Is Crime Really Surging in America? Yes and No

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Violent crime is up. Burglaries and robberies are down. And progressive cities like Portland, Oregon are hiring more police. What’s going on?

For 36 years, Conrad Casarjian has owned and operated his Massachusetts jewelry store—the Gold-n-Oldies store on Revere Beach Parkway in Everett. He said he’d never experienced a burglary like he did in December when thieves smashed into his shop and made off with a handful of jewelry items.

“The break-in crew shattered the safety glass in the front door, must have reached in with a hammer, broke into one of the showcases, and made off with, at most, a few gold rings,” Casarjian told a local TV station.

The “smash and grab” was just one of a string of robberies in the area that police in Everett are investigating, and robberies like these appear to be happening in other parts of the country as well.

A couple weeks before Casarjian was robbed, CNN reported on a “wave of ‘smash-and-grab’ crimes” plaguing US cities.

The crime spree included a Nordstrom department store in Los Angeles where thousands of dollars of merchandise was stolen by at least 18 suspects, as well as a Nordstrom near San Francisco involving some 80 suspects. These burglaries followed hits in the area on Louis Vuitton, Burberry, and Bloomingdale’s department stores, as well as a Walgreens.

As Casarjian’s experience shows, the “smash and grabs” are not isolated to the Golden State. A Louis Vuitton store in Chicago, for example, also saw a dozen people storm in and steal $120,000 worth of merchandise. In Minnesota, meanwhile, organized thieves fell on Best Buy stores in Maplewood and Burnsville, suburbs of Minneapolis.

These incidents have left many wondering: Are we witnessing a nationwide surge in crime?

Before wading into matters of criminal justice, it’s important to acknowledge a few realities about crime data. First, we don’t have immediate data. It takes time for information to be collected and analyzed, which means we won’t have aggregate data on the extent of last year’s “smash and grab” crime sprees until later this year.

Second, there is no standardized system for collecting data in the US. The vast majority of crimes are never even reported to police (often due to a lack of trust in the system). And the data we do have rely on reporting from local departments—if they choose to participate. (According to the Pew Research Center, NIBRS, one of several tracking systems, received data from less than half of law enforcement departments).

Statistics can give us a glimpse of general trends, but the data are varied, incomplete, and prone to manipulation—and not just by politicians. Police unions are powerful lobbyists who are adept at using the media to create fear so as to secure higher pay and more power for themselves. Likewise, retail trade groups have been known to use similar tactics.

All that to say, when dealing with crime statistics in the US—a vast country with a population of 330 million and nearly 39,000 general-purpose governments—it’s important to admit we’re never dealing with the full picture.

As many know, 2020 was a year that saw a vast increase in violence. What is less known, and perhaps counterintuitive, is that it was not a year of crime.

“There was no crime wave—there was a tsunami of lethal violence, and that’s it,” Philip Cook, a crime expert at Duke University, recently told The Atlantic, citing preliminary FBI statistics.

This tsunami of violence included a 30 percent increase in the murder rate, the largest ever recorded. (About 21,500 murders took place, roughly 6.5 for every 100,000 people). The most common form of violent crime, aggravated assault, also increased by 12 percent. Not all violent crime increased, however; rape saw no statistical change and robberies and burglaries fell.

Meanwhile, FBI data suggest many non-violent crimes—including burglary and larceny—decreased in 2020.

In a normal year, such a divergence would appear quite strange, but considering the nature of the pandemic, there appears to be some logic to it. More people were home than normal, which might explain why burglaries fell.

Others, however, are less sure that crime is truly down. Robert Boyce, a retired chief of detectives for the New York Police Department, told ABC police have backed off arresting suspects they’d normally apprehend.

“Nobody’s getting arrested anymore,” Boyce said.

This might explain why FBI crime data show total arrests nationwide plummeted 24 percent in 2020 even as violence surged.

David Graham, writing at The Atlantic, says it’s possible the FBI’s statistics are simply “wrong,” noting that 2020 saw reports of drug crimes plummet even as drug overdoses reached an all-time high—“suggesting that drug arrests, not use, had changed.”

This is why some reject the idea that we’re witnessing a decrease in crime.

“It’s disingenuous in the face of a historic 30 percent rise in homicide to say that overall crime is down, simply because the majority of crime is low-level misdemeanors,” Thomas Abt, a senior fellow at the Council on Criminal Justice and a former Justice Department official, told The Atlantic.

Whether one believes Cook or Abt, it should be noted that even with 2020’s surge in murders, the murder rate remains well below the rates experienced in the 1970s, 80s, and 90s. The percentage increase is only so high because crime was previously at historic lows.

Conservatives have been eager to tie the “defund the police” movement to increases in crime. There’s no evidence that things are that cut and dry, at least if one interprets “defund” to mean smaller police departments.

While it’s true violent crime is up in many cities, the reality is few cities ever passed “defund” policies. Some made budget cuts, many quickly restored them. To date, no one has gotten rid of their police department. In fact, some police unions have already used the Defund the Police talking point to secure pay increases.

While the Defunding movement failed to actually abolish police, they may have succeeded in changing how police operate. San Francisco, for example, has largely abandoned enforcement of shoplifting. The lack of enforcement prompted New York Times journalist Thomas Fuller, who recently moved to San Francisco, to ask a grocery store clerk, “Is it optional to pay for things here?”

The shoplifting was so bad it prompted Walgreens to close five Bay area locations.

“Organized retail crime continues to be a challenge facing retailers across San Francisco, and we are not immune to that,” Walgreens spokesman Phil Caruso said following the decision.

It’s not just San Francisco, either. In New York City, Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg angered many—citizens and police alike—when he issued a Jan. 3 memo instructing prosecutors to downgrade most felony property crimes (including violent ones) to misdemeanors.

It should come as little surprise that lighter punishments and a lack of enforcement for such property crimes would incentivize the practice. Studies have shown that efforts to remove or reduce penalties for property crimes have led to increases in those kinds of offenses.

This is not the only example of cities choosing to not prosecute individuals committing property crimes. Cities such as New York and St. Louis decided to drop criminal charges against the vast majority of alleged looters. Such scenarios raise the possibility that, in some places at least, police have simply stopped arresting suspects for many crimes. Their motivation? Some will say it’s because prosecutors stopped pressing charges, but that doesn’t really bear out in the data. It seems more likely that many police departments and officers are acting maliciously, pulling back and not enforcing property crime violations so they can lobby for larger budgets and ward off reform efforts.

Even if one accepts the idea that violent property crimes are on the rise—again, we don’t yet have data for 2021 and the FBI’s preliminary data for 2020 don’t show a surge—it’s unclear what role Defund the Police played, if any. It seems just as likely that pandemic policies, including lockdowns and school closures, are the primary cause. These policies shut teens (who are the most likely demographic to commit crime) out of schools, community programs, and jobs that would have taken up their time. Many of these programs focus on keeping teens out of gangs and other illicit activities and help them access skills-training and jobs.

