "The Leader" was so eerily insane that even North Korea's Kim Jong Un would've been too embarrassed to orchestrate it!

Yet Trump went even further in his flight from reality. Not satiated by the string of superlatives from his cabinet of sycophants, he resorted to stroking his own ego, opening with the fanciful claim that Americans are "seeing amazing results" from his presidency. Shifting into overdrive, the chief proclaimed that "never has there been a president -- [except maybe] FDR, who's passed more legislation, who's done more things than what we've done."

Uh... no, Mr. President... not actually, not even close. I realize you don't "believe" in facts, but here's one to sober you up: The Trump White House has produced no major legislation. Zero.

You're right, however, that we Americans are seeing truly "amazing results" from your six months on the job: We're amazed that in such a short time your so-called presidency is mired in conflicts of interest, constitutional quagmires, erratic behavior, ideological arrogance, tweeted ignorance, lame policy proposals and -- let's admit the obvious -- your own incompetence. If President Trump and his apologists in Congress wonder why they're consistently getting such miserable job approval ratings from the public, they should take a deep breath, hold their noses, and actually look at the god-awful policies they're pursuing.

For example, they're intentionally pushing a Draconian health care scheme that would cause widespread suffering for non-rich Americans and even deaths, while also slipping another tax giveaway of nearly a trillion dollars to corporations and wealthy investors. It's so ugly that Trump, who originally said he was "100 percent behind this," now calls the bill "mean."

And the one widely-popular idea that Trump promised -- a trillion-dollar investment to create good jobs for repairing America's collapsing infrastructure -- has turned into a scam. His actual proposal is to give $800 million in tax credits to Wall Street investors, hoping they'll put money into infrastructure projects. It's like promising to feed the oats to horses, hoping they'll pass through some seeds for the birds to peck out.

Also, remember his promise to crack down on Wall Street greed heads? Now, he and Congress are pushing a bill to coddle the banksters by removing consumer protections that restrict Wall Street greed.

But he is creating new jobs for 4,000 lucky Americans. In Afghanistan. The 16-year war there has been an interminable, unequivocal disaster for the U.S. and our troops. But rather than being a commander-in-chief, Trump has washed his hands of that presidential responsibility, becoming a wimpy delegator-in-chief by handing off responsibility to the military brass. They're now shipping 4,000 more troops into a hellish war the American people do not support.

The greatest, overriding failure of Trump and Congressional leaders is that they have no vision, no big ideas, no moxie and no understanding of grassroots people's democratic idealism. Saying "Make America Great" over and over again is easy. Any gasbag can say it. But doing it takes real leadership, and the people now in charge just can't measure up. Sad.

http://www.alternet.org/news-amp-politics/jim-hightower-trumps-puny-poll-numbers-are-about-crash-his-ego

Terrific commentary that peels back the layers ~ ~ Sooz

Hightower: Does Anyone Really Think Corporate Profiteers Are Going to Educate Our Children Well?
How Betsy DeVos, the Koch Brojers, and Donald Trump are selling our schools to the highest bidder.
By Jim Hightower / AlterNet / July 12, 2017, 10:05 AM GMT

Where are Charlie and Dave, Mrs. Koch's two mischievous boys? While the Koch brothers have stayed out of the national limelight since the White House was acquired by Trump and Company, that doesn't mean the two right-wing billionaire brats are any less active in trying to supplant American democracy with their little laissez-fairyland plutocracy. In fact, in late June, you could've found them in one of their favorite hideaways with about 400 other uber-wealthy rascals, plotting some political hijinks for next year's elections.

This is the Koch Boys Billionaire Club, which meets annually at some luxury resort to schmooze, strategize, hear a select group of GOP elected officials kiss up to them -- then throw money into a big pot to finance the Koch's planned takeover of America. It costs $100,000 per person just to attend the three-day Koch Fest, but participants are also expected to give generously to the brothers' goal of dumping $400 million into buying the 2018 elections.

This year, the group gathered in Colorado Springs at the ultra-lux Broadmoor Hotel and resort, owned by the brothers' billionaire pal and right-wing co-conspirator, Philip Anschutz. Among the recent political triumphs that these elites celebrated in the Broadmoor's posh ballroom was the defeat this year of the Colorado tax hike to fix the states crumbling roads. After all, who needs adequate roads when you can arrive in private jets? This attitude of the Koch's privileged cohorts explains why the public is shut out of these candid sessions. A staffer for the Koch confab hailed such no-tax, no-roads policies as a "renaissance of freedom." For the privileged, that is -- freedom to prosper at the expense of everyone else.

This self-absorbed cabal of spoiled plutocratic brats intends to abandon our nation's core democratic principle of "We're all in this together." If they kill that uniting concept, they kill America itself. Their agenda includes killing such working class needs as minimum wage and Social Security and privatizing everything from health care to public education.

For example, Betsy DeVos and her hubby are part of the Koch brother's coterie. They are lucky enough to have inherited a big chunk of the multibillion-dollar fortune that Daddy DeVos amassed through his shady Amway corporation. But what they've done with their Amway inheritance is certainly not the American Way.

