Gongwer is one of two daily newsletters for Lansing insiders, and is decidedly liberal and statist in their reporting. Mirs is the other, and is more balanced (it's senior reporter Jack Spencer has a proper reportorial skepticism about government, but newbie reporter Susan Demas is as left as they come). Gongwer has been rewarded for its bias and lack of skepticism by the Granholm administration, which canceled government agencies' subscriptions to Mirs and gave Gongwer all the business.

In it's August 4 edition Gongwer's highlighted its bias with following headline on a package of bills that would raise obstacles to the privatization of government services:

LEGISLATION BUILDS ON PRIVATIZATION RIGHTS

Say what? Hard as I try, I just can't find in the Constitution anything about "the right of the people to a government job shall not be infringed."

Gongwer's senior reporter John Lindstrom and his colleagues are government-loving statist liberals to the core, and I suppose we should be grateful that they telegraph their bias so clearly. Indeed, Right Michigan would be less biased were it to caption a story about these same bills, "Legislation enhances union power over school boards." But here's what makes the story even more disgusting: Two of the bills, HB 6342 and HB 6344, are sponsored by Republicans.

Of course the GOP sponsors, Reps. Jeff Mayes, Rick Jones, Kenneth Horn, Mike Nofs, John Garfield, Marty Knollenberg, John Stahl, Gino Polidori, Richard Ball, and Edward Gaffney, will all insist that their bills don't really do anything. The first requires a "cost/benefit analysis of both the economic and `noneconomic' costs and benefits" before any privatization can be undertaken. (What the heck are "non-economic" costs? The loss of a person's right to a government job?) The second establishes that an Engler-era law banning school unions from making privatization a bargaining issue does not prohibit the employees from being able to bid for a service that's being privatized.

But you know what? Too bad. These RINOs are playing pattycake with the devil, and they deserve whatever scorn comes their way. Are you watching, Michigan Chamber of Commerce, NFIB, Mackinac Center, and all you other center-right donors and watchdogs?