Connect with us

News

Fox News Called Out as ‘Disgraceful Garbage’ Over Crime Claim

Published

on

In a Super Tuesday segment on crime, Fox News reporter Katie Pavlich claimed “crime is up,” despite multiple reports, including FBI statistics, that show over the past two years crime has plummeted.

“Homicides dropped by over 10% in America’s biggest cities in 2023,” CNN reported in January.

“Violent crime is dropping fast in the U.S. — even if Americans don’t believe it,” NPR reported last month.

“America’s Peace Wave,” was the late December 2023 headline at The Atlantic, which reported, “Sky-high violent-crime rates of recent years have suddenly—mercifully—plummeted.”

“Crime in almost every category went down across U.S. in 2023, FBI reports,” according to NBC News in December of 2023. Days earlier, NBC reported: “Most people think the U.S. crime rate is rising. They’re wrong.”

READ MORE: ‘No Balls to Scratch’: Trump Voter’s Candid Confession on Ruling Out Nikki Haley

“Crime on the Decline” The New York Times reported in an article originally titled, “U.S. Crime Rate Fell in 2023.”

According to The Times, “the data over the past year has offered a much more optimistic picture. The number of murders in U.S. cities fell by more than 12 percent — which would be the biggest national decline on record. The spike that started in 2020 now looks more like a blip, and the murder rate is lower than it was during the 1970s, ’80s and ’90s. The recent data also suggests that the violent-crime rate in 2023 was near its lowest level in more than 50 years, as Jeff Asher, a crime analyst, wrote for his newsletter.”

But according to Fox News, the statistics are wrong.

Fox News’ John Roberts on Tuesday told Pavlich, “you made the point that one of the reasons for declining crime is that a lot of these soft on crime prosecutors are either reducing charges, letting people out with no charges or declining to prosecute more serious crimes.”

But the FBI’s Uniform Crime Reporting Program (UCR) isn’t a report on charges or prosecutions, it’s a report of reported crimes.

“Exactly,” Pavlich agreed, before suggesting the statistics are intentionally wrong. “I mean that statistics are only reflective of what is put into the system, right? So if you have a number of prosecutors across the country who are downgrading serious felonies, to misdemeanors that makes it look like violent crime or burglaries like you’re seeing on the side of your screen that are taking place aren’t really happening.”

READ MORE: Buttigieg’s GOP Roast Ruffles CNBC Host

“But when you go outside and walk around in these cities, or you ask people, they will say they know somebody who’s been a victim of a crime or they’ve been in a store like this where people come in and they grab all these goods, and then that of course deteriorates into a bigger situation where stores leave, there is no economic opportunity in certain neighborhoods, and therefore there is even more crime that continues to occur in the spiral. And so this is something that both Donald Trump is talking about and Joe Biden,” Pavlich said.

“Donald Trump when he was in office, he had operation LEGEND which of course was a partnership between the Department of Justice and local law enforcement, local mayor’s offices, to try and solve murders, for example, and to put federal charges onto some of these criminals because a local D.A. charges really weren’t enough to scare them into not going into these repeat offender situations.”

“So we’ll see more of this as the campaign moves on, but in terms of what has been happening over the past three years crime is up,” Pavlich insisted. “People are feeling it.”

Jared Holt, a senior researcher at the Institute for Strategic Dialogue, called the Fox News segment “vibes-based analysis.”

Teddy Wilson, who reports on the radical right via his Substack newsletter, writes: “This rhetoric is part of a much larger narrative perpetuated by right-wing media and GOP politicians, and is connected to anti-immigrant rhetoric.”

“The Message: White people in the suburbs should be afraid, because the scary Black and Brown people are coming to your neighborhood.”

READ MORE: ‘All Had Security Clearances’: Trump White House Loaded With Speed, Xanax, and Alcohol – Report

Indeed, Media Matters last week reported, “Fox News’ attempt to manufacture a Biden crime crisis runs into a problem: Violent crime is down.”

Longtime journalist John Harwood, formerly of The Wall Street Journal, The New York Times, NBC News, and CNN, wrote, “so when they’re going up, crime stats are real when they’re going down, the stats are fake instead, they’ll just use random videos of crimes by members of minority groups.”

