# Mollie Tibbetts missing college student (allegedly) killed by illegal alien **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [August 22, 2018, 6:38am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/mollie-tibbetts-missing-college-student-allegedly-killed-by-illegal-alien/820030 "2018-08-22T06:38:57Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 14
**Author:** ![HurricaneDitka](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/96bed5/32.png) [@HurricaneDitka](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/HurricaneDitka)\ **Post date:** [August 24, 2018, 8:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/mollie-tibbetts-missing-college-student-allegedly-killed-by-illegal-alien/820030/261 "2018-08-24T20:45:26Z")
> [@nelliebly](#): > > Due process is a legal right. Since you said laws and values, I’m still curious about the (shared) values part. Also, you specified rape prevention in your previous post. Are you suggesting that if due process were somehow ignored or infringed, rapes would be prevented? If so, how? … When I wrote that I was thinking about some of the more radical proposals, like “deport all the black people” or “deport American men” that I was asked about on the previous page. I imagine some of those could prevent some rapes. ---
**Author:** ![Happy\_Fun\_Ball](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/happy_fun_ball/32/17664_2.png) [@Happy\_Fun\_Ball](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Happy_Fun_Ball)\ **Post date:** [August 24, 2018, 9:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/mollie-tibbetts-missing-college-student-allegedly-killed-by-illegal-alien/820030/262 "2018-08-24T21:08:02Z")
Does this mean I can thank Republicans and the NRA next time we have a school shooting? ---
**Author:** ![Epic](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/e274bd/32.png) [@Epic](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Epic)\ **Post date:** [August 24, 2018, 9:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/mollie-tibbetts-missing-college-student-allegedly-killed-by-illegal-alien/820030/263 "2018-08-24T21:10:59Z")
> [@Happy\_Fun\_Ball](#): > > Does this mean I can thank Republicans and the NRA next time we have a school shooting? The NRA is native to the this country, comprised of people legally here, and forever a part of this country. ILLEGALS ARE NOT. ---
**Author:** ![k9bfriender](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/k9bfriender/32/3283_2.png) [@k9bfriender](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/k9bfriender)\ **Post date:** [August 24, 2018, 9:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/mollie-tibbetts-missing-college-student-allegedly-killed-by-illegal-alien/820030/264 "2018-08-24T21:12:06Z")
> [@HurricaneDitka](#): > > If your point is that the news industry is fickle and unfair in which news stories they promote and which ones they don’t, I doubt you’ll find many who disagree with you. If it were just the news agencies, then I’d agree with you. But it’s not just the news agencies, it is also all over social media, including right here, right now. Are you just talking about it because it is in the news, even though you know that what the news presents is fickle and unfair, or is there any other reason why you feel it is more important to talk about his particular girl than the thousands of other people who have gone missing or been murdered? > [@DrDeth](#): > > Big deal is that the kremlin is pushing this story to get heat off their buddy, Trump. Well, there is that. I am curious as to why this made national news, before it was known that she was murdered, before it was known who murdered her. To go down the rabbit hole, with the confessed murder’s confession having pretty serious holes in it, that the news story was worked up while she was just missing, that her murderer went back to work the next day acting completely normal, and I would almost think that here was something nefarious and manipulative behind the whole thing. That the republicans have picked this story up and run with it, using this as the reason why we need to impose draconian measures to root out anyone living in this country without the necessary paperwork, doubly kindles suspicions that this is a wag the dog type of story. In any case, are we saying that children brought here are somehow more dangerous than children born here? ---
**Author:** ![Whack-a-Mole](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/whack-a-mole/32/141_2.png) [@Whack-a-Mole](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Whack-a-Mole)\ **Post date:** [August 24, 2018, 9:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/mollie-tibbetts-missing-college-student-allegedly-killed-by-illegal-alien/820030/265 "2018-08-24T21:15:32Z")
> [@Slash1972](#): > > I didn’t ignore it. I didn’t see it. > > But, they ARE going to arrest the owner of the business for hiring an illegal immigrant, right? I wasn’t blaming you. Just saying… ---
