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Tag: crisis
Joe Biden

Fox's Right-Wing Crime 'Crisis' Bombs -- Because Violent Crime Is Down

After President Joe Biden accurately declared that murders and other violent crimes fell last year, Fox News responded by urging viewers to focus instead on individual tragic anecdotes of violent crimes, particularly ones involving migrants. The network is concocting an unverifiable surge of “migrant crime,” which its personalities can use to reinstall Donald Trump in the White House.

“Last year, the United States had one of the lowest rates of all violent crime — of all violent crimes in more than 50 years,” Biden said Wednesday in remarks to police chiefs from major cities. “Murder, rape, aggravated assault, robbery all dropped sharply, along with burglary, property crime, and theft. And it matters.” Biden attributed the decrease to the work of “the law enforcement and community leaders here today” and touted the impact of the 2021 American Rescue Plan’s funding for public safety. He concluded by saying,“Our plan is working, but we still have much more to do.”

Biden’s statements are consistent with the data evaluated by Jeff Asher, a crime analyst whose work has appeared in outlets like The New York Times,The Atlantic, and Axios. Asher wrote in December:

Murder plummeted in the United States in 2023, likely at one of the fastest rates of decline ever recorded. What’s more, every type of Uniform Crime Report Part I crime with the exception of auto theft is likely down a considerable amount this year relative to last year according to newly reported data through September from the FBI.

Americans tend to think that crime is rising, but the evidence we have right now points to sizable declines this year (even if there are always outliers). The quarterly data in particular suggests 2023 featured one of the lowest rates of violent crime in the United States in more than 50 years.

Biden’s use of data to show that the violent crime spike, which originated during the Trump administration, has receded under his tenure is an antidote to Fox’s typical practice of leveraging individual crime anecdotes to damage Democratic politicians. Fox personalities have spent the last several months diligently trying to create a narrative of a wave of “migrant crime” purportedly triggered by Biden’s border policies, flooding the airwaves with reporting on such anecdata. They are working hand-in-glove with Trump, who used a recent interview on the network to take credit for originating the “new category” of “migrant crime.”

“There is no evidence that immigrants in the country illegally have historically committed more violent crimes, and there is no evidence that such immigrants are committing more violent crimes,” the Washington Post’s Philip Bump noted in an analysis of the Fox’s coverage — and Republicans are responsible for spiking bipartisan border security legislation for the explicit reason that Trump wants to use border chaos to win the election — but that’s not slowing them down. (Update: NBC News reported that its “review of available 2024 crime data… shows overall crime levels dropping in those cities that have received the most migrants,“ including Philadelphia, Chicago, Denver, New York, and Los Angeles.)

Fox’s response to Biden citing actual crime data seemed to range from offended to infuriated, with everyone from “straight news” correspondents to prime-time propagandists pushing back by pointing to anecdotes. Their Wednesday commentary presents a case study of how Fox’s day-in, day-out coverage uses individual instances of crime to terrify their viewers and encourage them to vote for Republicans.

Fox reporter Jacqui Heinrich previewed Biden’s speech — and telegraphed her network’s partisan counterattack — on Wednesday afternoon.

“Unclear how compelling a case he can make that his record on crime is better than Trump’s, I suppose he’s going to look at the numbers and try to say that that’s the evidence people need to look at,” she said on America Reports. “But anecdotally, when you have families and communities experiencing high levels of crime, and especially experiencing high levels of migrant crime, when you’ve got record numbers at the border — and this has been the Achilles heel of the administration — unclear if that’s going to be a winning argument.”

Anchor Sandra Smith lashed out at Biden after the speech concluded, falsely claiming that Biden had not included a time frame for his statement that violent crimes dropped and saying that the president was sending a “brutal message” to people from unnamed cities experiencing rising crime.

“You know, I'm just looking at the list of participants in that room and the cities from which they come: Philadelphia, Buffalo, Miami, Milwaukee, Chicago. I mean, Congresswoman, I don't know who he thought his audience was by standing up and touting -- he said, ‘Murders, rapes, aggravated assaults, robberies all dropped sharply,’ without context or time frame,” Smith said. (In reality, police departments in Philadelphia, Buffalo, Miami, Milwaukee, and Chicago all reported decreases in homicides or violent crime in 2023.)

“That's a brutal message to people when they're saying pretty loudly that they don't like the crime that is on the rise in their cities,” she added.

Fox’s flagship “news side” program, Special Report, did not mention Biden’s remarks about crime data — but it did make time for more anecdotes. “For the third and fourth time this week, we are telling you about an illegal immigrant arrested in connection with a brutal crime," Bret Baier said at the top of a segment.

Later in the program, Trumpist radio host Hugh Hewitt implicitly explained the political strategy Fox is pursuing. “Every single act of violence perpetrated by an illegal immigrant between now and [the election], expect it to be a headline, it is Joe Biden's Achilles heel,” he said. Baier responded by highlighting “the recent headlines that we have seen just in the past few days about these heinous crimes allegedly at the hands of illegal immigrants.”

