ABC reporter mugged by reality
The current Democrat line is that crime in DC is no biggee. But ABC news anchor Kyra Phillips begs to differ:
“We can talk about the numbers going down, but crime is happening every single day because we’re all experiencing it firsthand, working and living down here,” the “ABC News Live” host continued, as she reported on President Trump’s decision to place the city’s police department under federal control and deploy National Guard troops into the streets.
As I wrote yesterday, the reduced crime statistics in DC are very likely to be an artifact of purposeful minimizing and re-definition of crimes in compiling those numbers. But that probably doesn’t fool most of DC’s residents, who not only have their own anecdotal experiences, but those of their friends and acquaintances. It would be more informative to have valid statistics, but in the absence of those people will go by their own perceptions.
The DC police brass are fudging the crime stats. Yet another example of Goodhart’s law
“Goodhart’s Law states that when a measure becomes a target, it ceases to be a good measure. In simpler terms, if you try to use a specific metric to gauge performance or success, people will optimize their behavior to game that metric, potentially leading to unintended negative consequences or a distortion of the original goal. “
If the DC police have not yet gone to on-line and mail-in reporting of crimes, they are missing a good means to make their stats look even better. Between the “screw-it-they won’t-do-anything-about-it-anyway” attitude of the victim (thus no report filed) and the significant number of victims who are challenged at constructing a simple sentence, let alone a narrative of an event to describe an crime, a large number of offenses shuttled to the mail-in/online route will be easily dismissed as non-crimes.
The crime stats have been tainted for decades. Only homicide and auto theft have close to 100% reporting to begin with. Most people become aware that their car is gone, and few dead bodies are ignored for long.
blind squirrel finds a nut
https://twitchy.com/videos/2025/08/12/morning-joe-hosts-stunned-realize-trump-is-right-on-crime-n2417178
Yeah, I suspect at this point most residents of DC largely know the truth about the situation even if they may not always admit it openly. I wish they would’ve voted more rationally. But Trump doing what he’s doing is a win for them since they can still reap the benefits while openly complaining about him I suppose.
Since Kyra Phillips essentially concurs with Trump re: crime level in DC, her employment at ABC will soon be terminated.
She will now be banned by all the restaurants in DC for committing this crime and she can expect all her lib friends to immediately disown her.
She is now persona non grata.
She violated Rule #1 for a lib / “reporter” (i.e., democrat propagandist) ; she uttered a statement that did not condemn Der Fuhrer Donald Trump.
Oh well.
I think the pendulum has moved to some degrees, from the crazy years, previously they would reflexively recoil, long experience has shifted things,
I heard Megyn Kelly today say that Kyra Phillips is married to John Roberts of FOX News and is a friend of hers so she may not be your typical mainstream media person.
Kyra Phillips, spouse of John Roberts, friends with Megan Kelly, and on and on and on. Is it just me, or is the entire corporate media interrelated by blood or marriage? Likewise the government. It seems that every office holder is married to someone who is in the corporate media or runs some kind of NGO or “public/private partnership.” When one stops to investigate the relationships these people share, one could come to the conclusion that it’s not what they know but who they know and all a massive grift, run by people who suck the lifeblood out of the rest of us. Or as otherwise put, it’s a big club, but we ain’t in it, although we are the ones who pay the dues.
Manipulated ” Who would have thunk”
In the old Soviet Union it was thus: https://youtu.be/lErlHLCNM_s?si=paV9ywIUR9hFY9EZ
It’s only about 15 seconds long
It is reported that even with the supposed “30% drop in crime” the homicide rate per 100,000 remains at 4x the US national average in the Nation’s capitol.
Um, talking about “mugged”…
“THE QUESTION ISN’T WHETHER YOU’RE PARANOID, IT’S WHETHER YOU’RE PARANOID ENOUGH”—
https://instapundit.com/737978/
Key admission:
When I lived in Philadelpha in the early 70s, it had the worst record for car theft in the nation. They covered up the problem by redefining many instances of car theft as “driving without the consent of the owner,” a lesser crime (misdemeanor vs felony? I don’t remember the details). It made the statistics look better, but made the problem worse because now there was less penalty for stealing a car.
