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A broad coalition of more than 650 climate and progressive advocacy groups Wednesday called on congressional Democratic leaders to reject Sen. Joe Manchin's "alarming" demands for U.S. fossil fuel projects contained in a "dirty" side deal that the West Virginia Democrat secretly negotiated to gain his support for his own party's historic but watered-down package on climate, taxes, and drug price reforms.

"After the IRA paved the way for another decade of fracking and pipelines, we have no choice but to fight this dirty deal with everything we've got."

"We are writing to express our strenuous opposition to any additional fossil fuel giveaways," states the coalition's letter to Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) and House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.), noting that the Inflation Reduction Act (IRA) signed by President Joe Biden last week "already included large giveaways to polluters."

"We call on you to unequivocally reject any effort to promote fossil fuels, advance unproven technologies, and weaken our core environmental laws," the letter adds. "You must stand with the communities who continue to bear the brunt of harm from fossil fuels and act to prevent wholesale climate disaster."

According to a leaked one-page summary of what critics have called "the ultimate devil's bargain," the proposal would prioritize approval of projects with "strategic national importance," set time restrictions for reviewing permits, alter federal water rules, limit lawsuits, and increase federal authority for certain facilities. Manchin is also pushing for the completion of the Mountain Valley Pipeline (MVP), a fracked gas project that runs through his home state but is opposed by many of his constituents.

"This fossil fuel wish list is a cruel and direct attack on environmental justice communities and the climate," the new letter argues. "Prolonging the fossil fuel era perpetuates environmental racism, is wildly out of step with climate science, and hamstrings our nation's ability to avert a climate disaster. Supporting this legislation would represent a profound betrayal of frontline communities and constituents across the country who have called on you to prevent the multitude of harms of fossil fuels and advance a just, renewable energy future."

The groupsincluding the Center for Popular Democracy, Climate Justice Alliance, Green New Deal Network, Indivisible, Oil Change International, MoveOn, NAACP, Oxfam America, People's Action, Public Citizen, Sierra Club, and Sunrise Movementare demanding "bold congressional action to address the existential threat of climate chaos."

Such action "requires limiting the production of oil, gas, and coal, which are responsible for 85% of greenhouse emissions and are the root driver of the climate crisis," the letter states. "Relying only on large-scale investments in renewable energy and environmental justice alone will not stave off climate disaster if Congress simultaneously puts its legislative foot on the gas to expand fossil fuel production and false solutions like carbon capture, hydrogen, biomass, biofuels, factory farm gas, and nuclear power."

The letter acknowledges that Manchin wants to tie his dirty dealwhich is already facing opposition from some progressives in the Houseto legislation to fund the federal government after the end of next month. The right-wing Democrat has even threatened a government shutdown if members of both parties don't back his proposal.

The coalition's letter charges that "tethering this legislation to any must-pass legislation including a continuing resolution to fund the federal government is morally abhorrent. Holding the funding of the entire federal government hostage to satiate one senator with a heavy financial self-interest in fossil fuels is beyond irresponsible."

"Sacrificing the health and prosperity of communities in Appalachia, the Gulf Coast, Alaska, the Midwest, the Southwest, and other frontline communities around the country makes this side-deal profoundly disgraceful," the documents adds. "Our communities and our collective future require the political courage to stop the fossil fuel stranglehold once and for all."

Representatives of groups that signed the letter echoed its urgent tone.

"This dirty side deal is nothing short of a wholesale giveaway to the fossil fuel industry to the detriment of frontline communities, tribal nations, and Mother Earth," said Joye Braun, national pipelines organizer of the Indigenous Environmental Network. "The world is on fire and negotiating the amount of fuel for those flames is not acceptable. Congress needs to understand that there is no compromise when it comes to protecting the next seven generations of life and beyond."

According to Brett Hartl, government affairs director at the Center for Biological Diversity, "it's atrocious that Congress is even considering dismantling bedrock environmental protections just to please one senator." He called the effort a "poisonous plan" that "must be stopped."

"The grassroots climate movement is fired up to stop this fossil fuel expansion deal, and the sit-ins at Sen. Schumer and Murray's offices last week are just the beginning."

The letter follows protests against the deal and resulting arrests last week at the offices of both Schumer and Sen. Patty Murray (D-Wash.), the party's third-ranked member in the Senate.

Thomas Meyer, national organizing manager at Food & Water Watch, told Common Dreams that "Manchin and Schumer are in for a rude awakening if they thought they could slip this deal through without a fuss."

"The grassroots climate movement is fired up to stop this fossil fuel expansion deal, and the sit-ins at Sen. Schumer and Murray's offices last week are just the beginning," Meyer added. "After the IRA paved the way for another decade of fracking and pipelines, we have no choice but to fight this dirty deal with everything we've got."

