A popular public speaker who is both fiery and funny, he is a populist road warrior who delivers more than 100 speeches a year and frequently appears on television and radio programs, bringing a powerful populist viewpoint that rarely gets into the mass media.

Hightower is a New York Times best-selling author and has written seven books, including Thieves in High Places: They’ve Stolen Our Country and It’s Time to Take Back; If the Gods Had Meant Us to Vote, They Would Have Given Us Candidates; and There's Nothing in the Middle of the Road but Yellow Stripes and Dead Armadillos.

Raised in Denison, Texas, in a family of small-business people, tenant farmers and working folks, Hightower is a graduate of the University of North Texas. He worked in Washington as legislative aide to Sen. Ralph Yarborough of Texas; he then co-founded the Agribusiness Accountability Project, a public interest project that focused on corporate power in the food economy; and he was national coordinator of the 1976 "Fred Harris for President" campaign. Hightower then returned to his home state, where he became editor of the feisty biweekly The Texas Observer. He served as director of the Texas Consumer Association before running for statewide office and being elected to two terms as Texas Agriculture Commissioner (1983-1991).

Recent Columns

1/5/2009 Bullet Points For Assessing The Bush Years  by Jim Hightower As the classic New Year's song asks, "Should auld acquaintance be forgot?" Not if our auld acquaintance is the Bush regime. Yes, our country will soon be getting a new beginning, and maybe, just maybe, we can put our country back on the right path. As we head that way, however, we ought not totally put out of mind the dark path we've been ... READ MORE 12/24/2008 Holiday Gifts For A Better America  by Jim Hightower In keeping with the Biblical adage that it's better to give than to receive, I came up with a delightful sleighful of holiday goodies this year to dispense to some of our nation's most special people. It was not easy to shop for these folks. I mean, what do you get for members of Congress, since they already have pretty much everything? F ... READ MORE 12/17/2008 Bush Gives Lump Of Coal To People Of Appalachia  by Jim Hightower Let's say that you're CEO of a coal corporation, and you want to get at the deposits of black gold deep inside the beautiful, verdant mountains of Appalachia. You have a choice. You could adopt modern methods that combine industrial ingenuity and environmental finesse to extract the coal. Or, what the hey, why not just ram tons of explosi ... READ MORE

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