The DeVos's are pushing plutocratic policies that reject our country's one-for-all, all-for-one egalitarianism. In particular, Betsey DeVos has spent years and millions of dollars spreading the right-wing's ideological nonsense that public education should be completely privatized. She advocates turning our tax dollars over to for-profit outfits -- even to private schools that exclude people of color, the poor and the disabled, as well as to profiteering schools known to cheat students and taxpayers.

Bizarrely, Donald Trump chose this vehement opponent of public-education-for-all to head-up the agency in charge of -- guess what -- public education. Rather than working to help improve our public schools, the Trump-DeVos duo wants to take $20 billion from them and give it to corporate chains.

To see the "efficiency" of this scheme, look to Arizona, where state Senate president Steve Yarborough pushed a private school fund into law. One of the corporatized schools, called Arizona Christian School Tuition Organization, has taken more than $73 million from Arizona taxpayers, paying its executive director $125,000. His name is Steve Yarborough. ACSTO also pays millions of dollars to another for-profit corporation named HY Processing to handle administrative chores. The "Y" in HY stands for Yarborough. And ACSTO pays rent to its landlord.

As Wall Street banksters, drug company gougers, airline fee fixers and so many others have taught us over and over, most corporate executives are paid big bucks to take every shortcut, cheat and lie to squeeze out another dime in profits. Why would we entrust our schoolchildren to them?

http://www.alternet.org/education/hightower-does-anyone-really-think-corporate-profiteers-are-going-educate-our-children

Another stellar commentary from Jim Hightower ~ ~ Sooz

Jim Hightower: Trump’s Running Out of Friends, and It’s His Own Fault
Even Robert E. Lee would have been offended by Trump's reaction to Charlottesville.
By Jim Hightower / AlterNet / August 24, 2017, 2:02 PM GMT

I hate to say this, but I'm starting to feel sorry for Donald Trump. He's only been in office for half a year, and already he's running out of Americans to attack.

Of course, he came into office having already notched his AK-47 Twitter rifle with hundreds of hits on the American citizenry, including entire groups such as "nasty women," Mexican-Americans who have Latin-sounding names and Muslim-Americans who are, you know ... Muslims. Since then, he's repeatedly used the presidential bully-pulpit for mass-bullying assaults on every news outlet and reporter who refuses to be a Sean Hannity-suck-up to The Donald.

The trigger-happy tweeter-in-chief also relishes gunning down his own political kin: He has blasted all House Republicans who voted for a health care bill he called "mean" after he had personally pushed them to pass it; he mercilessly called for Republican Senate leader Mitch McConnell to commit political hara-kiri for failing to pass his abominable Trumpcare bill, a bill which was meaner than mean; and he publicly shoots down his own top appointees, from Attorney General Jeff Sessions to his short-lived mouthpiece Anthony Scaramucci, and now even his chief political strategist, Steve "Barbarian" Bannon, has been bounced.

Then came the Great Donald Debacle—his bumbling, shameful response to the racist, anti-Semitic rampage in Charlottesville by a menagerie of neo-Nazis, KKK thugs and swastika-clad white supremacists. His embrace of these far-right extremists—and his attack on all who stood up to their bigotry—was so appalling that even his multimillionaire allies in Fortune 500 corporations gagged. Led by Merck CEO Kenneth Frazier, the 47 members of Trump's two big corporate advisory committees abolished their own panels in protest. The petulant president, clueless as usual to the importance of political symbolism, tweeted an angry potshot at Frazier—who happened to be one of only two African Americans on Trump's corporate committees.

But our foam-at-the-mouth president still has one loyal friend by his side: Ku Klux Klan poohbah David Duke. "Thank you," the Duke of Whiteness tweeted to Trump after his defense of the supremacists' violent frenzy in Virginia. Perfect. The Duke and The Donald deserve each other.

While the present president of the United States keeps revealing a constricted moral character that ranges from boorish to brutish, it's only fair to note that he also has a tender side.

This surprising side of Trump popped out several days after those savage attacks by raging white supremacists in Charlottesville. In a presidential tweet, he said: "Sad to see the history and culture of our great country being ripped apart." Yes, very sad to see a resurfacing of raw bigotry ripping so viciously into America's historic attempts to create a culture of mutual respect and unity in a nation of extraordinary diversity—e pluribus unum, as our national maxim puts it.

Oh, wait, that's not what Donald meant. Rather than criticizing the violence of the armed racists who were out to rip apart the Big Idea of American Egalitarianism, this was the boorish, small-minded president speaking. Trump was actually defending the bigots who were rallying around pieces of bronze and granite that celebrate America's darkest period of slavery, secession and white supremacy.

The KKK thugs invaded Charlottesville in a violent objection to the city's planned removal of a statue of Robert E. Lee, who led the southern states' war against the U.S. so they could continue to enslave black people. Trump's lament was not about the attack on America's humanitarian ideals, but "the removal of our beautiful statues." Apparently, it never occurred to him that most Americans do not consider the statues either beautiful or ours.