He concluded: “disgraceful garbage enterprise.”

Watch the Fox News segment below or at this link.

There's a reason 10,000 people subscribe to NCRM. You can get the news before it breaks just by subscribing, plus you can learn something new every day.
Continue Reading
Click to comment
 
 

Enjoy this piece?

… then let us make a small request. The New Civil Rights Movement depends on readers like you to meet our ongoing expenses and continue producing quality progressive journalism. Three Silicon Valley giants consume 70 percent of all online advertising dollars, so we need your help to continue doing what we do.

NCRM is independent. You won’t find mainstream media bias here. From unflinching coverage of religious extremism, to spotlighting efforts to roll back our rights, NCRM continues to speak truth to power. America needs independent voices like NCRM to be sure no one is forgotten.

Every reader contribution, whatever the amount, makes a tremendous difference. Help ensure NCRM remains independent long into the future. Support progressive journalism with a one-time contribution to NCRM, or click here to become a subscriber. Thank you. Click here to donate by check.

News

‘None of Us Will Be Spared’: Kennedy Scion Rips RFK Jr. in Call for Resignation

Published

on

A prominent member of the Kennedy family is demanding the resignation of Robert F. Kennedy Jr., after the Health and Human Services Secretary made inaccurate and damaging claims in a Senate hearing just one day ago.

Secretary Kennedy, an anti-vaxxer and conspiracy theorist, told U.S. senators that he did not know the number of Americans who died from COVID, denied that his policy decisions were reducing access to the COVID vaccine, spread false or misleading claims about overall vaccine safety, and defended the changes at his agency that have led to the resignations of top officials and protests by employees.

Joe Kennedy III is a former U.S. congressman, a former U.S. special envoy for Northern Ireland, and the grandson of the late U.S. Senator and U.S. Attorney General Robert F. Kennedy.

On Friday, he blasted RFK Jr.

READ MORE: ‘Bananas’: Trump Official Torched for Dismissing Millions of Americans as ‘Nonexistent’

“Robert Kennedy Jr. is a threat to the health and wellbeing of every American,” Kennedy wrote in a statement on social media. “A United States Secretary of Health and Human Services is tasked with protecting the public health of our country and its people. At yesterday’s hearing, he chose to do the opposite: to dismiss science, mislead the public, sideline experts and sow confusion.”

“None of us will be spared the pain he is inflicting. It doesn’t matter how rich or powerful you are or what state you live in — the heartbreak of watching a loved one fall ill knows no borders.”

“The challenges before us-from disease outbreaks to mental health crises-demand moral clarity, scientific expertise, and leadership rooted in fact. Those values are not present in the Secretary’s office. He must resign.”

RELATED: ‘What You Said Were Lies’: Democrat Shreds RFK Jr. in Fiery Exchange

 

Image via Reuters

Continue Reading

News

‘Bananas’: Trump Official Torched for Dismissing Millions of Americans as ‘Nonexistent’

Published

on

A top Trump official is under fire after attempting to downplay the increase in the unemployment rate by declaring all 7 million people as “statistically nonexistent.”

U.S. Secretary of Labor Lori Chavez-DeRemer shared with Fox News several inaccurate claims, stating that consumer confidence is up — it’s down — and claiming that real wages are up year over year, almost 4% — when in reality they rose just 1.2%, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics.

Not only is consumer confidence down,  it is “far lower than it was for much of 2023 and 2024,” according to The Wall Street Journal.

She also claimed there is a “blue collar boom,” but Friday’s jobs report reveals blue collar jobs are stagnating, according to economics writer Joey Politano:

“US blue-collar job growth has completely stagnated, hitting the lowest level since the onset of the pandemic—manufacturing is currently losing jobs at a rapid pace, and growth in construction/transportation has slowed to a crawl.”

READ MORE: Rubio Says US Blew Up Alleged Drug Boat ‘On the President’s Orders’ — Legality Questioned

The Labor Secretary acknowledged her words may seem like rhetoric, but maintained “it’s not, because that’s what we’re seeing on the ground” — a claim contradicted by facts.

