Jim Hightower's criticism of “hedge-fund scavengers” buying struggling newspapers was blocked by his distributor.
THIS WEEK: Jim Hightower’s latest column, “Free the Free Press from Wall Street Plunderers,” takes on the corporate bottom-feeders picking apart what’s left of America’s newspapers. He names names, singling out Digital First Media and GateHouse Media, which recently purchased the Austin American-Statesman, as the worst offenders — “hedge-fund scavengers” and “ruthless Wall Street profiteers out to grab big bucks fast” by gutting newsrooms. Tough stuff. And apparently too tough for Creators Syndicate, the distribution firm that has long placed Hightower’s column in various media outlets.
It’s worth taking a second to consider just how Beto managed to lose so well. Yes, he had the elusive political “it” factor. But his popularity would have been just hype without a way to harness it.
Ted Cruz may have been wrong when he claimed that O’Rourke is a socialist like Bernie Sanders. But when it came to the task of turning enthusiasm into votes, Beto looked to Bernie’s insurgent 2016 presidential bid — a breeding ground for digital organizing experimentation.
O’Rourke relied on the top architects of Sanders’s campaign to help with everything from digital advertising and small-donor fundraising to, perhaps most importantly, building a grassroots ground game.
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From Melissa del Bosque's 2010 feature: “The children clutch their belongings in small, clear plastic bags with Department of Homeland Security tags attached. They carry remarkably little for such a perilous journey. Inside the plastic bags there might be a cell phone, shoe laces, (removed for their protection while in U.S. custody), and maybe a rosary, or some wadded-up American cash, or a few pesos. They appear downtrodden, exhausted yet resolute: With few exceptions they’ll cross again because their parents or loved ones are en el otro lado and on the other side of the Rio Grande there is hope. Hope to study, to work, or to just hug their mothers or fathers again.”
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