Programs that dealt with mental health and addiction were also impacted by lockdowns, meaning many have not gotten the healthcare they need to be in their right mind. The economic uncertainty created by these policies is also likely a factor, as we know poverty can play a major role in criminality.

If “Defund the Police” did play a role, it likely stemmed from decisions of police brass and city councils—who opted to not pursue some violent crime, perhaps incentivizing such crimes—and less from budget cuts and reduced police departments.

For those hoping to see violence rates return to normal after a year of unrest, 2021 proved a disappointment.

At least a dozen US cities set new homicide records last year. Some police officials say the violent crime is the worst they’ve ever seen.

“It’s worse than a war zone around here lately,” Capt. Frank Umbrino of New York’s Rochester Police Department said in December after the city broke its 30-year-old annual homicide record with 7 weeks to go in the year. “We’re extremely frustrated. It has to stop.”

While such data are of course saddening, claims that US cities are war zones are hyperbolic. Rochester had about 80 murders last year. This is hardly exemplary, but it’s still far below the most dangerous cities in the world, and more than 50 percent lower than St. Louis on a per capita basis.

As the FBI itself points out, “Fatal violence is relatively rare and often intensely personal: according to FBI data, many American homicide victims know their killers.” This is why much of this increase has come from communities that were already struggling with violent crime pre-pandemic, some communities continue to struggle more than others with violence. Americans remain very unlikely to die by homicide.

Nevertheless, many cities, including lefty-capital Portland, Oregon, are now hiring more police. It’s unclear, however, if these “re-fund the police” movements will have their desired effect.

As the New York Times recently pointed out, the evidence that adding more police reduces violent crime is mixed. Aaron Chalfin, a criminologist at the University of Pennsylvania, told the paper that research shows crime falling after police are added about 54 percent of the time.

“Crime goes up and down for a million reasons that are completely independent of the police,” Dr. Chalfin said. “But we know, on average, if you look across many cities for many years, there is an effect.”

Furthermore, we know that the biggest deterrent to crime is the assuredness one will be caught for their crime and punished. In America, it’s a pretty good bet that won’t happen. Police are very bad at solving crimes in the first place, and during the pandemic it appears many pulled out of certain areas altogether.

All that to say, recent crime statistics are hardly a reason to increase the size of police departments or give them more money and power.

It is commonly said that poverty causes crime. But as economist Roger M. Clites has observed, the opposite is also true: crime causes poverty.

“It is not just others who are adversely affected by criminals. Perpetrators themselves lose ground economically. A large portion of people charged with criminal activity are relatively young. Their criminal behavior harms them in several ways,” Clites explained. “They may spend time incarcerated when they could have been gaining employment experience. Their criminal record may hamper them in obtaining future employment. They develop attitudes and habits that are detrimental to participation in the workplace. For these reasons many criminals condemn themselves to poverty.”

This is why there is widespread agreement that crime is bad for everyone, perpetrators and victims alike. Solutions are difficult, however, because crime is complex.

Police unions would have you believe the solution is simple: hire more police! While it’s possible some departments suffer from a lack of police—police last year reported a retirement rate 45 percent higher than a typical year—there are better solutions than simply hiring more cops or creating a shiny new federal program.

One thing is certain, throwing more money at this problem—or expanding the government’s control in any other way—is not the solution. We already spend between $81 billion and $180 billion per year on our criminal justice system depending on the calculations. And we spend that without seeing results, little of it goes to even solving violent crimes, much less preventing them.

If we truly want safer communities, some of the prescriptions are obvious. For one, reduce the number of laws on the books. Take non-violent and victimless crimes off the shoulders of police. Quit giving them excuses to focus their attention on ridiculous, money-making schemes like the War on Drugs. We need to change the incentive structures around policing by removing things like civil asset forfeiture that make them more inclined to chase petty criminals so they can take their money. Instead, police should function like the fire department—you come when there’s a true emergency and we call you, then you focus on putting out the fire.

In addition, we need to ensure school closures and lockdowns never darken our doors again so children, especially those in high-risk communities, get the education and resources they need to stay out of trouble.

We also need to pass common sense reforms, like bail reform, that ensure violent people are not released back into communities and that ensure people who are not threats are not pushed into a life of crime by a justice system that strips them of their livelihood before they’ve even been convicted.

Lastly, we need to enact real transparency and accountability in policing. It is inexcusable that they continue to hold communities hostage, refusing to do their jobs until they get a pay increase and a pat on the head. Instead, they need to earn their keep and only get pay raises when the violence rate decreases and they prove they’re doing their jobs.

AUTHORS

Hannah Cox

Hannah Cox is the Content Manager and Brand Ambassador for the Foundation for Economic Education.

Jon Miltimore

Jonathan Miltimore is the Managing Editor of FEE.org. His writing/reporting has been the subject of articles in TIME magazine, The Wall Street Journal, CNN, Forbes, Fox News, and the Star Tribune.

Bylines: Newsweek, The Washington Times, MSN.com, The Washington Examiner, The Daily Caller, The Federalist, the Epoch Times.

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Republicans Demand DOJ Release J6 Surveillance And Police Body Cam Footage

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House Republicans are demanding the U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) release body and surveillance camera footage as well any other footage in connection with the Jan. 6 Capitol riot, according to a letter obtained by the Daily Caller News Foundation.

Wisconsin Rep. Glenn Grothman, Texas Rep. Louie Gohmert and South Carolina Rep. Ralph Norman first requested the information from the DOJ in October 2021. Now, they are re-upping their inquiry, asking Attorney General Merrick Garland to release the information since their constituents have a “growing concern” with the DOJ’s “apparent failure” to do so.

“Many Americans question why their government, and the Department in particular, has been so selective in its release of footage,” the lawmakers said in their letter. “We believe all Americans, including Members of Congress, the media, and the public at-large, should be able to view footage from January 6th that the Department has in its possession.”

The committee investigating Jan. 6 has publicized some degree of unaired footage during its ongoing hearings. The Republicans want to know “what percentage of body camera, surveillance camera, and any other footage related to the events surrounding January 6th” in the DOJ’s possession has actually been made public.

Most of the 14,000 hours of surveillance footage from Jan. 6 has not been made public, Buzzfeed News reported in August 2021. It is unclear how things have changed roughly one year later.

“From every camera on the Capitol grounds – including body and fixed surveillance cameras – every second of footage from January 6, 2021 ought to be in the public domain by now,” Norman told the DCNF. “It is baffling to me why the Attorney General has failed to make the entirety of footage available, especially while the Select Committee is cherry-picking clips to suit its narrative.”

While lawyers and defendants charged in the Capitol riot have gained access to watch related surveillance footage, the footage is given under protective orders, which does not allow the parties to release it, Buzzfeed News reported. The Capitol Police’s chief lawyer said in a March 2021 affidavit that members of Congress can watch Jan. 6 footage on a case-by-base basis under the supervision of a police employee.

“The disclosure of any footage from these cameras is strictly limited and subject to a policy that regulates the release of footage,” said the lawyer.

The DOJ did not respond to a request for comment, nor did the Capitol Police.