She also insisted that unemployment is “holding steady.”

“Statistically, it’s nonexistent,” she said, a remark that received tremendous blowback.

“This is a bananas quote,” declared Aaron Fritschner, deputy chief of staff for U.S. Rep. Don Beyer (D-VA). “I get that they are going with ‘nothing to see here please disperse’ but saying 4.3% of the U.S. working population being unemployed is ‘statistically nonexistent’ is a pretty incredible slap in the face from the Secretary of Labor to 7 million people.”

Congressman Beyer also weighed in, writing: “The Trump Administration’s message to 7.4 million unemployed Americans is that ‘statistically’ they are ‘nonexistent.’ A stunningly awful and dishonest thing to say.”

READ MORE: Texas Makes It Easier for Kids to Skip Vaccines After Worst Measles Outbreak in Decades

“You heard that right,” declared U.S. Rep. Bonnie Watson Coleman (D-NJ). “Struggling Americans looking for a job don’t exist according to the Trump Administration. Most anti-worker admin of my lifetime. Despicable.”

“There are over 7 million people looking for a job right now,” noted U.S. Rep. Sara Jacobs (D-CA). “They matter. They don’t cease to exist because of the Trump Administration’s failed policies.”

U.S. Rep. Jerry Nadler (D-NY) added, “Unemployment is rising and the country is losing thousands of jobs. Hard working Americans are feeling the effects of Trump’s reckless economic policies and job-killing tariffs. These are numbers we haven’t seen since the pandemic — this is entirely Trump’s doing.”

Watch the video below or at this link.

READ MORE: ‘Worst Place Since the Pandemic’: Experts ‘Worried’ Over ‘Ominous’ Jobs Report

 

Image via Reuters 

 

 

Continue Reading

News

Texas Makes It Easier for Kids to Skip Vaccines After Worst Measles Outbreak in Decades

Published

on

Texas has just moved to make it easier for parents to exempt their children from school vaccination requirements—just weeks after the worst measles outbreak in a generation ended.

762 people contracted measles over the summer. Two unvaccinated children died, and 100 people had to be hospitalized, according to PBS News.

“West Texas was the nation’s measles epicenter for months. The virus started spreading there in close-knit, undervaccinated Mennonite communities in Gaines County,” PBS reported. The outbreak was declared over in mid-August.

READ MORE: Rubio Says US Blew Up Alleged Drug Boat ‘On the President’s Orders’ — Legality Questioned

This week, the Texas Department of State Health Services (DSHS) began allowing parents to download a form to request their children be exempt from any or all required vaccines. Previously, parents had to request the form, which was then mailed to them, according to The Texas Tribune.

Calling this new system “empowering,” Rebecca Hardy, executive director of Texans for Vaccine Choice, said: “The previous mailed, hard-copy process for requesting vaccine exemption affidavits was outdated, costly to taxpayers, raised privacy and tracking concerns, and created unnecessary barriers for families seeking to exercise their rights.”

DSHS also published a form telling parents the benefits and risks of immunization, but the form is not attached to the exemption request form.

Requests for exemption forms have risen dramatically.

“Since 2018, the requests to the Texas Department of State Health Services for a vaccine exemption form have doubled from 45,900 to more than 93,000 in 2024,” the Tribue reported. “Even before the new form became easier to access, the state received 17,197 requests for a vaccine exemption form in July, 36% higher than the number reported in July 2023.”

READ MORE: ‘Worst Place Since the Pandemic’: Experts ‘Worried’ Over ‘Ominous’ Jobs Report

Texas has more kindergarteners unvaccinated for measles than any other state in the nation, and falls below the 95% immunization rate required to achieve herd immunity.

In what is being called a “public health disaster,” Florida is now in the process of banning all vaccine mandates for children.

It’s not just Texas and Florida.

On Thursday, CNN reported that support for childhood vaccines being mandatory has plunged from 81% in 1991 to just 51% in 2024.

Watch the video below or at this link.

READ MORE: ‘Weak, Weak, Weak’: Trump Economy Getting Worse, Majority of Americans Say

 

Image via Reuters

Continue Reading

Trending

Copyright © 2020 AlterNet Media.