The FBI’s recent release of updated crime statistics further confirmed what has by now become obvious – federal agencies are cooking the books on everything from murder rates to inflation data in order to sell the Biden-Harris administration as a great success. Meanwhile, the American people are stuck living in a far less rosy reality.
The FBI’s 2023 crime statistics, which came out last week, appeared to show a marked decrease in violent crime. According to the data, murders declined 11.6 percent from 2022 to 2023, while rapes were down 9.4 percent and aggravated assaults were down 2.8 percent.
The updated numbers seemed to vindicate claims from the Biden administration and Kamala Harris’s presidential campaign that Biden-Harris policies have made the country safer. The corporate media dutifully released a flood of articles to that effect, with NBC News assuring readers that “public perception of crime is often out of step with the facts.”
Even before this latest data release, ABC debate moderator David Muir attempted to “fact check” former President Donald Trump on crime during his debate with Harris, saying that “the FBI says overall violent crime is coming down in this country.” Trump responded, “Excuse me, the FBI – they were defrauding statements. They didn’t include the worst cities.”
While neither ABC nor any other corporate outlet have bothered to report it, Trump was exactly correct. In 2021, the FBI abruptly stopped using its old reporting system to collect data from cities and localities, replacing it with the “National Incident-Based Reporting System” (NIBRS). The new reporting system, far more complicated and inefficient than the previous one, was a nightmare for police agencies to navigate.
As a result, over 1,000 police department jurisdictions were not included in the FBI’s 2022 crime report. As noted by criminal justice nonprofit the Marshall Project, in total, this omitted data constitutes “a quarter of our population” – including some of America’s most violent cities and neighborhoods.
Unsurprisingly, the government’s annual survey of crime victims, which is arguably now a better metric of the nation’s crime problem given the glaring issues with NIBRS, shows that crime is still on the rise. That report found that 22.5 out of every 1,000 residents were the victim of a violent crime in 2023 and 102 of every 1,000 reported being the victim of a property crime – levels that remain virtually unchanged from 2022 and far higher than when Trump left office in 2020.
As galling as the manipulation of crime statistics is, the administration’s sleight of hand on immigration may be even worse.
As AMAC Newsline has previously reported, Democrats and their corporate media allies have selectively touted declining illegal border crossings “between ports of entry” to make it seem like the White House has the crisis under control. But in reality, the administration has merely changed the incentive structure to encourage illegal aliens to cross at points of entry and avoid being counted in the metrics traditionally used to gauge the severity of the situation at the border.
The combination of gotaways, the hopelessly broken nature of the asylum system, and rampant abuse of the president’s parole authority means that the illegal immigration crisis is still just as bad as it has ever been under Joe Biden and his “border czar” Kamala Harris.
On the other big liability for Harris, the economy, the administration has similarly sought to play fast and loose with the facts to cover the truth.
Perhaps the most glaring instance of this is on the jobs front, where Biden and Harris have repeatedly claimed to have created “15 million jobs.” As a basic analysis of government jobs data shows, most of the jobs “created” over the past four years are really jobs coming back from COVID-19 layoffs. Trendlines also show that the country is still far behind the pre-pandemic jobs trend seen under Trump.
Moreover, the Biden-Harris Bureau of Labor Statistics has been forced to revise down its initial jobs numbers almost every month of the administration – a pattern that smacks of an intentional effort to mislead the public. In total, from January to May of this year alone, the initial jobs numbers were off by nearly 250,000.
Democrats and the corporate media have also touted victory over inflation by pointing to declining inflation rates, which have now come down near three percent after topping nine percent in 2022. But once again, the headlines don’t tell the full story. Cumulative inflation since Biden and Harris took office is north of 20 percent, and millions of Americans are still struggling to make ends meet. The administration has done nothing of note to actually bring prices down.
In another era, a robust and engaged journalist class would call out all of these discrepancies for what they are: blatant attempts by taxpayer-funded agencies and the White House to mislead the public about the true state of affairs in the country. Instead, however, the vast majority of the media has willingly amplified the administration’s lies and deceptions.
Still, poll after poll shows that the American people understand the country is heading in the wrong direction. Try as they might, Joe Biden and Kamala Harris can’t simply create an alternate reality built on rigged statistics and expect voters to ignore the much more alarming reality right in front of them.
Andrew Shirley is a veteran speechwriter and AMAC Newsline columnist. His commentary can be found on X at @AA_Shirley.