Ironically, Robert E. Lee himself opposed erecting Confederate statues across the south: "I think it wiser not to keep open the sores of war," he said, but instead "to obliterate the marks of civil strife."

If only we had a leader with such self-effacing wisdom today, when bigots feel newly empowered to incite civil strife in our nation.

http://www.alternet.org/news-amp-politics/tweeter-chief-versus-robert-e-lee

agree with jim, here. that is a winner. i think i will post it on FB.

The thought of combining breakfast with beer makes me cringe ~ but it IS tongue-in-cheek ... I hope ~ ~ Sooz

Jim Hightower: Why You Should Have Beer For Breakfast
What better way to welcome the new year than with a pint of a good craft brewski?
By Jim Hightower / AlterNet / December 27, 2017, 1:02 PM GMT

Let's talk about two daily essentials: Breakfast, and of course, beer.

Mass marketers of breakfast cereals have been in a downward sales spiral for about a decade, so they're getting back to their roots (sort of). Few folks know that some of the oldest and biggest brands of today's artificially flavored, neon-colored, empty-calorie cereals started out as health foods, often springing from religious or utopian movements.

For instance, Ralston Purina's Wheat Chex cereal was first packaged in 1937 under the name of Shredded Ralston, specially formulated for followers of Ralstonism. What was that? A strict, bizarre, racist cult with a demonic mission: To make America a nation of Caucasian purity. Webster Edgerly, the unhinged founder of Ralstonism, proposed an efficient means for achieving his pure-white dream world: Castrate all males of "impure" lineages at birth.

The big manufacturers today aren't going full-tilt Ralstonist to reclaim market share, but they are going back to pitching their products as health food, hoping to woo millennials who want cereals with more protein, fiber, and natural ingredients and none of the artificial additives the industry has been dumping into its Choka-Mocha-Salted-Sugar Bombs. Some brands are seeking Good-For-Ya credibility by buying out organic brands such as Kashi (consumed by Kellogg's) and Annie's Homegrown (swallowed by General Mills). But the sweeping shift of this $10-billion market to healthier alternatives is, in fact, an enormous, grassroots victory, driven by the organic movement, groups like Center for Science in the Public Interest, Good Food entrepreneurs, fearless nutritionists and especially by countless moms, dads and kids who simply refused to swallow the industry's crap.

Now that breakfast is out of the way... beer! Last year, Anheuser-Busch InBev mounted a multimillion-dollar coup on America. Not on our country, but on its name. For six months, the beer behemoth expropriated our nation's name for a tacky advertising campaign, rebranding its Budweiser product "America." But the PR ploy backfired when a flurry of stinging media stories pointed out that Bud is owned by a Brazilian consortium based in Belgium.

Undeterred by facts, BigBud—still claiming to be red-white-and-blue-blooded American—announced that it has invested beaucoup bucks here to improve its beer quality. Mostly, though, that enhancement has come from buying out ten local craft breweries, such as Goose Island in Chicago, Karbach in Houston and Wicked Weed in Asheville. AB InBev grabbed these top-quality, independent brew-makers because they represent the real beer of today's America, rapidly taking customers away from the giant purveyor of bland suds.

Indeed, sales figures tell the tale of Bud's beer bust: Last year the company sold 14.4 million barrels of Budweiser in the U.S., less than a third of its volume in 1988's peak-suds year. Meanwhile, craft breweries are gaining market share—production of good beer was up 12 percent last year to 24.6 million barrels.

So, what better way to welcome the new year than with a breakfast of healthy cereal, a pint of a good craft brewski, and with the knowledge that good things keep happening in the food world.

https://www.alternet.org/food/jim-hightower-why-you-should-have-beer-breakfast

Can't argue with that!

Jim Hightower's latest "WAKE UP" call ~ I confess I'm part of the problem because I use Amazon Prime regularly ~ it doesn't always have the lowest prices on specific items, but it saves a boatload of time and aggravation for me ~ ~ Sooz

Jim Hightower: Guess Who's Making Sure Many Huge Corporations Stay Profitable?
As always, the American people are stuck with the bill.
By Jim Hightower / AlterNet / January 17, 2018, 1:56 PM GMT

The hustlers claim that job incentives are a sound investment of our tax dollars, because those new jobs create new taxpayers, meaning investments soon pay for themselves. Hmmm ... not quite. In fact, not even close.

Last year, Good Jobs First tracked the 386 incentive deals since 1976 that gave at least $50 million to a corporation, and then it tallied the number of jobs created. The average cost per job was $658,427. Each! That's likely far more than cities and states can recover through sales, property, income and all other taxes those jobholders would pay in their lifetimes. Worse, the rise of megadeals in the past 10 years has made the job-incentive argument mega-ridiculous:

* New York gave a $258-million subsidy to Yahoo and got 125 jobs -- costing taxpayers $2 million per job.
* Oregon awarded $2 billion to Nike and got 500 jobs -- $4 million per job.
* North Carolina shelled out $321 million to Apple and got 50 jobs -- $6.4 million per job.
* Louisiana handed $234 million to Valero Energy and got 15 jobs -- $15.6 million per job.

