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Pay Attention to the Killing of Mollie Tibbetts

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For many people, her murder will underscore the importance of 
putting Americans first.

Iowa police announced this week what we long suspected: Mollie 
Tibbetts, the Iowa college student who was missing for over a 
month, is dead. The preliminary autopsy report, released 
Thursday, reveals that she was killed by “multiple sharp force 
injuries.” Prosecutors have filed first-degree murder charges 
against Cristhian Rivera, a 24-year-old Mexican who had been 
working at Yarrabee Farms in Brooklyn, Iowa, since 2014. The 
police say that Rivera is in the country illegally — though this 
has been disputed by his lawyer — and that he presented 
fraudulent identification to his employer when he was hired. 
Anyone really interested in understanding why Trump was elected 
president should pay careful attention to this episode.

We don’t yet know for sure if Rivera is guilty, but the tragedy 
of the scenario painted by the charges is explosive. The way 
many people see it, if a foreign national, apparently in the 
country illegally, kills an American citizen, it underscores the 
urgency of Trump’s message of putting Americans first. In other 
words, the murder of Mollie Tibbetts was not only ugly and evil, 
it was unnecessary and utterly preventable by government action.

Some supporters of amnesty for illegal immigrants already in the 
country, as well as increased legal immigration, don’t seem to 
be able to acknowledge the reality of Tibbetts’ murder. Senator 
Elizabeth Warren is a case in point. Rather than admit during a 
CNN interview that our failure to enforce our immigration laws 
and control the border contributed to Tibbetts’ death, she 
changed the subject. After saying that she was “so sorry for the 
family here,” Warren argued that “we need an immigration system 
that is effective, that focuses on where real problems are,” in 
effect casting those crossing the border illegally as the “real” 
victims.

Make no mistake, it’s not only Democrats who have a problem 
here. Pro-immigration Republicans like Paul Ryan and Jeff Flake 
aren’t much better. Callous disregard for families like the 
Tibbettses is one of the reasons that President Trump’s common-
sense talk about immigration reform resonates with many 
Americans. Trump remains one of the only national leaders of 
either party to address major social, political and economic 
issues of the utmost importance. This is why the Tibbetts case 
matters not only because of the murder, but because of its 
social and economic context.

Much of American agriculture relies on foreign laborers, often 
in the country illegally, because attracting American citizens 
to those jobs would mean paying them more — and employers don’t 
want to do that. Trump has spoken about raising the real wages 
of working-class Americans and establishing the conditions for 
employment security and higher pay, for which border security is 
a predicate. Establishment Republicans of the Ryan-Flake genus 
don’t prioritize protecting our borders or the interests of 
American workers because they misunderstand and misapply 
libertarian ideas — and they are cowed by corporate interests 
dependent upon cheap labor. Unfortunately, this has become the 
norm. In Charles Kesler’s excellent essay Thursday, he talked 
about norms that should be broken and how Trump is actually 
doing this. Here is one of them. I studied under Professor 
Kesler years ago and continue to learn from him. I think you 
will, too.

Elsewhere. James Piereson, a political scientist who is a senior 
fellow at The Manhattan Institute, describes “Socialism As a 
Hate Crime” in The New Criterion. Given socialism’s bloody track 
record, the misery it has imposed upon the citizens of countries 
like Venezuela in recent years and its curious popularity among 
know-nothing millennials and aging boomers, Piereson’s piece is 
both necessary and timely.

This is my last day substituting for David. I enjoyed writing 
the newsletter and the interactions I’ve had with many of you. 
I’ve tried to address some of the challenges you’ve made and the 
pushback you’ve delivered. Whether or not you agree with what 
I’ve written, I hope I have at least been clear enough to 
provide the basis for future dialogue.

https://www.nytimes.com/2018/08/24/opinion/mollie-tibbetts-
immigration-trump.html
                                                 Ť

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Pay Attention to the Killing of Mollie Tibbetts "But But Sanctuary Cities! Blue Wave! Obama Democrats Murdering Americans!" <criminally-complicit@sfchronicle.com> - 2019-02-11 08:24 +0100

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