The administrative state exists to promote the policies and politicians of the Democrat Party. It should NOT come as a surprise that the federal bureaucracy, which is overwhelmingly dominated by Democrats since FDR’s time in office, would cook the books or present outright lies to make any Democrat candidate running for the presidency look good. This has been going on for several decades in Washington, since the time of FDR. So-called successes have been manufactured out of thin air and failures have been quietly swept under the rug. The Democrats and the bureaucracy are merely more open and in your face about it, as they near their final objectives and control almost all levers of power.
As for the MSM, their sole function at this point is to act as the propaganda arm of the Democrat Party and protect its loyal party members and the overall agenda of the Party. It’s up to the American people if they want to continue to go down this road toward an authoritarian government centered on Marxist principles. No other country is going to ride to our rescue to save us from our own lack of courage and inaction to stand up for our own rights and freedoms. So, it is what it is unless we, as a nation, decide differently.
This is the kind of information Republicans need to use when debating these issues. We must find out what’s really going on behind the curtain.
For example, in the crime statistics noted in the article, we now know that a large number of crime hotspots have been excluded from the reports! This is outrageous!
“…Democrats and their corporate media allies have selectively touted declining illegal border crossings ‘between ports of entry’…” The phrase “between ports of entry” differs from “through ports of entry”. Did they think we wouldn’t catch that? They just encourage them to pass through the gates, where they might or might not be counted or turned back. Also, we’ve learned that biden has been gathering illegals from other countries and flying them into the country in the middle of the night. So, again, they’re not counted because they’re not passing through border ports of entry.
The dems have conceived so many clever ways to deceive the public, and too many Americans fall for them every day. Here’s another example:
When I checked the Bureau of Labor Statistics months ago, I saw the graph that depicts the number of manufacturing jobs over time. Biden and harris both claim their administration has created 800,000 new jobs in manufacturing. But, according to the graph, the number of jobs did increase for the first year or two under biden (thanks to Trump’s policies) … before they declined to the same point as when biden/harris took office. (I‘ll check again. If I’m wrong, let me know.) Their economy (aka “bidenomics/kamalanomics”) has clung to Trump’s shirttails for a while, but lost its grip because those successes are not sustainable under biden/harris.
We’re sick of the LIES AND OBFUSCATION!
MAGA by electing Trump!
I bet the area of the border where Harris put on her dog & pony TV show was secure so that means “the border is secure”. Liar liar liar.
Let’s keep this simple, and ethical.
Anytime a bureaucrat lies while in an official capacity such as these traitors are doing should be a rapid trial and if found guilty, immediate jail time. Their Mothers must be ashamed at their bad, immoral behavior.
We Americans must stop allowing politicians and bureaucrats to lie. I don’t know about you but I hate liars.
America must also abolish all public employee unions and their stupid, immoral rules that prevent firing a public employee for underperforming in their job and lying.
Wake up American working, taxpaying citizens and demand excellence from employees we are paying their salary and perks which are way higher than regular private sector workers./
Enough is enough!!
In the last 40 years, overdose deaths have increased 30X. That is criminal, but apparently not a crime.
Has the FBI gone communist too. It seems all the Fed agencies have gone authoritarian to use a different word. Not any better but this is what the Dems do. Make it sound better or worse and confuse or lie to the people about everything. The FBI assessment of those criteria are an out and out lie. This government is out and out disgusting and traitorous. Trump is for Freedom and they are for power and control. Bottom line!
My calculation for the inflation rate is 21.7%!!! And yes, the FBI is not reporting the major cities where crime has become rampant!!! Those cities have refused to report any numbers as they’ve gone through the roof!!
We have been living in a fantasy world under the Biden Harris regime. They haven’t done anything for this country the past 4 years. Create lies and charges against Trump and half the country citizens. They have worked on replacing said citizens with illegals and criminals from all over the world. They ruled with mandates and executive orders and have destroyed America. Everything they have touched has been a lie from indicting Trump on fake charges and lies about the state of affairs in this country. They have worked on gaslighting the citizens of this country from day one they took over. Biden is smart as a tack, Harris is the border czar, defund the police, take the vaccine, crime is down, fat is good, up is down. All this now is coming out as not true and Trump and Maga people are to blame for the above lies. Crime is down we all know it isn’t. Their is no police coming when you are being robbed or carjacked. They don’t have the manpower. Just report it as an incident report. And it doesn’t show up in the statistics and omitting the big cities in the statistics. This past 4 years has been an illusion. Those that say he who controls the press controls the world, no truer words were spoken. The Biden Harris regime was nothing more than following the orders of the globalists elites in Davos and MSM was complicit. Soros bought 200 radio stations and had the okay fast tracked 6 weeks before the election. 165 million people can be reached with those stations with the Soros/Dem propaganda. VOTE TRUMP/VANCE if you want to save America and its CITIZENS.
