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

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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.”

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“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.”

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“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.”

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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.

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Warning Signs Flash for GOP as CNN Analyst Predicts House Flip

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As Republicans continue their exodus from the House, a CNN analyst reveals that Democrats hold an advantage in party identification over the GOP, Democrats identifying as liberal just hit a 50-year high, and Democrats — he predicts — will take back the House in the November midterm elections.

CNN analyst Harry Enten reported that “the self identified liberalness of this country is at a 50-year high.” And he noted that “more folks are identifying as liberal than at any point since the Gerald Ford administration.”

In 1976, 30 percent of Democrats said they were liberal, Enten said.

“Look at where we are today: 59 percent — 3 in 5 Democrats — say they are liberal.”

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“This Democratic party is a liberal — it is a liberal party. Fifty-nine percent of Democrats now identify as liberal,” he continued. “That is also a 50-year high.”

Enten noted that “that is not the only good news for liberals.”

“The party ID margin, Democrats versus Republicans. Now get this, in the latest reading according to Gallup last quarter, it is an eight-point advantage for Democrats.”

“That looks nothing like what we saw going into the 2022 midterms when Republicans had a five-point advantage, and of course, took back the House. This is even better than what we saw Democrats had back in 2017, in quarter four, when they had a six-point advantage, and, of course, Democrats easily took back the House then.”

READ MORE: Pirro Backtracks as Powell Investigation Rapidly Goes Off the Rails

“Democrats are gonna take back the House,” he said.

Enten also pointed to the prediction markets, which now say there is a 77 percent chance of Democrats taking back the House in November.

READ MORE: ‘Organized Gangs of Wine Moms’ Are Impeding Federal Agents Says Fox Columnist

 

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Democrat Demands DOJ and DHS Reveal How Many Pardoned ‘Insurrectionists’ Have Been Hired

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A prominent Democrat is demanding to know how many January 6 “insurrectionists” have been hired by the U.S. Department of Justice and the U.S. Department of Homeland Security, as critics warn that federal agents under President Donald Trump are increasingly engaging in violent enforcement actions.

“We know that several participants in the January 6, 2021, attack on the U.S. Capitol have been rewarded with high-ranking positions in the Department of Justice (DOJ),” U.S. Rep. Jamie Raskin (D-MD), the Ranking Member of the House Judiciary Committee, wrote to Attorney General Pam Bondi and DHS Secretary Kristi Noem.

“However, it remains unclear how many more have been invited to join the ranks of this Administration, including among the masked Department of Homeland Security (DHS) agents and officers that have dragged, tackled, beaten, tased, shot, and killed citizens and non-citizens alike in communities across the country,” he added.

READ MORE: Pirro Backtracks as Powell Investigation Rapidly Goes Off the Rails

According to Raskin, Jared Wise, a former Supervisory Special Agent with the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI), “stormed his way into the Capitol Building” on January 6, 2021.

“As he did so, he taunted and threaten police officers defending the building and the ones inside, screaming: ‘You guys are disgusting. I’m former—I’m former law enforcement. You’re disgusting.”

Raskin included additional language attributed to Wise, then wrote that he “has never expressed remorse or contrition for his criminal actions.”

Wise was pardoned by President Donald Trump, along with nearly 1,600 others, “including hundreds of cop beaters.”

“Today, Mr. Wise serves as senior adviser in the office of the Deputy Attorney General, alongside another January 6th participant, Ed Martin, the U.S. Pardon Attorney and head of the DOJ Weaponization Working Group,” Raskin wrote.

Congressman Raskin also blasted the recruitment and vetting processes being used by the Trump administration.

“For its part, DHS seems to be courting pardoned January 6th insurrectionists. It uses white nationalist ‘dog whistles’ in its recruitment campaign for U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents that appear aimed at stirring members of extremist militias, including the Proud Boys, Oath Keepers, and Three Percenters, which participated in the insurrection,” he stated. “The recruitment campaign began with a $50,000 sign-on bonus, removal of the college degree requirement, and a relaxed vetting process.”

“Who is hiding behind these masks?” Raskin demanded to know. “How many of them were among the violent rioters who attacked the Capitol on January 6th and were convicted of their offenses? The American people deserve to know how many of these violent insurrectionists have been given guns and badges by this Administration.”

READ MORE: ‘Organized Gangs of Wine Moms’ Are Impeding Federal Agents Says Fox Columnist

 

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Pirro Backtracks as Powell Investigation Rapidly Goes Off the Rails

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Jeanine Pirro, the Fox News host turned Trump U.S. Attorney, appears to be quickly backtracking in her office’s investigation of Jerome Powell. The esteemed Federal Reserve Chairman announced on Sunday that he is being investigated by the Trump Department of Justice, sending markets — and prominent Republicans — spinning.

Pirro, in a Monday night social media post, insisted that Powell has not been indicted, saying: “The word ‘indictment’ has come out of Mr. Powell’s mouth, no one else’s.”

According to The Daily Beast, Pirro issued her “ultra-defensive statement” after “major backlash” against her investigation into the 72-year-old Republican investment banker and lawyer who has steered the Federal Reserve since 2018, when President Donald Trump appointed him chairman.

READ MORE: ‘Organized Gangs of Wine Moms’ Are Impeding Federal Agents Says Fox Columnist

The Daily Beast reported that Pirro’s investigation is “an inquiry that even Republican lawmakers have blasted as a revenge plot against one of the president’s adversaries that threatens the independence of America’s central bank.”

Suggesting that Pirro may have gone “rogue,” the Beast added that reports suggest “Pirro failed to obtain the necessary sign-off from her superiors at the Department of Justice before subpoenaing the Federal Reserve as part of her probe, according to Bloomberg.”

It appears that others were also left out of the loop in the unprecedented, high-profile investigation.

“Sources also told NBC News that Pirro’s office did not contact the White House or the Treasury Department before issuing the subpoenas, and that Federal Housing Finance Agency Director Bill Pulte—who spearheaded the push to investigate the Federal Reserve—was also allegedly left in the dark.”

“Investors are doubtful of her success,” Bloomberg News added.  “While U.S. assets initially sold off on news of the investigation in early trading Monday, stocks and bonds bounced back by the end of the day. That suggests traders think Republicans will find ways to dial back the probe given the critical importance investors assign to a Federal Reserve that’s free from political influence.”

On Sunday, Chairman Powell revealed that he is under a criminal investigation by the U.S. Department of Justice, an investigation stemming from his congressional testimony on the renovation of Federal Reserve buildings. The Fed is fully self-funded, and that renovation is not funded by American taxpayers.

READ MORE: Trump ‘Laser-Focused’ on Affordability Says White House After Calling It a ‘Hoax’

 

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