“It continues to be our hope that all Americans have faith in our systems of government, including our criminal justice and judicial system,” wrote the Republicans in their letter, setting an August 4 deadline. “For this reason, it is imperative that the Department adequately respond to our requests in timely manner.”

READ:

07-14-22_Follow Up Letter t… by Gabe Kaminsky

AUTHOR

GABE KAMINSKY

Investigative reporter.

RELATED ARTICLE: EXCLUSIVE: Rep. Rodney Davis Demands Answers From Legislative Branch Agencies On Their Work For Jan. 6 Committee

EDITORS NOTE: This Daily Caller column is republished with permission. ©All rights reserved. Content created by The Daily Caller News Foundation is available without charge to any eligible news publisher that can provide a large audience. For licensing opportunities of our original content, please contact licensing@dailycallernewsfoundation.org.

Constitutional Sheriffs to Hold Summit to Encourage Elected Officials to Fight Ballot Fraud Ahead of 2022 Midterms

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In order to avoid civil war, we must have free and fair elections. It is incumbent upon every American to ensure we the people choose our leaders. There are no casual observers or fence-sitters in the war against Americanism. You are either with us or against us.

Constitutional sheriffs to hold summit to encourage elected officials to fight ballot fraud ahead of 2022 midterms

By JD Heyes, Newstarget, July 11, 2022:

For decades we suspected that Democrats’ far-left agenda wasn’t really all that popular with the vast majority of our country, and the party proved that during the 2020 election cycle.

When it became apparent that President Donald Trump would cruise to reelection, noted by the massive rallies and spontaneous vehicle and boat parades that sprang up all over the country (including deep-blue California), the Democratic voter fraud machine kicked into high gear and the party, working with the allied deep state, literally stole the election.

Patriots years from now will question why there wasn’t a mass uprising over the blatant theft, but that is a discussion for another day. In the meantime, patriots — including constitutional sheriffs — are working to ensure that the Democrats can’t steal the upcoming 2022 midterm elections amid one of the dismal points in our country’s history.

Joe Biden’s approval rating has hit a low not seen for a president since the days of Jimmy Carter, and he’s taking his party down in flames with him. That leaves only one option for Democrats to cling to power: Vote theft. And the Constitutional Sheriffs and Peace Officers Association (CSPOA) knows that which is why some of its members are having a press conference outside of Freedom Fest in Las Vegas this week — to expose voter fraud and press elected officials to take action to protect the integrity of the process.

Big League Politics reports:

The press conference will feature legendary Sheriff Richard Mack, and True the Vote’s Catherine Engelbrecht and Greg Phillips to expose the immense voter fraud that occurred during the 2020 presidential election.

The itinerary for the press conference includes detailing the history of election fraud in America, showcasing current Investigations in progress from elected sheriffs, Sheriff Mack sharing his opening thoughts, Catherine Engelbrecht and Gregg Phillips addressing the audience, and then a question-and-answer session for the media.

to determine the veracity of all elections. If allegations are incorrect, we want them exposed. If correct, we want proper investigations fully undertaken and the criminals responsible prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law,” said Mack, who serves as the CSPOA president.

“We ask for all Americans and public officials to demonstrate civility and cooperation as we pursue the truth. What we want is the truth; let the consequences fall where they may,” he noted further.

“We aren’t just here to say that election fraud is a problem but to begin to really try to enact proper solutions. Whether the winner of any race is a Republican or a Democrat makes no difference to us, we simply ask for the truth,” said Engelbrecht, whose research was used in Dinesh D’Souza’s “2000 Mules” smash-hit documentary, providing the evidence and proof Democrats and their garbage media allies had been demanding since Trump told them his victory was taken from him.

“We have the utmost faith in our country and feel strongly that when voters are educated, more will be done to support fair voting. Together, we are always stronger,” she added.

The press conference will take place at Ahern hotel on July 12 at 10am PST.

AUTHOR

Pamela Geller

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We and President Trump endorse patriot Joe Gruters for Florida State Senate!

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Joe Gruters has fought for Florida and its citizens. Since his election major pieces of legislation have been signed into law by Governor DeSantis including:

  • A bill to ensure integrity in our elections.
  • A bill, House Bill (HB) 1557, Parental Rights in Education, to protect children from indoctrination in Florida’s public schools.
  • A bill to create the Florida Guard to protect citizens from violence we’re seeing in other states.
  • A bill to require ID cards in order to vote.
  • A bill which prohibits classroom instruction about sexual orientation or gender identity in K-3 classrooms, and after 3rd grade, these conversations need to be age-appropriate.
  • A bill that ensures that at the beginning of every school year, parents will be notified about healthcare services offered at the school, with the right to decline any service offered.
  • A bill which ensures that whenever a questionnaire or health screening is given to K-3 students, parents receive it first and provide permission for the school to administer the questionnaire or health screening to their child.
  • A bill creating a creating Election Police Unit in Florida

Joe was the Campaign Chairman for Florida during Trump’s victory in 2016.

Joe is a trusted ally and Chairman of the Republican Party of Florida for Governor Ron DeSantis during the 2020 and 2022 campaigns.

Joe Chairs the Republican Party’s National Election Integrity Committee to ensure that we have safe elections in all 50 states.

We and President Trump endorse Joe Gruters for State Senate.

Floridians must keep a Pro-Trump Warrior fighting for us in the State Senate!

Remember Election Day is August 23rd, 2022! Please go out and vote with conservatives with a conscience like Joe Gruters.

©Editorial Board of DrRichSwier.com. All rights reserved.

Homegrown Evil

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There is evil abroad in the land, and it’s a cancer to our society. Any naïve belief in the inherent goodness of man was shattered on July 4th, 2022 in Highland Park, Illinois.

What would possess—and that’s exactly the right word—a young man with his whole life ahead of him to take to the roof of a building and systematically shoot off about 60 bullets, killing many and wounding dozens?

He shot fellow Americans enjoying an Independence Day parade. As far as we know, he killed total strangers.

From what has been coming out, this young man apparently came from a terribly dysfunctional home. For example, Fox News tells of one incident where the police were called to the confessed shooter’s home in September 2019 because he had reportedly threatened to “kill everyone.” The police then confiscated his collection of knives.

In his End of Day Report, Gary Bauer wrote of the shooter:

“He’s just another sad example of the people we have increasingly seen in the streets of America. The anarchists owned the streets in the summer of 2020. Their goal is to tear down, destroy and intimidate. And they desperately want to see America burn.”

He made videos with violent themes, such as “Toy Soldier.” In this video he is seen rapping in a classroom, and one of his lines is “F- this world.” Marca.com writes of this video:

“Images of a heavily armed shooter entering a school and opening fire are cut between scenes of him battling police outside. The shooter is seen lying in a pool of blood in the final scene.”

I read some interesting reactions on the Highland Park massacre from acquaintances, commenting back and forth through a private email chain.

One person wrote of the shooter:

“A monster….To be so callous and disregarding of human life as to shoot children and elderly alike at a small town parade—and obviously choosing the 4th of July was no coincidence. We have a violent culture—plus we’re teaching the next generation to hate America and its founding—what can we expect from such a deadly combination?”