**Author:** ![DrDeth](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/b487fb/32.png) [@DrDeth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DrDeth)\ **Post date:** [August 24, 2018, 9:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/mollie-tibbetts-missing-college-student-allegedly-killed-by-illegal-alien/820030/266 "2018-08-24T21:16:44Z")
> [@Slash1972](#): > > I didn’t ignore it. I didn’t see it. > > But, they ARE going to arrest the owner of the business for hiring an illegal immigrant, right? He has plausible deniability, so likely not. ---
**Author:** ![Whack-a-Mole](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/whack-a-mole/32/141_2.png) [@Whack-a-Mole](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Whack-a-Mole)\ **Post date:** [August 24, 2018, 10:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/mollie-tibbetts-missing-college-student-allegedly-killed-by-illegal-alien/820030/267 "2018-08-24T22:11:51Z")
> [@HurricaneDitka](#): > > I don’t know the labor laws in Iowa. Is it a crime to not use E-Verify? To hire an illegal immigrant with fraudulent documents? Is there a crime the business owner committed? It is your contention that we should deport illegal immigrants so there are fewer violent crimes. A sentiment I think is shared with other conservatives. Would it not be better then to make it so illegal immigrants do not come to the US? It will never be zero but if you allow farmers to hire itinerant farm workers and be lazy about checking paperwork then doesn’t some blame lie with them? They are the ones enticing illegal laborers to come to this country. If they had not this young woman might still be alive. If they had been diligent in checking for legal workers this young woman might still be alive. It may be this man would have come to the US anyway…we cannot know. But he almost certainly would not have settled in mostly white Iowa to hang out with no job there so this circumstance would not have come to pass. ---
**Author:** ![HurricaneDitka](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/96bed5/32.png) [@HurricaneDitka](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/HurricaneDitka)\ **Post date:** [August 24, 2018, 10:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/mollie-tibbetts-missing-college-student-allegedly-killed-by-illegal-alien/820030/268 "2018-08-24T22:28:57Z")
> [@Whack-a-Mole](#): > > It is your contention that we should deport illegal immigrants so there are fewer violent crimes. A sentiment I think is shared with other conservatives. > > Would it not be better then to make it so illegal immigrants do not come to the US? It will never be zero but if you allow farmers to hire itinerant farm workers and be lazy about checking paperwork then doesn’t some blame lie with them? They are the ones enticing illegal laborers to come to this country. If they had not this young woman might still be alive. If they had been diligent in checking for legal workers this young woman might still be alive. > > It may be this man would have come to the US anyway…we cannot know. But he almost certainly would not have settled in mostly white Iowa to hang out with no job there so this circumstance would not have come to pass. I’m hesitant to deflect too much blame from the actual murderer, but yes, I think the employer may have some (at least moral) fault here. I’m not sure if it rises to the level of a criminal act that would support an _arrest_. The post I was responding to was “… they ARE going to arrest the owner of the business for hiring an illegal immigrant, right?” ---
**Author:** ![Melbourne](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/b5e925/32.png) [@Melbourne](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Melbourne)\ **Post date:** [August 25, 2018, 1:11am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/mollie-tibbetts-missing-college-student-allegedly-killed-by-illegal-alien/820030/269 "2018-08-25T01:11:47Z")
> [@HurricaneDitka](#): > > I’m hesitant to deflect too much blame from the actual murderer, but yes, I think the employer may have some (at least moral) fault here. I’m not sure if it rises to the level of a criminal act that would support an _arrest_. The post I was responding to was “… they ARE going to arrest the owner of the business for hiring an illegal immigrant, right?” Felony Murder? ---