The Stop MVP and People vs. Fossil Fuels coalitions are planning a public demonstration against Manchin's deal in the nation's capital next month. "No Sacrifice Zones: Appalachian Resistance Comes to D.C." is set to kick off at 5:00 pm local time on September 8 at the Robert A. Taft Memorial and Carillon.

"We are done being sacrifice zones, and we must stop this bill and MVP!" organizers said in a statement Tuesday. "We want to build community between intersectional Appalachian resistance organizations and have their voices heard! We must protect bedrock environmental laws and public input. We are in solidarity with all frontlines of the climate crisis."

The Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) on Tuesday granted MVP's request to extend its certificate of public convenience and necessity by four yearsa move that Russell Chisholm of the Protect Our Water, Heritage, Rights (POWHR) Coalition said "emphasizes the brutal length and uncertainty of the project."

"This project should never be built and this decision subjects our communities to prolonged harm," he added. "That's why tens of thousands of people submitted comments to stop FERC from granting this extension. Now we're taking our growing movement to D.C. to demand decision-makers stop MVP and all pro-fossil fuel legislation."

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Over 650 Progressive Groups Vow to Fight 'Dirty' Manchin Deal 'With Everything We've Got' - Common Dreams

Latin Americas far right is rooting for a comeback. As progressives gain ground with recent election victories in countries likeColombia, Chile, and Honduras, rightwing politicians in the region are hoping that former U.S. President Donald Trump and others aligned with his values will dominate in upcoming midterm elections in the United States, and the presidential election in 2024. The situation in Guatemala is a good example of how the far right hopes to maintain its grip on power across the hemisphere.

Guatemalan President Alejandro Giammattei was among a handful of leadersmost notably Mexican President Andrs Manuel Lpez Obradorwhoboycottedthe Summit of the Americas in Los Angeles, California, in early June. But unlike the other presidents, who were upset that Cuba, Nicaragua, and Venezuela were excluded from the summit, Giammatteis snub was a protest of criticism by the Biden Administration of the re-election of Guatemalan Attorney General Mara Consuelo Porras, who wassanctionedin May by the U.S. government for facilitating corruption.

I excused myself from attending [the summit] because I do not agree with the way we have been mistreated, Giammatteisaidon the far-rightGlobal Liberty Alliance Podcast. [We have been] mistreated by people from the State Department, who, in a clear interference in the internal affairs of the country, pressured us [and] told us they were going to make decisions against Guatemala.

Giammattei accused U.S. officials of attempting to overthrow his administration, adding that the two countries supposedly share the same values.

But Giammatteis values seem to more closely align with a powerful minority in the United States. He is a far-right politician who has attempted to curry favor with members of the global pro-life movement, andsayshis hard-line stance against abortion rights is because Guatemala is fundamentally conservative. Describing the country as a light to the world, in March, hedeclaredGuatemala to be the Ibero-American pro-life capital. In the podcast, he accused the Biden Administration of promoting abortions in Guatemala.

At home, Giammattei facesaccusationsof corruption. In response, he has sought to bolster his support among far-right Republican politicians in the United States. Since taking office in January 2020, Giammattei and his representatives havemaintaineddirect contact with ideologically similar politicians in the United States, including Senator Marco Rubio, Republican of Florida, while facing sanctions from the Biden Administration for dismantling anti-corruption and anti-impunity initiatives.

[Giammattei] and his people are very confident they will have Trump back [in 2024], Edgar Gutirrez, a political analyst and former foreign minister of Guatemala during the administration of Alfonso Portillo (20002004), tellsThe Progressive. This is an ultraconservative regime, and the only friends they have in the United States are ultraconservatives, who are now a minority.

Trumps election in 2016emboldenedmembers of the far right in Central America, and gave a tacit green light for officials in the region to roll back anti-corruption efforts in their countries. Trump permitted the possibility of uniting everyone [here] and expelling the International Commission Against Impunity in Guatemala, Carmen Rosa de Len, a sociologist and human rights advocate, tellsThe Progressive. The United Nationsbacked commission, commonly known by its acronym CICIG, was a key actor in uncovering massive corruption in Guatemala, but wasshutteredin September 2019 by then-President Jimmy Morales.

But Trumps loss to Biden in 2020 derailed many of those goals and ushered in new efforts to implement oversight and curb impunity and corruption. In response, the Guatemalan administration has continued to spend hundreds of thousands of dollars to lobby U.S. officials, primarily Republicans.

In one such arrangement, the government of Taiwan paid $900,000 to the lobbying firm Ballard Partners, whose president, Brian Ballard, is a longtime Trump supporter and has close ties to the Republican Party. In return, Ballard agreed to provide strategic consulting and advocacy services in the United States, on behalf of the Guatemalan government,according toCNBC.