He went on to mention how Chicagoland, including Highland Park, has some of the strictest gun laws in the country.

Another person responded:

“I’m not going to get into a debate about guns but do feel we need stricter purchasing guidelines…. A 22 year old with recorded violent music and videos and/or an 18 year old (as in Uvalde) should not be able to just purchase an AR-15 type rifle without some serious background check.”

Someone else said in the email chain:

“What’s scary, too, is the attention this guy is getting.  News coverage was non-stop pretty much all day, every station.  Just have to wonder about the next unhinged maniac out there who wants to be famous.”

I refuse to mention his name.

Some want to blame this whole evil act on guns. But there were guns from the beginning of this country through the present. Yet there wasn’t this same kind of rampant immorality.

George Washington said that religion and morality are indispensable supports to our political prosperity and to human happiness.

John Adams observed:

“Our Constitution was made only for a moral and religious people. It is wholly inadequate to the government of any other.”

One of the reasons the founders thought the knowledge of God was so important was because they believed what the Bible says—that He will one day hold us all accountable. That view impacts how we live.

But our cultural elites today say that God has no place in the public arena.

In the 1960s and ‘70s, the Supreme Court systematically stripped God away from the public square. For example, in a case in 1980, they said that the Ten Commandments posted in schools are supposedly unconstitutional. They said that if they were hanging in the classroom, the children might read them, meditate on them, venerate them, and obey them.

Imagine —“Thou shalt not kill” was supposedly an unconstitutional message for our young people. We are reaping what we’ve sown. That Supreme Court case, by the way, was decided long before school shootings became common.

After the recent massacre, William Bennett, the former Secretary of Education in the Reagan Administration, commented that we need more exorcisms in our country to drive out the evil existing in the hearts of some of these sick fellow Americans.

I remember when Bennett once told me in a media interview: “Does anybody really have a worry that the United States is becoming overly pious? That our young people have dedicated too much of their lives to prayer, that teenagers in this country are preoccupied with thoughts of eternity?”

What America needs so desperately is a true revival of the soul, lest the moral cancer of godlessness overpower us. Let’s pray for America, before it’s too late.

©Jerry Newcombe. All rights reserved.

Man Charged With Rape In Connection To 10-Year-Old Who Traveled For Abortion

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A man was arrested Tuesday and charged with the felony rape of a 10-year-old girl who later travelled to Indiana for an abortion, The Columbus Dispatch reported.

Police said 27-year-old Gershon Fuentes confessed to raping the child on at least two occasions, according to the Dispatch. The child reportedly obtained an abortion in Indianapolis June 30.

Franklin County Children Services referred the case to the police June 22, and the suspect is being tested for paternity.

Dr. Caitlin Bernard, an Indianapolis obstetrician-gynecologist, shared the story with the press July 1 and said the child had gone to Indiana for the abortion because it was illegal in her home state of Ohio, a fact that has been contested by the state’s attorney general. She has since been disciplined for a HIPAA violation for publicizing the patient’s details, Fox News reported.

Fuentes is being held on a $2 million bond, which the judge said was especially high in order to protect the child’s safety.

Bernard did not respond to the Daily Caller News Foundation’s request for comment.

AUTHOR

LAUREL DUGGAN

Social issues and culture reporter.

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EDITORS NOTE: This Daily Caller column is republished with permission. ©All rights reserved. Content created by The Daily Caller News Foundation is available without charge to any eligible news publisher that can provide a large audience. For licensing opportunities of our original content, please contact licensing@dailycallernewsfoundation.org.

Inflation Hits Yet Another Record High As Americans Feel The Squeeze

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Inflation climbed 9.1% over the past 12 months, the highest year-over-year percentage increase since December 1981, the Department of Labor (DOL) announced Wednesday.

The Consumer Price Index (CPI) increased 1.3% between May and June, according to the DOL report released Wednesday. Economists had predicted that CPI would increase by 1.1% last month and 8.8% over the 12-month period ending in June.

“The energy index rose 7.5 percent over the month and contributed nearly half of the all items increase, with the gasoline index rising 11.2 percent and the other major component indexes also rising,” the DOL said in their report. “The food index rose 1.0 percent in June, as did the food at home index.”

The White House preemptively downplayed the inflation data, saying the metric was already outdated as prices have begun to supposedly decrease.

“June CPI data is already out of date because energy prices have come down substantially this month and are expected to fall further,” White House Press Secretary Karine Jean-Pierre said on Tuesday.

“I don’t think that number peaks until September and I think at that point it will be in double digits,” E.J. Antoni, research fellow for Regional Economics at The Heritage Foundation told the Daily Caller News Foundation.

Wednesday’s report follows a steady stream of negative polling for President Joe Biden, including one New York Times survey that found a majority of Democrats would prefer the 79-year-old not run in 2024. Voters have cited the economy and inflation as major issues ahead of the midterms.

The gasoline index rose 11.2%, while the food at home index increased 10.4%,  year over year, BLS reported. Almost all aspects of American purchases increased in June, including shelter, airline fares, new and used cars and trucks, medical care, household furnishings and operations, recreation and clothing, according to BLS.

CPI surpassed the Federal Reserve’s 2% target in May 2021 and has continuously climbed higher and higher since, according to federal data.

AUTHOR

MAX KEATING

Contributor.

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Racist Jill Biden Calls Latinos ‘Tacos’

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Now imagine the backlash from the mainstream media if Melania Trump said this. These double standards are really disgusting.

Right rips Jill Biden for saying Hispanic community as unique as ‘breakfast tacos’

By The Hill, July 11, 2022

First lady Jill Biden is receiving flak from the right for comments in which she said the Hispanic community was as “unique” as the “breakfast tacos” in San Antonio.

Biden was speaking at the 2022 UnidosUS Annual Conference titled “Siempre Adelante: Our Quest for Equity” in San Antonio on Monday.

AUTHOR

Geller Report Staff

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The End of Private Car Ownership

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You will drive nothing and you will be happy.

The term “pedestrian” has a derogatory meaning because peasants walked while nobles were “equestrians” and rode horses. The industrial revolution eliminated this class difference, as it did so many others, by making car ownership available to the masses until eventually Herbert Hoover was able to boast that “Republican prosperity has reduced and increased earning capacity” to “put the proverbial ‘chicken in every pot’ and a car in every backyard to boot.”

Democrats have spent two generations trying to get those cars out of every backyard.

Biden is trying to bring back Obama’s mileage standards that were estimated to raise car prices by 20%.The goal is to “nudge 40% of U.S. drivers into electric vehicles by decade’s end.”

Will 40% of Americans be able to afford electric cars that cost an average of $54,000 by 2030?

Not likely. Nor are they meant to. Biden’s radical ‘green’ government, which includes Tracy Stone-Manning, the former spokeswoman for an ecoterrorist group as the head of the Bureau of Land Management, isn’t looking to nudge drivers into another type of cars, but out of cars.

Gas prices are a way to price Americans out of car ownership under the guise of pushing EVs.