**Author:** ![Lord\_Feldon](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lord_feldon/32/341_2.png) [@Lord\_Feldon](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lord_Feldon)\ **Post date:** [August 25, 2018, 1:12am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/mollie-tibbetts-missing-college-student-allegedly-killed-by-illegal-alien/820030/270 "2018-08-25T01:12:44Z")
> [@Whack-a-Mole](#): > > It will never be zero but if you allow farmers to hire itinerant farm workers and be lazy about checking paperwork then doesn’t some blame lie with them? Employers are only allowed to do so much. They are required to accept any document that “reasonably appears to be genuine.” Part of the deal, when the government put a “papers, please” checkpoint in every single workplace, was that employers could be punished for rejecting documents without a good reason. ---
**Author:** ![HurricaneDitka](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/96bed5/32.png) [@HurricaneDitka](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/HurricaneDitka)\ **Post date:** [August 25, 2018, 1:26am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/mollie-tibbetts-missing-college-student-allegedly-killed-by-illegal-alien/820030/271 "2018-08-25T01:26:18Z")
> [@Melbourne](#): > > Felony Murder? LOL! That certainly sounds like a novel theory. I’m not sure Iowa even has a felony murder rule, but even if it does, it would require some underlying offense, during the commission of which Mollie was killed, and to which the employer was a party, which brings us back to … what crime did the employer commit? AFAIK, there is none, but I’m open to new information on this point. ---
**Author:** ![Whack-a-Mole](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/whack-a-mole/32/141_2.png) [@Whack-a-Mole](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Whack-a-Mole)\ **Post date:** [August 25, 2018, 1:33am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/mollie-tibbetts-missing-college-student-allegedly-killed-by-illegal-alien/820030/272 "2018-08-25T01:33:31Z")
> [@Lord\_Feldon](#): > > Employers are only allowed to do so much. They are required to accept any document that “reasonably appears to be genuine.” > > Part of the deal, when the government put a “papers, please” checkpoint in every single workplace, was that employers could be punished for rejecting documents without a good reason. Did the farm in this case use e-Verify to check with the government? (No, they didn’t.) So they did not use the government provided system to check if their employee was legally in the country. If there are loopholes ask yourself why the government allows those loopholes. ---
**Author:** ![Buck\_Godot](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/buck_godot/32/6573_2.png) [@Buck\_Godot](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Buck_Godot)\ **Post date:** [August 25, 2018, 2:39am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/mollie-tibbetts-missing-college-student-allegedly-killed-by-illegal-alien/820030/273 "2018-08-25T02:39:24Z")
> [@HurricaneDitka](#): > > It’s not a precedent I’m interested in setting. If you’ll recall, I said “… it’s important to take reasonable steps, in accordance with our laws and values, to reduce the number of American citizens that get raped / murdered.” Again I ask are you interested in reducing the total number of murders or the likelihood of any individual getting murdered. Thus far you have been arguing for the former, so all you are really arguing for is reducing the US population period. The beat way to do that might be to promote birth control and abortion. Each additional child not born is one less potential murderer off the street. If Dylann Roofs parents had only aborted him 9 Americans would be alive today. ---
**Author:** ![Little\_Nemo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/little_nemo/32/3120_2.png) [@Little\_Nemo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Little_Nemo)\ **Post date:** [August 25, 2018, 3:57am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/mollie-tibbetts-missing-college-student-allegedly-killed-by-illegal-alien/820030/274 "2018-08-25T03:57:28Z")
> [@HurricaneDitka](#): > > No, I don’t have any plans to advocate for the deportation of my friends or family. There’s no legal mechanism to deport them, so it would be pointless. We don’t deport people who commit murder. We put them in prison. That’s legal for everyone. So would you be okay with treating illegal immigrants and family and friends the same if it involved imprisonment as a response to the potential crimes they might commit? If not, why do you feel we should treat the potential criminals who are illegal immigrants differently than we should treat the potential criminals who are not? Shouldn’t we be treating all potential criminals, who you have said have the same slim chance of actually committing any crimes, by the same rules? ---