The rosy jobs-creation claims by incentive boosters also tend to be bogus, for they don't subtract the number of jobs lost as a result of these deals. Jeff Bezos, Amazon's founder and CEO, for example, has leaned on officials in every major metro area to subsidize its creation of a nationwide network of warehouses, data centers, and other facilities. This web forms Amazon's all-encompassing business structure, giving it the reach to achieve near monopoly power in industry after industry. In its 2016 report Amazon's Stranglehold, the Institute for Local Self-Reliance found that more than half of Amazon's facilities had been built with government subsidies. The "Amazon Tracker," a continuously updated web page produced by Good Jobs First, reports that since 2005, the retailer has been showered with $1.1 billion in local and state subsidies to build their private business.

Each of those taxpayer handouts (given to the world's third-largest retailer) was made in the name of local workers. And, yes, the Amazon warehouses do employ thousands, but their subsidized network enables the giant to undercut local competitors, causing devastating job losses that greatly outnumber jobs gained. The ILSR report notes that at the end of 2015 Bezos did indeed employ 146,000 people in his U.S. operations, but -- ooops -- they calculated that his taxpayer-supported behemoth had meanwhile eliminated some 295,000 U.S. retail jobs.

Plus, there's an ugly blotch on Amazon's ballyhooed job-creation numbers: Working conditions in those sprawling, windowless warehouses are grim, and 40 percent of the employees are low-wage, temporary hires with no benefits and no job security. While warehouse wages everywhere are low, an ILSR survey documented that Amazon's average 15 percent lower than what other corporations pay.

Almost every city/state giveaway program ignores smaller and locally owned businesses (which really do create jobs), and instead tries to land brand name corporations with blockbuster deals. This emphasis -- subsidizing big outfits to come from afar to compete unfairly against local, unsubsidized firms -- is spreading an epidemic of vacant storefronts across America. It's also altering the very essence of our communities. Rather than each having its own diverse, unique commercial character, our towns are being transformed into corporatized, homogenized versions of Everywhere, USA.

Beyond local business, our larger society also pays a substantial cost for these subsidies. Most of the deals woo the giants by granting 10-year, 20-year, or even longer exemptions from paying property taxes -- the chief source of funding for local schools, roads, fire departments, water systems, parks and other essential public services. To cover the loss of revenue, school districts, cities and counties respond both by cutting services and by hiking the property taxes of homeowners, renters, and hometown businesses. As a result, the community gets more inequality, gentrification, homelessness, and divisiveness. The corporate favor-seekers, however, fail to see (or care about) the connection between this result and their grab for the public's money.

The Institute for Local Self Reliance is an excellent resource on how to support all things local.

https://www.alternet.org/economy/guess-whos-making-sure-many-huge-corporations-stay-profitable

#39. About bloody time the corporate welfare bums were exposed. And it won't end as long they can buy politicians on the cheap.

More "plain speaking" from a master of it ~ ~ Sooz

Jim Hightower: Why the Majority of Americans Despise Trump's Washington
The president isn't as popular as he claims.
By Jim Hightower / AlterNet / February 2, 2018, 12:50 PM GMT

Donald Trump, never lacking in self-esteem, bragged in 2016: "I know words—I have the best words."

Well, sometimes he does put together a coherent sentence, using some very fine words that convey great promise, such as this one: "I'm going to fight for every person in this country who believes government should serve the people—not the donors and special interests." And if those words are too highbrow for you, Trump made the same promise with some punchier words, declaring he would "drain the swamp" to rid Washington of those creepy, crawly corporate lobbyists.

Excellent words! But words only matter if the speaker actually means them, backing their rhetorical promise with action. As we've seen though, far from draining the swamp, this president proceeded immediately to convert the White House itself into a fetid cesspool of self-serving corporate executives, lobbyists, and banksters.

His transition team was almost exclusively made up of those swamp critters. His $100-million, glitzy inaugural celebration was bankrolled by Big Oil, Big Coal, Big Pharma and other Bigs that attached their legislative and regulatory demands to the checks they donated. Most of his cabinet members, agency heads and top aides came straight out of Wall Street and corporate suites, turning Trump's government into a gold-plated sump pump that's routinely funneling trillions of our dollars and thousands of special favors to the moneyed elite.

Asked why he appointed only multimillionaire Wall Street hucksters to design and administer his economic policy, he offered this scramble of words that inadvertently revealed his true, plutocratic soul: "I love all people, rich or poor. But in these positions, I just don't want a poor person."

Really? Not even one official who understands poverty from firsthand experience, rather than from the bias of right-wing ideologues? And what about those hard-hit middle-class workers Trump always talks about? Nope. He's not appointed even one to a top policy position. So, forget Trump's words. If the poor and middle class aren't in his government, they're neither in his heart nor in his policies.

