Fact-Checkers "Screw Around With" Joe Biden's Rape and Murder Claims

Fact-Checkers "Screw Around With" Joe Biden's Rape and Murder Claims
By Guy Benson
10/21/2011

You don't say: As he's unleashed his shill-icious campaign of demagoguery upon (Republican) opponents of Obama's so-called jobs bill, Vice President Biden has completely butchered the truth. When confronted about his New Tone yesterday, Biden sternly warned questioner Jason Mattera not to "screw around" with him. Two separate fact-check organizations have examined Slow Joe's "rape and murder" claims, and have reached conclusions that seriously "screw around with" Biden's supposed facts. The Washington Post's Glen Kessler awarded Biden "Four Pinnochios" for his claims:

“In Flint, Michigan, they cut their force in half; murder rates have doubled in the last year…Police departments, as I said, in some cases literally cut in half, like Camden, New Jersey, and Flint, Michigan. In many cities, the result has been -- and it's not unique -- murder rates are up, robberies are up, rapes are up…I said rape was up, three times in Flint. There are the numbers. Go look at the numbers.” --Biden, October 19, 2011, on Capitol Hill

Flint, MI 2008 - RATE PER 100,000 INHABITANTS: murder, 8.6; rape 55.5 percent

Flint, MI 2010 - RATE PER 100,000 INHABITANTS: murder, 13.8; rape 53.7 percent

Murder did go up—though the rate did not double from 2009 to 2010, as Biden claimed. But rape has gone down. Biden actually asserted it had tripled....The vice president should know better than to spout off half-baked facts in service of a dubious argument. Even if one believes there is a link between crime and the number of police—which is debatable and subject to many caveats—there is no excuse to make the dramatic claim that more people will die or be raped without additional funds for police. When making such a breathtaking charge, you had better have your facts straight. Four Pinnochios.

FactCheck.org also debunks Biden's "whopper:"

Joe Biden falsely claimed on multiple occasions that the number of reported rapes in Flint, Mich., has skyrocketed since 2008 — providing different accounts at different events that do not square with FBI data. He started at a 152 percent increase, and since then has said rapes in Flint have tripled and even “quadrupled.” But FBI data show the number of rapes in Flint has gone down 11 percent, from 103 in 2008 to 92 in 2010.

Confronted with these facts, the White House will surely walk back Biden's made up statistics, right? Wrong. They're doubling down with the Left's trusty "fake but accurate" defense:
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