**Author:** ![HMS\_Irruncible](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/hms_irruncible/32/7394_2.png) [@HMS\_Irruncible](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/HMS_Irruncible)\ **Post date:** [August 25, 2018, 3:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/mollie-tibbetts-missing-college-student-allegedly-killed-by-illegal-alien/820030/275 "2018-08-25T15:41:07Z")
> [@HurricaneDitka](#): > > No, I’m saying it’s important to take reasonable steps, in accordance with our laws and values, to reduce the number of American citizens that get raped / murdered. That’s different from what you said upthread, though. If you’re focused on the overall rape/murder rate, then there are much better ways to approach that. I don’t see you providing any numbers suggesting that deportations are the best way to reduce the overall number of rapes and murders proportional to the population. But I think you’re closer to honesty when you move the goalposts here: > [@](#): > > I favor deporting more illegal immigrants because I think that will quantifiably lead to fewer rapes and homicides of American citizens by illegal immigrants. Here you seem focused on making sure that the raping and murdering is only done by citizens, not illegal immigrants. They can’t take our jobs or something, I guess? > [@](#): > > ETA: BTW, I never saw the “bonus cite” you were going to offer in post #191. Was that an inadvertent omission or something else? > [@](#): > > How about telling us what you favor, in the form of “I favor \_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_ change in policy, because I think that will quantifiably lead to more/less of \_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_. As a bonus, here is a cite.” This was actually my request to you, if you look at the quotation marks. State your assertion, and provide the evidence that makes you think that. I’m not much interested in hand-delivering you cites when you don’t seem to be interested in doing likewise, but since I don’t see you turning honest anytime soon, here: [Business insider:](https://www.businessinsider.com/immigration-increases-crime-research-2018-6) > [@](#): > > The upshot? We find no evidence to indicate that immigration leads to more crime and it may, in fact, suppress it. [Washington Post](https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/wonk/wp/2018/06/19/two-charts-demolish-the-notion-that-immigrants-here-illegally-commit-more-crime/?noredirect=on&utm_term=.f35001cb769c) > [@](#): > > “As a percentage of their respective populations, there were 56 percent fewer criminal convictions of illegal immigrants than of native-born Americans in Texas in 2015,” author Alex Nowrasteh writes. “The criminal conviction rate for legal immigrants was about 85 percent below the native-born rate.” [Criminology journal:](https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1111/1745-9125.12175) > [@](#): > > The results from fixed‐effects regression models reveal that undocumented immigration does not increase violence. Rather, the relationship between undocumented immigration and violent crime is generally negative, although not significant in all specifications. [Cato institute:](https://www.cato.org/publications/immigration-research-policy-brief/criminal-immigrants-texas-illegal-immigrant) > [@](#): > > Consistent with those findings, immigration enforcement programs targeting illegal immigrant criminals have no effect on local crime rates, which indicates that they are about as crime prone as other residents.5 [National Academies Press found:](https://www.nap.edu/read/21746/chapter/9) > [@](#): > > “Immigrants are in fact much less likely to commit crime than natives, and the presence of large numbers of immigrants seems to lower crime rates.” The study added that “This disparity also holds for young men most likely to be undocumented immigrants: Mexican, Salvadoran, and Guatemalan men.” Those are some of my cites. Again I ask, where are yours? ---
**Author:** ![HurricaneDitka](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/96bed5/32.png) [@HurricaneDitka](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/HurricaneDitka)\ **Post date:** [August 25, 2018, 4:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/mollie-tibbetts-missing-college-student-allegedly-killed-by-illegal-alien/820030/276 "2018-08-25T16:36:51Z")
> [@HMS\_Irruncible](#): > > That’s different from what you said upthread, though. I don’t know what you’re referring to here. Could you quote the statement you’re talking about? > [@HMS\_Irruncible](#): > > This was actually my request to you, if you look at the quotation marks. State your assertion, and provide the evidence that makes you think that. Yes, I misunderstood. You’re right. Here’s a cite: [USA Today - My son was murdered by an illegal immigrant. Neither he nor Mollie Tibbetts deserved to die.](https://www.usatoday.com/story/opinion/voices/2018/08/23/illegal-immigrant-molly-tibbitts-murder-crime-column/1074055002/) ---
