We shall now identify the fake news. Fake news identifier number one: When it says we're on course to end 2023 with one of the largest drops in homicides on record, what is missing from the story? What's missing from the story that's really really important? It's dropping down to the baseline from the pandemic levels. So it's not a drop from the baseline which would be really good news. It's a drop from the artificially high number of the lockdown period. That's it. Basically it just reverted to the norm.

Now I would say that's also good news because you know if it didn't revert to the norm that would be terrible. But don't we want it even lower than the norm? Don't you think that, let me ask you this, do you think the headline would have been more accurate if it said that the US homicide rate reverted to the baseline after the pandemic? Wouldn't that tell you a lot more? It's almost as if the headline were written with the presidential race in mind. Everything's political even when it's not. Everything's political.

Here's what else they left out. That property crime is up. Now when people talk about crime they're usually not talking about murder. We care about every murder of course but I don't see that the political right has been talking about an increase in murder. I've never, I don't think I've even seen that once. Now they do talk about if there's some terrible murder you know that crime is too high. Of course we all say that. But I haven't really heard any Republicans say that murder specifically is at an all-time high and going higher. You say Fox says it? I'll bet they don't. I'll bet they don't say it in direct words.

Here's what I think. I think that crimes against retail stores are at an all-time high and that inner cities are being, you know their stores are closing because they can't operate. Don't you think that should be in this story? Don't you think that the story about the crime rate for murder and other violent crimes by the way are down but only to the baseline, shouldn't this story necessarily tell you that property crime is through the roof in lots of places? Should it tell you that there's a big uptick in the so-called Chilean organized crime groups that are hitting high-end homes like my next door neighbor? Literally my next door neighbor was hit by one of the Chilean gangs where they go in all at once. They try to grab your jewelry.

Now one reason they haven't tried to get all my jewels, there's literally nothing in my house they can steal. I don't have a single stealable thing that would be worth the gas you put in your car to steal. Because these days nobod