It's odd that Washington Republicans are so publicly high-fiving each other and loudly crowing about their strictly partisan passage last December of the Trump-McConnell-Ryan tax law. Odd, because the people outside of Washington hate that law.

Yes, hate. With a dismal public approval rating of only 30 percent, the GOP's trillion dollar Christmas present to multinational corporations and multimillionaires has been tagged by a top surveyor of public opinion as Congress' second-most disliked domestic bill in the past quarter-century. Second only to the Trump-McConnell-Ryan trio's attempts last year to take away the health care coverage of 23 million Americans—a mingy move that only 23 percent of the public supported.

Why do these doofuses keep trying to shove such wildly unpopular measures down people's throats? Because, as the Daily Beast columnist Michael Tomasky succinctly explained, "They are serving their mega-rich donors and the most extreme elements of their base." In today's rigged, convoluted political system, the special interests of the narrow minority trumps the will of the great majority.

That is where America's fast-expanding, socially destructive inequality comes from. The tax giveaway to the corporations, for example, guts our public treasury, so the Republican Congress, White House, and army of corporate lobbyists are now demanding cuts in the Social Security, Medicare, and other essential programs the majority of us need.

To pretend that they give a damn, the plutocratic powers are presently pulling a trickle-down PR trick on us. The GOP's bill drastically reduced their taxes and increases many of ours, so to dodge public fury, they're making a show of awarding a tiny portion of their bonanza to workers -- not as pay raises, but as one-time "bonus" payments. Bank of America, for example, is doling out about $130 million in worker bonuses, while keeping $2.6 billion it will get next year alone from Trump's tax bill.

If the corporate-GOP syndicate wonders why they're so despised, there it is.

https://www.alternet.org/news-amp-politics/jim-hightower-why-majority-americans-despise-trumps-washington

And if those words are too highbrow for you, Trump made the same promise with some punchier words, declaring he would "drain the swamp" to rid Washington of those creepy, crawly corporate lobbyists.

Well, he has drained the swamp. The gators have all gone on vacation to warmer climes since he gave them everything they've ever asked for.

I see Jim Hightower as a national treasure ~ here's another commentary that tells it like it is ~ and I'm going to download the pamphlet mentioned below ~ but I confess I'm struggling to get rid of the mind pic Hightower planted by using the words "our ... president" and "naked" in the same sentence ~ ~ Sooz

Jim Hightower: Our 'Populist' President is Nothing But a Naked Plutocrat
Donald Trump is straight out of Wall Street's wildest dreams.
By Jim Hightower / AlterNet / February 7, 2018, 6:51 AM GMT

Why does Donald Trump constantly preface his outlandish lies with such phrases as: "To be honest with you," "To tell the truth" and "Believe me"?

Because even he knows that as a lifelong con-man, his voice takes on the tone of a snake-oil salesman when he starts exaggerating and prevaricating, so he reflexively tries to puff up his credibility with an extra dose of bluster: "No really, trust me, I never lie..." In fact, just in the past year, Trump's documented whoppers rank him as the lyingest president in U.S. history. And that included Nixon!

It's not the volume of his fabrications that is so gross, but their enormity. Most damnable of all has been his masquerading as a golden-haired billionaire "populist" who's standing up for America's hard-hit middle class against Wall Street, corporate lobbyists and moneyed elites -- a carefully crafted PR pose that has duped many working stiffs into thinking he is their champion.

Even before he was sworn in last year, President Trump stripped off the populist garments he wore during his campaign and publicly bared his naked plutocratic essence by naming bankster Gary Cohn to be his top economic advisor.

Wait... didn't candidate Trump promise working-class voters that he'd be Wall Street's worst nightmare, cracking down hard on greedy financial thieves whose scams and schemes are wrecking the middle class? Yes, but that was then. Now, President Trump has become Wall Street's wet dream.

Cohn is one of five top economic officials our fake populist president brought into his government from just one of Wall Street's most abusive banks, Goldman Sachs. How many officials did he add to bring such legitimate voices as consumers, workers, and poor people to his policy making table? Zero.

So, since if we don't have a seat at the table, we're on the menu! Sure enough, Trump and his crew of voracious corporate plutocrats are gorging themselves on new rules that further enrich America's already-rich elites at our expense. For example, they're reducing penalties for Wall Street fraud and gouging; eliminating the requirement that firms advising us on where to invest our savings have to act in our best interests, rather than their own; loosening the few protections we have against predatory lenders; raising the number of temporary, low-wage foreign workers that corporations can bring in to take our jobs; scrapping a rule requiring corporate giants to report their unequal pay to women; opening up Social Security to cuts and privatization; limiting fines on nursing home negligence that harm or even kill residents; eliminating funds for low-income heating and programs to protect kids from lead paint; repealing fracking rules that protect water and air quality; allowing for-profit, private colleges to gouge students; ending funding that provides legal services for poor people; and raising entrance fees at our national parks.

