Murder rates down. No funding for Homeland Security
The falling US murder rates
The US murder rate fell in 2025 and like any administration, Trump’s is taking credit for it. Karoline (Lying) Leavitt crowed that “that the murder rate across America’s largest cities plummeted in 2025 to its lowest level since at least 1900. This was “the largest single-year drop in murders in recorded history. This dramatic decline is what happens when a president secures the border, fully mobilizes federal law enforcement to arrest violent criminals and aggressively deport the worst of the worst illegal aliens from our country.” What, no praise for the democrat mayors and police chiefs of these cities? It is true that the drop in 2025 is the largest one year decline. But so was 2024 and 2023 before it. This has been a continuing post-pandemic trend. Now Trump is saying that the 2025 drop is due to being tough on crime, but surely the Biden administration wasn’t tough on crime. So why the fall during Biden’s administration? Trump isn’t going to credit Biden for starting the downward trend. BTW, there has also been a dramatic decrease in violent crime and property crime as well.
What is the explanation? Who knows? Not even the so-called experts can explain it. The trend is not just in large cities but is nationwide. Some have speculated that it may be due to advances in trauma care, but the numbers do not corroborate that. Others point to increases in funding for intervention. But decreases have occurred where there were no increases in funding. Some have speculated that crimes are being underreported. But that can’t be true nationwide. As one “expert” said, the reasons are multifactorial. Another said “we do not have reliable, multi-sector data or comparable contextual information available across jurisdictions to definitively identify—now or perhaps ever—what drove these declines.” Yet another “expert” said “The consistency of the homicide decline, both across cities and over time, makes me inclined to think this has to do with larger social movements, temporarily disrupted by COVID-19 when the world turned upside down, than with any one particular thing one particular city might be doing.” In other words, the so-called “experts” might be able to explain the causes in each individual case but haven’t a clue why this is happening nationwide. Some experts! Even I can make up a reason and I am no expert. How about there has been an increase in the purchase of handguns resulting in an inverse relationship between handgun ownership and the incidence of murders and property crime?
Homeland Security not funded
As expected Senate democrats blocked the Homeland Security Funding bill over limits on ICE. Apparently the announcement by border czar Tom Homan that the department was scaling back its disastrous operation in Minneapolis was not enough to convince the democrats to approve the funding. The vote was 52-47, when 60 votes were need for passage. John Fetterman was the only democrat to support the measure. Since Homeland Security had been separated from the appropriation bills only that agency will be affected with no larger scale government shutdown. Not just ICE, of course, is affected but also the Federal Emergency Management Agency, the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency, the Coast Guard, the Secret Service and the Transportation Security Administration. But much to the chagrin of the democrats, federal immigration operations will continue. Republicans allocated $75 billion to ICE the border patrol in last year’s One Big Beautiful Bill. Immigration officials have said they would continue drawing the funds during the shutdown. The rest of the agency will likely work without pay for a bit. I wonder under what conditions would the democrats agree to fund ICE? Perhaps firing Kristi Noem?
haroldblackphd.com 
Don’t you find it odd that the murder rate is down by over 20% nationally? I mean Knox County Schools declares victory when the 3rd grade reading rate improves by 1-2% like that is astounding when actually its just statistical noise. But 20% is not noise. Meanwhile protests across the nation are numerous, Democratic vitriol is at all time highs since the George Floyd riots And if the trend were opposite, don’t you think that the Press and the Dems would hang this on the shoulders of the admin? And yet you question why the admin would take credit for good news? Admins always take credit for good news. Didn’t the Biden admin laud the brilliance of the abandonment of Afghanistan, the rise in inflation, the green new deal, the cognizance of the president, the importance of incarcerating anyone who showed up on Jan 6, etc…. The contrast in admins continues to grow wider and deeper…
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I am not criticizing the administration for taking credit because that is what administrations do. I was just pointing out that the so-called experts don’t know what is causing murders to fall nationwide (actually worldwide).
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Jan 6th: I know time has passed, and maybe you didn’t hear the interviews the week before- of individuals coming thru KNOXVILLE, saying they were armed .
and going to DC to fight..
Since then people have defended the attack on the Capitol, going back to Puerto Ricans and the British..
An attack was planned- but a Christian man stood strong , and Mike Pence did not let evil take America.
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Social movements : the decrease in family abandonment in England – as well as less alcoholism- is credited for children suddenly got more education,
more health , less demand of children to contribute to family $$$…
..and some of the betterment was given to the idea of walking for exercise..
Guns: I’m waiting for increases- not decreases – in deaths. As more purchases of guns happen , that include the purchases by criminals…
If there is any direction in guns, it’s the Trump Legacy / bragging, of seizing guns in ICE raids, off the streets – and in one case using a legal gun owner as an example of you don’t mess with govt..
Speaking of borders: the essay mentions Karoline , but doesn’t suggest the drop in deaths is due to closed borders…
Maybe saying all brown skin people are criminals might be too close to the days when all Blacks were criminals?..
Illegal border-crossings by Chinese- which no one mentions :
Maybe the Chinese don’t kill ?…
How is it that a hole in the border is known in China?
And no one saw the 60 Minutes coverage of Chinese going thru the hole by the busload ?
Karoline’s silence on Chinese: the one group she doesn’t degrade.
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Larry, One of my readers noted via email that the WHO estimated 175,000 annual heat related deaths in Europe mainly from low air conditioning adopting rates. There are about 48,000 gun related deaths in the US but only 18,000 are homicides. The implication is that murder is actually pretty rare but gets all the headlines while a much larger incidence of death – heat related deaths in Europe – go unreported.
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I’m surprised that my friends on Bute don’t complain about the cultural lack of air conditioning. And that friends decided not to move to Spain, because of the heat..
Both places suffer in heat, but the suffering is seen, based on American ideals ..
You’d think all ethnic family
units would inspire to seek a comfortable existence;
and maybe business opportunities- if countries could figure out their own sources of wealth.
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