Other Guatemalanbusiness groupsand politicians have hired lobbyists to influence U.S. officials in recent years as well, including Zury Ros, the daughter of the late Guatemalan dictator Efran Ros Montt. Zury Roswho wasbarredby Guatemalas constitutional court from running for president in 2019 because she is related to a coup leaderhiredWashington, D.C.-based lobbying firm Sonoran Policy Group that year to persuade U.S. officials to help her fight the socialists.

Across the hemisphere, the ideological division seems to be widening. This comes as the political pendulum is swinging to the left in several countries, includingHonduras, Colombia,Chile, and likelyBrazil. At the same time, there is increasing authoritarianism in countries led by far-right populists.

El Salvador, for example, has undergone a rapid consolidation of power by its young president, Nayib Bukele, which prompted the United States to pressure his administration to guarantee the protection of human rights. Bukele responded by telling Salvadorans in California to avoid voting for Democratic Congresswoman Norma Torres, an outspoken defender of anti-corruption efforts in Latin America, during her primary election in early June.

Salvadoran human rights defender Morena Herrera tellsThe Progressivethat Torres has criticized the governments social policy and the lack of alternatives for Salvadoran citizens, which drew Bukeles ire. Bukele, she adds, saw this as an opportunity to gain favor with the Republican Party and cozy up to Trump, whom hemetin September 2019.

Herrera says that these efforts were meant as a message for Salvadorans that Bukele can influence the conditions of the Salvadoran community in the United States. Nevertheless, Torres won her California primary election and will advance to the general election in November.

If Trump were to run again and win, a national holiday would be declared.

Bukele was elected three years ago after promising to be tough on crime and to root out corruption. Later, hepraisedTrump for helping his administration fight gangs. Yet according to U.S. officials last year, in an effort to reduce the violence, Bukeles administration secretlynegotiateda truce with the gang leaders. Bukele denied the allegations.

The peace was short-lived, however, as sixty-two people died in gang-related killings on a single day last March, making it the most violent twenty-four-hour period in El Salvador since the end of that countrys civil war in 1992, the BBCreported. In response, lawmakers declared a state of emergency that led to the detention of tens of thousands of people. While local human rights groups say the state of emergency has resulted in hundreds of human rights violations, lawmakersextendedit for a third straight month in June.

With the Trump Administration, [Bukele and his people] have found an accomplice, Ricardo Castaneda, a Salvadoran economist with the Central American Institute for Fiscal Studies, tellsThe Progressive. If Trump were to run again and win, a national holiday would be declared [in El Salvador].

The same conspiracy theories that fueled Trumps election are being echoed by far-right leaders in Latin America. But this isnt a new phenomenon in the region. In the 1950s, for example, far-right political groups in Guatemalaattackedthe administration of President Jacobo rbenz with claims that it was riddled with communists. rbenz was later overthrown in a CIA-backed coup dtat, in 1954.

Today, thanks to social media and the twenty-four-hour news cycle, conspiracy theories circle the globe at hyper speed, and some Latin American leaders are quick to promote them. Bukeletweetedlast year that George Soros was meddling in El Salvadors affairs; in Guatemala, antisemitic dogwhistles about a globalist agendapromptedconservative lawmakers tohost aon the issue, which they then linked to gender ideology.

Like their U.S. counterparts, rightwing Twitter users in Guatemala criticized the sale of inclusive childrens books at one of the countrys most prestigious bookstores, after lvaro Arz Escobar, a conservative lawmaker and son of former President lvaro Arz,posteda video online denouncing the books. Conservative groupsrespondedby calling for a boycott of the bookstore and launching a campaign on the website of a far-right group to stop the indoctrination of children with childrens books.

The manufactured controversy over critical race theory in the United States has even made its way to Guatemala, where it is discussed in private text exchanges and online chats.

As in the United States, one of the main vehicles for these conspiracy theories in Latin America is the church. Conspiracy theories practically link these ultraconservative groups and fanatics of the neo-Pentecostal churches with the United States, Iduvina Hernndez, director of the Guatemalan nonprofit Security in Democracy, tellsThe Progressive. She says that from the churches, the conspiracy theories quickly enter into the political realm.

While Giammattei has claimed that Guatemala maintains a good relationship with the United States, and is committed to combating drug trafficking and undocumented migration, there are limits to his support for U.S. policies, which are linked to whether the United States will interfere with what members of the Guatemalan far right want. And right now, what they want is a return of Trump to the White House and of his supporters to Congress. They have their eyes on the November elections, Hernndez says.