These are just a few of Trump & Company's ongoing rush-rush and hush-hush assaults on our rights, protections and basic needs -- all orchestrated to free a tiny minority of moneyed powers to run roughshod over the great majority of Americans.

That's why a new, straight-talking pamphlet by the watchdog group, Public Citizen, is so important. It starts with Trump's declaration in his inaugural address last year that "the forgotten men and women of our country will be forgotten no longer." Then it shows that he immediately abandoned any pretense of populist principles, proceeding from day one to further enrich and empower the same multinational corporations and mega-rich elites he had denounced as a candidate. While there have been multiple news reports throughout the past year about this action or that by Trump Incorporated, Public Citizen's brief connects the dots, documenting with concise, easy-to-grasp specifics how Trump the faux populist has systematically sold out the working families whose votes he cynically swiped, handing our government to a kakistocracy of corporate plutocrats. It's not merely that he's an irredeemable liar, but that Trump himself is a lie.

The Public Citizen expose, titled "Forgetting the Forgotten: 101 Ways Donald Trump Has Betrayed His Populist Agenda," drives the stake of truth through the heart of his populist lie. It should not just be read, but used like a Thomas Paine pamphlet to spread the truth. To download a free copy, go to CorporatePresidency.org/forgotten.

https://www.alternet.org/news-amp-politics/trump-plutocrat-not-populist

Another Jim Hightower "outing" of the DiC and his cabal ~ ~ Sooz

Jim Hightower: What Essential Social Program Will the Trump Mob Try to Kill Next?
Presidential budgets aren't just numbers, they're statements of a president's moral principles.
By Jim Hightower / AlterNet / February 21, 2018, 1:45 PM GMT

Breaking news: Trump & Company are a murderous mob!

From the start of his White House tenure, the Trumpsters have plotted, stalked and serially killed vibrant members of the English Language.

The word "Fact" was the first to go. Robust and universally respected, Fact was assassinated last year when one of Trump's hired killers poisoned it with an unknown substance nicknamed: "Alternative Fact."

Their latest victim was a much-honored word that has produced a whole family of world literature: "Satire." This powerful noun embodied the use of sarcasm and ridicule to expose the vanity and vice of public figures, but Trump himself killed satire by starving it of any meaning. How can anyone satirize a presidency that is, in reality, nothing but a fully-staged satire of vanity and vice? Satire involves exaggerating the flaws, mannerisms, oddities, etc. of various characters to convey how corrupt and contemptible they are -- but it's impossible to exaggerate the awfulness of an administration that gleefully flaunts its awfulness every day.

Take Trump's proposed budget... please! Delivered just in time for Valentine's Day, it's a nasty piece of work. For example, it would intentionally increase poverty and hunger across our country. It would slash programs providing essential food, housing, and even heating assistance for about 50 million Americans -- mostly children, old folks, poverty-wage worker, and disabled people.

Then there are the vital Medicare and Medicaid programs that most working class Americans count on. Candidate Trump promised us that "there will be no cuts" in funding for these programs. But now he has sent his Valentine budget to us, featuring -- guess what? -- hundreds of billions of dollars in cuts to Medicare and Medicaid. Not only has his cynicism killed satire, but his cynical health care cuts could kill you.

Presidential budgets aren't just numbers, they're statements of a president's moral principles. No work of satire could ridicule Trump's morality as effectively as his own budget does.

Even Charles Dickens, the masterful satirist of Victorian English elites, couldn't have imagined using a box of food to take a gratuitous, heavy-handed slap at poor people. But Donald Trump and two of his slap-happy cabinet officials did imagine it -- and then did it.

They slipped a malicious, punish-the-poor provision into the food stamp budget Trump sent to Congress. Instead of getting a small monthly allowance to spend on foods of their choice, the Trump provision would take away half of the poor people's allowance and substitute a monthly box of peanut butter, canned goods, and other packaged food items chosen for them by their friendly Federal government.

It's bureaucratic, patronizing, demeaning... and stupid, but Trump ag secretary, Sunny Perdue, hailed the Big Brother's Dinner Box as a "bold, innovative" idea. Besides, Sonny disdainfully said of food stamp recipients, they are hooked on a culture of dependency -- so maybe a diet of peanut butter will cure them of that.

Then came Trump budget director, Mick Mulvaney, a tea party extremist who demonizes impoverished Americans as moochers, bizarrely putting a luxury spin on the "Harvest Box," as the Trumpeters have dubbed their miserly scheme. Mulvaney compares the government issued box of grub to Blue Apron, an upscale grocery delivery system. But, Mick -- get a clue -- Blue Apron patrons get to choose what's in their box -- and it ain't peanut butter!

As the leading Democrat opposing the Trump mob's food stamp gut job says in dismay, "My god, these people are awful... really just not nice people."

Less nice is their real intention to kill the food stamp program entirely. Trump's budget calls for slashing 30 percent of the funding this year. As watchdogs at the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities put it, "That's the real battle." The food-box silliness is a distraction to let them pull off the big theft. To help stop them go to http://www.cbpp.org.

https://www.alternet.org/news-amp-politics/jim-hightower-what-essential-social-program-will-trump-mob-try-kill-next

.

