The Hightower Report

Hunger: Hilarious!

American politics is a hoot! Where else can raw ignorance rise to such high places – and then flaunt itself publicly and shamelessly for all to see?

For example, who needs Jay Leno for comic relief when we've got André Bauer? He's the lieutenant governor of South Carolina (a state, by the way, that really is a comer on the political comedy circuit).

Bauer, presently a Republican contender for governor, had 'em rolling in the aisles recently when he did a wild, slapstick routine on food stamps at a town hall meeting. Bauer proclaimed that much of his thinking was shaped by his grandmother and that he had learned this valuable lesson from her: "She told me as a small child to quit feeding stray animals. You know why?" he asked, pausing for comedic effect. "Because they breed! You're facilitating the problem if you give an animal or a person ample food supply. They will reproduce."

I tell you, André Bauer is an absolute scream!

But I think he could improve his act, so I'm offering a few facts to help him.

The last 10 years were a lost decade for America's middle class. Since December 1999, our economy has lost more jobs than it created – zero job growth. Not surprisingly then, middle-income families today are making less, in real dollars, than they did in 1999. Add in skyrocketing health care costs, plus the plummeting value of people's homes, and you find that millions of Americans have been shoved out of the middle class into poverty.

Here's the punch line: The need for food stamps has been soaring as more and more middle classers are falling. In fact, check this out, Bauer, and laugh if you feel like it: About 6 million Americans are now living solely on food stamps – they've lost their jobs and have no other income. That's one in every 50 of us, and their numbers are growing rapidly. Now, isn't that a hoot?

Getting to Know the Right Wing

Time for another edition of the new game that's sweeping the nation: Who's That Right Winger?

An interconnected network of extremely wealthy, far-right-wing individuals is quietly pushing its ideological, corporatist, and plutocratic agenda all across America. It funds hundreds of media organizations, front groups, think tanks, Astroturf campaigns, training centers, academic reports, and other efforts to bend national, state, and local policies to its will.

These organizations and campaigns often become well-known – but they rarely reveal who's behind the curtain, providing the money, and calling the shots. That's the goal of our game.

So here's today's question: Who is the right-wing Daddy Warbucks with his own mass media megaphone constantly blasting across our land? Most people would say it's Rupert Murdoch, who controls Fox News. But the one I'm thinking of is richer than Rupert, much deeper into right-wing political activism, and practically unknown outside his own circle: Philip Anschutz.

The 36th richest person in the world, this oil billionaire is quietly building his own media empire. He bought the San Francisco Examiner in 2004, then founded the virulently anti-Obama Washington Examiner to give himself a national policy impact. Since then, he has trademarked the "Examiner" name in more than 60 cities.

Well, you might say, newspapers are "old media," so who cares? You might, for Anschutz has also launched Examiner.com, an Internet news portal that has burst into 129 markets, delivering what's called "hyper-local" news. The traffic already coming to these local online outlets makes Examiner.com America's 21st largest news site.

Pay attention to this right-winger, for if the Internet is the future of news, so is Anschutz.