Fox’s evening show propagandists piled on, touting individual instances of “migrant crime,” laying them at Biden’s feet, and warning viewers that they could be the next victims.

Laura Ingraham scoffed at Biden’s use of data in his speech, saying that “crime is on everyone's mind,” that “we all know communities don't feel safer,” and that “there's no meaningful change in the policies that are making America more dangerous.”

“Anyone who thinks that this is an isolated incident, no. Women and children are being brutalized by illegal aliens all over the United States,” she later added before highlighting individual cases, as on-screen text read, “the deadly cost of Biden’s open border.”

Jesse Watters went even further. “There is a migrant crime spree killing Americans and the president is an accessory to murder,” he alleged, highlighting anecdotes and attacking Biden’s speech. “A vote for Biden is a vote for more death,” he concluded.

Fox is repeating the strategy they tried in the months leading up to the 2022 midterm elections. Republicans, at the urging of Fox’s then-star host Tucker Carlson, tried to win back Congress by focusing on crime, and Fox poured on the coverage in an attempt to carry them to victory.

But when data on the period was finally reported, it turned out that violent crime had actually fallen in 2022. Fox had manufactured a Biden “crime crisis” based on anecdotes because they wanted to help Republicans win elections. And two years later, they’re doing it all again.

Reprinted with permission from Media Matters.

Donald Trump, crisis

In Crisis, Americans (Usually) Rally Behind The President

Democrats are beside themselves; after President Donald Trump's consistently inconsistent and uneven public pronouncements on the seriousness of the coronavirus, moving in one 24-hour period from "something we have tremendous control over" to our "toughest enemy: the invisible enemy" and limiting all crowds to fewer than 10, his poll numbers have gone up. How, they ask, could this be the case when the president's leadership of this "war" has been start-stop, don't-worry-be-happy?

The answer is found in history. At times of crisis — even crises in which the sitting president has seemingly made things worse rather than better — the natural American reaction is to rally to the flag, to support the commander in chief. Take the failed invasion of Cuba in 1961 ordered by President John F. Kennedy. It was a total failure. The Cuban expatriates leading the attack were captured as soon as they landed. Yet Kennedy's job approval rating in the aftermath, after he took responsibility for the failure, saying, "Victory has 100 fathers, and defeat is an orphan … I'm the responsible officer of the government," soared to 83 percent positive.

When President Jimmy Carter was in office, the shah of Iran was admitted to the U.S. for medical treatment, and Iranian revolutionaries took Americans at the U.S. embassy in Tehran hostage and kept them there until Carter left office fifteen months later. And what happened in the polls? Jimmy Carter's job rating had been 31 percent positive and climbed in little over one month to 61 percent approval. Rallying to the flag is an established national impulse.

Even Ronald Reagan, who won election and reelection in successive electoral landslides, and whose approval rating was just 51 percent positive on inauguration day, watched — painfully — after he was gravely wounded in a 1981 assassination attempt as his job rating jumped up to 68 percent approval.

What ought to be surprising is the very small bump up in his poll numbers Trump has yet been given. One reason is that Trump, in the phrase of pollster Peter Hart, one of the founders of the Wall Street Journal/NBC News Poll, has had "a trading range of low 40s to high 40s, with his average rating at 45." Other presidents have had their job ratings climb to the 60s during good times and then fall into the 30s when things went south. President George H.W. Bush was at 89 percent approval after the successful, short Gulf War in 1991 and then saw his job rating plummet to 29 percent positive — a fall of 60 — by the summer of 1992, the year he would lose reelection.

Donald Trump has not had the traditional public rallying to his side that previous presidents have enjoyed. But, let it be noted, that while Trump has a "low ceiling" in how high his numbers climb, he also has a very "high floor" to support him — beneath which he has yet to slip.

To find out more about Mark Shields and read his past columns, visit the Creators Syndicate webpage at www.creators.com.

JPMorgan Faces Suit Over $10 Bn In Mortgage Bonds

JPMorgan Faces Suit Over $10 Bn In Mortgage Bonds

New York (AFP) — JPMorgan Chase will face a U.S. class-action lawsuit over the sale of $10 billion worth of allegedly falsely valued mortgage bonds before the financial crisis, a judge has ruled.

Late Tuesday New York federal district judge Paul Oetken dismissed the bank’s objections to the suit, first filed in 2009, opening the way for pension funds and others to claim losses on the mortgage-backed securities (MBS) they bought before the crisis.

The plaintiffs in the case accused the bank of packaging mortgages into the bonds that did not meet stated underwriting standards, had false appraisals and false loan-to-value ratios.

That led to sharp losses as the MBS market plummeted following the crash in the U.S. housing market.

The class of plaintiffs, private buyers of the bonds, are led by two California pension funds.

But Oetken refused to set a possible level of damages the plaintiffs could claim, saying they needed to provide more evidence supporting their claims.

Contacted by AFP, JPMorgan declined to comment on the situation.

Last November JPMorgan agreed to pay $13 billion to federal and state agencies for losses related to falsely marketed MBS.