I confess it took a few seconds for me to understand ... but shift wins the internet today with his reply! ~

Sooz

Another STELLAR commentary from Jim Hightower ~ ~ Sooz

Hightower: Americans Have Uncovered the Lie of Trumpism — And They're Fighting Back
"Progress is a nice word," said Bobby Kennedy. "But change is its motivator. And change has its enemies."
By Jim Hightower / Creators Syndicate / June 12, 2018, 3:17 PM GMT

"Progress is a nice word," said Bobby Kennedy. "But change is its motivator. And change has its enemies." Over the decades, that sobering reality has confronted every group of Americans who've endeavored to advance our society's democratic ideals of fairness, justice and opportunities for all. From the revolutionaries of the 1770s to today's grassroots rebels engaged in multiple struggles for democratic rights, every inch of progress has been vehemently opposed by entrenched enemies of change. Invariably, the upstart activists of democracy movements find themselves trivialized as unworthy and uppity by elite protectors of the status quo -- "What is it those people want, anyway?" they ask with dismissive sneers.

In the early 1900s, that question was answered succinctly and eloquently by Samuel Gompers, the founding president of the American Federation of Labor. Union organizers were routinely being oppressed and literally brutalized by rapacious corporate barons, hired thugs and corrupt politicians and judges -- yet they kept organizing, protesting and challenging the power structure. Why? Not just for themselves, Gompers explained, but for the Common Good:

"What does labor want? We want more schoolhouses and less jails; more books and less arsenals; more learning and less vice; more leisure and less greed; more justice and less revenge; in fact, more of the opportunities to cultivate our better natures."

A century later, we again find ourselves in want of essentially the same elements of progress sought by the nascent AFL. While Americans were able to make important advances on Gompers' enlightened agenda during the New Deal years and on into the 1980s, the light has steadily dimmed ever since under the relentlessly regressive public policies and miserly budgets of Reagan, Bush I, Clinton, Bush II, and even (though to a lesser degree) Obama.

And now comes The Donald, along with his slaphappy cabinet of Daffy, Sleepy, Sleazy, Creepy, Larry, Curly and Mo. They're "governing" by using such political tools as Trump's tweets, presidential name-calling, melodramatic firings, made-for-tv rallies, dog whistles, overt bigotry, Sean Hannity and a constant loop of lies. All of this is given 24/7 saturation coverage by a bedazzled news media that can't take its eyes off of Trump's round-the-clock freakshow, absurdly and erroneously branding each performance "populism."

The helter-skelter zaniness, however, is like a magician's smokescreen - a distraction from the Trumpsters' sleight-of-hand manipulations being made daily out of public view. Such devious tricksters as Pruitt, Zinke, DeVos, Mnuchin, Mulvaney, Sessions and Pence do their real jobs behind closed doors. In collusion with K-Street's powerhouse lobbyists, Koch-allied front groups, and the GOP's congressional leadership, they are systematically supplanting true democratic populism with an omnishambles of new rules to enthrone corporate supremacy over all other interests.

While the mass media have largely failed to cover the scale and pernicious substance of Trumpism, the majority of Americans have figured it out on their own. After all, even though he is buoyed by a collection of totally enraptured, see-no-evil Trumpistas, it is glaringly obvious to everyone else that he has abandoned "the forgotten working class" he so loudly touted in his campaign. Virtually every action of his presidency has blatantly robbed poor and middle-class families in order to further enrich the already rich and powerful. That is why he is so staggeringly unpopular, earning historically low public approval ratings from the start of his bizarre tenure.

More than merely disproving his policies and behavior, people have spontaneously erupted in a fierce, grassroots resistance movement. Trump's recurring abuses of women, Dreamers, Muslims, immigrants, poor people, science, nature, Puerto Ricans, students, union members -- and whomever or whatever irks him next -- have been met with a rising level of open rebellion, ranging from a record number of nationwide mass mobilizations to hundreds of local pop-up protests.

This bold resistance has spooked a mess of congressional Republicans, who are now stuck not just having to defend both his psychotic outbursts of racism, misogyny, etc. and his embarrassing flip-flop from "populist champion" to a shameless puppet for corporate elites -- but also are forced to defend the shame of their own unquestioning embrace of all-things-Donald. They are the enablers of the senseless harm he is doing to our people and our nation. Already, 42 congress critters, including craven House Speaker Paul Ryan, have announced that rather than face the voters' fury, they're retiring.

https://www.alternet.org/news-amp-politics/hightower-americans-have-uncovered-lie-trumpism-and-theyre-fighting-back

"More than merely disproving his policies and behavior, people have spontaneously erupted in a fierce, grassroots resistance movement. Trump's recurring abuses of women, Dreamers, Muslims, immigrants, poor people, science, nature, Puerto Ricans, students, union members -- and whomever or whatever irks him next -- have been met with a rising level of open rebellion, ranging from a record number of nationwide mass mobilizations to hundreds of local pop-up protests."