Ah yes, the old “taking a life without consent” trick…
As for being mugged, drawn and quartered and barbecued at a figurative auto da fe…
“Ex-Police Chief to Newsmax: Pelosi May Have Wanted Jan. 6 Riot”—
https://www.newsmax.com/newsmax-tv/steven-sund-nancy-pelosi-national-guard/2025/08/12/id/1222268/
(“May have”, he said…. Sheesh…)
As for being mugged by a carefully crafting a global fantasy…
“Higbie Report From Gaza: ‘Only Ones Starving Are Hostages’”—
https://www.newsmax.com/newsmax-tv/carl-higbie-newsmax-gaza/2025/08/12/id/1222243/
And:
“The generational price of the false Gaza ‘genocide’ narrative”—
https://www.jns.org/the-generational-price-of-the-false-gaza-genocide-narrative/
+ Bonus…
‘New evidence questions former GHF staffer’s claims that IDF killed child at distribution site;
‘A woman claiming to be the boy’s stepmother disputed several details of the former contractor’s story, according to a video obtained by “The Daily Wire.”’—
https://www.jns.org/new-evidence-questions-former-ghf-staffers-claims-that-idf-killed-child-at-distribution-site/
Yep, Tony Aguilar again…
Oops, should be:
“…by a carefully crafted global fantasy…”
Similarly the question is no longer “do you believe in conspiracy theories” but “which conspiracy theories do you believe”
@ FOAF
“What’s the difference between a conspiracy theory and reality?”
“About six months.”
Now down to about six days.
An interesting article, not sure I trust all of it.
https://vridar.org/2021/01/22/conspiracy-theories-true-and-false-and-how-to-tell-the-difference/
@ Barry in re the ESR tweet linked by Instapundit which you quoted: “I dismissed the claims about Dominion electronic-voting machines being widely subverted”
Eric didn’t include any source for his following statement: “But I wasn’t convinced that those potential vulnerabilities had been actually exploited in 2020.
Now the Director of National Intelligence says it happened.”
I finally tracked down this podcast from Benny Johnson interviewing Gabbard about some statements she made to the Cabinet in April regarding the insecurity of the voting machines and wondering if she had any updates.*
https://x.com/bennyjohnson/status/1950939545236570463
Briefly, a whistleblower has come forward who had information that the federal agencies knew at the time (2020) about the machines’ vulnerabilities, but chose not to disclose that to the administration (gee I wonder why).
I don’t remember seeing the reports about that Cabinet meeting in April, but they are available on the internet (one can no longer add “of course” to that statement.
The DuckDuckGo results on their first page contained nothing from any prominent conservative websites, and the Democrat-leaning websites listed are predictably biased, so I passed up the BBC and Economic Times for this relatively obscure but essentially complete post.
https://selfreliancecentral.com/2025/04/11/tulsi-gabbard-sounds-alarm-on-voting-machine-security-flaws/
Make of it all what you will.
IMO Gabbard is right to at least reopen the investigations, since we have learned that previous “investigations” of government malfeasance have all the cachet of the fox reporting on alleged breaches of the henhouse.
*Via a post that quotes both Raymond and Johnson.
Why does everything have to be so convoluted on the web??
https://wentworthreport.com/2025/08/13/computer-guru-flips-2020-us-election-might-have-thrown-by-electronic-cheating/
This isn’t even Not the Bee.
You can’t make this stuff up.
https://justthenews.com/government/federal-agencies/transportation-secretary-duffy-drops-footage-porch-pirate-targeting-his
“Transportation Secretary Duffy drops footage of porch pirate targeting his DC home Monday
The footage is from the same day that President Donald Trump announced he would activate 800 Washington D.C. National Guard troops and take over the city’s Metropolitan Police Department.”
Kurt is often a tad hyperbolic in his essays, but he is correct about this.
https://townhall.com/columnists/kurtschlichter/2025/08/13/yes-stopping-crime-is-actually-a-good-thing-n2661713
This post brings up one of my serious concerns about Trump taking responsibility for DC’s crime situation: whatever happens he will be blamed for everything, whether it’s a result of something he did or not. And if the Dems can seize on any “George Floyd event” to trash Trump, they will, even if they have to manufacture one.