Biden’s Energy Secretary Jennifer Granholm responded to American concerns about high gas prices by urging them to buy electric cars. Granholm, who had promoted a green energy tycoon who spent years in prison for fraud, who had served on the board of directors of an electric battery company, and made millions divesting stock in an electric vehicle manufacturer, is a fan.

“Most electric vehicles are now cheaper to own than gas-powered cars from the day you drive them off the lot,” Granholm tweeted.

That isn’t actually true, but actual cars have become more expensive to own, largely because of efforts by the Biden administration, and by various states, including California. That hasn’t however made electric cars any more affordable for ordinary Americans.

The average price of an electric car shot up to $54,000 in May. Car prices in general have risen in the Biden economy, but electric cars are naturally expensive. The raw material costs for an average electric car are up to over $8,000. That’s compared to $3,600 for an actual car.

When your raw material costs are that high, electric cars will be inherently unaffordable.

The Obama administration pumped billions in taxpayer money into battery and electric car manufacturing, the majority of which failed, on the theory that enough government subsidies would lower battery costs. Not only was much of that money lost, but currently electric battery costs hover around the $160 kilowatt-hour mark. Green boosters cheer that’s far down from over $1,000 per kWh a decade ago, but that still adds up to the reality that an electric car capable of traveling for even short distances needs a battery that alone costs thousands.

The Nissan Leaf, which approaches $30,000 once the reality of MSRP in the current sales market is taken into account, is one of the cheapest electric cars around, and has a range of only 149 miles. Replacing its battery can set back car owners $6,500 to $7,500. And that’s even when you can manage to find one or someone willing to replace it. In less than 3 years, Leafs lose 20 miles of range. By the fifth year, they have lost 30 miles. And it’s all downhill from there.

The Nissan Leaf was initially a hit, but car manufacturers quickly realized that anyone willing to overpay that much for substandard performance had money to burn. The electric car market is now thoroughly dominated by luxury vehicles subsidized by taxpayers. And the Leaf went from 90% market share to less than 10%. The EV market is now a taxpayer-funded status symbol.

The dirty truth about the “clean” car market is that it consists of traditional car companies and Tesla frantically trying to unload a limited share of luxury electric cars on wealthy customers to cash in on the emissions credits mandated by states like California. Tesla makes more money reselling these regulatory credits to actual car companies than it does selling cars. Taxpayers and working class car-owners pick up the bill for the entire luxury electric vehicle market.

A market that they are shut out from by design.

The “green” vision is not a world in which everyone has their own electric car. It’s one of collective transport, of buses, light rail, and car-pooling through shared rides and roving self-driving cars. The only vehicle the average consumer is supposed to own is a bicycle.

While the Biden administration is still pretending that it’s out to “encourage” electric car ownership by making actual cars too expensive for much of the country to afford, others are saying the quiet part out loud.

“Car-lovers will doubtless mourn the passing of machines that, in the 20th century, became icons of personal freedom. But this freedom is illusory,” an Economist article predicted.

“There will be fewer cars on the road—perhaps just 30% of the cars we have today,” the head of Google’s self-driving car project predicted.

“The days of the single occupancy car are numbered,” Brook Porter at G2 Venture Partners, a green energy investment firm, thundered in an article titled, The End of Cars in Cities.

Dan Ammann, the former president of GM, claimed that “the human-driven, gasoline-powered, single-passenger car” is the “fundamental problem” in a post titled, “We Need to Move Beyond the Car”. He has since gone to work for Exxon-Mobil.

Predictions are cheap, but car bans are expensive and all too real. The European Union voted to back a ban on the sale of non-electric cars by 2035. California is also pushing for a similar 2035 ban on the sale of new actual cars in the state. Officials noted that the ban would push more than half of mechanics out of work and leave much of the state unable to afford cars.

Canada has its own 2035 car ban. Last year, Governor Newsom and Governor Cuomo, along with 10 other governors, urged Biden to impose a 2035 car ban on all Americans.

Electric cars aren’t actually “cleaner”. The mining processes that produce “green” technologies are as dirty, if not dirtier, and trade dependence on oil for dependence on rare earth metals, and dependence on the Middle East for dependence on Communist China. The one thing that they decisively accomplish is to make it impossible for ordinary Americans to own cars.

And that is what environmentalists really want. But not just them.

The vision of a nation in which private car ownership is a luxury good, in which cars have been priced out of the reach of most people through environmental measures that concentrated on gas-powered vehicles, and then added more taxes and fines for the waste” and “inefficiency” of an individual owning a vehicle is not very far away.

The technocratic sales pitch is that ride-sharing and self-driving cars will make car ownership unnecessary. Why own a big clunky machine when you can own nothing and be happy?

The reality is that car ownership offers mobility and independence. That is exactly what the leftist radicals making social policy want to eliminate. Gas prices are not Putin’s price hike, they’re the green dream. And that dream isn’t to put you in a Nissan Leaf. It’s the Pol Pot dream of dismantling civilization and rolling back the industrial revolution.

Once the dark age norms of their dark enlightenment are restored, peasants will go back to being pedestrians and only the progressive philosopher kings will ride.

AUTHOR

DANIEL GREENFIELD

Daniel Greenfield, a Shillman Journalism Fellow at the Freedom Center, is an investigative journalist and writer focusing on the radical Left and Islamic terrorism.

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EDITORS NOTE: This Jihad Watch column is republished with permission. ©All rights reserved.

Buttigieg Defends Harassing Conservative Justices Over Abortion

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It’s never an insurrection when your side is the one doing it. Just ask good ol’ Mayor Pete.

Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg on Sunday defended protesters against Supreme Court Justice Brett Kavanaugh who gathered earlier this week outside Morton’s steakhouse, where he was eating dinner.

Buttigieg’s boyfriend, Chasten, tweeted in response to the news: “Sounds like he just wanted some privacy to make his own dining decisions,” a shot toward Kavanaugh’s vote to overturn Roe v. Wade last month, ending a woman’s constitutional right to an abortion.

During an appearance on “Fox News Sunday,” moderator Mike Emanuel asked Buttigieg if his Chasten’s tweet about the incident was “appropriate.”

“Look, when public officials go into public life, we should expect two things. One, that you should always be free from violence, harassment, and intimidation,” Buttigieg replied. “And two, you’re never going to be free from criticism or peaceful protest, people exercising their First Amendment rights.”

Speaking out is a First Amendment right. Harassing people in their private life isn’t. There’s a huge difference between protesting outside the Supreme Court, and outside the homes and private gatherings of individuals.

Buttigieg isn’t very bright, despite trying to make that into his brand, but he knows the difference quite well and is being disingenuous when he pretends that he doesn’t.

“So, yes, people are upset,” Buttigieg concluded. “They’re going to exercise their First Amendment rights.”

If they were exercising “their First Amendment rights” outside Sotomayor’s cafe, the conversation would be quite different.

AUTHOR

DANIEL GREENFIELD

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EDITORS NOTE: This Jihad Watch column is republished with permission. ©All rights reserved.

