During the Fox Business News debate several political junkies noted a rather curious omission: Senator Marco Rubio was never questioned about the 2013 Senate Gang-of-Eight bill and his stance on Comprehensive Immigration Reform.  In fact, if you were to review the debate substance you’d note that candidate Rubio wasn’t directly questioned about his immigration positions at all.

Candidate Jeb Bush attends Chamber of Commerce dinner with Fox's Rupert Murdoch and Valerie Jarrett (December 2014)
Candidate Jeb Bush attends Chamber of Commerce dinner with Fox’s Rupert Murdoch and Valerie Jarrett (December 2014)

It is not disconnected that during the 2013/2014 Gang-of-Eight immigration constructs, Fox News was an active participant in the promotion of the immigration reform proposals.  In order to facilitate the congressional immigration intent Fox launched a previously unknown pro-amnesty propaganda blitz to support senate immigration bill.

What follows below is an evidenced expose’ of their agenda.

♦  It was less than a year ago when Mickey Kaus was chastised by Tucker Carlson, a Fox Contributor, for writing an article in the Daily Caller outlining the relationship between Rupert Murdoch, his company Fox News, the talking heads under his control and authority, and Murdoch’s request for pro-amnesty propaganda to be broadcast on the network.

Carlson took down the article from the Daily Caller, and subsequently Mickey Kaus quit in disgust over the agenda-driven editorial decision.  Apparently some things are just too sensitive for sunlight and exposure.

What Mickey Kaus outlined was a pattern within Fox to push immigration reform and included a first person excerpt between David Axelrod and Rupert Murdoch:

On page 424 of his recent memoir, Obama’s former top strategist David Axelrod describes running into Fox chieftain (and immigration amnesty supporter) Rupert Murdoch at a dinner in the fall of 2010:

During the dinner, Murdoch, who was seated beside me, insisted that the president had to move on immigration reform. ….

“But the solution has to be comprehensive,” I said. “We can’t just attack a piece of the immigration problem. And you know, there’s one big thing that you can do to help, and that is to keep your cable network from stoking the nativism that keeps us from solving this.” [Emphasis added] (link)

Kaus goes on to outline how Fox News followed the plan and conspicuously avoided any mention of the crafting: “in the spring of 2013 when the “Gang of 8” amnesty bill snuck through the Senate“.  Mickey uses a historical timeline, day-by-day story leads, showing how Fox was intentionally NOT COVERING the story (see here).

GOP gang of 8

♦  However, even before Kaus discovered -and outlined- proof of what his research into Fox revealed there was a prior article written by Ryan Lizza in The New Yorker Magazine [June 2013] which was even more revealing:

New Yorker 2013 – […] Fox News has notably changed its tone since the election. A Democratic policy staffer who worked on the issue in 2007 and has helped write the current bill said, “NumbersUSA and FAIR”—two groups that want to dramatically limit immigration—“managed to convince Fox News back then to be their twenty-four-hour news channel of the anti-immigrant point of view. Fox has now totally bought in to the idea that we just need to figure something out.”

Rush Limbaugh, who fiercely opposes the bill, has come to sound resigned. “I don’t know if there’s any stopping this,” he said on January 28th, the day the Gang held the press conference announcing its framework for the legislation. “It’s up to me and Fox News, and I don’t think Fox News is that invested in this.”

McCain told me, “Rupert Murdoch is a strong supporter of immigration reform, and Roger Ailes is, too.” Murdoch is the chairman and C.E.O. of News Corp., which owns Fox, and Ailes is Fox News’s president.

McCain said that he, Graham, Rubio, and others also have talked privately to top hosts at Fox, including Bill O’Reilly, Sean Hannity, and Neil Cavuto, who are now relatively sympathetic to the Gang’s proposed bill. Hannity voiced support for a pathway to citizenship for undocumented immigrants, which he previously dismissed as “amnesty,” on the day after the 2012 election. “God bless Fox,” Graham said. “Last time, it was ‘amnesty’ every fifteen seconds.” He said that the change was important for his reelection, because “eighty per cent of people in my primary get their news from Fox.” He added that the network has “allowed critics to come forward, but it’s been so much better.” (link)

So there’s a trio of GOPe Republicans in the so-called Gang of Eight huddled with leading figures at Fox News Channel.   A few days later Bill O’Reilly interviews Marco Rubio  and urges the Senator to come to him if anyone opposes the proposal.

♦  As you watch this segment in retrospect, with the information you now possess, consider that both Bill O’Reilly and Marco Rubio have pre-discussed the entire topic and worked out exactly what the framework of questions and answers would be:

Rupert Murdoch, Wall Street, The U.S. Chamber of Commerce and the entire GOPe apparatus -including House Speaker Paul Ryan- are 100% behind comprehensive immigration reform to include amnesty.

Now, lets contrast this historic information against the backdrop new information within the republican debate earlier this week.

There is a particular clarity that resonates, no?

grubering us 2

 

[*note* Few people know how close we came to seeing this immigration usurpation actually come to fruition as law.   Our nation was literally a few hours away from fundamental change – There’s an incredible story to be told of two unheralded heroes named Zach Werrell and Gray Delany, who, together with representative Dave Brat of Virginia, fundamentally saved the construct of the U.S. as we know it.  And that is not even the slightest bit of exaggeration.   Without them, there wouldn’t even be a Donald Trump campaign today – I hope to write about it all this weekend.]

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