In late June, Giammattei traveled to Washington, D.C., tocomplainto members of the Organization of American States about a report by the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights thatcriticizedGuatemala for human rights abuses. While there, with theInternational Summit for Religious Freedomas a backdrop, Giammattei sat for aninterviewwith Trumps former press secretary, Sean Spicer, for the rightwing TV network Newsmax. He was alsointerviewedbyBreitbart, the far-right website previously run by Trumps former White House chief strategist Steve Bannon.

Back home, efforts by Giammatteis administration to roll back human rights protections and block access to justice continue. Former anti-corruption prosecutors, lawyers, and investigatorsfaceongoing criminal investigations, as do human rights activists andmembersof the opposition parties. The short-term goal of these far-right politicians and their economic allies is to tighten their grip on power ahead of a presidential election next year.

There is no institutional counterweight that is strong and independent enough to be able to put a stop to this agenda, political analyst Marielos Chang tellsThe Progressive. They already have taken control of all of the institutions.

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Betting on Trump's Return - Progressive.org - Progressive.org

Rep. Hakeem Jeffries, who is seen as a leader among New Yorks Democrats in Congress and a critic of the partys left wing, seemed to purposefully leave out a name among the candidates running in the 10th Congressional District.

There are multiple candidates who are highly qualified, in my view, to represent that district, many of whom Ive worked with, including Carlina Rivera, Dan Goldman, Mondaire Jones and Jo Anne Simon, Jeffries said in a roundtable interview with reporters in Downtown Brooklyn on Wednesday. Its still a very highly competitive race, he continued, And any of four or five candidates could conceivably win. And any of the candidates who are in the top tier, any of the candidates that Ive mentioned who Ive worked closely with who are in the top tier, are people Id be happy to work with, should they be successful.

Left unmentioned was Assembly Member Yuh-Line Niou, another member of that races top tier, and somebody who has positioned herself as the most progressive candidate in the Aug. 23 primary with her endorsements, her pledge against donations from real estate developers (with some exceptions) and support for the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions movements right to engage in protest against the Israeli government.

To be fair, Niou and Jeffries represent different boroughs, and their districts are miles apart. Theres no readily apparent example of the two working together on either political or government work. The Brooklyn representative simply may not know her like he knows the others. But Jeffries is a particularly careful speaker who answers questions slowly and deliberately. And he has never been one to hide his disdain for the partys left wing, especially when it comes to electoral challenges to more moderate incumbents.

Jeffries dug in again last week, when asked if he thought the progressive movement had hit a wall, electorally.

Politically, the left did have some success in primarying Democratic incumbents in 2018, and 2020, Jeffries conceded, no doubt in reference to candidates supported by the progressive PAC Justice Democrats, such as Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, who unseated Joe Crowley, and Rep. Jamaal Bowman, who unseated Eliot Engel. But a lot of their electoral momentum began to dissipate shortly after Biden was elected. Its a question that the Justice Democrats and others have to ask: Why are we losing race after race after race, running against Joe Biden and the Democratic Party? Perhaps the voters are sending us a message.

Jeffries pointed to a couple examples of congressional primaries Nina Turners back-to-back losses to Rep. Shontel Brown in Ohio, Rep. Henry Cuellars win over Jessica Cisneros in Texas and Rep. Danny Davis big win over Kina Collins in Illinois. That could be the case locally too. The Democratic Socialists of America backed five candidates who werent incumbents in the June Democratic primary, and only one of them succeeded compared to 2020, when DSA went 5 for 5. But Jeffries may have overstated his case. Justice Democrats-backed Greg Casar and Summer Lee just won competitive primaries for open seats in Texas and Pennsylvania, respectively, and Sarahana Shrestha, who was endorsed by the DSA and the Working Families Party, defeated Assembly Member Kevin Cahill.

A similar dynamic could now be at play in the 10th District, an open seat covering lower Manhattan and northwestern Brooklyn. Niou isnt backed by the Justice Democrats or the DSA, but her coalition of supporters includes six DSA legislators, and she has the support of the WFP and other progressive groups like the Sunrise Movement. In the closing days, Nious campaign has tried to frame the crowded primary as a two-person race between her and Goldman. Shes the progressive insurgent woman of color, and hes the white male moderate Democrat, self-funding with $4 million.

Jeffries is not formally endorsing in that race, but he has weighed in on a few of the August races. Hes strongly supporting Democrat Pat Ryan over Republican Marc Molinaro in the special election in the 19th Congressional District though hes tempering expectations, and thinks Ryan may have a better shot in the new 18th Congressional District, which hes expected to contest in November. In New York City, hes supporting Angel Vasquez over state Sen. Robert Jackson following the lead of his ally Rep. Adriano Espaillat, who has prioritized that race himself. And hes backing state Sen. Kevin Parker, whos facing a vigorous challenge from DSA-backed David Alexis. It will be interesting to see whether the virtue signalers can break through in that particular context in a majority-Black district, Jeffries said, grinning with confidence.