**Author:** ![HurricaneDitka](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/96bed5/32.png) [@HurricaneDitka](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/HurricaneDitka)\ **Post date:** [August 25, 2018, 4:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/mollie-tibbetts-missing-college-student-allegedly-killed-by-illegal-alien/820030/277 "2018-08-25T16:41:25Z")
> [@Little\_Nemo](#): > > … So would you be okay with treating illegal immigrants and family and friends the same if it involved imprisonment as a response to the potential crimes they might commit? … I don’t know what you mean here. If you’re asking if I’d support imprisoning everyone “as a response to the potential crimes they might commit” then the answer is obviously “no”, but that seems like too stupid a question for you, so perhaps you mean something else? > [@Little\_Nemo](#): > > If not, why do you feel we should treat the potential criminals who are illegal immigrants differently than we should treat the potential criminals who are not? Shouldn’t we be treating all potential criminals, who you have said have the same slim chance of actually committing any crimes, by the same rules? Okay, maybe I was wrong about the above. I support deportation for illegal aliens not because of the potential crimes they may commit (although I believe it will have an effect there), but because they broke the law by entering the country illegally and the appropriate punishment for that illegal act is deportation. Is that clear? ---
**Author:** ![Nava](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/da6949/32.png) [@Nava](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Nava)\ **Post date:** [August 25, 2018, 6:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/mollie-tibbetts-missing-college-student-allegedly-killed-by-illegal-alien/820030/278 "2018-08-25T18:10:44Z")
> [@HurricaneDitka](#): > > Why this obsessive focus on “white American males”? > > Which group do you believe has the highest rate of criminality? Woah, make up your mind. Do you care about rates or about absolute numbers? In absolute numbers, the immense majority of rapes in the US are commited by white males. Therefore, the greatest lowering in the total amount of rapes would be produced by eliminating such elements. In terms of rates and as you’ve been told so many times I’m surprised it’s not engraved in your eyeballs by now, illegal-immigrant males of any color actually rape at a lower rate than white US citizens, so why would you want to go first after a group which clearly isn’t posing the greatest threat either by rate or in absolute terms? ---
**Author:** ![k9bfriender](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/k9bfriender/32/3283_2.png) [@k9bfriender](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/k9bfriender)\ **Post date:** [August 25, 2018, 6:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/mollie-tibbetts-missing-college-student-allegedly-killed-by-illegal-alien/820030/279 "2018-08-25T18:17:08Z")
> [@HurricaneDitka](#): > > I don’t know what you mean here. If you’re asking if I’d support imprisoning everyone “as a response to the potential crimes they might commit” then the answer is obviously “no”, but that seems like too stupid a question for you, so perhaps you mean something else? Your concern about undocumented immigrants stems from your concern about the crimes they may commit, worked up by the right wing’s politicization of this girl’s death. > [@](#): > > Okay, maybe I was wrong about the above. I support deportation for illegal aliens not because of the potential crimes they may commit (although I believe it will have an effect there), but because they broke the law by entering the country illegally and the appropriate punishment for that illegal act is deportation. Is that clear? It is clear that you feel that the appropriate punishment for this crime is deportation, but you have not made a good case as to why that should be. The idea that deporting them will reduce crime seems to be a part of the reason for you making a big deal out of this one incident, because it is a big anecdote that goes against the actual statistics. If you were looking only at the actual statistical effects of immigration, both legal and illegal, you wold be more welcoming. It takes an anecdote like this one to try to hide and obscure the actual statistical facts, and try to make it seem that deportation for only committing the misdemeanor of undocumented border crossing makes sense. If you don’t think that deporting undocumented immigrants will lower crime, then what reason do you have to politicize Mollie’s death? ---