Cartels own Biden Harris & Admin
This is what the dims do to defraud the public and ATTEMPT to hide the obvious failures of their almost 4 years in office. We are not fooled by their creative accounting tactics!!!!
Why haven’t we heard about the riches Zelensky has accumulated in the past 4 years. He owns a 35 million dollar home in Florida has 1.2 billion dollars in foreign bank accounts. Owns 15 homes, 3 private planes, 11 million yearly salary. Even if half of it is true why has no MSM reported on this? Lies and more lies by the dems. When is the truth coming out??? We need Trump back in the White House.
Mr. Shirley puts some great sunlight on this deception that was devised to benefit Harris & Co.
This dishonesty revives my memory of the old DOJ reports on firearms used in the commission of crimes. The reports consistenty showed that private gun ownership was a huge deterrent, as guns were (and are) quite often used successfully, in defense, by crime victims.
When that periodic report came out in 2010, it was the last time…. because “President” Obama had it discontinued.
The DNC is an organized crime syndicate, they profit from the illegal invasion of our country, via human trafficking, sex trafficking, and drug trafficking, they profit from the deception that abortion is “human ‘reproductive’ healthcare”, and money laundering from their taxpayer money theft to fund foreign wars by the corrupt foreign politicians they thus support; … of course they cook the books on crime. It takes someone very gullible, and willingly ignorant to believe them when they tell you “they have your best at heart (your best to them is your money), they did not cause the inflation (it was their policies), they don’t want to replace you with illegal alien voters (they want to replace all U.S. citizen voters), they just want to serve the ‘little people’ (on toast, and with ketchup because they are crunchy and delicious to these Marxists).”
the statistics are manipulated to give the results they want, just like the way they manipulate inflation.inflation used to include things people buy on everyday items but they removed gasoline, food, other basic so it always looks much better than it is.
If this is not treason then what is. Treason at one time was a major mortal sin and at times, if found guilty, execution was the punishment. The whole Biden/Harris administration is guilty as hell along with the FBI and all the other 3 letter organizations but WE the people still put up with this nonsense. Do you hear the rumblings of civil war? I’m seeing it more and more on the internet. The fabric of this country is being torn apart by these traitors and WE are getting sick of it. Give me liberty or give me death.
this power they have where did they get it not the constitution
Don’t expect a retraction from ABC. However, shameless David Muir lost a million viewers since showing his true colors. Karma is beautiful.
It does not matter what these two useless pieces of crap do. They are in complete control by the Puppet Masters. Until American voters wake up….this will continue.
Leftist ideology and the Leftist agenda are, and have always been, based on lies, misinformation, and deception. The Left has nothing to go on but lies, because the truth will bury them. Their policies and their performance records are disastrous, so they have no choice but to lie. And with 95+% of the media controlled by the Left, no matter how absurd and outrageous the lies, the media will run cover and lie for them. And even though most people are now on to this entire scam, there are, very sadly, many people who still trust and believe the media.
If the Democrats don’t like the data, they change it to fit their narrative.
Good example of the saying “Figures don’t lie, but liars’ figure”.
Good Conservative Web site.,I visit frequently
Biden/Harris/Media are wasting their time & making jackasses of themselves. Nobody believes their border, crime, jobs or inflation comical claims for an instant. They didn’t spend 4 years CREATING all this havoc (in accordance with NWO Master Plan) only to reverse it now. And with the election in ONE MONTH, it would be downright impossible to be more obvious. Do they actually believe they’re being clever? Their rank and audacious STUPIDITY is truly stunning.
