Bloomberg, Murdoch, CEOs Push Comprehensive Immigration

2010 June 25

by bc3b

Once again, Rupert Murdoch demonstrates he is is a capitalist, but not a conservative. Murdoch has the conservative cable channel, not because he believes in the conservative movement (he held a fund-raiserfor Hilliary Clinton in 2008), but rather because it lines his pockets. If he could make more money running the “Gay/Porn Channel,” Murdoch would be on the phone to Perez Hilton now.

Maybe it’s time conservatives stood up and vote with their remotes to let Murdoch know they don’t appreciate: 1) him turning on his audience on the amnesty issue and 2) the “same old, same old” crap FNC feeds its audience every night. There’s Bill O’Reilly’s “formula radio” programming (if it’s Wednesday, it’s “Smart Blonde, Dumb Blonde, etc.”), Hannitty’s “Great, Great Great American Panel” and nightly installments of Dick Morris, Karl Rove and Newt Gingrich. Falling audience numbers are one thing Murdoch will quickly understand.

With respect to the other CEOs: It’s nice to see that the CEOs of major corporations are thanking their customers by pushing for amnesty. The coalition includes the CEOs of Disney, Hewlett Packard, Marriott and Boeing.

As immigrant advocates continue to press Michael Bloomberg for more attention in the city budget negotiations, the mayor has gone national with the issue, following through on his inaugural pledge to make immigration a central theme of his third term.

With a coalition that includes News Corp CEO Rupert Murdoch and Phoenix, Arizona Mayor Phil Gordon, Mayor Michael Bloomberg chose “Fox & Friends” as the venue to unveil his plans Thursday morning to pursue comprehensive immigration reform in Washington.

Bloomberg’s “Partnership for a New American Economy” will aim to reshape the national conversation around what it is calling the “economic case for sensible immigration reform,” citing statistics like immigrants generating more than 5 percent of the national gross domestic product and owning companies which have created 400,000 new American jobs since 1990.

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The rest of the Partnership co-chairs are the CEOs of Hewlett-Packard, the Walt Disney Company, Marriott International and Boeing, as well as the mayors of Los Angeles, Philadelphia and San Antonio.

Through paying for polls, forums and public education campaigns, the group will press an agenda in Congress that will balance tougher, more technologically adept enforcement of immigration laws with measures to facilitate paths for undocumented immigrants to attain legal status and become English-speaking, taxpaying citizens. The agenda will also include developing a system to increase opportunities for immigrants to enter the workforce, ease verification of employment eligibility and streamline the process for employers to fill vacancies with seasonal and permanent employees.