But the representatives endorsements arent as clear and consistent as those of New York City Mayor Eric Adams, who seems eager to back anybody opposed by the progressive movement. Jeffries, after all, gave Maya Wiley his No. 1 ranked endorsement in the 2021 mayoral race, joining a progressive coalition that included Ocasio-Cortez and Bowman. And this year, Jeffries declined to endorse Conrad Tillard, who is running against DSA state Sen. Jabari Brisport in the heart of Jeffries district.

I definitively have no disdain for progressive movement, being a progressive myself, and a longtime member of the Congressional Progressive Caucus from the moment I first arrived in Washington, D.C., Jeffries explained. Its important to understand theres a distinction between the socialist machine and mainstream progressives, which some of the virtue signalers on Twitter dont always focus on as a result of a seemingly myopic view of the political world.

Jeffries noted that Espaillat and Rep. Nydia Velzquez, both of whom endorsed Rivera in the 10th Congressional District, have been criticized online because they are not supporting candidates that are part of the ideological purity test. Thats not a legitimate frame, in Jeffries eyes. Representatives progressivism should instead be judged by their legislative record. (GovTrack ranked Jeffries the 90th most left-leaning member of Congress in 2020, out of 237 Democrats. Velzquez was 27th and Espaillat was 11th.) There are some forces on the left that want to define progressive as you bend the knee, and we tell you what to do, and if you fail to fall in line, youre a machine Democrat or a corporate sellout. Thats a joke, Jeffries said. And what weve seen consistently in race after race after race, over the last two years, is that the voters arent buying it.

Jeffries himself has a chance to prove that Tuesday. Hes facing a primary challenge from the left from Queen Johnson, a community organizer. Johnson hasnt reported any fundraising and hasnt been endorsed by even a single pillar of the citys progressive movement, so Jeffries, a powerful incumbent, is expected to win in a landslide.

But his real race may come up after November. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi had previously said this would be her last term leading the Democrats. But she and other leading party members like Jeffries the fifth-ranking Democrat, as Democratic Caucus chair have been tight-lipped on who could take over. Jeffries is a leading contender, but hes got competition. And hes not eager to talk. I think all of us within leadership are appropriately and singularly focused on holding the House in a hypercompetitive midterm environment, because the stakes are so high, given how extreme Republicans have become in the aftermath of Trumps rise, he said. Taking their eyes off the effort to hold on to the majority would be political malpractice.

But have there even been private conversations about whether Pelosi will step down, and who would lobby their colleagues to replace her? Silence until after November, Jeffries said. And there have been no conversations, and I think thats appropriate, because everyones focused on doing the job that is in front of them at this moment. And it would be irresponsible for people to put their ambitions and aspirations that are personal in nature above the collective cause of getting big things done for everyday Americans and winning in November.

Unsurprisingly, Jeffries expects that, come November, Democrats will be discussing who should be speaker of the House, not minority leader.

Its going to be a hard-fought battle, he said. But I believe that were going to hold the House and pick up seats in the United States Senate.

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Hakeem Jeffries again challenges the left, on the eve of the primary - City & State

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A liberal Seattle Times columnist says he's annoyed some of his readers with a relentless focus on rising crime in the city and other disastrous consequences after its government defunded police in 2020, but he's sticking with it because the facts are the facts.

Danny Westneat noted Saturday a "share of readers" felt his focus on crime had been akin to "poverty porn," as though he was "exaggerating fears in a blue city to make liberals, or liberal policy goals, look bad."

"But both violent and property crimes really are up markedly to the highest levels citywide in Seattle in more than two decades. Through July, property crime is up 25% compared with two years ago. Violent crime is rising still faster, up 35%. Shootings are up 100%," he noted.

Westneat contrasted Seattle's approach to Denver, which increased spending on police for its 2022 budget and created a new program called STAR (Support Team Assisted Response) to have social workers respond to crimes without violence or weapons, and saw a corresponding decrease in such crimes. However, more serious crimes continued apace.

Violent crimes in Seattle have surged since the government defunded the police two years ago. (Seattle Police Department)

SEATTLE BAR SHOOTING CAUGHT ON CAMERA AS VIOLENT CRIME PLAGUES CITY

"It looks like we still need the cops," he wrote.