However, there will inevitably be some incident that can be spun as “Trump policies lead to massacre of innocent Black man” (or possibly some gentle gardener, or austere religious scholar).
It also illustrates the cycle I’m sure many of us have noted before:
(1) Things are going fine in LOCATION (pick your city or state) because of vigilant attention to law and order, usually by Republicans.
(2) People decide they want a more compassionate approach (because things are going fine), and elect Democrats.
(3) Democrats leaders, who are usually faking compassion to get votes, institute lax policies and crime increases while order decreases.
(4) People finally get fed up and elect Republicans to clean things up, which they do.
Return to step (2).
https://redstate.com/nick-arama/2025/08/12/eric-swalwell-post-about-trump-dc-n2192747
Standard operating procedure for Democrats, along the same lines as every problem that was caused by Obama’s or Biden’s administrations suddenly became Trump’s fault the minute he was inaugurated (and the same thing happened to Bush II, that I remember reading, and probably every other GOP president).
/rant
AF, so does Fox get its money back (from Dominion)?
(Just asking…as Tucker Carlson might say)….
– – – – – – – – –
Back to getting mugged, this time by Reuters….
“Why Is Reuters Carrying Water for Hamas?
“Media organizations said there is ‘no evidence’ of systemic aid theft by Hamas. That reporting went viral. But it isn’t true.”—
https://www.thefp.com/p/why-is-reuters-carrying-water-for-hamas
H/T Powerline blog.
Murdock or his kin took a dive on the dominion case emerald robinson has the receipts
They will find a pretext and a hawaian judge
And getting mugged, this time by “Climate Change”(TM)…with some fascinating comments
“…Why I Stopped Being a Climate Catastrophist. And why so many climate pragmatists can’t quit catastrophism.”—
https://instapundit.com/738036/
H/T Sarah Hoyt, at Instapundit.
That reminds me of something. A local NPR political commentator got chased by a coyote not so long ago I wonder if her opinions changed because of that. (My guess is No)
“…took a dive…”
Yes, but given the possibilities of going against the NARRATIVE(TM) in the Age of “Biden” did they have a choice?
IIRC it was a “cut bait” kind of thing.
Article says it was an NBC commentator who was chased.
Interesting little snippet on conspiracy theories and real conspiracies, linked in AesopFan’s first comment.
People like [Judy Hoback] Miller [are] the “so-called ‘minor people’” — the secretaries, security guards, and other low-level employees who worked behind the scenes for the big players who were often the first to talk. Such people are rarely ideologues nor are they being paid enough [to subvert the truth or commit crimes].
Judy Miller helped break the Watergate scandel. Yes, some conspiracies are real or have actually happened. And this above quote always sounded like a perfectly reasonable difficulty in sustaining a large conspiracy. That is, it sounded reasonable until the last few election cycles and extreme TDS happened.
How many average Joe’s and Jane’s do you know who would happily engage in lower level corruption to cover up or facilitate a scheme to “get Trump” or damage his administration? And if some people engage in these activities and get caught, we’ve seen many of them get a slap on the wrist and are immediately cheered by their compatriots. I’m thinking of the lady who got caught voting multiple times in one election and was later cheered at some Dem confab.
@ Barry > “And getting mugged, this time by “Climate Change”(TM)…with some fascinating comments”
The story by Ted Nordhaus that Hoyt brings attention to at Instapundit is very much worth reading, both for the information about “climate change” background and current status, and why its proponents seem to be stuck on supporting it, plus the process by he which eventually became disillusioned with the AGW cause he had enthusiastically supported in the past.
Not the least of his reasons were the inherent contradictions in the doom predictions, and their divergence from reality.
IOW, a scientist actually doing science.
https://www.breakthroughjournal.org/p/why-i-stopped-being-a-climate-catastrophist
TommyJay,
It’s called cannon-fodder.
You’re right, my mistake. I thought she was NPR because I mostly know her from when I used to listen to Boston Public Radio on NPR and she was on all the time and I believe she guest hosts.(Yes I used to listen to NPR. Just trying to give them a chance to make their point.) Sorry, honest mistake.