**Author:** ![GIGObuster](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/gigobuster/32/421_2.png) [@GIGObuster](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/GIGObuster)\ **Post date:** [August 25, 2018, 7:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/mollie-tibbetts-missing-college-student-allegedly-killed-by-illegal-alien/820030/280 "2018-08-25T19:41:10Z")
Rewinding this a bit because of rating numbers: > [@GIGObuster](#): > > Knowing that others did notice how outfits like FOX news used this bit of news to avoid talking about the problems the “gift-getter” Trump has, I do think that that this will be part of the debate alright, not just the one many on the right wanted. > > [https://www.thewrap.com/fox-news-slammed-over-thin-cohen-manafort-coverage/](https://www.thewrap.com/fox-news-slammed-over-thin-cohen-manafort-coverage/) > [@Bricker](#): > > Do you expect Fox News’ ratings to decline as the result of their poor coverage? > > By the way, do you happen to know which cable news channel is in first place in viewership? > [@CarnalK](#): > > There’s no denying that conservatives love their Tooth Fairy news. 🙂 > [@Grrr](#): > > **Bricker** you know this is a bullshit statement. > > That’s because RW-ers only have one channel to turn to. The LW-ers are divided among several channels. > > Combine the viewership of all those channels, and now compare them to fox. > > The fact that any one of these channels can come with in striking distance to Fox makes them look laughably bad. > [@Bricker](#): > > It’s not a bullshit statement. It’s a question, for which the answer is “Fox News.” This is a matter of clear, citable fact. > > I think perhaps you’re arguing that my intended inference is weak, for the reason you offer. > > But even this is not correct, because you mistake my intended inference. Well, in light of this: > **[Fox News falls behind MSNBC and CNN on a tough news day for Trump](https://www.latimes.com/business/hollywood/la-fi-ct-fox-news-trump-20180822-story.html)** > > Call it the anti-Trump bump. > [@](#): > > Fox News falls behind MSNBC and CNN on a tough news day for Trump > > The ratings dip came on a day many pundits described as the worst of Trump’s presidency, a one-two punch of his former campaign chairman, Paul Manafort, being convicted of bank fraud and tax evasion, and his former lawyer Michael Cohen saying in court that Trump ordered hush money deals to pay off two women he had allegedly had sex with. Cohen pleaded guilty to campaign-finance, bank and tax violations. > > MSNBC, the channel on which criticism of the president is most harsh, won prime-time Tuesday night with 709,000 viewers in the demographic, according to Nielsen. CNN was second with 638,000 viewers, while Fox News had 613,000. > > Among all viewers, MSNBC had the most with 3.3 million, followed by 2.9 million for Fox and 1.7 million for CNN. MSNBC’s 9 p.m. host Rachel Maddow scored 3.8 million viewers, her second-largest audience ever. > > One day does not make a trend. But viewer response to coverage of the Manafort verdict and Cohen’s guilty plea raises the possibility that Fox may not be able to sustain its ratings dominance as Trump faces more scandal, and underscores the deep ideological divide in cable news. > [@](#): > > Fox News critics accused the network of playing down the bad news about Trump on Tuesday by focusing on the murder of Mollie Tibbetts, the University of Iowa sophomore. Cristhian Rivera, a 24-year-old immigrant who authorities say is in the United States illegally, has been charged in the crime. (The Tibbetts case is actually the kind of story that used to get saturation coverage across all cable news channels before the outlets became obsessed with the unpredictable Trump presidency). > > “We don’t program the network for the media critics,” a Fox News representative said. “Fox News Channel has been No. 1 in cable news for 16 ½ years and the No. 1 network in cable for most of this year, so clearly viewers agree with our editorial decisions.” Except that on that day when Fox and Trump decided to ‘wag the dog’ and most viewers decided to not be led by prejudice. As others noticed, it was bullshit to talk about the ratings right wig media gets when FOX decides to push news like a tragic murder to avoid dealing with terrible news for a reprehensible president. And when one notices that that approach was not successful for FOX to win ratings anyhow, then one wonders even more what the heck the “inference” from **Bricker** was. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/mollie-tibbetts-missing-college-student-allegedly-killed-by-illegal-alien/820030.md?page=13) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/mollie-tibbetts-missing-college-student-allegedly-killed-by-illegal-alien/820030.md?page=15)