Why We Should Take the ‘Socialism’ Part of Democratic Socialism Seriously

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Democratic socialism isn’t the same as autocratic communism, but there are problems with socialism that democracy can’t solve.

In the wake of Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez’s recent primary victory, many writers have made the cases for and against democratic socialism. Both its defenders and its critics have tried to insist, quite rightly, that those who support democratic socialism are serious about the “democratic” part.

And it is important that critics take this point seriously: arguing that someone like Ocasio-Cortez is just a Stalinist wannabe is not an effective counter-argument. Those making the case for democratic socialism really do wish to avoid the totalitarianism of the 20th-century history of socialism. Whether they can avoid that outcome, despite their good intentions, is an issue I will return to in what follows.

Critics and supporters should also take the “socialism” part of democratic socialism seriously.

The website of the Democratic Socialists of America is clear about their desire to eliminate the profit motive, or the very least to subordinate it to “the public interest” in a large number of sectors of the economy. A good number of democratic socialists would expand public ownership and control into many of those same sectors. And all of them seem to agree that democratic control is needed for major decisions about “social investment” as well as trade, monetary, and fiscal policy.

The question is whether—even if we assume that the process is as democratic as the democratic socialists desire—they can actually create a world of peace and prosperity given the degree to which they wish to abolish markets and profits. I will argue that the answer is no.

As is often the case with these sorts of proposals, the details of how more democratic control over economic decision-making would work are left vague, but if they are serious about the “democratic” part, it will necessarily involve the participation of as many people as possible, presumably through some sort of voting mechanism. If instead, such decisions were left in the hands of a small group, even if they were elected by people in general, it would risk reproducing the same alienation and exploitation of the masses supposedly committed by capitalists and their bought-off politicians today.

In a recent piece for The Atlantic, Conor Friedersdorf raised the important critical point that leaving economic decision-making to majority voting imperils the ability of those with minority tastes to acquire the things they desire. For example, if we let Americans vote on whether resources should be devoted to the medical needs of transgender people, would it happen? Would residents of Utah vote to make sure that those who wished to consume alcohol and caffeine could do so?

That we aren’t sure that the answers to both questions are “yes” is a matter of much concern about the democratic-socialist vision. How a democratic and participatory process would ensure that the needs of minority consumers were met without over-riding the will of the people is not clear.

As important as Friedersdorf’s point is, there is an even deeper problem at the heart of the socialist part of the democratic socialist vision. If public ownership is expanded and the profit motive removed, this implies the elimination of markets as the way in which resources in those industries are allocated. It certainly eliminates markets for ownership of capital resources by eliminating private and tradeable ownership claims to firms.

The question facing democratic socialists is this: how, in the absence of market prices, profit and loss signals, and private ownership of the means of production will even the most purely motivated actors in a deeply democratic process know what their fellow citizens want and need and, what’s more important, how best to produce those goods and services?

Even if “the people” want to ensure that minority tastes and needs are accommodated, how will they know what those are? In a market economy, the exchange of private property generates prices that work to signal producers about what is wanted and how urgently. The ability of owners of private resources to risk those resources on their best guesses about what is wanted, and to have the feedback of profits and losses to inform them whether they judged correctly, is what enables us to figure out what people want.  And that’s true whether it’s the masses or more specialized tastes. Markets are processes of discovery by which we learn things we otherwise would not, and could not, know.

Those same prices and profits of the market help us figure out how best to make the things that people want. This part of what markets do is often overlooked by socialists of all stripes. They might be able to offer mechanisms by which consumers could communicate their desires so that “the people” could know what needs to be produced. Even then, however, socialists over-estimate how much of what we know can be effectively communicated in words and statistics.

A good deal of human knowledge, including the knowledge relevant to economic decision-making, is tacit. There are things we know yet are unable to articulate. Think about how you keep your balance on a bicycle. You know how to do it, but you cannot explain to someone else exactly how it’s done.

Acts of buying and selling in the market enable us to make tacit knowledge usable by others in the form of prices and profits. This is the sense in which prices are knowledge surrogates that enable our fields of economic vision to overlap such that we can coordinate our actions and use resources wisely. Market exchange is a process of communication that enables us to go beyond the articulate knowledge of words and numbers.

Given this role of prices, what socialists don’t have an answer to is how democratically controlled industries—in which there are no market prices, profits, or private property in the means of production—will know which inputs to use to make the outputs they believe people want. If you want to socialize health care, how do you know how many nurses, NPs, doctors, and lab techs you will need in each state, city, or hospital?  You want people to get medical care without paying a monetary price for it?  How will you decide who should provide that care?  And with what machines?  Made out of what materials?

We completely take for granted the way in which markets smoothly enable producers to make these decisions using the signals of prices and profits.  Prices and profit calculations enable resources-owners to determine what combination of inputs appears to be the least wasteful in order to make what people want before they start producing, thereby not wasting valuable resources. Prices work as knowledge surrogates to help producers know how valuable people think those resources are so that producers make decisions that are the least wasteful possible.

Prices are the ways we make our private assessments of value publicly available for others to use to make their decisions before they produce. Profits and losses tell entrepreneurs after the fact just how well they decided. Those profits or losses inform the next round of decisions by entrepreneurs, all the time helping them figure out how to best provide what we want using the least valuable resources possible. Without prices or profits, what will perform this task under socialism, even the most widely democratic socialism one can imagine? How will this dispersed, contextual, and tacit knowledge be mobilized and made available for others to use?

Notice that this is not a matter of people’s motivation or psychology. Socialists sometimes like to invoke a version of “New Socialist Man” to escape these problems. They argue that people will just be different under socialism and that they will be motivated to serve the public interest. But motivation isn’t the problem here—knowledge is. How even New Socialist Man will acquire knowledge from others that they cannot express in words or numbers is a question most socialists have never faced.

Furthermore, consider what happens to firms in markets when they consistently fail in this task. Firms whose profits are negative period after period must either change their behavior or find themselves out of business. Firms with publicly traded private ownership shares will find the value of those shares (their stock) falling, reducing the firm’s value and making it more likely that other people might buy up those shares and take over the firm.

The opportunity to purchase the means of production and use them more wisely than the current owners is a key advantage of markets. In the absence of private ownership of the means of production, what will be the comparable corrective process? The long history of wasted resources and unwillingness to change that describes so many government programs would be spread to additional sectors of the economy. There is a reason that the stock market is the very heart of a market economy: it is where those who think they can do things better are free to take their shot. Even the most democratic version of socialism lacks that feature.

If what one supports, however, is something like worker-owned or worker-managed firms who still compete with each other in a genuine market, the argument above does not apply nearly as strongly. Such a system might well be immune to the problems associated with eliminating prices, profits, and private property. Whether such firms would face significant collective action problems associated with worker ownership or management is a separate issue for another time.

Without prices, profits, and a market for the means of production, the areas that democratic socialism would socialize would fail consumers and waste resources, impoverishing societies that adopted such policies. Those failures would force democratic socialists into an unresolvable dilemma.