I would like this to be, but I think it may be way over-stated or maybe I don't see it where I am located. I only see it in sporadic protests shown in the media (that do not seem fierce to me) that go no where and nothing changes. His popularity polls were recently at a high and are the same as Obama's at this junction - so I do not see any all out rejection of trump and republicans by people who were pro trump. In fact he recently went against a candidate late in the game- and the candidate lost, much to the surprise of many.

As for the republicans leaving - they are the ones that needed to stay and speak out - so that what we have left are not the ones without any integrity and unwilling to go against trump. So while I wish the article were an absolute truth signifying a shift - sadly, I do not believe the statements in the article totally hold up - more like wishful thinking. Of course, the only way to really know is the next election.

A thoughtful AND thought-provoking post, KB ~ especially your last paragraph ~ I need to think this thru more ~

Sooz

And still another DOOZY of a commentary from a personal favorite ~ ~ Sooz

Trump Hates the American Public — Here's How He Reveals His Disdain
He has a billionaire's antipathy for the general good.
By Jim Hightower / Creators.com / November 6, 2018, 8:20 PM GMT

Donald Trump hates you. But don't take it personally, he hates me, too -- and all of us who constitute The Public. The billionaire's antipathy is not directed at us as individuals, but as users of publicly provided services -- such as schools, parks, health care, buses, collective bargaining, libraries and environmental protections. From his privileged perspective, all of that is welfare, nothing but an expensive waste that puts burdensome taxes and annoying regulatory constraints on the entrepreneurial creative class, i.e., him. Moreover, as he's made clear, it galls him that the American people as a whole own such a wealth of shared assets, benefits and programs. He sees no need for them, apparently unaware that the great majority of people clearly do need, use -- and want -- more of them!

But being The Donald has always meant not caring (or even noticing) what common folks want or need. As we've witnessed again and again, his presidential policies (incarcerating terrified refugee toddlers, pushing a trillion-dollar tax giveaway for the superrich, etc.) routinely reject the public interest and the people's will. Instead, they're based on his narcissistic desires, personal biases, insecurities and assorted right-wing furies screeching inside his head.

All of those psychic forces have been in play again as Trump and his gang of GOP accomplices have quietly but intently pursued an aggressive policy of taking as much of America's common wealth from the public domain as they can. A few of their robberies have briefly popped onto the media radar (Scott Pruitt's bloody axing of the EPA, for example). But the totality of their daily, furtive efforts to constrict, deconstruct, eliminate or privatize all things public has largely gone undetected -- and, thus, not widely challenged. It's time to pay attention. In less than two years in office, they've already laid siege on such public assets as:

Our National Parks, Trails, Historic Sites, Etc.

They've whacked park service budgets, forcing reductions in hours, staff, amenities and basic maintenance work. And various Trumpeteers are pushing, both publicly and privately, to open these spaces to everything from fracking and uranium mining to luxury homes and private resorts.

Public Lands

Trump's interior secretary, Ryan Zinke, has drastically shrunk the size of several national monuments, and he ordered that fracking must be allowed on all federal and tribal lands. Trump's Fish and Wildlife Service has unilaterally opened America's national wildlife refuges to biotech pesticides and GMO crops. Trump signed a bill allowing Big Oil drilling rigs and pipelines into the pristine Arctic National Wildlife Refuge. A 2017 Trump order allows new offshore drilling in nearly all coastal waters, endangering not only the environment, but also thousands of local fishing and tourism businesses. And the Trumpsters are mounting a "No More National Parks" campaign while pushing schemes to privatize and sell these national resources to corporate profiteers for their short-term gain.

America's Social Safety Net

While Team Trump has been working tirelessly to save corporations from the "burden" of treating people with a modicum of fairness, they've simultaneously been working to impose truly onerous personal burdens on people needing the most basic public help -- food, unemployment income, health care, etc. Trump signed an executive order to require that someone getting a typical allotment of $134 a month in food stamps must first take a job. And Trumpistas across the country are also demanding that parents needing public medical assistance for their children must submit to drug testing.

And So-Awful-Much More

Even as the need for public housing has grown greater than ever, the Trump budgets have slashed funds for maintenance and construction, and housing secretary Ben Carson has proposed tripling the rents paid by the lowest-income residents. The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, set up to be a fierce watchdog policing the greed of Wall Street banksters and predatory lenders, has been taken over by Trump's budget director, effectively turning the consumer protector into an industry lapdog. Treasury Secretary Steve Mnuchin quietly ruled that super PACs will no longer have to reveal to tax regulators the names of the "dark money donors" who corrupt our elections. And on and on every day, purposefully removing public policies and structures that are useful and desirable for the people while rewiring rule after rule to force the public's interests to give way to the monetary interests of corporate exploiters, polluters, defrauders and plutocrats.

https://www.alternet.org/news-amp-politics/trump-hates-american-public-heres-how-he-reveals-his-disdain