Fox News Digital reported last week on the surge in homicides and shootings in Seattle after the municipal government slashed the police budget in the wake of the murder of George Floyd. The increase in crime has been accompanied by police staffing shortages, and the deep-blue city Joe Biden won 75 percent of the vote in Seattle's King County in 2020 saw voters last year elect more centrist candidate over liberal, pro-defund the police ones for mayor, city council and city attorney.

Seattle became a subject of national scorn when its police-free Capitol Hill Autonomous Zone (CHAZ) in the downtown area in 2020 became a nest of violence, danger and vandalism.

Seattle's crime issues have thus dominated Westneat's opinion pieces on issues affecting Seattle and the Puget Sound. Last week, he highlighted the closing of an Amazon Go store in 2020 for safety reasons, in a part of downtown Seattle now beset by violent crimes. He argued it showed both a need for more police and social workers.

SEATTLE BUSINESS OWNER CALLS FOR ACTION AGAINST CRIME CRISIS AFTER TWO BREAK-INS: YOUVE GOT TO HAVE POLICE

In June, he put a spotlight on the struggles of Seattle police responding promptly to 911 calls.

The Space Needle and Mount Rainier are seen on the skyline of Seattle, Washington, U.S. February 11, 2017. (REUTERS/Chris Helgren)

"Now, with police ranks depleted, and at least a portion of Seattles political class hostile to the idea of policing, they seem to be instituting white-flag waving as a regular part of the system," he wrote.

That same month, one of his columns was headlined, "The awkwardness of a liberal city awash in guns," where he identified as being on the political left and wondered how Seattle could handle the rising black market of weapons without more police. He added he always gets "progressive pushback" for talking about rising crime.

"I realize its awkward for Seattle and the liberal project right now that crime here is soaring. But it is. Acting like it isnt is no better than when right-wingers in Idaho pretended last year that their hospitals werent triaging medical care," he wrote, adding, "How are we liberals going to go after guns if we also instinctively oppose sending police after them?"

"Seattles botched experiment with defund the police keeps getting worse," reads a headline from June 4, that talked about the "tailspin" of police since the 2020 budget cuts and an ensuing parking ticket refund fiasco. Sexual assault cases, he added, weren't being investigated due to understaffing.

JASON RANTZ: I FEAR WERE IN FOR A SUMMER OF HISTORIC VIOLENCE' DUE TO LIBERAL CRIME POLICIES

"Violent crime is doing a lot more than not slowing down its escalating, in rapid and unusual ways that Seattle seems unprepared for, despite a renewed focus on fighting it," he wrote April 6. In February, he noted the spike in aggravated assaults in the city that demanded a strong law enforcement response.

Seattle radio show host Jason Rantz discusses the media's coverage of progressive crime policies at the Turning Point USA Student Action Summit in Tampa, Florida. (Fox News Digital)

Westneat didn't reply to a request for comment.

Seattle radio host Jason Rantz wasn't surprised the columnist had experienced pushback for his writings.

"Whenever anyone left, right or center even slightly criticizes an approach or policy adopted by Seattle's progressive activists, it generates outrage," he told Fox News Digital. "Seattle progressives operate as bullies, silencing opposition and ensuring that they get their way. It's why we keep seeing such massive failures on crime, homelessness, drug addition and cost of living. Residents see and experience Seattle deteriorating but are terrified to say anything."

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Fox News' Emma Colton contributed to this report.

David Rutz is a senior editor at Fox News. Follow him on Twitter at @davidrutz.

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Seattle Times columnist irks progressive readers with focus on soaring crime after government defunded police - Fox News

Nancy Pelosi at Taipei. Photograph Source: Office of U.S. House Speaker Public Domain

The Democratic Party leadership, along with the Liz Cheney wing of the Republican Party, seems intent on provoking a war with both Russia and China at the same time, all supposedly out of love for democracy and opposition to tyranny. The sidewalks of cities across the US are increasingly filled with the stench of the dead, who have passed away inside the tents in which they spent their last days. And you can still hear liberals wondering aloud why anyone would possibly vote for Trump again.

I just dont understand it, theyll say. How can people be so stupid that theyll vote against their own class interests?

Dont tell the liberals that the average Democrat in the Congress is worth a bit more than the average Republican. They dont want to be confused by reality. In their minds, the Democrats are still the party of the working class. You know, the party that it almost maybe was, for a few years in the 1930s, when it had to be.

Have you ever listened to one of Trumps speeches, from beginning to end?

Its my favorite question to ask anyone on the liberal-left spectrum. The vast majority of the time, after a bit of hedging, the answer is no.

If the average liberal used 1% of the time they spend asking other liberals why Trump is so popular just listening to how Trump and his supporters look at things, a lot more people could start developing some useful perspective here. But the liberals are as siloed into their propaganda sources as the rightwingers are stuck into theirs.