Critics might argue that specialized experts were needed to run these industries better than the people at large, undermining the democratic part of democratic socialism. Other critics might argue that it was necessary to re-introduce prices and profits, undermining the socialism part. Either way, the democratic socialist vision collapses. Down the first path lies the very totalitarianism they wanted to avoid, and down the second lies the market economy they are committed to rejecting.

This process also demonstrates how even the best-intentioned democratic socialism can end up with 20th-century style totalitarian socialism. As the socialism part of democratic socialism fails to reduce poverty and ensure that people get the goods and services they want and need, and as it becomes clearer that public ownership cannot provide anything close to responsible use of resources, the democratic planning process will become increasingly dominated by those with a comparative advantage in using the levers of power it has created.

As Friedersdorf points out, putting economic control in the hands of the people actually centralizes control over resources in comparison to the decentralized ownership we see in the market. Such centralized control, even in the hands of “the people,” requires institutions of power and domination. Democratic socialists might be confident in their belief that “the people” would handle such power responsibly, but because they overlook the inevitable failure of an economic system lacking prices, profits, and private ownership, they have not thoroughly considered what might happen when the socialism half fails. When public ownership fails at allocating resources in any rational fashion, it is ripe to be taken over by those who care much less about meeting the needs of humans and much more about exercising power over them.

Marx never intended Stalin, but the latter is an unintended consequence of the Bolsheviks trying to put Marxism into practice in the immediate aftermath of the Russian Revolution. Democratic socialists can emphasize the adjective as much as they want, but the realities of socialism’s flaws will ultimately undermine both its democracy and its socialism.

Until socialists of all stripes come to grips with the role that prices, profits, and private ownership play in helping us to figure out both what people want and how best to produce it, they will continue to be mystified by socialism’s continued failure. Increased democratic control will not solve the structural problems that arise whenever people attempt to abolish the institutions of the market. In the end, the problem with democratic socialism is that it’s socialist.

Reprinted from Libertarianism.org

AUTHOR

Steven Horwitz

Steven Horwitz is the Distinguished Professor of Free Enterprise in the Department of Economics at Ball State University, where he also is Director of the Institute for the Study of Political Economy. He is the author of Austrian Economics: An Introduction.

EDITORS NOTE: This MercatorNet column is republished with permission. ©All rights reserved.

GOP Set To Win Massive Majority In House, Analysis Finds

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Republicans are expected to take control of the House of Representatives with a potentially massive majority, according to the Fox News Power Rankings.

The GOP is predicted to win between 225 and 255 seats in the November midterm elections, according to the Fox News Power Rankings, which uses data such as historical trends, fundraising and other polling to create projections for elections. Currently, there are 33 seats that the GOP will likely win, with another 30 seats considered as “toss-ups” come this November, according to the analysis.

One such seat is New York’s 18th Congressional District, which has a 65% chance of flipping red, according to FiveThirtyEight. The district was once a Democratic stronghold, but with redistricting Republican New York Assemblyman Colin Schmitt appears poised to win the seat.  

“The issues at hand are economic and crime-related,” Schmitt told the Daily Caller News Foundation. “Crime is affecting our community, and the economic issues are crushing us in the Hudson Valley.”

Roughly 56% of voters said that the economic state of the nation was the most essential issue to them this election cycle, according to polling from Republican State Leadership Committee.

The nation has seen a slight rightward shift with states such as Florida and minorities groups like Hispanics becoming more right-leaning, exemplified by the election of Texas Republican Rep. Mayra Flores in a special election. 

Oregon’s 5th Congressional District could see its first Republican member of Congress ever, according to FiveThirtyEight. Republican Lori Chavez Ramirez is projected to cruise to victory against her leftist challenger.

Other outlets such as Real Clear Politics and FiveThirtyEight also predicted the GOP would win the House handily.

“Joe Biden’s failed agenda has led to record-high prices at the gas pump and grocery store, and put every vulnerable Democrats’ reelection efforts in jeopardy,” National Republican Congressional Committee Communications Director Michael McAdams told the DCNF.

The predictions by Fox News come at a time when President Biden’s approval numbers hover around 33% and Democrats are losing faith in his ability to win an election, according to a poll by The New York Times.

AUTHOR

CARL DEMARCO

Contributor.

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EDITORS NOTE: This Daily Caller column is republished with permission. ©All rights reserved. Content created by The Daily Caller News Foundation is available without charge to any eligible news publisher that can provide a large audience. For licensing opportunities of our original content, please contact licensing@dailycallernewsfoundation.org.

The FDA Is Considering a Change That Would Have Huge Implications for Birth Control

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The downsides of government mandates requiring a prescription are significant.

With the Supreme Court’s recent abortion decision, unplanned pregnancies are top-of-mind for many Americans. So, whatever one believes about abortion, the timing of a new debate on birth control policy within the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) couldn’t be more important.

The FDA just received a request from a contraceptive company seeking authorization to sell its birth control pills over-the-counter—without a prescription, as is required nationwide under current laws. This has prompted renewed calls for the FDA to approve this change. And, according to the New York Times, it’s seriously considering it this time.

Why? Well, the downsides of government mandates requiring a prescription are significant.

For one thing, it makes birth control harder to access for people without health insurance or the time/resources to obtain professional medical care. It also adds significantly to the cost of birth control by introducing middlemen and additional steps.

The current restrictive regime is defended in the name of safety. After all, hormonal birth control pills can have serious side effects and some women shouldn’t take them if they have certain medical factors that conflict with the medication.

Still, while the medication is indeed serious, it should still be made available over the counter. Right now, the government is needlessly standing in the way between the medical community and countless women who could benefit from care but can’t necessarily obtain a prescription.

You don’t have to take my word for it. The American Medical Association (AMA) has firmly endorsed making birth control available over-the-counter and called on the FDA to approve the change.

“Providing patients with [over-the-counter] access to the birth control pill is an easy call from a public health perspective,” AMA Board Member David H. Aizuss, M.D. said. “Access is one of the most cited reasons why patients do not use oral contraceptives, use them inconsistently, or discontinue use. Expanding [over-the-counter] access would make it easier for patients to properly use oral contraceptives, leading to fewer unplanned pregnancies.”

Studies have shown that, in absence of a required doctor consultation, women are able to self-screen and determine if they meet any of the conditions where one shouldn’t take hormonal birth control. (You know, like people do all the time with various medications). They can also always consult the pharmacists, which doesn’t typically require insurance or even an appointment.

Other expert groups like the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists also support making the medication available without a prescription.

It would hardly be an unprecedented move.

Dozens of other countries don’t require a prescription for birth control, including Mexico, Portugal, India, Greece, and Brazil. It’s mostly western Europe, the US, Canada, and other advanced nations—with big, bloated bureaucratic governments—that have barriers in place. But in the countries where it is available, it seems to work out just fine.

More fundamentally, it’s a matter of who gets to decide. Can women weigh the risks and benefits of a medication and decide for themselves? Or should that decision be made for them by supposedly benevolent bureaucrats and the nanny state?

For those who believe in individual liberty, the answer is clear.