There is a new political party in America!! It is called the Democratic Marxist-Communist Party, destroying America as we have known it. These people are literally destroying our country. Joe Biden was once a US Senator during which time he was a senator known for supporting policies benefitting other countries other than America! He and Obama became buddies so when Barrack Obama decided to run for the Presidency, Joe was his choice for VP running mate! Together they had 8 years. Biden decided not to run for the Presidency so the Democrats chose Hillary to run as their first woman president sure that she would win against Donald Trump who had thrown his hat into the ring. Well interestingly enough, Donald J. Trump, a businessman, won the election with Gov. Mike Pence as his VP. Enter Joe Biden who decided to run for the Presidency, Democratic Party with the hopes of beating Trump with Kamala Harris as his VP. They supposedly won the race though there was questions about that. They brought into the Cabinet and Administration all of Obama’s boys and girls. The Biden-Harris administration has worked long and hard for the past 4 years destroying our country! The beginning of the destruction came with turning our controlled borders into open borders with invitations sent to the world, Come to America. This was a global bull-horn call to come one, come all. Our current Vice President and Border Czar, Kamala Harris was given the responsibility to deal with the border issues and here we are with millions, and millions, and more millions of unvetted illegal immigrants in our country and they are everywhere. They have come by land, by sea and by air thanks to our government for flying them in at night and flying them around the country for placement. We the taxpayers have paid for all of the latter plus their food, clothing and shelter. We have multiple thousands of “criminals” who have come…murderers, rapists, pedephiles, etc. As to numbers related to all of this, the books are cooked. In the meantime, the democrats have tried to bankrupt Trump and his family, have him jailed via lawfare, they have weaponized the legal system and law-enforcement. Inflation is out of control. Groceries are crazy expensive, clothing, everything is. Gasoline is expensive as the costs have risen. They want us driving EV’s. What a joke. All Kamala can really cackle about is Abortion, we need more abortions according to her. Lets kill the babies!! These people are sick. They are liars, deceivers of the worst kind, thieves, just bad themselves, criminals! No wonder they invite in from other countries. Jews are being persecuted in our country. Christians are being persecuted. Our Healthcare system is messed up. Our judicial system is messed up. The government is censoring speech. As Americans, we need to stop this!! We need to stop the new Democratic, Marxists-Communist Party from totally destroying this country. How about the Border Czars photo-op this past Friday at a town, a spot on the border where there is no illegals immigrant activity. There she was with all her jewels on, her high heels and doing her duty as the Border Czar so now she can say she was there!! These people are sick, wanting to turn this country into a Global 3rd World Country just like every body else! The democrats are stealing our country from us. They are stealing our money to fund this crap! They have the main stream media in their pockets to help all of this along! This is what higher education in our country is now doing to our college age kids, turning them into activist and Marxist-Communists.
Every American Citizen should be Angry! We need President Donald J. Trump back in the Whitehouse with J.D. Vance, Vice President. Vote Trump if you want to save America.
Excellent article. When has Dictator Beijing biden and Communist harris ever told the Truth? Never. They have been lying about our Energy production increase since June of 2021 by altering the Energy reports. It’s all there.
Reminds me of the famous Mark Twain line: “There are lies; then there are damned lies; and then there are statistics.”
3.4% of journalists identify as Republican. How many admit to keeping themselves to the truth, regardless of party membership?
For economic data, there is Shadow Statistics which present non-cooked data. I must nore that the cooking started in the Bush 1 regime and has gotten worse over the years. A lot is on autopilot now.
This is really no surprise to anyone paying attention. At this point the only people who believe this stuff are people who WANT to believe in BS or are too stupid to realize they are being played by the dems and media/same thing. Either way, we have a whole bunch of ignorant,stupid and gullible people who will be voting democrat
Bubble, bubble, crime and trouble
Nothing new really. m Kyle L.
Lies, lies lies. Looks like the posters here all drank the Koo-Aid Geez, I’m 70 and I can remember Jan 6 like it was yesterday. Looks like most of y’all had a gigantic memory loss, or possibly just selective amnesia. I guess your idea of a lie doesn’t include being force fed the idea that the election was stolen. FYI, it was most certainly not, if you argue otherwise you are only proving your own stupidity. I guess your idea of treason doesn’t include trying to overthrow the government or stealing classified documents by the boxful or extorting your “allies” for dirt on your opponents. FYI, my 19 year granddaughter’s Guard unit was sent to the Capitol for security at the inauguration. The idea of her having to fight off some foaming at the mouth lunatic using a flag pole as a weapon definitely cost me some sleep. This is what you fools are are defending. I tell you, for mind-numbing stupidity, RCP is the place to be and Amac is at the top of the list. Some nitwit writer doesn’t like some data, now its a case for treason? Two middle fingers to all of you.