In the liberals digested version of MAGA, its all about scapegoating marginalized people for societys problems. To the extent that there are real problems the MAGA crowd is upset about, such as constantly declining standards of living for most people in this country since the 1970s or so, this is to be blamed on white people resenting their loss of privilege.

That is, the Forgotten Man that Trump and his supporters have been going on about for years day in and day out, is to remain forgotten.

But what if these Forgotten People, however they define themselves, dont want to be Forgotten? What if this massive, intersectional base of MAGA support that the liberals dismiss as privileged think there might be more to life than continual decline? What is the solution offered by the liberals to all of this?

Here in Oregon, if we look to the gubernatorial race currently underway in this state completely controlled by the Democratic Partys supermajority, the three main candidates being mentioned in the press agree that homelessness is a big problem, and the most visionary solution any of them seem to be able to offer is that the state government should find the resources to at least house the homeless veterans. Which, after all the time theyve been running this state, they havent managed to do yet.

In contrast with the politicians of the more populist right and their media outlets, who vilify the marginalized groups they scapegoat for the decline in fortunes of the working class, the line of the elements of the corporate press and politicians who position themselves as progressives, for the most part, is to ignore class, unless its related to race, gender, sexuality, immigration status, physical disability, mental illness, being an abuse survivor, or otherwise being part of some kind of marginalized group other than the biggest one of them all, that the vast majority of all of the marginalized groups are a member of (the working class).

For those of us who are participating in the creation of or the consumption of news stories, songs, and whatever else seeking to humanize marginalized elements of society that are constantly being vilified, lied about, and scapegoated by the right, what we do we do with positive intentions. Which, on the face of it, is obvious. But when all the tales of marginalization come in combination with the clear absence of stories that tie the rights divide-and-conquer scapegoating propaganda in with any kind of explanation for why most of US society that is, white people are in the impoverished and struggling state that most of us are in, were left coming up empty.

The ingenuity of the liberal media and liberal academia in terms of finding well-intended journalists and academics to go along with the program and work neatly with the agenda of the liberal elite is its an easy policy to engage in, with little brainwashing required. For those who have had experience with corporate or public media outlets, or with careers in academia, much less explanation is necessary. Anyone who has been close to these circles quickly discovers that it is generally not the journalists or the academics who decide what theyre doing stories or research about, so much as which stories, documentaries, research proposals, departments, etc., are funded, and which arent.

Especially if youre not dealing with the one-minute digested version of realities exposed by good journalism or academic research, an investigation into how the housing crisis has affected the Black population of Portland, for example, will undoubtedly also highlight how gentrification has similarly impacted the working class generally. And there are lots of good reasons to focus research on how the housing crisis affects the Black population specifically. But when any story or paper related to poverty always has to have a particular connection to forms of marginalization other than the most significant one, in a country where the overall standard of living of the working class has been declining for the past fifty years, an impression is developed.

How and why this impression is developed will vary depending on whos involved. For the journalist or the academic, the information being provided may be real enough, and also even very important. For those pulling the strings, and for those consuming the digested results of the research and reportage coming out of what we might call the Nonprofit Industrial Complex, its fairly clear what they think the takeaway here is:

Ignore the wizard behind the curtain. This is more or less a classless society is the message. Anyone inferring otherwise is some kind of conspiracy theorist talking about the Forgotten Man and scapegoating the very groups we are constantly seeking to humanize. And were humanizing them all so well, arent we? Listen to how well we humanize the scapegoated, and ignore the wizard who isnt really there. The loss of your privilege is to be expected. Its not really part of an overall decline under late-stage monopoly capitalism run by a corrupt system led by old, rich, white people, half of whom call themselves Democrats. Blame those who are blaming the scapegoated groups that were humanizing. Once we have a society free of prejudice, everyone will be happy and prosperous, by some magic process that shall not be defined.

And if thats not enough, and we still want to figure out why most of us are so poor, even though were white?

Good luck.

This is where the Progressive Industrial Complex comes in. I may be the first anarchist to use this term, so Ill explain what I mean by that.

If were defining the Nonprofit Industrial Complex as that complex of entities that together create much of the output of journalistic and academic endeavors coming out of much of the left-liberal spectrum, which tends to define the spectrums orientation generally, then the Progressive Industrial Complex is what happens with these articles, books, documentaries, and research papers after theyre out there in the world. It is what a Subreddit or a Facebook Group is to the New York Times.

This is the arena in which the ideas that are being continually implied by the Nonprofit Industrial Complex come home to roost, in the form of identitarian psychobabble. It doesnt seem to be much of a stretch in many social circles, once youve heard enough stories about the suffering of so many different groups marginalized on account of race, gender, sexual orientation, national origin, or disability, to draw the conclusion that the only suffering that goes on in society happens to these particular marginalized groups.