“Freedom over one’s physical person is the most basic freedom of all, and people in a free society should be sovereign over their own bodies,” former Congressman Ron Paul, himself a medical doctor, once said. “When we give government the power to make medical decisions for us, we in essence accept that the state owns our bodies.”

The FDA shouldn’t own women’s bodies. They should.

As one long-time advocate of making birth control available over-the-counter, (my friend) the Washington Examiner writer Tiana Lowe, put it, “[The FDA] could do something that not only is broadly supported by people of all political stripes but also has a marked ability to prevent unplanned pregnancies from occurring in the first place.”

All it has to do is get out of the way.

AUTHOR

Brad Polumbo

Brad Polumbo (@Brad_Polumbo) is a libertarian-conservative journalist and Policy Correspondent at the Foundation for Economic Education.

EDITORS NOTE: This FEE column is republished with permission. ©All rights reserved.

REPORT: Hunter Biden’s iCloud Account Cracked, Holds Data from 46 Different Devices He Interacted With

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The contents of Hunter Biden’s iCloud account have allegedly been hacked by users of the 4chan community, who posted screenshots purported to be from his phone and computer on the website’s main political forum late Saturday night.

Hunter allegedly calls his father “Pedo Pete.” Hunter Biden’s e-mail account appears to show that his father, former Vice President Joe Biden, used the pseudonym “Peter Henderson” when trading e-mails with his family, the National Pulse can exclusively reveal.

Watch this video titled “Biden Hypocrisy” about then Senator Joseph Robinette Biden Jr.(a.k.a. Pedo Pete) talking about crack cocaine and the law.

Democrat media axis figuring out how to bury, downplay, ignore, excuse the new Hunter Biden materials.

Western Journal reports:

A new claim has emerged that Hunter Biden’s iCloud account has been hacked, creating the possibility of yet more disclosure of the activities of President Joe Biden’s son.

The Washington Examiner reported that members of the 4chan community are claiming to have hacked the account.

By way of proof, screenshots that were claimed as being taken from Hunter Biden’s phone and computer were posted late Saturday. The claims, however, could not be immediately verified.

Threads that contained material from the alleged hack were later pulled down.

It was unclear if the material allegedly accessed included that from the laptop computer formerly owned by Hunter Biden that emerged in the fall of 2020 to reveal tantalizing nuggets about the business activities of Hunter Biden, who had extensive business connections in China, Ukraine and Russia.

According to a forensic examination of the laptop conducted by Konstantinos Dimitrelos for the Washington Examiner, Hunter Biden’s iCloud account was synced to his MacBook Pro, iPhone and iPad as of March 2019.

Hunter Biden’s Apple ID account has been linked to 46 separate devices since 2011, Dimitrelos said. Hacking the iCloud account in theory could create access to all those accounts, making accessible communications yet unseen.

Text messages on an iPhone backup stored on the laptop computer show Hunter Biden showing contempt for Jill Biden, according to The Sun.

The exchange from late December 2018 related that Jill Biden supposedly mocked a plan of Hunter Biden’s to live with his uncle, James, and teach. The texts claim she told him: “Well you’re not going to be doing anything at all for yourself or your family if you just refuse to get sober.”

The texts to his uncle claimed, “I said Yang ow [you know] what mom you’re a f****** moron. A vindictive moron.”

“I suooorted [supported] my GM family including some of the costs you should have used your salary to lay [pay] for – for the last 24 years,” the text read, according to The Sun. (Keep reading)

Releasing 450GB MORE Private Data Including Passwords — “Ladies & Gentlemen, We are in!”

By: Jill Schrider, Daily Veracity, July 9, 2022

Researchers on 4Chan have begun examining an offline backup of Hunter Biden’s phone. They found the password and are going through all the files.

There is reportedly approximately 450GB of data still remaining hidden on the President’s son’s iPhone backup log.

“I was told Hunter had sexual relationships with a lot of people in the so-called ‘elite’ and families are ashamed,” said the anonymous individual, adding that ‘the elite’ want to “prevent the humiliation because he f-cked half the kids, sisters and wives in the small ‘elite’ circles.”

The data is alleged to have come from an iPhone backup drive that contained everything from deleted phone calls and text messages, to web-search history including pornography habits.

The data released on 4Chan alleges Hunter Biden searched for porn videos of himself on popular pornography websites, with search terms including “Hunter Biden Fucking a Hooker.”

The alleged documents also show text messages claiming there are “more weapons in your son’s room than in an armory,”

The 4Chan info dump is currently ongoing and can be followed here. We will continue to provide any updates if important information is to be revealed.

Keep reading…..

AUTHOR

Pamela Geller

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EDITORS NOTE: This Geller Report column is republished with permission. ©All rights reserved.

NY DA Bragg Charges VICTIM of Bodega Attack by Violent Ex-Con

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In an op-ed Friday at Fox News Channel, retired FBI agent James Gagliano blasted Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg’s “shameless body of work,” highlighting his charging of a 61-year-old bodega clerk, Jose Alba, with Murder in the Second Degree in the self-defense stabbing death of a violent ex-con who threatened and assaulted him in the shop.

The entire incident in Upper Manhattan last week was caught on the store’s surveillance video. “Alba was charged with murder and subjected to a ridiculously high quarter-million-dollar bail package (half of what the DA’s Office requested, but later reduced to $50,000.00 in the self-defense case) and transported to Rikers Island to be housed with real criminals,” Gagliano wrote. “Welcome to the dystopian hellscape that Alvin Bragg’s prosecutorial discretion has wrought on New York. Is it any wonder city dwellers consider fleeing in droves?”

Gagliano went on to note that the thug Alba stabbed was a career criminal, while Alba has no criminal record. “What kind of message does Alba’s arrest for defending himself send?”

“Bragg’s refusal to serve as the people’s prosecutor, while coddling criminals and charging those who act in clear defense of self, make him unfit for duty,” Gagliano correctly noted.

“Decades of Democratic stranglehold on the Office have seen moderate D’s accede ground to progressives like Bragg. The leftward lurch isn’t working — it is harming a once great city,” Gagliano concluded.

Alvin Bragg

6 Known Connections

On January 8, 2022 in New York City, Bragg appeared at a National Action Network rally alongside activist Al Sharpton to discuss his (Bragg’s) criminal-justice agenda. “We know that our first civil right is the right to walk safely to our corner store,” said Bragg. “But we also know that safety has got to be based in our community and fairness. It cannot be driven solely by incarceration.” In defense of his tepid approach to punishing criminals, the new D.A. said: “This is going to make us safer. It’s intuitive. It’s common sense. I don’t understand the pushback.”

When asked during a January 2022 interview with Fox News if his policies would “give criminals a green light,” Bragg answered: “No, I mean, it at least depends upon your definition of a criminal. And for all too long we’ve kind of dealt with this othering of anyone we put in jail is a criminal. Well, you know what, we’re putting in jail homeless people who, literally, in one example, used one counterfeit bill to buy food and toothpaste, got a sentence of [several] years. So, if that’s your definition of a criminal, I suggest we need to really reorder ourselves…”

To learn more about Alvin Bragg, click here.

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