AFP Photo/Chris Hondros

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Russia, Europe Differ On Diplomatic Path Out Of Ukraine Crisis

Russia, Europe Differ On Diplomatic Path Out Of Ukraine Crisis

By Carol J. Williams, Los Angeles Times

KIEV, Ukraine — Diplomatic efforts to quell violence in Ukraine hit an impasse Tuesday, with the visiting German foreign minister warning against interference with the country’s May 25 presidential election and his Russian counterpart saying there will be no peace until Ukraine’s interim leaders agree to negotiate with the opposition.

But the standoff also appears to signal a preference by Russian President Vladimir Putin to resolve the 6-month-old governing crisis in Ukraine through political dialogue means rather than an armed invasion, as occurred in Crimea during the winter.

Nevertheless, deadly confrontations continued Tuesday. Ukraine’s Defense Ministry said six soldiers were killed and eight wounded in an ambush outside Kramatorsk. The troops were attacked by at least 30 insurgents armed with grenade launchers and automatic weapons, the ministry said.

Kramatorsk is one of the focal points of clashes between pro-Russia separatists and government forces trying to recover control of key facilities occupied by the militants.

Tensions remain high two days after armed separatists in the Donetsk and Luhansk regions staged votes for independence from Ukraine in referendums widely condemned by the international community. The Kremlin so far has said only that it has “respect” for the expressed will of the Russian-speaking areas of eastern Ukraine.

The instigators of the vote — which was condemned as illegal by Ukrainian leaders in Kiev, the capital, and their Western allies — had promoted it as a first step toward annexation by Russia. Donetsk rebel leader Denis Pushilin said Monday he had already asked Moscow to absorb his proclaimed People’s Republic of Donetsk into the Russian Federation.

Putin’s spokesman, Dmitri Peskov, told Russian media that the president hadn’t decided on a reply to the appeal.

“The recently held referendums in the Donetsk and Luhansk regions of Ukraine should be seen as a clear signal of a deep crisis,” the Russian Foreign Ministry said in a statement Tuesday.

Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov reiterated his warning that only dialogue between Kiev and those in the east rejecting its authority would bring an end to the crisis, not more diplomacy among outside powers. That was a reference to the failed talks in Geneva last month among Russia, the United States, the European Union and Ukraine’s acting foreign minister.

“Nothing will work without involving the opponents of the regime in a direct dialogue on solutions to the crisis,” Lavrov was quoted as saying by the Itar-Tass news agency.

Ukraine’s interim president, Oleksandr Turchynov, told parliament on Tuesday that talks on potentially ceding more autonomy to the regions were to begin Wednesday but that “terrorists” who have seized power by armed force would not be included.

Interim Prime Minister Arseny Yatsenyuk also warned that talks were pointless as long as Moscow supports armed militants thwarting law and order in the occupied regions.

The standoff over who should be included in the talks has delayed work on a proposed “road map” out of the crisis drawn by officials of the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe. The 57-member OSCE is the only trans-Atlantic security alliance that includes Russia, Ukraine, all European Union nations and the United States. It is currently chaired by neutral Switzerland, sparing the Kremlin the appearance of submitting to the mediation of Western rivals.

German Foreign Minister Frank-Walter Steinmeier said during a stopover at Kiev’s Boryspil airport that the presidential election was essential to restore legitimate leadership in Ukraine and warned against any Russian or separatist efforts to disrupt it.

Ukraine has been in turmoil since November, when European-oriented citizens in western cities were angered by then-President Viktor Yanukovych’s decision to scrap an association agreement with the European Union in favor of economic integration with Putin’s rival Eurasian Union bloc of former Soviet states.

A three-month rebellion that culminated in deadly clashes Feb. 21 forced Kremlin ally Yanukovych to agree to a power-sharing interim government until new elections could be held, a deal brokered by Steinmeier and two other EU diplomats. But the embattled Ukrainian president fled to Russia later that night, leaving the running of the country to the opposition figures with whom he had agreed to serve in a government of national unity.

Steinmeier said Europe supported Kiev’s efforts to pursue formation of a decentralized government with the aim of keeping the disparate regions together in a loose federation.

Russia, which has historic trade and cultural ties with the eastern and southern areas of Ukraine, supports the “federalization” approach as a way to preserve the deeply integrated heavy industries and markets developed during the Soviet era.

Steinmeier said he hoped the talks would make it possible “to bring back occupied buildings and eventually to disarm illegal groups” that were threatening to block the presidential vote in the eastern regions. The separatist leaders of both Donetsk and Luhansk, where about 14 percent of Ukraine’s 46 million people live, have said they are now independent and have no need to take part in the presidential election.

The Russian Foreign Ministry statement called for launching the “national dialogue” on regional autonomy before the presidential election in less than two weeks’ time.

While initial talks were set for this week, Ukrainian government leaders have said the constitutional changes being considered will take months to draft and that the process will not be accelerated by gunpoint threats.

AFP Photo/Bulent Kilic