Thus, if nonmarginalized (read white male) people are suffering, and it is not because of the scapegoated groups, nor is it because of a broken, rigged, and declining capitalist system, then it is our fault. The suicide and drug overdose rate among this group of people would suggest a lot of us have internalized this message very well.

Those who are looking for explanations to societys ills that are based in understanding the problems created by the division of society into classes, and the relations between these classes in the context of a capitalist economic system with an extreme, pro-business legal framework, will be denounced as class reductionists, closet racists, or maybe even just plain racists, and for good measure, probably sexists and transphobes, too. For pointing out that the general decline of the working class over the past fifty years in this society is the most central factor in the rise of the far right, which is daily capitalizing on this dire situation, you will be called many names by many people, if anyones paying attention to what you say at all.

Perhaps the most laughable part about the intellectual infrastructure of the US identitarian, new new lefts loss of privilege line of reasoning about the rise of the right is how much it requires that you have national blinders on in order to believe a word of it. Because all it takes is a cursory glance at just about any other country on the planet to see that the decline in living standards for the working class majority in this country is something that is happening in so many other places at the same time, including in countries with very different demographics and histories from ours, such as India or Brazil, where the idea of calling any large segment of the population privileged or at risk of a loss of privilege is patently ridiculous.

Of course, we could draw the conclusion that the rise of the far right in India is all about privileged Hindus not wanting to share their country with Muslims. We could draw the conclusion from the rise of the right in Brazil that the more privileged elements of society just want to steal more indigenous land. We could also understand the Brexit vote in England as nativist Britons wanting to keep their fancy country for themselves, and kick out all the foreigners. We could interpret the Yellow Vest movement in France as somehow antisemitic, rather than anti-elitist.

Or we could see how the right is defining the situation for people in these and other countries, and how the visible elements of the left are generally talking about everything other than the central problem all of these societies face. Because those visible elements of the left, or what people see when theyre looking for the lefts perspective on the situation, are represented by the leadership of entities such as the British Labor Party, the Socialist Party in France, the Democrats in the US, and the equivalents of these parties in India (the Congress Party) and Brazil (the Workers Party), etc. And all of these parties, perhaps with the exception of the Brazilian example, have long ago embraced all of the excesses of capitalism, and the global model of development producing ever-growing chasms of inequality put forward by the World Bank and the neoliberal economists from the Chicago School.

Why dont we hear from these Democratic leaders since the DNC rigged the primaries and made sure Bernie wouldnt get the nomination about the division of wealth in this country, or how it keeps getting worse under capitalism, and how we need to radically redistribute it in order to even think about getting anywhere towards a decent, fair society? For the same reasons you wont hear the Republican leadership talk about this. Because both parties are led by the rich, in the service of the rich, and the system of capitalism that keeps them rich.

For the right, the logic is pretty consistent for the past century or more. Harness prejudice of all kinds, weaponize the suffering of the working class to serve your ends, which generally have to do with serving the interests of the corporate elite. A long time ago, the left sought to address the suffering of the working class by organizing against the corporate elite, and challenging racism and xenophobia as tools of the plutocrats, used to keep the working class divided.

To the extent that there is anything left involved with the Democratic Party or the class-blind identitarianism it wholeheartedly embraces, the visible lefts contemporary answer to working class suffering is to say that the white workers just need to check our privilege and get on with the belt-tightening, because now we have to lose our privilege, and make room for the marginalized groups that are now going to share the little tiny slice of the pie weve all been scrapping for for the past 500 years. As far as I can tell, the message from the liberals to the white working class was summed up by the Sex Pistols forty years ago: theres no future for you.

Back in the 1930s, the US had a sufficiently class-oriented progressive government to keep the Great Depression from turning the general population in a more radical direction than it was already going in. The federal government recognized the importance of a strong labor movement, and for the government to take a central role in housing and feeding the population, and putting people to work building infrastructure, taking care of each other, and making art and music. In the 1930s, many people naturally began to conflate ideas like socialism and equality with patriotic Americanism.

In Germany, the forces of liberal democracy werent able to or, depending on which ones, didnt want to hold the radicals at bay by finding a way to keep the population fed, and the radicals that came out on top were the Nazis. The National Socialists, as they called themselves. The ones who talked about the Forgotten Man, scapegoated marginalized groups, and united around a bombastic, charismatic leader, at a time when so many normally non-marginalized members of the population in Germany were destitute. An overall situation that is almost shockingly familiar except from my vantage point, the US today looks far more like Weimar Germany than like FDRs America.

More here:
The Progressive Industrial Complex and Our Fascist Future - CounterPunch